Share Your Coping Techniques

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I thought making a thread like this could help some of us learn more coping mechanisms to help our struggle with the everyday difficulties of Autism. Not sure if this will help anyone else but...

Since I was in elementary school I have been using a coping mechanism that has helped with what I now know are meltdowns, also just general depression and anxiety. I cross my arms over my chest and lay against the back of the couch face first, to me it feels like someone is holding me, it's comforting and seems to help the feelings of dread, loneliness, anxiety and panic that come often in my life.

Try to remember from experience that the worst case scenario does not usually happen.

This is a good thread idea!

One of my coping techniques is my love for, and spending time with, animals.

have found that the company of animals boosts my sense of well-being enormously, and seems to give me a respite from my depression, which is of a constant "low-grade" nature not enough to medicate, but enough that I need to implement home-grown coping techniques to keep myself above the water line of the depression rather than sinking under it.

Animals, interacting with them, feeding, caring for, be it pets, or wild birds in your garden or at the local park, can be very good therapy for feelings of mild depression, stress, anxiety. I find that they "take me out of myself." They are like my medication.

I feel happier and probably have the "feel good" hormones and chemicals releasing in my brain and body, after being around animals.

So if you like animals, they can help enormously. Emotional support animals and service animals, animals that are taken to care homes, hospitals and hospices, having a pet, all of these are because animals can be so beneficial to well being.

Deep breathing with my eyes closed and making my body go limp as possable. Like an intentional shutdown.

Talking to myself second person and saying comforting things.

Using my hug pillow.

Try to plunge myself into my gaming world and become absorbed in it.

Eat comfort food.

I have happy places in my mind that I go to when things get tough.

For everyday anxiety, I run or do hard exercise for at least an hour a day. This is not easy as I have asthma, and it feels awful, but I find that afterwards I am much calmer, perhaps due to the total exhaustion of my body. Many autistic crave pressure, and I find that the "just got hit by a bus feeling" is a very similar experience. If i'm at home and am coping badly, I fill the bathtub with freezing water and float with the lights off. If I'm around people, usually doing inane, repetitive things helps, like touching each finger to my thumb in order over and over.

Watching docus about something that interests me while touching an object I like.

For less questionable or 'distracting' stimming, get a clay. If you have enough fine motor skills, you can do some crafting.

For frustrations in general, take a deep breath and try again. Or take a break if time allows you to.

For executive functioning, always remember that if you get dirty, you can wash again. And if you can't finish the task before you have to move on, do a quick clean up or return things before leaving.

For anxiety in general, have a comfort item. Be a bit of a temporary fatalist and do your best.
But then, take your time on this.

For depression, whenever you say or thought on the lines of 'I don't want to--', count it. Seriously.

For occassional/major changes, associate the current with any color of your choice. If there is a change, switch the mental color. It's ok if it's too sudden or on real time change of 'by seconds/minutes' unless you have a processing speed of a supergenius.

Lastly, if one doesn't want to 'cope' with an unnatural state of socializing, make it feel right not forcing yourself to. Masking won't work well, but making your inner self do things right would.
You can make a greeting less comfortable, jarring, or some culture shock is not with repetition or conditioning, but making it feel right. Because that's what a greeting do, to make others feel welcome.
Do not dodge mistakes, learn from it and figure it out. I know people are fed up with that. Learn from your 'actings' if you had.
Forgive yourself, then you can remember what happened and have the time to learn later. See your mistakes.


Yes, I prefer long terms than every day short terms.
But that doesn't mean I never been there before. These were just some of my coping techniques back when I needed one.

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I don't cope very well with my own problems. I really like to give advice to other people, but then it is really easy for me to think about someone else's troubles.

I tell myself, if someone misunderstands what I say, then I can always clear up the misunderstanding. That is something that I have been trying since I first started posting here. Before coming to Wrong Planet, I didn't talk about my problems with anyone other than my therapist. So, yes, it's very hard, and I have to push myself past my own anxiety to see that any social difficulties ultimately don't matter in the end.

Other than that? Well.... I'm trying. I'm trying really hard. I have been studying photographs, attempting to categorize my own emotions. It's helping a lot. Greatly even. I use Pinterest to search through hundreds and hundreds of images. I pick the ones that I relate to the most and I put them into one of several categories of feelings. It is a very interesting study of myself, to see that I pick so very few images from literally hundreds of pictures, and to come to the understanding that my way of thinking is very abnormal. Sure, I pick a lot of photographs that other people do, but to clearly see my mind processing information, to see it constantly rejecting everything but a handful of pictures to describe my emotions... it's extremely enlightening. I also find it really disturbing.