What's in your reality? Now there's a question for all of us to ponder...
I remember a client some years ago who told me she couldn't eat anything she cooked on or inside the stove in her apartment, because it would make her ill. Why? In her mind, the former tenants who rented the same apartment before her had used contaminated spices and ingredients to cook their food with. She claimed to still be able to smell those spices and ingredients every time she stepped into her kitchen. As such, these contaminates must have somehow and permanently worked their way into the burners on the stove top...and inside the oven's walls and grates. As a result, my client found it very difficult to cook or bake anything for fear of getting sick from what she prepared on or in that stove.
I remember a client some years ago who told me she couldn't eat anything she cooked on or inside the stove in her apartment, because it would make her ill. Why? In her mind, the former tenants who rented the same apartment before her had used contaminated spices and ingredients to cook their food with. She claimed to still be able to smell those spices and ingredients every time she stepped into her kitchen. As such, these contaminates must have somehow and permanently worked their way into the burners on the stove top...and inside the oven's walls and grates. As a result, my client found it very difficult to cook or bake anything for fear of getting sick from what she prepared on or in that stove.
When I was training in a local psychiatric unit twenty years ago, I remember when 9-11 happened. The patients were sitting in the day room, watching television. I was standing in the hallway half watching also. Then I saw an airplane on the television fly right into the first tower of the World Trade Center. As real life events were unfolding before our very eyes, the patients were not at all agitated or upset at what they were viewing. To them, "reality" was sitting in the day room in those moments and watching television; nobody had connected the dots about "This horrifying event is truly happening right now!"
For the staff around me, it was quite a different story. A few nurses basically lost it on the spot and had to go home immediately. Staff psychiatrists who wouldn't normally be on the floor started showing up within the hour. The people I worked with (social workers) formed tag teams of "watchers" to follow the news reports whenever anyone was free not running a group or seeing individual patients. Yet---the patients remained no different than they were the day before. No patient meltdowns; no psychotic episodes on the day of 9-11. By the time I left to go home after my shift, I knew we all had been thrust into a nightmare of potentially global proportions---and yet what struck me most was how "reality" was perceived so differently by the patients on the unit that day. Even in the few days following, when patients were asked about their thoughts and feelings regarding 9-11, the collective responses basically amounted to "Yeah, and..?" I understood. Why should 9-11 matter "more" than the issues that brought them into inpatient treatment in the first place? After all, if it's not happening to me personally, it's NOT happening to ME personally!
It wasn't until about a week or so later when "new" patients were brought onto the unit that I witnessed the effects of 9-11 on them. One elderly gentleman kept talking about "bombing the ship", which I later found out was tied to his own wartime experiences from decades before.
Back in 1918, another reality took place similar to the one we are currently experiencing in 2020: a global pandemic (virus) that affected millions of human beings in any one of a number of ways. We might never catch the virus; we might carry the virus and remain asymptomatic; we might become extremely sick, but not require hospitalization, and then recover. We might experience a low grade fever and feel otherwise o.k. enough, but then suddenly die. We might become so sick we require long-term hospitalization and rehab afterward due to organ failure, blood clots, respiratory issues...or all of those in combination. Whether we live or die from a positive or negative COVID-19 test status is not our call, because we either make it through to the other side of it---or we don't. Period. I don't really care to watch or hear the endless rantings and ravings from both sides of the argument: "It's a hoax!" versus "We're all gonna die!" Listen, if you want some FACTS about former pandemics instead of blowing it off or scaring yourself witless over it, do your research based on past history! The "mask" argument was just as vitriolic in 1918 as it is today. Do we really think nobody has been through this kind of hot mess before but us? Doh! A subscription to www.newspapers.com through ancestry.com provides access to ALL the newspaper articles written ALL across the country from that time to this. At least by doing your research, you may not so easily fall into a trap you can't see or think your way out of.
So again I ask you, what's in your reality?
Fear is the default reality for many of us. We have lived in a state of fear and anxiety for so long, we have no idea when it all started. Remember Niccolo Machiavelli? He was an ancient Italian philosopher who wrote "The Prince". He either observed or taught politicians of that time what "Real Power" was. As Machiavelli wrote: "Real power is....fear." Like some of us didn't already know this right? Sheesh! Read up on this dude if you want your eyes opened on the topic of fear mongering in the public arena---and in politics. (NOTE: No "one" political party does it better or more often than the other; they ALL do it! Power corrupts, but absolute power absolutely corrupts.)
Rather than being grateful for much...we are suspicious of much more. Rather than living in peace...we live in pieces. Rather than believing in the facts of any given situation, we instead believe in our feelings. Do you know what a sh** show this will lead to when we ignore seeking out an objective analysis of "all so-called facts" being presented in the broadcast or print media? (Which, by the way, can easily end up in the same dumpster with my former client and her so-called "knowledge" of the facts associated with those contaminated spices and ingredients that people she never even met used to cook with in her apartment!)
I can tell you that every time some a**h**e zooms past me on the road at 95 mph or higher, I have to wonder what "facts" he or she is operating under in those moments. I already know having a death wish and acting on it randomly on public roadways represents its own form of psychotic behavior. I just don't want to be taken out because of someone else's inability to deal with reality in a more "balanced" manner!
So the next time you are feeling agitated, anxious, and/or panicked about all that is going on in your reality, as you perceive it, that may just be the time to Stop! Breathe! Relax!...and then make that phone call to a psychotherapy professional who can offer a hand up to help you out of that pit of your own creation. As I've shared in the past, www.psychologytoday.com has on its website the "Find A Therapist" icon you can browse through for your chosen zip code area of service.
If you need a book to read first that will encourage you in this regard, pick up a copy of Michael Singer's "The Untethered Soul", available at most public libraries. Pay particular attention to the "thorn" analogy and what that means to those who let fear function as their boss on a daily basis...
Until next post...
It wasn't until about a week or so later when "new" patients were brought onto the unit that I witnessed the effects of 9-11 on them. One elderly gentleman kept talking about "bombing the ship", which I later found out was tied to his own wartime experiences from decades before.
Back in 1918, another reality took place similar to the one we are currently experiencing in 2020: a global pandemic (virus) that affected millions of human beings in any one of a number of ways. We might never catch the virus; we might carry the virus and remain asymptomatic; we might become extremely sick, but not require hospitalization, and then recover. We might experience a low grade fever and feel otherwise o.k. enough, but then suddenly die. We might become so sick we require long-term hospitalization and rehab afterward due to organ failure, blood clots, respiratory issues...or all of those in combination. Whether we live or die from a positive or negative COVID-19 test status is not our call, because we either make it through to the other side of it---or we don't. Period. I don't really care to watch or hear the endless rantings and ravings from both sides of the argument: "It's a hoax!" versus "We're all gonna die!" Listen, if you want some FACTS about former pandemics instead of blowing it off or scaring yourself witless over it, do your research based on past history! The "mask" argument was just as vitriolic in 1918 as it is today. Do we really think nobody has been through this kind of hot mess before but us? Doh! A subscription to www.newspapers.com through ancestry.com provides access to ALL the newspaper articles written ALL across the country from that time to this. At least by doing your research, you may not so easily fall into a trap you can't see or think your way out of.
So again I ask you, what's in your reality?
Fear is the default reality for many of us. We have lived in a state of fear and anxiety for so long, we have no idea when it all started. Remember Niccolo Machiavelli? He was an ancient Italian philosopher who wrote "The Prince". He either observed or taught politicians of that time what "Real Power" was. As Machiavelli wrote: "Real power is....fear." Like some of us didn't already know this right? Sheesh! Read up on this dude if you want your eyes opened on the topic of fear mongering in the public arena---and in politics. (NOTE: No "one" political party does it better or more often than the other; they ALL do it! Power corrupts, but absolute power absolutely corrupts.)
Rather than being grateful for much...we are suspicious of much more. Rather than living in peace...we live in pieces. Rather than believing in the facts of any given situation, we instead believe in our feelings. Do you know what a sh** show this will lead to when we ignore seeking out an objective analysis of "all so-called facts" being presented in the broadcast or print media? (Which, by the way, can easily end up in the same dumpster with my former client and her so-called "knowledge" of the facts associated with those contaminated spices and ingredients that people she never even met used to cook with in her apartment!)
I can tell you that every time some a**h**e zooms past me on the road at 95 mph or higher, I have to wonder what "facts" he or she is operating under in those moments. I already know having a death wish and acting on it randomly on public roadways represents its own form of psychotic behavior. I just don't want to be taken out because of someone else's inability to deal with reality in a more "balanced" manner!
So the next time you are feeling agitated, anxious, and/or panicked about all that is going on in your reality, as you perceive it, that may just be the time to Stop! Breathe! Relax!...and then make that phone call to a psychotherapy professional who can offer a hand up to help you out of that pit of your own creation. As I've shared in the past, www.psychologytoday.com has on its website the "Find A Therapist" icon you can browse through for your chosen zip code area of service.
If you need a book to read first that will encourage you in this regard, pick up a copy of Michael Singer's "The Untethered Soul", available at most public libraries. Pay particular attention to the "thorn" analogy and what that means to those who let fear function as their boss on a daily basis...
Until next post...