Cognitive Therapy For Writers Part II Revenge of the Smart Brain



Raaaawr! All right. So, we've established that everyone has a Sneaky Brain, the part of you that whispers all sorts of nasty things that make you feel bad.
You know, like:

• If I don't get an agent or get published, I freaking suck as a writer.
• Because that agent/editor rejected me, I am a failure.
• I got a few rejections this week/today/in the last hour, so that means no one will ever want to represent/publish me.
• I wrote one book/chapter/page/sentence, and now I can't think of what to write next. I've run out of words FOREVAH!!!!! AAAAAAH!!!!!!!

Let's pause right here and acknowledge that not everyone who writes is going to end up a published author. Not everyone who writes is even good enough to be published. Period. That's the way it is. Language is powerful, but it can be difficult to wield. The art of storytelling adds another level of difficulty. And then there's marketability ... whoa.

SO, taking into account that I, or you, might be among those who reach as far as we can but still can't close our hands around that elusive prize, how do we keep feeling OK? How do we keep our Sneaky Brains from sapping us of whatever talent and energy and creativity we have? How do we stay on track and keep writing, keep telling the stories we want to tell?

We all have Smart Brains, too. We should use them.

Don't be afraid to fight dirty.

 1. Recognize those sneaky thoughts. Listen hard, my loves. You have to HEAR and recognize what Sneaky's saying, because those thoughts can become pretty automatic over time, meaning you stop hearing them and just skip straight to the drinking-Wild-Turkey part of the equation. Don't. Listen. What do you hear?

If you hear any of the following words, perk up and slap on those boxing gloves:

ALWAYS
NEVER
SHOULD
ONLY
FOREVER

If you find yourself thinking "sure, I had some success a year/month/day/hour ago, but THAT DOESN'T COUNT ... ", do some pushups, man, because you've got some work to do.

Or if you hear "since she rejected me, that means EVERYONE will", strap on some brass knuckles. You've got a fight on your hands.

After you've recognized what the Sneaky Brain is saying ...

2. Recognize Sneaky as a bully. Sure, it's inside your brain, but that don't mean it speaks the truth, baby. When I work with kids, we "externalize the problem". Picture me (see stick figure above) talking in funny voices with puppets strapped on my 18-inch fingers.


Just like this dude.
But probably not as ripped.

 OK, don't. Instead, picture Sneaky sitting in front of you--and see what a liar it is. Those things it's whispering are a one-way ticket to depression. Despair. Giving up. What right does it have to do that to you? What right does ANYONE HAVE TO DO THAT TO YOU?!? I don't care if the bully resides between your ears. It's still a bully.






Once you recognize that:

3. Confront the bully and talk back to it. Because, seriously, logic is not its friend.

If someone's done something to upset you, like they rejected you or gave you a bit of harsh feedback, and your Sneaky Brain is saying "it's because they hate your writing and think you're a tool", use your Smart Brain to say, "Really? 'Cuz

1. they only read a tiny sample of my writing--or only a query, or
2. they had some nice things to say, too, or
3. I got a request/compliment, etc. from this same person/similarly skilled person(s) before, or
4. they probably spent a total of 60 seconds looking at it because they had 300 other queries waiting, or
5. the idea probably just didn't float their boat, but it could float other boats ...

You get the point. Use your Smart Brain to be ... smart? Use logic. Be a skeptic. If the Sneaky Brain says you're a failure because you got one rejection, I mean, WTF? Really? How many agents and editors are out there?

If it says "you should have an agent by now" or "you always mess this up" or "you will never ..." Oh, geez. What does it know? This process is frustrating enough without Sneaky going to illogical extremes. "Always"? Yeah? Use your Smart Brain to question how that could possibly be true. If you can't, that just means your Smart Brain's out of shape, NOT that Sneaky speaks the truth.

And if it whispers "the only way to be successful and happy is to get published," your Smart Brain should be screaming, "I am more than a writer. And there are many kinds of writers. And I write for many reasons. And sometimes, the end result isn't what it's about. Sometimes, it's the JOURNEY." Then, maybe toss out some obscene hand gestures for good measure. Stupid Sneaky Brain. Gut it with a spoon, my friends. That's what it deserves.

You don't have to be the only one who talks back to Sneaky. I'll bet you have friends or family or beta-readers or intriguing-strangers-you-meet-in-a-coffee-shop who can help you. Listen to their encouragement and don't discount it. But know this: no voice will ever pack a punch as powerful as your own Smart Brain.

So ... confession time. I'll be going on submission in the new year. And you know what? I'm going to be using every single one of these strategies every single day to stay calm and sane and happy. I know it won't always be easy. I know my Smart Brain won't win every round. BUT, I also know my Smart Brain is pretty damn smart. No matter what happens, I'm going to be OK. I'm going to be successful. And I'm going to define what that means for myself--I won't let anyone, including my own Sneaky Brain, define it for me.

That shapeless lump is my vanquished Sneaky Brain.

What about you? What challenge are you facing now? What's that Sneaky Brain telling you? And just how do you plan to kick its a$$??

Guest Post The Challenge of Prosperity

Today's guest post concerns the work of Dr. Cheryl Rampage, Senior Vice President for Programs and Academic Affairs at The Family Institute at Northwestern University. She has shown how a family's being financially well off can at times actually increase the risk of anxiety, depression, and substance abuse in their children.

Cheryl Rampage, Ph.D

When we think of wealth, we often think of all the opportunities and perks that come with it. However, the common misconception that wealth is the solution to all of our problems is negated by recent research that shows while money can give children a head start in life, it can actually impede on their personal and emotional growth as they get older. 

In fact, adolescents who come from a wealthy household are 20 to 30 percent more likely to suffer from depression or anxiety than other teens. But there are ways to combat it. 

Cheryl Rampage's Counseling@Northwestern’s paper, “The Challenge of Prosperity: Affluence and Psychological Distress Among Adolescents,” sheds light on this issue—and ways to address it. Interested readers can click on the title of the article to read the whole paper.

While her research shows that prosperity can impose psychological distress on youth, parents and guardians can step in by following best practices. According to Dr. Rampage, parents can mitigate the risks of wealth by providing structure at home, unconditional love and consistent communication with their adolescents. The infographic below illustrates the ways in which affluence affects children’s mental health in early childhood and adolescence and what parents can do to positively contribute to children’s overall development.

Learn more about the challenges of wealth and prosperity from an infographic. It is shown below and available in a larger image at http://counseling.northwestern.edu/mental-health-of-affluent-teens-the-challenge-of-prosperity/:

Brought to you by Counseling@Northwestern’s Online Masters in Counseling

The importance of self care WMHD16

The theme of this year's World Mental Health Day is 'psychological first aid' and thanking those who give it to us. So my two pennies is: self care, and how to give yourself psychological first aid, or just a bit of a MOT.

I always thought the term ‘self care’ was the hippiest pile of shit - grouped with ‘self love’ and ‘self help’. I thought, like ‘clean eating’, it was a notion that did more harm than good, and it wasn’t until I actively tried it that I realised how important it was and how much I could learn from it.

Self care is about nothing other than looking after yourself. That’s it. Really. It’s not associated with hippies, or vegans, or mental illness. It’s not restricted to certain groups of people. It’s certainly about your mentality, but it’s not just for those who struggle with it. Everyone should know how to treat themselves with a little TLC, both when life is going well and when it’s not, and it shouldn’t be something you’re ashamed of admitting we need. It doesn’t make you weak. You need to cancel plans and have a self care day? Go ahead pal, you look after yourself.

With that in mind, it can still be hard to know how to… do it. It sounds ridiculous but sometimes we just don’t know how to best look after ourselves. We’re not taught it. We’re taught how to look after ourselves physically by exercising, showering, brushing our teeth, and eating well, but not how to look after ourselves mentally. And it’s tough, because you have to work it out for yourself. Not everyone will have the same self care ‘routines’. It’s totally individual to you. But hey, once you’ve worked it out and stick at it regularly, it may well 1) stop any mental downhill spirals, or 2) help you out of them if you’ve already dipped.

So here’s what works for me. My list of stuff I can do when life gets a bit much, my brain’s being an arse, or just when I want to check back in with myself. 

• Have a bath with a shitload of bubbles and a good bath bomb. Everyone says it, but it’s true. Baths are relaxing. Some find them boring, and I definitely can’t lie there for hours, but just lying down in a vat of too-hot water can calm me right down. Phone stays in the other room, always.

• Run. Here she is, banging on about running again. Didn’t take me long. Running has been completely revolutionary for me. It gives me time away from my phone and laptop, gives me a fuckload of endorphins, gets air in my lungs and the blood around my body. It gives me time to think and reconnect with my body. Now THAT sounds like the hippiest pile of shit…

• Go outside. It sounds so bloody simple but it can totally change my day. I know exactly when I’ve spent too long indoors and acknowledge that by getting the fuck outside. I can just stand outside the back door of our flat in my pyjamas, or spend an hour in the park on my lunch break at work. The outside is a game changer. 

• Light candles. I just love fire. 

• Clean the flat. Sorry, yeah. I love a good clean. It makes me feel more in control when other parts of life are going to shit. Scrubbing the bathroom sink, ravaging the hob, or Freddie Mercury-ing it when mopping the floors. It makes me feel good (and keeps me on good terms with my flatmates). 

• Drink water. I don’t care if it’s eight glasses a day or not, I just know that drinking water keeps your body in check. It keeps everything inside moving, stops your headaches, makes your skin glow, and stops you from getting tired so quickly. 

• Find new recipes/holidays/flats. If I’m ever feeling stuck in a rut, I try to look forwards and plan. I can spend h o u r s on rightmove, booking.com, and BBC Good Food and getting excited for new things, whether it’s a different way to cook spaghetti or a getaway to the middle of nowhere. 

• Do my nails/pluck my eyebrows. Your body is important, inside and out. My nails looking battered and my eyebrows looking like an overgrown garden is a sure sign that I need a bit of a MOT. The pain of plucking my eyebrows is a serious guilty pleasure and my Barry M collection is growing bigger by the second (payday). 

• Colour/cross-stitch. Yeah, I’m an adult who has colouring-in books. So sue me. It’s proven to help those with their mental health and it’s so soothing. It’s also something my boyfriend’s mum and I used to do together before she passed away earlier this year, and cross-stitching is something my mum taught me when I was a little. So shut up. 

• Write lists. I BLOODY LOVE A LIST. Whenever things are getting on top of me, I write down a list of everything I need or want to do in my neatest handwriting. It’s then out of my head and on to paper and I can’t ever leave a list unfinished. Competitive? Me? No…

• Read. I got a Goodreads account last October and OH GOD I love it. I love finding new books, being recommended others, reading reviews, and finding out what my friends are loving/hating. You can also create a Goodreads Reading Challenge of how many books you’re going to read in a year, so that also lends itself to the competitive streak that I clearly don’t have…

• Stick on Spotify. I actually pay for Spotify now. I AM ADULT. I mean, I grabbed my cousin’s student discount so I could get it for half price, but… whatever. I always find a new playlist to have on in the background when I’m working from home. It’s just nice. There’s not much more to it. It’s lovely, calming, sometimes nostalgic, sometimes motivating. Always helpful.

• Open the windows. This is more meaningful when Elbow’s on the above Spotify playlist, but it’s imperative regardless. As soon as I’m properly awake in the mornings, the windows around the flat are open. I want the air, the rain, the birds, even the screaming kids next door. I want the outside world to interfere with my inside world. Otherwise everything gets a bit too much. 

I thought that was going to be quite a short list, but apparently there are quite a few things that come to mind when I think about what makes me feel better. And that’s rather importantly great, and something I should remember. Now where's your self care list?

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The Dysfunctional Family Role of the Loser

It seems like a lot more adults in the United States are living with their parents than ever before. Some of this is completely reasonable and is in no way indicative of significant family dysfunction, as economic conditions have led many twenty-somethings to require much more time to get their financial ducks in a row so they can move out and be more independent. 

In other cases, however, this phenomenon is due to significantly dysfunctional family dynamics. If the pattern continues into the adult children's thirties, forties, or even later, the odds that dysfunctionality is the culprit skyrocket. 

In  a previous post, I discussed some typical patterns that create this pattern, and pointed out that the adult children remain enmeshed with their parents because, covertly, they are taking care of some of their parents' needs. They may be mediating disputes between bickering parents who for whatever reason will not get a divorce; they may be helping take care of sick, elderly, or just plain lonely parents; they may be providing free cooking and housekeeping services for families that for a variety of reasons are not being done by someone else.

Or in some cases, all of the above!

This is the shell game that I refer to as Who is Taking Care of Whom?

I have seen cases of such patterns that continue throughout the entire lifetime of the adult child. You can find many examples of a sixty-something year old man or woman living with an eighty-something year old mother or father. The adult child's siblings may all be independent, but the "identified screw-up" seems to be the parent's favorite child.

Usually in these instances, the parent is taking care of all of the adult child's financial needs, including for housing, food and spending money, so said adult child does not have to work outside of the home.  The reason they do not work, however, is actually because they already have a full time job: taking care of their parents.

On the surface, it seems to all the world - and even to many peripheral family members - that the adult child is using the parent, and said adult child normally receives allof the blame for the dysfunctional living arrangement. They are accused of using the parents because of less than admirable motives.  Many such folks readily accept this blame, and in fact act in many ways to confirm everyone else's worst fears. They do this to protect the image of their parents, and in the process sacrifice their own reputation.

Another variety of this pattern is when the adult child living with parents pretends to be a failure who always seems to need the help of their parents. That is the version of the shell game that is the subject of today's post. The adult child appears to be a big loser in both love and work. Said adult children will venture out into the real world from time to time, only to return in relatively short order with their tails between their legs.

So how does one go about becoming such a loser?  Let me count the ways.

They may flunk out of school for various and sundry reasons that are not actually the real reasons. Alternatively, they may get a degree in something that qualifies them for a profession that is rapidly disappearing from the current landscape, so they cannot get a permanent job.

They may make impulsive decisions that get them in trouble in way one or another, and subsequently lose any job they do manage to land. They may even develop various medical or mental illnesses, some of which are real and some of which are feigned and some of which are both, but all of which appear to be far more disabling than these particular illnesses should ever be in real life (the role of the defective). Drug or alcohol problems are common.  Some of these folks are massively obese.

They may get themselves fired from a whole series of jobs, again for reasons which may appear legitimate but are masks for the real motivation of the job loser. Or they might take a job knowing that the company they work for is actually planning layoffs.

These people may also or instead play the role of loser in their love lives.  They may look like they are really trying to meet romantic partners by going to singles events or signing up for dating websites, but somehow very little comes of it. Or they choose partners - or a series of partners - who are abusive, have drug or alcohol or commitment problems, or are in other ways dysfunctional, so their parents have to come and rescue them from dangerous or dead-end relationships. Sometimes repeatedly.

Because of these patterns, the parents - who are in reality highly dependent on Mr. or Ms. Loser - often criticize the poor judgment of their offspring unmercifully.  

The more the parents criticize, the more the adult child continues making the same mistakes over and over again. The parent then feels justified in continuing to make the criticisms. On the rare occasions when the adult child expresses anger at the parent's constant harping and verbal abuse, the parent can point to the child's irresponsible behavior as justification for it.

In a very real sense, the adult child is purposely giving the parent this ammunition to use against him or her, although they do not have to think about this consciously while doing so because their behavior is habitual and automatic. This allows the parent to avoid feeling guilty for both their criticisms and for the fact that they are contributing to their own child's impairment. The parents, of course, act in this manner because they themselves are playing their own roles within the family.

Some are stuck in bad marriages because of family/cultural/religious prohibitions regarding divorce.  Some are females who are stuck in outdated gender roles with a prohibition against women being independent.  Some need their child to act out their own repressed anger because they cannot do so themselves - often due to family rules prohibiting anyone from being "selfish" enough to put their own needs above those of other family members.

There is a very incisive and sophisticated comic strip called Momma by Mell Lazarus that absolutely nails the family dynamics described above. A son named Francis is the identified loser.  He apparently does have his own apartment, which of course Momma is paying for, but he is constantly doing everything in his power to act out the various negative characterizations of him that Momma compulsively throws his way. 

It's kind of sad that a cartoonist understands this dynamic better than many therapists.

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Practice of Doping up Children to Treat Parental Anxiety Continues to Grow

I have already written several posts about the inappropriate "diagnosing" of bipolar disorder in children and the even more inappropriate use of antipsychotic medications in children.  My main point has been that, rather than having a psychiatric disorder, the vast majority of these children are just acting out.  (For those readers who have difficulty making distinctions - especially those who automatically assume that things that look vaguely alike must be identical - this opinion does NOT apply to those uncommon children who are actually psychotic or to older adolescents who are clearly and obviously manic).



So what proof can I offer?  Well, at the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting, John Goethe, MD (director of the Burlingame Center for Psychiatric Research and Education at Hartford Hospital’s Institute of Living), presented the results of a decade-long study of antipsychotic prescribing for children and adolescents in psychiatric hospitals.

The results? Forty-five percent of patients with such behavioral disorders as ADHD or conduct disorder were given antipsychotics and 44% of patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) received them. The percentage for other anxiety disorders was 31%!

Forgetting for the moment that an ADHD diagnosis may just be yet another case of acting out, antipsychotic medication is not indicated for ADHD.  In adults, antipsychotic medications are not indicated nor FDA-approved for any anxiety disorder or PTSD.  Not only that, but there is not the slightest evidence from any neurobiological study that the purported mechanism of action of antipsychotic medication has anything to do with anxiety disorders or ADHD. 

And conduct disorder?  This "disorder" was formerly called juvenille delinquincy.  Acting out by any other name. Don't even get me started.

One of the predominant side effects of these medications, is however, sedation.  So one might conclude that the reason the meds seem to both the parents and incompetent doctors to "work" is that the kids quiet down because they are being doped up. (This prescribing practice does not just apply to some psychiatrists but also to many other primary care doctors as well -as to pediatricians, read Claudia Gold's blogpost, Pediatricians Prescribing Psychiatric Medication: A Dose of Reality),

But who's anxiety is really being treated here? 

I submit that it is the anxiety of the parents. Parents who have out-of-control, acting-out children are the real objects of these "treatments."  These parents covertly feel guilty when they are unable to control their children due to inconsistent, neglectful, or abusive parenting practices.  Yet they have great difficulty changing these practices for a variety of reasons - sometimes very understandable reasons.  (One of which is that their doctors make no effort to understand what is really going on in their homes, and take advantage of their insecurities). 

Nonetheless, when the kids are doped up and are therefore less trouble, the parents feel better. And they have the doctors stamp of approval that the problem resides entirely within the child, not with them.

An unsolicited plug


The use of these drugs in kids diagnosed with PTSD is particularly instructive.  Unless you are treating victims of such disasters as the recent outbreak of tornadoes in the South and Midwest, or working with victims of crime like Jaycee Dugard, the most common trauma leading to PTSD in children is child abuse.

Of course, this whole process of sedating acting-out children usually does not end with the first prescription.  For most drugs that have sedation as a side effect, the sedation gradually subsides after  a few weeks on the medication.  Then, of course, the kid starts doing what kids always do - start reverting back to their previous behavior.

The parents then drag him or her back to the incompetent doctor, who starts to take one of the following steps and then another, in no particular order:

1. Increase the dose of the medication.
2. Change to a different medication which also is not indicated for anxiety and conduct disorders.
3. Add a prescription for a second one of those medications, and then perhaps a third or a fourth.
4. Change the diagnosis to something else other than acting out, and begin the whole process all over again.

Since the kid still is not controlled after the sedative side effect subsides, another step the parents can take is to apply for social security disability for the child.  This gives the child the message that the parents think he or she is both sick and incompetent.

Readers of the blog know what I believe happens next.  The child develops a false self that only seems to be sick and incompetent.  Such children hide their abilities as they grow into adults, continue to act in ways that preclude employment, and continue on social security disability. 

When you take the time to actually get to know them, however, it seems that the only thing they can not seem to do that most people can is maintain employment.

And then Robert Whitaker thinks that the medications were the cause of the disability, just like the less-than-thorough doctors thought that the medications caused the initial improvement of the child's "mental illness" when it was just a side effect that temporarily muted acting out behavior. 

It always amazes me how much people who seem to be on opposite sides of a debate think alike.  Basing their conclusions on totally incomplete information seems to be a favorite blind spot of theirs.

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Guest Post Breaking Free of Being the Perfect Child

Today's guest post is by Paul Taylor. This is the fourth post in which a writer recounts his or her own experience in a family with a problematic history, as well as its aftermath. Itillustrates a couple of themes of my blog very well: a family role that must be played by a member – or else - and the existential horror and despondency people feel when they try to break away from it. His criticism of cognitive psychotherapy for this sort of problem is also right on.

It is hard being the perfect child. According to my family, I was born perfect. I was quiet and obedient and always willing to help out. From the time I was very small my family relied on me to be the good, responsible child. Although I was not too much older than my siblings and cousins I was relied on to make sure they were safe, happy, and cooperative too.

As I got older and some of the extended family moved away my responsibilities changed. I was now supposed to go to school and do all my work without complaint or question, answering any inquires about what I was learning with an in depth explanation. Then I was supposed to help my younger brother complete his school work while also teaching him what he missed in class due to his ADD. After that came helping with chores like ironing, laundry, dishes, yard work, vacuuming etc. That I was also supposed to do without complaint for as long as it took. 

Every member of the family had set chores and I was expected to not only do mine, as quickly and quietly as possible, but also “help out” with everyone else’s. That meant doing the dirtiest, hardest or most complex jobs while they watched and shook their heads –feeling helplessly confused all the while.

If I finished everything I was then expected to have “family time” which consisted of sitting around the television, watching something my brother and I were not interested in. I was supposed to keep him quietly entertained so we could “be a family.” If, by chance, there was time left over before bed I snuck in reading a chapter or two of my books, which were my only escape from reality.

When I got into my teen years and nothing changed, I began to become uncomfortable with the arrangement. 

I had not made many friends outside of school before then, of course, due to my packed schedule. When I attempted to make plans with friends and let my family know ahead of time, some emergency inevitably came up: a last minute project, a chore that had to be done RIGHT NOW, or just a guilt trip of “not being with your family.”After a few attempts I decided it was not worth the effort and went back to my routine.

Finally when I reached my twenties I realized that my life style was not normal. I started to try to pull away. I knew that I wanted to become my own person and not just the person they told me I was. I wanted to make choices based on my own needs and desires instead of doing what would make them happy or what would not get me in trouble with my family. It was very hard for me to break out of the thinking patterns that had formed from my many years as the perfect child. 

I constantly had to remind myself that I was not responsible for anyone else’s happiness or emotional welfare. I could not change anyone no matter how much I did for them or how much I loved them. In fact I was only allowing them to continue to suffer because they never had to grow as long as I picked up their slack.

At first I planned to move out. I started to squirrel away money for an apartment and shopped around near my work during lunch to see what I could afford. Then a few weeks before I decided I would make my move, a family member had to have emergency surgery.

Well, of course I couldn’t leave then. There was an actual sick person to take care of; the house had one less person to help with clean up, and the person that did not work and stayed home needed a break in the evenings. It was only reasonable.

Six months went by and I decided that I would take a smaller step towards being independent. I planned on going on a trip by myself for two weeks. I would use the money I had saved to pay for the gas, and I had a tent so I could just go on a road trip and camp along the way. I got permission from my work and was all ready to go. I decided to give my family two weeks’ notice so that they could adjust to the idea.

Bad idea.

As I started to pull away, my family teamed up against me. From telling me I was wrong in my thinking to guilt trips to outright anger and abuse, they piled on the difficulties and tried to make me conform to their way of thinking; the way that was easiest for them. I fought back for a while but eventually got worn out, and found myself being sucked back in.

I postponed my trip indefinitely.

However, this time I was aware of what was going on around me. I felt like I was living in another world. I watched in horror as I went through the same day-to-day routine of being the perfect child and cleaning up the messes they left behind. I felt disconnected from reality and just went through my days with a kind of hopeless, formless, pointless movement. Somehow I thought that as long as my body was moving I was still all right and functioning.

What I did not realize is that I had become seriously depressed. I had been depressed in the past but had repressed the dark times in my life to the point where I did not even remember them happening. I tried to function on auto-pilot without my own conscious approval. However, this time around the auto pilot would not engage. I had become too self-aware to let my brain slip into a waking coma.

It got to the point where I would be driving and would consider just letting go of the wheel and seeing what happened. After all, it did not matter one way or the other. What was the point of living like this?

After having several similar thoughts, I sought professional help. Although it did help to have my irrational thinking pointed out to me, it did not help in the sense of giving me something concrete to do.

“Move out,” they said, “Get away.”

Well, that is all well and good for someone to say, but the practicality of it was beyond me. I had been beaten down by the combined forces of my family. From bills to pay to broken down cars to guilt trips and attacks of hysteria I had so much to deal with that even planning a way out was beyond me.

I checked out. I really did. I went to work every day and somehow managed to crank out my job with no brain power. I got home and took care of the chores and bills and things that needed to be done. I chatted pleasantly about the weather, feigned listening attentively to problems, and worked steadily until it was time to fall into bed and start the whole day over again.

Weekends and weekdays were indistinguishable except for the physical activity required. It was much more restful at work, sitting at a desk, then at home running errands, cleaning up messes, and trying to pretend everything was fine.

Hopeless does not even begin to describe it.

I tried to express to my family why I was so angry, or stressed, or just listless. Their solution:

“Just stop thinking so much. Everything will work out.”

Eventually I got fed up with the whole thing. Working with friends I came up with a way to get out of the house. One day I just moved, taking only a couple of bags of clothes and tossing them in the trunk of my car I left.

After the meltdown, things changed. I was still the ‘perfect child’ in some ways but I learned the benefits of boundaries and getting away from people. The physical distance helped me to create a personal space where I could feel safe and grow. It was still very hard for a long time but it has gradually gotten better. My family still attempts guilt trips and manipulation but now that I have time to see things as they really are I can resist them and deal with them in a healthier way.

Author Bio:

Paul Taylor started www.babysittingjobs.com which offers an aggregated look at those sites to help families find sitters and to help sitters find families easier than ever. He loves writing, with the help of his wife. He has contributed quality articles for different blogs & websites.

The face of fear

Since I stopped running from panic and began studying it instead, I've become fascinated by fear -- why humans and other animals evolved to experience fear the ways we do, and what fear looks like through the lens of the patient, psychiatrist, neurologist, psychologist, biologist, ethicist, artist, politician, theologian, athlete, marketing executive, lawyer, police officer, and so on.

Which led me to this, a look at why fearful facial expressions are common among all humans. From the article:

The evolutionary mystery of why our faces contort when we are scared has been solved by a team of Canadian neuroscientists.

When our facial expression shifts to one of eye-bulging, nostril-flaring fear, our ability to sense attackers or other imminent danger improves dramatically, researchers found.

The findings lend support to an idea first laid out by Charles Darwin in one of his less well-known tomes, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals, published in 1872. Darwin noted that facial expressions of emotion were often remarkably similar across human cultures, and even the animal kingdom, implying they may have a common evolutionary benefit.

"Most people think expressions are social signals, that they are intended to communicate what someone's feeling. We're saying they probably evolved as a sensory function first, even if they do help convey our feelings to others," said Adam Anderson, a cognitive neuroscientist who led the study at the University of Toronto.

Writing in the journal Nature Neuroscience, Anderson and his colleague Joshua Susskind reveal how the classic expression of fear increases our range of vision, speeds up eye movement and improves air flow through the nose. All of these reactions boost our ability to see or smell threats and prepare ourselves for the "fight or flight" response, where we either battle it out with our attacker or take to our heels.

Note: I borrowed the image introducing this post from this artist's blog. She does cool stuff; check it out.

Horses and Emotional Control of Anxiety

One thing I am working on in managing my anxiety levels is to try to replicate the methods I use in riding and training my horse.

Horses are amazingly sensitive creatures with a well developed prey instinct. They have an acute awareness of all that is happening around them. This is by necessity of course as they need to be ready to spring into action if a predator is nearby.

(photo credit Adrian Parnham)

If they are startled by a plastic bag blowing in the wind, or a noise in the bushes I want them to be aware of that event but to HOLD OFF on their behavioral reaction, and wait for direction from me.

If my horse's normal reaction would be to spin or bolt or rear at the sight of a scary object, I need them to stay put and wait to hear from me what I want them to do.

This requires significant emotional control over their anxious feelings. They need to learn a new way to react to an alarming stimulus. And part of training and riding a horse is to help them to learn emotional control.

These same principles apply to humans with a tendency towards panic attacks, anxiety attacks or overwhelming anxious feelings.

As one of these people, my goal for myself is to also acheive the same expectation I have for my horses - that of emotional control.

I do not need to be simply reacting to every stimilus in my environment. I can also take control of my fearful thinking, my skyrocketing emotions and channel my behavior in another direction.

Oh my gosh, this is so much easier to say than to actually do!

Are we in the midst of a narcissism epidemic

To end this week's series of posts on narcissism, I wanted to talk prevalence. The findings of a survey of nearly 35,000 adults living in the US indicate narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) occurs in nearly 6.2% of the general population. WHOA. More men than women have the disorder (7.7 vs. 4.8%). NPD was found to be "significantly more prevalent" in black men and women, Hispanic women, and young adults. Dr. Jean Twenge, the author of the book The Narcissism Epidemic, claims that the prevalence among young adults might be as high as 10% (!!!).

I was ... shocked by that. And also--when the prevalence of any mental health disorder is that high, it makes me question how it's defined and assessed. Apparently I'm not the only one, because the developers of the DSM V, the anticipated revision to the diagnostic manual of mental disorders, are making some major changes to the definition of narcissistic personality disorder. There was some indication that the disorder might be eliminated altogether, but at this time I think it's still in there, just with significant revisions to the criteria--INCLUDING a change that takes norms within cultures and subcultures into account.

Regardless of the precise definition of the disorder, however, Dr. Twenge's argument is this: narcissism is part of our culture right now. She points to the frequency of cosmetic surgery as an example, and the first thing to come to my mind is reality television. I don't know, you might not agree, but ...