It had been a while since I looked at our bank account. I tensed up as I slid the debit card into the machine. “Declined.” A wave of guilt and embarrassment hit me. Multiple thoughts popped into my brain all at once. I should have been watching our spending better. I should know how much money is in our account before going to the store. At least it’s self-checkout, so I don’t have another person witness my terrible moment or, worse, judge me. I wished it hadn’t happened.
But it did happen. It happened because I chose poor coping skills to deal with financial stress. Instead of engaging and planning, I chose to hide from it, bury my head in the sand, and hope for the best. I’m pretty sure if a pilot tried to land a plane that way, there’d be a crash. Stress and fatherhood go hand in hand, and there are good ways to cope with it and bad ways. The bad ways will lead to poor results, for you and for your family. Here are 4 bad coping mechanisms when dealing with stress.
1. Indulgence
Stress is the worst, and coping well typically takes work and energy. Most of us want to find a quick way to feel different. So we indulge in alcohol, drugs, or food. We may even dive into all three. The problem is the cause of our stress remains and comes back even harder when we’re done indulging. We just end up back in the same place.
The results: We feel good for a short period of time, but we feel even worse on the other side, physically and emotionally.
2. Avoidance/Denial
Yep, this one’s mine. This is one of those bad coping mechanisms I’ve been trying to avoid for years. When the engine light comes on, do you do nothing and hope it goes away? That was me. Fortunately, I’ve improved on that. We need to solve problems, not hope they go away or pretend they aren’t there. Unattended problems grow like bacteria in a Petrie dish. And stress grows with them.
The results: The more you avoid or deny a problem, the worse it gets.
3. Distraction
Similar to avoiding and indulging is distracting ourselves. There are lot of ways to do it—gaming, social media, internet surfing, binge watching TV, porn… If you’re like me, you may even do some long overdue but unnecessary tasks. Now’s a good time to reorganize my tools, right? Anything to keep us from dealing with whatever is causing our stress.
The results: We find we’ve wasted time and have a guilty conscience from procrastinating or engaging in destructive online behavior we should be avoiding.
4. Self-Deprecation
When we’re stressed, we have to put our energy toward something. For many, energy is spent beating ourselves up. Unfortunately, it’s unproductive and has a damaging effect on our self opinion. God has a different view of us, even when we mess up and cause our own stress. He desires for our stress to be relieved as we trust in His provision and care. It’s like what Philippians 4:6 says: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
The results: We wind up with an untrue opinion of ourselves and lower self-esteem.
Sound off: What are some other bad coping mechanisms we could add to this list?
Huddle up with your kids and ask, “What are some good ways to deal with hard feelings?”