Chris and coping
Coping is the act of minimizing the impact of stress and problems in life, and a fundamental part of the brain's ability to function and handle stressful or upsetting situations. In order to intentionally avoid any and all unpleasant realities, Chris takes coping to unhealthy levels. People cope using multiple different ways that help reduce stress and increase performance. Chris however, uses coping mechanisms such as escapism and nostalgia, which are known to be forms of maladaptive coping, and gets absolutely nothing done. Chris can easily be considered the king of escapism, as he does anything he can to avoid dealing with the harsh realities of his life.
Most people cope with stress using a variety of methods, including but not limited to meditating, talking with friends, sleeping, eating or playing video games. Chris did these, as well as using some maladaptive coping mechanisms such as escapism and nostalgia. These tools, in moderation, can relieve stress, but Chris takes them to unhealthy levels. Coping is used to only temporarily relieve stress so a person can gather themselves and go finish the stressful task. Instead, Chris uses coping mechanisms for months on end and gets nothing done.
For someone who effectively does nothing, Chris leads a very stressful life, and takes escapism very seriously. The most notable example of escapism includes CWCville, a fictional city that Chris believes to be real, along with his imaginary friends... and no, that is not roleplaying; Chris truly believes that CWCville and his characters are real (in both C-197 and 1218).
Chris also shows signs of avoidance behaviors (the act of avoiding stressful situations or feelings), he claims his fictional concept of Dimensional Merge will fix all his problems and pay all his loans once it is complete.
Chris has also pushed nostalgia as far as possible: decades after leaving high school, his mind is still fixated on the positive events that occurred at the time. Recently, Chris bought a school desk, probably to help relive the gal-pal filled days.
Chris 'dusting himself off'
In the years and months prior to September 2011, Chris displayed some degree of being able to move on and away from traumatic events in his life; he'd simply try to throw the events in question to one side before becoming engrossed in whichever new Sweetheart or Troll crossed his field of vision. Following the death of his father however, Chris has lost this coping mechanism. After a protracted period of grieving, Chris instead began using maladaptive coping methods (excluding Flouncing and Death threats) that gradually evolved into their current state over the ensuing 8-9 years, among which are escapism (Astral projection, the Dimensional Merge), rationalization ("I can't go to BABScon because of COVID-19, so it must be a part of the merge!"), dissociation and safety behaviors (Spirit possession), and sensitization (i.e. flipping out over blocks on Twitter, resulting in the Soft Exile).
- Main article: Chris and nostalgia
Like many people, Chris has a strong sense of nostalgia for past events. Unlike many people, Chris has used nostalgia as a crutch, and prefers to retreat into his rose-tinted view of the past instead of confronting issues facing him in the present day.
- Main article: Death threats
One of Chris's most vociferous coping mechanisms, and one that, alongside Flouncing, predates the newer examples. Chris genuinely believes that wishing death on people is a valid coping mechanism/response to stressful situations; recipients of these death threats include Trolls of the Classic Era such as Clyde Cash, Vivian Gee, Liquid Chris, Jack Thaddeus and Alec Benson Leary, former President of the United States of America, Donald Trump and former Vice President Mike Pence, former friend Megan Schroeder, and even every employee at Sega, to name just a small number of them.
|“||Damn trolls. Your bullying is not appreciated, even locally. So you can just take your bullyings, and bully yourselves. If you want to do- if you want- if you're bored, go work around the house. Go take a walk. 'Cause you don't need the internet. You don't need to stay cooped up inside, you just need to go outside, and enjoy life, and the sun, and the days you have to live.||”|
|Chris, suggesting alternatives to the Internet that he refuses to do himself, YouTube Finale|
The first of Chris's maladaptive coping mechanisms, Chris's habit of flouncing, or ragequitting the internet, is something he has attempted several times. This behavior bears the most resemblance to the maladaptive coping strategy of avoidance, but Chris's flouncing behavior bears several differences. In these cases, Chris only intended to make the internet think he had quit, and hoped that by lying low, the Trolls would disappear. However, trolls would quickly manipulate Chris back online by using an undercover troll posing as his real life friends to convince him that another sweetheart had been confirmed to be legitimate, and the sweetheart would in turn convince Chris to make more videos. In the case of the first instance of Chris flouncing, he returned after a mere 36 hours to ramble about a Family Guy spinoff.
Chris has long used escapism as a maladaptive coping mechanism against reality.
Even in his younger adult years, Chris took escapism to unhealthy levels, such as believing to have imaginary friends and magic powers, especially in moments of stress, like during Mary Lee Walsh's confrontation over his Attraction Signs. Chris's habit of escapism greatly ramped up in the years following his father's 2011 death. By 2017, he was invested further in trying to learn psychic powers and believed that imaginary friend Magi-Chan was tangible and dancing with him at the 2017 BronyCon.
In late 2017, the Idea Guys exploited Chris's habit of escapism to brainwash their beliefs over his fantasy world, followed by a parade of copycats. As a result of their manipulation - and even with the attempts by the Guard Dogs to repair some of the damage the Idea Guys had dealt to Chris's psyche - Chris opted to retreat further into the wreckage of his imagination and the fantasies associated with it, now believing in concepts such as polyamorous marriage, the Dimensional Merge and CPU goddesses.
- Main article: Spirit possession
Chris has a history of roleplaying. He roleplayed in front of Mary Lee Walsh as Sonichu and read out a speech for her. In a phonesex conversation, Chris roleplayed as Sonichu for sexual pleasure. In the 2010s and beyond, he roleplayed to escape reality. His first escapist roleplay was of Uzume Tennouboshi at the beginning of the Idea Guys saga. He also uses his sock puppet account, MagiChan111448, for roleplaying as Magi-chan; how Magi-chan types without a body is something only Emmanuelle would know. He started to role play Sonichu from 15 April 2020 (he claimed to be possessed since 31 March 2020) as a coping mechanism for the cancellation of BABScon. On 19 April 2020 Chris appeared on a livestream where he asked the host to refer to him as "Sonichu in Chris's body".
|Sonichu||?? ?? 2004||None||To give a speech TO THE EXTREME!|
|Chris-chan Sonichu||13 February 2009||None||Sexy time with a |
|Uzume||8 November 2017||13 November 2017||Part of lore brainwashed into Chris by an Idea Guy.|
|Chris Chan Sonichu||30 March 2018||30 March 2018||Chris repeatedly signed his name as "Chris Chan Sonichu" on court documents relating to his March 2018 trespass charge despite it not being his legal name, though no action was taken by court staff on the matter.|
|Magi-chan||14 August 2019||On/off, ongoing||Meet Jacob Sockness in a fantasy world to avoid doing so in real life.|
|Sonichu||15 April 2020||25 February 2021||To attend BABScon in C-197; "Sonichu" promises not to return to his homebody until some incomprehensible time travel scenario plays out in Chris's head. Stopped the LARP after being convinced to by an enabler.|
|Mewtwo||14 May 2020||None||White knighting himself on Twitter.|
|Jesus Christ||19 September 2021||Ongoing||Comfort while in jail facing incest charges.|
A power fantasy is a form of wish fulfillment that involves someone who feels powerless making themselves seem more significant. A popular example of this kind of behavior is when an author makes themselves a major component of their story, and gives themselves unlimited power over an unfavorable situation they'd encounter. Such characters, which are examples of self-inserts, are often referred to as "Mary Sues", "Marty Stus", or "Gary Stus" among fan circles. While most people have indulged in power fantasies in their life, Chris's maladaptive daydreaming has taken his adherence of such fantasies to a truly unhealthy level.
One of the best examples of this is Chris coping with stressful situations through escapism by replicating them in his comics. Chris’s comics have served as an outlet to form a narrative centered around a stressful event, instead making everything work out as he would have wanted. Oftentimes, the people who gave him a hard time would be depicted as villains, while Chris or his lackeys would prove to be powerful enough to defeat them with ease.
Chris originally centered these comics around his lovechild, Sonichu, where he would showcase his many adventures and overcome various bad guys. However, even this wouldn’t stop Chris from making the comics go full power fantasy at as early as the very first issue. From Issue 2 and onwards, Chris would then turn his comics into a power fantasy series, where he would be in direct control over all of the people who wronged him, and get all of the things he wants.
This type of behavior from Chris isn’t strictly limited to his comics.
New Age methods
Chris has also been utilizing several New Age concepts and beliefs in order to avoid reality and the stress caused by it, including (but not limited to) listening to Subliminal Frequency Hypnosis videos, larping as his OCs, and meditation. Upon recently he has been using ways of body-swapping with a number of his OC's, including Magi-chan, Mewtwo, and most famously Sonichu. This is a tactic Chris uses in order to escape or get away from the stresses of life and the internet in which he creates, but how he does this is quite confusing yet idiotic. Apparently he takes on the OC's role and inadvertently swaps minds and bodies with the said OC in the sister dimension of C-197 which gives him a break in order to reevaluate his current situation. To him he thinks it works, but it is not subtle in the slightest and when he has been active on social media platforms like Twitter or Facebook, there have been times where Christorians noticed minor hints to his normal mannerisms such as his way of speech or downright forgetting that he's in Sonichu's body. It happens in times where Chris is feeling overwhelmed where he almost metaphorically retracts into his delusional shell from the world, and there have been times where he has done this for long periods of time, the longest being nearly a year. For him it's a normal method he has developed for blocking out the world, but others see it as a unhealthy way to avoid life problems instead of facing them head on, while also falling back on that his mad ravings of the Merge "coming" justify his ideals of using this way of coping. It is by far one of his most crazed mental acts that people have seen in a long time.
During the Jail Saga
In the wake of Chris's incestuous relationship with his mother, he was sent to jail where he is currently awaiting trial. Being away from familiar surroundings like his home, toys and mother for months, he doubled down on his coping.
Taking his evolving messiah complex to its ultimate conclusion, he crafted a new fantasy of being Jesus Christ, role-playing as the religious figure in multiple jail communications. He also continued his fantasies of living out the life of a cartoon hero, interacting with imaginary friends and battling the forces of evil.
|“||[I'm] really doing well, very well. I, I'm literally fighting a whole bunch of demons and villains and everything. And I'm defending the cities, saving the world multiple times, and answering prayers and all that... phew! I'm definitely NOT lazy.||”|