PTSD

Healthy vs unhealthy coping

Thank you for all of the support and understanding I got last chapter. It was a good reminder to also check on my father, just like he always checks on me. 

So, what is healthy vs unhealthy coping?

Well, healthy coping won't necessarily help you, but it won't do the opposite either, like unhealthy coping will.

Common examples of unhealthy coping are 
•$31f h4*m
•Watching porn
•Avoidance
•Over/under eating
•Isolation
•Overdose
•Use of drugs and/or alcohol
•Excessive masturbation/sex
•Sleeping
•Denial
•Overworking yourself

Common examples of healthy coping are
•Venting
•Taking walks
•Exercise
•Hobbies
•Watching pg E movies
•Cleaning/organizing
•Shopping 
•Spending time with loved ones and/or pets
•Jokes
•Roleplaying (This can just be as characters, for a story, or a scenario)
•Write everything you are grateful for
•Studying
•Crying
•Depending on religion, prayer or worship
•Observe nature
•Meditation

These are signs what you're doing is helping you
•Feelings of relaxation or calmness
•Less anxiety or sadness or anger
•Feelings of confidence or self-worth
•Happiness
•Etc

I will briefly go into why people may want to do something and why it doesn't help.

•Self-harm can bring a sense of relief. The physical pain may feel like it gives you a sense of relief emotionally or mentally. This does not help because it creates worse problems. Cutting creates the risk of scarring and infection, as well as accidental severe harm, feelings of guilt, shame or anxiety.

•Watching porn + excessive masturbation/sex
It is a well known fact that masturbation/sex releases the "feel good" hormone. It brings you a sense of well-being and release from all stresses and anxieties momentarily. Porn can create feelings of self-worthlessness, and create body image or performance issues. It can cause you to feel dissatisfied with yourself/your partner because porn meets unrealistic standards that can not really be met. Firstly, excessive masturbation/sex can cause injury. Depending on your religion and personal life, it can also create feelings of shame, guilt and disgust. Excessive masturbation can make reaching orgasm near impossible. If you masturbate too often it can become an addiction, which can become problematic when it starts to interfere with daily life, and you start doing it in public places. With excessive sex you start to feel emotionally drained and tired, you might start to feel bored or fed up with it. There is also the risk of STDs and STIs.

•Avoidance + Sleeping
People may feel like avoidance helps because then they just entirely get to ignore the pain of trying to understand and work through problems. As difficult as both those things can be, it's always better to address them than to avoid them. Avoidance can build up stress and anxiety regarding the topic and create dissatisfaction within oneself.

•Over/under eating
I unfortunately can not explain why people may feel the need to do these, but both can release feelings of stress. Under eating may also be caused because anxiety can make eating difficult or painful. Over eating will typically lead to weight gain and under eating will typically cause weight loss. Both of these often lead to insecurity and body image issues. These can both also develop into full Eating Disorders, which create another problem.

•Isolation
You may feel like being alone will help you. Which can be the case, but not when you're constantly alone. When you're alone you have no support, love, or warmth around you. Being with someone you love will significantly boost your mood compared to excessive isolation. With my own mother, for example, no one could help her out of her dark place because she remained isolated away from those who cared about her.

•Overdose + drug/alcohol use
People may overdose or use substances to feel relaxation or happiness. This is harmful because it can become an addiction. Additionally, you may build up a resistance, requiring you to progressively take more and more for it to effectively let you reach that "high", and increasing the use can cause severe health issues. For example, overdose can create blood pressure issues and lead to a heart attack, smoking weed can create a bad cough, pneumonia, and even lung cancer, and alcohol use can lead to delirium and liver failure, and heart attacks.

•Denial
Denial creates the thought that there is no real problem to be taken care of. This can create stress and anxiety regarding the topic, similar to avoidance.

•Overworking 
Over working yourself is very similar to avoidance. Busying yourself removes all available time you have to address your problem.

•Jokes and shopping can become unhealthy coping if done in excessive amounts.

These healthy coping techniques can not only be applied to PTSD, but pretty much anything!