The Cycle of Suffering....

When an upsetting situation or event happens in our lives, very few of us would stand up and shout "Yippee! That's JUST what I was hoping would happen!"  No.  We aren't wired to feel that way unless we are true psychopaths/sociopaths without a conscience and without empathy.

Instead, when something "bad" happens to us, we generally feel any one of a number of negative and raw emotions as a result.  We might feel depressed, sad, defeated, helpless, empty, overwhelmed, desperate, angry, anxious, terrified, ashamed, guilty, alone, abandoned, betrayed, used, abused, rejected, out of control...need I go on?  Feeling bad, let's face it, can feel REALLY bad depending on what has happened to us or someone else we care about.

What we don't realize as we are feeling all these raw emotions is how we can so easily fall into the trap of our own cycle of suffering, or a destructive emotional mindset, as a result.  Instead of our raw emotions remaining separate from our thoughts, we start thinking certain things that are not good for us...or for whatever other people we involve in it.  For example, we might start thinking things like "I'm gonna knock the crap out of him/her/them.  I don't get mad, I get even.  I'll show them, they'll be sorry.  Screw everyone. Screw everything.  I can't deal with this anymore.  Nobody understands me.  They'll never forgive me for this one.  *$)# it;  I need a drink.  I can't stand this;  I gotta call Joe (drug dealer). I'm so stupid;  no wonder he left me.  I should just cut myself now and get it over with.  Nobody cares if I die anyway.  Nobody loves me. I have nothing to offer anybody......" blah blah blah.  

Easy to do isn't it?  Because we all do it to some extent.  Instead of separating what just happened and our negative raw emotions/feelings from the REAL FACTS of the situation...we don't.  We let our minds drift into thinking and believing certain emotion-driven thoughts that are self-destructive to us---and/or destructive to other people we've involved in our thoughts.  Once we let these emotion-driven and negative thoughts keep on keeping on...they inevitably lead to behaviors that are not good, not appropriate, and do nothing to properly cope with what happened in the first place.  Examples of these emotion-driven coping behaviors include substance use and abuse, physical aggression, verbal abuse, throwing temper tantrums, overeating, undereating, bulimia, withdrawing ourselves from others, isolation, sleeping too much or too little, suicide attempts, threats, gestures, cutting and other self-injurious behaviors, stealing, cheating, having affairs, getting involved with unsafe people, gambling...blah blah blah.

I had a friend last year who was hit by a car while crossing (with the green light) a street where she (as a pedestrian) had the right of way.  The woman who hit her wasn't paying attention as she went around the corner at 40mph.  We still don't know if the driver was texting on her phone or not at the time she hit my friend.  My friend broke several bones in her back, her wrist, and an ankle.  She is very fortunate to have lived.  

Now, just over a year later, my friend still suffers from chronic neck and shoulder pain, but thankfully she can walk and do her job.  In light of what happened to her, she HAD to separate the event from her raw emotions, negative thinking, and emotion-driven potential behaviors if she was going to heal.  Imagine how easy it would have been for her to try and find this woman and "get her back" in some way.  And how would have THAT helped my friend in any way, shape, or form?  It just wouldn't.  What it would have done is make my friend's recovery even harder than it already was to begin with...might have landed her in jail (or worse)...and actually do NOTHING to "make" this woman who caused the accident to get her sh** together.  

Yet we like to believe (the lie) that we are more powerful than we actually are.  It's a core belief of any criminal enterprise that exists;  it's what drives criminals to keep on keeping on until they are killed or locked up for life.  Recently, I have been reading about the Kray twins (now the focus of the recent movie "Legend" starring Tom Hardy) who were the original "Gs" of the 60s in the east end of London.  Actually, as I have been reading their biography ("The Profession of Violence"), it is pretty pathetic how both of these men threw their lives down the toilet by living in their own Cycles of Suffering until the day they each died.

We get so caught up in "what happened" and then "how I feel about what happened" and then "What I think about what happened" and finally "What I'm gonna do about what happened"...that we miss the FACT that THIS what creating and maintaining one's own Cycle of Suffering is all about!  This destructive and emotional-based mindset is what prevents us from seeing how "all of that" is affecting our life (consequences and losses) and how it ultimately affects our feelings and thoughts even when something hasn't happened! (We become more depressed, more angry, more hopeless, more paranoid, more rejected, more traumatized, etc. etc.)

It is at this point we feel worse than we ever have before, we have more problems, more losses, and more emotional pain to bear.  Our lives have gone from bad...to worse.  We are stuck in our own cycle of suffering and we don't even get it about how we got there.

Until now that is.

Make the call if you need help with this.

Until next time....

  

Got Therapy?

Someone asked me recently if I would make up a list to encourage people who wouldn't think to see a psychotherapist about their "issues" in 2016.  I thought about it.  I also thought about all the people who have come into my office over the years and who didn't want to be there, but showed up anyway. Whether it was the court system that "forced" them into seeing me....or a spouse threatening divorce...or a child that attempted suicide....or someone who was just discharged from an inpatient unit...there are all sorts of reasons why people get therapy even when they don't think they want it---or need it.  Yet I have been able to whittle them down to ten...and here they are for you now:

"The Top Ten Reasons Why You Need To See A Psychotherapist in 2016!"

1.  You know, deep down, that you don't like feeling so anxious...or guilty...or lonely...or angry...or jealous..or obsessive (whatever "uncomfortable" feelings you struggle with) as often as you do.  You have tried to reduce the frequency and intensity of these negative feelings through all sorts of distractions, but they still somehow manage to creep back anyway. You have read books and maybe even attended a self-help group or two...but you just can't seem to get past whatever it is in order to reduce and minimize these "bad" feelings when they keep popping back up.

2.  You are doing something, and/or you are using something, on a regular enough basis, that "it" is starting to negatively impact your ability to do your life and relationships in the healthiest way possible.  This "thing" or "thing you do" may not be a secret, but the frequency with which you think about it and then do it that is a secret.  Perhaps nobody has said anything yet about "it" because they haven't even noticed...or perhaps they have. Whatever the case, it feels at times like you are losing control...and not in a good way. You may have already experienced physical consequences as a result of these choices which have required medical intervention;  or you may have experienced other kinds of consequences (lost money, lost your job, lost a friend or partner, had to move away, etc. etc.).  All you know is that you don't know what to do anymore to get yourself on the right track and stay there.

3.  You know everybody is aware of the thoughts they have inside their own heads.  But you know that the thoughts you have inside your own head are different from other people's.  Instead of just thinking something and knowing that you, yourself, are thinking it...your thoughts seem to have taken on a life of their own. Kind of like someone is living up there and talking at you when you don't even want them to---or judging you---or telling you what to do---or at times responding to something you just experienced like "they" experienced it too!  What the..?!?  You may have gotten used to these thoughts that confuse you and frighten you at times, but you still wish they would just stop! 

4.  Your most important personal relationship is falling apart. You are sick of the fighting and/or the silent treatment(s)...you are sick of hearing the same old thing over and over again as if saying it a thousand times is really going to "fix" the problem. You don't even know what's true or not true anymore.  Sometimes it feels like the only way things would get better is if you could somehow disappear and just be gone.

5.  You are a survivor of one or more significant traumas.  These traumas may have occurred in your childhood...or just as recently as today.  Whatever the case, you are suffering now.  You can't sleep...you make molehills out of legitimate mountains and mountains out of legitimate molehills.  You are too fast to heat up and too slow to cool down.  You notice way too much and you are sick of it.  You want to be "normal" so badly but it feels like that is one impossible goal.  You are hyper-aware, hyper-alert, and burned out by all of it.  You just want to be left alone, but that's not the answer and you know it.  Like a vicious cycle...what do you do when you don't know what to do anymore?

6.  Your life isn't what you thought it would be at this age and stage.  What you thought you would be doing and where you assumed you'd be living....it's not happening.  It's like you are stuck in a life you don't even want but there it is anyway.  Stuck best describes this feeling.  Just stuck and not knowing how to find your way up and out of the abyss.

7.  You know you have issues with people.  Deep down, you know you don't like them OR trust them very much.  Which stinks because that's what you are too---a person.  You feel odd, weird, different...and who really understands that any better than you do?  Yet you know you have to change.  This can't go on forever. It's getting harder and harder to isolate and keep your distance. But it's getting easier to just do nothing about it and leave things alone.  People are so much work!

8.  You are engaging in behaviors that, if exposed, will lead to your death---or your incarceration.  You can't stop yourself. Even though you know it's "wrong", you just can't stop on your own.  Others are involved.  You feel there is no way out.

9.  You feel like you don't know who you are as a person.  You tend to be or behave like whomever you are around.  You don't know what you believe...you don't know what your opinions are...you are that person who basically says "O.K.!" and "Yes!" to whatever anybody else wants or expects from you.  You don't feel like you have developed your own unique identity and sense of self.  You are just here to be used by whomever and whenever and however.

10.  You don't know the difference between what you are and are not personally responsible for in your own life---and in the lives of others you care about or are involved with.  You give too much...and then you take too much.  You do the right thing for the wrong person and the wrong thing for the right person. You feel swallowed up by everybody else's needs and there you are still working like crazy to make sure everybody else is o.k. "first".  You feel responsible for other people's "happy".  You feel they should be responsible for your happy as well.  You don't know how to get off this treadmill and improve the quality of your important relationships.  You function primarily as either someone's slave...or someone's master.  You don't know any other way to be in your significant relationships.  Everybody is here to use...or be used.  Isn't that just the way it is?

So, there you have it...the top ten reasons why you need to see a psychotherapist in 2016.  Like me.
If you haven't "Got Therapy?" before---there's no time like the present to make the call and set up an appointment.

Happy New Year!

MD