Are you ‘ugly coping’?

In tough times, author Viv Groskop’s coping strategies have been messy, even dysfunctional. But that may not always be a bad thing, as she explains here.

There have been times in my life – especially in my 20s – when I’ve got through things by occasionally being what you might describe as a temporary hot mess. Until recently, I kind of thought that parenting, ageing and adult life had squeezed that tendency out of me. Then COVID hit. I felt hemmed in, stressed and stir-crazy with home schooling, and suddenly I was back to my younger ways of ‘failing sideways’. These are basically behaviours that don’t land you in prison or completely ruin your life but are, in the long term, a bad idea and, in the short term, a bad look.

What did that look like on me? Well, where to start? Maybe with the crate of wine I bought two weeks into the pandemic – the same crate that had mysteriously ‘disappeared’ soon after. I kidded myself that I was someone organised, chic and discerning, who ordered expensive wine by the crate and had an evolved understanding of mature, considered self-care. In reality, I was simply someone who wanted to drink a lot of wine.

During the ups and downs of the lockdown era, I experienced an ebb and flow of managing and not managing. Sometimes I was okay and feeling like we were heading out of this. One week, I could be in the zone: eating like Gwyneth Paltrow’s nutritionist and perfecting the plank with twicedaily yoga for seven days straight. Then, the next week would be spent on the sofa mainlining choc biscuits. Let’s call this ‘behavioural inconsistency’ because it sounds better than ‘WTF?’

CHASING COMFORT

Over time, I’ve developed a reaction to these moments, which is a combination of shame, frustration and half-hearted self-forgiveness. I feel like I shouldn’t do these things, but also that they’re basically human. I mean, no one’s perfect, right? Generous friends have admitted to similar incidences of messy resilience, exacerbated by the stress of the past couple of years. Bulk ordering from online sales for non-existent social events. Buying multiple pairs of designer heels when, in your heart, you know you’ll never wear anything other than trainers ever again. Binge-watching Bridgerton/Outlander/Game Of Thrones. (My personal record is the entirety of Line of Duty in a six-day period. It’s a great show, but this amount of screen engagement does really weird things to your perception of crime levels.)

The list goes on. ‘Ugly coping’ is a first resort when you’re facing challenges you can’t predict or control. Like convincing yourself that you’re not showering daily because, well, the earth is in peril

and, er, you’ll have a bath tomorrow. Or signing up to a cut-price annual online exercise subscription and logging in twice in the first week and then never again. Veering between ‘I can do anything’ euphoria and not wanting to get out of bed. Queer Eye’s Jonathan Van Ness has an expression for this state: ‘Struggs. To. Func.’ (Struggling to function.) It turns out, though, this kind of low-impact human failure is useful. George Bonanno, a professor of psychology in the US, has identified ‘ugly coping’ as a key feature of grieving. The messier and more unpredictable the grieving process, the more likely you are to feel better sooner.

MAKING YOU STRONGER

Coping isn’t meant to be pretty. Now psychologists are applying this theory to the pandemic. So, it’s okay to resort to the things that have, er, come to some of us naturally – having rather a lot of duvet days, getting pantsdrunk (a cheery Finnish expression), having mood swings, starting then

Coping isn’t meant to be

pretty.

abandoning things, being on some level ‘dysfunctional’. This ties into other research suggesting that resilience isn’t something you are but something you actively do – and sometimes the doing of it can be very messy. I find this entirely joyous, as I seem to have lurched from one neurotic crisis to the next over the course of the past two years. Turns out my ‘temporary hot mess’ technique was a good instinct. Psychiatrist Dennis Charney, co-author of Resilience, says that ‘controlled stressful experiences’ (that is, experiences that don’t place you in physical danger) help you develop a psychological toolkit that makes you stronger and more versatile.

This might not always look like an evolved version of moving on, but as long as the messiness doesn’t continue indefinitely, it can help you bounce back. It’s a relief to know that ‘ugly coping’ isn’t harmful. But I also feel that, once you’ve done quite a lot of it, you’ve got it out of your system. So, no repeat wine crate orders for me.