We all have various reactions to difficult circumstances. For others of us, the continual process of facing our suffering, receiving support from those around us, and healing may be a new experience. Everyone’s way of dealing with grief and trauma may differ. Escaping as much as possible, repressing your feelings, possibly masking them so that they are not visible to those around you, and ignoring the painful experience are all preferable methods.
So why do we feel the need for normalization? Why do we try to escape from the difficulties that we experience? All of our systems work differently, but at some point, this system starts working to help us continue our lives.
Why Do We Feel the Need for Normalization?
The human brain cannot tolerate uncertainty and is always in search of a “normal”. Because in times of danger, crisis and trauma, “normal” means “safety”. Evolutionarily, humans are always in search of security, and to ensure this security, just as our nervous system provides homeostasis in our body by showing fight-flight reactions, it also needs to take various steps to establish this balance psychologically.
Different schools of psychology may define this need in different ways. While the psychodynamic school calls this a defence mechanism, cognitive behavioral therapists will define this situation as avoidance behavior. Essentially, both terms serve the same thing, the ability to sustain one’s life. In the face of difficult events, our nervous system, brain and mind look for a way to escape, in other words, a way to continue and cope. These traumatic events, which set off alarm bells in our bodies, also bring mental difficulties and a cognitive burden. These compulsions consume our mental energy, and our body relieves this burden by trying to return to normal.
Another explanation for our escape from the difficulties we experience comes from our brain’s pleasure-seeking mechanism. In particular, our primitive brain structures work pleasure-centered, that is, they focus on things that give pleasure and stay away from things that cause pain. For example, while facing emotions is painful, doomscrolling on social media is pleasurable, and it is not surprising that we gravitate towards the pleasurable in our choices. Although these behaviors may help us at the moment, they can turn into avoidance behavior in the long run and cause the real problems and unhealthy coping strategies to persist.
Coping Strategies
We all try to develop various coping strategies in the face of difficult events we experience. These coping strategies may vary depending on the person, situation and context. The same strategy may be healthy for one person and unhealthy for another. What is important here is whether this behavior contributes to our well-being in the long run.
Below, I will list healthy coping strategies and unhealthy coping strategies for you in general terms. You can check which ones you have or don’t have. I think this type of work is very effective in increasing our self-awareness. If you find that you predominantly use unhealthy coping strategies, perhaps you can choose a few healthy coping strategies to try. Let’s not forget that we use these to serve our own well-being in the long term, and not every strategy is good for everyone.
Healthy Coping Strategies
- Problem-focused coping: Finding solutions by finding the source of the problem. For example, if you think you are experiencing exam stress, you can start by preparing a study plan.
- Emotion-focused coping: Recognizing and feeling our emotions without offering an explanation, as well as confronting them head-on. While doing this, you can write down strong feelings as they arise, speak to a trusted person, or keep a journal.
- Seeking support: Using social support systems will help us a lot. Your support person may be your friend, family or therapist.
- Mental reframing: We can define it as being able to look at events from a different perspective. “Yes, it was a bad experience, but I learned new things.” We catch two different perspectives in this sentence.
- Physical and mental relaxation techniques: Meditation, breathing exercises, sports, walking will help us relax both physically and mentally.
Unhealthy Coping Strategies
- Avoidance: Ignoring the problem, pretending it doesn’t exist, and even postponing it in most cases. Not studying at all while struggling with exam anxiety is like trying to get over it with statements like “We’ll see, we’ll figure it out.”
- Suppression/Denial: Ignoring our emotions consciously or unconsciously, pushing them into the background. Such as trying not to show our sadness and acting as if we were not sad at all, we may see this as acting at that moment in real life.
- Excessive use of alcohol, substances or food: We may turn them to emotional escape. If you go for a chocolate, alcohol or cigarettes when you feel bad, we can say that you are trying to suppress your emotions.
- Aggression / Outbursts of Anger: We can see these outbursts as the expression of stress that we cannot manage on our own.
- Excessive need for control: We may be trying to prevent the anxiety we feel due to uncertainty by trying to control the events, situations or people around us.
Conclusion
Let’s not forget that we can all react differently to the difficult events we experience. Whether we react differently or use healthy coping strategies or unhealthy coping strategies does not make us better/stronger or worse/weaker. What we went through is not easy, nor is it something to be forgotten quickly. It is quite normal that we are affected by social traumas as much as our individual difficulties.