I want to talk about the difference between “coping” and “processing.” Of course, this will, as always, just be my interpretation and how I might think to use them in my own life.
I think the primary difference between coping and processing is “intention.” Children have to cope, they don't have a choice. My body, my habits, and my thoughts were shaped by my quasi-abusive upbringing, and the things I did or continue to do were coping mechanisms. Obsessive thoughts, picking, headaches, or less maladaptive things like learning how to joke (in a cruel or otherwise manner) fall under that umbrella. I didn't say, “Hey, that's hurtful or confusing, let's make my head pound for a month!”
Processing is deliberate. Processing is writing. If I encounter a difficult or stressful situation, I want to exhaustively investigate each moment of what happened. If, in less than a second, I swing from immense pain to sadness to a flicker of joy back to pain and right into confused emptiness and disembodied consternation, I want to know if every beat of that constitutes their own paragraphs or singular words. I respect my brain's capacity to fuck me relentlessly over “small” things or “fleeting” emotions and sentiments. I respect that it can do so in a way that massively outweighs its ability to remember and reflect on what's good or worthwhile, and is even evolutionarily designed that way to protect me from underestimating potentially deadly dangers.
Even more disparaging of a thought, there is no guarantee you'll ever really be able to process something. Maybe you lack the mental acuity. Maybe you're never provided nor able to discover the series of words that result in a genuine epiphany over struggle to manufacture insight. I had a lot of extremely naive ideals about “love” and what a “healthy” relationship were before I decided consciously to tango again and again. Had I remained in that “intellectual” posture about what coupling was or who people should be, it wouldn't be a stretch to say I would severely lack the visceral insight, bravery, or patience to engage with the infinite series of questions and struggles that arise from our ever-iterating entanglements.
As long as you're alive, you're coping. You're coping with getting older and things failing you. You're coping with less-than-desired novelty. You're coping with growing obligations or responsibilities, which are not the same thing. Maybe the coping is helpful, maybe not, maybe sometimes, or maybe results in a threat to someone else's coping. If you've adopted a kind of “radical honesty” that has manifested as an amazing tool for stress reduction in your own life, but everyone hates you and what you have to say, well, hi. Without the hyperbole, you can understand the different kind of approaches to life when you contemplate the difference between when you're able to counsel verses when you need it yourself.
I think most healthy adults most of the time don't react to things like literal babies or young children. Spilling a little food isn't going to have you crying for an hour. Stubbing your toe isn't going to prompt you to throw something or punch the wall. You would counsel that child to come to you, maybe kiss the spot that hurts. You would redirect their attention. You would try to make them laugh. You know spilled food or a bruise are not the end of the world, for someone who's perspective is so small or short-lived, how can you expect them to know it isn't, in fact, the end of the world as they've come to know it? It's the parents that were treated like adults and traumatized to grow-up and suppress before they had the tools or time that break the little brains of their offspring. “I'll give you something to cry about.” They had room to introduce more pain, but not room to explore or find a better habit or perspective.
Somehow, I've found myself in the position to now be an addiction counselor. I say “somehow” somewhat tongue-in-cheek. I've been aggressively exploring my place in the universe for 16 years. I parse out the language. I take the time. I write it down. My attempts to relate my experience were felt, put into practice, and I'm sitting in the consequences of every moment. Every extra second of patience, every more-exacting word, and each opportunity that builds on them is the best I have to offer. I know you can't move me when I don't want to be moved. I know the difference between feeling and behaving indignantly verses genuinely not understanding what you're talking about. Even if I may remember or recall feeling viscerally, I also know I've chosen to approach those feelings in a way that moves them away from “coping” and into “processing.” Both surely happen and often at the same time, but you're watching my chosen habit. Yours might be different and function the same way. Only you'll know.
There are a lot of cliches that become apparent even in scratching the surface of group therapy or addiction counseling. One is, “Meet them where they are.” Where any of us are appears functionally or practically impossible at first pass. Where am I? Well, I'm behind the computer or leading the session, physically. You don't know what's going on in my head, and it'd be a wild amount of pride to suggest I knew it “perfectly” or “exactly” either. Where are you? How am I supposed to understand where you are? Maybe you'll tell me. Maybe you're lying. Maybe I won't understand. Maybe you have a very narrow word box that keeps you penned in. Maybe you've never read nor heard the *exact* way you've been feeling, so that even when you hear it, it does not translate because it's 15 syllables long and in German.
The whole of conscious existence swirls around that kind of battleground - provided you're not on a kind of hippie spiritual or experiential flow that tries to not engage with it all. It's one that I'm notably learned in generally, now, remaining “ambivalent” or “nonplussed” about, and it has “chased away” a great many of my relationships which were not prepared to break things into minutia or “argue” semantics. I state pretty quickly and confidently that I'm aware of my role or posture in those relationships, and have made peace with the ones broken or will in fact break in the future if and when the idea of talking, writing, and honestly sharing is beyond the kind of respect or patience they are willing to extend to me as I show for them. I may not like them or wish to “fix” or “forgive,” but they aren't my focus or source of ongoing pain.
There's a reiteration in counseling to be aware of “thinking errors” and “irrational thoughts” that come with all-or-nothing thinking or presuming you know someone's motivation when you feel slighted. I printed out a top ten list of irrational thoughts to be aware of in cognitive behavioral therapy approaches to counseling. They apply to just thinking and people independent of addiction. I'm aware when I've employed them to misstep, and I'm aware when I'm tempted to say “everything” or “everyone” or “nothing” as though merely asserting the words makes them true and comprehensive. I don't expect you to understand any word, let alone blog, as I've “intended.” I expect you to take what you can, leave what you can't, and honestly engage, or there is no conversation or connection. I'm under no illusions about where my “power” lies or which thoughts I derive comfort from, and they aren't in the idea that I'm *necessarily helping you more than me.*
Would I like to help you? Sure. Can I help you? I don't know. I know what works for me. I know how it works against a myriad of reactions, judgments, and descriptions you might offer about it. I, more often than not, observe the “processing” and “progression” towards what I'm reaching for. Are you? And if you're not, do you have anything you are reaching for? If you were an addict it might be reflexively “to get sober,” a disembodied generalization that has nothing to do with the underlying compulsions or trauma. I had fuzzy goals of “being rich” or “exacting revenge” that have gotten so specific like “acquire 15' x 8' ft 6500 GVWR each double axle trailer to tow large equipment, vehicles, thousands of bricks, or in-tact sheds to stockpile for future self-sustaining plots with on-hand salvaged/recycled resources.” That's one goal in a chain of hundreds of lists, less-specific goals, and built on new discoveries and experiences along the way. I can confidently say if you found me a trailer like that from free to affordable, you will have helped me in service to a transcendent yet specific goal.
You can be that exacting in your behavior to stressful or triggering situations, but not if you're unwilling or unable to ask yourself a lot about your needs and learn at least a bit about the [trailers] that are going to facilitate your goals. How are you going to understand the weight you're carrying? I understand enough about my own to seek out more. I understand how to differentiate mine verses what you or life broadly may ask me to carry. I want the kind of trailer that's prepared for all things. I know that's going to take a kind of patience to find one within my budget. I know it's an invitation to more work and risk as much as it is a solution. I have to search, wake up early, budget, make the repairs, work the “normal” job, cope with my own anger and sense of futility, drive safe, find patience, and remain open and pliable to modifying goals or dealing with threats independent of what I think the trailer can do for me. Like all things, it can help or hurt depending on your approach, and the more you understand how it will invariably do both is going to speak to “where you are” relative to the infinite possibilities.
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