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Relationship Status?

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“If only I had known he was such a narcissist.  I never would’ve married him.”

That may be true, but you would have probably married someone else, and, while that person may not have been a narcissist, they would certainly have had their own issues.  Just like you do!

Dan Wile, in After the Honeymoon (1988) wrote, “Choosing a partner is choosing a set of problems.”

When you marry someone, you are marrying that person and all of the baggage, issues, history, trauma, failures, habits, and idiosyncrasies that they bring into the marriage.  Wile wrote, “…there is value, when choosing a long-term partner, in realizing that you will inevitably be choosing a particular set of unsolvable problems that you’ll be grappling with for the next ten, twenty, or fifty years.”

Facebook offers several options under “Relationship Status,” including: single, in a relationship, engaged, married, it’s complicated, separated.  If only there was some law of the universe that made us wear a sign proclaiming the problems that we bring to every relationship!  Imagine if we were all so self-aware that we listed:

Clingy

Emotionally Needy

Jealous Type

Fear of Commitment

Before you begin to label your partner’s behavior within the relationship, perhaps you should take an honest assessment of your own relationship habits.  Do you tend to internalize your partner’s behavior and see it as a rejection of you?  Do you like to say that you “hate drama,” but constantly stir it up on social media?  Are you too thin-skinned?  Do you have trouble accepting compliments–or giving them?

Some of us are very good at dissecting our partner’s motivations, subconscious actions, unhealthy tendencies developed in childhood, character flaws, etc.  How do you act in relationships?

The ancient Greeks carved “Know Thyself” into the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.  Today, I am suggesting that you carve that into your hearts and minds. 

Know thyself. 

Know how you act in relationships–then you can work to make healthy changes in your own behavior.  You’re not going to change your partner.

 

Filed Under: Marriage, Relationships, Uncategorized Tagged With: ,

Why Did You Become a Counselor?

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It’s a legitimate question to ask anyone: why are you working in the field in which you are?  For some people, the answer is a simple, “This is what I’ve always wanted to do.”  For others, though, the answer is more complicated.  Some people just kind of fell into their current jobs, some wandered into them, some were even stuck with them.  Sometimes we inherit our work, sometimes we’re on merely our latest incarnation of what we do.  “Today, I am this, but for many years, I was that.”

It is certainly okay to ask your counselor why they chose their profession.  Inevitably, you’ll get an aspect of “I always liked helping people,” along with some other details, of course.  I have been told over the years that some people assume that we counselors went into counseling because we wanted to figure ourselves out, too.  Let me hereby confirm that for you here and now: most of us were trying to work on some things about ourselves while simultaneously learning about others.  As Dr. Paul Friday states in his Friday’s Laws, “No one has a squeaky clean psyche.”

Is that so bad?  Your counselor, like you, is a flawed human being.  By the time he or she is a licensed counselor, though, they’ve (hopefully!) come to understand their own peccadilloes, idiosyncrasies, unhealthy tendencies, behavior in relationships, etc.  Most university counseling programs make us go through some form of our own counseling before we can call ourselves counselors.  Like a novice tattoo artist who must first be willing to tattoo himself before he can be trusted to tattoo another, we counselors typically have our own counselors because (A) we know we have our own issues and (B) we believe in counseling.

Does it surprise you to hear that your counselor probably has seen a counselor?  Why?  Should your counselor be a super-high functioning, totally self-aware role model?  Maybe some are.  The vast majority are typical human beings who know how to help others; that’s about it.  Your counselor isn’t perfect–just ask their spouses!  That doesn’t mean, though, that they can’t be perfectly suited to help you.

Kings, queens, presidents, popes: they all have advisors.  CEO’s, doctors, lawyers: they consult with their peers when they are uncertain about something.  Surely you can, too.

 

Filed Under: Counseling Tagged With: ,

Loving Someone with a Complicated Past

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“I want to stop blowing up relationships,” said the young lady when I asked her why she was seeking counseling.  “I’ve had a string of unsuccessful relationships, and they’ve all ended because of me.”

She talked about her history of being distrustful, of pushing people away, of being distant at times or needy at others.  The next question might have been, “Why do you act that way in relationships?” but she already supplied the answer, “My dad was a real a–hole when I was growing up, so I know that’s why I do what I do.”

One of my favorite authors during my adolescence was Piers Anthony, who wrote in the Author’s Notes of his novel, Fractal Mode:

One thing you, who had secure or happy childhoods, should understand about those of us who did not: we–who control our feelings, who avoid conflicts at all costs (or seem to seek them), who are hyper-sensitive, self-critical, compulsive, workaholic, and, above all, survivors—we’re not that way from perversity and we cannot “just relax and let it go.”  We’ve learned to cope in ways you never had to.

I want to say that, while our childhoods and adolescence certainly affect us, they need not determine us.  In other words, just because you experienced trauma or were abused–it doesn’t mean that you are incapable of having successful, healthy, adult relationships…

…but it can certainly be more difficult for those of us who bear childhood scars. It’s a challenge for us to assume only the best in our partners, or to be vulnerable, or to resist the urge to self-destruct.  If it is your misfortunate to love someone who survived a nasty childhood, God bless you!  You’re in for a bumpy ride.

Functioning at your best within your relationship with a Survivor will require a great deal of patience and understanding.  You love a flawed human being, and while you certainly have your own flaws, perhaps yours are the more understanding foibles of poor communication, occasional selfishness, and a tendency to waste food or leave the lights on.  Your Survivor partner, on the other hand, will weekly present with enough neuroses to make Freud light up a cigar during session.  Can you handle that?

Can you be understanding without being enabling?  Can you be compassionate without sacrificing your own valid interests?  Are you willing to endure behavior that is designed to push you away–without tolerating abuse or rationalizing addiction?  In short, can you daily exhibit loving kindness, the likes of which can be emotionally exhausting at times?

If you can, chances are you’re an ideal partner for a Survivor.  And, here’s the good news!  Once we’ve vetted you, once we believe that you’re here to stay and not going to let our sh-t push you away, once we’ve qualified you in whatever sick way we do in our own minds, then you will probably find that you’ll be rewarded with a love from your Survivor partner that is fiercely loyal, intensely focused, and always interesting!  Never dull!

And we’ll someday be fully aware that that we’ve put you through some tough times and that you stuck–more than anyone else ever did before.  You stuck.  And we’ll be profoundly grateful for it.

 

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With:

The Million Dollar Question

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Warren Buffett, who Forbes listed in 2018 as the third richest person in the world, has famously said that the right amount of money to leave one’s children is “Enough that they can do anything they want, except nothing.”

That’s what the “The Million Dollar Question” is about: if you were handed a million dollars–which is, of course, a lot of money, but not the kind of money that you could do nothing for the rest of your life–what would you do for a living?

After you’ve paid off your debts and travelled a bit and bought a few toys–let’s say that you’d have $750,000 left.  Again–that’s a lot of money!  But that isn’t the kind of money that most people could live on for the rest of their lives.  With current interest rates, if you put your three-quarters of a million dollars into a savings account, you’d make less than $500 a year.  If you lived modestly on your $750K at, say, $40,000 a year, you’d be out of money in less than 20 years.

So, you’d have to look at your money as a “safety net.” Again: you could do almost anything you want for a living, except sit around all day or party all night long.

What would you do?  The answer to that question, career counselors would tell you, is probably what you’re going to want to do if you hope to find the greatest fulfillment in your professional life.  If you say, “I’d go back to school to be a psychologist,” then, if you want to be truly fulfilled,  go back to school to be a psychologist.  “I’d paint,” “I would be a stay-at-home parent,” “I’d be a writer;” if you had the wherewithal to pursue something other than what you’re already doing, how happy can you reasonably expect to be in what you’re currently doing?

Now, there are three types of working people: those who love their current jobs, those who tolerate their current jobs, and those who hate their current jobs.  If you currently love what you do–great!  It sounds like, if you won a million dollars, you’d stay put.  If you merely tolerate your current job because it pays the bills, I suspect that you are like the vast majority of Americans who go to work, do what they gotta do, and then find their greatest fulfillment in their personal lives.  I greatly doubt if either of my long-deceased grandfathers–who worked in a lumber yard and a coal mine, respectively–gave much thought to whether or not they were “fulfilled” sawing wood or digging coal; they had mouths to feed and a mortgage to pay.

Perhaps you are one of those unfortunate ones who truly despises your job, for whatever reason. If you are stuck–actually stuck in that job with no hope of getting out of it any time soon–I feel for you, and I want to strongly urge you to focus on finding happiness in your personal life.  If the pain of your professional existence is tainting your personal life, may I suggest that you pop in to see a counselor?  We just might be able to help you find a sense of balance or restore your feeling of wellness in your personal life–even if we can’t hand you $1,000,000.

And we can’t, by the way…

Filed Under: Choices, Counseling Tagged With: , ,

To the Person Who Stole my Watch–oh, wait…

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It’s been months since I’ve seen my watch.  I last remembered having it at the health club, taking it off and putting it in a locker while I exercised.  When I couldn’t find it after a day or two, I assumed that it would turn up; I probably took it off to wash dishes or do something else around the house and set it down somewhere where I typically don’t put it.  When it didn’t turn up after a few more days, I asked at the front desk at the gym, and they reported that no one had turned in a watch.  “Well, it’s gone,” I assumed.

It was a gift from my wife one Christmas.  Truth be told, while it wasn’t inexpensive, it also wasn’t “break the bank” expensive.  We’re not talking about a Rolex or Tag Heuer; however, as it came from my wife, it had sentimental value to me.  I sheepishly informed her that I had lost it–that, in all likelihood, I had left it in the locker room and someone pocketed it.

Each time I subsequently entered the locker room, I quietly wondered if the man who stole my watch was in there with me.  While I wasn’t exactly scanning men’s wrists to see if the thief had the audacity to wear my watch to the scene of the crime, I couldn’t help but hold my fellow male gym-goers in some degree of disdain.

Until today, when I found my watch in a seldom-used compartment in my gym bag–the gym bag that I thought I had previously thoroughly searched.  No one stole my watch; my dumb ass had been toting it back and forth to the gym this entire time.  Gentlemen of the Cameron Wellness Center: please forgive my silent accusal of you all.

Strange how we assume something, and that inevitably becomes “what happened.”  I had initially thought, “I misplaced it,” then came to think “Someone probably took it,” before being certain that “Someone stole my watch.”  When in counseling sessions I hear people say, “I know that’s what happened,” or “I know that’s what he thinks,” I’m quick to point out that just because you think something doesn’t necessarily make it true.  Thoughts are not facts.  I, however, seemed to have forgotten that bit of psychological truism with respect to my missing watch–just because I thought someone stole it doesn’t make it true.

Whenever I hear people say, “That’s my truth,” I inevitably think, A) what a narcissistic thing to say and B) just because you think that something is true doesn’t necessarily make it true.  Okay, I also tend to think C), “Hey, Millennial: something is either objectively true or it isn’t,” but I digress…

Question your thoughts!  Why am I thinking what I’m thinking?  Where is the evidence that what I’m thinking is true?  How is it helpful to think that way?  How does it logically follow that because I want something that I must have it?

Don’t confuse theories for reality.  Certainty about opinions can lead to rigidity and can hamper growth.  Flexible thinking is generally healthier thinking; it is more scientific thinking.

Just because you believe you can’t do something doesn’t mean that you can’t.

Just because you believe he did that doesn’t mean that he did.

Just because you believe that you’re right doesn’t mean that you are.

I believed my watch was stolen, but it didn’t mean that it was.

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What’s Your Opening Line?

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“So, what brings you here today?”

That’s usually the first thing I ask to open a session after going through all the (very boring) HIPAA stuff, the rights to confidentiality, and my role as a mandated reporter.  It’s with that question that the session usually takes off, and most of the time, that first session really flies by.

I place a special emphasis on the answer to that question; as it is the first thing most clients say after we greet, I usually even record it verbatim.

“Well, I’ve struggled with anxiety all my life.”

“My wife and I have been having some problems for a while now…”

“There’s just so much going on in my life right now, I think I need to talk to someone…”

“I know that I’ve been depressed, but this is the first time I’m trying to get some help.”

“My mom made me come here.”  (I hear that one a lot from teens.)

“We’ve been having a tough time communicating lately.”  By far and away, that’s the most common one I hear from couples.  “Trouble communicating,” of course, is an umbrella term for a forest of problems, so we typically have to break that down tree-by-tree.  People have difficulty communicating about money, work, sex, the kids, and on and on.

No matter the reason that brings you into counseling—whatever your opening line is—you will be treated with respect and compassion.  Your counselor has an ethical obligation to refer you if she can’t be helpful to you, and she has a legal obligation to never disclose what you say in your sessions.

Don’t be afraid that you might be emotional in that first session.  I’d estimate that 8 out of 10 people typically cry during that initial encounter.  You’re sharing something deeply personal with someone; it makes sense to think that you’re going to be emotional.  Maybe it’s the first time you’ve ever described your problem out loud or even admitted it to yourself.  Never fear!  We don’t ever run out of tissues.

Some people are ashamed to come to counseling.  On top of their presenting problem, they also feel emotional that they are sitting in a therapist’s office.  They describe feeling weak or weak-minded, feeling like a failure or a loser, thinking it’s the last desperate measure to save a relationship or confront some inner demon.  I promise you that your counselor doesn’t see you that way.  Would you be surprised to know that most Counselor Education programs make their students go through counseling themselves before they can become counselors?  Most of us have cried in our own sessions and that didn’t make us weak or shameful.

Think about what you will say when your counselor asks, “What brings you here today?”  Your counselor will take it from there.

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Explaining Anxiety to Those Who Don’t Get It

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What if.

Imagine you’re walking in a parking lot with your phone in your hand and you cross over a storm drain.  As you step across the grate, you reflexively hold a little tighter to your phone, because you may have the passing thought, “I don’t want to drop my phone down that drain.”  The thought came and went in the space of half a second or so, and as soon as you were back on pavement, you held your phone with a normal grip and didn’t give it another thought as you stepped into the grocery store.

For that split second, you experienced some mild and fleeting “What If,” thinking, as in, “What if I dropped my phone down the drain?” and your thinking dictated your actions (you held the phone a little tighter).  Now imagine if that “what if” thinking didn’t last a split second, but instead it lasted many minutes, or even hours, or even days?  And imagine if the thought wasn’t a mild version of “What if I lost my phone?” but instead was an intense, nervous worry of “Oh my God!  What if I dropped my phone down that drain!?!  That would be terrible!  I might be stranded…my wife might yell at me for being careless…people might think I’m an idiot…I absolutely must not drop my phone because that would be more than I could handle…”

And you knew there was no good reason to think like that.  You knew that it was silly and irrational, but the thought was so intense that you couldn’t shake it, push it out, or laugh it off.  So you just stop walking over storm drains.  Problem solved.

But then you start to think, “What if there is another storm drain that I don’t see?”  “What if I stumble near one and the phone goes flying out of my hand?” So now you avoid shopping there altogether, and you go looking for another store that doesn’t have any grates in their parking lot.  But then another thought flashes into your mind: What if I was so busy looking for storm drains that I hit someone with my car and didn’t realize it?  At first, the thought seems so stupid that you quickly dismiss it, but then it creeps back over and over until you think, “Wait…did…did I hit someone?  Is that why I’m telling myself this?”  So you pull over and check your car for damages, or you circle back to that parking lot to see if an ambulance has arrived to treat an injured pedestrian.

The entire time, there is a part of you that thinks: this is nuts.  This is crazy!  I know I’m being stupid.  But the thoughts are so intense and are becoming more frequent, so soon you just tell yourself that you can’t drive any more and you can’t grocery shop any more so that you don’t have to feel this way.

Now you’re embarrassed.  Someone has to drive you wherever you go and your loved ones have to take on more responsibilities and you feel like a burden.  You feel ashamed and start to judge yourself, calling yourself a weak-minded idiot to think like that.  You know that it makes no sense at all to think this way, but you just can’t seem to think of anything else.

It would be easier if you had surgery, you know?  After all, you can point to a cast or a scar and say, “This is what happened to me,” and people would be more than understanding—they’d be sympathetic and kind.  If you had cancer, people would send meals to your house.  But you have an irrational, intense, nervous worry; people avoid you because they don’t know what to say.

Now you start to ask yourself, “Why is this happening to me?  Why am I thinking this way?  I know that my Grandma used to worry a lot; did I get this from her?”  You start to try to find an explanation for why—and you just can’t.  You spend half your mental energy trying to fight your unwanted thoughts and half trying to figure out, “Why the hell am I like this?”

And then your wife says, “Can’t you just not think that way?  Just think about something else.”  You know: just stop it.  It seems like such a simple thing, after all: just stop thinking a certain way.  Gee—why didn’t I think of that?

Now one or two people who love you start trying to be helpful to you—but nothing helps get rid of your unwanted “What if” thinking.  Some people start to whisper about you behind your back that you’re “just doing it for attention” or that you’ve “always been super-needy.”  You want to scream, “Why on earth would I do this for attention!?!  If I wanted your attention, I’d ask for it!”  You want to say, “You know me.  I was a fairly rational person; why would I suddenly start to act like this if it wasn’t out of my control?”

Now, you’re depressed about how things are.  You’re worried about your worrying.  You might even start to drink a little more or smoke a little more, just to cope.

Spiraling, spiraling, spiraling…all from the most stupidfreakingthought…

What if?

Filed Under: Anxiety Tagged With: ,

Find a Little Victory Each Day

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If you want to lose weight, here’s a simple concept: eat less, exercise more.  Like with most simple things, though, the breakdown occurs in the application.  In other words, go do it.

That’s the hard part, right?  Applying the concepts, going out and doing it, day after day, until the goal has been met, the new habit has been formed, the old you has changed into the new you.

Sometimes we fail because we fail to set realistic goals.  “I’m going to eat boiled chicken and lettuce every day and go to the gym five days a week.”  No, you’re not.  You’re probably going to last about three days and then pig out on pizza.

Sometimes we fail because we fail to see progress.  Whether you’re trying to make changes in your physical health or your mental health or your relationship health, the key to change seems to be consistency.  You gotta put in the repetitions.  One way to keep yourself motivated to put in the reps is to find a little victory every day.

As our default setting, we tend to see more negatives than positives. There’s something in us as humans that focuses more on the things we failed to do or failed to do right and we tend to bother ourselves about those things.

Instead: work on finding a little victory every day.  What did you do right today?  What did you accomplish?  How does that feel—focusing on the success you had, however small?  I think you’ll find that it feels a lot better than beating yourself for your failures.

I did the dishes today.  I got one report done.  I took the steps instead of the elevator.  I said “no” today to one thing.  I chose oil and vinegar instead of ranch.  No success is so small that you can’t accept it for today and build on it for tomorrow.

Filed Under: Grit Tagged With: , , , ,

Just a “STUG”

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His middle name was “Patrick,” and he loved being Irish-American, so as St. Patrick’s Day approaches, I inevitably have been thinking about him more and more.Image result for irish clover

This is our first St. Patrick’s Day without Andrew Patrick Pecosh, who passed away last September.  To be honest, while he certainly valued St. Patrick the man, he didn’t really like what St. Patrick’s Day has become: an excuse for wanton drunkenness while wearing green.

Not much of a drinker, our Andy.  Loved cigarettes, though—and, boy! how he loved food.  The stories I could tell you about his gastronomic exploits!  When I think of my brother, I inevitably think back to times that we shared meals together.  What do you think about when you think of loved ones now lost?  I think about his beautiful blue eyes and his knowledge.  I think about his laughter and his utter lack of materialism.

Kisa Gotami and The Parable of the Mustard Seed—(read it here), Psalm 31 (here), John 11:1-44 (The Raising of Lazarus): they all help when I wish to be centered.  When I’m melancholy and feel like adding to it, it’s Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden (that’s right here) or McCrae’s In Flanders Fields.  In his youth, Andy dreamed of being a pilot (An Irish Airman Foresees His Death); I remember that, as a teen, he had a poster of High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr. on his bedroom door.

I know that death comes to us all; I also know that grief is a process, and that process is typically nonlinear.  I’ve taught others about how “adaptation” is the watchword when it comes to living with a profound loss.  Whenever grief that has been buried a bit bubbles up to the surface, we counselors even have a name for that–it’s a STUG reaction: a Sudden, Temporary, Upsurge in Grief.  This, too, shall pass, but it hurts a bit just now.

“Strange, isn’t it?” asked George Bailey’s angel, Clarence, in It’s a Wonderful Life.  “Each man’s life touches so many other lives.  When he isn’t around, he leaves an awful hole, doesn’t he?”

Forgive my use of this forum to share some personal thoughts of grief and loss; I guess I’m just really missing my big brother today.

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The Most Valuable Life Skill?

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I am—statistically speaking—more than halfway through my life.  And I’ve been a professional counselor now for just shy of 13 years.  I honestly don’t know how many clients I’ve had over that time, or how many hours I’ve spent in sessions, listening to people, hearing their concerns and problems.  Conservatively, I’d estimate that I’ve spent almost 20,000 hours with clients.

The point is this: I’ve been around (professionally speaking). And I have a bit of life experience—not as much as someone in their fifties, but more than someone in their thirties.  And the more that I think about it, the more I believe that the most valuable life skill one can develop is the ability to deal with disappointment in a healthy way.

Oh sure, grit is an extremely important measure of success—and we stress that to our clients.  One could make the argument that relationship or interpersonal skills are essential to a healthy life.  Learning how to achieve balance or healthy boundaries—I get it.  But I submit that developing an ability to handle disappointment—sometimes called frustration tolerance—is an element of all of those things and more.

The tantrums that we throw as children, the defiance that we exhibit as adolescents, the sheer chaos that we bring into our adult relationships—so much of those things stem from frustration intolerance.  Over 2,500 years ago, the Buddha famously said, “Life is all suffering,” and that so much of that suffering comes from “craving.”  To put it in more contemporary terms: we often don’t get what we want, and that can be frustrating.

This has been attested to from different traditions from time immemorial.  The Greek philosophers talked about it.  In their Wisdom books, the ancient Hebrews wrote about the frustrations of desire and the unsatisfactory nature of life.  Jesus—particularly in John’s Gospel—talks about yearning and thirsting.

Ask almost anyone in their eighties to talk about their lives, and they will nearly always describe their past losses, their suffering, their frustrations, with simple dignity and acceptance.  “Well, that’s just the way it goes,” or, evenly simpler, “That’s life,” is what you’ll hear.  They know—they’ve lived.

So frustration—disappointment—is a basic element of life.  There’s no getting around it; there is only getting through it.  Dealing with disappointment, then, is a skill you’d better develop, or else you’re going to have two problems every time you have one: the problem, and your problematic reaction to your problem.

One would think that parents would make “learning how to deal with disappointment” a primary focus of what they teach their children.  Sadly, it too often isn’t.  Many of us in my field (and in the field of education) are not seeing children who have been taught that they often have to adapt to the world; we see kids that have been taught the opposite: the world will adapt to them.  When it inevitably doesn’t, low frustration tolerance leads to problematic or unhealthy behavior.

So, here’s a test: the next time you tell your child “no,” watch to see his or her reaction.  Turn off the Xbox, tell them they can’t go to their friend’s house, make them put up their phones after 9:00, and then see what they do.  Do they sigh and grumble a bit, but then comply?  Good!  Some grumbling and eye-rolling is to be expected, no?  Do they fight you about what you’ve denied them and then ultimately accept it?  Well, that’s not too bad—it happens, of course.  If, when frustrated or disappointed, your kid displays meltdowns, tantrums, or aggressive behavior–over the next few months, you may want to make the focus of your parenting Dealing with Disappointment 101.  It’s a class that they’ll inevitably take–as children or adults. 

Teach frustration tolerance to them now, and watch them fail with grace, succeed with pride, and take frustration in stride.

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