71 Quotes About Coping

Sometimes I just think depression's one way of coping with the world. Like, some people get drunk, some people do drugs, some people get depressed. Because there's so much stuff out there that you have to do something to deal with it. Ned Vizzini

It's funny: I always imagined when I was a kid that adults had some kind of inner toolbox full of shiny tools: the saw of discernment, the hammer of wisdom, the sandpaper of patience. But then when I grew up I found that life handed you these rusty bent old tools - friendships, prayer, conscience, honesty - and said 'do the best you can with these, they will have to do'. And mostly, against all odds, they do. Anne Lamott

The mind knows the truth when your heart denies what it feels. When you don't feel safe to let people in it is because you're not ready to deal with the pain of honesty. Shannon L. Alder

I cared about them. I wanted them to feel better, to live better lives. And then it occurred to me - I cared about myself. I wanted me to live a better life, too Caring about myself was allowing me to care about others. Cate Tiernan

On some dimension or other, every event in life can be causing only one of two things: either it is good for you, or it is bringing up what you need to look at in order to create good for you. Evolution is win-win…life is self-correcting. Deepak Chopra

As I looked out at the water, I realized there was nowhere to go, nowhere left to run. And I just had to stay here facing this terrible truth. I felt, as more tears fell, just how tired I was, a tiredness that had nothing to do with the hour. I was tired of running from this, tired of pretending that things were okay when they had never, ever been less okay. Morgan Matson

She said once that time is nothing to me but a series of bookmarks that I use to jump back and forth through the text of my life, returning again and again to the events that mark me in the eyes of my more astute colleagues, as bearing all the characteristics of the classic melancholic. Dennis Lehane

Give me love Give me love Give me peace on earth Give me light Give me life Keep me free from birth Give me hope Help me cope, with this heavy load Trying to, touch and reach you with, heart and soul George Harrison

Everything can change in a heartbeat; it can slip away in an instant. Everything you trust, and treasure, whatever brings you comfort, comes at a terrible cost. Health is temporary; money disappears. Safety is nothing big an illusion.  So when the moment comes, and everything you depend upon changes, or perhaps someone you love disappears, or no longer loves you, must disaster follow? Or will you-somehow-adapt?. Margaret Overton

To be subjected to pain that threatens to exceed coping resources is not something that people choose. David L. Conroy

Often, things are left unsaid. Everyone is guilty of thinking and feeling things.. of loving or appreciating others.. and of taking for granted that those others will just be there.. to continue to share life's journey with.. Then when one is gone.. so quickly.. all those things left unsaid.. they matter more, because they were unspoken.. Everyone fights their own battles inside themselves.. often no one outside them even knows the wars that rage inside even those who they are closest to.. I'd like to take the time, here and now, to tell all of you.. those close to me, and those who aren't.. those who matter so much.. and those who have influenced me in even the smallest ways.. all of you.. that you matter. You are important. You are appreciated. Don't for a moment think otherwise. Don't, for even an instant, think or feel that you are not a wonder.. a gift to the world.. that makes it a better place to be.. or that it would ever, in any way, be anything less than a tragedy for you to leave before your time. Dennis Sharpe

I used to play a game where I imagined that someone had abandoned me in a strange place & I had to find my way back home- I thought I could do it blind, the same way a lost dog might trek a thousand miles to return to its owner, relying on some mysterious instinct that drew the heart back to where it belonged. Laura McHugh

The Bad-Moon Girls appear on days when Dad doesn't know what he is thinking, or even if he is thinking. Those days can weigh less than air or more than an ocean. He has blank thoughts without feelings, followed by heavy feelings without thoughts. Time means nothing. A minute ticks by in the same rhythm as an entire day. He can look at one thing for an hour without moving. He can see me or Victor without knowing we are in the room, peering at us as if we are underwater, moving in warped slow motion. After the nothingness, he wades through a stagnant lake with the moon reflected in it, waiting for the daylight to rinse it away. He almost drowns while time ticks on. The sky is filled with black milk. No stars. Two days can pass before he surfaces. Dad's brain-switch, the focusing thing the rest of us switch on to make things look better, is a bit buggered. Those are his words, not mine. The Bad-Moon Girls whisper evil in Dad's ear, the sort of women who would set their own mother on fire if there were no other way to light their cigarettes. The trouble is, they can follow. Just as we were setting off to Clacton last autumn, they hunted him down. Joanna Campbell

There is something powerful in the whispering of obscenities, about those in power. There's something delightful about it, something naughty, secretive, forbidden, thrilling. It's like a spell, of sorts. It deflates them, reduces them to the common denominator where they can be dealt with. Margaret Atwood

To make sense of it - that's the challenge. To bear witness to the death, without being broken by the weight of it. Unknown

We should be sure that in our pursuit of happiness and positivity, we do not lose our ability to experience the other side of life, as well. Feelings of grief and respect for the departed, are honourable thoughts to have and honourable feelings to feel. In seeking happiness, we must not be so afraid of sorrow, that we lose the ability to cope with it properly. There is a healthy way to cope with both sorrow and joy; both need to be looked straight in the face, in the eyes. . C. Joybell C.

The damaging part of learning to live your life in two parts , whether in reality or fantasy, cannot be underestimated. It is an infectious skill that you learned, one that would eventually spread beyond the bedroom of your life. Life wasn't ever what it seemed on the surface. Nothing could be trusted for what it appeared to be. After all, you weren't what you appeared to be. In learning to hide part of yourself, you lost the ability to trust anything or anyone fully. Without knowing it, you traded humane innocence for dry cynicism. . Alan Downs

The strength to go on must come from within, not without, or it crushes instead of building up the heart. Tara K. Harper

Until then we're going to keep making memories like this, moments when we're the only two people in the whole world. And when we get scared or lonely or confused, we'll pull out these memories and wrap them around us and they'll make us feel safe. And strong. Laurie Halse Anderson

Sasha's green eyes were right up against yours, the lashes interlocking. "In Naples, " she said, "there were kids who were just lost. You knew they were never going to get back to what they'd been, or have a normal life. And then there were other ones who you thought, maybe they will.".. You opened your eyes, which you hadn't realized were shut again. "what I'm saying is, We're the survivors, " Sasha said.." Not everyone is. But we are. Okay? . Jennifer Egan

Pray that you are in the right place, at the right time, to meet the right person, that together you may help one another. Don Polson

I wasn't glad that I hadn't died. And I wasn't sad that I hadn't. I wasn't anything. Kathleen Rooney

I want to believe him. I know stuff happens to people and they can't always be who they were or who they think they're supposed to be. But knowing that doesn't mean I'm okay with it. It's more like what Mr. Krueger says about black holes: We can't wish them away, so we'd better learn as much as we can about where they are and how they work so we don't get sucked in. R. Dean Johnson

Despair was strength. Despair was the scab and the scar. The walled city in a time of plague. A closed fortification. A sure thing, because it was always safer, less painful to stop trying than it was to repeatedly try and fail. Failure-disappointment-was a poison in my blood. Despair was the antidote. Norah Vincent

If you tell someone you have depression, they will often say, "Oh, I've been depressed before, too." The difference lies between being depressed and having depression. Everyone's been depressed at one time or another, but these are far from being the same things. One is a passing mood. The other is a chronic illness that does not come and go, ebb and flow, is here one day and gone the next. The difference between being depressed and having depression is that one is a mood and the other is an illness. One is a momentary bout of melancholy. The other is a debilitating condition that requires medical treatment. Would you feel better about having a cancerous lesion if I likened it to the rash I had last week? The difference between being depressed and having depression is the difference between a mood that will soon pass, and a serious illness that disrupts your ability to function and will take years to treat. The difference between being depressed and having depression is the difference between Cleveland and Bangkok, or your frying pan and the surface of the sun. So, no, we (depressives) do not feel better when you tell us about your rash. We'll do our best to be polite about it, but no, it really doesn't help at all. Northern Adams

Keedwell cites a study of depression in the Netherlands that found that most people coped better with adversity after experiencing depression. Jan Wong

We may seem fine, even when the pain remains right there beneath our surface. Ashly Lorenzana

What is coping? This is what it is like: a cave underground deep in rock, hung across its roof with accretions of dripping salts. I am cavernous and hard as mineral. The cave holds a pool of dark water that has not seen light. The water is very cold; it is undrinkable and its size is unmapped. It is mine, but people cannot see it. Only Ev sometimes senses that it is there. All the time people say that I am coping very well. It is impossible to explain my strategy to them. It is opaque even to me. Marion Coutts

Life simply blew through her. Valeria Kogan

Grieving is not a race, nor is it a predictable experience - it is as unique as each and every one of us. Therefore by creating your own path you will find your own way through. Corrie Sirota

We all handle loss in our individual ways, grieve in all kinds of ways. We all go through feeling okay sometimes, but other times, we feel so bad we hurt ourselves or those around us. E. Journey

It was a lesson she was still learning. When she had first started nursing, she had taken every death personally, like she was losing her father all over again. Every patient lost under her care was a little piece of death she would carry around with her until the end of her own life. But the alternative seemed so unfeeling. Tina and the other nurses could crack jokes and banter back and forth about contestants on American Idol before the body of a deceased patient was even cold. It was a coping mechanism, she knew, but not necessarily one she thought she would ever adopt. There had to be something in between. Olive had been called a bleeding heart before, but her heart no longer had the same plasticity and tenderness–it was scarred and worn beyond repair . Andrea Lochen

The sudden loss of her father was like living with a wound that would never heal, yet her memories of him were fading more and more every day. Frank Beddor

The depth of the feeling continued to surprise and threaten me, but each time it hit again and I bore it... I would discover that it hadn't washed me away. Anne Lamott

Throw off your grief, ' doubters imply, 'and we can all go back to pretending death doesn't exist, or at least is comfortably far away. Julian Barnes

The dirty secret she’d learned about grief was that nobody wanted to hear about your loss a week after the funeral. People you’d once considered friends would turn their heads in church or cross to another side of a shopping mall to avoid the contamination of your suffering. “You might imagine I’m coping day by day, ” she murmured. “But it’s more a case of hour by hour, and during my worst times, minute by minute. . Susan Dormady Eisenberg

..I still saw everything through the filter I had created in order to survive. I could not see the happiness that preceded the abyss. I had forced myself not to acknowledge my life's most splendid moment, in order to be able to live out the rest of my life without it. I think that was what had happened. It has changed since, but back then it was impossible for me to embrace the happiness I had lost. Linda Olsson

It's not a crime to feel sad, down or depressed. Moving through difficult feelings is an essential part of living life authentically. Though society would have us believe that when we are sad, we need to smack a silly smile on our face and pretend everything is okay. Problems arise when we repress, deny or bury these feelings. We need to know when it's time to seek help and support, to avoid becoming overwhelmed by these types of emotion. Life is a bittersweet symphony, we need to hear every instrument and listen to every note. Jaeda DeWalt

I told her I was not sure I could bear living with memories, she said, Look up at the stars, look, they are not there, what you see is the memory of what once was, once upon a time. Rabih Alameddine

When the silence and the aloneness press down and around me, crushing me, carving through me like ice, I need to speak aloud sometimes, if only for proof of life. Gail Honeyman

May our spirit fill us with understanding of victory and defeat, the gift of collaboration, the wisdom to choose the right path, and opportunities that inspire hope. Celeste Cooper

No one can escape their past. The sins we've committed... and the sadness we've caused... No matter how far we run, our past remains, as ever-present as the moon in the sky. It looms in wait... for the day when we are forced to face it. But only in doing so can we truly make peace and move on in hope towards tomorrow. Phoenix Wright

To get through the night, I sometimes imagined the sky filled with a canopy of stars. I imagined that each star contained the soul of a girl or boy who had died too young, and the light the stars gave off was their brightness. Jill Bialosky

I understand that sometimes the only way we can survive our own memories is to shape them into a story that makes sense out of events that seem inexplicable. Yeonmi Park

Something still exists as long as there's someone still around to remember it. Jodi Picoult

Close your eyes, real tight, and then count to three hundred. That’s all you have to do. You just count to three hundred, and when you open your eyes, five minutes will have passed. And even if it hurts or things are shitty or you don’t know what to do, you just made it through five whole minutes. And when it feels like you can’t go on, you just close your eyes and do it again. That’s all you need. Just five minutes at a time. . Emma Mills

My acupuncturist once told me that it doesn't have to hurt to work. She might have meant the needles, but I think she really meant love. Erica Goros

Don't cry about it. Write about it. Crystal Woods

I repeat one of my mantras. 'This is not happening. This is not real. This did not happen to you. That was someone else. Emily Andrews

I also know I'm not going to stay away. I'm going to grab onto her and let myself get cut. I'm good at pain. I'm good at bleeding, emotionally and physically. Jasinda Wilder

When confronted with challenge, I discover my inner strength. Celeste Cooper

The Lord has put more hardships atop the shoulders of my neighbors – more than I can even fathom coping with. I will strive to find a way to turn pity into admiration, for what use is it to send pity back at the world. Admiration and awe are much more helpful, especially when I find myself feeling like a victim for being stuck in traffic or losing my favorite sweater. Perspective is a blessing. . Erica Goros

Perhaps gratitude and love are one and the same. Erica Goros

We are all somewhat mercurial for temperament, and it is much easier to believe that all is well when the sun is shining, and yet, is not the sun always shining just behind the clouds that never last? Grace May North

When problems beat upon you like a raging storm, search for the eye. You might not be able to avoid misfortunes, but you can find the calmest spot within them. Richelle E. Goodrich

Jacob: "Let her stare." Terra: "What?"Jacob: "Yeah most of the starers are just curious. Smile back. That's what I used to do. Justina Chen

The thing about pain, whether physical or emotional, is there's no running away. You can't escape it and you can't hide from it. Not by ignoring it, not by drugging it, not by doing a swan dive into a bottle. Sooner or later you'll have to take a breath, let the pain rush in and get to the other side like your life depends on it. Because it does. Natasha Boyd

Absence of problems   does not lead to happiness.     Dealing with them does. J. Benson

Every one of us is a minor tragedy. Most of us learn to cope. Elizabeth Bear

Be the good & seek the good. Faith fights anxieties… go after your faith with body, mind & soul. Erica Goros

He was trying hard to continue to exist as himself despite the unlikeliness of everything. Philip Roth

Dostoyevsky's indignation at Afanasy Fet's innocent lyrics, "Whispers, timid breath, the nightingales trilled, " is well known. This is simply disgraceful, wrote Dostoyevsky indignantly, and he speculated what an insulting impression such empty verses would have made if they'd been given to someone to read during the Lisbon earthquake! Some people protested: Yes, of course, Dostoyevsky is right, but we aren't having an earthquake, and we aren't in Lisbon, and after all, are we not allowed to love, to listen to nightingales, to admire the beauty of a beloved woman? But Dostoyevsky's argument held sway for a long time. It did so because of the way Russians perceive Russian life: as a constant, unending Lisbon earthquake. Tatyana Tolstaya

Dreaming was easier than screaming, and screaming was easier than worrying, and worrying was easier than crying, which was what she knew she would be reduced to if she didn’t keep a hard eye on herself. Kevin Brockmeier

Whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off–then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. Herman Melville

Not everything that happens in your life has to hit you like a hurricane. Joyce Rachelle

I am not "cured"--I know I never will be. I will always crave that pain to keep me centered. I will always be just a little astounded when I get through a crisis without putting a blade to my flesh. J. Kenner

A sense of humor helps us to get through the dull times, cope with the difficult times, enjoy the good times and manage the scary times. Steve Goodier

Even if the world was falling apart, that was no reason to let his appearance and good habits fall apart with it. S.R. Ford