Table 5.

Participant Quotations on Coping and Alleviating Factors

Theme 4: Coping and alleviating factors
Aging was a source of wisdom and experience	“The fact that I’m 60 years old and can’t do some of the things that you still like to do has been bugging me lately. If you’ve lived for a while, you can amass a bit of knowledge over the years and so I feel like I’ve come to know myself better, and that’s one of the bright sides. I also know other people a little bit better. I used to have a hard time dealing with people.” (58-year-old man) “Some people just age through a normal life of whatever, jobs, stuff like that. I went through a street education growing up…As I got older, I had to learn how to put stuff aside and start doing more sociable things related to my age and surroundings…I’ll go to church or I’ll take a walk or something [so] I can get to where I’m not stressed…Because I used to get so angry…. I would wind up in jail without thinking. Jail is hard, man… (63-year-old man)
Searching for “peace of mind”	“Meditate, just being by myself. Living the night, just being alone and listening to my music, that makes [my pain] feel better. I like jazz but I just listen to my music, just go away to myself. That makes me feel – I like being alone. I love being alone.” (58-year-old man) “[Reading] takes my mind off of [my symptoms], and the calmer you get, the less stress you have on you, and it calms the nerves down.” (63-year-old man)
Substance use	“[Marijuana] takes my mind somewhere else. I’m tweaked and I’m high. So my mind is definitely not on people, because they’re not in my way right now and they’re not being mean to me right now…I’m not tripping on them.” (61-year-old woman)
Religion	“When I feel [anger over my situation] I go to the water and I pray hard. I just start praising God until I can feel the spirit come over me to comfort me…I pray until He comes and allows his spirit to wrap his arm around me; I feel a lot better…A psychiatrist can’t tell me what’s wrong with me…For someone to try to help would mean a lot. I don’t have nobody but to trust God. He’s my only psychiatrist.” (54-year-old man) “[Getting better] is a matter of faith; not just pills and counseling” (52-year-old man) “Some mornings…I can’t get up because I got to get up slow, and it seems like something tightens up on me. The first thing I do, I take my Doan’s [magnesium salicylate] pills…They are the ones that really have me – I’m not going to say the Lord God has me going on, but He gives me the medicine for my back to keep going…I mean your medicine is God up there, whether he put it in a pill form or whatever.”(62-year-old man)
Companionship	“…I come [to the HOPE HOME Study] once a month and it helped me stay focused and share what I’ve been going through. That’s why I felt my health is a little better now than it was because before that I would just constantly be in shelter after shelter after shelter.” (57-year-old woman) “I just use [my PCP] for referral. That’s what most primary doctors do now. Your primary doctor used to do everything…Now you can talk to a doctor for only so long…[On the other hand] I see a psychiatrist. He’s got a PhD…and he helps me out a lot. He donates his time. One of the nicest guys in everyone I meet…and he’s concerned about his clients…Sometimes he come out to the barbecues.” (63-year-old man) “Being in a hospital and having all these attentive nurses and doctors come to my aid and listen to me felt really good. It was a feeling that I didn’t get being at home with my family.” (59-year-old man)
The desire for “home”	“I have a lot of issues that I need to work on but…my main goal right now has to be housing…. I can do it better if I have a place to stay and go to the doctor more and relax. When I have my own place, I’d sleep so much better.” (57-year-old woman) “If I have my own place, I could go home. I can relax. I don’t do a lot of the things I used to do…I can go to a gym. I can go home and read. I can sit home and watch TV…I’d like to be independent, have my own place again, make my own decisions and not have to live by somebody else’s decisions.” (61-year-old man)