It Just Is

A couple of weeks ago a white supremacist, amatonormative Incident™ happened and it stressed me the heck out. I don’t want to go into the specifics of the Incident™, though I will share that it made me feel dejected, weary of my relational boundaries, and somewhat hopeless. Ugh, I can’t believe I worked so hard to get a tenure-track job, got the tenure-track job, got a part-time job on top of the tenure-track job, and then life still smacked in the face with this bs, I thought to myself. Who knew you can’t girlboss/nonbinaryboss your way out of systems of oppression??

To eschew self-destructive and unhealthful coping, I practiced these three strategies:

1) Self-validation. Instead of only ruminating on the Incident™, I implemented kind thoughts like “Thomas, this is just really hard that this is happening right now” and “It makes sense that you’re feeling a sense of grief, frustration, and anguish given how unfortunate this situation is.” This form of self-soothing helped me feel comforted even though I couldn’t change the facts of what was happening.

2) Remembering that no emotion lasts forever. Even though I felt super sad and annoyed about the Incident™, I kept in mind that those emotions would fade in intensity over time. Literally every negative situation and emotion I have encountered has at some point shifted, usually reducing in acuity or sometimes even turning into a positive circumstance over a period of days, weeks, or months. It’s like when I listen to “OMG” by NewJeans which is so much better than listening to a mediocre man – there are periods of my life when I’m riding the chill euphoric high encapsulated by the song and there are periods when I’m not. Though, I’ve always managed to find my way back to that level of bliss, even when shitty stuff has happened.

3) Radical acceptance mixed with committed action. Instead of fighting the reality of the Incident™, I took time to acknowledge that yes, this heinous thing is happening and I really cannot change it. There’s no point in continuously wishing it weren’t happening or ignoring that it’s happening: it just is. However, I can still take action in other areas of my life to fight white supremacy, patriarchy, amatonormativity and other forms of oppression.

I think I’m most proud of myself for not even thinking about restricting my food intake or engaging in disordered eating when The Incident™ went down. As I get older, I recognize more and more that I’m an action-oriented person. While I make time to sit and reflect, I like to approach my problems head-on with some tangible strategies or solutions. Earlier in my life, anorexia felt aligned with that disposition. Only eating twice a day, telling all my friends about how fat I thought I was, and weighing myself every morning all felt like progress, like a form of clear forward momentum in the ongoing chaos of my life.

I’m happy now that I’ve rewired my brain so that I automatically recognize that food restriction is fatphobic and really just prevents me from feeling my feelings and coping effectively. If I starve myself, I have less energy to do my meaningful work and to over-disclose about my life on the internet. I can practice action-focused coping with these DBT and ACT strategies instead. Even if The Incident™ sucks, I refuse to make the situation worse by treating myself with anything less than compassion, patience, and grace.

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What are some of your favorite/go-to coping strategies when you feel stressed? How do you keep yourself grounded when things feel out of control or simply just not going your way? I hope folks are well and until next post!