Monday, January 30, 2012

Inside the Mind of Casey Anthony....

I love Keith Ablow, MD.  I also love Dr. Drew Pinsky...but I loved Dr. Keith first.  Both are psychiatrists---both have written several books (though Dr. Keith has also written several novels)---and both are well-known broadcast media fixtures. 

Just the other day, I picked up Dr. Keith's latest book on Casey Anthony.  It is literally called "Inside the Mind of Casey Anthony".  If the title smacks of a deja vu moment, Dr. Keith also wrote a book some years ago entitled "Inside the Mind of Scott Peterson".  In my professional opinion, Dr. Keith hit all there was to hit on the nail in analyzing Scott Peterson after the murder and disappearance of his wife and unborn baby in Modesto, CA.  I was very anxious to read what Dr. Keith had to say about Casey Anthony...and now I have finally finished the book after three nights of non-stop bedtime reading.

Casey Anthony, if you will recall, is the Florida mom who was aquitted in the murder of her two-year old daughter Caylee this past year.  I wrote a post about the case when the trial was airing on Court TV;  I had hoped someone like Dr. Keith would one day "write the book" to help us all understand how Casey was made (not born!) and, as a result, what made her tick.

As any of us in the psychotherapy profession knows, history is no mystery when you take the time to dig deep enough to discover the roots of any given person's particular brand(s) of dysfunction.  In the case of Casey Anthony, the rampant emotional, sexual, and psychological dysfunction present within both sides of her parents' families and within her parents themselves was no surprise at all.  I don't want to give away the store here because the book is SO good...I can't even begin to hit on all the salient points that I believe contributed to the making of Casey.  I do know that something was major-ly rotten in Denmark when Casey kept telling her parents she was a "virgin" while her waistline expanded to the tune of seven months pregnant.  If you can believe this one, nobody thought "anything" about it either until Cindy Anthony's brother confronted them all at a wedding when Casey was (again!) seven months pregnant!  Yikes!   I mean I have met and dealt with people in denial before---but when a whole family including the mom-to-be herself  is in denial about a seven month pregnancy...what else is there to surprise us?  Plenty!  Don't get me started.  Each post I write can be only so long after all...

Reading this book is a must for anyone who wants to know how codependent controllers can wreck havoc on their chosen "prey" over the course of each generation.  From Casey's maternal grandmother and paternal grandfather...to Cindy and George (Casey's parents)...to Casey and her brother Lee, you will clearly see why history was indeed no mystery in regards to how innocent little Caylee ended up dead.

As an aside, if you or anyone you care about is being sexually abused, please make the call that can begin to save your life---or the life of someone you love.  1-800-656-HOPE or 1-800-799-SAFE.


Teachable Moments...

Just this month, I decided to start creating a family scrapbook for our family.  I had so many photos in so many places around here---I wanted to finally put things together in an order that made sense for our daughter (and her future family).  So...I got started with the "oldest" known photo in our posession as a couple.  It was a formal portrait of my husband's maternal great-grandparents.  Little did I know that as I went about the business of putting the photos from our two parents' families together, how much I would be learning in the process...

Last night was one of those times.  I was talking on the phone to my maternal aunt after noticing that there were a whole lot of photos of her as a young woman...but none of my mother (her only sister).  I asked her why that was (as my mother is now deceased and you don't even want to know the back story about her at this point in time!).  She said at first that she "didn't know"...but as our conversation continued, I backed myself up and asked her about the formal baptism portrait of herself with her parents and Godparents.  She went on about how her Godfather owned a coal yard on the east side of Detroit and how this couple didn't have any children of their own.  She added how she did have a good relationship with her Godparents growing up and how he or they would come over and bring presents, etc. to her as a child.  I then casually asked who my mother's Godparents were.  She laughed and said some man named  Zigich  who was single and never married.  She quickly added that this man Zigich "adored" her father (this would be my maternal grandfather) and would ask his opinions on all sorts of topics.  She followed that up by saying one day, her father went up to Zigich's work and met him as he came out with his paycheck.  It appears that Mr. Zigich burned up the mattress on which he slept in my grandfather's house (he was one of several "roomers" staying with my grandparents at the time) and my grandfather wanted the money to replace it....

So here I have my aunt whose Godfather owned a coal yard (and if you could see the photo, this dude was quite the dapper dresser---much better than my grandfather!)....while my mother's Godfather was a mattress-burning roomer with no photo to immortalize his role in my mother's life.  Gotcha.

Then, without warning, my aunt suddenly volunteered the following information:  "You know, my father who WAS A VERY NICE MAN MIND YOU did tell my mother that if she didn't have another child after I was born, he was going to send her back to Croatia because he really wanted a second child."  Wow.  Really?  What a NICE MAN Teta!  ("Teta" is Serbo-Croatian for "aunt")  And even though I heard it a hundred times over in my life that my grandmother favored my aunt over my mother....this little nugget of truth was never exposed to me---until last night.

Needless to say, for all the times I drove myself round the bend wondering WHY WHY WHY my mother treated me like garbage "anyway" growing up and also in relation to my golden-boy brother whom she adored (and still does I am sure from beyond the grave)...this revelation coming out of my aunt's mouth last night was like water to a dying flower.  The truth is NOTHING to be afraid of.  It really can and does work to set one free!

Teachable moments come and go throughout our lives.  What do you do with yours when they come?  Do you quickly get out the towel when the truth spills out in order to wipe it up and throw it away as soon as possible?  Not a good idea folks.  The truth is never meant to harm you.  It can teach you just what you need in order to keep making those positive changes in your life that help you to heal and grow....

I'll keep you posted as my family scrapbook evolves...

Friday, January 27, 2012

Sexual Infidelity...101 (Part III & Done!)

Now you know if you selected a serial cheater in hopes of having a fabulous and monogamous long-term relationship...that certainly won't work.  You also have learned if you or your partner have ignored and avoided the ongoing pursuit of authentic emotional intimacy and replaced it with s-e-x
---that won't work either.  So what's left to talk about in regards to understanding the forces behind one's sexual infidelity?  Plenty!

3.  When did you learn that treating human beings like objects (including yourself!) was a good thing?

This particular factor is, without a doubt, a foundational core belief that feeds the beast of sexual infidelity.  For you see, when you treat yourself or others like something you can take off or put back on the shelf like a Barbie or Ken doll, we begin to view sexual activity as casually as we treat items on a take-out menu.  "I'll have a tall blonde with bulging biceps and a side of humor please!"  If you doubt what I'm saying here, tune in tomorrow at 11:00AM to watch the next episode of Jerry Springer...and oh yes Maury to follow.  Over time, it becomes very easy to treat "cheating" like it's nothing to get into a twist over.  "It was just a one night stand!" "He didn't mean anything to me!"  "It's not like I said I loved her or anything like that!"  "I didn't even know him!  We just met and had a good time together!"  Whatever.  Use whatever excuse you want...but people are NOT objects, o.k.?!

There is an old saying:  "Love people and use things;  not use people and love things."  In our so-called "enlightened" society, one thing we have failed miserably at is honoring our own and one another's humanity.  Remember the little ditty at the start of the Declaration of Independence of 1776:   "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal."?  What the hell happened between then and now?  How can we possibly treat each other as equals when feel free to use each other up like kleenix on most any given day?  Grant it, not all "objectification" is that obvious to the naked eye.  Do you think it's normal or acceptable to be bitched at by your wife or husband because your clothes or your hair or your makeup isn't "right" enough for them?  Yeah yeah yeah...you can give me any excuse you want about "But he/she CARES about me and that's why they want me to always look my best!"   That's a joke.  If you make me look "bad", you may not be a toy I want to keep around anymore...kapeesh?  I actually knew a guy back in the day who divorced his otherwise very sweet and giver-oriented wife because why?  She got too "boring" for him.  Well, isn't that special?  Oh wait, that's what he liked about her in the first place!  That she always (and I DO mean always!) put HIM first and did WHATEVER he wanted to do and rarely did anything WITHOUT HIM---to the tune of 15+ years.  I'm just waiting for the day when a newborn baby is rejected because his race isn't quite right...or she looks too much like my damn ex-husband.  Oh, wait a minute.  That already goes on.  All the time.  See what I mean?  We are a nation of objectifiers in denial. 

Treating yourself like an object happens when you think you have only two choices when it comes to how you primarily function in your "love" relationship.  These are the choices:  as a giver/slave...or as a taker/master.  And of course you may flip and flop back and forth depending on the day...or your partner's day...or your mood...or your partner's mood.  And we wonder why the incidences of fibromyalgia, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and so many other stress-sensitive diseases and illnesses occur to the extent they do in this country?  Yikes!  If you are literally sick with something, you are supposed to take care of yourself!  You don't keep cooking and cleaning and stepping and fetching and running and working AS IF you are supposed to ignore that flu you have contracted!  That's another thing objectifiers do;  they ignore their own positive self-care because "he" or "she" or "they" matter so much more than you do in the long run.  Spare me.  Objectifying doesn't get anyone anywhere that is good. 

You know I could say more on this topic, but I figure the "top three" factors was enough to explore for now.  Remember that nothing is a surprise when your eyes are appropriately tweaked to see more clearly.  Didn't I mention in a past post about this?  The FIRST step in "getting better" is to become AWARE of your own INappropriate thoughts, your own INappropriate feelings, and your own INappropriate behaviors...and take responsibility for them.  Even when it has to do with why we accept cheating as "o.k." and not a big deal in the first place!










Sexual Infidelity...101 (Part II)

Last time, I presented the first factor one needs to examine in light of finding out that their partner and/or spouse is cheating.  To briefly summarize, if you have chosen a serial cheater and believed (the lie!) that "your" love would somehow change that person for the better...you were wrong.  So that's that.  Now let's move on to the next factor:

2.  Have you mistaken "sex" for true emotional intimacy?

Emotional intimacy and physical intimacy are two very different things.  If emotional intimacy is the "cake"...then physical intimacy (aka "sex") is the icing on the cake.  Got that?  Sex is NOT THE CAKE!  Yet for many individuals, "great sex" is perceived as all that is needed to be fully understood by one another.  This is like saying if you hang out in K-Mart long enough you'll eventually become Jacqueline Smith.  Uh......NO!  Emotional intimacy is all about sharing and understanding what goes on between your ears (in your mind!) and in your heart with the person you claim to love the most in life (namely, your partner).  And please don't be shocked BUT....not everyone knows how to express their thoughts, feelings, needs, or disappointments ANYWAY---let alone consistently over time....let alone consistently over time WITH THEIR PARTNER! 

This is why so many of us skip over "that part" to do with the development and maintenance of true emotional intimacy in our primary relationships----and jump to sex as a way of "feeling close" to someone.  This is not a good idea.  Actually, it's a very bad idea.  Why?  because this is at the "root" of what creates (down the road) serial monogamists...serial cheaters...commitment phobes..."whatever" you want to call those who are more afraid of emotional intimacy than they are of bangin' their brains out.  (Sorry, but that's what came to me as I thought it!).

When it comes down to the nitty gritty, the "scorned" party in any cheating-related drama has to take a look at their part in relation to this issue.  Are you also afraid of developing true emotional intimacy with your partner?  If so, then two wrongs were not going to make a right by avoiding the work which needed to be done there.  Were you making yourself emotionally available to your partner, but found yourself more frustrated and hurt at their "lack" of reciprocity over time...and eventually just "gave up"?  If this better describes your situation, you will need to look at to what extent you encouraged reciprocity as opposed to just talking "at" your partner.  I know plenty of people who would identify me as one of their best friends...but I cannot say that I have always felt the same way in return.  I AM a great listener...but when it feels like all I am doing is LISTENING and not given a chance to share how I am doing or how I am feeling or what I have going on.....it's like living on the receiving end of a one-sided dialogue.  "Well then this happened to me...and then that happened to me...and then I wondered what else is going to happen to me.  Oh, I'm sorry!  Am I talking to much about me?  O.k. then, let's switch gears---now it's your turn to talk about me!"  Scenarios like that.  Not good for the development of true emotional intimacy between two people! 

Well...that's enough about that.  What do you think about that? 

As hard as it may be to believe, developing true emotional intimacy is not a magical or mysterious process that you are forced to figure out on your own.  This is one of the "big" issues that is best resolved through psychotherapy...and with a good psychotherapist.  Like me.  Or those others out there like me that is. :-P

Have a good weekend!  

Sexual Infidelity...101

Infidelity within the context of a "committed" relationship is something no one wants landing at their doorstep.  Because of my work as a psychotherapist, I have seen and heard quite a bit when it comes to the things people are capable of saying and doing both as a perpetrator and as a partner scorned.  Yet I was just as surprised as anyone else the other day when I heard about a particular scorned wife in Texas.  From what the media claims, she was in a therapy session with her husband when he admitted to having an affair that he didn't plan to end.  He also indicated that he wanted a divorce from his wife.  I've also been in that boat before with my clients.  "Yes!  I can't help it---I love XXX.  I've tried.  I'm done.  We have to get a divorce.  I want to be happy.." etc. etc. etc.  Yet for the wife in Texas, when she and her husband's therapy session was over, she drove 5 hours to a nearby state and blew away the mistress with three shots to the face.  In the mistress's house.  And in front of the mistress's elderly mother.  When I saw the photos of the alledged killer and her victim, they both looked like kindly grandma types that wouldn't have had ANY part in this type of drama---let alone be the focus of it!

What's a person to do in light of the unexpected and devastating news that a trusted partner or spouse is cheating...and/or has cheated in the past?  I've had clients beg me "Just tell me what to do."  No, that's not the job of one's therapist anyway.  Regardless of the circumstances...no therapist should ever play God in the lives of their clients.  Ever.  Now that I got that bit out of the way---let's look at what needs to be faced if infidelity has reared its ugly head in your life and primary relationship.

1.  Have you committed yourself to the equivalent of a man-whore?

(Male or female, that is.  I hate to put it so bluntly...but I cannot TELL you how many women and men hook themselves up with and commit themselves to serial cheaters who have no CLUE how to be faithful in a monogamous relationship!  It doesn't take a rocket scientist either to figure out if your partner/spouse is a man-whore.  How did you meet?  What were the circumstances under which you met?  Were you, yourself, the "other" man or the "other" woman at the time you were seeing each other?  Well, DUH!  Even if this was "not" your specific situation...man-whores are the types that turn to someone else (anyone else!) when they are bored, dissatisfied, angry, frustrated, and feeling "neglected" in the context of their primary relationship.  If you committed yourself to a man-whore, here's the good news:  even though you may FEEL the affair(s) are or were your fault, they weren't.  Period.  Even if your partner or spouse married Jesus in a skirt (or pants!)...he or she would be fooling around "anyway" somewhere down the line.  So don't beat yourself up over what you "did" or "didn't" do to make the relationship work.  You couldn't do anything.  You chose a man-whore!  That was the first and worst decision you made.  So if you want to beat yourself up over anything...focus on "that" and why you thought you'd be able to "reform" your man-whore into something better over time.  But only do that for a little while...and then get into therapy so you won't make the same mistake again!!

As an addendum to this point, anyone who is addicted to "all things sexual" (online pornography, phone sex blah-de-blah) which does NOT involve literal sexual contact is like a man-whore once removed.  That person still has a sex addiction, but is playin' like Clinton with the details:  "I did NOT have sex with that woman!"  In this case, your man-whore once removed would rather be with some THING than with a live human being who is right under their nose and available to them!  For the individuals partnered up with this type of man (or woman), you most often struggle with feeling that sex is an "act" rather than an expression of your authentic loving feelings for one another.  Your MHOR partner seems more focused on anything and everything else than forging and maintaining a true emotionally intimate connection with you.  I'm just sayin...

Next time...we'll talk more on this topic of the factors to face when facing sexual infidelity...

Thursday, January 26, 2012

The Storms of Life....

It's not what happens that matters most, but how one responds to what has happened that does.

Sounds good.  Very difficult to put into actual practice, however.  Let's face it.  If someone yells at me and I know I didn't do or say anything to provoke the yeller....what do you think my natural inclination is?  To pray for him or her?  Nope.  To ask in a gentle but firm tone, "Excuse me, I hear the words but don't understand their meaning.  Could you explain why you are saying that to me in this moment?"  That would be a double nope.  In reality and in spite of all my professional training, my "natural" inclination would be and has historically been to yell back---just louder and more menacingly.  To say I am proud of this "survivor" mentality still lurking within me is not the case.  When I was a younger person, one of my standard one-liners was this:  "I can kick anyone's..."  I think you get the picture.  The only problem was then as it remains now:  kicking anyone's anything does NOTHING to solve, resolve, or dissolve the issue or problem that started whatever mess we find ourselves in--in the first place! 

I often assign "Grand Torino" as the movie to watch for my clients who struggle with feeling overwhelmed about their life's problems...and who have used their fists or their weaponry to settle real or imagined scores.  It's a good movie.  You should watch it too sometime.  Everyone should.  If ever there was a movie to remind us of how two wrongs do NOT make a right...this is it.

Life is full of difficult stuff.  People are often unreasonable and self-centered.  We should forgive them anyway.  Even when we are kind, people may accuse us of ulterior motives.  We should be kind anyway.  If we are honest, people may cheat us.  We should be honest anyway.  People may persecute us.  We should pray for them anyway.  Trying to solve our problems with our fists or venom-laced words can never lead to a life filled with authentic love, inner peace, and true joy.  How could it?  You don't get flowers as a result of stompin' on rocks--no matter how often or how hard you stomp.  We must learn to make the positive changes that will bring us peace...and wisdom...and joy IN SPITE of our difficult circumstances.  Nobody learns how to be brave or courageous by actively avoiding the tough stuff of life.  Raw metal doesn't become finely polished steel by just layin' in the dirt for 20 or 30 years.  It is the friction that occurs over and over and over again which transforms that raw material into something strong, beautiful, and ultimately indestructible.

Storms are not the problem;  being inappropriately and inadequately prepared for them is.

Until we meet again....

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Family "Scrapbook"

Quick update Jan. 2012:  my Uncle "B" is still alive and I'm going to see him today (as a matter of fact!).  Since my last post, he's been hospitalized twice...first for "sepsis";  the second time after having fallen twice and busting up his head and his elbow.  I can tell you that when I saw him last week, he actually said "Thank you for coming.." as I was leaving him.  That was a first.  So I can at least be grateful for small progresses made in spite of historical patterns of behavior towards others.  (I'm not invisible anymore!)

But I digress.  This post is most about the family "scrapbook" I have begun with the onset of this new year.  I had wanted to pursue this type of project for a long time---but had always found ways to avoid it.  Yet with all the "stuff" that has been going on around me, I rationalized that it was time to distract myself with something that had a purpose bigger than myself and my current stresses.  What I didn't count on or expect was the healing that would come along with this process of categorizing, organizing, and making sense of our hundreds of family photos.....

And YES, there IS a big link between my family "scrapbook" project and my Uncle B (and everyone else in our family and anywhere else on planet earth who is "like" him).

Going back to the "oldest" family photo in I and my husband's possession...it is a formal portrait of my husband's maternal great-grandparents.  This was the "start" of my scrapbooking project (identified by me as "Photo 1").  As I began to combine this photo with the other "oldest" photos we have of my husband's grandparents...and my own grandparents, I was reminded of the painting "A Dance To the Music of Time" by Nicolas Poussin.  Commissoned in the 1600s by Pope Clement IX, the painting depicts four people who symbolically represent the four seasons of the year.  They are facing outward, holding hands, and "dancing" in a continuous circle to the music of time.  The dance never ends...time always passes, and each of the people in the circle represent part of a bigger cycle all humanity experiences and/or will struggle with throughout their lives.  Poverty (person #1)....Labor (person #2)...Riches (person #3)...and Pleasure (person #4)...before the cycle repeats itself.  Over and over again as time keeps passing each of us (and all of us!) by. 

In our respective families' cases....I and my husband's people got stuck at "Labor" and did not move past that portion of the cycle in their own lives.  Each hardworking to a fault and stuck in lifestyles that offered little in the way of creature comforts or a ticket out of Dodge (Yugoslavia in my paternal grandmother's case and Italy in my husband's maternal great-grandparents' case);  their lives were primarily about trying to move away from poverty...and staying away.

Yet as is so true for anyone who has been "born" poor;  you can only work so hard and for so long without paying some heavy prices.  Beyond the obvious (health-related "drama")...a vast majority of these "worker bees" got and remained stuck emotionally in a "survivor" mentality.  Everything was and needed to be about their own survival---literally and figuratively.  Like my uncle for example.  He was the last of 11 children born in a village somewhere in outer Croatia;  a "highlight" story from his past had to do with his father's head being lodged inside a bear's mouth.  Clearly, life was no bowl of porridge for my uncle.  Or for my father...or for both sets of my grandparents...or my husband's grandparents.  Do you notice a pattern beginning to emerge here?  In our case, the "dance" to the music of time for both sides of our extended family system was stuck somewhere between poverty (and pain!) and labor (and more pain!) for way too many decades.

It has been said that when the student is ready, the teachers suddenly begin to appear.  I am hoping that in spite of our circumstances, in spite of what happens to us, and in spite of how "good" or how "bad" the things are that happen to us---that we will always be open to being "students" in the school of our lives...and our relationships.

After all...I can't think of anyone who likes being stuck between anything for too long!