Hot Take: Coping Skills are Cringe
I know that sounds like a wild thing for a counselor to say, so hear me out…
Coping skills are band-aids.
If you’re cutting vegetables and accidentally nick your finger, what’s the first thing you do? Grab a band-aid, put it on your finger, and finish cooking. You know it needs to be properly cleaned and treated, but the family is hungry and you don’t have time to stop.
So you cover it up for the moment and keep on keeping on.
Band-aids are designed as short-term fixes.
It is there to cover and protect your wound, BUT it doesn’t actually heal it. It’s not supposed to.
To really address the wound, you need to spray hydrogen peroxide on it, use antibiotic ointment, and monitor it for signs of infection.
When you’re triggered, coping skills function just like band-aids. They’re there when you need an immediate response.
When To Use Coping Skills
Coping skills, like deep breathing and grounding exercises, are absolutely essential when you are in the heat of a crisis. But they are still band-aids. They are used to get you through the challenging situation, not to heal you from it.
When you have a cut on your finger, ultimately your goal is that the wound heals, right? You don’t want to have to wear a band-aid forever!
If you just put a band-aid on the wound without actually trying to treat it, you’re just covering up the problem not really addressing it.
Eventually the band-aid is going to fall off and when it does, you’ll be exposing an open wound that was never actually cleaned or given the opportunity to properly heal.
The same thing will happen if you’re only using coping skills when you have a trauma history.
An open wound is like a mental trigger.
When you treat coping skills as the be-all, end-all of healing, you never really get to the root cause of your struggles or have the opportunity to heal from your trauma.
You get stuck in avoidance. Avoiding truly facing yourself and avoiding the depths of your own pain. It causes you to ignore your own emotions. And it separates you from you really are on a soul level.
When Coping Skills Don’t Work
In addition to getting stuck in avoidance, clients often get frustrated when they try to use coping skills and they don’t seem to “work.” When coping skills don’t work, it’s often not going deep enough for you to actually feel the effects. The coping skill is hitting the surface, when the actual wound runs much deeper.
When you get triggered or activated, absolutely use your coping skills. BUT after the intensity of the emotion or panic has worn off, come back home to yourself and do some self-reflection.
Here are some reflection questions that will help you clean out the wound and create connection within yourself. True healing happens through this self-connection.
What physically happened in your body during the time that you were triggered? (i.e., heart racing, sweaty hands, fast breathing, etc)
What thoughts came up?
What emotions did you experience?
What about the event was triggering for you?
When are other times that you have felt the same trigger?
What caused you to feel unsafe during the event?
There are no right or wrong answers to these questions. They are designed to help you develop curiosity about yourself and help you to honor your own experiences. The more times you use these questions, the deeper your self-connection will become. When you’re more connected internally, you’re better able to self-soothe without relying on surface level coping skills.
How Therapy Can Help With Trauma
Trauma Therapy can help you do more than just “cope.” It can help you understand why your triggers are triggering and learn how to signal your nervous system that it’s safe even if you’re triggered. If you have questions about working with a trauma therapist or would like to book a session with me, please use the Contact Me button below.
