Sitting on the beach at Puerto Vallarta with my dad, watching the waves come in and out, fighting off local vendors and splashing in the waves, it’s easy to imagine life could always be like this. Those days in the sun are easy to embrace. Why can’t they last forever?
The real world is far less memorable. I don’t take two hundred pictures of my normal Monday to Friday. Weeks, even months, can come and pass without nothing of great significance happening. Get up, get dressed, go to work, come home, cook and clean, talk and watch tv, chores, hygiene, bed. Over and over and over again.
The real world is boring. I have mentioned before that one of the hidden issues with addiction recovery is that the real world is mundane. Addicts are used to spending most of their waking hours fantasizing about highs, planning and financing their addictions, getting and imbibing, coming down, burning out; not a boring day. Stopping drinking or drugs or whatever is only a small part of your battle. Dealing with a life-view and lifestyle is far more complicated and difficult. Learning to settle with what you have, where you are, and what you are doing is not natural. Television and movies tell us all the time that life should be a series of orgasms and car chases.
People who have little experience with drugs or addiction often ask me why people get high. The reason is, drugs are awesome. At first. People get high and drunk because it’s really fun. For a while. If there were no negative ramifications to chemicals many people would get high all the time. The temptations to escape from a boring reality is extremely tempting. When you are inebriated you don’t have to worry about the day-to-day hassles and problems that never seem to go away. And therein, lies the rub.
They don’t go away. Ask anyone who has come back to work after vacation. Nothing has resolved itself, there is usually no break. Often, after a day or two back in the real world it is almost hard to imagine you were ever on that beach in Cabo. Problems and pressures are a part of life and trying to escape from your persistent reality only prolongs the issues. Procrastination has no healthy payoff.
We love to pretend. Pretend we are not getting older, pretend that our relationship will magically fix itself, pretend that we will reach our goals in spite of doing nothing. We pretend that our addictions are not hurting us, our anger issues are no so bad, the way we treat our partner is not abusive. We pretend that we don’t need counseling or that our childhood trauma, if we ignore it long enough, will stop affecting our lives. We pretend that we are happy. We pretend that we are not afraid of death. We pretend that we can continue to ignore our problems, skim through life without passion, buy useless crap and consume, consume, consume and this will bring us lasting contentment and joy.
I don’t believe in magic. I don’t believe you can wave your magic wand and everything will be fine. I no longer believe that all you need is faith and your problems will cease to be your problems. The real world is messy. It will ask of us more than we want to give and take from us more than we want to let go. In counseling we often talk about cognitive distortions, those distorted ways of thinking that help us cope with a dysfunctional world. Unfortunately those same coping mechanisms keep us from moving forward. It is only when we embrace the chaos, wade through the quagmire, and refuse to become numb that we find wholeness. Getting healthy takes guts, and bandaids.
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood
and sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
and looked down one as far as I could
to where it bent in the undergrowth;
As many of you may know I have just returned from a vacation, albeit a working vacation, with my father. Sitting on the beach in Mexico, snorkeling, hanging out at the pier in San Francisco, these are lasting memories. I am not much of a cruiser but will look fondly back on the ten days I spent on the Grand Princess, eating good food and swimming in its many pools. And Happy Hour.
It’s interesting, however, that the best memories I have of the trip are not the places and the activities, it’s the people. Spending time with my dad, hanging out and laughing, talking about family and memories, these are memories I will cherish even more than the beach at Cabo. I also spent a significant amount of time with two new friends, Darrin and Michael, whom I have come to care about deeply, in spite of the fact that they are Americans…
Life is about connections. In the past years I have lost some people dear to me and it is tempting to guard my heart, to keep people at a distance, and to minimize the potential heartache should things not work out. Anyone who has been hurt by others knows what I mean. Loving people is dangerous and painful.
I was a single parent for several years and when Annette came along she made me very nervous. I was afraid to be honest with her, afraid to let down my guard, because I knew that she could, if I let her, brush away my emotional defenses and take over my heart. I had spent a great deal of time not caring about other people and was convinced that I would be better-off never engaging in romantic love again. Loving her would be dangerous, and hurtful. What if she left me? What if she got to know who I really was and rejected me? What if I couldn’t make her happy? What if she wasn’t really a redhead?
After the sunburn has faded and the memories begin to wain, what stays with us are the people who have touched our lives and made it better for their being there. What made this trip memorable was the moments with my dad, being kissed goodbye at the airport, and laughing and talking about life with Darrin and Michael. At the end of the day, that’s what matters.
A friend is someone who gives you total freedom to be yourself. Jim Morrison
Love stories are a lot like Doritos: there are countless variations, each dressed up differently with new names, but we all know it’s the same two goddamn flavors every time. The common threads running through all movie romances are: love conquers all (Nacho Cheese) or love is blind (Cool Ranch), and sometimes both at the same time. It works because we let it work, and keep coming back for more despite how absurd it gets.
But if we take a moment to refuse the suspension of disbelief, and explore the implausible nature of a few famous love stories, we can call shenanigans now and possibly prevent the release of X-13D: A Romantic Comedy in the near future.
#5. Original Star Wars Trilogy: Leia and Han Solo
Why it Will Never Work: Han’s Looming Unemployment and Deteriorating Self Worth.
Han and Leia overcome checkered pasts, experimentation with incest and a general distaste for one another to form a love so powerful it couldn’t all be included in the final cut of The Return of the Jedi. Also on the cutting room floor: the 4am fights, alcoholism and murder suicide that inevitably follow.
We totally understand that the “Princess and the Bad Boy” element is what was supposed to make us swoon–half of Hollywood romances are based on that. So let’s say that they can overcome the distance caused by differences in socioeconomic status ( which psychologists tell us is no small barrier). But that can’t bring Han and Leia down, they were united by the cause of the galactic rebellion! She respects him as a brave and passionate fighter for all that she believes in, and is entitled to!
Ah, about that. See, the war kind of ends when the second Death Star blew up. These two had never met before the war–literally every single activity and conversation they’ve shared has revolved around it. They don’t know each other in any other context (this sort of thing is one reason why marriages hurriedly rushed into during wartime don’t last as evidenced by divorce rates going up after ever major war since divorce was invented). Soldiers don’t always adjust well to not being soldiers.
But that actually leads to another problem. What is Han’s job when there isn’t a war on? He’s a smuggler, a guy with a shitty car who owes money on every planet and always shoots first in a fight.
Of course, he was smuggling things past the evil Empire, which no longer exists. So does he go back to that job, only now smuggling things that the new government doesn’t approve of? Space-crack and child slaves? How will the royal princess feel about that? What’s the alternative, she gets him a job as a diplomat? Yeah, we can totally see that working out.
So either Han is unemployed (and the effects of unemployment on a marriage are devastating). Or, maybe he becomes the legal version of a smuggler. That is, a highway trucker. No matter how you slice it, the skills that made him the coolest man in the galaxy don’t exactly translate to a 9-to-5 job.
Compound Han’s deteriorating self worth with Leia’s royal sense of entitlement and it’s impossible that this love connection ends in anything other than spousal abuse.
#4. The Little Mermaid: Eric and Ariel
Why it Will Never Work: Unrealistic Compromise.
Nobody takes a more blatant approach to proving love is blind than Disney. Their insistence on interspecies relationships boarders on obsessive, and The Little Mermaid was the first of these fetish-films. The basic plot revolves around Ariel giving up her life, her voice and a healthy chunk of her anatomy to be with Eric. Meanwhile, he is faced with the arguably less complex dilemma of choosing between a brunette and a redhead.
If that sounds like a bad deal, it’s more than that–in the world of relationship counseling they call that kind of compromise a “Marriage Annihilator.” Or at least they should. Bad, one-sided compromises are one of the biggest reasons for failed marriages and relationships. Ask anybody you know who gave up a job for a relationship, and you will hear the phrase, “Well I certainly didn’t move across the country for THIS!” echo back from the hallow place where their capacity to love used to be.
Sure, by the end of the film Eric and Ariel end up together, married as humans, and presumably happy. But even for a cartoon, that shoddy closure is too ludicrous to ignore. Ariel is a teenager, and, as she proves throughout the rest of the film, susceptible to the same impulsive stupid decisions as any non-Mermaid teenager.
She literally gives up everything she’s ever known to be with someone who can’t decide between her and another girl he just met. This isn’t just compromise, it’s identity annihilation–total surrender to do Whatever It Takes To Get The Guy. And one day she’ll grow up enough to realize it. This relationship is doomed to end with Ariel either feeling resentful and homesick, or physically sick when she discovers sex is more than just releasing a sack of eggs for him to crop-dust with semen.
#3. Star Trek: Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana)
Why it Will Never Work: Emotional Unavailability.
In the new Star Trek reality created by J.J. Abrams, Spock and Uhura are copulation partners (that’s the proper Vulvan term, right?) proving that Spock, like his father, has a weakness for human flesh.
As a human, Uhura experiences every situation, determines how it affects her and reacts based on the emotions it elicits. But Spock, true to his Vulcan nature, displays the classic symptoms of emotional unavailability. It’s bred into him that Vulcans pride themselves on squelching any emotional displays in favor of cold, calculating logic. Those are awesome traits for troubleshooting a starship’s warp coil, but not so much for making a female human feel loved.
We humans are pretty much programmed this way from birth, as scientists recently figured out with this terrifying experiment where they observed the effects of staring coldly at a baby:
So it’s no surprise that emotional unavailability leads to disengagement from the relationship. Uhura would only put up with Spock’s post-sex, “You continue to perform admirably” so many times before she would walk out. Unless she demands he utterly and completely change his personality, which of course brings us right back around to that compromise thing we just talked about with the mermaid. He would simply no longer be Spock.
Assuming they are together long enough to have a child, it can look forward to a distant father and a frustrated mother. The only silver lining is the kid will never be bullied in the inverted breasts of knowledge on Vulcan since the planet no longer exists.
#2. Dances With Wolves: Lieutenant Dunbar and Stands With a Fist
Why it Will Never Work: Mutual Stockholm Syndrome.
Dunbar is abandoned by his military at an outpost and then forced into constant interaction with the Native American tribe who steals his horse. Stands With a Fist is orphaned after a Native American raid on her family’s settlement and forced into a similar dependency on the tribe. The two meet as consenting captives of the Sioux and fall in love while exploring the virtues of their captors together, and frankly, this relationship is harder to watch than a scalping.
The key trigger for Stockholm syndrome is a captive’s misinterpretation of a lack of abuse as kindness. Like abused dogs under new owners, Dunbar and Stands With a Fist fall in love with the tribe, then each other, a wolf, tatonka, fucking everything.
Psychologists tell us that a love predicated on a disorder is doomed to fail, especially when the cause of that disorder is removed. At the end of the film, the two run away from the tribe together and live alone on the open plains. The only feasible way for the spark to remain between them is if they both act as perpetrator against the other. Imagine a relationship between two people where each feels tortuously confined while simultaneously completely dependent on the oth- No, no on second thought, this relationship seems pretty standard.
#1. The Breakfast Club: John Bender and Claire Standish
Why it Will Never Work: Post-Traumatic Embitterment Disorder.
Once more we get the Princess and the Bad Boy matchup, but the pairing in The Breakfast Club is actually far uglier than what we had in Star Wars. At least Han and Leia were adults who had been around the block, and presumably knew what they were getting into. The sad thing is, these relationships do happen in real life, but they more resemble what we get in The Breakfast Club–the naive young girl who mistakes profound antisocial tendencies for awesome badassery.
Some girls like the idea of falling in love with angry, bitter, aggressive men with rap sheets and a history of self-destruction. Claire is one. She’s established as the quintessential popular/rich girl, while Bender is the type of person destined for prison or various holes in the desert. He’s antisocial, offensive and generally kind of a dick. Bender torments Claire so much that it’s hard to tell whether he wants to stick his dick or switchblade in her.
The movie makes it clear Bender suffers from post-traumatic embitterment disorder due to a traumatizing childhood of abuse and shitty Christmas gifts. This potent combination of helplessness and rage is bound to draw in a girl like Claire who wants to help almost as much as she wants to get back at daddy.
The problem is that post-traumatic embitterment disorder isn’t as cool as it looks during a few hours of Saturday morning detention. According to the folks at All About Counseling.com, Bender will likely shut down around affection and intimacy, and when he’s incapable of expressing those feelings like a normal human being, lash out with violence. Claire is looking at a future of unrequited affection and excuses about running into the door.
This sheds a whole new light on the final shot of the movie. After sharing a kiss with Claire, Bender appears to punch the air in a jubilant gesture that always seemed more than a little bit out of character. According to the science, he was just warming up.
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.
Why is it so hard to love oneself?
To take ourselves off the hook and gradually evolve to a state of unconditional self-acceptance, it’s crucial that we adopt an attitude of “self-pardon” for our transgressions (whether actual or perceived). In the end, we may even come to realize that there’s nothing to forgive. For regardless of what we may have concluded earlier, we were, in a sense,always innocent–doing the best we could, given (1) what was innate (or hard-wired) in us, (2) how compelling our needs (and feelings) were at the time, and (3) what, back then, we believed about ourselves.
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.
I admit it, I’m having a hard time getting older. In my head I’m still twenty-four, though the mirror tells me otherwise. I am noticing that I am now usually the oldest person in the room, partially because my sons are two of my best friends and I tend to hang out with them and their friends a lot. I am not complaining, few people are privileged enough to be invited to concerts and parties by their kids friends, but I do tend to stick out when every other person is in their early twenties. It is, however, awesome for flirting with the twenty-somethings because they can think of me as a creeper, and I like embarrassing my sons in public. Ok, maybe that is too much information.
This week, however, I am ridiculously young. As I write this I am careening towards Catalina Island, sitting at the Crooner Bar and watching old people with walkers. So many old people. Cruises attract the elderly, offering a relatively effortless opportunity to see the world without all the hassle of actually going anywhere.
What has surprised me, however, is the sense of entitlement among a demographic which has traditionally had to learn to live without. Many were the children of depression who now are not averse to complaining over the slightest perceived slight. This morning not one person at our table, other than my dad and I, ordered a single thing off the menu and were completely put out if their bizarre requests were not immediately available. Several people, in spite of only having to pay $80 a day, have loudly complained that the billion dollar ship is not adequate for their paltry wants. Never mind that they are living a life of luxury that most of the world cannot imagine, their damn prunes weren’t chilled enough. We are used to seeing entitlement among the young, a generation raised by overprotective and indulgent parents. It is somewhat surprising to see it among the other end of the spectrum. I cannot imagine what the staff are thinking, many of whom are from “have-not” countries, behind their painted smiles and gentle kindness.
Entitlement is a guaranteed recipe for disappointment and bitterness. If you believe life will let you down then you are almost certain to be proven correct. Everyone of us has ample ammunition to paint things in a negative light. Living a life of gratitude does not seem to come naturally to most people, especially the old. The older we get the more we seem to become a caricature of our younger selves. Bitterness seems to grow if we let it, and many of us are letting it run wild.
Life is what we make it, as the old cliché says, and I for one intend to make it a good one, no matter how old I may become. Just being born where I was and given the opportunities I have been given is better than winning the lottery and the day I forget that please put me out on the ice flow.
I’m on vacation with my dad this next week or two. He’s led an amazing life and we are spending time, between pina coladas and trips to the mainland, working on his memoirs. He’s big into cruises and so we are spending time in the sun together.
As I write this it is still Thursday and the trip is still in the future. I am unsure how it will all shake out but I am fairly certain it will be an enjoyable time with my dad, laughing and talking and reliving a lifetime of memories. This in itself will probably turn into part of the story, part of the adventure.
For me, life has always been about stories. I do a great deal of public speaking and no one tends to remember the amazing insights I have trolled the internet and my library. Tell a good story, however, and people remember it forever. When I have occasion to listen to other speakers, or go to church, I am constantly surprised by how few good stories I hear. For some reason orators have a tendency to believe that I am there to glean information. While this may be true in principle, it is the stories I remember. Perhaps this is one of the reasons people tend to go to church less than they once did, the world has become about sound bytes and tweets and updates and the religious community is still convinced that forty-five minute monologues are sacred and unchangeable. And let’s be honest, most sermonizers I know are only moderately interesting or talented to begin with. There are not many Churchills, or Martin Luther Kings, or Campolos out there.
My father, however, has a lifetime of good stories. Stories too amusing or insightful to let die. In spite of appearing caucasian now, he was actually born a “poor black child”, literally. His mother had a kidney infection and he came out of the womb black as night. He grew up as an orphan, his father died soon after his birth, falling from a skyscraper a few days before he took a different job. His mother died when he was eleven and he wasn’t allowed to see her in the hospital for the six months before she passed because of some asinine policy. A nurse managed to sneak him in on one occasion only.
My dad quit high school to join the air force. After telling an officer to politely “go to hell” he was assured that he would never be promoted beyond corporal. He retired at the highest rank available, in charge of the ground forces at his european base, then the last man to turn out the lights when his last base closed. In the meantime he received the military equivalent of the Order Of Canada for a myriad of reasons. He did alright for an orphan high school drop-out. He is a hero to his grandchildren and pretty tops in my books as well.
I wonder, sometimes, what kind of legacy I will leave when I shuffle off this mortal plain. I hope they will be able to say of me, “at least he tried”.
Tiger Woods is on top again. In honor of his recent success, Nike, who never dropped Tiger as a sponsor in spite of his foibles, has launched a new advertising campaign strategically called Winning Takes Care Of Everything. Apparently it doesn’t really matter if you are an adulterous letch as long as you can hit a little white ball into a hole better than anyone else in tacky pants and spiked shoes.
When you consider how young the potential audience is for such an ad, how many children idolize Tiger or want to get a new pair of Nikes, it is singularly irresponsible, even immoral, for a company that has made its billions off the backs of the general populace, to blatantly try to convince us that adultery is fine, ruining the lives of innocents is just peachy, as long as you make a comeback.
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.
I remember watching Fracture, an excellent movie with one of the greatest actors of our age, and Ryan Gosling. There is a profound place in the movie where Gosling sits beside the bed of the victim and reads to her, “Oh The Places You’ll Go” while she is in a coma. I remember thinking at the time, this is a very disturbing story. Sure it starts out innocuous enough, but soon becomes dark and foreboding.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best. Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’ t Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so but, sadly, it’s true and Hang-ups can happen to you.
Harsh reality in a child’s book. Sometimes things are not going to go as you planned. Sometimes you will have hardship and pain. Sometimes…
You’ll come down from the Lurch with an unpleasant bump. And the chances are, then, that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump, you’re not in for much fun. Un-slumping yourself is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked. Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
Depression. Slumps. Reality. The way is not always marked and it is easy be bogged down in the quagmire.
You can get so confused that you’ll start in to race down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space, headed, I fear, toward a most useless place. The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Some of us are in the waiting place right now. Waiting for something to change, for a situation to resolve itself. We are caught in circumstances which we cannot control and there seems to be no end in sight. It is hard to hope in such places, hard to believe that somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue. We are in the waiting place.
I’ve been in the waiting place. I’ve spent years there. You may know what I am talking about because you are there right now or are just coming out. Days and months wondering if there is ever going to be change, railing at God, prayers unanswered, dreams dashed. Time seems to stand still.
I’m afraid that some times you’ll play lonely games too. Games you can’t win ’cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone! Whether you like it or not, Alone will be something you’ll be quite a lot.
In counseling we talk about the pit of depression. The longer you go through depression the deeper it can become. People usually come see me when they are at their worst, and recovery takes months, even years.
Yes I’ve sat in the waiting place and honestly believed that life would never get better. Eventually you get to a place, while waiting there, where you don’t even feel much anymore. Gone is the anger, even the tears. You have cried yourself out. You feel nothing. And that is a dangerous place.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
Cover of Oh, the Places You’ll Go!
But on you will go though the weather be foul On you will go though your enemies prowl On you will go though the Hakken-Kraks howl Onward up many a frightening creek, though your arms may get sore and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike and I know you’ll hike far and face up to your problems whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know.
Healing is about micro-change, baby steps, and almost imperceptible movement. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. As I have alluded to many times, there are no magic pills, there is no “secret”. There is only perseverance and tenacity.
So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed? Yes! You will, indeed! (98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
Winning is about showing up. The definition of success I ascribe to is “fall down seven times, get up eight”. That is the only way I was able to move forward. After all the crying, and the depression, the suicidal ideation and the self-medicating I realized that no one, no one at all, could fix me. I had to get up and walk.
Congratulations!
Today is your day.
You’re off to Great Places!
You’re off and away!
You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You’re on your own. And you know what you know.
And YOU are the guy who’ll decide where to go.
You’ll look up and down streets. Look ’em over with care.
About some you will say, “I don’t choose to go there.”
With your head full of brains and your shoes full of feet,
you’re too smart to go down any not-so-good street.
And you may not find any
you’ll want to go down.
In that case, of course,
you’ll head straight out of town.
It’s opener there
in the wide open air.
Out there things can happen
and frequently do
to people as brainy
and footsy as you.
And when things start to happen,
don’t worry. Don’t stew.
Just go right along.
You’ll start happening too.
OH!
THE PLACES YOU’LL GO!
You’ll be on your way up!
You’ll be seeing great sights!
You’ll join the high fliers
who soar to high heights.
You won’t lag behind, because you’ll have the speed.
You’ll pass the whole gang and you’ll soon take the lead.
Wherever you fly, you’ll be the best of the best.
Wherever you go, you will top all the rest.
Except when you don’ t
Because, sometimes, you won’t.
I’m sorry to say so
but, sadly, it’s true
and Hang-ups
can happen to you.
You can get all hung up
in a prickle-ly perch.
And your gang will fly on.
You’ll be left in a Lurch.
You’ll come down from the Lurch
with an unpleasant bump.
And the chances are, then,
that you’ll be in a Slump.
And when you’re in a Slump,
you’re not in for much fun.
Un-slumping yourself
is not easily done.
You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they’re darked.
A place you could sprain both you elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?
And IF you go in, should you turn left or right…
or right-and-three-quarters? Or, maybe, not quite?
Or go around back and sneak in from behind?
Simple it’s not, I’m afraid you will find,
for a mind-maker-upper to make up his mind.
You can get so confused
that you’ll start in to race
down long wiggled roads at a break-necking pace
and grind on for miles across weirdish wild space,
headed, I fear, toward a most useless place.
The Waiting Place…
…for people just waiting.
Waiting for a train to go
or a bus to come, or a plane to go
or the mail to come, or the rain to go
or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow
or waiting around for a Yes or a No
or waiting for their hair to grow.
Everyone is just waiting.
Waiting for the fish to bite
or waiting for wind to fly a kite
or waiting around for Friday night
or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake
or a pot to boil, or a Better Break
or a sting of pearls, or a pair of pants
or a wig with curls, or Another Chance.
Everyone is just waiting.
NO!
That’s not for you!
Somehow you’ll escape
all that waiting and staying.
You’ll find the bright places
where Boom Bands are playing.
With banner flip-flapping,
once more you’ll ride high!
Ready for anything under the sky.
Ready because you’re that kind of a guy!
Oh, the places you’ll go! There is fun to be done!
There are points to be scored. there are games to be won.
And the magical things you can do with that ball
will make you the winning-est winner of all.
Fame! You’ll be famous as famous can be,
with the whole wide world watching you win on TV.
Except when they don’t.
Because, sometimes, they won’t.
I’m afraid that some times
you’ll play lonely games too.
Games you can’t win
’cause you’ll play against you.
All Alone!
Whether you like it or not,
Alone will be something
you’ll be quite a lot.
And when you’re alone, there’s a very good chance
you’ll meet things that scare you right out of your pants.
There are some, down the road between hither and yon,
that can scare you so much you won’t want to go on.
But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
though the Hakken-Kraks howl
Onward up many
a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak.
On and on you will hike
and I know you’ll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are.
You’ll get mixed up, of course,
as you already know.
You’ll get mixed up
with many strange birds as you go.
So be sure when you step.
Step with care and great tact
and remember that Life’s
a Great Balancing Act.
Just never forget to be dexterous and deft.
And never mix up your right foot with your left.
And will you succeed?
Yes! You will, indeed!
(98 and 3 / 4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU’LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So…
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea,
you’re off to Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So…get on your way!
It’s called a cognitive distortion. We all have heard it, probably most of us believe it. We aren’t sure where it came from. It’s in the bible somewhere or the Dali Lama said it. Everything does happen for a reason.
Tell that to the six million jews who died in World War Two. Or the twenty-five million Russians who perished fighting the Nazis. Tell that to the children born in Mogadishu, or in starvation conditions in Africa. Tell that to the Tutsi’s hacked to death in Rwanda, or the genocide victims in The Congo.
“Everything happens for a reason” is a western, affluent, construct. It is a convenient and heartening way to explain away pain and suffering but it is, unfortunately, not based on any legitimate philosophy and it hurts people. It reminds me of my friend who was told, after his child died, that “God must have wanted another child in heaven”. Such a god would be a masochist and a bastard. The sentiment sounds good on paper but is destructive and hurtful in reality.
I no longer believe that everything happens for a reason. What I do experience, however, is a shocking realization that life is not fair. There really is no payback for every bad deed, at least not in this life. Sometimes the rich are in fact very happy exploiting the poor and have a much better life. Sometimes that bully does not get his comeuppance. Sometimes crap happens. Sometimes life sucks. Some people do get an easy ride while others seem to constantly suffer. There is often no justice for the poor african/american who is condemned to death row because he cannot afford an affluent lawyer. When my good friends lost their baby girl recently there was no “reason” that could even remotely justify or sanctify their loss.
If you are going through a difficult time right now you may not find wonderful redemption at the end of the rainbow, and that is an unfortunate fact. Believing your sexual or physical abuse will someday be worth leaves you open to bitterness and disillusionment. Healing begins when we accept the truth of our brokenness without trying to justify or condone it. Waiting for the good witch Glinda to make everything better keeps us mired in our distortions and unwilling to let go of what is haunting us.
The second half of the Serenity Prayer, the part no one knows, has really helped me come to terms with this. You know the first part: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change… Courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.
Here’s the profound part: Living one day at a time, Enjoying one moment at a time, accepting hardship as the pathway to peace. Taking, as He did, this sinful world as it is, not as I would have it. Trusting that He will make all things right if I surrender to His will. That I may be reasonably happy in this life, and supremely happy with Him forever in the next.
I think in AA they call that “life on life’s terms”.
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.
When I was a kid, the things I did, were hidden under the grid
Young and naive, I never believed that love could be so well hid
With regret, I’m willing to bet, you say the older you get
It gets harder to forgive and harder to forget
It gets under your shirt like a dagger or work
The first cut is the deepest, but the rest will flippin’ hurt
You build your heart of plastic, get cynical and sarcastic
And end up in the corner on your own
‘Cause I love to feel love but can’t stand the rejection
I hide behind my jokes as a form of protection
I thought I was close, but under further inspection
It seems I’ve been running in the wrong direction
So what’s the point in getting your hopes up
When all you’re ever getting is choked up
When you’re coked up,
And can’t remember the reason why you broke up
You call her in the morning
When you’re coming down and falling
Like an old man on the side of the road
‘Cause when you’re apart you don’t want to mingle
When you’re together you want to be single
Ever the chase to taste the kiss of bliss
That made your heart tingle
How much greener the grass is
With those rose tinted glasses
But the butterflies, they flutter by
And leave us on our asses
‘Cause I love to feel love but I can’t stand the rejection
I hide behind my jokes as a form of protection
I thought I was close, but under further inspection
It seems I’ve been running in the wrong direction
There’s fish in the sea for me to make a selection
I’d jump in if it wasn’t for my ear infection
‘Cause all I want to do is try to make a connection
But it seems I’ve been running in the wrong direction
Oh, oh I love to feel love but I can’t stand the rejection
I hide behind my jokes as a form of protection
I thought I was close, but under further inspection
It seems I’ve been running in the wrong direction
I love to feel love but I can’t stand the rejection
I hide behind my jokes as a form of protection
And I thought I was close, but under further inspection
It seems I’ve been running in the wrong direction
Philosopher William James (1842-1910), said, “The deepest craving of human nature is the need to be appreciated.”
Monique Honaman, Author, HuffPost Blogger
There is an overwhelming number of women who feel unappreciated by their husbands. I often hear the following refrain: “I just want to feel appreciated. For years I have been the cook, the cleaner, the chauffeur… I don’t feel like we are a partnership… I’ve asked, demanded and pleaded that we go to counseling… I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want to live the second half of my life feeling like this. I’m done.”
I’m sure this is nothing new. I am sure my mother felt unappreciated by my dad at times during their marriage. I think that’s probably natural in the cycle of marriage and relationships. Life gets busy. We forget to thank those closest to us.
But times are changing. I have spoken with more women than I can count over the past couple of years who aren’t just complaining about feeling unappreciated by their husbands. Instead, they are doing something about it.
These women, most of whom are in their mid-40’s, have decided they want out of their marriages. Sure, they are scared for what this means for them. Sure, they are nervous about the new unknowns divorce will bring. Sure, they recognize the impact this will have on their lives. For most of the women I spoke with, leaving their husbands means having to secure full-time employment for the first time in years. It mean moving out of the big brick colonial in the suburbs and moving into something more affordable. It means being alone. And you know what each and every woman I spoke with said? “I am absolutely OK with this.” I heard, “I’m OK being alone and starting over on my own… I feel as if I have been alone for years anyway. I don’t need my big house or my fancy car. I don’t mind having to work. I just know that I don’t want to spend the next half of my life living this way. Why should I?”
Wow! To give it all up and start over at 45? It’s surprising, particularly because to the outside world, these women appear to have it all. Their husbands aren’t “bad” people. We aren’t talking about men who are abusive or alcoholics. We aren’t talking about men who are dragging the family into bankruptcy. We aren’t talking about men who have lived a double life full of affairs.
What these women are expressing is a deep personal sadness at feeling disconnected and unappreciated by their husbands. They tell me they have fought for years to feel more connected and appreciated. This isn’t a whim, they assure me. They have thought long and hard about their decision to get divorced. They aren’t simply giving up. They have tried and fought a long battle. But the thing they each have in common is that they have reached their breaking point. They say, “I’m tired of not feeling appreciated, not feeling like I am part of a partnership. I feel like I am the roommate, the bill payer, the cook, the cleaner, the chauffeur… but not someone who is valued and appreciated. I’m tired of asking to be appreciated — begging to be valued — pleading to feel I as if I am important and not constantly playing second-fiddle to everything else going on in his life. I’m done.”
Divorce has become commonplace. Many women thrive after divorce. They live independent, happy lives. Any taboo or stigma that may have existed during my mother’s generation doesn’t exist any more. I think this gives many women the courage to say, “I can do this.” And, they are.
What do we do about this? Many husbands are left with their jaws hanging open in disbelief when their wives file for divorce. “Why didn’t we talk about this? Why didn’t we go to counseling? Why didn’t you tell me you were feeling this way?” The wives smile sadly and say, “We have, we did, I have… and it’s too late now… I’m done.”
I don’t like these conversations. I believe in the institution of marriage. I don’t like to see people quit. What can we do? I know the following advice is oversimplifying the issue — I really do — but it’s a start:
Men, please take the time to appreciate your wife regularly. Thank her for what she does for you and your family. Validate her. Cover her with words of affirmation. Wrap your appreciation of her deep within her heart. This is a marathon, not a sprint. The women I spoke with are not giving up because they weren’t thanked for emptying the dishwasher once. It’s the net result of decades of feeling taken for granted. When I suggest that perhaps having an open dialogue with their husbands alerting them to just how serious this really is and perhaps giving a final chance to make some changes, they tell me it would be too little, too late. “I’m done,” they say.
Clearly, women, this isn’t a one-way street. Appreciation goes both ways. Are you checking to see just how much appreciation you are showing to your husband as well? Do you thank him for all he does, or do you take him for granted? Really think about it. Perhaps you perceive that you are being more appreciative than you really are. What would he say?
I’m not saying that showing more appreciation will lower the divorce rate in our country, but I do believe that showing more appreciation will improve marital relationships. After all, it’s like basketball superstar Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once said, “If not shown appreciation, it gets to you.” And it seems that “it gets to you” is leading more and more towards, “I’m done.”
Most of us are acutely aware of the effect of criticism. I ask people all the time, “If ten people tell you that you are beautiful and one person tells you that you are ugly, which do you remember?” We all know the answer.
Why is that? Is it because, on some level, we are more apt to believe a criticism than we are a compliment? Does that criticism subconsciously confirm something about ourselves that we already know? Does it simply reinforce our negative self-image?
There is also another side to that coin. I don’t know about you but I was raised by a culture that strongly asserted that self-promotion was vanity. Being ‘humble’ meant never complimenting ourselves. People who bragged were assumed to be arrogant. Then one day I stepped into a Christian church and heard the saying, “God gets all the glory”. I learned that anything good about myself was God, anything bad is me. Once again I learned that I suck, that in and of myself I had little to brag about… not that I was allowed to anyway.
I have written before about the legacy my grandmother gave me. She was a firm believer in the axiom, “children should be seen and not heard”. I cannot remember one compliment from her mouth given to anyone, especially me. Then I grew up and had a relationship with someone who used contempt and disappointment as a means of control and discipline. You probably know people like this.
It is no real surprise when people come to counseling and admit to me that they struggle with self-esteem issues. Poor self-image is such a common mental health issue that I don’t know if I know anyone who doesn’t struggle with it. We are a culture plagued by emotional pain, largely as a result of criticism, contempt, and condemnation.
Enough with the criticism already. Most of us struggle everyday with feeling like we are losers, that we don’t measure up and we never will. I really don’t need you to point out my faults, I am intimately familiar with them. We know we have failed. We are cognizant of our glaring ugliness.
Many people feel that they are trying to help when they are critical. After all, how will you ever learn if I don’t help you? Granted, there are times when I have appreciated the cutting honesty of a friend, but this is only effective when I trust that person and believe they have my best interests at heart. Tearing people a new one simply because you are righteously indignant usually only scars and forces that person into a defensive posture. Real friends love you in spite of how you are, not because of who you are. Real friends love you enough to shut up.
They say you can get more flies with honey than with vinegar. You can also get more flies with shit than with honey. It’s a great deal more helpful to love someone back to health than it is to shoot the wounded.
from cracked.com, the source of most of my wisdom…
In general, humans kind of suck at helping each other. Most of the people reading this would find it about a hundred times easier to diagnose and fix a computer problem than to help a friend in crisis (if only you could just wipe people and reinstall their OS without the cops freaking out about it). I know, because every time I write an article like this, I’m buried in messages that begin with “I’m really worried about a friend …”
Well, here’s something I’m an expert in: screwing up in the face of difficult problems. So while I can’t give you expert advice on how to help your friend/sibling/boyfriend through the disaster that is their personal life, I can give you some great tips on what not to do, because I’ve been on the other end of this shit a lot. In fact, you can help me with my “I don’t have a gold-plated house” problem right now by buying my new book for a dollar. I think you’ll be better at this than 90 percent of the people on Earth if you can just avoid …
#5. Making It All About You (Instead of Just Listening)
The single worst response to a cry for help that I’ve ever seen (and I see it constantly) is the “one-up.” Everybody knows this jackoff. It’s the person who listens to your story before blowing it off because he’s been through worse, in many cases interrupting to do so. “You think that’s bad? Wait until you hear what happened to me today!” Fuck you with a thousand dicks. There is nothing more infuriating to a person who’s ass deep in a personal crisis than someone who just erases the whole thing with a single sentence. Doing that is the same as telling their friend, “Your problems don’t mean jack shit. I couldn’t care less about how you feel. You are only here as my personal dumping ground for my own problems. Here I go.”
That person has fallen into an extremely common trap: forgetting that everyone handles stress and problems differently. “Your dog has a broken leg, and you feel bad? My dog died four weeks ago. You don’t see me crying about it.” “Awww, you only got a B on your test, and it ruined your 4.0 GPA? Poor baby — I’ve been fighting for a high D all year. But do you hear me complaining?”
It’s for that exact reason that it is physically impossible for me to feel sympathy for the rich. It’s how we treat strangers. They aren’t people; they’re chunks of meat floating around, far outside the boundaries of our Monkeysphere. We cannot let ourselves do this with friends. Knowing how you react to your own problems does not have any bearing whatsoever on the way your friends feel about their own, and it is so goddamn vital that we keep that in mind when speaking to them about things that they consider important. Even if it seems as insignificant as a popcorn fart to you.
In these situations, listening is the most basic thing you can do to show your support. It’s perfectly fine to have exchanges — you don’t have to sit there in total silence while they spill their guts about how sad Justin Bieber’s new pants made them. That would be, quite frankly, unsettling. But for many of us, it’s just a natural reflex to jump in with our own related stories when a friend is telling theirs.
We think what we’re saying is “See, we’re all in the same boat!” but all they’re hearing is “Sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my own, much more enthralling life.”
#4. Giving Meaningless Advice Just to Be Saying Something
Most people who give it really are just trying to help (although some get off on the sense of power and moral superiority that comes with hearing themselves say something wise). Unfortunately, it’s extremely easy to interject some flowery piece of philosophy into a situation that in no way benefits from it, just because it seems like the sort of thing you should say. “I know you miss your boyfriend, but just remember, if you really love someone, let him go. If you were truly meant to be tog-” Oh, go fuck yourself.
So try this: Stop and ask yourself, “Do I actually have any idea what I’m fucking talking about? Or am I just quoting something I heard a wise character say in a movie?” That doesn’t mean that (for instance) someone who’s never drank can’t be an immense help to a struggling alcoholic, but there has to be some sort of connection or experience behind the advice for it to have any weight. Maybe your dad drank. Maybe you’ve had friends in the exact same position, showing the same patterns of behavior. Maybe you’ve been doing a blind research project on them for 10 years, attempting to turn them into alcoholics for science purposes.
Yes, I know my car has an engine problem, because it won’t start. But since I know exactly nothing about fixing a car, I can’t walk up to a stumped mechanic and say, “I saw this show once where a guy’s car wouldn’t start, and when they opened the hood, they found a severed head in there. Did you find a severed head in there?” I’ll sound like I’m talking out of my ass, because I am. Not only will you not be taken seriously at that point, but there’s a good chance that the person you’re trying to help will take offense at the fact that you just pretended to understand a problem that is obviously beyond you.
That’s the precise moment where you go from “concerned friend trying to help out” to “annoying douchebag who’s just getting in the way.” You become a hurdle. Now, don’t let that idea prevent you from stepping in if you have some honest words of wisdom to pass along. Even if you’re saying something they already know, sometimes we need reminders. For instance, it’s hard to remember in the throes of depression that your actions are affecting more people than just you. That the longer you go without treatment, the more your friends, family, and kids suffer right along with you. That reminder could be the simple nudge that triggers a recovery. You’ll know you’ve made the right choice of words by the rainbow that instantly shoots out of their asshole.
But when you really examine the advice that you’re about to whip out like a homeless guy’s dick, you’re going to find occasional times where you’re just talking for the sake of talking. Because repeating those old sayings feels like help, doesn’t it? But that’s the problem — you’re not worried about your friend; you’re worried about patting yourself on the back for being awesome.
#3. Forcing Your Help on Them (or Giving the Wrong Kind of Help)
Are you sure your friend even wants help? That seems like a weird question — someone is struggling, so obviously they want help, right? Unlike what most movies present, if someone doesn’t want your help, it’s not because they’re just too darned feisty and full of pride to accept it. I remember plenty of times growing up where the only things left in the fridge were half a pitcher of Kool-Aid, a jar of mustard, and stink. But I promise you that in those situations, asking for help wasn’t so much about pride as it was about depression and feeling like a total failure.
No, it doesn’t mean that pride is completely removed as a factor. We’re human, and humans are prideful animals. I’ve been meaning to get a penis reduction for years now, but my pride won’t allow me to accept the countless invitations from limping, bow-legged women to pay for the procedure. And yes, for my mother, there was a certain level of pride at work when she refused to ask for help with groceries. But lording over all of that was a black hole, sucking up every last ounce of hope and motivation to get up and get that shit fixed.
means to fix it with money) is to fill their fridge. Their problem was that they had no food. Now they have food. Problem solved. But as someone who’s been there can tell you, that can actually make the situation worse.
The depression worsens because they had to take “charity” from you in order to feed their kids or themselves. In turn, their stress levels shoot through the roof while they lie in bed under two tons of embarrassment and guilt. Instead of using that time to improve their financial situation by getting a better job (or in my family’s case, any job at all), they’re walking through life, turning down even the idea of prostitution because life has already dicked them into exhaustion.
But change the phrasing and the terms of the offer, and you’ll be shocked at how much difference it makes in their lives. “Hey, I’ve got some stuff I could really use some help with. Mostly lawn work and painting flames down the side of my private jet. Why don’t you let me hire you? I get the help I desperately need, and you get some extra cash — everybody wins.” Now they’re not taking charity, they’re helping you out in an employment sense. Even more importantly, they’re not taking a solution from someone else — they’re actively solving their own problems while helping you with your rich asshole problems in return.
I understand that the scenario I laid out was a specific circumstance, but the point is that if you walk into their lives like you’re a prince on a white stallion, throwing out magical cures for the helpless, you’re going to make them feel like they are helpless, and the ensuing emotional shitstorm is going to adversely affect the way they handle the actual core of their problem.
#2. Declaring Their Problem Solved, Then Walking Away
It’s in our nature to want quick fixes. The best charities are the ones where you can just easily hand over a few dollars and then go about the rest of your day, knowing it’s going to be used by honest, upstanding people. Don’t ever think that’s a bad thing. The fact that you’re helping out a good cause at all is super fucking admirable, and I respect the hell out of people who do it.
But it’s also easy to get tricked into that frame of mind when helping out a friend because we want their problems to be like a movie: Here’s the part where they’re struggling, then here’s the part where they get rescued and everything is fine again. Roll credits! But in virtually every case where a person needs help, the problem cannot be boiled down to a simple one-shot cause like “addiction” or “a bad relationship.” Most of those problems are caused by a deeper, darker undercurrent, something that bubbles up from time to time, manifesting itself in different ways. It’s frustrating to see the same mistakes and bad habits bite them in the ass again and again. You start to feel like they’re your patient instead of your friend.
But that’s how real life is different. In a movie, once a person goes through rehab, her drug problem is over. When a person starts laughing and joking, his depression is cured. In reality, people can and do suffer from this shit their entire lives. Even if we’re not talking about actual illnesses (in which case, your first advice should always be “see a fucking professional instead of my dumb ass”), the destructive habits all of us have are the result of decades of repetition and reinforcement. That shit doesn’t change overnight, no matter what background music you play over your homemade montage.
If you want to continue being their friend, then that means you still have to be there for them. That means checking in even when they’re in one of those stretches where they’re not fun to be around. It doesn’t even have to be a big deal — a call, an email, stopping by on your way home from work. Just knowing that someone out there gives a shit is more help than you’ll ever realize (if you’re lucky). I’ve lost count of how many messages I’ve gotten from readers saying that nobody cares about them or their problems. As a friend, 10 minutes of your time could easily change all of that. If you don’t believe me, try it.
#1. Not Knowing When to Back Off
This is the single hardest part of being a friend, and by far the hardest to know when to implement. Let me give you an example:
One of my family members was, like me, an addict. But also a career criminal to boot. He spent a massive amount of his life in prison for … um … “borrowing” other people’s things to support his … um … “huge drug problem.” Our family reached out to him many times, offering places to stay, jobs, money, food, and anything we could reasonably sacrifice on our end. But his cycle of uncountable crises continued for most of his life. He’d clean up and do great for a year or two, then fall back into a self-destructive pattern that would land him in prison once again. Here’s the crazy part: At no point (when he was clean) did he ever consciously look around at us and say to himself, “I think I’ll fuck over this person for personal gain.”
But each time that cycle started back up, all of our help was flushed down the shitter. His problems were out of his control … but more importantly for us, they were out of our control. There came a point where we had to finally grit our teeth and say, “We’ve helped as much as we can, and his disasters are now affecting our own families. Helping him at this point is just perpetuating a cycle that we cannot end.” Then we all stripped naked and ran through a field, screaming, “FREEDOM!”
Did it make us bad people? To some, it would seem that way. Our kids certainly didn’t think so when the danger of break-ins and the volatile atmosphere disappeared.
Regardless, I cannot stress enough how dangerous this point can be — because if you decide to pull out at the wrong time, you could be fucking your friend out of what could potentially be life-changing input. That … didn’t sound clean, did it? If you wait too long, you’re letting their problems spread to you and your family like a case of emotional crabs. I understand that the Internet seems to universally hate Dr. Phil, but one of the wisest pieces of relationship advice I’ve ever heard came from him:
“Ask yourself, ‘What is it costing me to be in this relationship?’ If the answer is your dreams, identity, or dignity, the cost is too high.”
In that quote, his ridiculous child-molester mustache was talking about bad romantic relationships, but it applies just as easily to friendships. You can only sacrifice so much of yourself on their behalf before you finally have to step back and say, “Enough. I’ve done all I can. It’s time for them to deal with this on their own, regardless of the consequences.” Good-hearted people will have such a hard time coming to that decision. They’ll feel guilt, shame, anger — basically all the stages of grief. But in extreme cases, you have to eventually put your own sanity and health at the top of the Good Deeds queue. Otherwise, your friend could be in a dramatically worse situation in which they never change their behavior for the better, and instead grow a dependency on you to dig them out of the quickshit pit. There is no help in that. It only sustains their problems, perpetually, until one of you gives up.
Or, worse, ends up on a massive ratings factory of a reality show. People seem to be making a pretty good living out of being a fuckup these days. Whatever, you see what I’m getting at: There’s a point where you’re not helping, but you still want to be the hero, and in the process of trying to be the hero, you’re hurting everyone else. So print this out and hang it on your wall somewhere: Sometimes being a nice person is all about knowing when to be an asshole.
Have you ever had an emotional or mental breakdown? I have. At the time I was doing martial arts several times a week, was involved in a spiritual community, was learning and growing, but none of that seemed to matter.
So what happened?
Clinicians often refer to a nervous breakdown as technically an “adjustment disorder“. Your external work gets kicked in the spleen so hard that no amount of yoga or protein shakes or Mona Vie bars can hope to compete. Your inside world is depressed, or anxious, or panicked, or all of the above. Often psychosis shows up with tequila shots for the party. Your world crumbles and you simply can no longer cope. Sound like anyone you know?
People who have never been in a severe depression or have had a breakdown cannot hope to understand why people often consider suicide. To the outsider, suicide is a coward’s way out, or a selfish act, or just plain crazy. True enough on one level – crazy does certainly show up. It is hard to understand from a distance, but when things get that bad one is not thinking in their rational mind. Obsession has become a way of life. They call it a “breakdown” for a reason.
Most of us do not realize that we have several gauges of health. Until someone told me I believed that if I was working out, eating right, and learning and growing, I would be fine when things went sideways. I did not realize, and did not pay attention to, my emotional gauge.
Working out, eating broccoli, and going to a church does not necessarily mean that you are not emotionally bankrupt. Those things may help to keep you healthy, but put a group of emotional succubus’ in your life and things start to go wrong.
When you pause to think about it, there is usually three kinds of people in your life. There are those who, after you have spent time with, you feel better for having been together. Then there are those who do not affect you one way or the other.
Did I mention there were three groups? You know the last group. When they call a piece of you dies inside. Being with them sucks the life out of you. They are never happy, or always complaining, or your mother. People like this drain your emotional gauge. Add a relational breakdown, or a child who is unruly, a job that is stressful, and someone who is disappointed in you and you can begin to lose hope. Add to this the crazy schedule we all try to maintain with little or no time for reflection or self-care and you have a recipe for a meltdown.
Don’t even get me started on those of you who also have small children.
Taking care of your emotional stuff is the best thing you can do for yourself besides taking a week on a beach somewhere without a cell phone or your children. Paying attention to your emotional gauge will help you in ways you could never imagine. A healthy person with a healthy heart is the best defence against hurt, stress, and pain.
Carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders. Feeling the need to make sure everyone does what they should. The need to manage not just myself, but everyone around me.
If I don’t do it, it won’t get done.
If you want something done right, do it yourself.
It’s chronic…spoken or unspoken it’s there. I know because I have been a control freak and I am tired of living that way.
I am tired of the pressure to judge, fix, correct, straighten out, spank, corral, frighten, pressure, guilt, condemn, and look down on others. I know nobody says they do that but I have and I see it all the time.
I’m weary of feeling like I have to save the world and that for others to stay saved depends on me and my ability to be good enough. This constant feeling that everyone is teetering on the edge of total rejection and that one slip up from you and their eternal soul’s blood is on your hands is too much.
My God! That’s a massive weight to bear…who can handle such pressure?
Face it – you don’t measure up…. Get over it!
You don’t measure up.
You don’t measure up.
Admit it…. And be free!
Home from the Pacific Ocean. The real world.
![Cover of "Fracture [Blu-ray]"](https://i0.wp.com/ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51Qgp8gpIzL._SL300_.jpg "Cover of \"Fracture [Blu-ray]\"")
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