How To Get Right Help For Yourself When You Need It....

Every so often, I will post on the topic of who do you call when you don't know who to call for professional help.  Such as would be the case when you believe you need to talk to licensed professional counselor, social worker, licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT), or psychologist.  Today's blog post clears the cobwebs on understanding your options so you don't feel like you are spinning yourself around in circles trying to find the right "fit" psychotherapsit for yourself or someone else you love and care about...

First, it is important to note that not everyone who refers to him/her/themselves as a "counselor", "therapist", and/or "life coach" is actually licensed and recognized as such by your State of residence.  In fact, there is no state license that has to do with being a "Life Coach".  I don't know who made up that name, but it reminds me of when Roseanne Barr preferred identifying herself as a "Domestic Goddess", rather than a Housewife.  So, to be clear...a "Life Coach" is like a fancy way of describing someone who, for example, lost a lot of weight and now claims to be able to help you lose weight too.  Or someone who achieved something really impressive in their past, and now you want to achieve the same thing yourself.  If this sounds like a Life Coach can be translated to also mean Motivational Speaker, you would be correct!  So if you need a motivational speaker, go for it!  A "Life Coach" may, in fact, be your best choice for that kind of help!  ;-)

Also, many faith-based organizations will train certain members of their congregation to voluntarily serve as "Counselors" to hurting others seeking spiritually-based help and guidance.  This is, of course, absolutely welcome and encouraged by those of us who work in the field.  This type of advocate-based support can be extremely helpful!  However, it is NOT helpful when a pre-existing mood, personality disorder, or any other legitimate mental health diagnoses are ignored or written off as being due to something else that "we" (meaning yourself and your place of worship) will fix together without professional intervention.  Double that when there is psychosis, domestic violence, active addiction, and/or sexual abuse present within the immediate family.

Believe me, I do believe in miracles and miracles of deliverance, but chronic and severe mental health issues require more than pray it away.  Take note of this reality please!  In this moment, I am further reminded of the "Marriage Counselor" married couples who are trained to come up along side young marrieds or other couples experiencing difficulty.  Mentoring is one thing...and I'm all for that.  What I am NOT all for are these Marriage Counselor couples who reduce down successful marital relationships to (1) wives submit to your husbands because they are the boss of all, and (2) husbands just try to do better o.k.?  Spare me!

Next up, for those who have Medicaid as their primary insurance....it's important to know that not "everyone" accepts Medicaid for mental health/behavioral health services.  Usually, Community Mental Health (CMH) agencies are the primary provider of such services to Medicaid subscribers.  There are also other clinic-based facilities that accept Medicaid, but you would have to find out who those are through your own online-then-call-to-check research.  Why is this the case?  Why doesn't "everyone" accept Medicaid?  Well, that's a political football the size of U of M's current stadium if you are asking me.  All I know is that if you can't find a provider through CMH or a Medicaid-provider clinic...there are other additional options...

Additional options include contacting local area universities which have an on-site Psychological Services Clinic that anyone can go to at a reduced cost ranging from $0 - $40/session generally speaking, and based on one's ability to pay--regardless if one has or doesn't have any health insurance with a mental health benefit.  The clinicians who work with clients are graduate students working on either their Masters or PhD in the field of Psychology, Counseling, or Social Work.  There are also private agencies that offer help to individuals and families who have needs that extend beyond a mental health focus.  C.A.R.E.S. in Farmington Hills, MI is one such provider of services that include an in-house grocery store above and beyond all else that they offer to their guests.

Feel free to contact me if you require additional information regarding the process of finding professional help and resources in the areas of mental health and/or family support.  (248) 561-8660 to call or text.

Until next post....

The S*itshow of Baby Reindeer....

My clients often tell me about series on Netflix or HBO that they suggest I watch.  I do often use films as an adjunct to psychotherapy.  Many times, a good movie will bring the points home that have been discussed in my office....

So, enter Baby Reindeer.  It's on Netflix now;  it's a series created by a UK comedian about his own experiences as a twenty-something struggling to make it in his industry of choice.  Ironically, the man who wrote the series also stars in it as himself.  That person is Richard Gadd.  In the series, his character's name is "Donny Dunn".  

Since the series came out, all sorts of stuff has happened in response to it.  Until you watch Baby Reindeer, in its entirety, you may want to skip this post (spoiler alerts!) until after you've finished it.  You have been warned....

In a nutshell, Baby Reindeer is a complete s*itshow.  Totally.  "Donny" is desperate for attention, validation, and noteriety as a wanna-be comic.  Unfortunately, he's not that good;  in fact, he sucks.  He gets a job behind the bar at some random drinking establishment in London to make ends meet.  Enter "Martha".  

"Martha" initially presents as someone who is lonely, in need of attention and validation (not unlike Donny), and who appears to glom onto Donny quickly after he extends her a kindness (a free cup of tea as she had no money to pay for her drink).  She repeatedly returns to the bar after their initial meeting to talk with Donny during his shifts;  she also starts flirting with Donny and, in essence, behaves as if she's found her long lost bff.  

In spite of Donny claiming to feel sorry for Martha, he does engage in some covert and overt breadcrumbing.  He flirts back with her, he sets up going out with her outside the bar.  He even secretly goes by her home to find out where she lives.  He "friends" her on Facebook (big mistake!) after he's literally observed online that she is more emotionally unstable than not.  By the time the smoke clears and the dust settles, Donny has been dragged through a whole lot of drama because Martha has chosen to stalk him...and stalk him real good.  

In real life, "Martha" has come out since the series began, and only recently appeared on the UK talk show Piers Morgan to say her peace about what's happened to her since viewers figured out her identity.  She wants to be left alone;  her life has been made a living hell.  She really is a lawyer....etc. etc. etc.  In other words, viewers who saw the series and felt protective of "Donny" went looking to stalk "Martha" in real life.  Like rabid dogs on the only bone in town, "Martha" hasn't (in her words) been left alone since. 

Instead of lying low until viewers moved on to the next big drama (Remember Tiger King anybody?), "Martha"decided she will sue Netflix, sue Richard Gadd, and sue whomever else who defamed her good name thanks to Baby Reindeer.  

To be clear, the series is described as a fictionalized account of true events, which translated means that Richard Gadd and his Neflix writers could add or delete whatever they wanted to each and every character's background information and behavior pattern(s)/character interactions as presented in the series.  However, the real "Martha" isn't having it.  She wants $11M pounds, or at least that is what she claimed she wanted last time I checked online.  She also wanted $1M for appearing on Piers Morgan, but Piers has since made it clear that's not happening.  

I have found out only today that Netflix and Gadd did use actual excerpts from "Martha's" text messages to Gadd from her iPhone in the Reindeer series.  If she knew how to spell (which she does NOT!)...perhaps the Gadd groupies wouldn't have found "Martha" as quickly as they did.  Yikes take note people!  When we can find and identify the actual person online based on their inability to spell properly, Big Brother is no longer the stuff of mere fantasy!

Besides this whole "Martha" thing, there's another seriously dramatic and traumatic chapter regarding Donny's life at that time.  He was groomed, drugged, and sexually assaulted on several occassions by an older male "mentor" figure working within the industry Donny so wanted to be a part of.  That portion of the series was extremely difficult for me to watch, because it shows how desperate Donny was to find a mentor-like figure who took a professional interest in him.  He also kept going back to "Darrien" after the initial rape as if continued sexual abuse would somehow lead to a more positive outcome for Donny?  Who knows!?  Very very sad to see Donny going back for more abuse, that is for sure! 

In spite of what Donny suffered at the hands of "Darrien", people in real life don't seem to be as fixated on identifying the "real" Darrien as they have the "real" Martha.  Go figure.  This sex abuse issue represents the last taboo of course among males who have been sexually molested and/or assaulted by other males.  #MeToo make way for the uptick in males who (I hope!) will become more publicly vocal about the sexual exploitation of boys and men by other boys and men in whatever capacity it occurs.  I hope Richard Gadd will be inspired to find his tribe in this regard---and then do more to stop this particular scourge on same-sex relationships.  If not, then the true tragedy of Baby Reindeer is that male-on-male sexual predators will still get away with what they do and nobody will do anything much to stop them once and for all.

When I finished the series, I could only hope and pray that Richard Gadd is continuing to do his own work to heal, to make positive changes in his own life, and to move past all that trauma he experienced so many years ago.  He keeps saying publicly that he didn't want his audience to look for "Martha" or for "Darrien"...but that's a bit too late now for Martha, since she outted herself by appearing on Piers Morgan.  As for "Darrien", some industry insiders are saying "everybody knows" who Darrien is...and then any specific details falls off the cliff regarding his actual identity.

Oh yes, and there was a brief period of time in the series when Donny starts a dating relationship with a trans psychotherapist...but nobody seems interested in finding or identifying the "real" her since the series debuted.

So, what's the point of today's blog post?  Well, there are a few.  First, be sure you know what your purpose is before you put content out there that can ricochet back and hit you smack between the eyeballs---and not in a good way.  I doubt that Richard Gadd ever imagined "Martha" rising from the dead like she has and with a vengeance.  Second, if you are a sexual abuse and/or assault survivor, do NOT keep your mouth shut and basically do nothing legally in response to what happened to you.  I remember reading the other day about a woman who saved the clothes she wore in a plastic bag (after all these years!) after allegedly being sexually assaulted by a celebrity who is only now being outted for his conduct over the last several years.  Whether DNA can be extracted from those clothes all these years later, I have no idea.  All I do know is that it's better to contact the police immediately after a sexual assault so that all the right protocol can be administered to help identify and then eventually prosecute the guilty party(s).

Last, people are indeed capable of saying and doing all sorts of unbelievable things when they are desperate for what they want and that they haven't yet received.  And even if they have received a bit or some of what they so badly want, that's no guarantee that he/she/they will stop doing the self-destructive thing and do the right(er) thing(s) instead.  We all know how to do bad all by ourselves.  We just haven't quite learned how to stop doing bad until we are forced to.  

If you or someone you love and care about has been a victim of a sexual assault and/or molestation-based relationship, please call 1-800-656-HOPE.  This line is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Trained staff will help guide you in what you can do to empower yourself and reclaim your life.

As a P.S., I also hope the real "Martha" gets whatever help and support she needs to get herself back on track, wherever that track may be located....

Until next post...

  

The Five "A's" of Actively Loving---Yourself! (Part II)

This post, let's look at the remaining three A's we need to practice in order to actively love ourselves...

Appreciation:

Appreciation?!  How does one go about appreciating oneself?  That just sounds strange!  Well, it's not.  We know how to appreciate others when we do, don't we?  What do you say or do when you appreciate someone else?  If you are thinking right now of all the "Thank you!"'s or "That meant a lot to me!"'s that you have said to various friends and family members over the years---your "A" of Appreciation may need some further development!

Appreciation does not just involve saying words of "thanks" (basically) and that's all there is to it.  Appreciation is what we say and do to validate, affirm, and confirm one's very existence as being welcome in the world---and in our own life.  Think of appreciation as a form of gratitude.  You are thankful, but you are thankful for so much more than just some random act of kindness or some "favor" that has been granted to you.

When we appreciate ourselves as an act of actively loving, we are grateful for our existence...we are grateful for the gifts AND challenges we have been given....we are grateful for the many blessings and lessons we have experienced in our lives thus far.  Are you catching my drift here?  We move away from cynicism, pessimism, and general negativity...and instead give ourselves permission to see our life's experiences, in their totality, as a series of situations, circumstances, and events we can be grateful for.  We are also grateful for the "severe mercies" that occur in our lives that are not necesssarily welcome or wanted...but that are used to teach us valuable life lessons anyway.  

I just was talking to someone who is nearly 80 years old and has, as part of his own life experiences, kept selecting the "wrong" partner.  He has been married and divorced several times...and his current girlfriend of over 10 years is quite a "pistol", as he puts it.  In spite of being grateful for his relationship with God, his health, his friendship relationships, etc.---he can't understand why he is allowing this latest girlfriend to stick around when she is so aggressively abusive.  After some discussion, he began to understand that he has been repeating what his own upbringing taught him about marriage and male/female relationship dynamics.  His mother was the compliant type;  his father was rarely home yet, when he was, everything had to go his way 100% of the time.  Okay then!  Not wanting to subconsciously repeat what he learned growing up---this man has spent the past 60+ years involving himself with women who may have started out behaving just like his mother, but ended up behaving just like his father...or worse.  When he began to practice the A of Appreciation in his own life, he began to see himself as so much more than his girlfriend's sex partner and/or on-demand ATM machine.  He also began to see his girlfriend as so much more than his sex partner and/or touchstone protecting him from his own core fears of loneliness and abandonment.  Ultimately, he released her from their traumatic bond to one another.  It was the greatest favor he did her and himself both.  No couple gets anywhere good when both parties are reducing each other down to object status for the purpose of using...or being used by.  That's the truth of it.

Affection:

Showing oneself affection as an A of actively loving, means taking care of yourself as if you are functioning as your own best friend.  When you are HALTTS (hungry, angry, lonely, tired, thirsty, sad, and/or sick)...you "do" what you need to do to remedy your situation sooner than later!  You don't "wait" to take care of yourself mind, body, spirit, and in the context of your social life and relationships.  So often, we are the best at (sadly!) neglecting ourselves.  How is that practicing Affection when we treat ourselves like we don't deserve "care", let alone the level of care we are perfectly capable of providing to ourselves on a daily basis?

Remember as kids (or even as adults!) when you knew you needed to go the bathroom, but you did not?  In fact, by the time you remembered to "go", you may have already went (in your pants!)...or felt like your teeth were about to float away from the pressure on your bladder!  So...what was  up with that?  Sorry, but there is NO "life event" that trumps going to the bathroom when you have the initial urge to go!  Showing ourselves affection means that we are aware of our own bodily sensations, our emotional needs, our spiritual hunger, etc.---and do NOT keep ignoring them!  

By the time we get good enough at practicing Affection towards ourselves in our daily lives, we really do feel our best because we are at our best from the inside out!

Allowing:

Allowing means that you are free to be yourself without having to function as someone else's "Yes!" person/people pleaser because you are too fearful of saying what you mean, meaning what you say, not saying it mean, and saying it to who you need to say it to at the right time.  

As a culture, we fail abysmally at this Allowing "A" of actively loving.  We do NOT allow each other to be who we truly are.  Grant it, sometimes the worst advice you can give a person is to say "Be Yourself!" because they are truly and genuinely a train wreck.  I understand that.  This convo isn't about "that" faction of people.  I am talking here about people who don't have an axe to grind with society to the point of cancelling you if you don't say exactly what they expect you to say about A, B, C, or D on demand.  Sheesh when I think about how I could have gone off on the whole wide world as a younger person every time my height and voice were mentioned (I am nearly 6' tall and I sing tenor o.k.?), I'd have spent a lot of years in Huron Valley for crimes against humanity, o.k?  So please don't tell me how micromanaging others "works" to help myself allow myself to be "me" as is.  That's a fool's game!  Yet, we live in a world full of fools these days just like we always did!  

So, train wreck population aside, Allowing ourselves to be who we are means that we no longer live in fear of what others think, what others might say, what others do or don't do, and what others believe.  For example, I will no longer worry when we spend time together whether you are a Democrat, or a Republican, or an Independent, or a Green candidate.  You do you boo, and I do me.  How about that?  We can always agree to disagree, but when we are willing to go to war over it, we both got a big problem!

Allowing is about personal freedom and not being held captive to any given "group" that attempts to dictate how we think, feel, and behave because he/she/they say so!

In conclusion, the 5 A's of actively loving yourself is possible.  You can start your own practice this very day!  You'll be better for it over time.  You are worth the work.  So do your work!

Until next post...

The Five "A"s of Actively Loving---Yourself!

I've posted before about the 5 A's of love-in-action.  These 5 A's represent what makes anybody feel loved in the context of their own important personal relationships.  They are:  Attention, Acceptance, Appreciation, Affection, and Allowing.  Allowing means that we are free, as in free to be our genuine selves, in our relationship life.

When you are in a close personal relationship with someone who you love and care about, each of these 5 A's are ideally flowing in both directions. This is true both for our important platonic relationships, and our romantic relationships.  You "give" your person attention, acceptance, appreciation, affection, and allowing....and they are able to do the same for you in return.  

However, what we all tend to ignore and/or conveniently "forget" is that it is very difficult to actively love someone else when we don't practice actively loving ourselves in the first place!  As such, practicing the Five A's in a self-directed manner may represent our greatest personal challenge to date.  Today's blog post will help clarify what actively loving ourselves looks like in the context of the 5A's...

Attention:  

Paying attention to yourself.  What does that mean exactly?  I don't know about you, but I certainly know that way too many of us do NOT pay proper and ongoing attention to our own bodies/health status as an act of self-love.  So, that is the first way in which we might raise the bar regarding the ways we pay better attention---to our own physical condition!  

Without turning today's blog post into a self-check form from the doctor's office, just allow yourself to think about what you do NOT do that you know you NEED to do to better pay attention AND actively love your physical self.  What have you NOT been paying enough attention to?  I don't know about you, but whenever I see a person my own age shuffling around like they are 87 instead of 67---I feel sad!  Then again, did this person smoke their way through their adult life since turning 18?  Did they eat wrong food, drink wrong substances, party like it was 1999 all the time?  Or did they just get handed a really bad deck of genetic cards?  Whatever the case, it's never too late to pay better attention to what we can do to improve our own physical condition/health status.  For example, anyone who takes opioids for chronic pain, guess what?  At some point, those pills you are taking are actually causing more intense pain instead of relieving it.  I'm not making this up.  It's called opioid-induced hyperalgesia (OIH).  Did you know that?  Why didn't you know that?  Did your doctor talk to you about it?  Did you do your research to find out why you hurt "more" now than you ever did after XX months or years popping Oxy or Norco or Vicodin or Somas?  Yeah, it's like that.  Pay better attention.  That's how you actively love yourself better through this particular "A" of the 5 A's....

Paying better attention to our mental health is another area of self-care that far too many neglect in favor of whatever else takes higher priority.  For example, if we already know that we are fast to heat up (with anger) and slow to cool down when triggered or offended by whatever and whenever---that's NOT "just the way it is" for the rest of your life!  Or how about when you think you "know" what motivates someone to say something that you instantly interpret as a harsh judgement against you?  So wow now you are the Amazing Kreskin?  Spare me!  Let's get real for a moment:  do you really accept that way you roll as perfectly acceptable in a world getting goofier by the minute?  Are you kidding me right now?  There is always a treatment plan that can improve the status of your mental health challenges;  more complicating challenges come when you decide you function best as your own doctor feel good!  When you start vaping weed, doing other drugs or substances of choice (What's next?  Dog doo doo?), drinking alcohol, eating more or eating nothing, gambling, cheating on your partner, stealing, lying, etc. to cope with your own dysfunctional self:  this NOT paying better attention!  This is pretending what you want to drink, eat, smoke, snort, or inject "works".  Yet it doesn't.  End of.

When it comes to loving yourself through the "A" of "Attention"...the bottom line is to practice treating yourself---body, mind, spirit, and social relationships---like the gold you are instead of like discarded junk lying and abandoned on the side of the road.  How about that?

Acceptance:

When I was a kid, there was a kid on my block who definitely had a hard time living inside his own skin.  He was often agitated (we called it being "hyper" back then!), angry, distracted, and friendless.  I know these things to be true because his sister was my best friend at the time.  I won't lie;  a kid like that can be either an easy target---or the kid you want to stay away from at all costs.  In my case, even though he was younger than me, he was a ticking time bomb.  I learned that after he tore the tip of my finger off one summer, and nearly broke my hand another time.  Needless to say, this kid was very difficult to be around.  To imagine actively "loving" him utilizing the "A" of "Acceptance"...are YOU joking?  Yet his mother often ordered his sister and I to take him with us when we would go to the local park, or up to our downtown shopping district.  I'd go back home most often whenever that happened.  He was too much like a lit firecracker.  We didn't know when he would go off, but we knew he always did eventually.  No thanks.

But what about him?  Did he practice the "A" of self-acceptance as someone who others typically bullied or were bullied by?  No, he did not.  To me, it was clear that this kid really hated himself.  He would pound his head against the ground when he was having one of his melt-downs which came often enough in my presence.  He engaged in other self-injurious behaviors as well...but we didn't know to call it that at the time.  So how does one practice Acceptance when we really and truly do NOT like who we are?

Self-acceptance begins by learning how to slow down enough to examine ways we "are" that we know (inherently or otherwise!) are judged harshly by a majority of others because...???  I know someone right now who was ready to burn her ex at the stake for divorcing her.  On the other hand, she struggled deeply with self-loathing and self-incrimination AS IF "what happened" in her former marriage was entirely her own fault.  Believe me, it was not.  On the other hand, this same woman allowed herself to slow down and start thinking more clearly about "who" judged her harshly, "who" falsely accused her, and "who" scapegoated her since childhood in order for her to believe them about "who" she was as a person---instead of believing the God who created her as a self-professing Christian person?  Once she was able to do this, she better accepted herself as is, as a work in progress through her own life, without treating herself like her whole identity was wrapped up in a big box and bow marked SHAME LIVES HERE.  Stop!  Another example?  Why do you think the neurodivergent movement has gained such traction in recent years?  It is because neurodivergent people were truly sick of being told "who" they are, and negatively so, by others who did not genuinely understand neurodivergence and what it means.  Instead of living in shame and apologizing for their very existence, they are taking back their personal power and basically saying "Enough is enough!" to that part of the world who refuses to accept them as is.  

In the case of my friend's younger brother, his life didn't turn out too great.  I understand he's a hoarder living alone in another state, with more than a few marriages under his belt, and who hasn't worked in his chosen profession for over 30 years.  That just isn't right.  He could have should have but didn't get help as a kid when he most needed it.  What he got was enough doses of "Here are all the reasons why you should hate yourself!"...and he grew to believe them 100%.  How tragic.  Don't let this happen to you in your own life now---or in your future!

Next post, we will address the A's of Appreciation, Affection, and Allowing....