On coping mechanisms

An upfront apology: what follows is a bit of a meandering mess. But it's the weekend, and I don't quite have the patience to self-edit today.

People are ridiculously complicated creatures. Try to untangle what makes us tick, and you could drive yourself crazy. And never are we more complicated, or more messy, than when we are trying to process something - when all sorts of unexpected or unusual emotions move in and squat in our subconscious, making us behave like strangers.

For example, when we lose someone (and, full disclosure, I have recently had to part company with someone I loved very much), our brains do very odd things to help us process what has happened. With the benefit of reflection or hindsight, I find those reactions - often erratic and irrational - utterly fascinating. They seem to be different from person to person, and follow no logical pattern that I can fathom.

Some people shut down completely, withdrawing into themselves and taking the burden of their grief onto their shoulders alone. Others lash out, interpreting sadness as anger - perhaps finding that emotion easier to express. Still more will put on a brave face, and throw themselves into distraction to push the feelings down and ignore them. I imagine a lot of people would pick d) all of the above.

Because feelings of loss, in whatever form it comes and they come, are big and scary and overwhelming, we all understandably develop coping mechanisms to get through. And I am left wondering what an individual's coping mechanisms say about that person.

In the past week, I have: sought comfort from close friends and people who love me; distracted myself with trips to the theatre, a country fair, and my favourite coffee shop; thrown myself into work as much as possible; written and discarded several overly personal blog posts before sitting down to write this one; and, today (because it felt necessary), consumed almost an entire tub of Ben & Jerry's ice cream before crawling inside my duvet cover with my laptop and listening to Amy Winehouse songs. That I have crammed all of that into less than a week is unusual behaviour for me, to say the least.

I guess my brain can't quite understand what I've done to it, and seems to be directing me to try anything I can think of to return it to normal. I genuinely have no idea whether my coping mechanisms are any stranger than anyone else's. It does, however, strike me that this messiness is the perfect evidence for the human condition. And by that, I mean the thing that sits somewhere above biology and how we're physically put together to make us all unique - all a bit crazy - and all a sodding mess.

As an atheist who doesn't really buy into an afterlife or a spirit, as such, I can't unscramble in my head what I think this human condition is - how it happens, and why we're all so different. But although it makes us complicated, and difficult, and perplexing...I also think it makes us kind of wonderful. Thank God we're more than just our biology, even if it does make me question my sanity when I'm hiding in a duvet-sheet-nest and experiencing one hell of a sugar crash.