Tag Archives: mental health

Piles of Poop

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One strategy that many of us have used to remove or reduce the impact of traumatic experiences on our lives is to push them into the recesses of our minds and just not think about them. There is the belief that pretending something didn’t happen, or concealing it from our conscious mind reduces its impact on our decisions and experiences. This decision is usually made either because the traumatic experience seems too painful to think about or too hopeless to address. I often describe these experiences as piles of poop in the mind, and find them to be some of the most productive areas to explore in therapy. Let me explain…

If you have a dog, you have most likely walked into a room of your house at some point in your life and found that the dog has dropped a deuce on the floor. At this point, you have a few options of how to handle the situation. You can turn around and go to different part of the house and hope that someone else walks in, finds the mess, and cleans it up. This approach can work sometimes, but will lead to resentment from others who find themselves tasked with cleaning up messes that they know should have been your responsibility. Another potential problem with this approach is that life can become quite dysfunctional when no one comes behind you to clean up the mess and you end up living in a world of poop.

The next option involves the out of sight, out of mind principle. You can decide to push the poop into the corner so it is out of the way and put a newspaper over it so you don’t have to look at it. The problem here is that out of sight doesn’t mean out of smell. So now, even though you can’t see the poop, it still stinks. And that stink will not only affect your peace of mind, but will keep others from wanting to be around you as well. It’s hard to enjoy life while holding your breath or hiding your face in your shirt.

This leads us to the final option. You can directly address the problem, which involves acknowledging that the poop is there, picking it up, scrubbing away any mess left behind, disinfecting the floor and taking out the garbage. This approach is no fun! I’ve never met anyone who enjoys the sight or smell of dog poop, or the feeling of picking it up even through a bag. However, this is the only way to appropriately and adequately handle the situation. This is the approach that minimizes the impact that the poop will have on your life, and the lives of those who are close to you.

So, while you may be tempted to avoid your piles or to push them away to be dealt with on another day, my advice is to hit the nastiness head on. Think about the piles that exist in your mind and start cleaning them up one by one. Expect to be uncomfortable and don’t be surprised if your eyes water a bit, but know that your short term discomfort will minimize the long term negative impact of those experiences.

Dipping your toes in darkness: The role of negative fantasy

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Have you ever imagined yourself doing something crazy? Maybe you briefly fantasized about executing a PIT maneuver against a car driving impossibly slow in front of you. Maybe during difficult financial times, you imagined robbing a bank. Maybe you’ve imagined yelling some obscenity in a crowded room just to see the shocked reactions on the faces of others. Or maybe these have been my negative fantasies and not yours. I would imagine though, at some point, you have found yourself fantasizing about doing something that in reality, you would never do. I have heard people describe all sorts of negative fantasies in therapy, and they are most often preceded by the statement, “I would NEVER do this, but…” So, why do our brains seem to need to occasionally engage in stomach turning, gut wrenching, self-shocking fantasies?

I believe the answer has to do with conformity. From the time we are itty-bitties, but are told we must conform to the values of our society. Don’t hit! No talking! Wait your turn! And most of these conformities go against our nature. We all go through a training process to get us to the point that we can get along well with others. So, as we get older, most of us learn to ignore or resist our negative impulses. We learn what is acceptable and we force ourselves to act in those ways. But sometimes, like a drop of water squeezing its way through a tiny crack in a dam, a little piece of those negative impulses slips out, and into our consciousness. Once seen in our mind’s eye, they often disappear again into the dark recesses of our subconscious, but those brief glimpses can be quite unsettling. However, I believe they are also a necessary part of living in a civilized world. I believe they release the pressure of living within the boundaries of rules and laws, both moral and legal. Let us not forget that we are still animals.

Victimhood: Accept it or Reject it?

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What does it mean to be a victim? We have all felt imposed upon by the world, either by people, situations, or systems but is there value in victimhood? Does it empower or does it weaken? It seems that identification as a victim can do either, depending on the context. For those who have endured abuse, self identification as a victim is empowering and an important step toward recovery. It helps to remove the self blame or any feelings of having been complicit to the abuse. It is part of the process of becoming a survivor, but what about less overtly awful examples of imposition? Am I the victim because traffic is moving too slowly, lines are too long, or because life is just too hard? Victimhood then becomes detrimental because when we allow life to dictate how we feel, we give away our personal power. A person can also become addicted to playing the role of the victim and learn to view the world as imposing or rigged against them. We all know someone who finds a way to make themselves the victim in non-victimizing situations and use that world view to their advantage. Identification as a victim can often elicit sympathy and compassion from others, and can diminish the role of personal responsibility. So, I guess the role it plays depends on the plot of the story.

Faceless Giants

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I recently read an article that explained that people with depression or anxiety will typically pay $1000-$2000 more each year for phone, cable, internet services because they just can’t bring themselves to navigate the web of deceit and ineptitude necessary in order to get better deals on those services. After recently trying to navigate that web myself, I must say I understand those findings. Over the past week, in an attempt to save about $480 over the next year on internet and cable, I have spent 246 minutes on the phone. I have been transferred and disconnected. I have repeated the same information dozens of times. I have needed to be present at my home for two unnecessary service visits. And, I have had to travel to a UPS store, a FedEx store and a Spectrum store to return equipment.

Did I have a choice? Sure! I could have chosen to keep paying $40 extra each month to avoid the hassle of switching from one company to the other. I could have chosen to accept inferior service in order to avoid the hassle of switching back to the original company, who now by the way, has found a way to offer a much better deal that was only possible because I left and came back. I could have canceled the services all together and found a way to live without the luxuries of cable and internet. But in this age of online banking, online shopping, online billing, email, social networking and Netflix (yes, in addition to cable…#notproud), that just wasn’t an option that would work for my family.

So, in the end, we will have the television and internet services necessary to continue to live the lifestyle we have grown accustomed to, and even somehow to believe that we need. We will end up saving $240 on these services over the next year. We have been given $300 in Visa gift cards and free NFL package for our troubles, but at what cost? About six hours (phone time, travel time, service visit time) of my life I’ll never get back? Stress, stress and more stress while navigating the convoluted web of customer service, sales, and technical support? As I consider whether or not it was all worth it, I’m left with the realization that each experience I have with any of the faceless giants (cable, phone, internet, insurance, government, etc) who rule this world, takes something more important than money from me. It takes my sanity, my soul and my peace. Thankfully I have enough of these things left to keep my mind right, but so many among us don’t. And those people will continue to be taken advantage of, overcharged and overlooked, by the faceless giants on whom we all depend.

It’s not me, it’s you: One origin of hate

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It’s not me, it’s you: One origin of hate

When awful things happen, we are left wondering how and why such a thing could happen. How could one human maintain such ignorant and hateful beliefs about another group of humans? How could one human hate so intensely that he would sacrifice his freedom, his life, in order to destroy the lives of others?

When a person feels disadvantaged in some way, there is a tendency to resist accepting personal responsibility for that disadvantage. If I can blame others for my situation then there is nothing wrong with me, and therefore, there is no need for me to change. But there is reason for me to be angry. If I have been told, as my father was told, and his father was told, that my problems are because of a particular group of people, then those people become my enemies. If I believe that there aren’t enough resources for us all, then I must hate and destroy you in order to ensure my survival. And, in order to protect this set of beliefs, which has been passed down for generations, I must ignore any information that goes against my beliefs. Those ideas that conflict with my own are lies, made up by my enemy, designed to make me look foolish.

Generational ignorance and blaming of others, the belief in the scarcity of resources, psychological dysfunction, and fear all play a part in creating and maintaining hate. And it is very hard to change the mind of the irrationally committed, which makes this type of hate especially scary.

What if…?

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What if…?

What if? Those are the first two words in almost all anxious thoughts. Anxiety is generally created when we are thinking about some future event. Anxiety can exist in the present, but in those situations my advice is to run because you are obviously in some kind of danger. The reason we feel anxiety at all is to protect us from danger so that we may survive. So, when you find yourself feeling anxious and your physical safety is not in danger, you are most likely thinking a “what if” scenario. “What if” is speculation, “what if” is expectation, and “what if” does not exist…yet. If you choose to think about what is, rather than “what if”, you will be more productive and likely happier. “What is” really is all that we know for sure.

Don’t paint on my blank canvas!

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Don’t paint on my blank canvas!

When one experiences negative feelings or insecurities about self or situation, a belief can develop that others share that opinion as well. This is what is known as psychological projection, and it can cause a person to believe that he or she is being viewed negatively by others. When one applies meaning to words and actions of others in an irrational way (without proof), and accepts that meaning as confirmation that personal insecurities are being seen and believed by others, dysfunction occurs. When I say, “Don’t paint on my blank canvas,” it means don’t view my neutrality as confirmation of your insecurities. Don’t assume that I’m thinking what you’re thinking. It’s important that we seek to identify, understand, and work through our own insecurities and resist the urge to project them onto others. Don’t paint your insecurities onto anyone’s blank canvas and all of your relationships will benefit.

What would you do?

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What would you do?

When we read or hear about other people’s experiences, there is a temptation to imagine how we would have handled their situation differently than they did. “Well if that happened to me, I would’ve…,” but really that isn’t fair to the person who actually experienced it. When aided by the benefit of hindsight, we almost certainly come to a different decision than we would have in the moment.

One of the first things I say when I’m asked by a client, or a friend, what I would have done in any particular situation is, “It really isn’t fair for me to pretend to know.” I’m glad to offer my thoughts on a past decision but I’m careful to admit that one doesn’t know how they would react to any given situation until they are actually faced with that situation. It’s easy to look back and see where others have made bad judgments and to wonder how such decisions could have been made, but we must remember that the benefit of hindsight is only afforded after the event has occurred.

So, hold back your judgment and resist the urge to tell others how much better you would have handled their situation than they did. Remember that we all do the best we can in any given moment and we all make mistakes.

Step-ping up

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Step-ping up

Being a step parent is challenging. And also the sun is hot and the ocean is wet and all other things that are true beyond words. If you’re lucky, you never have to hear your step child yell, “You can’t tell me what to do!” “You’re not my father/mother!” It can be very difficult for a child to learn to take direction from a new parental figure and this can lead to great stress within the home. It can also be difficult for a stepparent to learn how to interact with a child in ways that are firm and consistent, but also kind, accepting and loving. Kids have a way of seeing through people so a step parent’s efforts must be genuine or the child will resist and possibly rebel.

And then there is the challenge of co-parenting with the biological parent. Sometimes the biological parent is resistant to the stepparent taking too much of a role in areas such as discipline, education and emotional well-being.  This can lead to hurt feelings and become a major source of conflict within the relationship if both parents are not flexible and reasonable. The step parent must respect the boundaries established by the biological parent, and the biological parent must respect the need of the step parent to be involved in decisions related to the child. This delicate balance can only be established and maintained through kind and patient communication.

Step parents are important. We become important figures in our step children’s, and our partners’ lives and it is up to us to respect both of those roles. We must understand that we are not, and never will be, that child’s biological parent but we are a parent. Our feelings cannot be hurt by the boundaries, roles and influence of the biological parents. We should strive to fit into the parenting system rather than to change the system entirely. Ask for what you need but be flexible and understanding.  And if, like me, you are blessed with a great step child and an amazing partner, be grateful and let them know how much you appreciate being a part of their system. Because, did I mention that being a step parent can be challenging?

Self-pity

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Self-pity

Put simply, self-pity is you feeling sorry for you. It’s those times when life feels hard and you allow negative thinking to take over. It’s those times when you choose to focus on what is lacking in life rather than what is there. Self-pity is a feeling that leads to a lot of dysfunction. Self-pity leads to substance abuse, relationship problems, depression and anxiety. The medicine for self-pity is gratitude. Gratitude is appreciating the good rather than focusing on the bad. It is nearly impossible to feel self-pity when you are focusing on all the things for which you are grateful. So, when you notice that you are feeling down and focusing on the bad, take stock of all that you have. Be grateful and choose to think about the positive instead of the negative. Then, sit back and enjoy the change that takes place as your life becomes filled with more and more things for which to be grateful.