Coping mechanisms are a huge part of my life. They're what keep me – as well as thousands of other people – going. Of course, each person has their own mechanisms, so mine might not help you very much. All the same, I figured I'd post these as a reference for myself and anyone else that happens upon them. I'll update as I think of more, so here they are for now.
Positive:
-Singing. Loudly. I'm very good at imitating my favorite artists' vocals and I love practicing it as well! My favorite things to belt out are as follows (I'll add more as I come up with them):
- Anything by Fun., but especially the album Aim and Ignite (favorites include Barlights and Walking the Dog)
- Cracker's Garage d'Or albums
- The Eagles' sadder songs (The Last Resort, Take It to the Limit, Desperado, The Sad Cafe, etc.)
- Fuck It All, a YouTube parody of Let It Go (apologies for the poor sound quality)
- Lily Allen's magnum opus, Fuck You (usually if I'm mad at one person in particular)
- Certain Blue Öyster Cult songs (Dancin' in the Ruins, Don't Fear the Reaper, Del Rio's Song, Astronomy, This Ain't the Summer Of Love, Hot Rails to Hell, E.T.I. [Extraterrestrial Intelligence], and some others)
- Boston's A Man I'll Never Be
- The Goo Goo Dolls' Iris
- Guns N' Roses' Greatest Hits
- The Firefly theme (hey, don't judge, it helps me sometimes)
- Kansas' Carry On My Wayward Son (this got me through an entire semester!)
- Anything Nirvana
- Passenger's Let Her Go (I connect this to a very...difficult experience and it makes me nostalgic)
- Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here
- The Alan Parsons Project's Time (I strongly associate this with the end of an era for me; in a way, it marks the end of my innocence and happiness. I haven't listened to it in a very long time because of this, and 'cause it instantly puts me in a bad mood, but I love it.)
- Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, Under Pressure, and a few others that I don't remember at the moment
-Writing. I haven't written anything of decent quality in a very long time – all I can muster these days are rants about sexism (especially where slut-shaming is concerned) and racism – but when I do write, it's pretty decent. In the past, when I was violently angry with someone, I could write a murder mystery starring their corpse, but wish-fulfillment books rarely turn out to be any good, and those weren't furthering my style at all.
-Doll hair styling. I don't have enough hair to style my own, so I use my 18" companions. My favorite dolls for this task are Marisol, Clara Grace (Marie-Grace), Addy, and Josefina.
-Doll-themed socializations. I've mentioned my friends at AG Collectors here before, but they deserve another mention because they comprise much of my support system at this point. I do consider some of these folks to be better friends of mine than the people I know in 3D (because I vehemently refuse to describe my physical reality as "real life"), and spend way too much time over there. Over the summer, I could be on Collectors for up to 15 hours every day. Now I'm physically incapable of that, but I'm still on there whenever I possibly can be. I really care about those people, in many cases even more than my 3D acquaintances/friends.
-This blog as well as my Tumblr blog. I find that verbalizing my thoughts helps tremendously, and I've got a written record for the future now.
-Chewing gum. This doesn't really help with the bipolar aspect, but it's wonderful when it comes to anxiety. In general, hotter flavors (such as 5's Flare, its cinnamon flavor) help more. Smacking the gum really makes expressing frustration easier. Along the same lines, hot foods can help. I've been known to eat Cholula packets on their own to calm down when I'm truly furious. Unfortunately, I'm out of those, so I'll have to either track 'em down online or see if Taco Bell's hottest flavor does the trick.
Neutral:
-Writing "fuck it (all)" over. and over. and over. (The example is from the first day of school this year)
-The Harry Potter era, which spanned two years from when I first read the series to when I realized that my extensive knowledge of Potter-related trivia was not impressive, it was pathetic. For some, this can help - for me, it was an unhealthy obsession that I've since given up, thank god.
Negative:
-Playing Tetris over and over and over (I've quit this, thank goodness)
-Binge eating. Now, I don't do this very often; it's kind of a go-big-or-go-home deal for me.
-Playing 2048 whenever I don't have something else to do, which is quite frequently
-Listening to music with headphones at obscenely loud volumes. The first time I did with was in the fith grade, when I got a B+ in self-control, ruining my shot at a perfect report card (the perfect report cards began coming in middle school, when behavior no longer merited letter grades of its own)
-Buying dolls. There isn't anything wrong with buying dolls, but my shopping habits have been less-than-healthy in the past
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