Tag Archives: counseling

January 16, 2015 · 9:31 am

A Life Cut Short

Drew_Self-Portrait_2012

A young friend took his life this week. He had just turned 31. He was handsome, funny, energetic, and so bright. And he was so desperate and discouraged that he could not see a future for himself in this world. He suffered from bipolar disorder and social anxiety, yet excelled in building online communities, seeing other’s needs, and identifying creative solutions to address them. Still he could not do this for himself.

Depression is insidious. It distorts memory and perception, so that one cannot recall nor foresee a time when feelings other than hopelessness and despair exist.

He had a support community: friends and family who loved him and wanted more than anything to keep him in a world of hope and acceptance. Depression refused to let them in and blocked his path out.

Suicide is not a selfish act, purposefully inflicting pain on surviving family and friends. It is not a cowardly act, demonstrating some inability to confront the future. It is not an angry act, designed to show others that they should have acted differently. It is an act of hopelessness, an act of acceptance, an act of assuming control over what feels inevitable, an act seeking relief, and often an act of removing the burden of oneself from the care of others – so the others may move on unimpeded. The emotional and thought distortion of depression creates its own world. He believed there was no other way.

There are many people today thinking they could have done something differently that would have saved him from this fate. Humans, at least in Western culture, tend to believe they can control outcomes if they just work hard enough to find the “right” answer to a problem. I know in this case, his friends and family did all they could to keep him safe.

I hope he has found peace. I hope he is in touch with his joy of riding.

Happy Trails, Drew.

When comedian/actor Robin Williams took his life last year, the nation’s attendance focused briefly on the dangers of depression and the woeful lack of appropriate response and available assistance, even to those with the means to access it. Perhaps the large response happened because so many people felt they knew this person. That has faded now. Now the pain and loss is felt one family at a time again. Nothing has changed to improve the understanding or treatment of the disease. We need to commit to addressing this.

Holding On And Letting Go

I was preparing the house for visitors the other day, and had decided I needed to thin out the “stuff” around, on, and in my desk. As I sorted into shred, recycle, file piles, I reflected on how much “stuff” I have, how much comes in each day, and how it seems to be harder to dispose of than to accumulate. These experiences aren’t just restricted to miscellaneous paperwork, or material items. They also occur emotionally. How much do I hold on to that is neither necessary nor helpful?

I grew up feeling like I needed to always be prepared to defend my feelings and behaviors. I gathered evidence and stored in memory details of nearly everything, in case I needed to explain something later. Imagine an 8-year-old CSI agent. It wasn’t ok to take a position without being able to explain why, so I learned to present my cases in a way any jury could understand. Sometimes I overwhelmed others with my explanations of why I liked something. I remember as a new professional trying to identify accurately and completely why I didn’t like some wallpaper sample suggested by a designer for my new office. Finally she said, “I don’t need to know why. I just need to know if you like it or not. It helps me narrow down the selections to offer.” What a concept! My likes and dislikes provided information about me. It wasn’t a contest or a test. There were no right or wrong answers. I did not need to justify my preferences. They were … my preferences. I began to let go of the explanations and the attempts to justify, and began to recognize and accept that I had preferences. It was ok to recognize and express them. It was actually helpful to be aware of what I liked and didn’t like. It saved time when sorting through options.

When it comes to stacks of emotional paperwork, I used to have a more difficult time sorting them than with actual paper. It was difficult to let things go. Painful, hurtful memories were as likely to be held on to as were the moments of joy, peace, and belonging. A loved one of mine often kept her painful reminders readily available, literally as well as virtually. At times of distress, she would say, “ Did I ever share that terrible hurtful letter my neighbor sent me long ago?” She would remove it from an envelope in her desk and read the hurtful shaming remarks again – reopening her wounds. Why would someone do that – relive the injury? Perhaps to feel the pain anew as punishment or as a reminder to not be “too happy,” or as a reminder she was alive, or as a way to feel something again- anything, even if only shame. I don’t know her reasons. I’m pretty sure the process reinforced her critical view of herself. I know there must have been a better ways to emotionally care for herself.

Re-living slights, shame, or emotional pain does not necessarily help us grow or thrive. We have to learn to sort through and discard experiences that do not support our health and wellbeing. It is difficult to do without practice. It’s like going through your sock drawer. Black socks might be good to have – but do you need 6 pair, the pair with the heel torn out, the pair that no longer fits, or the pair that hurts your feet whenever you wear them? You get the point. Keep what is useful, keep what you love, and keep what helps you become the person you strive to be. Recycle or discard the ones that no longer work for you. Let go of them after they have served their purpose.

Holding on to your pain may be helpful for a while, but when it has outlived its usefulness, let it go. Many processes have been developed for releasing negative energy from your life. They include things like burning the items and watching the concrete and material become air, burning paper with the items identified on it, Casting the virtual items into the sea or the wind, creating a vault where they pain can be locked inside and then buried, releasing balloons. You probably have releasing visualizations/ rituals of your own. The important action is to intentionally release the pain and its associated memories. Thinking negatively is a habit that requires an effort to change.

Hold on to your moments of peace, belonging, and recognizing all is right for the moment. Keep them available to you to draw from when you are distressed. Practice breathing, holding on and letting go of the breath. It will make a difference.

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Remember, this forum is not intended to be therapy. I have no way to view your body language, hear your tone of voice, or see if your words and your displayed emotions are matching. These are essential to effective communication and great tools for the therapist (and for the consumer when reversed.) I will attempt to be as helpful as I can. I will refer you the best I can to needed services. Even though I will not be your therapist, I am a health care professional bound by law and ethics to act to protect persons from harm. I am required to report my concerns of harm to self or others, and suspected abuse of children and vulnerable adults. I am located and providing these services in Washington State.

Again, I am open to communicating directly with you here. If you have questions or concerns, please leave a comment. I will attempt to address the content if I can.

4 Comments

Filed under childhood trauma, counseling, emotional healing, healing, mental health, Penny Milczewski, psychotherapy, PTSD, therapy

Tagged as counseling, depression, finding a therapist, healing, letting go, mental-health, painful memories, therapy, truma

July 21, 2012 · 10:53 am

Creating and Nurturing Change

I just returned from a few days “off the grid” and have been amazed at the conflict between my desire to hold on to the feelings and mood of my respite and the pull to fall immediately into the habits and patterns I was so glad to leave behind. I worked a little yesterday to put myself back into the tempo and peace of being back at the island park we visited. I imagined feeling the rocking of the boat, hearing the water lap the shore, the birds, the smelling the wind, the woods, and the beach. For a moment I was there, then my cell phone played its tune; I saw a virtual stack of email waiting to be sorted, read and answered; and I was reminded I need to call the appliance repairman because the refrigerator isn’t working right. The serenity of the previous moment was gone.

Neuroscience has shown repeatedly that our imagined experiences are as “real” to our brain as our physical experiences. We have the ability to use visualization to improve physical functioning. It takes focus and repetition, but even an athlete can improve performance by repeatedly imagining her successful moves. This kind of practice can assist us emotionally as well as physically. Imagined experiences can also inhibit or otherwise impair our functioning.

One of the difficulties with anxiety and depression is that we create and repeat emotional scenarios that feed the fear and certainty of rejection and loss. Our self-talk is increasingly pessimistic or critical. We lose sight of possibility, of alternative explanations, of changes toward the positive. Anxiety takes on a life of its own, so that our fear is about the feelings of anxiety, rather than the specific circumstances or triggers. With depression, we lose memories of previous better times, and create a belief that things never were better and never will be. But there can be change, and it can be change for the better.

I remember many years ago when visualizing and affirmations were being taught in management classes. I was a state social services administrator, and we were experiencing severe funding and staff cuts. Remaining staff members were becoming discouraged and burned-out. The agency provided a motivational speaker at a management conference, and he worked hard to pump us up. After a morning of identifying example after example of the power of affirmations, visualizing success, and modeling success, we broke for lunch. My director turned to me and said, “This is really good stuff. It’s just not for situations as bad as ours.”

Yes, it is. We might actually need it more than the people who use it to deal with inconvenience and discomfort. The thing is, it’s hard to do. It’s hard to get started and it’s hard to keep practicing. It takes discipline. It takes action. It takes repetition. It helps to have support, to share your goals, to help you see options. But it is ok to start with just a little at a time.

Choose one thing to change: be specific, be focused. Reward approximation when it occurs. Approximation is the process of getting closer to what you want to have happen. Think of teaching a child to talk. You don’t wait until they can say, “Could I have a drink of water, please?” to reward them. WaWa or LaLa is close enough to start with. That’s approximation – you are rewarding movement toward the goal. Do the same for yourself.

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Again, I am open to communicating directly with you here. If you have questions or concerns, please leave a comment. I will attempt to address the content if I can.

Redefining Normal

Thinking back on my experiences as a seeker of care and a provider, I remember two big misconceptions. “Everyone experiences what I do,” and “No one understands what I’ve been through.” While these statements may seem to appear opposites, they easily co-exist in the belief systems of people experiencing emotional distress. Since I grew up in an alcoholic family, I have easily identified with the movement from the 70’s and 80’s focusing on Adult Children of Alcoholics: identifying the family system, the cognitive adaptations that help your world make sense, and the internal belief systems that rise from families where there is role confusion, denial,unpredictability, and secrecy.

When you do not talk about your inner life, you have few ways to compare it to others’. I remember in my 20’s having an eye exam that showed I was very far-sighted. The doctor asked me if I had experienced seeing double when trying to read. My response was, “Of course, I do. Whenever I get tired. Doesn’t everybody?” Or in my late 30’s when the dentist asked in a standard survey, “How frequently did I have headaches?” then responded with concern when I answered 5-7 days/week. “How had I gone so long without being concerned about it?” I thought it was “normal.” Today I look back with gratitude that someone asked a question in a way that I could respond, which resulted in recognizing that I could have a different experience than I had. It wasn’t normal, everyone did not experience it the way I did, and it wasn’t necessary that I struggle with it either.

The flip side (and yet companion) of defining your personal experience as normal, is seeing yourself as abnormal – the only person who feels this way or has had this experience. Part of the benefit of the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) movement, pioneered by people like John Bradshaw, Claudia Black, Jane Middleton-Moz, and Timmen Cermak,** was that it described a developmental process and set of beliefs that large groups of people had previously identified as individually unique to them. In the same way, group therapy is often the most helpful with persons having similar trauma experiences, because the individuals see that others have had very similar feelings, emotional or physiological responses, and common self-talk, generated from the common experience and not from a personal deficiency or inability to cope. This exposure to others who share your difficulties “normalizes” the experience and the person’s response, and confronts the internal view that one is somehow “not doing it right.”

Now with all that said, don’t be too concerned about “Being Normal.” A recent post by a friend said something like, “Normal is just a setting on your washing machine.” And when you see a therapist or counselor, and they somehow start to describe fairly accurately how you might be feeling, or thinking, or experiencing something; don’t be alarmed. They are not reading your mind. They are discussing common experiences of many persons in similar circumstances. Experiences you might learn from.Experiences that may be common, predictable, understandable, and human… that’s normal.

** These writers were important to me. I have not tried to be inclusive here.There are many contributors to the ACOA knowledge base and treatment approaches.

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Remember, this forum is not intended to be therapy. I have no way to view your body language, hear your tone of voice, or see your emotional expressions. These are essential to effective communication and great tools for the therapist (and for the consumer when reversed.) I will attempt to be as helpful as I can. I will refer you the best I can to needed services. Even though I will not be your therapist, I am a health care professional bound by law and ethics to act to protect persons from harm. I am required to report my concerns of harm to self or others, and suspected abuse of children and vulnerable adults. I am located and providing these services in Washington State.

Again, I am open to communicating directly with you here. If you have questions or concerns, please leave a comment. I will attempt to address the content if I can.

Toe in the Water

As a child living in the Pacific Northwest along the cold waters of Puget Sound, I learned to swim. I had two primary sites for learning: Quartermaster Harbor on Vashon Island, and a big cement swimming pool filled with mountain spring well water at my Grandparents’ in Tacoma. It wasn’t until I started teaching boating safety classes that I realized that nearly my entire childhood swimming experience was conducted in the early stages of hyperthermia – blue lips, chattering teeth, progressing to numbness in the feet and full body shivers. It was very difficult to ease into the water slowly. Everyone seemed to endorse the plunge approach. Anyone testing the water with their toe or attempting to enter a pool using the ladder or steps was considered cowardly and unlikely to ever complete the task.

Some folks look at therapy or counseling in the same way (All or nothing), and that approach probably keeps many from ever being able to truly use the process in a way that helps them. It is okay to stick your toe in, and decide whether to proceed a little more or withdraw. No one has to leap in or be in the deep end rather than the shallow. The process of working on your own emotional wellness, of relieving your distress, needs to be at your pace, and in an emotional environment that is safe. A therapist that takes on the role of the bully, and throws you in the deep-end to sink or swim is not honoring you. You might survive, but you are unlikely to continue to use the techniques you employed, at least use them with pleasure and confidence.

Just as our emotional distress is highly unique and personal, so is our path to recovery. There is no single approach, technique, method, or set of exercises that is helpful to everyone. It is okay to try different therapies. There will be a therapist that can help, but it might not be the first one you meet. Try not to assess your potential for recovery based on a poor experience.

Today there are all kinds of ways to explore therapy approaches: audio books, videos, U-Tube, reading, attending public presentations, workshops, health fairs, and many more. It is okay to shop. I believe (and there is research to support) that the key element in a successful counseling /therapy experience is the relationship between the therapist and the client. (Please substitute whatever word you feel comfortable with to describe the person seeking therapy – patient, client, consumer, seeker, student – the words used seem to vary based primarily on provider experience and training.) After years in social services, I referred to the people I worked with as clients, then after 10 years in a medical clinic, I found myself referring to them as patients. Mental Health Advocates seem to prefer consumer. I will probably shift among the various titles as I write. The key point is that you – the seeker of service – are the one in control of the relationship, not the provider. You (or your insurance, employer, or taxes) are paying for a service. And within your provider’s boundaries, you are entitled to manage the level of intensity, the frequency, the content, and the direction of your care.

Identifying and challenging your fears, doubts, pain or sorrow is not easy. You won’t necessarily be comfortable all the time, but it is essential that you trust you will be safe, and that you can stop or slow down when you feel overwhelmed.

There are also online options for testing the water. Visit blogs or websites that have questions and answers with therapists. This is not therapy, but you can get a feel for how different people approach identifying problems and solutions. In some cases, there may even be an opportunity to transition into a therapy relationship with the person. Remember, it is your treatment. You can approach it in the way that fits you. You will need to stretch your comfort zone at times for growth to occur, but you can also approach slowly and move in a little at a time.

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Again, I am open to communicating directly with you through this forum. If you have questions or concerns, please leave a comment. I will attempt to address them if I can.

2 Comments

Filed under counseling, emotional healing, healing, mental health, psychotherapy, therapy, Uncategorized

Tagged as choosing a therapist, counseling, emotional distress, emotional healing, finding a therapist, penny milczewski, personal growth

Tag Archives: counseling

A Life Cut Short

Holding On And Letting Go

Creating and Nurturing Change

Toe in the Water

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