History Main / CopeByPretending

** This is the main point of the ''Tiny Tina Assault on Dragon Keep'' DLC. Beneath the wacky fun of watching a crazy 13-year-old explosives expert running a D&D game and battling fantasy monsters with guns is a sad story of how Tina is trying to cope with [[spoiler:Roland's death at the hands of Handsome Jack]] by denying that it ever happened and pretending that everything's alright. The other characters in-universe are rather unnerved by this, trying to get her to face reality, but she won't listen. The climax reveals that she's quite aware that she is doing this, but needs it to cope, so the other Vault Hunters agree to indulge her.

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Opal}}'': [[spoiler:Claire's coping mechanism for dealing with her nightmarish home life is to fantasize about having the family depicted on the billboard across the street.]]

* ''WesternAnimation/{{Opal}}'': [[spoiler:Claire's coping mechanism is to fantasize about having the family depicted on the billboard across the street to cope with her nightmarish home life.]]

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E9Inheritance Inheritance]]", it's revealed that Data's "mother" Juliana [[spoiler:isn't really Noonian Soong's wife but rather an android based her, which Soong made after she died while fleeing from the Crystalline Entity. Notably, this was specifically this trope on the part of Soong; Juliana truly believed herself to be human.]]

** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS3E3TheSurvivors The Survivors]]", it's revealed that [[spoiler:Rishon Uxbridge is actually an artificial copy of the real woman she was based on, who died and her husband Kevin had special powers so he created a copy to pretend she never died.]]
** In "[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS7E9Inheritance Inheritance]]", it's revealed that Data's "mother" [[spoiler:isn't really his creator's wife but rather an android based on the wife, which the creator made after the wife died. Notably, this was specifically this trope on the part of Data's creator; his "mother" truly believed herself to be human.]]

See also MagicFeather, when a character copes by pretending (or believing) some neutral object has the power to help them overcome their problems.

* In ''Theatre/CindrellaRodgersAndHammerstein'', Cinderella uses her imagination to cope with being abused and treated as a servant by her stepfamily. In the song "In My Own Little Corner," she sings of all the different people in different far-off places she pretends to be.

[[folder: Theatre}}

* ''WesternAnimation/{{The Hunchback of Notre Dame|Disney}}'': Quasimodo spends practically his entire life in the belltower because his "adoptive father" Judge Frollo refuses to let the world see how ugly he truly is, and is really only caring for Quasi to atone for murdering his mother. Judge Frollo and the three gargoyles are Quasimodo's only company, so he spends most of his time fantasizing that he is a normal person interacting with the people of Paris.

** In the episode "The Survivors" reveals that [[spoiler:the "woman" is actually an artificial copy of a real woman she was based on, who died and her husband had special powers so he created a copy to pretend she never died.]]
** In one episode, it's revealed that Data's "mother" [[spoiler:isn't really his creator's wife but rather an android based on the wife, which the creator made after the wife died. Notably, this was specifically this trope on the part of Data's creator; his "mother" truly believed herself to be human.]]
** In the episode ''[[Recap/StarTrekTheNextGenerationS5E11HeroWorship Hero Worship]],'' the crew finds a wrecked ship with only a single survivor, a young boy named Timothy. Upon meeting Data, the boy decides he'd rather be an android -- since androids don't feel emotions, he can avoid dealing with the grief of his parents' death. Counselor Troi encourages Data to play along, because she knows that Timothy will give up the charade when he's ready to deal with his emotions properly.

* ''WesternAnimation/SpongeBobSquarePants'': In "Gone", Spongebob wakes up to find all of Bikini Bottom completely deserted, except for him. His immediate response is to imitate everyone in town, giving up only when he realizes the task is impossible.

* ''ComicBook/JuniorBravesOfTheApocalypse'': Mrs. Garvey, a middle school teacher, insists on continuing to hold class throughout the zombie apocalypse - despite the fact that she only has one student left who isn't either dead or missing.

** It turns out [[spoiler:Dalinar]] is doing a magically enhanced version of this as well. After [[spoiler: being accidentally responsible for his wife Evi]] death he is driven into drunken despair, and then [[spoiler:his brother Gavilar's]] death sends him over the edge. He seeks out the mysterious Old Magic to forget the entire thing. This actually is very effective, as the memories aren't repressed, they are literally gone. At least until [[spoiler: the memories return, and he's forced to face what happened]]

* The episode "Symphony of Illumination" of ''Series/HowIMetYourMother'' starts with the [[FormulaBreakingEpisode unusual change]] of ''Robin'' talking to her future kids about the time she revealed to their father that she was pregnant. The episode builds up the implication that [[HandsomeLech Barney]] is their father because Robin was not yet intimate with her current boyfriend. Towards the end of the episode, her doctor tells her that she's not pregnant. [[spoiler: Her doctor also tells her she'll ''never'' have children because she is infertile. Once that's revealed her "children" disappear, as they were merely her way of coping with the devastating news.]]

** In the episode "The Survivors" reveals that [[spoiler: the "woman" is actually an artificial copy of a real woman she was based on, who died and her husband had special powers so he created a copy to pretend she never died.]]

* ''Series/TouchedByAnAngel'' episode "Shallow Water" has a woman (played by Delta Burke) who copes with a devastating bus accident that killed several family members years earlier by clinging to her young son, although it's eventually revealed that [[spoiler: he also was killed in the accident and this had shattered her so much, she had spent the last ''three years'' in a mental institution.]]

* ''WebVideo/EverymanHybrid'': Jeff and his little brother Alex had lost their parents a year before. Alex struggled with moving on and continued to act as though they were alive- even using a tape recording of their voices to answer his questions. Later, after the Rake killed his dog Sparky, he wore a sock-puppet and insisted it was Sparky.

* ''WesternAnimation/BoJackHorseman'': Done brutally in the episode "Ruthie"--it begins way in the future with Princess Carolyn's distant descendant, the titular Ruthie, commentating the events of the episode, telling her class about Princess Carolyn and how even though this seemed like a very bad day, it would end up being a turning point for the rest of her life. And then at the end, Carolyn tells [=BoJack=] what she always likes to do whenever she has a really bad day - she imagines her descendant talking about her and how great she was, so that way she can feel like everything works out. [=BoJack=] points out that that's not actually real, and she can only say "yeah, well, it makes me feel better."

* Basically what a FixFic is. If a story does something that fans dislike- say, killing off a beloved character- they write fanfiction where the character never died and/or post [[EpilepticTrees fan theories]] about [[HesJustHiding why the character might be alive]]. Or if the "wrong" pairing is [[OfficialCouple canonized]], disgruntled shippers will write fics where [[FanPreferredCouple their preferred pairings]] happen instead.