Don't know how to take the lack of coping skills sharing.  Guess that means everyone is about to go as nuts as I am.

I've been lucky when it has come to some of the best moments of my life regarding coping skills.  Usually, such skills have come from either others or odd things.

For example, while in the military, I had to deal with this one SFC who was the biggest moron I've ever had to deal with.  I had to deal with this man because the First Sgt was gone.  Anyway, he would not listen to a word of explanation over an issue and seriously, he made me so angry that the only thing that stopped me from physically choking him out was this wonderful, green, new female Lt.  She was with me while speaking to this asshole and saw how angry I was and interceded big time. 

Another time, a coping skill was the telephone and distance.  Near the end of my policing days, I had to continue to deal with an idiot captain who was always right and you were always wrong.  While on the telephone with him at a substation he refuted every factual thing I was telling him and if I had been near him, the phone cord would have been around his neck - things like this and my knowledge of every cop has that "last call" in them, influenced my retirement.  I just had no more time for the bullshit. 

Anyway, a couple of my own coping skills include walking to good music, a good portion of edibles, and trying to hold on to the good times of the past without becoming melancholy over how many important people to me have passed away.

Also, another coping skill has been the lesson of being reminded of enjoying the small things that come from Al Pacino in Once Upon a Time in....Hollywood and how his character relished things like sitting in his home theater while sipping on a drink and enjoying his cigar (though I don't smoke, I get the ritual of what he does and how enjoyable it is).

I have found that finding these "little things" that bring us enjoyment can be coping mechanisms.  For example, sometimes on my walks, I think of how nice it will be to finish and return home and have a glass of unsweetened iced green tea while resting up. Or, the thought of a rare cup of coffee on a chilly night. 

One of my latest "little things" is how our recent newlywed had to return to the US for visa application reasons and on her temporary return trip she brought me three bottles of Irn-Bru.  I've already had one and I am saving the other two for some sort of special occasion (but it is hard because they are calling to me from the crisper). So, looking forward to things is also a coping skill.

I just hope on election day, trump is finally put out to pasture.