Coping mechanism to deal with a potentially painful past.

I never specified it was a "solution", only that it was there, and I had methods of circumventing the most catastrophic outcomes that would have occurred otherwise without them. And yes, mind has "structures", but you seem to be overlooking the psychological aspect that is continuously rewiring, adapting, distorting, or otherwise changing in nearly all aspects that affect all levels of thought.

And I didn't mean people live with their "past" their whole lives; that's a given that they do. I mean they live with the difficulty of managing the afterthoughts of their actions, and the outcomes that occurred because of those actions (like soldiers suffering PTSD after coming out of deployment in the military).

Meaning those soldiers need cure. Because otherwise, it would cause problems, right ? :-)




So you think the mind is or would be a chaos with no sense ? Weird logic.

A thought is in itself a structure. Bluntly it's structured information. It's a basis. The mind is structured in order to manage/treat all sort of information.

Mind does not be "distorted" nor "distorting" if in well shape, even less "continuously". Rather safe minds may even fear those distortions.

Are you saying that "rewritting" would be loosing coherence ? Or are you saying that you are "rewritting" your own past ? Weird logic again.

If I would to use analogy about psychology to underline why structure is not against change but moreover allows more complexity to birth and adaptability, then you can observe any enterprise/company from its beginning to its apogee : lot of structures will take place to manage contexts, make change possible and above all smooth change. Plus, experiences impact a lot the evolution, and there are a lot of traces kept as archives, in order to avoid mess. Companies are truly a social product from minds but also an image in a lot a way.


About your prupose about that thread, you may want some help (but I doubt Fakku to be a suitable one) or you may want to be right (which need an impeccable argumentation). Whatever, on this public forum with such interests/goals, it's questionable you to gain some satisfacting return.

At this point, I was attempting to point out where you had some error in what you said about thoughts and mind structure, but this last reply tells me that continuing is fruitless; you will not acknowledge the additional points I've brought up. May as well have this thread closed, locked, deleted, etc, as it has essentially completely drifted from the reason I made it in the first place.

Don't reject the fault on others for you to not fit your objectives.

For me it would be to think hard about the past, figure out the meaning behind it, and understand it. My past makes me stronger, yet everytime I think about it, still stings a little, but in time that too fades away. Once I figure it out, then I forget about the past, but not the meaning and lessons that came with it, and avoid potential conversations regarding my past, because it's not good mentioning bad things. I always believe that there is more than just the emotion behind my terrible past, that is why I am thankful that my thirst for knowledge is more powerful than feeling emotionally down about some past, I try the best I can to understand it then move on.

I guess you can say that my mechanism of coping with the past is different, effective, precise, and also very powerful. You could say I put all the pieces of the puzzle together and look at the bigger picture, rather than just looking at myself. My mechanism is just solving it right away so I could be happy quicker.

I hope this made sense, since you asked how I cope with my past.

It does make sense, and is also on-topic with the OP question I put forward earlier.

What I put in bold is, in my opinion, the most important about all you have shared :-)

Everything what you guys posted is right ... running away won't help .. because you constantly think about avoiding your past, yet every little thing you come across reminds you of it ... so instead of fleeing, I carefully look at it and try to understand it.

The best thing about my past is that whatever I had to suffer wasn't my fault, I wasn't the cause of it, and I didn't support that suffering, rather it was caused by someone else, and I leave that blame to them. I realized long ago that I can't rewrite the past, nor do I wish to do it, I don't wish to lose the person I am now, because if I was any different, chances are I will be unhappy AND violent.

My coping mechanism is to reflect on all of the things the painful parts of my past have taught me and to appreciate where I am now.

I'm constantly learning from my mistakes and learning how to grow and evolve as a person.

Dude, tough bag there. You got all my support. i cope with uncormfortable emotions by eating or throwing myself into my art.

^This. You don't run away from your problems or they'll always weigh on you. Go to a psychologist more often or speak out to family/friends and you're almost guaranteed to feel better.

I kinda just push and blur my entire childhood out of my mind. Because if I didn't I would be struggling internally more than I do. Like I need to have it out of my mind. And then sometimes still even, memories pop up, sometimes just randomly, and I'll cover my face and go "Ughhh" or some depressing commentary. But that's only sometimes.

But some steps I've taken to coping or trying to move on/forget is adopting a new name for myself. Legally I still go by my birth name out of respect for my parents who gave me the name but I just internally call myself something different and ask my friends to do the same for me. To me, my new name is my real name.

But I don't lie about my past or who I am since I'm not a fan of lying. I'm actually really straight forward and honest about myself. Sometimes more than I should be. But me just having a different name makes me feel better about everything.

Different people have different coping mechanisms. For me, a decade ago when I had to deal with an ex's emotional infidelity and was utterly depressed, I sought comfort eating. It gave me that extra energy to soldier through the days with this fierce sense of vengeance. I sort of swung from one extreme to another. A crying mess of a female and a wild, angry valkyrie. Looking back, I must have looked like a crazy ass. LOL. In any case, I learnt to accept the situation, stopped being angry and appreciate help and the kind words that were offered to me.

I simply move on, smile and think about the people around me who loves me dearly and never forget to pray (tho I am a non-practicing Catholic hahaha). Kidding aside, prayer is enough to make you cope with any pains or suffering. But I don't know about the others tho. It doesn't hurt to try, right?