Welcome to IVF This Episode 205: IVF & Performative Coping

Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends.

Today I want to talk about something that I think many of us are doing without even realizing we're doing it.

Performative coping.

And before you immediately think:

"I'm not performing anything."

Stay with me.

Because when I say performative coping, I'm not talking about being fake.

I'm not talking about lying.

I'm not talking about pretending you're okay when you're not.

I'm talking about something much more subtle.

I'm talking about the gap that can develop between what you're actually experiencing and what you believe you're supposed to look like while experiencing it.

The gap between authentic coping and socially acceptable coping.

Because here's the strange contradiction we live inside.

We talk about emotions more than ever before.

We talk about therapy.

We talk about trauma.

We talk about healing.

We tell people to feel their feelings.

We tell people that all feelings are valid.

And on paper, that's beautiful.

But in practice?

I think many of us have discovered that not all feelings are equally welcome.

You can be sad.

Just not for too long.

You can be angry.

Just not in a way that makes anyone uncomfortable.

You can be struggling.

Just make sure you're also resilient.

You can be grieving.

Just don't make it awkward for everyone else.

The message often becomes:

You can have feelings.

Just not those feelings.

Not that intensely.

Not for that long.

And nowhere do I see this contradiction more clearly than in infertility and IVF.

Because infertility doesn't fit neatly into the emotional scripts people understand.

It's repetitive.

It's invisible.

It's uncertain.

It's ongoing.

And because of that, many women slowly begin learning how to perform coping rather than experience it.

I think part of what makes performative coping so seductive is that most of us inherited a pair of archetypes long before infertility ever entered the picture.

On one side, there's The Good Infertile Woman.

She's hopeful.

Resilient.

Positive.

Strong.

Grateful.

She handles things with grace.

She finds meaning in the struggle.

She inspires other people.

She's sad sometimes, but never consumed by it.

Angry sometimes, but never overtaken by it.

She's suffering, but she's suffering correctly. Quietly. 

And on the other side is the woman we're silently warned not to become.

The Bitter Infertile Woman.

The resentful one.

The jealous one.

The angry one.

The one who can't celebrate other people's pregnancies.

The one who can't seem to move on.

The one whose grief has become too visible.

Too uncomfortable.

Too inconvenient.

Now, to be clear, these are caricatures.

They're cultural stories.

But I think many of us have absorbed them nonetheless.

Because society doesn't just tell us what to aspire to.

It also tells us what to avoid.

It says:

Be resilient.

Be hopeful.

Be grateful.

And underneath that message is another one:

Because you don't want to become bitter, right?

You don't want to become one of those women.

And so many women find themselves trapped between these two identities.

Not allowing themselves to fully acknowledge their anger because they're afraid it means they're becoming bitter.

Not allowing themselves to fully acknowledge their jealousy because they're afraid it means they're becoming resentful.

Not allowing themselves to fully acknowledge the depth of their grief because they're afraid it means they're losing themselves.

So instead, they perform The Good Infertile Woman.

Not because she's authentic.

But because she feels safer. She feels accepted. 

But I will say, I don't think either of these women actually exists.

I think they're archetypes. No one is fully either one. 

They are cultural characters society created to tell women how they're supposed to suffer.

A few episodes ago we talked about emotional perfectionism.

The belief that there is a right way to feel.

A right way to grieve. A right way to process. A right way to experience IVF. 

Performative coping is emotional perfectionism's public relations department.

Emotional perfectionism says:

I need to feel correctly.

Performative coping says:

I need people to see me feeling correctly.

Now we're not just monitoring our emotions.

We're monitoring how our emotions are perceived.

Not:

Am I okay?

But:

Do I look okay?

Not:

What am I feeling?

But:

What will people think if they see what I'm feeling?

And that shift changes everything.

I think underneath performative coping is a hidden question most people never say out loud.

But it's there.

The question is:

What version of my suffering will still be lovable?

Not:

What is true?

But:

What is acceptable?

What version of this grief will allow me to remain the strong one?

The capable one?

The positive one?

The easy one?

The good one?

And my beautiful friends, that's a heartbreaking question.

Because it means we've stopped asking ourselves what we need.

And started asking ourselves what everyone else can tolerate.

But here’s the thing: I don't actually think most performative coping is for other people.

I think it's for us.

Because if I asked most people what they want when they say:

"I just want to cope better."

What they often mean is:

"I want this to stop affecting me so much."

I want to stop crying.

I want to stop thinking about it.

I want to stop feeling devastated.

I want to stop feeling jealous.

I want to stop feeling terrified.

I want to put on my big girl pants and muscle through.

I want zero emotional upheaval.

And I get it.

Of course we do.

Who wouldn't?

But somewhere along the way we've accidentally begun defining coping as the absence of distress.

As though good coping means not being affected.

If I were really coping...

I wouldn't be this anxious.

If I were really coping...

I wouldn't be crying after appointments.

If I were really coping...

I wouldn't be checking the portal every fifteen minutes.

If I were really coping...

I wouldn't still be devastated.

But that's not coping.

That's emotional anesthesia.

And this is where performative coping starts overlapping with something we discussed in our episode on self-gaslighting. 

Because performative coping doesn't work without self-gaslighting.

Something painful happens.

A failed cycle.

A disappointing update.

A pregnancy announcement.

A loss.

And you have a completely human emotional reaction.

Grief.

Fear.

Anger.

Jealousy.

Disappointment.

Then almost immediately, the negotiations begin.

It's not that bad.

Other people have it worse.

I should be grateful.

At least I have options.

Maybe I'm overreacting.

I shouldn't be this upset.

I need to stay positive.

Notice what happens.

The goal isn't understanding.

The goal is emotional evacuation.

Get the feeling out.

Get back to functioning.

Get back to productivity.

Get back to control.

Many of us think we're coping when we're actually trying to talk ourselves out of having a human reaction.

We minimize.

We rationalize.

We compare.

We dismiss.

We explain away.

We turn every emotional experience into a debate.

Not because we're weak.

But because we've confused coping with not being affected.

We've confused resilience with emotional minimalism.

We've confused strength with suppression.

I think there's also another layer.

Performative coping isn't just about sadness.

It's about all the emotions that don't fit the healing narrative.

The jealousy.

The bitterness.

The resentment.

The pettiness.

The rage.

The moments where someone announces a pregnancy and your first thought is:

I don't want to hear about this.

The moments where you don't feel generous.

Or evolved.

Or spiritually enlightened.

The moments where you're just hurting.

And instead of saying:

"This makes sense."

We start editing.

Sanitizing.

Polishing.

Making the emotion more socially acceptable.

Because what we're often performing isn't wellness.

It's goodness.

We're trying to prove that we're still a good person while we suffer.

And I think this is where we've gotten ourselves turned around.

Coping was never supposed to mean not feeling.

Coping was never supposed to mean emotional neutrality.

Coping was never supposed to mean invulnerability.

Coping means continuing to move through life while having an emotional experience.

Not eliminating the emotional experience.

One of the cruelest things we've done to ourselves is mistake emotional pain for evidence that we're coping badly.

Most often, emotional pain is evidence that something matters.

The hurt is not a sign that you're broken.

It's a sign that you care.

It's a sign that you long.

It's a sign that you love.

So maybe we stop asking:

Am I coping well?

And start asking:

Am I being honest?

Instead of asking:

How does this look?

Ask:

How does this feel?

Instead of measuring coping by appearance...

Measure it by congruence.

Am I telling myself the truth?

Am I allowing myself access to what's actually here?

Am I staying connected to myself while this unfolds?

Because authentic coping isn't polished.

It isn't inspirational.

It isn't always resilient-looking.

Sometimes authentic coping looks like crying in the Target parking lot.

Sometimes it looks like canceling plans.

Sometimes it looks like being angry.

Sometimes it looks like needing support.

Sometimes it looks like not knowing what you feel.

Authentic coping is not emotional perfection.

It's emotional honesty.

If you take one thing from today's episode, let it be this:

You do not owe anyone an inspiring version of your infertility experience.

You do not owe anyone resilience on demand.

You do not owe anyone a silver lining.

You do not owe anyone growth before you're ready.

And you certainly do not owe yourself the impossible task of being unaffected by something that matters deeply to you.

You are allowed to be devastated without being inspirational.

You are allowed to be angry without immediately finding the lesson.

You are allowed to be jealous without turning it into gratitude.

You are allowed to be struggling without making it digestible for other people.

Because your humanity is not a performance.

And your worth is not determined by how beautifully you suffer.

The goal was never to become someone who suffers beautifully.

The goal was to become someone who can tell the truth about their suffering.

And those are not the same thing.

Alright, my beautiful friends.

That's what I have for you today.

Take such good care of yourselves.

And I'll talk to you soon.