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Coping Mechanisms Unveiled: Part 1 · Adult Child of Dysfunction

• 0:00
  Tammy Vincent: Hello, hello, my friends. How are you today? I am super excited to have you back here today. Today is actually part one of a two part series where we're going to be talking about coping mechanisms, or how do you deal with life when it gets thrown at you? What do you do? Do you run? Do you do fight? Do you freeze? I mean, what is your coping strategy? How did we develop those strategies and what we can do about them? So I mentioned that it was a two part series. And there's a reason for that. The first part, we're going to talk about the 10 most common strategies that children of dysfunction, acquire, and then we're going to sit with that information, we're going to think about it and do some self reflecting, figure out which ones we use if they're helping us or serving us or not, are they healthy? Are they unhealthy? I mean, can we change them? And do we even want to? Or are they working for us? So we're going to self reflect on all of that. And then next week, we're going to talk about some healthy alternatives, or little shifts and tweaks that we can make to these coping strategies in order to make them more healthy, to make your life Fuller, and to make your life easier, honestly, because nobody wants to feel stress and anxiety all the time. And if we can confidently securely and easily deal with the things that are coming at us on a daily basis, life will be so much enjoyable. I promise you that.
• 1:22
  So someone asked me the other day, if a defense mechanism and a coping mechanism are the same things? Well, they are a little different. But for the purpose of this conversation, we're just going to go ahead and say that they are the same. But the real difference is that a coping mechanism is a conscious decision. When something happens, we consciously think, Okay, what am I going to do about this, and then we make the decision. Whereas the defense mechanism is exactly what it sounds like. It's a way to quickly defend. And it's a way to shield our ego from emotional conflicts, external threats and unacceptable realities. So we basically quickly and in our subconscious mind, do whatever we can to deflect and save. And that seems pretty normal. But again, for the purpose of this conversation, we're just going to say that defense mechanisms, coping mechanisms are basically the same thing.
• 2:13
  So as a child of complete dysfunction, I learned many, many, many different coping mechanisms, all of them were vital to my safety, vital to my survival. All of them were exactly what I had to do at the time to keep my body and my mind safe. Unfortunately, going into adulthood, they don't all serve me now, the things that helped me when I was six, don't help me when I'm an adult, the things that helped me when I'm 15, don't necessarily help me as an adult. But there were basically 10, that children of dysfunction acquired, and that's what we're going over, they're going to go over today.
• 2:53
  So the first one is denial. When you have a lot of bad things happening to you in life, especially when it has to do with your caregivers, or the people that are supposed to love and trust and support you. You are prone to deny or minimize that trauma, because it protects you, it protects you from the reality of what's really happening. At seven years old, it is so much easier to say that this is normal than to admit that your parents shouldn't ever tell you they hate you, or they shouldn't ever hit you or hurt you or lock you in closets. I mean, I would have much rather thought, Oh, this is what happens to everybody. And it's not that bad. And, you know, I'm sure this is normal than to think that my parents actually didn't like me. So denial is the first one.
• 3:43
  The second one is avoidance. And what that is, is just really avoiding situations, places or people that bring back the traumas back up to you. They make you remember, they make you think about things they make you discuss things. So if I'm at the grocery store, and my mom is completely drunk and making a total scene and dropping jars of peanuts all over the place, this actually happened, she actually dropped jars of peanuts all over the place broke them, very embarrassing, but I didn't want to go back to the grocery store anymore. I didn't want to see those people just in case those people were there. I didn't want to be in the same room or the same place. Because that those feelings came right back up and I had to deal with them over and over again. So you just avoid those situations you avoid the places that you were at when you were traumatized, and you've avoided any people that were associated with that trauma.
• 4:35
  Number three is self isolation. This is a big one. It is very, very easy to withdraw from any kind of interactions to avoid potential harm or rejection. Now if you are constantly being physically abused, you get in the habit of just coming to your room shutting your door being that silent person being that person by yourself that's not causing any trouble. That's not Being in a way, that's not possibly invoking any kind of disruption in the house, and you get used to it, you literally get used to being by yourself learning how to play with yourself and, and entertain yourself, you just don't want to be near anybody, you don't want to be around a chance where there's some kind of chance at all that you could possibly be hurt or rejected.
• 5:25
  Number four, that's a people pleaser, I'm sure we've all heard about people pleasing. And it comes very, very naturally to someone that is in a neglected or abused household, or just any kind of situation where there's stress and anxiety in the house. Because you want to make things better. You think that if I just do the right thing and say the right thing and, and be perfect and, and just make people happy? It's going to avoid all of that conflict. It's going to get you know, it's it's going to be a way for me to get positive attention from my caregivers. I mean, waiting on people hand and foot. I remember my dad used to come home from work and I would say, Daddy, do you want light on the rocks are heavy on the rocks tonight. And then I would pour him his Dewar's. I mean, it was the first thing I did from the time I was three or four years old. And I knew I was serving him, I was making him happy, I was getting validation I was I was happy, I was pleasing Him. And that is a very common thing. Now, as we know, when you go into adulthood, people pleasing is not necessarily good, it makes it so that people walk all over you, they take advantage of you, they hurt you. And they just they just take take take and you become a giver and not a taker.
• 6:42
  Number five is perfectionism. striving for perfection can be a way to gain control in a completely uncontrolled environment. That is the best way to put it. I thought in my little brain, that if I got straight A's, things would be better. I thought that if I was on the diving team, if I could be captain, my mom would love me more because she was in the Junior Olympics of the diamond, you know, diving and she was amazing. So I thought if I can be amazing, she'll like me, so think I'm cool. She'll think I'm the best and she will be proud of me. So you strive for this perfect environment you strive to make to be the best at everything you can be because you don't want to rock the boat. You know, I thought if I got straight A's, my dad would be so proud of me, there'd be no more talk about school, and there'd be no more yelling at me about this and that and everything else. Unfortunately, not only does that not work as an adult, because perfectionism is one of the biggest myths out there, there's no such thing as perfect, we should be okay to you know, to mess up and to, to grow and to learn from it. We shouldn't strive to be perfect, because there's only one being in this world, at least in my world, there's only one being that is perfect. And that's the only person I need to answer to. But as a child, you try, you try and you try and you try. And it does not serve you as an adult, I promise you 100%
• 8:09
  Okay, number six is hyper vigilance. What that is, is when you are constantly on alert for something bad to happen. So if you it's walking on eggshells in life, it's the literally literal equivalent of being afraid of your own shadow of walking on eggshells of being super aroused, to the fact that at any moment, things could go completely wrong. Now, as a child, it served me, I needed to be able to walk into my house, or I needed to be able to sit down and within two minutes of my parents getting home, I needed to be able to assess the situation, judge what was going on and react accordingly. But at the same time, I also needed sleep with one eye open, I needed to never turn my back to my mother, I needed to always be ready for a fight, always be prepared. And in that really what happens, your cortisol and your adrenaline and all of your hormones are flushing and running through your body. And it is causing irreparable damage sometimes or at the time, it seemed like it was a reparable to your body, because it's just so much anxiety, so much tension, so much stress going through your body. So but hyper vigilance is a very big common trait that people people develop.
• 9:33
  The next one is dissociation. And I want you to think about this one and think if this has ever happened to you, when something is bad, have you ever literally felt like you were standing outside of your body watching it? dissociation is when you literally mentally disconnect from the experience. So it's like you create the sense of detachment from your body and your mind and your emotions, your mind everything. I carry this into my childhood. And I remember when anything happened to my children, if they were traumatized in any way, when I thought back to the situation, it was literally like I was standing outside of my body watching this happen, I completely blanked it out. And it's funny because that is why my stories, my sister stories, and my brother's stories were so violently different, completely different. Because when you're dissociating, you're shutting down, you're literally stepping outside of your body and kind of just being an observer of the situation. It does take the severe overwhelm off of your body and it off of your mind, but it is so temporary. So it is not something that serves you down the long down the road. And it is something that you definitely have to come to terms with, and deal with as an adult.
• 10:54
  The next thing is self harm. Again, the last couple ones are more of temporary fixes for a long term thinking you're going to get a long term solution, and they're not, they're very temporary fixes. So self harming behaviors, cutting yourself burning yourself, starving yourself, all of those things, it makes you deal with the emotional pain right then in there, it makes you feel okay, for the moment, it really is just a distraction, it takes the pain away from one thing, so that you don't have to deal with it. But in the long run, it is it's detrimental. And it's the it's basically getting a short term reward or short term, good feeling for long term consequences is what it is.
• 11:41
  And that is the same as number nine, which is going to be substance abuse. Now we know that in many, many, many cases, addiction and substance abuse and any kind of abuse of anything, it could be any kind of addiction, it could be alcoholism, it could be gambling, addiction, it could be sex addiction, it could be I mean, there's a bunch of different kinds of addictions, but it's just a way to self medicate. And it's a way to numb the emotional pain. We doesn't take it, you know, it doesn't take a brain science to figure out the short term gain from addiction or drinking or drugging or be, you know, gambling or whatever it is, is way does is not outweighed by the negative consequences, or the long term consequences of what is happening to you, your family, your relationships, or anything else. self harm and substance abuse are probably two of the biggest ones that you really need to get help for you really, it's short term gain, and it's in the long run, not going to help you at all.
• 12:50
  And number 10, is actually just anger and aggression. So children that have experienced trauma, they externalize either by shutting down or by, you know, self isolation, or sometimes they get angry, they get mad, they lash out, they, you know, they act up in school, and they're getting in trouble through school, they're becoming aggressive, they're, they're yelling, they're angry. On one side, the anger and aggression is actually sometimes healthier than someone that self isolates because they're at least expressing emotion, but they're doing it in a negative way. So anger management could help with that. There's other things that could help with that. But that is their initial reaction, they're going to lash out at the world, they're going to be angry, they're going to hit, they're going to punch, they're going to do all of that stuff, you know, fights at school, all of that stuff, just to try to express some of that anger and that rage and that fear and all of those emotions that go with living in a dysfunctional home.
• 13:52
  So, as a recap, I'm just going to kind of recap those 10. And I want you this week to think about them think about where they fall into your world. Are you using any of these? Are they helping you? Are they harming you? Because these, as I mentioned are 10 coping strategies that children develop. And oftentimes, I mean, it takes a while to develop these, they're developed out of safety, out of security out of survival mode, but they stick with you, they follow you right into adulthood. And like I said, the hiding in the closet, if you know you're gonna get beat up is a great way to survive as a child. But you can't do that when you're an adult. So many of these things do not help us. So I want you to self reflect. So think about them. Again, I'm going to recap, we have number one, denial. Number two, avoidance avoiding the situation completely. Number three is self isolation, stepping away being away from people and situations that could possibly harm you. Number four was people pleasing. Number five was perfectionism. Six was hyper vigilance. Seven was dissociation or stepping away from your own body and mind. Eight was the self harm. Nine was our substance abuse, and 10 was anger and aggression.
• 15:14
  So I'm actually going to drop my link to my Facebook group in the comments below. And I want you to visit my Facebook group, if you want to tell me what your coping strategies are. Tell me how you get through, what do you do. And then next week, we're going to spend quite a bit of time and we're going to talk about healthier alternatives to that we're going to talk about ways like I said, to just tweak things a little bit, so that when coping when something comes up and a situation comes up where you have to cope or you have to deal with something, it's not so stressful on you, hopefully, we can work a little bit to ease some of that anxiety to turn some of those Malott maladaptive coping strategies into adaptive coping strategies to serve turn some of our unhealthy behaviors into healthy behaviors. Because we know we're adults. Now everybody on here is probably an adult. And the things that served us as children might not serve us as adults. So please visit my Facebook group dropping, ask questions, dropping comments, let us know how you're feeling how you're doing, how you're thinking, and I will be back next week to talk about way more healthy ways than some of the things we mentioned here. Thank you very much. Looking forward to another one. Have a blessed day and a blessed week.