Cat-fishin'...

I've mentioned the"False Self" persona in past posts as same pertained to what many do to feel better about themselves when they don't believe themselves to be o.k. as they authentically are.  Then just today I remembered the movie "Catfish" which came out several years ago...and the subsequent MTV cable television series based on it.  If ever there was a way to describe how a "False Self" can work in the extreme, the practice of catfishing is it!

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term "catfishing", it pertains to individuals who use the internet to set up a false identity in order to "hook" unsuspecting prospects to "date" online.  We all know about online dating and how that works;  catfishing takes it to a whole different and dysfunctional level because one (and sometimes both!) parties involved are NOT who they claim to be.  In the movie "Catfish", a young man from New York is led to believe that he is communicating online with a beautiful younger woman who is an artist living in northern Michigan.  I don't want to give away the entire plot of the movie...but let's just say when he actually "meets" his online girlfriend, he gets the shock of a lifetime.  Because of the wildly successful  response to this movie, the television series was born.  Watching the series, however, was extremely disturbing to me both personally and professionally speaking.  It's one thing to "catfish" someone by claiming to be 20 years old when you are actually 30--and then use an online profile photo from when you were 20 years old to i.d. yourself;  it's an entirely different matter when you claim to be a twenty-something african american male model who's into rap and lives in New York City who has his own Facebook page and fifty "friends" (using whatever random online photo(s) of strangers you choose to use to i.d. yourself and your various Facebook "friends"!!) when, in reality, you are a 16 year old caucasian lesbian living with your parents in the backwoods of Kentucky.  Very disturbing indeed.

For those who are being catfished, I have to wonder how anyone could get or be involved with someone they never laid eyes on (in real life or via Skype at the very least!)....let alone for several months not to mention years.  Yes, I said years.  Who does that?  Someone who, tragically, has a whole lot of issues around "fantasy-based fictions" with the hope that "One day..."  One day what?  You'll go on the Catfish t.v. show and find out you just wasted XX amount of months or years on someone who wasn't even a "real" person?  How sad is that?  Beyond sad in my book that's how much.

My greatest concern is how long it will take before practices like catfishing are considered "no big deal" because hey---whatever floats your boat!  This is the logic that drives me up a proverbial wall.  It is NOT o.k. to do whatever you want just because you feel like it...and/or because you can.  Why?  Because moral relativism just doesn't work that's why.  We have passively accepted a tremendous amount of garbage as it is over the past 100 years.  When I tell young people now how there "used" to be a time when people didn't go out in public unless they were dressed to the nines---they literally can't believe it.  Yet I also know that I can't believe it these days when I go out in public and see "F**K CANCER" on someone's tee shirt in the mall...let alone "F**K YOU...let alone "F**K period.  What the...?  (I will not say it don't worry!)  We got so much so wrong as a culture.  But hey---when it's o.k. to do anything, then anything is o.k. right?  Wrong!

The False Self persona is a great example of how what started out one way ended up a whole other way once everyone stopped paying attention to how it could explode into something quite common and monstrous (as an online "dating" practice!) at the same time.  Yikes we're in trouble.  Makes me wonder how much longer it's going to be before I start getting clients coming in who want to marry their dog---or their cat---or their neighbors.  But that's another topic for another time.

As for me....I'm just glad I'm old enough "now" not to ever see how catfishin' will evolve over the next 50-odd years.  Then again, I think I can already guess...

Until next time.



 

The Highly Resistants...

Today was one of those days.  I went into work and everything started out just fine.  Then my phone rang.  A stranger was on the other end of the line who had been referred to me by her church.  I asked what she wanted help about, and she started talking about a variety of difficult circumstances she had been through in recent months.  Lost her job....had to move out of her place...complicated childhood background....etc.  I responded by saying I believed I would be able to help her.  I added that many times the stresses of what we experience now, in the present, can trigger uncomfortable feelings connected to our past and its own unresolved griefs and traumas. We chatted for a few more minutes and then, as the old saying goes, the worm did indeed turn.  By the time I hung up, I felt like the smack down HAD been put on me!  What the heck?!  That's not how unsolicited phone calls to my office for potential appointments with me are supposed to go!  But this one did anyway.  And today I am going to tell you why...

There is no sadder and more frustrating scenario in psychotherapy than working with clients who are and then remain "highly resistant".  These are the clients who have some issue (or perhaps more!)...but deep down in their heart of hearts, they are more afraid of "healing" than of remaining "as is".  Yet, how they "is" currently has caused them tremendous pain and turmoil leading them to struggle with no end in sight.  Instead of embracing the healing, positive change, and personal growth process...these individuals will (consciously or subconsciously) treat it all like an impending plague.  It's a surreal dynamic to witness as a psychotherapist, but it happens more often than any of us would like.

The Highly Resistants are generally people who struggle with anxiety to a much greater degree than they are able to acknowledge or imagine.  Think about it.  Anxiety is the fuel that feeds the beasts of mistrust, fear, and future catastrophe.  Unfortunately, it is an overwhelming need to control situations, circumstances, and people that is perceived as the Highly Resistants' own secret key to feeling "better" fast and not so anxious.  Uh...no.  That don't work unless you want to perpetuate the madness over time.  As such, even the simple act of making a phone call to someone a Highly Resistant doesn't already "know" can trigger all sorts of catastrophic thoughts before "Hellos?" are even exchanged.  That's what happened today.  My tipoff was when the caller at one point launched into her professional background instead of just saying, "Listen, I can't believe I am still struggling with these unresolved issues and maybe I'm not anyway so here's proof that I'm a successful person to prove I don't actually need therapy from you or anyone else unless you start responding to me like I want you to respond to me."  With this particular Highly Resistant, I could have pandered to the caller's immediate need for CONTROL, validation, emotional support, empathy, blah blah blah until the caller felt "safe" enough to feel "more" comfortable speaking with me.  Well....for any of you reading this who have worked with me or who know me either personally or professionally---that wasn't happening.  It would have been like giving a bucket full of sugar to a raging diabetic.  No way. I don't do pander.  And I don't do denial either I'm just sayin...  Especially over the phone.  I learned that lesson ages ago.  In a past life I was a Ninja Warrior anyway so get over it ;-)  (JUST KIDDING don't freak!)

Listen, we all have issues.  Nobody is perfect.  But when you can't handle even the smallest doses of your own life's "catastrophic truths" (because truths can indeed feel and be catastrophic for those who are highly resistant!)...then it is time to practice the fine art of intentional surrender.  You can't control everything, let alone your own healing process, if what you have done "so far" on your own has led to the same old same old over time.  Probably the best Highly Resistant "rant" I had ever heard in psychotherapy had to do with "I don't do medication no way I don't need it it'll make me sick and who cares of my psychiatrist said I am schizoaffective I just can figure out some other way to stabilize my mood swings."  Oh, you mean like using the alcohol and weed you have for the past ten years because it's working so well for you? Of course, it wasn't until this particular client was on the right medication AFTER becoming sober that the right kind of progress was able to occur.  Shooting oneself in one's foot most often leads to more pain and more suffering.  

Don't get me wrong.  I love working with my most challenging clients and am very grateful when I see the positive changes they once never believed possible.  But these Highly Resistants...they are their own worst enemy.  And you know what they say about enemies?  "When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you." 

Have a good weekend. 




  

When Love Gets Lost....

How many times have you felt like a person you thought you knew and loved like no other ended up morphing into someone you didn't recognize at all anymore?  Unfortunately, this happens a lot in many "couple" relationships.  Somebody "stopped" loving the other and either said so directly, or engaged in a whole lot of ongoing dysfunction to "show" it behaviorally.  In either case, someone wants "out" (or some version of it!)...while the other is left hanging on for dear life.

Back when I was a new therapist, I remember a young and very attractive career woman who was married just over a year when she first came in to see me.  She was shocked more than anything else about how "lazy" her new husband had suddenly become since exchanging "I Dos'" at the alter.  I remember her telling me how he eventually lost his job at a local bank and didn't even appear motivated enough to go out and find something else to do work-wise.  He preferred sitting in front of their television set all day and playing video games.  She mentioned that it might not be so bad if he did something else during the day besides at-home gaming.  They had lived in an apartment and according to my client, he never even got the mail, cleaned up after himself, or took out the garbage.  She was, in a word, devastated by a tremendous sense of betrayal.  I invited her to bring him to a session;  he declined.  I invited her to bring him again after a few more individual sessions;  he declined.  After several months, I asked her how she thought he would change as a result of her and I seeing one another in therapy as we had been.  Her answer I will never forget as it still continues to amaze me.  Looking at me without blinking, she said "He says it relaxes him to have me off his back for a couple hours while I'm here talking to you."  Talk about an OMG moment.  Tragically, I don't know what happened all these years later to that couple;  however, if they remain married...my hope and prayer is that they had no children to bring into that disasterous marital dynamic.

Then there was the couple who was engaged for several months, but were holding off on actually getting married because....."because of his kids who are all spoiled brats!"  O.K.  Note to reader:  If you are dating or engaged to ANYONE who refers to your kids as "spoiled brats" and you are still with him or her---you do have a problem.  It may be true that your kids are spoiled brats and you may even know this yourself, but that is not a way to "resolve" that particular issue.  Do not hook yourself up with someone who thinks they have the power to control you or your kids into better behavior.  That never works.  And then you wonder why the love gets lost on your part (or theirs!) after the XX nth attempt to "make" you or your kids behave in a way that is acceptable to your partner?  Spare me!

Expectations that are literally or figuratively unrealistic lie at the heart of how love can get lost sooner than later in any close relationship.  If I "expect" you to go to work every day at 8:00AM and return at 6:00PM and put in an honest day's labor without getting a bad attitude about it...how does that jive with your work history being spotty at best since you turned 18 years old?  It doesn't!  Inotherwords, pay attention to the evidences that demand a verdict!  You can't transform a lazy a** into a productive one just because you want it or ask for it!  DOH!  Reality doesn't work like that.  As Popeye the Sailor Man infamously said, "I yam Who I yam!"  People don't change unless they are forced to...and that's usually courtesy of the state.  If they "do" choose to change, it's IMHO a God thing for which they should be eternally grateful for.

Oh...and I must include for the purpose of example here the couple who have been together for 5, 10, or however many "more" years---but of course one of them "isn't ready yet" for marriage.  Are you kidding?  Nobody sticks around for 5, 10, or even 50 years without being married UNLESS THEY WANT TO.  Period.  Don't make a choice one way and then beeatch about "But I wanted to be married ages ago!" out the other side of your mouth.  If you want to be married and have children, clearly a person who is not married to you after a several year courtship, DOES NOT WANT TO MARRY YOU!  Them "loving" you however they do is obviously not enough for you based on what you claim to want so much---or that is so very important to you.  It's not.  Unless you're just delusional and don't know it yet.  Take your pick.

I think the saddest times in my practice for me are when I see clients destroying themselves in the name of "love" given all the verbal, psychological, physical, and/or sexual abuse they are willing to put up with.  Recreating drama and trauma for oneself isn't new and we see it all the time as psychotherapists;  however, it is still extremely sad and tragic to be forced to witness when we do.  Love is not meant to be tortuous, hurtful, deceitful, or self-serving.  If it is, it's time to get help.  You may not like what you learn or realize, but it's certainly better than living in a self-destructive limbo that never ends.  Until you or your partner chooses to end it that is.





 

Got Trance?

Who are you?  Have you stopped to think about that lately?  I'm not just talking about what your name is or any of your other vital statistics;  I want to know who you believe you are deep down inside yourself. 

Believe it or not, not too many people know how to truthfully answer this question.  This is because there are many MANY of us out there who function based on an idealized image/persona/mask (however you want to refer to it!) of our own making.  Countless books have been written on this topic;  one that sticks out in my mind because of its title was "Trances People Live".  I like that title a lot because it reminds me of the "Got Milk?" advertising campaign.  "Got Trance?"  If you do, now's the time to keep calm and un-trance yourself so you can discover who you truly are!

As to "why" we create this "false self" in the first place....several factors play into that choice.   For sure, not feeling like we matter is one of those factors.  As such, much of who we think we have to be in order to be o.k. is premised on our need to be accepted.  That's all.  We will be whomever you want or need us to be in order for you to give us your acceptance, approval, and love.   For those of you who have been reading my posts on codependency, these same people are the natural codependent "givers" in relationships.  Givers typically have an extraordinary difficult time with the fear of being abandoned. As their big "C" Core fear, abandonment beats out any and every other fear there is to imagine.  The thought of death isn't even as scary as the thought of being completely and utterly alone in this world.  Hence, how else are people like this going to function (by choice!) when they are battling this fear-based demon basically every single day of their lives?  "I will be whomever you need me to be...just don't ever leave me!"  That about sums it up for this group.  In its most malignant form, these are the people who will give and give and give...but then expect expect and expect "back" in order to maintain their own sense of mental ane emotional balance.  Which never works by the way.  If you can learn to truly give when you do WITHOUT expectations (or strings!) attached, then you are being truly benevolent.  Otherwise, you are lying to yourself and everyone else around you.  Also, don't be fooled believing that "givers" are limited to the meek and mild among us.  I've met some very vocal and otherwise "Type A" personalitied givers out there too FYI...

Then there is the second group of individuals who just take what they want from others as often as possible.  They also have a problem with not feeling like they matter---but chose a very different path in how to cope with this burden.  That's all.  They will charm, manipulate, and sweep you away (whatever it takes!) in order to take from you what they want.  In marriage, these codependent "takers" may view you as either entertainment to be enjoyed (until something better comes along), a resource to be exploited to its fullest advantage (in a very measured and calculated kind of way), or as a means to maintain the "image" they present to the world (even the BTK killer was married for 29 years after all!).  One of the great books out there on takers who make a very bad habit of taking in marriage is called "Love Fraud" by Donna Andersen.  This group of people struggle with fear of engulfment as their big "C" Core fear.  A fear of engulfment has to do with feeling suffocated by the "needs" of others...or just others in general.   Think of the mouse being swallowed whole by the snake.  The mouse is being engulfed by the snake.  Although in these cases of malignant codependent takers, they have transformed themselves from the mouse into the snake and aren't even aware of how that happened.

Although these malignant "takers" are capable of giving (just as codependent givers are capable of taking)...there is NO giving that they do without an ulterior motive attached to it.  Inotherwords, love is just a four-letter word.  If you've ever watched the movie "Brighton Rock" (1948 version or the more recent adaptation), I'm talkin' about Pinky Brown when I describe this type of malignant codependent "taker".  Others would call this type of person a sociopath and that's fine.  In the end, malignant "takers" don't care who they throw under the bus and when...so long as they got what they wanted out of the deal.  Another way to put it is that malignant codependent takers know the most but care the least.  They lack true and authentic empathy towards others....always.

Discovering who you are requires that you stop to notice your own life and what makes you smile...what makes you laugh...what makes your heart sing...and what brings you true joy.  It could take a while to figure all this out.  I have a dear friend who spent the last 20-odd years in a terribly codependent relationship with a malignant "taker" (of course she was a "giver" in that pairing).  After the death of her partner, she discovered she loves to make jewelry!  Who knew?  She sure didn't.  Neither did I.  Now she's making and selling her work for hundreds of dollars through a high-end boutique as a "side line" to her full-time career in another field.  See what I mean?  When you take the time to discover who you authentically are, you may be very pleasantly surprised by what surfaces there!

Another friend I just had lunch with today proclaimed she'd never date again since the death of her spouse last year.  I asked why.  She said after realizing how controlling he was during the 40+ years they were together, she wasn't ever going to let herself be put in that position again.  News flash!  Not every man out there is controlling;  some do actually treat women like equals with respect and dignity!  Isn't that nice to know?  Yes, even in 2013 it's still true.  But until you know who YOU are and aren't afraid to say so to another person...you'll only end up with what others are willing to give you.  And that's no way to live.  Unless you're into self-induced trance states.  Like I asked earlier in this post:  "Got Trance?"  Hopefully if you do, it won't be for much longer....

The goal of ANY good relationship is (once again with feeling!) your ability to (a) share information and (b) exchange care.  Nobody can do that well without knowing who they truly are and being o.k. with it.  Grant it, I understand that sometimes the worst advice you can give to a person is to say "Be Yourself!"...but hopefully the likes of Charlie Manson or Marilyn Manson aren't reading this post!

So be yourself...get out of your trance if you live in one...and carry on! 












 

"OW! Halleljuah!"

Realizing something about ourselves that isn't necessarily a good thing is not easy.  As televangelist Joyce Meyer would say, these may represent our  "OW! Halleljuah!" moments in life when we let them function as such.  In my practice, these moments come most often when a client sees how he or she isn't much different from their own parent(s)---and not in a good way.  One client I can recall couldn't stand being compared to her mother by her own husband.  "He says I'm just like she is and I'm not!  That's my worst nightmare!"  Yet when I met with this couple and listened to all the examples her husband provided of "Her mom does this to her...and then I see her do that to me too..", my client busted out crying.  "I don't want to be like my mother!  I can't stand her anxiety and I have it just like she does!"  Yep, a potential "OW!  Halleljuah!" moment to be sure.  In that case, I am happy to report that my client was willing to do the work of making positive changes so her own anxiety could be better managed without running and ruining her--or her husband's lives and marriage.

What are your own "OW! Halleljuah!" moments that you have been avoiding in your past or present life?  For me personally, I am a talker by nature.  Love to talk.  Love to process as I speak.  Love to talk through a problem not just once, twice, or even five times.  Maybe this is why I have so many close girlfriends.  I don't want to burn any one friend out to the point of them saying "That's enough Mary!  Shut the *$)@# up!"  Yet----when I have been on the receiving end of this type of dynamic with a friend, I (like anyone else!) have felt myself wanting to say "Shut the $*)@# up!" OW!  Double OW!  Triple OW!  Needless to say, this particular "OW! Halleljuah!" moment has allowed me to set some boundaries...both with myself and others around this issue.  Don't get me wrong, it is perfectly normal to "talk" through something before the choice is made as to how to "act" in solving, resolving, or dissolving "it" whatever "it" is.  But if the talking has something to do with nothing that can be literally solved, resolved, or dissolved...it's anxiety based and has the potential to drive others up a tree or away from you (or me!) for a long long time.  So, in my own personal life, I have been practicing to talk less, listen more...and take action instead of take up phone if my issue(s) are indeed real and resolvable by my own efforts.

Adult children (which means all of us over the age of 18) tend to ignore how they are or have been affected by the "ways" their own parent(s) chose to behave as they were growing up and/or are currently.  I have always been mind blown by the "grandpa" who is still a skirt-chasin' womanizer at age 70 or beyond...and yet his son or daughter can't and won't connect the dots about why he is also a skirt-chasin' womanizer at age 38 (male) or is married to a skirt-chasin' womanizer at age 30 (female). OW!  OWOWOWOWOWOWOWOW!  But this is how it can be.  If you notice the "OW!", then you may have to notice there's a potential "Hallelujah!" attached to the "OW!" and who wants to do THAT work?!  Well...therein lies the rub.  That's why I love my job.  That's why I will always be busy until I die or retire.  Bein' a denial breaker as a career isn't easy, but someone's gotta do it!

Some more subtle forms of these "OW! Halleljuah!" moments include those of us who live on the edge of our own anger and defensive posturing.  You know, the people you feel you have to walk on eggshells around because they always seem to find something that "bothers" them enough to blow at any given moment.  Well...as the old saying goes:  "If you spot it, you go it!"  (Or you learned it and now choose to live with it!)  In this particular example, just give yourself permission to figure out when and how you were first introduced to this "type" of person and why you didn't just ditch them the moment you realized "this is how they are for real!"  You may find you couldn't ditch them back in the day because...oh geez!  They were your mom!  They were your dad!  They were your grandma or grandpa!  See what I mean?  Familiarity doesn't just breed contempt...it can breed clones of the same dysfunctional patterns.  It can also breed chosing someone to marry or "be" with with the same comfortably familiar dysfunctional patterns.

"OW!"

And hopefully "Halleljuah!" to you too!  248-561-8660 if you need help with that.





 



 

The Never-Ending Middle....

The never-ending middle is a hard place to live and function in.  After all, don't most things in life have a beginning---a middle---and then an end?  I don't know about you, but I have had more than my share of never-ending middles throughout my lifetime thus far.  Ask any childhood survivor of parental neglect and abuse and you'll understand what I'm talking about.  Being born and raised in hell is no place to be stuck when that particular never-ending middle often lasts for a minimum of 18 years.  Adult children of divorce often speak to me of the time frame when dad or mom first started fighting on a routine basis...to the time when one or the other moved out and the divorced was finalized.  Another kind of never-ending middle.

Never-ending middles are not easily defined.  Anything that causes a person to feel stuck in a circumstance or situation that is not changing for the better (or the worse!) can represent a never-ending middle in their own life.  Even if that never-ending middle is happening to someone else and not to them directly. 

I've spoken often in my blog about my 99 year old uncle.  This month is his two year anniversary when he first entered "rehab" for a medical issue that should have had him discharged within a month or so.  It didn't work out that way.  My uncle has slowly but steadily lost all use and function of his legs, his hands, and now his ability to speak.  That's been a definite never-ending middle experience in his life and in ours (as his family) for the past 24 months. 

I have a friend who has struggled with severe allergies and skin problems since childhood.  She never knows when she will break out---when she will get stung or bit by something that will cause her throat to close shut---or when something "new" she eats has an adverse affect on her gastrointestinal system.  This never-ending middle has cost her the ability to actively participate in many social events;  it has also cost her a number of relationships.  In her case, she admits to having "expected" close friends and family to remember what she can and can't swallow, do, or be exposed to.  "I would get disappointed over and over again because they forgot", she states, "but then I realized why should they think of me and the details of my life to the same extent they think of their own?"  She's right.

Being forced into a never-ending middle either directly or indirectly obviously changes the way we will communicate and relate to each other.  What you or I "see" and "understand" is not necessarily what others will also see and understand (or want to!)---no matter how many times you try to "educate" them about the details of your own never-ending middle.  People can only take in so much information that doesn't relate to them directly;  if you throw some ADHD in there, forget it on all counts (without proper medication that is!).  Punctuating each conversation with your temperature changes or your dietary changes or your "whatever else" changes....no good.  Don't do it.  Instead of winning friends and influencing people...you will lose friends and become alienated without ever knowing or understanding "How did this happen to me?!"  People don't like other people who keep talking about the same never-ending middle "thing" every time they communicate.  The best example of this phenomenon in my own life (and I apologize in advance for this to all my friends and family members!) were/are all the times I've talked about my own weight-related issues.  As I have learned, an action beats a feeling every time.  Instead of just talking about that never-ending middle, DO something about it if you have the power to transition that never-ending middle to an "end".

Making positive changes isn't easy.  It takes work to practice censoring yourself when your natural bent is to yap yap yap something to death without doing anything "real" or "positive" to change it.  Of course, for those never-ending middles you cannot change by your own steam...the fact still remains that the people you talk to in life are NOT God.  They can't shaazam instant healing or recovery into your never-ending middle situation no sooner than they can into their own.  Instead of always making a point to bring up the "NEM" subject in each one of your conversations...try practicing NOT bringing it up in each one of your conversations!  If you have to bring it up to anyone, bring it up and take it up to God along with all of your other cares and concerns.  After all, He is the only one who carries all those cares, concerns, and never-ending middles (NEMs!) on His shoulders.  We mere humans do not and cannot.

In the meantime, learning how to have fun in spite of your never-ending middle is a good practice.  I know you think you don't have the time.  Do you think you're the only one in life going through what you are and, as a result, the only one who "can't" do this or "can't" do that on a daily basis?  Forget it.  It's an excuse.  A good friends' neice has been bedridden for 16 years and literally cannot move out of her bed due to a multitude of physical and medical issues she's been plagued with since her teen years.  Most recently, her teeth began falling out.  In spite of what appears to be a very bleak "never-ending middle" situation for this young woman, she has STILL managed to use the Internet and Facebook as a means to live and interact with others in a positive way.  And do YOU think she's on there communicating "Oh, my right bicuspid fell out at 1:00PM yesterday and it landed on my chest and it was yellowish-white in color..."  NO, she does not!  She has learned that in order to HAVE a friend...she needs to BE a friend...and not focusing 24/7 on her own never-ending middle in her communications with others.  She can also play games on the net, read about subjects she loves, do her pinterest boards, etc. etc.  Just because we are in a never-ending middle doesn't mean we can't live with "fun" in our lives!  We can.  And you can too.

So---there you have it.  My two cents on never-ending middles.  And don't forget...if you need help with getting your head back on straight, that's what psychotherapy is for with someone like me.  So make the call if you need to in resolving the issues associated with your own never-ending middle!