A Guide For Sufferers and Carers
Chapter 19 – Building a Personal Coping Toolkit
By the time you reach this point, you may have encountered a wide range of ideas, strategies, and perspectives.
Some may have resonated with you. Some may have felt helpful in small ways. Others may not have felt relevant at all.
This is to be expected.
There is no single approach to coping with depression that works for everyone. What brings relief or stability to one person may feel ineffective, or even frustrating, to another. Each person’s experience is unique, influenced by their own circumstances, personality, history, and the specific way depression shows up in their life. Because of this, it is important to remember that your journey is your own, and what helps you may look quite different from what helps someone else. Recognising this can help to reduce frustration and self-judgement when certain methods do not seem to work, emphasising the importance of exploring and identifying what is most supportive for you personally.
One of the most important steps in managing depression is not simply learning strategies, but identifying which ones work for you.
This is where the idea of a personal coping toolkit becomes useful.
A coping toolkit is not a fixed set of rules or techniques. It is a flexible collection of approaches that you can draw upon in different situations. It evolves over time, adapting to your needs, your energy levels, and your circumstances.
It is personal.
It is practical.
Rather than relying on a single method, your toolkit provides options. When one approach feels difficult or ineffective, another may be more accessible. This flexibility is important, because depression often changes from day to day.
What works on one day may not work on another.
Having a range of strategies allows you to respond to these shifts without feeling that you have run out of options. The first step in building your toolkit is observation. What has helped you, even slightly, in the past? This does not need to be something dramatic or transformative. In fact, it is often the smaller, less obvious actions that are most useful.
- A short walk.
- Listening to a particular piece of music.
- Writing down your thoughts.
- Speaking to a specific person.
These moments may seem minor, but they provide clues. They suggest that something within that action created a small shift, however subtle.
It can be helpful to reflect on these experiences.
What was it about the activity that helped?
- Was it the movement?
- The distraction?
- The sense of connection?
- Or was it the structure it provided?
Understanding this can help you identify similar strategies that may also be effective.
At the same time, it is important to notice what does not help. This is not about focusing on failure, but about refining your understanding. If a particular approach consistently feels overwhelming, frustrating, or ineffective, it may not be the right fit for you at this time. Letting go of strategies that do not work is part of the process.
Your toolkit should feel supportive, not burdensome.
Once you begin to identify helpful approaches, you can start to organise them. One way of doing this is to think in terms of different categories.
For example, you might include:
- Strategies for when you feel overwhelmed.
- Strategies for when you feel low in energy.
- Strategies for when your thoughts become difficult.
- Strategies for when you feel isolated.
This kind of organisation can make your toolkit easier to use.
In the moment, when your capacity is limited, having a clear sense of what might help in a specific situation can reduce the effort required to decide what to do.
Within each category, it can be helpful to include a range of options.
- Some that require very little energy.
- Some that involve a little more effort.
- Some that involve other people.
- Some that you can do on your own.
This variety allows you to match the strategy to your current capacity. For example, on a day when your energy is very low, a small action such as opening a window or sitting in a different room may be more realistic than going for a long walk.
On a day when you have slightly more energy, you may be able to engage in something more active.
Another important aspect of a coping toolkit is accessibility. When you are struggling, it can be difficult to remember what helps.
Your mind may feel foggy. Decision-making may be harder. Even recalling familiar strategies can feel out of reach.
Because of this, it can be useful to make your toolkit visible.
- You might write it down. (wellbeing Journal).
- Keep a list on your phone.
- Place reminders in your environment, Post-it notes around your immediate environment.
This reduces the need to rely on memory. It allows you to refer to your toolkit when you need it, rather than trying to reconstruct it in the moment. It can also be helpful to think of your toolkit as something that you can prepare in advance. For example, you might create a small collection of items that support you.
- A book you find comforting.
- A piece of music that feels grounding.
- A simple activity that you can turn to when you feel stuck.
Having these resources readily available can make it easier to engage with them when your energy is low.
At the same time, it is important to keep your toolkit realistic. It is easy to create a list of strategies that sound helpful in theory, but feel difficult to implement in practice. Your toolkit should reflect what you can actually do, not what you feel you should be able to do.
If a strategy feels consistently out of reach, it may need to be simplified.
For example, instead of “exercise regularly,” your toolkit might include “stand up and stretch for a few moments,” or “walk to the end of the street.”
These smaller actions are more likely to be used, particularly on difficult days.
Another key principle is flexibility as your needs may change over time.
What helps you now may not be as effective in the future. New strategies may become relevant as your situation evolves.
Your toolkit is not something you create once and then leave unchanged.
It is something you return to, adjust, and refine.
You may add new approaches. Remove those that no longer help. Adapt existing strategies to suit your current needs.
This ongoing process is part of developing a deeper understanding of how to support yourself.
It is also important to recognise that a coping toolkit is not a cure. It does not remove depression entirely. What it does is provide ways of responding.
- Ways of managing difficult moments.
- Ways of creating small shifts.
- Ways of maintaining some level of stability.
These responses can make a meaningful difference over time.
- They can reduce the intensity of certain experiences.
- They can create moments of relief.
- They can help you navigate the day with a little more support.
There may be times when none of your strategies seem to work. Moments when everything feels too difficult, or when the usual approaches do not create any noticeable change.
This does not mean that your toolkit has failed.
It reflects the nature of depression.
There will be times when the goal is not to feel better, but simply to get through.
In those moments, even the smallest action can be part of your toolkit.
- Taking a breath.
- Remaining where you are.
- Allowing the moment to pass.
These are also forms of coping.
As you continue to build and use your toolkit, you may begin to notice patterns. Certain strategies may become more familiar. Some may feel more reliable. Others may be useful in specific situations. This familiarity can create a sense of confidence. Not a certainty that you will always feel better, but an understanding that you have ways of responding.
That you are not entirely without options.
It is also worth acknowledging that building a coping toolkit is, in itself, a form of progress. It reflects a shift from feeling completely at the mercy of your experience, to having some degree of influence over how you respond.
This shift may be small, but it is meaningful. It introduces the possibility of choice. Not in a way that places pressure on you to always choose the “right” strategy, but in a way that recognises that there are options available.
Over time, this can change how you relate to your experience.
Depression may still be present.
Difficult moments may still occur.
But alongside these, there is a growing sense that you have ways of navigating them. That you can respond, rather than simply endure. Your toolkit does not need to be perfect. It does not need to be comprehensive. It only needs to be yours.
A collection of small, practical ways of supporting yourself. A set of options that you can return to, again and again.
In those moments when everything feels uncertain, that small sense of having something to reach for can make a difference.
Not by removing the difficulty.
But by helping you to move through it, one step at a time.
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© Richard J Kirk – 2026. If you want to know more, see: About Me…
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