Coping skills
Jackson came home from school on Wednesday and let me know that they had spoken in his class about the school shooting in Texas. I asked him what they discussed specifically and he said they had been reassured of all the reasons that something like that couldn’t happen at their school. Which is what needed to be said to these kids who are the same age as many of the victims. But I couldn’t help but wonder if the teachers at Robb elementary hadn’t assured their students of the same thing at some point. I asked him if he was worried about going to school and he said no. So, that’s good I guess… (she types with a half-hearted shrug and uncertain sigh).
Along with the conversation in class, his teacher emailed a list of 100 coping skills. I’m grateful that his teacher and our district are taking this seriously and making resources accessible to families - but also, my child shouldn’t need coping strategies to feel safe at school.
Like so many I am heartbroken and fed up and furious that this is our state of affairs - a uniquely American state of affairs. We are collectively grieving. We grieve for all the lives lost to gun violence and also that this nation has failed and continues to fail to protect its citizens from themselves - EVEN WHEN THAT IS WHAT THE MAJORITY WANTS (huh, I’m sensing a pattern here…). I may not have any proper gun violence statistics to share or have direct experience when it comes to firearms, but I do happen to know a thing or two about grief.
As I was looking over the coping skills handout from Jackson’s teacher I was struck by how many of them I employed throughout any given day:
1. Take deep breaths - check
12. Say, “I can do this” - check
40. Give someone a hug - check, check and check
59. Blog - check (but also, do kids really have blogs these days? I feel like this should be replaced with make a TikTok, but I digress…)
93. Pet an animal - check and check
100. Ask for a break - um, yes please, but who do I log break requests with as an adult?
…And these were just the ones I did before 10am. Which made me realize I spend a LOT of my time coping. Though, until recently, I had truly felt that I was doing significantly more living and less coping.
In the months following Adelaide’s death, life was just a series of coping skills, like hopping from one rock in a pond to the next - including the occasional slip and fall into the water. In fact, the way I have been feeling of late reminded me of how I felt around the one year anniversary of Adelaide’s passing. There was some distance between me and her death but its emotional effects were still inundating.
So, if I’m finding myself in a similar emotional state, what helped me then? Clever thing about keeping a blog - I can actually go back and read EXACTLY what I was a thinking at any given time (Can a TikTok do that?! Wait, don’t answer that.) Wouldn’t you know that my post from October 30th, 2020, “SURIVIVE”, was exactly what I needed to read this week. I hope this excerpt helps you too.
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Recently, I was having a particularly dark day. The anxiety would not release from my chest and the depression hung heavy. It was hard for me to see the path forward, to imagine a time when this pain and grief would not be all consuming. I was driving home after dropping Miguel at an appointment when I noticed a mural that had been painted on the side of a building. It read, “SURVIVE”.
Not survived.
Not survivor.
Just, survive.
That one word resonated in every cell of my body.
In a month where I survived the anniversaries of my daughter’s passing and her birthday, in no way do I feel like a survivor. Instead, I am continuously working on surviving. In some ways I think living with intense grief must be a bit like being an addict. No one is ever a recovered addict, they are always in recovery, no matter how many years it’s been since their last bender. Yet, at the end of the day, it remains in our nature to strive to survive.
This year so many of us are just doing the best we can with the limited bandwidth we have left. I would venture to guess that many of us have had to bury some part of our selves to survive. I’m ready to start digging though, even if it’s just a teacup at a time, and even if I have to take a lot of naps, err, breaks along the way. Today we survive. Someday soon though, we will thrive.
