People Reveal The Childhood Coping Methods They Developed That Not Everyone Has

Their unique experience made them develop their coping methods that are are totally unique to them.

Ayoub

• Published in Interesting
• April 25, 2022

The world is a concrete jungle and you learn from a young age how to survive by adapting to your environment and finding a way to thrive in it. The obstacles that you encounter in life basically shape you as a person, so depending on your experience you might know more about the world or less.

You grow as a person one obstacle at a time and throughout your journey, you develop multiple mechanisms that help you through life. Some of these coping mechanisms are common and can be found in many people, however, some are unique to certain people.

Traumatic events in one's childhood can lead to them developing some coping mechanisms that help them solve or distract themselves from certain problems. These coping mechanisms stick with you throughout life and help you in one way or another.

A Reddit user who goes by the username u/GreggOfChaoticOrder asked people on the r/AskReddit community "what is a childhood coping method [THEY] unknowingly developed only to realize later that it wasn't normal?" and they got some pretty interesting responses from a lot of different users. Scroll down and check out the original Reddit post and scroll further if you want to read people's responses.

Here's the original post by Reddit user u/GreggOfChaoticOrder:

1. "I look for signs, such as micro-expressions, about what kind of mood the other one is in. "

My therapist told me not all people do this, and I do it a lot. He also told me I developed it because I was always on the lookout because of my often angry, drunken stepdad.

2. "I can cut people out of my life and stop caring about people at the snap of my fingers..."

... and I do it far too often to people who sometimes may not deserve it to keep myself safe.

3. "Saying 'I am sorry' all the time."

4. "Assuming people are mad at me based on their vocal tone."

5. "Apparently, I do something called 'disassociating' where I get so deep in thought that I don’t hear anything else around me. It drives my wife nuts."

6. "Shutting down when faced with confrontation."

7. "My parents were emotionally and often physically neglectful and cold."

I was expected to stay out of the way and raise myself within the household. No mealtimes, bedtimes, bath times, nothing. The attention in the house was always negative. We lived way out in the country, too, so there were no playmates in the neighborhood — and my only sibling was 10 years older and of the opposite sex. I had this weird mental game from a young age — I must have gotten it from a book somewhere — where I would pretend I was in an orphanage (one of those old-fashioned ones, kinda like from Annie). The school bus dropped me off there. Then the evening was regimented. We lined up for dinner, sat and did homework, had a church-type service, and then were given baths and put to bed. I would pretend that I was one of many children doing these things. I would lie in bed and imagine myself lying in a row of identical twin beds.

9. "I don't know if it was a coping mechanism so much as a survival tactic."

I walk on the balls/toes of my feet all the time. If I'm barefooted, my heels never touch the ground unless I'm standing still. Quietness was the objective.

9. "I talk to myself, like full blown heart felt conversations."

I'd keep things to myself because I would get in trouble for saying the wrong thing. I lie because people couldn't know certain things. I'd day dream because it was better then reality. I observed the room, their gestures to know if it's safe to interact. I don't say things about myself because I can't trust easily.

10. "Shutting down emotional responses and forcing myself to 'not care' about any perceived loss."

Apparently, this made it pretty annoying to discipline me because I would suddenly stop caring about anything that was threatened to be taken away. Nobody really taught me how to properly cope with loss when it started happening, and I guess my response was emotional repression.

11. "I learned to lie rather convincingly. I was petrified of getting in trouble for the smallest things that I learned to hide quite a bit. I had such high anxiety as a kid."

12. "Over apologizing and always questioning if I come off annoying, mean, or disrespectful. Having little to no self esteem. And self neglect."

13. "Not doing anything till the last minute so I feel pressured to do it — and when I finish doing it, I feel useful."

14. "Eating too fast."

I remember noticing this even as a child still. I was always done first. And I never out grew it. Neglect and abandonment issues.

15. "My house is spotless."

Everyone is surprised my house is so clean when I have three kids. It's totally a coping mechanism. If I'm upset or stressed, I clean, and with a baby, I'm stressed a lot.

This behavior comes from my dad throwing epic fits if the house wasn't clean and tidy. He would yell that he has four daughters, so why aren't things clean? I thought if the house was clean, it was one less thing to be yelled at about.

I'm slowly learning that it's OK to leave dishes in the sink or have an unmade bed. A mess still makes me extremely anxious, but I'm doing my best not to pass it on to my kids.

16. "Always being okay having your decisions overridden by others and believing they know best."

Examples: For birthdays, we’d get to pick a restaurant to eat at. I’d pick a place and usually my sister would complain and my parents would override. Being asked what I’d want for Christmas and being told 'No, you don’t' when you tell them what you want. I was super into astronomy growing up, so when I asked for a telescope, I was told more than once I didn’t want it. So I started to believe I didn’t want one.

17. "Self depreciating jokes. If I make fun of myself first it wont hurt as bad when someone else makes fun of me."

18. "Constantly trying to preempt or diffuse situations."

I'm always checking the mood of the room. I'm pretending to laugh to lighten up my parents interactions.

19. "Or shutting down because you have to work out the 'perfect response' in real-time."

And no, screaming at me for being quiet will not make this process go any faster or help to resolve the mind-numbing panic that triggered it in the first place.

20. "I do this, too — and I terrified co-workers when I materialized behind them like a ghost at the copy machine or café counter."

They called me 'The Ghost,' and I laughed along, but kept to myself that I also knew where the exits were and what was between them and myself at any given moment.

Both of my parents had terrible tempers and three out of my four grandparents were abusive (of every kind you could name) people. You are absolutely right to call it a survival tactic.

21. "Daydreaming for me."

Fantasizing with being loved, cared for, and finding the greatest everlasting unconditional love. This has f**ked me up when attempting relationships as an adult.

Having this conundrum today. Wondering whether this is good, problematic, achievable or even realistic, considering my experience and how I see people relate sentimentally to each other around me. Holding on to it or throwing it away for... what? I don't know what I'd want instead.

22. "I keep track of where people are in the house."

 Since you can usually distinguish who is walking by how they sound, you can easily tell where they are. I still do it to this day even when it isn't necessary.

The sound of my mom or dad walking down the stairs always made my blood pressure spike. It was my only warning that they might open my door because they were really bad about not knocking and that meant they were pissed or wanted something. Unfortunately, they could also be walking downstairs for laundry or something else. So I would get worked up for no reason.

23. "Sometimes I wonder if I'm indecisive for similar reasons."

Mine isn't anything malicious. Just being the youngest of three, your opinions generally fall in last for a long time. I became very easy-going/go with the flow, but now I do this thing where I'll be like, 'sure whatever' — and stifle my own desires for others.

24. "I just found out I have a binge eating disorder."

I eat in secret sometimes and overeat. It comes from my childhood and not knowing where my next meal would come from.

25. "This. Gone through my whole life like it, am 24 now."

When I say I'm not all here, I'm REALLY not all here. I'm not anchored, I'm constantly slipping into my head in crazy adventures with consistent characters, settings, universes, and themes. It's like constantly slipping out of reality and into a trippy TV show. I guess it's kinda nice sometimes, but it gets in the way of school, work, and EVERYTHING I try to do.

26. "Making my voice as monotone as possible to prevent people (my parents) from picking up on any tiny hint of emotion."

My parents would lose it if I had 'a tone' or sounded upset in any way. It's taken years and years of practice to regain some emotion in my voice again.

27. "Having three or four different responses ready for every conversation in advance just to prepare for what might come."

My therapist told me this isn’t as normal as I thought it was and apparently other people don’t prepare this much for regular, everyday conversations.

28. "Trying to think/mentally prepare myself for every possible horrible thing that could happen to me, so that if it did, I wouldn’t be blindsided."

It didn’t work. I want to add that my mother died in a freak accident when I was young, and I was blindsided. My coping mechanism was to prepare for situations where a friend or family member is killed out of the blue, so I wouldn’t be caught off guard again. It caused me severe stress and the inability to relax ever. I am older now and therapy has done wonders for me.

29. "I can’t have an aspiration or a dream because I don’t want to disappoint myself."

I can’t even say that I am gonna get a good grade on a specific subject out loud, because I'm scared I will disappoint myself. Same thing happens with other things in my life: when I apply for a specific college, I will just do it and ignore it until I get a result, because I don’t want to get my hopes up and end up not getting accepted. I can’t even have a New Years resolution because somehow I think I would fail, and I would rather already expect that than get my hopes up and fail. I am scared of being disappointed in myself.

30. "Listening for the smallest sounds."

Before I was old enough and had enough money to move out, I could hear the faint sound of the garage door opening because it would always squeak when it opens. I would then bolt upstairs to my room because the garage opening meant that my mom was home. I can distinguish her footsteps easily. I developed a hypersensitivity to sound because of her.

Coping mechanisms are not necessarily always bad as long as they don't have a negative effect on you and turn into bad habits. We have to deal with whatever life throws our way so it's always better to have an escape or a way to make the experience less extreme.

Some of the coping mechanisms mentioned above are quite relatable. If you also have a coping mechanism that you developed in your childhood make sure to share it with us in the comment below!

Ayoub