Mood Ring host Anna Borges talks about coping mechanisms like binge-watching television and late-night gaming. Are those behaviors unhealthy and reasons to feel guilty, or are they fine to help you deal with what’s going on in your life?

Anna is joined by licensed mental health counselor Jor-El Caraballo to unpack how we can tell if our coping mechanisms are helpful or harmful, and how to enjoy them without all that shame.

Full Transcript

Anna Borges: Alright, I’m gonna…I’m gonna tell you something…

Every once in a while, I get this taste of what I imagine it must be like to be...well-adjusted? You know like, whole stretches of time where I’m not ruminating or anxious or lonely or sad. I am just...chill.

...And then, Netflix will ask me…

NETFLIX TUDUM

 “Are you still watching?”

And the illusion is shattered. And I’m forced to see my sad reflection in my smudged laptop screen, and all the thoughts and feelings I’m avoiding come bubbling back up.

MUSIC

If I were the person I wanted to be, this would be the moment I say, “You know what, Netflix? No, I’m not still watching. I’m going to go do all the things I told myself I was going to do today.”

But I’m me. So I hit “next episode” and sink back into numb, distracted bliss.

Binge-watching TV is a shitty coping mechanism of mine. And if we’re all being honest with ourselves and each other, you probably have one too.

Maybe your thing is video games. That’s…also my thing.

Maybe you’re partial to falling down the TikTok rabbit hole, scrolling and scrolling and scrolling.

Or maybe swiping endlessly on dating apps and window-shopping for validation. Or real shopping. Our producer Jordan loves to obsessively order home goods from Amazon.

Most of us have those things that we do for our mental health in the moment even though we know they’re probably not all that good for our mental health in the long run. And that’s fine! It’s totally human to want to distract ourselves, or soothe ourselves, or whatever it is your thing does for you.

Except…I don’t know about you, but I probably spend as much time judging myself for my shitty coping mechanisms as I do actually enjoying them. Which kind of defeats the purpose. But that doesn’t mean I have to stop, right?

THEME MUSIC

Hey friends, what’s up? I’m Anna Borges and this is Mood Ring: A Practical Guide to Feelings. Even when you feel like a swamp person with terrible coping mechanisms. Every episode, we’ll explore one new way to cope — with our feelings, with our baggage, with our brain, or with the world around us.

Anna: If you thought today’s episode was going to be about kicking these shitty coping habits to the curb, don’t worry. It’s not that kind of show. No, this episode is about how we can stop thinking about them as “shitty” in the first place and how we can tell when they’re helpful or harmful, and how we can enjoy them without all the guilt and shame.

Here to help us unpack it is our guest Jor-El Caraballo. He’s a licensed mental health counselor and the cofounder of a health and wellness practice called Viva Mental Health and Wellness.

Anna: I know how I think about coping mechanisms and what they mean but as a mental health professional, what is your kind of official definition of coping mechanisms?

Jor-El: Yeah, it's, it's funny, because coping mechanisms, coping skills, any of those kind of terms we use, are really about the things we do the tools we utilize to manage our feelings and our thoughts manage our mental health. So they could be very sophisticated things. I don't know, like electromagnetic cranial stimulation, or they could be other things like journaling. And it really, it really depends on what someone finds the most helpful. But there's s uch a wide range of tools that we have access to that help us manage.

Anna: Yeah, I tend to think about it in terms of things that we can do ourselves without professional intervention. Does that kind of vibe?

Jor-El: Yeah, yeah, I like that.

Anna: Yeah. Cuz I kind of have, or, at least in my circles, coping like mechanisms, that word has a specific connotation that does lean negative versus like coping strategies. And so I'm curious, like, Are there good and bad coping mechanisms? Like that's how I categorize them? How do you tend to think about that?

Jor-El: That's a, that's a really good question because the way I have my default setting, so to speak, is that coping mechanisms have no value. Morally, they, it's really anything because anything that you do any strategy can be good or bad, depending on how or when it's applied. So just for like, a very, like, this is super like traditional psychoanalytic, right? So denial, for instance, is a defense mechanism or a coping mechanism that we all have the capacity for, right? Which basically says, we don't, we don't acknowledge what we're feeling in the moment, if, especially if it's like a painful feeling that comes up for us. So we're just like, No, I'm good, fine. Everything's cool, right? And in some instances, that is actually a really helpful tool, where you might be limited in your use of other strategies or tools. But in other situations, or if you rely on that perpetually, as your one go to, then obviously, you're going to end up in a place where you're very disconnected with reality. Right? Because you're walking around saying, like, no, that's not happening. This is not happening. I'm not here. I'm over here,

Anna: Oh, wow! Are you dragging me right now? Is this our therapy session?

[Jor-El laughs]

Anna: I mean, I basically invited you on to be like, please tell me what I do is okay, give me like a professional stamp of approval. But yeah, so it sounds to me what I'm hearing is that there's also a line between maybe conscious coping mechanisms and like unconscious ones, because I don't know that I recognize in the moment when I'm in denial, but I definitely recognize when I'm binge watching 12 seasons of some show.

Jor-El: Yeah, and I think something like denial because it is, you know, as Freud would argue that it is innate. And so it is much easier for that to kind of roll by in our subconsciousness. And so it's hard to kind of catch that that's happening in the moment. Usually, there are those little moments that happen afterwards, at least for me, I'm like, “Oh…I was lying.”

Anna: I love that we’re bringing Freud into this. Like very early. Like, welcome to the conversation, Freud.

Jor-El: He’s been on my mind lately, you know?

Anna: Just always. So I'm thinking a lot about the kind of like conscious coping mechanisms, you know, the ones that we perhaps feel a certain way about in the moment, you know, like I mentioned, mine, it's going to be my go to, I am very into the escapism, play a lot of video games, watch a lot of TV will do it for a very long period of time. And then, of course, as I'm doing it, even though it's like what I want to do, I just feel like guilty and like crap, and like, judging myself and not enjoying it in the moment. Is that common? Like, do you see this in your work?

Jor-El: Yeah, I think it's really common. I mean, especially if we're talking about living through a global pandemic. I think it's really common for people to be using some skills that are finding ways to cope, that they're like, Ah, this isn't the best. Like, I don't feel great doing it. And I think, I don't know, I think that everything needs to happen in moderation. And so I always talk to people about having, like, you, obviously going to have your go to is like, I don't know, binge watching. Whatever show, right. I've been binge watching Frasier. You know, unsurprisingly, you know, more times than I can count. But, you know, it's like being able to have various things at your disposal, you should always have a toolbox, because sometimes it doesn't, it's not good to do one thing to escape, maybe you need different things to escape, maybe you need a little space to lean into something, and then you can pop back out, you know, back into escapism.

Anna: I don’t pop out. That's my problem. Yeah, I live there.

Anna: Hey. I’m just glad to know that all those nights I spent staying up until 3am playing Breath of the Wild or Fire Emblem 3 Houses or whatever my flavor of the week was  wasn’t for nothing. In fact, I think I’m going to go ahead and add playing video games to my coping mechanism toolbox. Officially. For real. After the break, we’ll finish up our interview with Jor-El Caraballo and talk about some of the most common coping mechanisms that come up in his work.

MIDROLL

Anna: Hey, welcome back to Mood Ring. I’m Anna Borges. Before the break we were talking about our shitty coping mechanisms, and by that I mean our awesome coping mechanisms that we’re working toward embracing,  with licensed therapist Jor-El Caraballo. Let’s get back to it.

Anna: I would actually love to pause like, because we're binge watchers, it sounds like but for people who might not be this might not be like their go to I'm curious if you have any examples of other shame inducing, like, quote, unquote, shitty coping mechanisms that like you hear from from people you work with?

Jor-El: Eating, it's right up there. Specifically like comfort food. And it's just so interesting, because, again, like, I come from this mindset that even something like that, like comfort food has definitely gotten this bad rap. Because like, Oh, it's just all the bad things you want to eat. First of all, there are no bad things. Second of all, they they're com