I’ve Tried All of the Coping Skills…So Why Am I Still Struggling?

Addressing the Root Causes of Mental Health Challenges

By Lindsey Novakowski

A lot of people who come to counselling already have some coping skills. Maybe they saw a TikTok with a breathing technique, or a previous counsellor showed them a way to ground themselves. Examples of coping skills are going for walks, writing out your thoughts in a journal, or sitting down and following a guided meditation. Sometimes these tools work for navigating day-to-day challenges, but it can often feel like nothing is really helping. For people who practice all of the coping skills in the book but still struggle with their mental health, this can start to look like having thoughts such as:

Why isn’t this working?

Am I just bad at this?

Will I always feel this way?

However, I would like to reassure you that if your coping skills aren’t working, that doesn’t mean that you’re failing in some way. Coping skills probably won’t be able to provide longer-term relief if something deeper is going on.

Sometimes coping skills can be seen as the tools needed to completely solve any mental health problems, when actually they are often meant only to help with managing or reducing distress in the moment. Tools like deep breathing or practicing gratitude can be incredibly helpful for when you’re feeling anxious, stressed, or overwhelmed, because they can help bring you back within your window of tolerance. However, if your system is constantly flooded, meaning you’re in a state of fight or flight, or maybe even shutdown, those tools may feel ineffective.

When your nervous system perceives a threat, even if nothing dangerous is currently happening, your body can shift into survival mode. This is when we find ourselves having meltdowns or panic attacks, racing thoughts, lashing out at others, or even numbness and shutdown. When your nervous system is activated like this, some of the parts of your brain that are important for skills like problem-solving and regulating your emotions go a bit offline. In these times, trying to logically think your way through a situation or use a new tool you’ve learned can feel almost impossible.

It isn’t because of lack of effort or a fatal character flaw, but rather your nervous system doing exactly what it knows how to do: protect you. Unfortunately, self-awareness of mental health struggles can enforce feelings of shame for not feeling better, especially if someone theoretically “knows what to do”. The reality of mental health is that coping skills don’t always address the roots of why your nervous system is reacting that way in the first place.

If the nervous system has learned at some point in your life that the world isn’t entirely safe or your emotions aren’t valid and important, we adapt. We may ignore our emotions and push them away, stay in a constant state of hypervigilance, or isolate ourselves and become self-reliant. These are the strategies our systems learn in order to survive. When something in the present day activates those old patterns, it can feel intense, confusing, or hard to control, even if you have coping skills you can use.

Coping skills are so important for supporting yourself in daily life, but they aren’t always enough. Sometimes you might need an approach where you get to slow down and sit with feelings instead of trying to fix them, or where you can build awareness of your body’s responses and increase your capacity to feel.

Traditional talk therapy isn’t always the most effective approach for addressing these challenges. An approach like EMDR is designed to help process the underlying experiences that shape our patterns and our felt sense of safety. Rather than just managing symptoms, EMDR therapy can help the nervous system integrate what has been stored in an unresolved state so that it doesn’t keep getting triggered in the same way. The goal is to move beyond just coping in the moment, shifting deeper understandings and patterns that drive our reactions.

Struggling with coping skills doesn’t mean that you’re doing something wrong, or that you aren’t doing enough. Surviving trauma and still getting through each day is already doing enough! It’s more likely that your nervous system is overwhelmed or your system is trying to protect you in the only way that it knows how. Moving forward means self-compassion and understanding, not self-criticism and adding more coping skills to your to-do list.

If you’ve found yourself feeling frustrated that things “aren’t working”, you’re certainly not alone. These experiences are quite common, and they can begin to shift with the right kind of support that understands how to address deeper patterns that may be driving what you’re experiencing.