Category: Personal Wellness

You’re Yelling Again

Published on by Scott Williams4 Comments

Yell

 

I don’t yell. I’m not saying this to brag, I’m fairly certain it was a dysfunctional coping mechanism.
Maybe it was because I had relatives that yelled and I repress such expressions as a response to that situation.
Maybe I’m just too shallow.
Maybe I just like it rough.

As a mental health professional I am, of course, horrible at analyzing my own stuff. I self-diagnose all the time. I’m just not that good at it.

I am one of those lucky people who gets to hear people yell on a regular basis. Some professions have it much worse, but I do get my share.

Yelling is an interesting psychological and sociological issue. I have watched spouses curl into the fetal position as a madman controls the situation and hurls verbal abuse. Notice the almost orgasmic effect that “letting off steam” has on the angry screamer. I have seen that horrible energy transferred to the victims as they get emotionally gut-punched. Long after the yell-er is satisfied the object of their derision still suffers. Yelling is a very selfish act.

There was a time when clinicians would tell the angry young man to go home and punch his heavy bag for an hour till he “worked it out of his system”. Today we realize that constantly giving in to that urge to ‘boil over’ only builds a dependence on purging yourself of emotion – a very poor model for impulse control. Such need has little to do with control and more to do with complete surrender. It is no wonder, than, that people have been known to even stop making sense when they are in the throes of an angry outburst. Anger can literally make you stupid. The effect is almost sexual.

Have you ever considered stopping?

Many people do not even realize that it is possible to go for years without yelling. Screaming is just “how our family is”. It is such a normal part of life that no one realizes how abusive it is. There are so many dysfunctional aspects to yelling that I literally do not have enough energy to fully define its ill effects right now. The act is so intrusive, so esteem crushing, so negative, so unloving, so socially acceptable. I am suggesting that we strip away the veneer and identify it for what it really issue – a lack of self-control.

If you are struggling with yelling, this is not intended to make you feel like garbage. Many, many, many of us struggle with this as well. Yelling is so ingrained in our culture that it is rarely even addressed anymore. We blandly accept that angry person without offering any accountability. Our children grow up believing this is an acceptable form of communication and… the circle of life.

If you struggle with this difficult problem talk to someone who can help. Read about it on the web, look up phrases like “cbt (cognitive behavioural therapy) and anger, or yelling, or impulse control. Find out what is behind that anger – after all, that is really the issue now, isn’t it?

Don’t give up. You can do this.

 

You Deserve A New Car

Published on by Scott Williams6 Comments

Justin Bieber

No you don’t. No one “deserves” a new car, or a new house, or much of anything for that matter. If you can afford it, than maybe you have earned a new car. But deserving?

Justin Bieber is in the news again. Lately his attention-seeking, narcissistic behaviour has crossed into the profane, even illegal. I could write books on his mental health issues and I’m sure someone will. This week it was reported that he was videotaped urinating into a mop bucket at a restaurant (indecent exposure?). Once upon a time, not so long ago, I owned a restaurant and know a little about customers who are ignorant, entitled, and unappreciative. Bieber is a train-wreck who, unless he grows into a real boy sometime soon, is surely going to end up like so many who have been given more than they deserve. Singing is not an important skill set. The waiters and chefs at the restaurant he defiled are more talented and harder working. I know people locally who can sing better than he can. Society has deemed that any idiot who can throw a football or is pretty and can yodel in tune deserves millions and millions of unearned dollars. The ‘Bieb’ is just another in a long line of people who have been given the keys to the kingdom without earning it – and therefore does not understand how to live. He is surrounded by fools who pander to his every whim and affirm his ridiculous and pathetic lifestyle. He has no idea that the world is laughing at him and wouldn’t understand if he was told. Wisdom is earned, and he hasn’t paid the price.

Entitlement.

I have a relative who once tried to convince me that, at the age of twenty-one, she “needed” to spent $45,000 on a new SUV. For obvious reasons I chose to disengage from the conversation because you just can’t win an argument with stupid. She had all her excuses nicely rationalized in order to convince herself – it was a safety issue, after all. I feel the same way about parents who are firmly convinced that their nine-year old must have a cell phone; and not only that but a smart phone with a data plan. I try to act all mature, screw on my best psychologist face and ask, “Why do you feel that way?” Slapping clients is strictly frowned upon.

Someone needs to slap Justin Bieber. Entitlement is an insipid evil that crushes potential and leaves people bitter and disillusioned. Often too late in life they discover that they are not, in fact, the center of the universe and no one really gives a damn about them. Usually by this time they have alienated anyone who has truly cared for them and wonder why they cannot find meaning from life. If you don’t believe me just google bad plastic surgeries and you will be met with a morbid, albeit disturbing array of celebrities and wannabes who cannot deal with the fact that they are no longer the center of attention. Joan Rivers is looking scary, Klingon-ish. John Travolta looks like he is wearing a mask. The list goes on and on. Beauty is fleeting, they say, and basing your self-esteem on your outside is a surefire road to unhappiness. I know this because I have looked in the mirror. Chances are you know what I am talking about.

My son bought me a poster of Winston Churchill for my office. He is arguably one of the greatest men in history… and wow he’s ugly. He really does look like an English Bulldog. When I look at Winnie I am reminded that beauty is only skin deep but stupid goes right to the bone. Maybe you should take that money you were going to spend on French nails and purchase an audiobook on psychology, or Nietzsche, or Theology. I know Justin Bieber, with all his money, probably won’t.

I bet he doesn’t even know how to spell filosophy.

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Reflections From The Road (Part 2)

Published on by Scott Williams6 Comments

Winfrey on the first national broadcast of The...Turn on the TV anytime and you can find amateurs and professionals with varying degrees of emotional snake oil sales gimmicks for helping you deal with the pressures in your life. Oprah has made billions pretending to be a psychologist and has launched the careers of myriads of self-help gurus. Arguably she has been an excellent proponent of self-care and has called attention to the plight of those struggling with mental health issues. I owe her a debt, I suppose. She and her bald friend, among others, have made going to a counselor fashionable. It is no longer taboo to see someone about your failing marriage or your personal problems. I fear, however, that the pendulum may swing too far now that obesity and anxiety, as well as depression and addictions, are now reasons to go on disability. While this may help some, many others will undoubtedly line up to exploit the opportunity to get ‘something for nothing’. Even more problematic is the reality that going on disability is often the worst thing some of these people can do. Every day at the addictions center where I work part-time I have to bite my tongue when another addict goes on disability in spite of the fact that their ailment is self-induced and some are looking, yet again, for a feel good solution to a difficult problem. Not working can be the absolute worst thing you can do in addiction recovery. We have known for generations that “idle hands are the devil’s workshop”.

Recently I read a great article  on Cracked.com  called, “You hate yourself because you don’t do anything”. It’s one thing to take time to address your problems. It’s another thing altogether when a recovering addict hasn’t worked in years and blanches when I suggest one of their problems may, just maybe, be that they have way too much time on their hands.

In counseling I often come across unemployed people who tell me they are too busy to do what I am suggesting they need to do to get better. I know this is politically incorrect but I often look them straight in the eye, screw up my most professional looking expression, and ask, “Are you unemployed busy or really busy?” Granted some people are doing many good things, but often those I run across will admit that they had to come to see me at ten and have to go to the Walk-In Clinic at three – they’re swamped. They have succumbed to a lifestyle that lacks productive routine and are not working towards re-engaging in society. We only have one life, one precious and finite life, to experience and contribute. Spending that life in poverty and boredom, when we had other options, is a tragedy that affects the generations to come. Don’t misunderstand me, I am a huge proponent for the plight of the poor and hurting. That is why I am so passionate when such a lifestyle is avoidable. Some people need to get off their ass and help themselves. No one cares about your problems as much as you do and this isn’t television – there is no knight in shining armor, no billionaire talk show host that is going to swoop down to rescue any of us.

I work in a Fibromyalgia/Pain Clinic and see hundreds of people every year who have been dealt the worst hands imaginable. I have patients who can barely move, let alone work. Every week I speak with the most amazing people who feel they have “lost their life” to terrible illnesses. Their courage to move forward, in spite of chronic pain, fatigue, and illness, is inspiring. Many have been abused by the medical system and offered horrible medical and psychological care. They would love to work again, run again, contribute again, but cannot. It is maddening how few of them are accepted for disability, and they are often subjected to the cruelest interrogation by insurance companies who belittle them and subject them to emotional and financial hardship. There is something wrong with a system that gives money to able-bodied twenty year-olds who are too lazy to work yet rejects someone who has legitimate and life-altering illness.

Personal growth is about movement. I am writing a book right now called, “How to Improve Your Life 52%”. Real change is about doing the little things. As I have said on many occasions, drastic change is rarely lasting. It is all about momentum, moving forward inch by inch, a little bit day-to-day. Maybe that means getting up at the same time every day. Perhaps that means listening to an audiobook on psychology or self-help. Some of us need to start down the road to reconciliation by making a phone call. You might need to put down that doughnut or only smoke ten cigarettes a day. The key is to get started – do something. Doing something little is always better than planning to do something big. Sometimes change starts by getting off the couch. You may not be able to do a hundred pushups but you can do one. Baby steps.

I think I will take my own advice and get up and stop writing…

Reflections While On Holidays

Published on by Scott Williams3 Comments

I just left my lifelong friend’s house in Cochrane, Alberta. One truism about life is that friends come and go, mostly. I have been close friends with Steve Price for well over twenty years and we know each other well enough that there is nothing I can do to impress him or drive him away, no more games, no posturing necessary. Steve has seen me at my worst, and that is worse than most people know. I trust him because he has proven that old maxim, “Real friends walk in when everyone else is walking out.” I have a few other friends like Steve and you know who you are. I’ll write about you next time Dave so don`t stress.

The thing is, there are far fewer true friends in my life than I once believed. When I was a very public figure I thought there were many people who I was close to. That is the key statement, people who I felt close to. People who, because of my value system, I felt very loyal to. I was raised to believe that loyalty was everything. Then my life fell apart and when the dust cleared there were only a few friends who were willing to get messy. Again you know who you are. A few years ago I went camping with some of these friends and in spite of differing beliefs and priorities I didn’t have to worry about being judged. Real friends are like that. I have a few of these hardcore friends, both male and female where I live as well, though fewer than I once imagined.

A few years ago a very close buddy decided to call it quits on our friendship. At that time things in my life had begun to stabilize and he offered me no explanation as to why he was done. I still struggle to understand, though I know that during that period of my life I was probably difficult to be around. Being friends with me probably wore him down.That’s the best I can think of and I will probably never really know the complete answer. I have found some peace, as time goes by, in spite of the uncertainty. I have also tried to learn and grow from this difficult hurt.  It makes my relationships with those who have stuck around even more valuable.

As a counselor I know many lonely people who have no one like Steve. Messy and damaged people are difficult to love, sometimes. It is easy to talk the talk, as they say. It is another thing all together to walk the walk with angry, or hurting, or messy people. A true friend is a rare and precious thing.

I strive to be like Steve. He has never been as utterly pathetic as I once was but I like to think that wouldn’t matter. It’s easy to be a friend when things are going good. Loving  people when they are flawed is something else altogether.

I look back at the guy I was when my life was in the toilet and I feel sorry for him. He was a mess and undoubtedly difficult to be around. I do know implicitly that he needed people like Steve in order to survive and dig himself out of the hell he was in. He desperately needed friends  who didn’t moralize or lose patience. Friends who refused to quit.

Today Scott is the healthiest he has ever been. This is due, in no small part, to my family, a few amazing friends, and people like Steve. He is a rock that cannot be moved, cannot be scared off. My wife is like that. My family and especially my sons are like that. They know loyalty. Leaving was never an option.

From time to time one of my friends goes through difficult and sometimes very messy times. They will make stupid and short-sighted decisions. They will get in trouble sexually or morally. They will say and do things that will drive people away. It is in those times that I am challenged to be faithful. I am fortunate that for some reason it is no longer as difficult as it once was to stick around and I think I know why. I have seen loyalty modeled in my parents, in my family, in my friends. When I am tempted to walk away I am reminded that my job is to be loyal, and loyalty costs.

I owe a debt that can only be repaid through actions, not words.

Thanks Steve, I love you.

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All The Credit you Deserve

Published on by Scott Williams4 Comments

This morning my youngest was playing with an iPad. Well, I’ll let him take it from here…

So I’m on this iPad and it needs flash player to play videos, I go to get flash player and you need flash player to get flash player, so I need flash player to get flash player because I need flash player to get flash player.

Reminds me of a comedy sketch I once saw about getting financial credit. You go to the bank and ask for credit. “I’m sorry”, you are told, “You can’t get credit because you don’t have any credit history”. “How do I get credit if I don’t have credit”, you ask. Again you are told that you cannot have credit until you have credit. It’s a philosophical and moronic loop.

Life is kind of like that. I love this little story from an anonymous source:

“Sir, What is the secret of your success?” a reporter asked a bank president.
“Two words.”
“And, sir, what are they?”
“Good decisions”
“And how do you make good decisions?”
“One word.”
“And sir, what is that?”
“Experience.”
“And how do you get Experience?”
“Two words.”
“And, sir, what are they?”
“Bad decisions.”

There is a vast difference between wisdom and knowledge. Wisdom takes years, knowledge takes education. Some of the dumbest people I have ever met have PhD’s. Unfortunately learning the meanings of life takes pain and time. Ignorance is easy to find, understanding is hard.

“Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself.
Walter Anderson

Self-Medicating

Published on by Scott Williams3 Comments

Chocolates

I have radically changed the way I think about addictions.

I work part-time in addictions and see it’s effects literally dozens of times each week. It’s easy to believe that the problem is the addiction – if we can just help people stop drinking than their life will work itself out. Unfortunately this is not even remotely true and people who understand people are realizing that the addiction is simply another symptom of something much deeper.

When I was young and drugs came calling they were just another solution to the problem called “My Life”. Chocolate made me happy right now. So did cocaine and boobies and volleyball. Basketball sorted me out, so did pot. My only crime was that I grabbed too hard at one of my solutions to stress. Why couldn’t I have developed an addiction to body-building instead? Chocolate is nice, why couldn’t it have been to chocolate?

Dealing with your maladjusted life by stopping only one of the symptoms does not make sense. Somewhere along the line in many lives drugs became medication, not recreation. Cocaine helped you not have to think about your crumbling life. Drinking and sex helped you believe you were important. Being high kept you from thinking about your struggle to hope that things could change.

In counseling I encourage clients to look beyond their need for medication and address the actual disease they have been medicating. We need to learn to put our lives in perspective and change dysfunctional thinking patterns. Taking responsibility for your own heart and happiness truly is the best thing you can do to improve your life.

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Does It Really Matter What You’re Addicted To?

Published on by Scott Williams10 Comments

English: ChapStick lip balm Español: Bálsamo l...

It’s all about dopamine… and Chapstick.

The need to flee “ordinary” motivates many of us to indulge in the things that others will someday call our “addiction”. Professionals, including myself, have long delighted in shutting down those who believe they had an “addictive personality”. But what if there is more to this than I first supposed?

People working in the addictions field can give you copious examples of clients who were “poly” drug users, addicted to whatever was available. These same addicts would, while in recovery, be the first to sell out to the program, find Jesus, and plan to become an addictions counselor. People who are impulsive, struggle with impulse control, and prone to show a willingness to try anything for a good time are prime candidates for poly-drug use and “all-or-nothing” thinking. Whether it’s Chapstick or heroin, sunflower seeds or cocaine, exercise or meth, addictions all serve the same basic primary function – distraction. As I have heard countless addicts say, when asked what drug they are addicted to, “What you got?”.

Studies have shown that dopamine levels begin to rise long before someone actually snorts cocaine, for example. Just the thought of getting high on Friday is enough to alter the chemicals in our body today. This release of happy goodness serves to focus our energy on satiating our addiction while distracting us from looking at the situation more objectively. The mental build-up to our addiction warps our perception of reality and gives us tunnel-vision. This tunnel-vision is why addicts consistently choose their drug over their family. They truly believe that their family is their top priority but cannot, once the thought has become an intention, stop themselves from making a bad choice over and over again.

I have known people who get this same euphoric energy and satiation from shopping for shoes, or going to garage sales, or running on a treadmill. Addictions experts recognized this before the mainstream medical community and began recommending addictions deflection – moving unhealthy vices into less and less harmful activities through transference, not a “cold turkey” approach.

‘Life’ is usually the reason most people have problems with addiction and impulse control. Helping someone stop drinking, for example, is only a very small part of staying healthy. Learning to deal with their dysfunctional coping skills that have helped them survive their horrible lives, now that’s the real crux of the matter. The journey is not hopeless but it is fraught with work and frustration.

I know what it is like to feel bogged down by the pain of life and struggle to even care if things got better. I do not profess to understand what you are going through and have grown too tired to give you three simple steps to fixing your life.

All I can say is that it was worth it.

In spite of firmly believing that my life would never get better somehow I allowed myself to admit that I was afraid of things getting better. I forced myself to hope again.

I had no idea this article would end up like this…

 

Somehow I Expected More

Published on by Scott Williams11 Comments

Boat of Boredom

Most of us live in a word of stress and bills and commitments and bad sleep. I’m not sure about you but I never imagined as a teen that my life would become so predictable, so normal. I was raised in front of the television and if I learned anything it was that life is a series of coca-cola commercials and adrenaline sports. No one on the eighties sitcoms talked about bills and routine and year after year of working with three weeks of holidays.

I don’t have stats to back this up but I have a suspicion that one of the biggest reasons people who are recovering from addictions go “back out” is boredom. The normie world is a dopamine wasteland. Many of those in recovery are also unemployed or often on disability and so they also combat poverty, boredom, and lack of purpose and often hope. Finding fulfillment and contentment is hard to find in any world these days. It’s not just the recovery community that is having a hard time adjusting to the grind and stress of life. More and more of us are asking the big questions – What is the meaning of life? What do I want to spend my life doing? When will I learn to really like myself? Am I grown up yet? How can I find happiness?

Learning to find contentment in life is just that, something you need to learn. The primal brain is hard-wired to remember negative experiences, memories, and patterns. Once in our history is was important to be able to recognize danger before it ate you. The brain learned to survive by remembering the lessons that negative experiences brought. Happy thoughts didn’t keep you from being lunch.

Experts tell us that negative experiences are velcroed to the brain while positive experiences stick like Teflon. It is no wonder, then, that we tend to become negative when we spend too much time thinking about negative things. By way of example ask yourself this question – Have you ever argued yourself into feeling way better about a negative thing? It isn’t natural. Spend any time thinking about the big stressors in your life and eventually you will end up at the worst-case scenario. Finding contentment is, therefore, something that has to be worked for. Without spending time on a regular basis re-evaluating my life and dreams it will be my natural bias to end up a negative old man. As Valdy sang, “Old and tired and bent and bust, grey and wrinkled and you can’t be trusted just a dirty old man.”

I will tell you it is one of my firmest goals that I will not end up a negative old bastard. If I get that way please just float me out on the ice flow. We are only given one short life and I do not want to end up bitter and mean; I want to end up crazy, flirting with younger women.

I tell patients every day that the only way they will be any good for anyone else is if they spend time working on themselves. Self care cannot be optional. How much time do you spend thinking about psychology and art and music. About God and immortality and your need to stop yelling? About dreams and plans and delicious hopes? How much time do you spend reading and writing?

You are definitely worth it.

I’m Going To Explode!

Published on by Scott Williams11 Comments

Stress

Panic attacks. Many of us have had one, or several. Somehow things stress us out so much that at some point we start to melt down. Little things become big things. Problems become impossibilities. Everything starts to overwhelm us. Some of you know what I am talking about.

Stress is like that too. The relentless and unbending pace, day after day after day. The problems with my parents, or my kids. The never-ending need to be doing something. The never-ending list of things to be done. The meaninglessness of it all.

It is truly shocking how many of us live our lives in a constant state of anxiety, pressure, and stress. Day after relentless day of problems and issues and things that absolutely must get done before I can fall into fretful sleep. It is no wonder, than, that so many of us live on the edge of constantly boiling over, constantly in danger of being overwhelmed. Constant anxiety can do that. So can ongoing anger, or depression, or grief.  Even ordinary “never going to change” stress and problems can potentially take you to the edge.

Remind you of anything? Ask anyone who’s had an orgasm (and I hope you are one of them) and they’ll tell you that at some point in the whole process you reach what I will call, for lack of a pretty term, the “point of no return”. After this point the house could burn down around you and you’ll still need “just a minute”. There is a vast store of energy just begging to be released. Momentum is building alongside a weakening will to resist and your capacity to hold off a crisis is sorely tested. The train is coming and there is nothing you can do about it.

Anger is also like that. It builds; becoming more intense and more animated, until things just start spilling over. Have you ever wondered why people often seem to make little sense when they are exploding? Maybe that’s because this release of emotion is closer to an orgasm than we care to admit. The build up, the release, the relief. You feel better in spite of the fact that everyone around you feels worse. Time for a cigarette.

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Do I Like It Sick?

Published on by Scott Williams12 Comments

Many spouses will stay in a relationship that is sick and twisted, but why?

It is a truly terrifying story – a young girl grows up in a sick home and is repeatedly sexually abused by a relative or family friend. This person then becomes sexually active at twelve of thirteen with a boyfriend who in his mid-twenties or beyond. Often this is followed by a period of extreme promiscuity. They are sexually intimate with every boyfriend and come to believe that this is expected of them if they want to stay in that relationship. She starts to associate sex with being loved or loving someone else appropriately. They often engage in sexual acts which they do not enjoy, most of which are degrading in some way. They have an overwhelming compulsion to “perform” in order to be loved. For some strange reason, however, after they have settled in with someone they discover they are not truly happy and still have trauma and self-esteem problems. They struggle to find the intimacy and completeness in romance that they so desperately yearn for.

In counseling it often becomes apparent that this person is actually attracted to the sickness they have come to associate with love. They go after the “bad boy” or they seem to hook up with men who are always emotionally unavailable, their romantic interests usually are selfish, misogynistic or emotionally unhealthy.

If you can relate to what I am writing about then it’s time to ask yourself a question, “Am I attracted to this person because of their sickness or their health? Is this person irritating me right now because they are desiring something healthy (emotional connection, vulnerability, working on the relationship, planning for the future, stability, etc)?

Is it sick or is it healthy? I often send my patients home with this homework. For the next two weeks ask yourself, whenever you feel emotional in your romantic relationship, is this sick or is this healthy?

When he ignores me I pursue him. Is this sick or is this healthy?
I feel repelled by his attentions. Is this sick or is this healthy?
I am overly critical or easily angered by this person. Why? Is it sick or is it healthy?
He/she never seems to live up to expectations. Is this sick or is this healthy?

You get the idea, a good exercise for whenever we are struggling with our loved ones. Ask yourself, “Is what I am experiencing a result of a healthy and legitimate concern, or is this an unhealthy response to a sick situation?”

That may not be a bad idea for any of us.

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Every Time We Split He Would Have An Epiphany!

Published on by Scott Williams9 Comments

From ladywithatruck: I was in an abusive relationship as you know. I went back to him many times. Why? Because every time we split he would have an epiphany and realize and admit to and apologize for everything he did wrong. I would feel validated, heard, valued, loved and willing to look at my part in things and do my part to save the relationship. We would get back together, I would be putting 110% into “us” and he would recant or “forget” ever admitting fault.

His article is dedicated to her insight.

When I read these words, comments on a recent post, I had a bit of an epiphany myself. I realized, maybe for the first time, that in virtually every relationship I have worked with, if the woman is the one to leave, the man will have an epiphany a day or a week later. I myself was full of epiphanies, that breakup those many years ago that shaped my life. As a guy I knew beyond doubt that if I could just do something, I could salvage this thing. I needed to do a bunch of sentimental things, placating things, say the right words and this situation would be fixed. This was what I would set my mind to until things were back to normal.

The worst part was that I knew better, was a proponent of better. I was a professional, but I was still a guy.

That was the day my journey really began. But I digress.

English: Patrick Warburton in January 2007.

I know full well that there is something in men that ignores a situation if it seems too daunting or unwinnable. I cannot tell you how many times wives tell me that their husband no longer communicates, no longer wants to date, no longer spends hours in conversation (or minutes). It is very difficult for women to understand that this is a very natural and learned response for many of us, and just because it seems unbelievable to you doesn’t mean it isn’t happening. As I have written many times men, especially men over thirty, do not grow up in a culture that encourages or teaches emotional connection. Our social connections were and remain mostly shallow. Patrick Warburton in Rules of Engagement is not as much a caricature as we would like to believe. Few men spend hours a week trying to connect emotionally with anything, it’s a lot of work.

Years later, when the relationship breaks up it usually comes as quite a shock to the guy who is left. Things were going along swimmingly, everything seemed “ok” even if she wasn’t interested in sex anymore, at least with him. She was always sort of frigid. What does she want, anyway?

As bizarre as it seems to the leaver, your choice to go really was a shock. Sorry but it’s true. We have an amazing capacity to compartmentalize our lives and ignore issues which are going to cost too much emotionally. It comes as no surprise then, that when men are confronted with the immanent demise of their relationship they tend to do the wrong thing – they do things. ‘Doing’ is an area where I am comfortable and I understand the rules. Women are incredibly difficult to understand (believe it) and there will be so much anger, so many long conversations, so many hours spent talking about stuff that I don’t care about. Even if I did care half as much as you I still would not understand what to do and you refuse to tell me. I need to figure out a way to placate you.

Women who leave understand that they have gotten their hopes up and expected more than he was willing or able to give. Men like projects, and projects end. Understanding that emotional investment in a relationship is a lifelong project is a lot for a man to get his head around. Becoming that guy is a huge commitment (to fundamentally change your personality) and takes a hell of a lot of work with little or no initial rewards. You won’t suddenly enjoy those long talks about things that don’t seem to matter. There is no instant payoff for giving unselfishly and relentlessly to a woman who is suspicious of your motives and prone to become overly critical. And nothing wounds me deeper than a condescending spouse.

Is it worth it? I cannot answer that for you. I only know that for me, the work has occasionally become part of the pleasure. The more I learn about my wife, the better I see her motivations and personality, the easier and more fun it gets. For some reason it isn’t as hard as it used to be.

She certainly seems to be thinking more like me lately…

Catastophizing

Published on by Scott Williams15 Comments

Man thinking on a train journey.

from dictionary.reference.com:
verb – to view or talk about (an event or situation) as worse than it actually is, or as if it were a catastrophe: Stop catastrophizing and get on with your life! She tends to catastrophize her symptoms.

It’s something many of us do every day.

Some months ago I got a call from the unemployment office. Years ago I had been unemployed, had collected EI, had started a restaurant, and there was some negotiation over when my EI claim should end. Now years later a supervisor was calling for what felt like an urgent meeting.

I freaked out. I didn’t sleep well for the days leading up to the meeting. I had all my paperwork in order, I was confident I had done nothing wrong. I knew intellectually that it should be no big deal.

Catastrophizing. Making a mountain out of a molehill. Jumping to the wrong conclusions. Expecting the worse. Ever happened to you?

Catastrophizing is one of the classical cognitive distortions. Cognitive distortions are those emotional coping mechanisms we employ in order to cope with stress and issues in our life. They are things like emotional reasoning – letting our heart make decisions that should be made with our head; or “should” statements – I should be a better person, I should be over anxiety by now, I should not eat that bagel (ok that one may be the right thing to think…). Cognitive distortions keep us sick. We develop these ways of thinking because they work, or at least they used to. It’s tempting to “filter” out positives and believe the worst. Anyone over thirty knows that life will hand you enough manure to convince you that the worst-case scenario is often the right one to believe. Thinking all men are pigs can keep you from ending up in pig crap. Catastrophizing prepares you for the worst, and the worst sometimes happens.

Letting go of our own distorted ways of thinking takes a bucket of work. Being willing to set aside feelings and beliefs that have served us, sometimes for generations, is no simple task. Letting yourself forgive, or trust again, let someone love you, or work through your abuse can be the most daunting thing you ever do. Most of us are tempted to change our actions and hope we will eventually fake our mind into someday playing along. While this can bring limited success, growth happens when we change the way we think, not just the way we act.

Religious people may recall the Bible verse which says that “as a person thinks, so are they”. In therapy we say it this way, “Change your mind and your butt will follow”.

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He Probably Had It Coming

Published on by Scott Williams4 Comments

“When I went into the community looking for some support services, I couldn’t find any. There were a lot for women, and the only programs for men were for anger management,” Mr. Silverman told the Post shortly before his death. “As a victim, I was re-victimized by having these services telling me that I wasn’t a victim, but I was a perpetrator.”

The man who ran Canada’s only shelter for male victims of domestic abuse has apparently killed himself. A sad ending to what was, allegedly, a difficult and frustrating attempt to draw attention and provide safe haven for men who have been damaged by their spouses. It’s a dilemma that I have run into for years, often misunderstood and actually mocked and derided by society. Apparently men should not complain if their spouse hits them, they should be above such abuse while at the same time never lifting a finger to strike back or even protect themselves. I have heard the story many times, and on one occasion a husband was charged (and convicted) for restraining his wife who was in the process of hitting him with a cast iron frying pan for the third time.

Let’s face it – for many men just admitting that they are victims of sexual, emotional, or physical abuse (yes I said sexual) is tantamount to admitting that you aren’t really a man. This only exacerbates the problem. Not only is it embarrassing and painful to tell others but you can be fairly certain that others with probably accept your story with a hint of sarcasm or non-belief. I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people say of men who have been hit or abused, “He probably had it coming.”

Violence is wrong no matter who the victim is. No one should be allowed to attack another, no matter what their gender is. It’s also pathetic that there is no funding available for these victims. Maddening.

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Why Some People Hate Sex: the Fascinating Psychology Behind Sexual Revulsion

Published on by Scott Williams5 Comments

The birds and the bees and the dragonflys and ...

Great article for your perusal here.

What fascinated me about the article wasn’t the argument that some persons, in this article particularly women, are put off by sex. What is very interesting is the universal themes that apply to so many couples, regardless of gender. Here are a few thought-provoking quotes:

“I know we don’t have sex as much as Mark likes,” she says, with an edge in her voice, “but for me to want to make love, I have to feel emotionally connected to him and, to be honest, most of the time, I just don’t. He seems so obsessed about this issue. I constantly feel pressure to satisfy him. It’s like raw sex is the only thing he wants from me. It’s gotten to the point where any time he touches me I freeze up–I’m afraid to respond even affectionately because if I do, he thinks it’s an invitation to sex.”

“After some time goes by when we haven’t had sex, Mark gets more and more sulky, and I begin to feel I’m like a bad, unloving wife. So I hug him or pat his shoulder or maybe just smile at him or something and, oh boy! That’s all it takes–he’s off to the races. I feel I can’t say no again, and so we’ll get in bed and start kissing. I try to be as warm as I can get myself to be; I don’t want to just lie there like a dead fish. And, usually, at a certain point, I can work myself up so that I’m into it, sort of. Afterwards, I feel relieved because I know he feels happier and not so angry at me and, also, he’ll back off and I won’t have to do it for a while.”

Many heterosexual men, especially, have little or no idea how intrusive sex can be. In my relationship groups I tell these individuals to imagine what it must be like to take a large foreign object inside your body, simply to get someone to stop whining. I find the whole idea of “giving it up” only to appease guilt or anger utterly fascinating… and disturbing.

 

 

Guest Blogger – Your Gift To The World

Published on by Scott Williams8 Comments

fixmeforyouDavid Flowers is a counselor and doesn’t suck. He sent me a head shot to include in his bio but I never post a picture of someone better looking than I am so you’ll have to go to his blog to check him out at davidkflowers.com.

This is from David:

I came across a meme on Facebook this week that blew me away. Perhaps you’ve already seen it.

A great deal of my work is in premarital counseling, mostly with people who have never been married before. The main work I do in premarital counseling is help couples understand the usually unreasonable expectations they have of each other, and of what marriage will be. They naively think the most important thing they’ll do in marriage is take care of each other. My work is to get each partner to understand that a healthy relationship, by definition, consists of two healthy individuals. This means the single most important gift spouses can give each other is for each of them to get their own act together, to deal honestly with their own issues.

Five Reasons Why Getting Your Act Together Is An Awesome Gift To Give Someone Else:

1. The more deeply and honestly you deal with your own issues, the less inclined your spouse will be to bring them up.
Let’s face it, most arguments between couples consist of each of them telling the other what is wrong with them. The faults of others are easy to see. “You’re so stubborn.” “Yeah, well you’re so critical.” If stubborn lady works on her stubbornness, and critical guy works on being less critical, and they are open with one another about it, they will each be less likely to use those things as ammo in an argument. The best thing you can do is admit them and work on them.

2. The more you get your act together, the easier it will be for others (not just your spouse) to love you.
Conversely, the more broken you are, the harder it will be to love you. If you are needy and insecure, you will suffocate your partner. If you are demanding, you will exhaust them. If you hate yourself, you will always be miserable. If you take everything personally, almost everything your spouse says, no matter how well-intended, will hurt your feelings. People who love themselves have faced their issues squarely, and people who have faced their issues are easier to love because they are not constantly spewing their unresolved goo all over others.

3. Getting your act together is a way to keep investing in the relationship.
In too many relationships couples think (or worse yet, say!) “We’re married now. You have to love me, warts and all.” This is when she starts greeting him after work in an old bathrobe and a mud mask. He returns the favor by farting under the covers. They eventually end up in my office for counseling and can’t figure out how the magic leaked out of the relationship. Answer: The magic leaks out when you stop trying. Since no one ever fully gets their act together, working on yourself is a way to keep trying, all through your life.

4. You’re the only person you can change
Too many couples want each other to change, and to be completely accepted by the other. When you commit to a life of getting your act together, you turn it around. You determine to accept your partner completely and change yourself — the only one of the two of you that you can change.

5. It gives your spouse what they want
Your spouse married you because they love you. Assuming your spouse is a basically good person, they want you to be happy, healthy, and whole. The more you improve yourself, the happier you become and the happier you are, the happier your spouse will be with you.

I have directed this post toward married couples but unmarried couples can apply it, and parents can apply it to relationships with their children. Parents are always asking me, “What is the best method of discipline” or “How long should I keep my child in time-out.” I always say, “Parents — get your act together personally. When you are secure, when you feel good about yourself, when you know you are loved and valuable, you will naturally raise your child with this same assurance.”

Getting your act together, then, is a gift to the world!

Question: How have you seen important relationships improve as you have continued to get your act together? What relationships do you now realize suffered because of your unresolved issues?

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Five Ways Your Brain Is Tricking You Into Being Miserable

Published on by Scott Williams3 Comments

from cracked.com:

 

Brain scanning technology is quickly approachi...

 

Your brain contains more than 100 billion neurons that flawlessly work together to create consciousness and thought. It is an astonishing marvel of evolution and adaptation, and it is also a huge dick.

 

What do we mean by that? Well, everyone wants to be happy, but the biggest obstacle to that is the mushy thing inside your skull that you think with. Evolution has left your brain with all sorts of mechanisms that are heavily biased toward misery. We can’t guarantee that reading this article will help, for your brain is as crafty as it is sadistic. But at least you’ll understand it better.

 

#5. Your Brain Latches onto the Bad Stuff by Design

 

At some point in the last year you’ve spoken to a woman with supermodel looks who would not stop talking about how horrible it was that she had gained half a pound or had a faint pimple on her forehead. You realized that this was a person who somehow could look at her fashion-magazine face in the mirror and only see the pimple. It’s so annoying — why can’t she just focus on the positive?

 

But of course, we all do it to varying degrees — you might pass 5,000 cars on your morning commute, and 4,999 of them might be perfect, polite drivers. But then you pass that one guy in the SUV who literally stuck his buttocks out of his side window and took a flying shit on your hood. When you get to work, are you going to talk about the 4,999 good drivers or the flying hood shitter? You’re going to focus on the negative, because your brain is hardwired to devote more attention to the misery in life.

 

Researchers have found this in a laboratory setting: They can show participants pictures of angry and happy faces, and the participants will identify the angry faces much faster than the happy ones. How much faster, you ask? So fast, we answer, that the participants had no conscious recollection of ever seeing the faces. That’s right — your brain already identified the shit parts of your day before you even knew it. You have a sixth sense for misery.

 

And that was a great ability to have back when evolution was deciding which of us would reproduce and which would get eaten — we needed a brain tuned to spot threats. Giggling at the butterflies instead of running from the tiger puts you in the express lane through the tiger’s intestinal tract. We focus on the negative because it’s the negative stuff that gets us killed — there was no evolutionary advantage to stopping to smell the roses. But this has left us with a brain that not only devotes our attention to the bad stuff, but also makes us remember it a lot better. Think about the implications in your everyday life — you can wind up walking away from a pretty good job or relationship because you only remember the bad times.

 

If there’s a good side to it, the effect does seem to reverse as we get older, when nostalgia starts to set in and we focus more on the good memories. Unfortunately, for many of us the only effect of that seems to be that we can’t stop talking about how freaking great things were back in our day.

 

#4. Killing Negative Thoughts Only Makes Them Stronger

 

All right, you think, if negative thoughts are so powerful and make us so miserable, we’ll just force ourselves to stop focusing on them. After all, we’re conscious animals; we have control over our own brains. Now that we’re aware of the problem, we just won’t do it — we’ll look in the mirror and force ourselves to not think about the pimple.

 

Sure. First, let’s try a really simple brain exercise:

 

Imagine a white bear humping another bear. Try to get a really clear picture of them in your mind. All right, now stop thinking of the humping bears. Use all of your powers of concentration to eliminate all traces of them from your mind. You shouldn’t be seeing the white bears at all now, or their frantic thrusting, even when we repeat the words “humping white bears.”

 

Did it work? Hell, no! In fact, the more you tried to not think about bear sex, the more you thought about it. This, unfortunately, is the same thing that happens when you try to force yourself to not think about the pimple in the mirror: Suppressing negative thoughts actually makes them stronger. You read that right. Negative thoughts are like the Sand People: If you chase them away, they’ll come back in greater numbers.

 

It’s actually insane when you think about it — we’re constantly trying to banish bad thoughts from our mind, but the human brain simply doesn’t have a mechanism for doing it. After all, the only way to know for sure that you are not thinking about horny white bears is by monitoring your thoughts and “scanning” them for any traces of them. So the process basically goes like this:

 

“Am I thinking about humping white bears?”

 

“Well, I wasn’t, but now I am …”

 

Psychologists call these ironic thought processes. They are the reason why you only want the stuff that you can’t have, why trying to suppress laughter only makes you laugh more, why you fail at stuff when somebody is watching, and so on. Telling yourself not to be afraid of failure puts failure right at the center of your thoughts. It’s the difference between overweight people who are always counting calories and rail-thin people who have to be reminded to eat at meal time because otherwise they just “forget to eat.” The overweight dieters are constantly failing because staying under the calorie count requires them to do the one thing they should be avoiding: thinking about food.

 

This is the cruel irony of people who are chronic worriers. Brain scans show that people who are constantly worrying about every little thing have much more active brains than other people … but the extra energy is wasted. When worriers try to complete a task they worried about, they end up doing worse than non-worriers doing the same task. So much of their brain power is being used to try to foresee all the bad outcomes that they almost guarantee that one of those bad outcomes will occur.

 

Meanwhile, people who aren’t concerned about what will happen can dedicate all their concentration to solving whatever problem is in front of them, meaning their chances of success are higher. That’s right — you could say that some people succeed purely because they’re too dumb to know why they should fail.

 

#3. Grief Is Addictive

 

Think about how much of our entertainment is based around negative emotions. Why do we like scary movies? Or sad songs? Why do we watch movies about disasters or obsessively follow morbid news stories about sensational murder trials? If something horrible happens to us, why do we find ourselves constantly thinking and talking about it?

 

If you were trying to come up with some kind of logical explanation, you could maybe say that it’s because focusing on terrible things reminds us of how good we have it. But the science says that we actually take pleasure in the negative emotion itself. We willingly dive back into misery again and again for the same reason we willingly board a roller coaster or go bungee jumping: We get a rush from it. That is, the pleasure/reward centers of your brain light up and release dopamine. And you can get addicted to whatever causes your brain to release dopamine, whether it’s chocolate or fistfights.

 

And just as with any addiction, there are some people who can handle it better than others — we all respond differently. And what researchers are finding is that some people get addicted to grief.

 

They think this may be why some people can just pick up and move on after a trauma, while others never do. They just keep reliving it, refreshing that feeling over and over. Because of the jacked-up way your brain is wired, even the most horrible thing that’s ever happened to you gave you a rush. Don’t get us wrong — that chronically grieving person you know isn’t enjoying it, any more than the junkie “enjoys” being an addict. They just get trapped in a feedback loop because they’re subconsciously afraid to let go of the one strong emotion that makes them feel alive.

 

And when it comes time to try to break us out of that cycle, something else comes into play, which is the fact that …

 

#2. You’d Rather Be Unhappy Than Uncertain

 

To all the teenagers reading this: You are lovely people. Thank you for reading Cracked. But holy frijoles, you do some completely idiotic things. Don’t worry — it’s completely normal. Thanks to evolution, the teenage brain is all about taking risks, like attacking a woolly mammoth with flimsy spears and having lots of sex with multiple partners, all for the continuation of the species.

 

For that decade of life, young people don’t have a “NO” switch in their brains, and while it meant that a lot of them fell off cliffs while chasing the woolly mammoths, overall it has been beneficial to the species. In fact, you could argue that the people who are successful later in life are the ones who never gave up their lust for taking stupid risks.

 

But for the most part, as you get older, your brain wants you to stop taking those risks. You already did all your kid-having, now you need to settle down and stay alive so you can raise those children. Forget mammoth hunting; you’re picking berries. You are less likely to quit your job and start a garage band at 50 than you were at 17, and that’s a good thing.

 

The problem is that most people grow so scared of risk that they are more likely to stay in situations that make them miserable than take a chance at happiness. Sure, you only drew a three of hearts out of the deck of life, but if you ask for a new card, you might wind up with a deuce. You stick with the misery you know.

 

And even worse, it actually gets to the point where a change that works out for the better can be scary because it’s better. In other words, even if you take the risk and the risk pays off, if you’re not used to happiness, then it just feels weird, or phony. Studies have found that taking depressed, self-critical people and trying to make them think positively about themselves just confuses the shit out of them. Make them stand in front of a mirror and shout compliments at themselves and they just think it’s weird and pointless. “What is this? Are you making fun of me? This is stupid.” It actually takes a whole different type of therapy for those people, because they see warmth and happiness and can only think, “What the hell is this shit?”

 

Some of you think that’s absolutely bizarre, and some of you know that as your everyday life. Ask yourself: When you’re sitting in a bar or coffee shop and there’s a group of friends next to you just laughing and having the time of their lives, how do you react? Do you find yourself annoyed by that? Do you hate them just a little? There you go.

 

#1. Being Happy Takes Effort

 

Imagine a happy person in your mind. Maybe you’re picturing a kid diving into a swimming pool, or an athlete hoisting a trophy, or Richard Branson parasailing with a naked supermodel on his back.

 

Now imagine a depressed person. You picture him sitting on the sofa in the dark, maybe drinking alone, staring at infomercials at three in the morning. Maybe he just never got out of bed.

 

The primary difference there is that the former person is actually doing something. It’s ridiculous to imagine the roles reversed — there aren’t any sad ballads about people snowboarding.

 

So despite how much cocaine Sigmund Freud did, it appears he was right when he said that unhappiness was the default position of our brains — meaning that happiness takes effort. As one study put it, having the right genes and being surrounded by the right people are a part of the equation, but the rest is doing things that make you feel good.

 

And if reading this made you roll your eyes and say, “Well, duh,” then you have to stop and realize how many people never do this. How many people do you know who say their ideal vacation would be to just kick back and do nothing at all? All of the “doing” in their lives comes at the job or at school — all the stuff that they’re forced to do by other people. So they think that relaxing means doing nothing at all, rather than doing the stuff they like.

 

They fall into the trap of thinking that happiness is simply the absence of doing unpleasant tasks instead of actively doing pleasant ones … and the human brain just doesn’t work that way. And this isn’t going to get any better as time goes on; among seniors, their satisfaction with life didn’t correlate with the state of their health or anything else — it was based on whether or not they had friends and hobbies.

 

Of course, it’s never harder to go out and make friends or start a new hobby than when you’re in the throes of depression, and at that point, all of the above cycles that keep you in that valley start coming into play. Hey, when we said your brain was a dick, we weren’t kidding.