NBA veteran Jason Collins comes out as first openly gay male athlete in pro sports. Seriously? It’s 2013 and it’s still taboo to be openly gay in professional sports?
Apparently my friends who love to refer to professional athletes as “Neanderthals” are not too far off…
from here: “Most women dream of the day they will attract the man of their dreams. Many describe a man who is “tall, dark, handsome, (preferably) rich, sensitive, loves kids, has an advanced degree and loves his mom.” I’ve described this same man, listened to my friends describe men of similar ilk and pondered, plotted and schemed about how to meet this mystery man. Here, after watching (and experiencing) numerous disappointments on the dating scene, are my top tips for attracting the man of your dreams…”
Kind of makes you want to puke, doesn’t it?
I hate these things. As a clinical counselor I spend months with patients helping them to become more self-aware, more authentic, and more secure in their own beauty and individuality. But forget all that. Just be a bimbo and say the right words and men will love you forever. Be mysterious, be aloof, laugh at our jokes, compliment us, you will drive us crazy.
That’s it, lie.
After all, dating is a big con anyway.
Recently I was speaking with a client about dating sites on the web she admitted that she felt insecure because she had chronic pain and all the guys out there were into zip-lining and rock climbing, white water canoeing and hang gliding. She felt that she wouldn’t measure up to such rugged men. I turned to her and said, “I’ll let you in on a little secret – they are lying.” It’s true, we lie to impress you. I can tell in a few minutes the kind of guy you are interested in and become that person – you want a guy who is a good listener? I’m all about you. I’ll talk to you for hours, laugh at your jokes, even shed a tear at your story about your puppy or uncle Bart. This is because of one simple reason, I’M TRYING TO PICK YOU UP. It’s a game.
We put our best foot forward in order to snare a mate. Is that honest? Is that actually a good strategy? It really doesn’t matter, he lying to you as well. You are coming to intimately know a person who doesn’t actually exist. Throw in a few tricks and traps from the internet and you are good to go. Years later, when you realize this person doesn’t really understand you, you can rest confidently in the knowledge that you “got him/her” under false pretenses anyway.
I don’t mean to sound condescending (just a wee sarcastic perhaps) but I have come to realize that so much of what passes for romantic communication is dysfunctional and actually harmful. I was a single parent for years and realized early that I could not engage in a mating ritual that was designed to encourage short-term, shallow, and dishonest relationships. This is further compounded by the propensity for new couples to immediately move in together before they truly know and appreciate the other person for who they really are. No one talks about this but couples who move in together early are WAY more likely to split up. This makes perfect sense when you think about it. A couple begins a full-time with another person they do not really know. They have been conning each other since they met and now they are about to meet the real person – that farting, burping, smelly, angry, stressed, emotional or emotionally repressed real you. You simply have not had the time to develop your relationship to any mature level. Love at first sight is a wonderful Disneyland dream but it is really a cognitive distortion on the highest level. Real love takes time and knowledge. Infatuation is instant.
I can just hear someone blurt out, “But if you love someone you will make it work”. This is again a very hopeful, though absolutely naive sentiment. Lasting relationships are not based on romance, a feeling which every divorce lawyer in the country can tell you will come and go. Relationships that work are based on commitment, loyalty, perseverance, selflessness and a ridiculous amount of humility. You hear these words about what real love looks like at every wedding for a reason:
Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn’t want what it doesn’t have.
Love doesn’t strut,
Doesn’t have a swelled head,
Doesn’t force itself on others,
Isn’t always “me first,”
Doesn’t fly off the handle,
Doesn’t keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn’t revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
You won’t find those words on any dating site because they are not sexy, only the truth.
If you really want a tip for attracting men like crazy than here it is – Be who you are and learn to be happy without a romantic relationship. It took me years to do but learning to love yourself and be happy in spite of your situation, not because of it, is the best advice I can ever give you. No dude can fill that hole in your heart, we’re selfish and childish pigs. Never date until you don’t need to. Think about that for a minute.
No woman can fill that hole either.
No one else should.
on vacation, enjoy:
The famous French expression, “Tout comprendre, c’est tout excuser” (literally, “to understand all is to pardon all”) is a dictum that we ought to apply at least as much to ourselves as to others. For the more we can grasp just why in the past we were compelled to act in a particular way, the more likely we’ll be able both to excuse ourselves for this behavior and avoid repeating it in the future.
Becoming more self-accepting necessitates that we begin to appreciate that, ultimately, we’re not really to blame for anything–whether it’s our looks, intelligence, or any of our more questionable behaviors. Our actions have all been compelled by some combination of background and biology. Going forward, we certainly can–and in most cases, should–take responsibility for ways we’ve hurt or mistreated others. But if we’re to productively work on becoming more self-accepting, we must do so with compassion and forgiveness in our hearts. We need to realize that, given our internal programming up to that point, we could hardly have behaved differently.
That which, finally, determines most problematic behavior is linked to common psychological defenses. And it almost borders on the cruel for us to blame ourselves–or hold ourselves in contempt–for acting in ways that at the time we thought we had to in order to protect ourselves from anxiety, shame, or emotional distress generally.
As a kind of P.S. to the above, self-acceptance also involves our willingness to recognize and make peace with parts of the self that till now may have been denied, shunned, or repudiated. I’m referring here to our illicit or anti-social impulses–our shadow self, which may have spooked or sabotaged us in the past. Still, it represents an essential part of our nature and must be functionally integrated if we are to become whole. As long as we refuse to accept–or in some way accommodate–split-off segments of self, full and unconditional self-acceptance will remain forever out of reach.When we’re able to sympathetically understand the origin of these darker, recessive fragments in us, any self-evaluation rooted in them begins to feel not only uncharitable but unjust as well. The fact is that virtually everybody harbors forbidden (and quite possibly, outrageous) impulses and fantasies–whether they entail brutally injuring someone we find obnoxious, exercising unbridled power over others, or (indeed!) running naked in the streets. And when we’re able to recognize this, we’re also well on the way to accepting ourselves without conditions. Appreciating that, however bizarre or egregious, most of our “evilimaginings,” are probably little more than fantasized compensations for indignities, hurts, or deprivations we experienced in the past, we can now reconceive our “aberrations” as, well, rather normal.
Further, even as we come to accept our shadow side we can still maintain voluntary control over how these parts of us are expressed–that is, in ways that can ensure safety both to ourselves and others. For as long as we’ve been able to re-connect to our deepest, truest self, we’ll be coming from a place of love and caring. As such, it really isn’t in us to do anything that would violate our natural tendencies toward compassion and identification with all humanity. Owning and integrating our various facets is a transcendent experience. And when we–or really, our egos–no longer feel separate from others, any sinister motive to do them harm literally disappears.
Self-Acceptance vs. Self-Improvement
It should be apparent at this point that self-acceptance has nothing to do with self-improvement as such. For it really isn’t about “fixing” anything in ourselves.With self-acceptance we’re just–non-judgmentally–affirmingwho we are, with whatever strengths–and weaknesses–we possess in the moment.
The problem with any focus on self-improvement is that such an orientation inevitably makes self-acceptance conditional. After all, we can’t ever feel totally secure or good enough so long as our self-regard depends on constantly bettering ourselves. Self-acceptance is here-and-now oriented–not future oriented, as in: “I’ll be okay when . . .” or “As soon as I accomplish . . . I’ll be okay.” Self-acceptance is about alreadybeing okay, with no qualifications–period. It’s not that we ignore or deny our faults or frailties, just that we view them as irrelevant to our basic acceptability.
Finally, it’s we–and we alone–that set the standards for our self-acceptance. And once we decide to stop grading ourselves, or “keeping score with” ourselves, we can adopt an attitude of non-evaluative forgiveness. In fact, once we refrain from our lifelong habit of assessing, and reassessing, ourselves–striving rather to compassionatelyunderstand our past behaviors–we’ll find that there’s really nothing to forgive (remember, “Tout comprendre. . .” ). Certainly, we can vow to do better in the future, but we can nonetheless accept ourselves precisely as we are today, regardless of our shortcomings.
And here I can’t emphasize enough that it’s possible to accept and love ourselves and still be committed to a lifetime of personal growth. Accepting ourselves as we are today doesn’t mean we’ll be without themotivation to make changes or improvements that will make us more effective, or that will enrich our (and likely others’) lives. It’s simply that this self-acceptance is in no way tied to such alterations. We don’t have to actually do anything to secure our self-acceptance: we have only to change the way we look at ourselves. So changing our behaviors becomes solely a matter of personal preference–not a prerequisite for greater self-regard.
It’s really about coming from a radically different place. If self-acceptance is to be “earned,” a result of working hard on ourselves, then it’s conditional–always at risk. The ongoing “job” of accepting ourselves can never be completed. Even scoring an A+ in whatever endeavor we’re using to rate ourselves can offer us only temporary respite from our strivings. For the message we’re giving ourselves is that we’re only as worthwhile as our latest achievement. We can never finally “arrive” at a position of self-acceptance because we’ve inadvertently defined our quest for such acceptance as everlasting.
In holding ourselves to such perfectionistic standards, however, we may inadvertently be validating how our own conditionally-loving parents dealt with us. But we’re certainly not validating ourselves–or treating ourselves with the kindness and consideration our parents failed adequately to provide for us.
To conclude, only when we’re able to give ourselves unqualified approval–by developing greater self-compassion and focusing much more on our positives than negatives–can we at last forgive ourselves for our faults, as well as relinquish our need for others’ approval. No doubt we’ve made mistakes. But then, so has everybody else. And in any case our identity is hardly equal to our mistakes (for such a linkage would represent a bad case of “mistaken identity”!)Finally, there’s no reason we can’t decide right now to transform our fundamental sense of who we are. And we may need to remind ourselves that our various weaknesses are part of what makes us human. If all our faults and failings were suddenly to disappear, my pet theory is that we’d instantly turn into white light and disappear from the face of this planet. So in the pursuit of unconditional self-acceptance, we might even want to take a certain pride in our imperfections. After all, were we beyond criticism in the first place, we’d never have the opportunity to rise to this uniquely human challenge.
from Psychology Today
This morning I was watching TV when a commercial for the new Proactive Dark Spot Remover showed up. Apparently if you pay the money and use this product it will remove the “appearance” of blemishes and restore your complexion to “perfect skin”. Quite a promise… or is it.
Notice what they are not saying. They are not saying that they will improve your complexion or skin at all, only give the appearance of change. The cosmetics industry, a word that means “to make order out of chaos”, has made millions, even billions, hiding the world from the truth. No wonder many women talk of “putting their face on” in the morning or before a date.
This past week The Chive and various other online rags ran a pictorial called “The Face Of Porn: Porn Stars Before And After Makeup.” To say the pictures were revealing is an understatement. Most of the most famous goddesses are less than perfect without artificial enhancement, to say the least. Some were downright homely, not even attractive. It is a reminder of the power of fantasy, of Photoshop, and of an extreme makeover. Cosmetics sell an illusion, an illusion of beauty, of perfection. Makeup is made to cover, it’s a band-aid that does nothing for us except hide our blemishes and present a false face… literally.
Many of us treat our problems the same way. We have spent years trying to cover up our faults and our past. I often tell people when they come for counseling that they may not really want to dig that deeply into their issues. I have an irritating habit of making people very uncomfortable, of asking them to think about things they have spent years trying to bury. Counseling, when it works, is a very painful and humiliating experience. It is much easier to just throw some Proactive on the problem, apply some makeup to our ugliness and give the impression, even to ourselves, that we have taken care of the problem. This is one of the reasons I rarely do groups on Anger Management. I have this annoying habit of treating anger as a symptom, not a base problem. I keep asking clients and patients ‘why’ they are angry and tend to gloss over anger management techniques.
There is an old maxim in psychology that change usually happens much slower than we imagine and the results are less pronounced than we would like to believe. Transforming oneself from a broken, hurting, violated victim of abuse and trauma into a whole person takes years, not months. The twelve sessions that your counselor signs you up for may be an excellent start but will probably not even begin to address a complex life full of dysfunctional coping mechanisms.
Band-aids are far easier and if you play your cards right, you can even find them with pictures of Spiderman on them.
We are a people who struggle with self-worth. I meet few people who are happy with who they are. We are the chronically under-valued and the terminally insecure. We have a tendency to look to other people for approval and live our lives in order to be loved. We tell our children to love themselves, but battle with self-loathing.
For years I considered myself a rebel, a person who lived outside the box, who didn’t give a damn about what others thought of him. Looking back it is easy to see how this was a coping mechanism, a way of finding acceptance, if only with myself, as a marginal personality who did not easily “play well with others”. If I couldn’t win at fitting in I would give the finger to the establishment and act as if their opinions did not matter. I gave the impression that I was vain, when in fact I was insecure.
I can see, now that I am getting older, the temptation within myself to act like a performance monkey. Seeking to fit in does not end after high school. We have been programmed since birth to base our feelings of self-worth on what others think of us and what we do. For some reason we are extremely conscious of the opinions of those around us. Those people who choose to criticize us may, in point of fact, be idiots and subjective to the highest degree but this seems to matter very little. Jumping through the hoops of people who don’t even respect is what we do.
There was a time in my life when it seemed important that people liked me. I was running a non-profit and had shareholders who were strongly opinionated and often very negative. I was always available to help salve their broken lives and marriages, and they were always available to critique my performance. I remember vividly one meeting with a couple at a local coffee shop wherein they decided that I needed to be “fixed”. It was to be the last of several meetings, all designed to help me come to grips with my glowering flaws (in their opinion). Late in the conversation it finally dawned on me, I didn’t even really like or respect this couple. I knew their dirty little secrets, their insecurities, their propensity to be condescending and arrogant. I realized that if we did not have a shared vested interest I would never want to be their friend or hang out with them… ever. I had been emotionally prostituting myself in order to appease them – something that now seemed impossible to do. My fear of their disapproval and perhaps disengagement from the non-profit had created a sick codependence.
It is one thing to seek to be kind and a person of integrity. It is another thing altogether to base your self-worth on the opinions of fallible and fickle people whose opinions should not matter. Wholeness is found in the realization that I cannot jump through enough hoops, suck up to enough people, to fill that hole in my heart that wants to be loved. Chasing that dragon is like chasing any other addiction, it just leaves us broken.
Accepting who and what I am, right now, is a daunting and difficult task. Letting go of our need to make everyone happy feels completely wrong. If people had to accept us for who we are would anyone still like us?
In counseling I admonish single clients, often fresh out of dysfunctional relationships, not to date until they don’t need to. They usually look at me funny and I find it necessary to explain – don’t bring your garbage to your next relationship. Don’t use that next person to fill that hole in your heart. Don’t depend on someone else to make you whole or happy. Don’t date… until you don’t need that person to fix anything. Become emotionally self-contained. Work on becoming whole.
Sounds easy, doesn’t it?
Are we still so naive that we assume television is actually like real life? Do people still believe shows like Celebrity Rehab, Intervention and Extreme Makeover, Home Edition have anything to do with reality? Is there really a Rembrandt hidden in that abandoned storage locker? Unfortunately the recent suicide of Celebrity Rehab star Mindy McCready has served to illustrate the problem with glib culture and our fascination with star-studded solutions to important issues.
The sad part of the story, that few seem to be talking about, is the unbelievable fact that some of the pseudo washed up stars undoubtedly believed that by going to a reality show to deal with chronic addiction issues they would receive quality help with their problems. Apparently they have been living in Glitterland for so long they think that it is possible to be authentic with cameras rolling and an audience. Imagine the shock on the faces of the winners of Extreme Makeover when they find out their taxes have gone up ten-fold and they can’t afford to pay the utilities on their new million dollar mansion. Reality’s a bitch. Cracked.com has an excellent expose on the reality behind the reality shows here.
Going to rehab, or treatment, or whatever you wish to label it, is a daunting enough thought without a television audience critiquing and criticizing. The work necessary to deal with and overcome a serious addiction takes years, not twelve episodes. Believing that a televised intervention or an hour with Dr. Drew will make any substantive difference is ridiculous. In the real world there is not a limo to take you to a treatment center after the family reduces you to tears and shows you the golden path to success. I have been involved with dozens, even hundreds, of family meetings with addicts and things simply do not go the way they do on television. There is much more yelling and far less contrition. Even if you could get a commitment for treatment there is often a six-week to two-month waiting list to get in. Even Detox can take a few weeks. Welcome to the real world. Adding in the cameras and the lights and the looming audience is a sure-fire recipe for disaster. How can anyone hope to heal with the cameras running? This does not even take into account the skewed life experiences of media celebrities who have little or no experience with real life and are ill-equipped to handle even the most mundane hardships.
So why are we surprised then that five people, at last count, have died following a stint on Celebrity Rehab? Mindy McCready serves as a sad reminder that many of us are tempted to take short cuts and are not realistic about the true cost of dealing with our mental health. Real therapy is gut-wrenching and should not be on display for the general audience. I feel bad for Mindy and others who have been sold a lie, dressed up as a photo-op. Wholeness comes from confronting our demons, usually one at a time, and wrestling them into submission. There are no shortcuts to wholeness.
Maybe it was Dr. Drew himself who gave us the last, best word on the subject – “Mental health issues can be life threatening and need to be treated with the same intensity and resources as any other dangerous potentially life threatening medical condition. Treatment is effective. If someone you know is suffering please be sure he or she gets help and maintains treatment.”
“I hate how I don’t feel real enough unless people are watching.” Chuck Palahniuk
I am a poser. A Scottish poser. It was with some distress, then, that I realized some time ago that my humble little red-headed wife was related to the lesser kings of Scotland, the clan Douglas, the Black Douglas, the flower of chivalry, the Earl of Montrose, several prominent Jacobites, the earls of the Isles and Moray, and Archibald the Grim. My relatives were probably crouching with their mangy faces in the mud as her snooty relatives rode by on the way to the Battle of Bannockburn. One of her forbearers invented logarithms. My relatives probably didn’t go to school. William Douglas (Jamie’s lesser known brother) was the only earl to harass the English and the first to recognize William Wallace‘s worth. He was the driving force behind the early days of the Scottish Revolution and the Douglas boys were considered two of the greatest knights in Christendom, recognized thus by the papacy itself.. My relatives ate alot of beets.
It’s interesting how we so desire to ‘be someone’. Annette seems to take it all in stride. I would be ordering kilts, writing articles and booking vacations. Many of us are often tempted to name drop, to associate with people of influence, to trace our lineages back to find out if we are illegitimate heirs to the throne. One of the things I find amusing when I talk to my friends who believe in reincarnation is that nearly every one of them was once an indian princess or cupbearer to Genghis Khan. Nobody ever admits that in a past life they were accountants or a parsnip. There is something romantic, something proud and wonderful, in believing that we are significant in a culture that has come to nearly worship fame, regardless if it is for any good reason. If you don’t believe me watch Here Comes Honey Boo Boo, or any show with gypsies on TLC. Or anything on TLC. But seriously, don’t watch TLC.
We line up to catch a glimpse of Paris Hilton or Princess Whatever Her Name Is; we pose with our friends about who and what we know. We posture in order to gain face or credibility. It’s a vicious cycle. Annette hasn’t done that at all. It’s sorely tempting to want to be somebody, even by association. It’s too bad that we have this drive to impress, this childish need to be recognized and adored. I know I do.
Once a long time ago I enjoyed a certain level of notoriety. I miss that. Perhaps this is because we have difficulty being complete in ourselves. Perhaps we feel that if others notice us than that makes us special. We have been led to believe that we need something outside of ourself to validate us. We know we are important if other people tell us we are.
It’s a trap, a hamster cage that never stops, can never be complete. Living your life to impress other people is a sure-fire way to end up insecure and ultimately neurotic. Even living your life to please others is a lose/lose proposition. Some of you know who you are. You call yourself a “people-pleaser”. As I ask my patients, “How is that working out for you so far?” Unfortunately there are people in our lives who are emotional and relational vampires. You can never do enough, or give enough, or love enough to fill that hole in their heart. Finding your self-esteem by pleasing and impressing others, no matter who they are, is dysfunctional. It certainly feels right – you are giving, kind, gracious, self-sacrificing. The problem is, you are also unrealistic and undoubtedly very unhealthy.
There is nothing wrong with seeking to help and care and love and give. There is something very wrong with deriving my sense of identity that way.
“It is easier to live through someone else than to complete yourself. The freedom to lead and plan your own life is frightening if you have never faced it before. It is frightening when a woman finally realizes that there is no answer to the question ‘who am I’ except the voice inside herself.”
― Betty Friedan
Today’s guest blogger prefers to remain anonymous, for obvious reasons…
Like many others I have experienced several areas of abuse in my life, from parental figures, those in positions of authority, and even my husband. Although I live each day fearing some kind of altercation I make no effort to change or get away from it. To those outside it seems hard to understand why.
Do I want something better? Sure I do. Do I long to feel loved? Absolutely. Do I wish for a relationship that does not rule with guilt, mind games and intense anger? I can’t even imagine. Do I wonder what it would be like to be an equal in my marriage? Everyday. But do I think I deserve such things? Not even a little bit.
My world was rocked at a very young age, as a child much too young I was introduced to sex. It was horrible and awful, a secret that was to be kept leaving me feeling dirty and ashamed. For years, into my late twenties in fact, I carried that secret, and the shame grew. I punished myself, as a child I tore at my skin creating large open sores. It was my punishment, and it was my cry for help. I was shuffled from doctor to doctor, none able to figure out what had caused my skin to open up. So they bandaged me up and I carried on not saying a word. Inside though I was screaming for someone to notice how I was hurting. Didn’t they see my bandaged hands, couldn’t they see my wounds, my pain. But no one could see how I was suffering inside, they only saw the physical wounds I had created on the outside.
Years past and I became a teenager, boys entered the picture. My early teenage years saw breakups and typical teenage heartbreak. But as it progressed into later years I learned quickly what men wanted from me as a series of older men started hitting on me. It always started with a showering of affection; they would tell me I was beautiful and special. The broken child in me longed to hear it, to feel somebody loved me, somebody cared. More than one showed up at my high school at lunch and drove me away for my lunch break. My friends worried, tried to intervene even, but I craved the attention they gave me and slowly broke away from any friends that discouraged me. Each man pushed the boundaries a little more physically, until I would eventually say no and the relationship would end. Slowly I was forming the realization that if I didn’t want to have sex, men didn’t want me. And then one day at the age of 17 a man 18 years my senior didn’t stop when I said no. His anger raged at me and he told me that I couldn’t say no to him after leading him on all this time. I was scared, I cried but I let him take from me what he was after. When he dropped me back at school I felt more broken, dirty and ashamed then I had ever felt. I believe completely it was my fault and I told no one.
At 18 I found myself pregnant. At 19 married to a man who was controlling, angry and abusive. At 21 I had two children was depressed and slept all the time. At 23 I began a series of affairs, with married men. Men who, in my eyes, were good, kind, and loving men. The type of men who would never choose me as their wife because I believed good men don’t choose women like me. They would, however, choose me for sex and in that moment it felt like enough. It felt like love, but I would go home emptier than I was before. I felt more dirty and more ashamed each time. And so I started cutting myself. I lived in a vicious cycle I couldn’t get out of. I felt like I couldn’t stop myself, but I also couldn’t live with myself because of what I was doing, I hated myself. I most certainly could never forgive myself.
And then one day I decided it had to end, I left my husband. I stopped having sex with other men, and I even stopped cutting myself. I remarried and secretly wished for a happy life I knew I didn’t deserve. I worked hard so that from the outside my life looked pretty close to perfect. I thought I could make myself forget it all by changing my life. Everyone believed things had turned around for me. But the truth is I had married a man remarkably similar to my first husband. And the abuse cycle started again.
Every day I struggle with finding self-worth, to feel valued, loved and respected. Every day I believe a little less that I will ever find those things. Truth is I probably never will in my marriage.
So why can’t I break free? Because he is willing to stay with me, because I fear being alone, because I believe my past means that no good and decent man would choose me. Because I do not feel I am worthy of that kind of love.
I feel unable to move past what I have done and what’s been done to me. I see myself as used, dirty and damaged. My body is covered in self-inflicted scars, I have made it ugly. Every time I think I am making progress I find myself here again. Even now I am hiding cuts on my body so no one can see them, and when I see them I silently remind myself that this is why no one will love me. No one really could.
I fully believe that people are made new in Christ, but I remain unable to see myself as anything but this horrible person. I would love to say I have found healing, and self acceptance, that prayer has healed me, or counseling. But it isn’t reality. I have felt God’s healing at times in my life and I continue to work towards healing. But I am human and I battle my head daily. I used to believe I didn’t have enough faith for God to completely heal me. I know believe it’s about the journey, the things we learn and grow from along the way. Even if it takes a life time. I may never see full healing this side of heaven, but can you imagine how amazing that day will be when it comes.
“It is amazing how complete is the delusion that beauty is goodness.”
― Leo Tolstoy
I have written in the past about my attempts to become a body-builder when I was in my early twenties. To make a long and boring story short I worked out like a bomb for almost two years and looked virtually the same as when I started. It didn’t help that every wall was a floor to ceiling mirror. I tried everything – eating emasculated chicken, dieting, water pills, and supplements guaranteed to pump me up like a helium balloon. Apparently the patented molecules had never encountered anything like my bird-like metabolism before, for after two months of drinking that vial sludge after every meal, all I could show for my efforts was that I had apparently lost the ability to have a bowel movement. That made me gain weight but not the kind of weight that I was going for.
There is no end to what some of us will go to in order to look good on the outside. And I’m not here to do a social commentary on makeup and Lululemons and Helly Hansen. Don’t really care about slamming you for how you dress or how much you spend on lipstick and stuff. I may never truly understand how that eyelash medieval torture device works but I support your right to attempt to use it without pinching your eyeball.
But here’s the deal. There is no end to what some of us will go to in order to look good on the outside. It’s no big deal when you’re talking about what kind of boxers you buy to wear outside your shorts. It’s a big deal when it leads to pride and elitism. It’s problematic when it defines how we feel about ourself. It’s horrific when it leads us to do anything in an attempt to fit in.
Defining ourselves by what we see in the mirror has been rammed into us by the stick-figured girls in the media who still manage to pull off a six-pack with their Botox and fake breasts. Men photoshopped into perfect thousand dollar suits and new cars with a brainless bimbo on each arm. Culture tells us that this is success, that this is beauty. Those of us with stretch marks or bellies, with poor cheek bones and weak chins will never measure up. If you don’t believe me take a look at Travolta or Shatner or Elton John or Joan Rivers. They have mutilated their hair lines and faces just to pretend to not be aging. They are paying thousands of dollars to fight a fight they cannot win.
We are all getting old. Deal with it.
Apparently a man’s nose grows his whole life. So do his ears. At some point I’m going to look like Dumbo. Not much I can do about it.
I am listening to the audiobook, “The Game”. It’s a textbook for pickup artists teaching them how to get any woman – the things to say, the ways to act. I have no intention of using this material, I use it to warn women that they are targets. The book is replete with tactics including how to make the desired mark feel worse about herself, how to separate her from her friends, how to ignore her until she begs for your attention. I wrote about some of this in the article, “How To Pick Up Vulnerable Women In Their Twenties”. At the time I used my oldest son as a consultant and now I’m a little freaked out how much he knew without ever knowing this book exists.
The point I am trying to make is that the system for belonging, for finding love, for feeling valued, is largely screwed up. We lie when we date, seeking to put our best foot forward. We look for love in all the wrong places. We think love can be found at a bar. We judge each other by what we look like. It’s all a game, a psychologically damaging contest that dismisses the best of us, the brightest, the kindest, the most worthwhile… the unbeautiful.
I am conscious that for many of us, we have struggled our entire life to fit in and feel good about how we look and who we are. We have never been satisfied by the look of our shell. Here’s the bad news.
You probably never will be.
Ever.
The opposite of bad self-esteem is not good self-esteem. The opposite of bad self-esteem is self-acceptance. Esteem follows acceptance, not the other way around.
These are your cards. You can diet, eat right, work out, take bowel-clenching supplements, but that won’t change how you feel about you on the deepest levels. If you don’t believe me ask a skinny person. We are a generation with low self-esteem and insecurity. It is a plague that is propagated every day, every time we turn on a computer or a television.
You will never be able to compete with Photoshop. Maybe it’s time to stop that treadmill, take your toys and go home.
Imagine if we tried our best then didn’t care about the rest.
Imagine if we could care less about our love-handles and flaws.
Imagine accepting ourselves exactly how we are, in spite of what we look like.
Imagine the freedom.
“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
― Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
I am not in my twenties and do not make a habit of hitting on any women, especially not women that young. I do, however, have a very attractive and intelligent son who was more than willing to provide a few insights for this Part 2 of “How To Pick Up Vulnerable Women”.
In my first instalment I wrote about manipulating a group of women who were in their late thirties and forties. You may want to familiarize yourself with that article before going on. It has been, and remains, my most hated and revered article to date. I have received private letters, several in fact, accusing me of being abusive and misogynistic, even cruel. Read it for yourselves and ask yourself why I would do such a thing and then freely tell everyone I did so…
In this instalment I begin by recognizing that everything I am about to say may not apply to you. Like many of my articles what follows is based on generalities. Please understand I’m not talking about anyone in specific, only trends and observations which may not even be objective. If nothing else it should be interesting.
You are sitting with friends at the local bar and I can tell, because you wear it like a beacon, that you are looking for a guy. I intend to be that guy. You are not in your forties so I am not going to gush, not going to give too much away. In fact, just the opposite. Your divorced mom is looking for someone who is emotionally sensitive, someone who is going to make it all about her. That isn’t my tactic, though some of the techniques are transferable. When I first meet you I’m very interested, very charming. Initially, at least, it’s all about you. But only initially. If we have been introduced I will be nice to you for a minute or two, then move on. If we are not introduced I will make a point of ignoring you and talk to the person directly beside you. I’m not going to hit on you, I’m not needy. And that is really the point.
1. I’m not needy. I act aloof but not rude. Okay, occasionally I can even be a bit rude. I will make the obligatory conversation, but little more. While I am talking to you I may check out other women. I will talk, engage, but we are not exclusive. That is the point. Heartiste writes, “That aloofness is catnip to women. You may as well prop a neon sign over your head that says “Preselected by women who have come before you, and who are standing right next to you.” Aloofness is one of those male characteristics that women are finely tuned to discover, isolate, and hone in on, because it tells them, subconsciously of course, that THIS MAN, this one right here, has a lot of choice in women. ERGO, this man, this one right here, must be high value.” I know this because the internet is polluted with websites that teach this very thing. Confidence and self-assurance is an aphrodisiac to some females.
I don’t need you. I may or may not be interested, but I’m keeping my options open. I like myself and I don’t need anyone. I’m mysterious. It’s hard not to want what you cannot have. My strength and even dominance is very attractive. If you don’t believe me than why are so many women attracted to the bad boy? Yummy.
The social context has changed in the past few years. Women in their thirties and forties want to invite a man into their emotional world. In your twenties he invites you into his social world. As one twenty-five year old player told me today, “If you can get the girl to leave her social grouping and come over to yours you are 80% of the way into her pants.” That’s important to remember because…
2. It’s all about social context. Meet my entourage. We are not at the bar to take pictures of ourselves for Facebook. We are interesting. Come hang out with us. Let me separate you from your friends and take you out of your comfort zone. Let me introduce insecurity. After all…
3. I’m here to exploit your insecurity. I may compliment you but it is often tinged with irony or sarcasm. The unspoken point is the exploitation of your negative self-image. The trick is to not let you know I’m interested and get you wondering whether or not you are worth my time. Watch me dominate the social setting, see how I handle myself. Am I or am I not interested in you? Later, when I am very direct with you, and tell you I want to be with you, you are surprised, intrigued, complimented, and affirmed. But make no mistake, the underlying tactic is dominance (and not in a good way…). There is an interesting dichotomy at play. You want to be thought of as a strong woman but you also have insecurities. Doesn’t a part of you wish you could be taken?
Even a plain guy can confuse a beautiful woman if he acts like he doesn’t need her.
As a counselor I find this topic sickening. There are people out there, regardless of age, who use psychological and emotional manipulation to exploit the vulnerable and hurting. It usually isn’t until it’s too late that it becomes apparent that a damaged and delicate person has been exploited and often degraded. It is also unfortunate that so many women get taken in more than once. Some of us are attracted to personalities that lend themselves to narcissism and depravity. It is a sad thought that the confidence and maturity you think you are attracted to may only be a tool to tear your heart out.
Ladies, we lie to you. We believe that we understand the score far more than you think we do. If you don’t believe me ask anyone who has gotten into a relationship with a narcissist. Everything was amazing… at first. We told you what we thought you needed to hear. We held the door open, we talked about our feelings, we shared our hearts. We know you get off on that stuff. Some of us actually read about how to pick up women. We are smarter than you think.
I am often asked why I write about this topic. Sadly, it has become apparent that many vulnerable and emotionally damaged people are being treated as prey by morally bankrupt individuals who think nothing of ruining lives as long as they can get what they want. I would invite you to read some of the heartbreaking comments on the first installment of this topic here. That alone is incentive enough.
I have this crazy idea that if you know what is going on you might know a predator when he buys you a drink.
Women tell me they need a man to be emotionally sensitive, in touch with his feelings.
Two minutes later that same woman will tell me they want their man to stand up to them, to not let them always get their way. They want a strong, powerful man who is rugged and independent. They actually say that, “I don’t want to get my way.” (Am I to believe them?)
Well which is it?
I have written before of the influence of the myth of Prince Charming and the princess in popular culture. There is strong evidence to suggest that many women, for example, raised on Disney stories and fairy tales still yearn to be treated like a princess – adored, elevated, protected, honored by a strong and beautiful man. No where in Prince Charming’s resume does it require him to be emotionally available, or in touch with his feminine side.
There is a significant dichotomy at play in the dominant female heterosexual culture. Women confess all the time that they are looking for both traits in their man – strength and vulnerability. There is something attractive about a guy who strong and self-contained (if you don’t believe me wait until my upcoming article on How to Pick Up Vulnerable Twenty-somethings). A man who is powerful has long been an aphrodisiac. Most men of my generation were raised to emulate such guys – Eastwood, Arnold, Pitt, Stallone. Today many woman also are attracted to a man who can cry, is sensitive, and can even pretend to be a glittery vampire and lie beside you all night not asking for anything, only staring at you sleep. It is a tall order.
It is no wonder then that men are experiencing an identity crisis like never before in history. A generation often raised by females, guys today are not sure how to behave. We are still supposed to have muscles, though we now shave everywhere. We are supposed to have both masculine and feminine characteristics (not my contention but it seems that way to the average construction worker). Our fathers did not help around the house (though mine did), did not share their feelings, did not watch Househunters International. In fact, our predecessors didn’t do much around the house at all. My grandfather came home from work everyday and proceeded to drink himself sleepy. For all I know he may not have had actual feelings about things, it never came up. We had dress codes and opinions, not feelings. For thousands of years men knew who they were and what was expected of them. Women weren’t happy but we really didn’t seem to notice and if they did complain it was because we thought it was “their time of month”. It was easy to be a man, in peace time.
It’s hard to be a guy, really. I had the amazing opportunity to be a single parent for most of my children’s young lives so I learned the hard way that I can actually cook, do dishes, read and do homework with the kids, go to parent-teacher night, and talk about feelings. I am almost certain that I would not have learned those lessons if I hadn’t been forced to.
There is no training for men. We have had difficulty looking to male role models from our past. We have not been able to talk about our struggles until recently and now we have no idea how. Men are emotionally immature but in our defense we have had little practice. Recently I was out for drinks with my eldest son and a few close friends when I made the mistake of saying something to the effect that it’s cool that we can get together and talk about deep issues. My son turned to me and said, “Dad, we don’t talk about this crap when you aren’t here!” It’s true. Social protocol has dictated, for literally thousands of years, that we do the exact opposite. Men who gush are weak. Effeminate men or even those in touch with their feelings were ridiculed.
So please be patient with us. We are undergoing a cultural and anthropological shift that is unparalleled in history.
Most of us still are trying to figure out what a clitoris is.
There are several keys to a great relationship. Here’s the one that has transformed my marriage.
Humility.
Not my humility, mind you. My wife’s. She is the humblest person I have ever met. Admittedly I was initially attracted to the fact that she is immensely hot (I know that is shallow and sexist) and seemed to tolerate me being around, but the more I have come to know her the more I credit the success of our relationship with the fact that she is relentless in her pursuit of compromise and making me happy. I am often hesitant to even mention something I would like to eat or possess because I know she will make it happen. She inspires me to want to try harder and be a better husband. We cannot even have a decent argument without her apologizing for something. It is hard to stay mad at someone who is trying so hard to make you happy.
She does not read this blog so i get no ‘suck up’ points for this, in case you were wondering.
As I write this I am conscious of the fact that many readers do not have this experience. This has not always been my experience either. For years I lived with passive aggression, emotionally shut down, non-communicative narcissism. Many of us have. It is easy, when things are going poorly, to believe that this is the way everyone is, this is absolute reality. It isn’t even though it feels that way.
I have learned a great deal from both experiences. I have come to understand that my personal self-worth, happiness, and completeness cannot be based on another fallible person. I have lived far too long trying to make other people love me, and failing. I have based too much of my self-worth on whether or not my spouse likes me at any particular moment. I am endeavouring, and I am not there yet, to find my security from within. I have this crazy idea that I need to get to a place where I do not need anyone to feel whole.
In counseling I will often tell patients, “Don’t date until you don’t need to”. I profoundly believe this. We need to get to a point where we do not need someone else to fill that hole in our heart. Only then are we complete enough to love someone else without being needy, without needing them to “complete me”. It is a great deal easier to live sacrificially, think of the other person first, and live humbly when I don’t need her to stroke my tender, insecure, needy little ego.
It starts with what Augustine calls “undeceiving ourselves”.
Recently we were at the West Edmonton Mall and there was one lone holdout to a grosser time. One man wearing a Speedo.
Men. If you read nothing else on this blog please hear this. If you wear a Speedo we need to be honest with you. It’s gross. It’s disgusting. It’s pretty much naked… and not in a good way. We can see your basket is full, no matter how small or impish. It’s time to let it go… to undeceive yourself.
You aren’t French. Let it go…
Many of us, myself included, have spent a lifetime learning to undeceive ourselves. Some of us grew up believing things would turn out differently. We believed in the fairytale ending that was promised, but not delivered.
I never talk publicly about my ex-wife, until today. We were together since I was fourteen and she was my god. I worshiped the ground she walked on and even today have difficulty thinking ill of her. I loved her to distraction. She had only one glaring flaw, she was completely closed off emotionally. People who knew her for years admitted they had no idea who she really was. She didn’t show emotions in public. She didn’t show emotions at home. By the time she ran away with one of my best friends I was a needy, pathetic, love-seeking man-boy. I kept the kids, the house, most of her clothes. She didn’t seem to want anything. Especially not me.
When she left I had no idea she had a problem, any problems for that matter. I assumed she was completely happy, I know I was. It didn’t seem to matter that I could be away on a speaking gig for a week and come home to someone who didn’t seem to realize I had been away. In my needy way I served and served, pathetically trying to be loved. When she finally left she wrote me a nine page letter. I believed every word of it.
I spent a great deal of time sorting myself out. I learned how dysfunctional I was. I had presumed I knew what my wife was thinking and feeling, but I was profoundly wrong. So I spent countless hours researching women – their emotions, their sexuality, their philosophies. I endeavored to become a student of the opposite sex. I went to counseling, with a very bad counselor. I tried to be mother and father to my boys. I learned to undeceive myself, it took years. By the time I met my someday-to-be wife I had sorted some things out. I continue to sort.
After more than a few years I am married again to a woman who reminds me everyday that I am loved and appreciated. I am no longer needy, although I deserve little credit. It is much easier to become healthy and whole when you have an amazing and brutally honest mate cheering you on. I believe profoundly that I need to share the message with women that not all men are pigs. Not all of us are emotionally unavailable. There are men who are willing to do whatever it takes to love you well, they just need to be taught. We are not dumb, we are simply not paper-trained. I also feel that there is a message for men. We were not raised to understand women, or each other for that matter. It’s time for men to suck it up, grow up, and live sacrificially.
The most important lessons are not learned in the classroom. The most important lessons are learned in pain.
I still believe in fairy tale endings. In real fairy tales, however, my tale is a little beaten up, more honest, and balder.
I still do not believe in Speedos.
Some time ago I was cleaning up at the little club I used to run, in preparation for the evening’s events. I had been sweating, washing floors and hauling furniture. I usually bring a change of clothing. But not that day.
No one had come in for over an hour. I figured I was safe. With this in mind, behind the bar I proceeded to drop my pants in order to change into clean clothes. At that precise moment a lady walked in and asked for a latte.
Never before have I felt so close to the bar. In fact, we became one as I sought to prepare the latte without letting on that I was wearing no pants. Socks, shoes, shirt, but no pockets.
It reminds me of this bit by Seinfeld:
“Why is it so difficult and uncomfortable to be naked? It’s because when you have clothes on, you can always make those little adjustments that people love to do. Hitching, straightening, adjusting. You know, you feel like you’re getting it together. But when you’re naked, it’s so final. You’re just, ‘well this is it, there’s nothing else I can do.”
That’s why I like to wear a belt when I’m naked. It gives me something. I’d like to get pockets to hang off the belt. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate? To be naked and still be able to put your hands in your pockets. I think that would really help a lot…”
It may shock you to know that I have been in counselling. Maybe not. I once had a counsellor tell me I needed to stand in front of the mirror naked for one minute each day in order to get more comfortable with ‘me’. I told this to someone and they went “eeeew”… which did not help much.
So with all this rolling around in my noodle I continued to grind the beans, praying all the while that I would not have to move. So of course the lady blandly asked where the sugar was, it being at right angles to where I was hiding. I reluctantly told her and proceeded to push my torso inside the small floor fridge as she walked to the condiments.
As she left the club I followed her behind the bar, keeping my beautiful barrier between us until she naively walked out.
Imagine me naked. Ok, don’t. No one should have to see that. Most of us, myself included, are not in love with our naked selves. I tease my wife that she “secretly dresses me with her eyes”. One of my best friends, Jordon Cooper, says I have a “face for radio”. I am no longer as insecure about my looks as I once was, but can still testify that for most of us, physical appearance has a significant role in determining our self-esteem. My wife once pointed out to me that I was squinting while looking in the mirror at our bedroom sinks. I had no idea I was doing this but apparently was squinting in such a pronounced fashion that Annette thought my eyes were closed – a subconscious reaction to a psychological malady. Body image is a life-long issue for most of us.
A few years ago, again while naked, I had an epiphany. I realized in the shower one day that I had been berating myself all my life and was unwilling to move forward, heal, and stop the body dysmorphia. Like so many of us I wasn’t thinking about my body because I was overly proud or seeking to show it off, I was in fact transfixed on the negatives and unwilling to let the embarrassment go.
It has taken me far to long to realize that this is just a shell and no matter how hard I try or how much I whine I am only going to get older, saggier, less flexible, and probably balder. There is little, short of surgery, that I can do to arrest the passing of time.
A shell. Maybe a fat shell or a ridiculously thin shell, a hairy or bald shell, a saggy shell or a beautiful one, does it really matter? Isn’t it time that we stop letting plastic, Photoshopped, insecure skeletons or fake vampires with no nipples dictate how we feel about ourselves? It doesn’t really matter what you look like if you are healthy and can learn to like yourself. For some reason my wife thinks I am good-looking and that needs to be enough for me.
Even if she didn’t, I’m tired of jumping through hoops for a shell.
I met Al in college. He was awkward, clumsy, ugly and small. His mannerisms labelled him – loser. He had a sharp wit but that didn’t seem to matter. Al was an outcast.
I’m not sure of the reasons but a few of us decided to use Al for an experiment. We had heard a speaker talk about loving the unlovely so we decided, with somewhat dubious motivation, to use Al as our guinea pig. A sows ear to a silk purse…
So in typical Pygmalion fashion we began to convince Al, and everyone around him, that he was a winner. We told him he was good looking. we had pretty girls flirt with him. At the college sporting event we started a cheer – “Al, Al, Al”. It wasn’t long before the entire stadium was yelling his name. He ate it up. He became our team mascot, then our school mascot; our own personal Gurgi (from The Chronicles of Prydain, if you haven’t read it to your kids, why not?).
Something started to happen.
It wasn’t long before Al began to look different to us. I wasn’t sure if it was his dress or his manner but he had changed, and continued to change. It wasn’t that he became more like the rest of us, more like society. Al became more “Al” like. He realized that in spite of the media, in spite of all his previous experience, he was obviously good-looking – everyone was telling him so. Apparently he had a good body as well. He was popular, though he probably didn’t understand why.
And Al started to blossom.
It wasn’t long before Al really was cool, very cool in fact. He was hilarious, witty, engaging, even gregarious. He started to approach girls. A few didn’t turn him down. At sporting events he ran the crowd. It wasn’t long before our little Pygmalion was indeed the most popular guy at the college.
Mental health professionals tell us that our self-image is largely determined by the attitudes of those closest to us. If our friends think we are ugly we soon believe them. If they think we are amazing then this too will define us. It is for this reason that I have always insisted that my boys are winners, beautiful, talented, and incredibly humble. just like their dad.
So many of us have been belittled by spouses or friends so long that we have come to believe we are ugly, or stupid, or unlovable. Some of us have been in abusive relationships with someone who reminded us, often in subtle ways, that we are losers. For some reason our self-esteem has been ruined. We no longer think of ourselves as winners, as valuable. We have lost our “Al-ness”. We have succumbed to the inner and outer voices that demean and negate. There are probably people in your life who find their self-esteem from making you feel like less. They need to hurt you to feel good about themselves.
And some of them are closer than we realize.
I have that inner voice that reminds me of my failures and has a list of the ways I fail to measure up. You probably don’t need to tell me my faults, I have a complete index of my mistakes, most of us do. It is easy, the older we grow, to forget that we once loved ourselves, were once allowed to share our “Al-ness” without ridicule. Most of us have become so fearful of sounding arrogant that we can barely remember how special we are, or at least were.
A little Al can go a long way. You just need someone to believe in you.
Stop listening to your critics, especially if that voice sounds an awful lot like yours…
As a counselor I hear many many stories about people’s sex lives, or lack thereof. Most people, once trust is built are willing to talk about pretty much anything. I will hear the typical complaints – men who have not taken the time to to understand and fulfill their partner’s sexual needs. Men who have been “cut off” for no apparent reason and cannot comprehend what they are doing wrong. Women who have rarely or never had an orgasm and believe (usually incorrectly) that somehow this is their sexual or gynecological failing (also almost never true). I have written about, and will continue to write about, the need to address these issues, especially when female sexual fulfillment is involved. A shockingly high percentage of women in therapy, for example, have had few orgasms that they have not brought about themselves. Another topic I address frequently is the relatively low percentage of men who have any idea what is going on inside their partner’s head and the impact of the female thinking process on their capacity to engage in a meaningful sexual way.
One issue I love to talk about, as distressing as it is to admit, is the overwhelming selfishness of the male orgasm. Earlier this fall I mentioned a group I do for couples wherein I challenge the men in the room to abstain from “finishing” for at least a month or longer while they wholeheartedly concentrate exclusively on servicing and nurturing their partner. As men we are not trained to think like this. None of us have ever heard such heresy before. Not climaxing during sex in absolutely foreign to the vast majority of us, virtually every male I have ever met.
But every once in a while even I am still able to be shocked.
Someone I trust once told me a story of a couple where the husband “needed” sex every day of their marriage. Every day. Pig. After the birth of their child it was, while she was still in the hospital recovering from a natural child-birth, and probably an episiotomy to boot, that he crawled up to satiate himself. What a sick bastard. What abuse. That man did not truly love his wife, and if you think I am being judgmental then so be it. That is not a real man, that is a sexual violator who has chained his wife to a bondage of sexual abuse from which she may never recover.
Men don’t need sex every day. They may want it but such a belief or custom is the sure sign of an emotionally shunted, selfish post-adolescent, with little or no self-control and even less respect for the woman he has dominated. He knows nothing about satisfying a woman, nothing about understanding female sexuality, and makes me so angry I would love to kick him in the balls until the abuse ends.
And that is my clinical therapeutic assessment.
This week our guest is Sarah. Check her out! this is the first instalment of a three or four-part journey into self harm, cutting, mutilation, etc.
Part One is called “Down The Rabbit Hole”
“Hey…Uhm, this is sort of an awkward question.” “Shoot.” – “Did your father really die?” “Yes, why?” “Because you seem so happy…”
People often think death is the catalyst for even the most introverted to break down and finally feel that it is OK to not be OK. The little girl in this story did not learn this lesson yet, struck in the summer of grade 5, she returned to school like all her peers and continued being happy because why shouldn’t she be, what is death? Death is going to a solemn ceremony where they paid respect to a cold carcass.
Death is cold. So people act like death is contagious. She touched him because he had been warm on the hospital bed while they manually pumped air into his lungs, but this time he was not her father, she did not know who her mother was softly caressing. For the longest time the little girl would look back in hindsight and regret most, not her bratty attitude while he had been alive, not even his absences during the most part of her life, but that she had irrevocably ran out of tears during his final service. Of the most dominant memory from that entire blur, had been the instinctive and almost desperate will to demand yourself to blast the water works right alongside your mother and sister. She had been faking.
It is OK that the little girl did not understand death. She went on with life.
She met a boy in grade 8, like any other freshman high school-er she was head over heels and walked on faerie dusts. 3 months it took for her to defeat every moral she might have taken had she even foresaw this event coming. She did sexual favors for him – felt like the most grown and sensual teenager out there, got dumped, and then threatened to be blackmailed. She moved. A fortune of coincidence, and convinced herself that she will remake herself, she will not have any sexual intercourse until the age of 18. In this smaller, secluded area, she met another boy, whom for the first time she thought she could describe as love.
But love for her had always been a damned thing and she left when his mother stormed upon her doorstep during the summer of grade 9 and insinuated in front of her entire family that she is a whore. As of now, she probably doesn’t blame her. The girl might even add that she bravos this woman for having the prescient sight, and only briefly hopes that they had been on better terms for the message to come across better. But it hadn’t. So after 9 months of separation, where she lost him, her best friend to him, and proceedingly all her fellow peers because, alas, she cried.
So she went under the knife. 2 months, back together – Sex; Unprotected, then ignored, and eventually dumped in front of his pastor. She thought ‘What a disgusting person I am.’
See, people had always historically viewed self-harm as almost the most emotionally imbalanced act where you are not quite sane and most of the time plagued as the depressed and literally almost always ostracized despite good intentions. The girl does not blame them; it is only human to not want to reside with someone who does not even put in the effort to converse. She is not fun to be around, she was the happy one. And when the smiles are gone, the party dies, and laughter suffocates, eyes are bleak and unaware of the world around them.
It was after the exhausting night. The fight remained inside the girl, she hated her. Hated that woman to openly offend her, proclaim to her entire family that she is undisciplined. Who is she, nothing but a scumbag aunt who owed her family sixty thousand dollars, with the nerve to even fuck things up now that he was gone. It was her birthday night. Inevitably, her mother asked her to sit at the small dining table. It was one in the morning. The girl obliged. But the woman who regarded her had not been what she had expected. It was definitely not pride, not humor, not anything else but exasperation.
And something inside the girl hit a core. Perhaps selfishly, she thought ‘How could you. How could you look at me that way and not even bother to defend me. You are my mom – you’re supposed to be there for me.’ She cried despite herself, and the woman told her one thing above all else that the girl will quietly harbor – “Do not cry; be strong. You have to be strong.”
Perhaps it was not so much the words said, but the tone embedded. She had been so tired. The little girl had hated her also. The skanky, provocatively clad woman who returned at 6 in the morning did not deserve the respect of her mother. She would come home, and she would sometimes be happy, sometimes very angry so the entire household shuddered and covered their mouths to shush their sobbing, but most of the time she disappeared from sight. Then she started attracting gentleman admirers. The girl despised her. She was betraying him. The woman had laughed at her – because the school counselors called home to report her suicidal thoughts.
Afterwards she had beaten her ‘Why can’t you be a normal kid? Why do you have to make so much trouble for me?’ But she was asked to take the girl to a professional; so of course, you go to a family clinic, where it is an elderly Chinese man who probably grew up with no such thing as sentiment. They laughed together ‘How dramatic, she’s just depressed because her father died.’ All the while the little girl was silenced by this eloquent woman. Had she not been the one to cry and whisper to his license, locked inside a room for the entirety of a week? Had she not been the one that frightened the girl to such an extent it became the greatest incentive for her to finally start crying at his funeral? And now she is boasting, almost, at how well she handled this situation and how poor her daughter is in contrast. The girl stopped trusting her. She also stopped trusting counselors.
She remembers crying on the phone to an old friend about the young boy during his 9 months absence. She kept saying she deserved it. Ah, so now she’s learned something about herself. Where did such a thought come from? Cuts, scrapes, maybe even cat scratches she could’ve passed the initial ones. It hurt. More than she had anticipated. But it was good because so. It scarred. And it repeated, like an addict, the dosage deeper each time. She is not insane, she is not mentally unstable. She executes with a lucid mind and clear eyes. And when her mother comes home she is at the computer doing work like any other day. She does not cry for herself. It will always, no matter what, stop with no reasoning but a habit to stop crying. It was apathetic. It is.
Suicide has always been a contemplative subject for her. But it will always remain so because, despite her hatred or depression during a period, she longs to succeed, she wants to prove herself. Most of all she desperately wants that woman to finally see her, and listen. That was the reason why the girl had been drawn towards school counselors’ right? A separated, quiet place where she is allowed to be weak, to cry and speak and be heard.
It’s funny because we spend most of our lives using our most common etiquette to apologize for unfortunate events that are not our fault. It’s this innate, built-in social marking that drives us to always reply with sorry at the news of someone’s death. Oh, I’m sorry. You hurt yourself? – Sorry. I’m crying? Damn, sorry. Even that silly little girl, glorified him upon all her school wide writes, as if that would hide her lack of memory of him – what a phony, but she is sorry all the same, for something beyond her control. Of course, that word does nothing to the receiver; they do not need your condolences, least the awkward apology. They are not damaged goods because they have death or self-harm somewhere in their history. They are sad, whether they’d like to admit it or not. They want someone to listen to them, even if they always felt or think and feel that they don’t trust anyone to open up in such a vulnerable state. Or better yet, feel they’ve rid themselves of all emotion and are above and beyond this mundane sharing. They sort of hate themselves too, even if they know logically that we should never beat ourselves up for past mistakes because at one point or another, it had been exactly what we wanted. They are not stupid. So don’t tiptoe – they have eyes too. They are also prideful, their ego bruised and mayhap a bit saddened that their family members are concerned about their less than enthusiastic state – and this is where ‘shit, I didn’t hide it well enough. Sorry’ appears again.
It is like circling a wild horse, trying to tame it. Not everyone can do it. Not everyone has the patience to carry out that task, just some things; some persons are worth it – to you. But above all, they are frightened, as the confused horse is. Frightened not only of you, but of themselves, they do not know what they want, or need, they kind of want you, and really don’t at the same time. They’ll fend you off, and all the while repeat to themselves that they are a bad person. They don’t want their stories to be digested the same way media gobbles tragedy, where the world has become desensitized. They are selfish as any other person. Therefore human, just as you, one of you – As you’ve guessed, I’m the little girl.
I’m still just a young girl, a tad sad, quite profoundly lost, I wouldn’t be able to tell you what I’m looking for and I definitely do not have the expertise to advise you on what to do with someone who has experienced death or inflicted self-harm. But I’m OK, I’ll survive. If there’s one thing I can tell you – Laughter is contagious.
Interesting and disturbing article via Psychology Today:
The YouTube video below was brought to my attention by a long-term client who also happens to be an excellent therapist and works extensively with concepts of shame in her own practice. It’s fascinating, informative and provides a neurological basis for an understanding of the kind of shame that I write about. The primary lecturer, Allan Schore, and the other researchers don’t discuss shame, in particular—they approach this topic from the perspective of attachment theory; but as you’ll see, their explanation of neurological development in the infant helps us understand how an early and deep-seated shame takes root.
You’re no doubt familiar with the nature vs. nurture debate concerning the relative importance of heredity and the environment. Nowadays, the prevailing view seems to be that it’s neither one nor the other but an interaction between the two that defines us. Even so, most people assume that you are born into the world with your complete genetic makeup and that you then interact with your environment. The primary lecturer in this video—Allan Schore, a member of the clinical faculty of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCLA—challenges this view:
“One of the great fallacies that many scientists have is that everything that is before birth is genetic and that everything that is after birth is learned. This is not the case.” He goes on to explain that there is much more genetic material in the brain at ten months than at birth. Only the brain stem or “primitive brain” is “well advanced” at birth; the rest of the brain continues to unfold and develop for the next two years as neurons become myelinated and interconnect. This development does not occur in an automatic and predetermined way; rather, it is powerfully affected by the environment, in particular by interactions and relationships with the primary caretakers.
It’s a more nuanced view of the nature vs. nurture debate. Not only is it nature and nurture, as most of us already believe; an individual’s particular genetic makeup (nature) also continues to evolve during the first two years of life under the influence of the environment (nurture). In other words, what happens to you, emotionally and psychologically, during those first two years, and especially in the first nine months of life, will powerfully influence your neurobiological development, determining how your brain takes shape in lasting ways. Most important among the brain parts that develop during these early months are those that involve the “emotional and social functioning of the child.” And if those parts of the brain are to develop appropriately, “certain experiences are needed. Those experiences are embedded in the relationship between thecaretaker and the infant.”
At about the 5:45-minute mark in the video, Schore makes the following statement: “there’s something necessary…that the human brain needs in terms of other human contact, for it to grow. It’s a ‘use it or lose it’ situation. Cells that fire together, wire together. Cells that do not, die together.” The idea is related to the notion of critical periods: organisms have a heightened sensitivity to certain environmental stimuli during specific periods of their development. If the organism does not receive appropriate stimuli during this critical period, it may never develop certain functions, or develop them with great difficulty or in limited ways.
So what is Schore telling us? If an infant doesn’t receive the kind of emotional interactions it needs from its caretakers during the early months of life, its brain won’t develop normally. Certain neurons that should have interconnected will instead die. “Use it or lose it”—if you don’t get what you need during those first two years, that experience will affect you for life. As my own client translates it, this means “brain damage.” You might be able to modify that damage with a lot of hard work, but neuroplasticity has its limits. You will never be the person you might have been if you’d gotten what you needed during that critical period of emotional development.
A deeply sobering thought. You can call it what you like—bad parenting, failure of attunement, insecure attachment—but when things go wrong between parent and child in the first two years of life, you are permanently damaged by it in ways that cannot be entirely erased. The awareness that you are damaged, the felt knowledge that you didn’t get what you needed and that as a result, your emotional development has been warped and stunted in profound ways—this is what I refer to as basic shame. The concept lies at the heart of the work I do.
Schore’s view invalidates the simplistic theory that mental illness is the result of a chemical imbalance in your brain. It’s not that you lack sufficient serotonin in your neural synapses; rather, the existence or lack of certain neurons, and the interconnections between them, has been permanently altered by failures of attachment during the first two years of life. You can’t fix that with a drug. Cognitive-behavior therapy might teach you some useful techniques for coping with your damage but it won’t make you into a different person. You’ll never be just like the person who went through the emotional experiences she needed during that critical period.
Two other lecturers in this video link the experience of secure attachment during this critical period to the development of both a fundamental sense of self-esteem and the ability to feel empathy for others. The relationship to shame and narcissistic defenses against it is implicit. Either you get what you need from your caretakers during those early months and your brain develops in such a way that you have a fundamental self-confidence and security in the world; or you don’t get what you need and the residue—the neurological damage—is basic shame. Either your caretakers are emotionally attuned to you and you develop (neurologically) the capacity to empathize with other people; or those caretakers let you down and as a result, your constant struggle for a sense of your own worth and importance powerfully limits your ability to empathize with other people.
Near the end of the video, Schore stresses the importance of joy in the attachment experience—that is, the infant’s attunement with its mother in the experience of her joy and interest in her baby is crucial for optimal development. If you don’t have that experience, if you don’t feel that your mother experiences joy in your presence and finds you beautiful—it will permanently damage your brain as it develops. In an earlier post on my website, After Psychotherapy, I wrote that the baby whose mother doesn’t adore it (or feel profound joy and interest in her baby) “never gets over it, not really.” Now I can say why: it’s because the neurological development of its brain was permanently altered by the failure to get what was needed during the first year of life.
Watch the video here.
Joseph Burgo, Ph.D. in Psychology Today
*Looking for Guest Bloggers who have experience and understanding about:
1. cutting
2. spousal physical abuse
3. childhood sexual abuse
4. bullying
5. lifelong body-image issues
6. Anything that has profoundly impacted your life
email me for more info or to volunteer info@scott-williams.ca
It seems that almost daily women tell me that they are having obligatory sex, usually around once per month, to appease their partner stop the begging These women believe, reasonably, that if they give in it will allow them some time off from the emotional games/manipulation and help them placate that voice inside their head that keeps telling them they are frigid, or a bad spouse, or something far worse. Most women I have talked to do the obligation sex thing for what they believe are the right reasons, hoping that this will somehow make things at least temporarily better.
They are wrong.
Men do not think like you do. The message you are sending is nothing like the message we are hearing. Women tend to have sex for very different reasons than men do (no new revelation here). When we are fighting, when our relationship is stale, when I don’t think you like me and then you have sex with me, as a guy I think, “everything is ok now.” I am not making this up. Sex puts a guy’s world back in order.
Is that the message you meant to send?
I do understand, at least as much as I am able, the frustration many women feel who are in a stable relationship when it comes to sex. Even as a dude I realize how incredibly invasive and penetrating (ya, I know…) such a biological act is; even devoid of the emotional, sensual, and spiritual aspects of making love.
I am also familiar with the persistent frustration many men feel and the temptation to beg, manipulate, promise and beg in order to have sex. I am still amazed that my wife would even let me touch her like that, and I’m not being trite. I feel a woman’s body, any partner’s body for that matter, is such an incredible gift that I can think and dream about her all day. She’s a redhead. It is no wonder that even the strongest among us can be tempted to entice and manipulate in order to get our way. Many men are guilty of selfishness in this area.
In my course for men on sex I challenge every guy in a relationship to continue to have sex but refrain from having an orgasm for at least a month or two. Why?
I believe in my deepest parts that it is quintessentially important for men, and women, to grow beyond their selfishness, greed and lust in order to become a great lover and a great person. NO ONE is born a great lover. Few of us are willing to do what it takes to become one.
You have only to read the comments on some of my blogs to see how many women have been hurt through the selfishness and douchebaggery of men who are only interested in their sperm count and have never learned to love selflessly. How many of us have stood up at weddings or witnessed the couple repeating those Bible verses you hear at every wedding about thinking more of the other than we do of ourselves? That isn’t just good spirituality, that is foundational truth.
My heart hurts for so many women who have been exploited, sexually abused, and treated like a prostitute, by a partner who swore to love them unconditionally. Often they relate that they constantly feel guilty and inadequate. In my practice by far the majority of sexual abuse I deal with comes from within a committed relationship. Consider that for a moment.
If your partner is not willing and committed to foregoing their own pleasure in order to ensure your safety and trust (notice I didn’t say anything about sex there), as well as your pleasure first; then I have serious concerns about their level of commitment. I tell women on a regular basis that they are not obligated to have sex when their partner whines, abuses, or manipulates. You have more power than you know. Use it.
Next week I will write about how to teach your male how to be a great lover, but for now I want to reach out to those many people who have been exploited, or who have had their needs ignored, or have been fooled by a man who started out loving you and now is only using you. You are not dirty, ugly, loose. You especially are not frigid. That is his word, not yours. After all, who among us would not be willing to give ourselves to someone who will truly honour and love unconditionally, having only our concerns and safety at heart?
If you are a guy reading this, don’t be like the other pigs we all know. Be an amazing lover. Ask your partner to teach you. Be humble.
It’s the best learning you’ll ever do.
P.S. – Experts tell us that having sex with your partner ten times per year still qualifies you as being in a sexless marriage. (maybe I’m doing the math wrong). Did you hear me, experts!
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