Coping Mechanisms that got you through tough training moments

[PrincessFiona]

What helped you/is helping you get through the tough days of training? Do you have suggestions for those in the trenches?

[PrincessFiona]

1. Calling my mom
2. Marathon movie/tv series time on call nights
3. Going in to the hospital for dinner on call nights

[Vanquisher]

1. Food
2. IMSN
3. Completely flying off the handle about once a month.
4. I don't think I coped that well.

[WolfpackWife]

I'll have to give a +10000 to Heidi's #'s 2 & 3. There's a trend in my posts here that are cyclical when about once a month I find myself really down and emotional (hormones, obviously) for a couple of days.

During those days I try not to obsess over all the things that are my "triggers"...how much I miss our old life, how much I want to go home, how little I see DH, how little I will continue to (not) see DH, all of the unknowns, all of the bleak stories and experiences you read here (which isn't to say anything negative about iMSN...it's just a reality check that you can't really find elsewhere. The thing I am able to realize once I get out of that funk is that so many people use iMSN as a place to let it all out...which is something most people aren't inclined to do when things are going swimmingly in their lives. Nor are they always inclined to pitch in about how great their experience was when a thread is talking about how many struggles people encounter. But those stories and good/better experiences exist!).

If I find that I just can't help but obsess over those triggers (and those are the days when I write really weepy and scared posts here, knowing people can relate and have been in my shoes and have gotten past it. Many of those days include a few trips to the bathroom to cry quietly), I just let myself have a bad couple of days. I'll go home and cry, refuse to cook and tell DH to order a pizza, take a Xanax and get in bed and binge watch something. Sometimes treating myself to a few new books helps.

I do try really hard on those "down" days to not engage with DH because I have found it is all too easy to transfer all of my anxieties on to him and before I know it, we're in a "WHAT IF X DOESN'T HAPPEN, HOW CAN I BE HAPPY KNOWING WORK WILL TAKE UP YOUR ENTIRE LIFE, WHAT IF I NEVER ADJUST TO THIS" argument and he's just super fed up with those. With good reason, too!

[Thirteen]

Having the dogs sleep in our room while he was gone.
Cooking my own food (or not!) on call nights.
Watching shows that I like.
IMSN.
Working out.
Occasionally hanging out with Lamorna and her crew.


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[mommax3]

Focusing just on the day ahead of me, not the weeks/months/years DH had left as a resident.

Preschool

Working part-time

iMSN

[Sheherezade]

*Routines
*Making close friends through my kids
*Cheap or free pleasures in the city (parks, museum memberships, feeding the ducks, carousels)
*Putting a tv in the bedroom, because DH would fall asleep minutes after he got home but we were "together" while I watched something after the kids went to sleep


Angie

[lovelight]

Reality TV and hanging out with my single friends (since they are the people who typically want to go out...all my married friends are busy spending time with their husbands lol).


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[ladymoreta]

Limiting my thoughts to one thing at a time. Like Mommax3, if I let myself start thinking about the big picture, I would be too stressed out. But I could handle making a grocery list. I may not have even been able to process *when* I could go grocery shopping, but if the list was made, I could work on that in the future. It was a very present-focused life, especially once the kids were born.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

Making plans on call weekends, ALWAYS. Like we don't even have time for free play on call weekends because I always, always have set up multiple play dates/activities/dinner with friends, etc. I cannot just do 48 hours at home waiting and hoping he gets out.

Having our nanny stay over for dinner (if her BF is traveling) - just socially. Someone to hang out with and she's only 3 years younger than me.

Exercise - I always need my run. Always. Every morning. Because my children are quiet on the run and I can think.

[MAPPLEBUM]

Thinking about what *I* want to do. My goals, my pleasures, my preferences. That way when he's around I'm all the more happy but his presence does not depend on me enjoying the fuck out of life. When I resent carrying the mother load I pretend I'm single. When I lament how my life may have turned out differently (read: better) I remind myself that's all just fucking speculation.

That means if I'm home when he gets back from work it's because I want to be on the couch and aren't waiting for him. Many times I've already gone out to eat or for drinks. With friends or alone. I wanted to go on vacation this month and the thought of it stressed him out. So I went alone, met up with friends and made friends too. I strive to really appropriate the phrase 'my happiness does not depend on anyone but myself.'

[reciprocity]

This month has been a little rough, but I'm still enjoying this more than lawyering/med school (when we were both super busy)

Making plans with friends/gaming groups (especially on long call days), finding joy in the homemaking stuff (I'm still at the "really enjoying it" stage), getting out of the apartment during the day a few times a week to do something OTHER than run errands (work in a coffee shop, visit friends, window shopping), also I'm in better shape now than I've been since law school probably, so that's a fun diversion (even though the only gym in our neighborhood is terrible and always crowded, but it's a nice exercise in patience)

[SoonerTexan]

My family. Babysitting and phone calls and random visits and help during mass when I'm alone

Browsing homes on realtor.com

Texting IMSN friends

[GrayMatterWife]

I never had an "OM word, how am I going to get through this....residency is so awful!" moment. But, I think I didn't because (1) I had very low expectations to start with, (2) we were fundamentally happy, (3) the residency program was not my enemy, and (4) I did not spend the residency years "biding time" for my life to start (a lot of people I know do this..."as soon as residency is over, I can..."). But, most of all, I had the comfort of knowing: this too shall pass. We had been through a nine year MD-PhD training that was a lot more emotionally grinding. Residency seemed easy compared to his bat-sh*t crazy but brilliant PhD mentor, etc. I knew that residency was a finite period of time and then it would be over. I can deal with that.

That being said, I think that also is why the transition to attendinghood has been so wrenching. As I have mentioned, I LOATHE my new town, with every fiber of my soul. I am profoundly unhappy here. It is a miserable place to be and my life has, on many accounts, been wrecked. I have lost many of my dreams. Almost overnight. **poof** And there is NO time limit--there is no foreseeable end to this. We very well may be here the rest of my life. DH's job is fantastic and he is doing really well. It would be almost impossible to get a better gig somewhere else. So I have nothing to hold onto, no hope of the situation changing. I can't leave because we have four kids who need their dad and I don't want to live away from him, either. I am happily married. I get through one day at a time. Today I am going to get up and be the wife, mother, teacher, and lawyer that I need to be because I have no choice and my kids need that stability. This is not their burden and they are happy--I am not taking that happiness from them by saddling them with my personal sh*t. I guess my advice on that account--when you can't see any hope or an end to your disappointment and frustration: try to find one positive thing about your day every day. Even if it is just "No one died today." It sounds stupid, but a little be a practiced gratitude can build an ingrained pattern of it.

[MAPPLEBUM]

that's beautiful, GMW. I don't know what id do of I found myself in a life I didn't want without an end date. a similar ing happened to my SIL but their town eventually grew of her. I hope something like tht happens to you.

recpty, what's going on this month that made it rough? any travel plans in the foreseeable future? even a weekend away?


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