Did it keep me from texting my ex at 8 p.m.? Surprisingly, yes.
Did it also make me spiral into a series of questionable behaviors that raised more than a few eyebrows in the group chat? Also yes.
Coping is a full-time job. Sometimes it looks like healthy journaling, and sometimes it looks like standing in front of the fridge for the 19th time in a single night, grabbing an icy Sprite with that satisfying bubble sting in the back of your throat, pretending it’ll fix the ache. Other times it’s just…eating everything in sight because you’re smack dab in your binge-eating era and grief is loud and hungry.
This essay is not about the right way to cope. It’s about the ways we do cope — the ways that may make our friends pause mid-text like, uh… you good?
Let’s get into it.
The Hyperfixation Hole
You’ve never knitted before in your life. But now? Now you own six skeins of ethically sourced yarn and follow three crafting influencers. You binge-watch Japanese craft videos at 2 a.m, and you have a whole Notes app tab labeled “sock patterns.”
The hyperfixation hobby hole starts small — maybe it’s puzzles, maybe it’s nail art, maybe you suddenly care deeply about urban foraging — but soon you’re up all night learning how to pickle radishes, how to ferment your own kimchi or wallpaper your bathroom. It’s not hurting anyone, but your friends are definitely confused when your entire personality becomes “beekeeping queer with boundary issues” overnight.
Bonus points if you tried to turn it into a small business before the grief wore off.
The Body Rebellion Phase
This isn’t a glow-up. This is a meltdown in skinny jeans.
Maybe it’s a new septum ring or chopping off all your hair or bleaching it platinum blonde despite your curls pleading for mercy. You might find yourself impulse-buying latex or developing an entire aesthetic based on a minor celebrity who just got canceled (it happens) or tattooing a phrase in Swahili across your ribs that means “I’m still here.”
It’s not about vanity — it’s about control. It’s your body, and after loss or heartbreak or betrayal, sometimes reclaiming it means pushing it to extremes. It’s survival. It’s screaming ownership over a body that’s been to hell and back.
From the outside, your friends are texting: “You okay? Need to talk?”
From the inside? You feel alive again. Even if only for a moment.
The Detachment Disguise
“I’m fine. Really. So fine.”
Unbothered. Completely emotionally disengaged. You’re not sad — you’re thriving! Cue 17 mirror selfies, all from the exact same angle, smiling through the detachment like it’s a cute new aesthetic.
The detachment disguise is one of the more insidious coping mechanisms. You might tell yourself you’re just “focusing on yourself,” but deep down, you know it’s numbness wearing lip gloss.
This is the ghost phase — dropping out of group chats, cancelling plans, and rebranding yourself as the “no drama, no feelings” friend.
To your friends, you look strong. To you? It feels hollow. But the thought of opening up makes your throat close. So you keep smiling for the Stories, pretending your heart isn’t quietly splintering.
The Eat Pray Love Escape Plan
This one’s for the dramatic queers. You know who you are!
You sell your furniture on Facebook Marketplace, book a one-way ticket, and next thing you know you’re sending selfies from a village in Italy or a cafe in Cape Town, captioning it with, “Healing looks like this ❤️✨”
And hey — it might! But you didn’t tell anyone you left. You ghosted your whole life. The relationship, the job, the city, the run-down apartment, even the parts of yourself you no longer recognized.
To the friends you ghosted, though? It stings. It feels like being left behind, abandonment. This phase can look freeing, but it often leaves people around you confused and worried, unsure if you’re actually okay or just performing freedom with a sunset backdrop.
The Hoe Phase
A classic. A messy one. Arguably, a necessary one.
After a long stint as someone’s steady partner, you bust out the dating apps like it’s a competitive sport. You’re texting five people, juggling three group chats, and suddenly experimenting with orgies or becoming a third.
Maybe you’re poly now. Or maybe you’re just wildly avoidant.
Your friends? They’re alarmed — not because you’re exploring your sexuality, but because you’re disappearing into rapid-fire hookups. You’re not texting back. You’re not grounded. You’re not present. You’re saying “I’m just having fun,” but the burnout is visible in your eyes.
This phase isn’t inherently bad. But it can be a neon sign blinking “I’m hurting” in bedazzled letters. And sometimes your people see it before you do.
The Notes App Book You Lock in a Digital Time Capsule
One thing I did for sure the last time I was hurt? I wrote an entire book. It started as stray lines in the Pages app on my iPhone — raw, unedited feelings with no real goal. Not quite a journal, not quite poetry. Just truth.
Eventually, it became 200 pages of frozen time. Some entries were longform essays, some were four-line stabs of pain. I didn’t mean to write a book. I just needed somewhere to bleed that wasn’t a text message, whatsApp status, or a Twitter thread.
And heres the thing, its never quite finished. I run to those pages and bleed all over them at every inconvenience.
So, Why Does Any of This Matter?
Because coping — however wild, messy, or eyebrow-raising — is about survival.
But we don’t survive in vacuums.
Whether it’s ghosting your group chat, crying into the arms of someone you met two hours ago, or disappearing to Thailand without notice, our ways of coping echo out into the lives of the people who love us. Our friends. Our siblings-in-queerness. The ones who do text back even when we don’t.
And sometimes they can’t pull us out of the rabbit holes we dive into. Sometimes we don’t even want them to. But what’s worth reflecting on is this: Coping isn’t just about getting through something hard. It’s about who we are on the other side. And what damage — or distance — we create along the way.
Sometimes, those people can’t pull us out of the rabbit holes we dive into. Sometimes, we don’t want them to.
But it’s worth reflecting on this: Coping isn’t just about making it through the dark. It’s about who we become on the other side.
And what damage — or distance — we leave behind along the way.
There’s no shame in coping. None.
But there is radical power in recognizing how our survival tactics affect others — in choosing to let someone witness the mess, instead of hiding it behind a septum ring, a plane ticket, or a phone full of unreturned texts.
I still do all of the above.
I just try to name it now.
Sometimes out loud. Sometimes just to myself.
Sometimes in the group chat, where someone finally texts: “Okay… but are you okay?”
And this time, I say: “Not really. But thanks for asking.”
Autostraddle’s Pride 2025 theme is DEVIANT BEHAVIOR. Read more, and be deviant!
Thank you for this! My sister passed in September, and I think about coping mechanisms a lot (and talk through them with my therapist lol). I really appreciate the framing of the transformative process of it all!
I really like this framing, thank you