Strategy for dealing with the difficulties

To deal with difficulties in life, the findings showed that Thai participants applied many strategies. Most participants used social media to receive the social support and advice from their existing friends while some participants vented their emotions on social media to make them feel better. Some participants also used social media to distract themselves from all the troubles that they faced. Specifically, three participants preferred to use social media to watch cartoons, listen to music, access Facebook or listen to Dhamma on Youtube when they felt bad. Natee, changed his usage from posting on his Facebook page to watching the cartoons. He said that:

‘Yes. Sometimes it was ok but it made me have a headache recently. So, I watched cartoons instead. (Laugh) When I watched them, I felt relieved. When I had free time, I just laid down on my bed and watched it. I just took a rest and relaxed. It was ok.’

These findings seemed to be consistent with other research which found that avoidance coping was useful in some situations because distraction-oriented coping decreased the levels of somatic scores in females in their study (Beasley et al., 2003) and disclosing about the traumatic events could help university students’ self- perception to develop a more resilient self-concept and have less psychological distress (Hemenover, 2003).

However, using social media to distract from difficulties was not a productive coping strategy because the problems were not resolved and ultimately this could affect students’ mental health. These findings were in accord with previous studies indicating that people who used an attention control (AC), had higher levels of resilience in the long period while people who used unproductive strategies (i.e. distraction and rumination), would be more endanger in the long run (Troy & Mauss, 2011). In addition, they corroborated the idea of Thompson, Arnkoff, & Glass (2011), who suggested that avoidance avoidant coping and suppression individual’s thought were linked to psychological illness, for instance, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression.

There were some participants who communicated with their friends, family or teachers when they felt unhappy. For Wannaporn, she noted that:

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‘Talking to parents and friends…Well, it is similar to talking to friends. It is ventilation. It is not a problem solving. It means we take difficulties away and share them with other people. Then, they can change our negative thoughts.’

Similarly, Thitima talked to her friends when she felt down. She revealed that:

‘I use the same ways to deal with it. If I feel down, I talk to my friends. Oh, I try to use a new way. I try not to immerse myself in this feelings. I find some activities to do like hang out with friends. Then, I will be better.’

These results further supported the idea of the Department of Health & Human Services, State Government of Victoria, Australia (2016) who reported that talking to someone that individual trusted, was likely to help them to have a better understanding of the problems, think about the problems from other perspectives, release the stress, perceive that they were not alone and find the new resolutions.

In addition, there were three participants who liked to do some exercises when they felt down while some participants like to do other activities, for example, cooking, doing the housework, and reading the novels. Unchalee said that:

‘If I am so stressed, I will make some desserts. It will make me feel better.’

It was found that only two participants preferred to think it through when they felt bad. Specifically, Thaween tried to think about the problems from other perspectives and Vichuda tried to let the problems go because they could make her feel worse than she was. However, some participants did not apply any strategy to deal with difficulties and they preferred to keep all the troubles on their minds. In Chawakorn case, he mentioned that:

‘Generally, I do not talk to anyone. I keep it on my mind.’ Correspondingly, Chanon reported that

‘I am a person who hides the feeling. I rarely tell someone unless I want to tell them.’

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In Thailand, some research was conducted to investigate Thai students’ coping and social support providers. For example, family, spirituality and a parental monitoring could protect Thai adolescents from consuming alcohol, using the tobacco and having inappropriate sexual behaviours (Chamratrithirong et al., 2010). Phuphaibul, Thanooruk, Leucha, Sirapo-ngam, & Kanobdee (2005) developed the Immune of Life for Teens module and found that it was effective to increase Thai early adolescents’ coping behaviours and mental health. It was also indicated that family functioning influenced self-esteem and resourceful coping in Thai adolescents who had asthma (Preechawong et al., 2007). However, no research explored the effects of social media on dealing with difficulties in particular self-compassion and psychological resilience to further discuss in this section. Therefore, this research was at the beginning stage of exploring these constructs in Thai cultural context.

According to Carver, Scheier, & Weintraub's (1989) study, the last group was coping responses which was relevant to focus on and venting of emotions, behavioural disengagement and mental disengagement. (Please see more details in Chapter 4 section 4.4.) It was found that Thai participants applied all strategies to deal with difficulties. The participants in the first group tried to think about and solve their problems by themselves (problem-focused coping). For example, Thaween had spent a few days to contemplate about the problems. He described that:

‘Generally, I use the same way to deal with them. I am quiet and stay alone. Then they will disappear. Maybe, they still remain. It will take time. As you mentioned before, if we have a prejudice against someone, we have to accept that it happens. We cannot resist it. When we have a prejudice against someone and he do something we do not like, we might think that ‘What! Why can’t he do this?’ But if we try to think upside down about 2 – 3 days, it will be better. Then, we can stop having a prejudice against someone.’

The second group of participants talked to someone to receive the emotional support or turned to Buddhism (emotional-focused coping). Vichuda described the support her mother had given to her:

‘She will support me and say that ‘That is all right. It will be better.’ And she tries to help me to solve the problems. She will help me.’

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Likewise, Wiwat listened to Dhamma when he felt down. He revealed that:

‘I like to listen to Dhamma. It can help me a lot.’

Additionally, some participants in this group preferred to vent their feeling with other people face-to-face or talk through social media. Jirayut said that:

‘I vent my feelings to friends or other people. It will make me feel relieved.’

There were some participants who were in the final group because they used social media or do other activities to distract themselves from dealing with the problems or feelings directly (avoidance-oriented coping). For example, Natee, watched the cartoons to forget his problems temporarily. He said that:

‘Yes. Sometimes it was ok but it made me have a headache recently. So, I watched retarded cartoons instead. (Laugh) When I watched them, I felt relieved. When I had free time, I just laid down on my bed and watched it. I just took a rest and relaxed. It was ok.’

These results seemed to be consistent partially with another research project which found that students’ coping after the exam reflected an attempt to deal with the negative feeling before the exam by using an avoidance coping and then they coped with their grades after the exam by turning to use greater problem-focused coping. It also showed that even though they failed on their exam, they tended to make more effort to achieve it again (Carver & Scheier, 1994). In addition, they further supported the idea of Scheier et al. (1986) who proposed that problem focused coping was correlated with better psychological adjustment to stress than emotion-focused coping and disengagement coping.

It could be say that some students with self-compassion were likely to fall into the first and the second group because they tried to think about and solve their problems by themselves when they had negative feelings, received undesirable marks or deal with other difficulties in life. They realised that their problems were shared by other people and tried to find useful advice or information from their family, friends and teachers. These findings confirmed Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat's (2005) study which revealed that students with self-compassion could continue their study with the interest

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even though they received the lower grade than they expected. However, they did not find that self-compassion was associated with problem-focused coping in this study because the students had already received their undesirable marks and these students could not change their marks (Neff et al., 2005).

In addition, Neff, Hsieh, & Dejitterat's (2005) study noted that self-compassion was positively related to using positive reinterpretation/growth and acceptance to deal with the bad feelings and it was negatively related to using focus on and venting of emotions even though these strategies were the subscales of emotional-focused coping in this study. They also mentioned that self-compassion was negatively associated with avoidance-oriented coping (denial, mental disengagement and behavioural disengagement). Interestingly, some participants in the first and the second group were likely to be resilient because they accepted that difficulties had already happened and tried to think about their problems from other perspectives. However, some participants in the second group who vented their feelings (talking to people face to face or venting their feelings on social media) and looked for social support were not likely to be self-compassionate because self-compassion was positively related to emotional processing which was a subscale of emotional coping but it was not significantly associated with emotional expression subscale (Neff et al., 2005). These strategies were also not productive ways to maintain their mental health or solve the problems when the participants did not accept the actual problems and deal with the problem directly.

Finally, participants in the final group used social media or did some activities to forget their problems. In contrast, people who treat themselves compassionately during unsuccessful events, do not have to deny, suppress or hide their feelings but they would accept, perceive and balance their negative feelings (Neff et al., 2005).