Parenting

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Stay Connected For Your Sake and For Theirs

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Self-Care Tip – Stay connected for your sake and for theirs.

We have all seen “kids” who stop talking.  Driving by, their faces in the car window a little strained, their bodies postured away, maybe their hand fisted under their chin.  Their parents lost their chance.  Whatever they now want their kids to do, they’ve lost more than their authority.  As have the kids.  The kids lose out on having their parents voice in their lives.

It is the same with us in the world.  When the world stops speaking to us, we lose our influence.  When we stop speaking to the world, the world stops listening.  We loose our voice.  People won’t listen when we want them to.

Some of us may not be in that place now, but there will come a day when we want the world to care what we say.  I’m not talking just about leaving a legacy, or having people care about what we’re going through when we are in crisis.  This includes all the other times of life.  The in-process times.

When we are angry at whoever graffitied our neighborhood.  When we survive prejudice.  When we share our child with the world.  We want to have a voice.

And if we stop speaking, we will lose.  If we don’t respect the opportunity to connect, if we don’t treat it as the treasure that it is, not only will the world miss out on the “Me,” we miss out on the world at large.  It goes both ways.

We have a choice.  Get friendly with yourself.  Speak.  Listen.  Connect.

Question:  When have you wanted to be heard?  How does it affect your life to be connected?  Please tell me your story.

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Don’t Waste Your Time. Do Your Thing.

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Self-Care Tip #101 – Don’t waste your time if you don’t have to on things you aren’t good at.

Ben is almost 16 years old.  His parents are happy because he’s not as depressed, more interactive and more interested in connecting with others.  They came with him to see me.  Ben gets easily overwhelmed trying to tell me about himself and his parents often interject to help him out.

Ben’s parents are parents to admire.  Patient and clear-sighted regarding values and presence.  I’ve caught my breath more than once in the company of their comfortable regard and affection for their disabled children.  (Ben’s sister also suffers from mental retardation.)

During clinic, Ben struggled to tell me he was bothered and stressed by the school staff pressing him to learn things he didn’t care about.  He lost his words over the bits about how it related to his self-esteem and looked at him mom.

Mom told me Ben doesn’t care about some of the topics he’s taught and he gets sad and anxious when he thinks about it.  He’s embarrassed by it because he doesn’t finish as quickly as others and misses some of his lunch time.

I’m not a high school educator but I still told Mom and Dad that they can feel more confident advocating for Ben’s interests and needs with his teachers.  Ben will excel more in areas he is interested in.  He will find more pleasure in them.  He will be more empowered emotionally.  He will  be more ready for his adulthood needs.

The pressure many of us grew up with to be good at everything, is bogus.  We shouldn’t.  What we should do, is be good at what we are talented at.  We should be good at what we are interested in.  In fact, be shameless about it.  I spoke about this in the post “Do What You Were Designed to Do,” amongst others if you want to read more.

Ben with his parents looked at me with something of relief.  They had “permission” to do what they wanted.  The rest is mostly a waste of time.

Question:  What has opened you up to doing what you want to do in life?  What has that done for you?  Please tell me your story.

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It’s Not All Good

 

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Self-Care Tip # 100 – Don’t forget what you know to be true, when other people don’t keep up with your learning curve.

You have finally started to understand that You take care of you.  You bought into that when you do, you can do more of what you want to do for others.  You believe that the responsibility to be healthy in mind and body starts and ends with the “Me.”  Isn’t that wonderful?  Yes.  Don’t forget it when other people don’t keep up.

Cynthia was on a self-awareness high.  She saw through open eyes her neglected self.  She was astounded looking at her thrashing person giving her last bit of stuff to the jobs she infrequently satisfied.  Instead of feeling defeated, however, she now felt empowered.  She was so ready!

It went well for a time.  Her husband noticed, approved, commended, and encouraged her.  They talked about it.  Her kids, reluctantly let go of her legs so she could leave to exercise.  At work, she personalized less and was not as interested in office politics – contented to do her own job.  Then it slowly started.  People started resenting her for it.  Her peers starting making jabs.  The kids would climax and tantrum just as she was about to leave to exercise.  But what really surprised her, and not in a good way, was when her husband got upset.  Not a lot.  But enough that the guilt she had talked down seized the opportunity to multiply.  It was like gremlins.  When the guilt gets wetted like that, it multiplies!

Doing what is right is not always celebrated.  Cynthia is working through that now and every day, as it is for you and me, she is finding the courage to get past that.

Question:  What has surprised you good or bad in your journey towards self-care?  What have you needed the most courage for?  Please tell me your story.

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Getting Away From All-Or-None Thinking

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Self-Care Tip #98 – Getting out of all-or-none thinking may mean getting medical help.

Number five on Bella’s list:

“The day has been ruined!” Bella said.  Her eyes sparkled and flashed as she spoke of her injury.  Bella was not so pleased with her labor’s reward.  She was not so satisfied with being accountable for her children‘s behaviors, when they thwarted her every effort at having a good family experience.

A reader eloquently commented what I now want to write on my mirror, about her walk through and away from all-or-none thinking:

..really only part of my day was ruined – the part when I was hurt or angry or frustrated or depressed, etc. – and, even then, only PART of me was totally miserable. I was still able to think about other things, get things done around the house, talk to a family member or friend. It’s really calming to know that I can hurt and still function because there are so many pieces of me and my life that are still okay. Suddenly, everything seems to be easier to deal with.

In an earlier post, “Adequate,” we talked about the truth being in the gray.  As my Dad so often told me,

Things are never as bad as they seem.

I had a hard time believing that at times when I was a kid, and now that I’m old-er 😉 I buy it cognitively but find I often doubt is at an emotionally intuitive level.  However, things do get much much much better for all of us after good sleep, exercise, water, and if medically needed, medication.

All-or-none thinking, extreme thinking, catastrophizing isn’t just about coping skills.  It can also be about our medical condition.  It’s very difficult to modulate emotions when you are emotionally ill.  I’ve heard so many confounded people say that they just couldn’t stop themselves from going into extreme emotions.  They struggled with reactions way past what the experience warranted.

A kid doesn’t listen to words and Dad is kicking a hole in the door.

A couple argues over levels of intimacy and the girl finds herself in the bathroom with a cutting tool.

Work is another day of punitive treatment by an employer with lesser intelligence and she’s vomiting up food.

In these examples, we reflexively coddle the person, saying, “Anyone would be upset if….”  However that is not true entirely.  Enabling someone’s illness is easy to do.  Bad things happen to everyone.  But not everyone responds in a way that is repeatedly unhealthy to themselves.

In order to treat ourselves well, we need to take care of our physical/biological/medical needs.  Say hypothetically that we are getting our sleep, and all that good stuff, yet still have involuntary inappropriate extreme emotions, think about an organic reason.  Give yourself a break.

I have told my Dad, “True, things are never as bad as they seem, but only as long as you get out of their current seeming-reality.”  Getting out of that reality, may mean getting medical help.

Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  How do you stay “adequate?”  Please tell me your story.

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Walk Away From Your Junk

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Number one on Bella’s List:

There are endless new beginnings.  Had a bad day?  Stop right where you are and call-it out.  Then if you want to, if you are willing, if you are able you can start again.

But who is able?  Anyone who wants.  Even the severely disabled can say at some level that they want to end the hurt.  New beginnings are a privilege.  They are the dandelions we pluck and make a wish on.  It reminds me of when Jesus,

walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

The people were trying to push him over the cliff and they just plane didn’t see him walk among them and away.  We do that sometimes with our “start-over” opportunities.

There’s an interplay of forces that make our new beginning possible or impossible.

  • Humility – a willingness to learn.
  • Biology – a physical ability to stop, drop and roll the fire that’s scorching our emotions
  • Insight
  • Choice – choose it

Bella told me more of her story.  After she said, “The day has been ruined!,” her husband took them all to the table.  He told the kids, “Mom’s right.  The day is ruined.  Now who wants to start over?”  And then they all prayed for a new start.  They walked away from the junk.

Self-Care Tip #93 – Start over any time, every time you want.  Be a friend to yourself.

Question:  Do you find this to be true for you?  Is it a real option to start-over when you want?  Please tell me your story.

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    Bella’s List – Tell Me Your Thoughts

     

     

    “The day has been ruined!” Bella said.  Her eyes sparkled and flashed as she spoke of her injury.  Bella was not so pleased with her labor’s reward.  She was not so satisfied with being accountable for her children‘s behaviors, when they thwarted her every effort at having a good family experience.

    Five pieces to Bella’s puzzle:

    1. endless new beginnings
    2. victim or what?
    3. our reward
    4. accountability in parenting
    5. all-or-none catastrophizing

     

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    There are many approaches to these provocations but I’ll tell you mine – a blend of others.  There’s a lot in Bella’s list.  Let’s take the next few days to explore them.  I’m not sure how long I’ll be interested in these topics but that’s the plan for now!

    In the mean time, it would be GREAT! to hear from you.  Please tell me your thoughts on any or all of these.

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    Your Heroic Self – Waiting For Normal

    Self-Care Tip #82 – Have courage to go for what is lovely to you in life.  Be a friend to yourself.

    Pretty, blond, about 5’6″, slender, in her 30’s, mother and wife, no funny shapes or movements but Britt still asked me, “Am I normal?”  It takes guts to ask someone that.

    I just finished this heart-squeezing book, “Waiting For Normal,” by Leslie Connor.  (Yes!  I finally read a book!  It took me 5 times as long but it was no less pleasurable.)  Connor tells us about pre-teen Addie who grew up on the waves of her bipolar mom’s chaos, salvaging bits of wreckage along the way to survive.  Addie is the life-preserver her mom uses for life.  Addie’s own buoy through it all is her hope of one day finding normalcy.  She uses all her smarts to avoid the thrust her mom’s messes force on her.  It requires her full attention.  Addie must have looked pressed for something because her Mom finally asked her

    What’s so special?  What are you chasing after?!

    Addie was fisting optimism when she answered

    I’m not chasing after anything.  I’m waiting.  Waiting for normal.

    Later Addie explains to her mom

    Normal is when you know what’s gonna happen next.  Not exactly what because probably nobody gets that.  But normal is being able to count on certain things.  Good things.  And it’s having everyone together – just because they belong that way.

    My son used to have shaggy hair with curls that flew at the world around him.  He came home the other day and told me he wanted it short.  I finally figured out that because none of the other boys in his class had longer hair, neither should he.  He showed me pictures of what his hair should look like.  The whole process was too cute.

    We are all looking for normal.

    Putting aside defining normal, for now I am content to just contemplate the largeness of the effort to find it.  The journey, the process, the coming into such a thing reveals the beauty in one’s character and essence.  It is that, rather than the “hair-cut” that makes me say, “Wow!”

    When Britt, my patient, strove towards her health and normalcy, her intent in context was lovely.  She seemed to me, in those moments we shared together, as one of the great heroes of our day.  A woman of courage.

    Self-Care Tip #82 – Have courage to go for what is lovely to you in life and appreciate the beauty in your heroic self.  Be a friend to yourself.

    Question:  Have you struggled with the question, “Am I normal?”  Please tell me your story.

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    Taking Care of Yourself Is Not Selfish

    The line between self-care and self-centeredness is a thin line.  We are part of the narrative.  We are not the narrative.

    I’ve got some heat lately folks for talking about “Me” in a way that excludes the import of “You.”  How does anyone talk about the importance of the self without sounding seriously arrogant, disinterested in others, egocentric, ungrateful and rude?  Clearly it’s a learning process.  That’s something of what I’m hoping will evolve this year as we journey together.  Please let me know what you think on this subject.

    I was very excited about having a morning to myself today and had built up a storybook page turning space of time for me.  However my night went bad, and like opening the oven door too soon with the bread still rising, I just didn’t get up well.  Partly in denial that the day was already slipping away, I kept going towards my hopes.  The clock sped up and I finally got out the door with the kids buckled to where they needed to go.  And then I realized I forgot my computer and phone.  Not so easy to work without those.

    I live in the hills and although I’m not far from street lights and normal trafficked buildings, getting between me and them takes me through many blind 25 mph corners, steep hills over narrow roads.  Today I felt like I got caught in those hills.  My mom-van felt off-balance and the tight corners treated my tires cruelly.  I went back home to get my computer and back down to town finally.

    I had great intentions for today.  However, I got stuck and stuck again.  That is what it can be like when we try to treat ourselves well.  It can feel like the roads swallow us up and we just can’t get there.

    As my husband says, “That’s how it rolls!”

    Question:  How do you see self-care differently from self-centeredness?  Please tell me your story of friendship.

    Self-Care Tip #77 – Don’t get confused.  Taking care of yourself is not selfish.  Be a friend to yourself.

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    You Are Ink + Water

    THE SUCCESS OF OUR HEALTH – EMOTIONAL, PHYSICAL, SPIRITUAL – BEGINS AND ENDS WITH “ME.”

    Being responsible for what we do now is not the same as being responsible for what has happened to us or is happening to us.

    How to tell someone who suffered abuse that they are responsible for themselves?  How to tell a child of an OCD mom, that his adult self, is responsible for his emotional health?  How about someone living in poverty?  How about a victim of natural disaster?

    …A parent whose child died before they did?

    My dad tells me, no parent should live longer than their own child.  In 1993, in Mogadishu, Somalia, the US state department sent him to find a hospital that was usable as a service, not in anticipation of war.  There were essentially no hospitals.  Stripped, robbed of wood used to burn, hocked copper wiring, and a spirit of “every one for himself” sat in place of hospital supplies.  Dad had met with some tribe elders to try to conciliate, but without effect.  Before he knew it, it was war.

    There was one hospital he found with 2 operating theaters and some recovery beds.  He joined the French nurses who were still there.  Working around the clock, he was Mogadishu’s only surgeon for that first week.  He walked out to a mile of bodies spread outside the hospital.  He chose who would be taken in to the operating room versus who would not and what that meant.  There was no anesthesia for hundreds of amputations.  Life expired without many theatrics.  Three weeks later, and after other surgeons had come, they evacuated him.  He came back to manicured bushes, telephone wires, paved roads.

    After surviving the Vietnam war, 40 plus years of medical practice, and participating in treatment for many people who have died over many years, it is Somalia‘a open album that stays in Dad’s thoughts.  He sees the faces of parents shrouding their children.  He tells me as if I’d forget, “I can’t say enough about how I loved the people!”

    Although Dad shared these traumas, he must claim his health.  The grieving parents likewise.  This is not to say, “Get over it.”

    There is so much bad stuff affecting us, that it makes it easy to not take responsibility for our own selves.  But, the success of our health – emotional, physical, spiritual – begins and ends with “Me.”

    Don’t give up or get over or go at “It” alone.  Buying in to being a friend to yourself, does not mean giving up on your other friends, including God, family, your beliefs, your assistance.  It does not mean erasing your history.  It does not mean starting over.  It means joining all these things.  It means being ink in the water, everywhere in your story.

    So, here you are.  (Clang, cling, Chicka-Chicka Boom Boom!)  Can you still hear yourself?  You must!  I must!  Our health begins and ends with “Me.”

    Self-Care Tip #74 – Be your story.  Be a friend to yourself.

    Question:  Have you done this?  Do you relate?  Please tell me your thoughts.

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    The Price of Manure

    In yesterday’s post I asked “What has happened in the space between you and the ones you love?”  A reader responded,

    Think of being loved but not being able to be touched. …Rituals above spontaneity. Of having Lysol applied to everything you touch. Lysol applied to children’s legs and shoes. Not being able to hug your kids after work until after a bath and your inside-clothes on. The tirades. Most things literal and not humorous. Any cabinet or freezer needing to be as stuffed as possible.
    As a young person it seemed very personal and hurtful. …All the lost years….  After all those years now on the mend.

    It doesn’t matter how old we are, it takes courage to live.  There are many astounding parts of this story, but today I draw attention to “the lost years.”

    I don’t know if any of you readers saw the episode last week from the musical comedy, Glee.  It irreverently tossed together a potato salad of high impact emotions.  (Delicious potato salad!)  The best part was as usual the great Jane Lynch.  That woman is brilliant.  She shows us anger, resentment, and personalization through spitting words.  She contrasts this against her thick velvet love for her older disabled sister. Sue Sylvester (Lynch’s on-screen character) has festered the insults she absorbed on her sister’s behalf, ever since she first realized her sister was different.  It was only until her sister, with a still-waters affect told Sue that she didn’t care what others said about her.  Her disabled sister was whole inside.  Sue started to heal too.

    Being present with our dark history, can summarily be our gain.  Especially if in the end we found love, became connected with our journey and with others, and forgave.  It becomes rather an education of sorts.

    When I was struggling with my ambivalence about vocational choices, my dad told me, “Education is never a loss.”  I plunged forward with that as a talisman.  

    Education is never a loss.  Even our school of suffering?  Look at it as a currency of sorts.  It’s all perspective.  Even manure helps you know.  We had to pay $100 the other day for a truckload of chicken-poo for our farm trees.

    Self Care Tip #73 – Find the value in your suffering.  Be a friend to yourself.

    Question:  Do you agree or not?  Please tell me your story.

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    Down With Guilt!

    Down with guilt, I say!  Let that mighty tree be felled and burnt and each season that brings up new creepers into life again – let them be taken down!  Guilt!  How many times it has weakened us.  A sickness, that ebbs the energy and confuses the mind.  Often unrelated to deed or intent, in comes the uninvited guest.  As in Mansfield Park, guilt is our own Henry Crawford courting Fanny Price.  He may dress well – in church attire, in a business suit, or in a child who thinks she should spend more time with grandma.

    Like lucifer’s apple, guilt brings knowledge that can’t be trusted.  Swallow it and you’ll be looking for fig leaves.  See if any good will come of guilt.  I dare you.  See when you plant it, what will grow.  See when you hide it, how you are tethered.  Let it educate you and notice that you grow smaller.

    Today a friend asked me how things were.  I remembered yesterdays.  Wonderful with sunny emotions.  A collection of connected moments.  I wanted to say something about them.  I was looking in at a shop window.  Chocolates on the shelves behind the glass.  But remembering today, I was denied.

    I yelled from my darkened face.  And then I yelled again.  That was the morning.  Then the kids went to school and I went to work.  What a way to walk.  I thought of this and out popped:

    I yelled at the kids which I hated, but I don’t hate myself.

    It even surprised me.  Saying that to my friend, let me realize that today wasn’t an all-or-none parenting moment.  Many earlier days that began much the same weren’t so forgiving.  And because I didn’t forgive myself so easy, I didn’t forgive others so easy.  The anger chases it’s ratty tail, you know until Guilt tires him out.

    Because I didn’t spend the day guilty, the afternoon and evening had a chance.  Down with guilt!  Up with new chances!  Hooray!

    Self Care Tip #68 – Take the new chance!  Be a friend to yourself.

    Question:  How have new chances redeemed you?  Please tell me your story.

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    Our Changing Reality

    She had been gone for 3 months helping her mother transition from life to death.  However, instead of it being a melancholic experience, she felt better than she had since a time she couldn’t calendar.  Back when she had a respect for herself.  Back when she had youth, she had hope, she believed in a generous future.

    I had no way of knowing what it was like for me until I left the situation.

    Reality is only as real as our perspective.  She came back to a new perspective and her reality changed.  She saw an impoverished life.  She saw need to stop waiting for the better of future’s promises.  She saw disrespect when caring for her disabled daughter and emotionally abusive husband.  She hated disrespecting herself.  She felt this and she rebelled inside.  Holding back her furry with the flimsy lid of guilt-glue.  She cried.  She had just let her mother go and feeling good about letting her daughter and husband go now embarrassed and shamed her.  But there it was.  The thought she hadn’t thought before.  Reality had changed.

    I’m told that it is bad for a counsellor to tell someone specifically what to do.  Turns out that my job includes some counseling.  I ran into a former patient today at a coffee shop.  She saw me typing on my computer and learned about this blog.

    But you do meds!

    Apparently sometimes I’m not that great of a counselor.  Or maybe I am if she didn’t realize I was, with her, all along.

    I had to stop and say hello!  I’ve missed you!

    (Whew!)

    Today, I kept thinking about the way reality changes when we let our perspective get some air.

    This daughter/mother/wife will never be the same woman she was before she left for 3 months.  She didn’t know.  And now she did.  She can’t stuff that knowledge.  She can’t disappear it.  She is left with a knowledge.  Is it better?  I think so.

    We played with options as we talked.  A window opened in the room and a breeze came through called hope.  That was lovely to share with her and I am grateful.

    Maybe when with determined labor we are trudging on in life, we might think of this.  With this memory, we could more willingly accept the urge to walk away just to see for a time.  Maybe a knowing, that we were missing, will come and change us.

    Self Care Tip #67 – We might be in a different reality if we walk away.  Be a friend to yourself.

    Question:  What has your own experience been?  Please tell me your story.

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    There is Room In Our Wanting Selves

    Having another child born, our hearts somehow open up and make more love, more space where things once seemed crowed up like hobos in a boxcar.  Our time and energy does that too.  Feeling like you can’t do another thing by 6 PM?  Feeling like watching TV on the couch is an accomplishment at that point?  I’m telling you that this changes.  Do what you want.  You may not realize it yet but you want something special.  You want something that you were designed to do.   When you discover what that is, activity becomes joyful, congruent with your inner self.  Somehow there is more room in your day.  More energy that comes with no strings attached.

    My husband just came home from a tech conference.  He was told by famous Silicon Valley junkies, while sitting in an audience of other wannabe’s, “Don’t do a startup.  You’ll fail.”  It was a secondary message that returned intermittently – unless you can’t sleep at night because you need to solve a problem – if you are trying to do a startup company for any other reason than for your own sanity, you won’t make it.  These people were doing what they were doing because they felt like it was their life’s nectar.  It was their pearl of great price.  Their efforts were fueled by their own genetic design.

    In medical school, I used to look around me confused by the obvious natural positive responses of other students.  I looked at myself and thought I was a fake.

    I looked at them and thought, “There’s the real thing.  I wonder what it feels to be the real thing.”  I know.  Sad huh?  Ah well.  Turns out I’m a flaming extrovert.  I get energy from being with people.  Being alone takes energy from me.  Wether it happens slowly or quickly, either way eventually I have to resurface and connect with someone to re-tank.  Every day when I sat down to study, I felt alone, energy sucked out of me, the ground was going to swallow me up.  And I did it still.  Ground through my long hours long enough to make it to where I belonged.  With you in psychiatry :).

    Here’s the news.  We are all “The real thing!”  Yah!  We have our own greatness.

    I’m not talking about opportunity to reach that greatness.  Some of that we are given and some of that we make.  I’m just ringing our bells with the idea.  If you want to read more about this, read the blog posts on temperaments.

    Question:  Are you doing what you want?  Please tell me your story.

    Self Care Tip #64 – There is room in your wanting self for more.  Be a friend to yourself.

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    Claim Your Brain

    My mind, like rusted gears, was not moving well.  It hadn’t been really since my 1st pregnancy 8 years ago.  There are few things that dumb us down as much as pregnancy and children!   Hormone changes, lack of sleep, fluctuating from 145-200-145 pounds three times, and then the subsequent growing beloveds around me to contribute to mental dissociation.  Simple sensory overload from talking, yelling, crying, petitioning, inquiring kids factors in.  You may read more about sensory issues here.

    Daily writing, like a staunch governess, found my brain under cobwebs, bug carcasses, and musty stench.  (Hello old friend!  There you are!)  This helps to explain the joy gripping my hand, like girlfriends on the playground, when I sit down to write!  The world is active to me, including rather than excluding me. My in-between moments used to hang like an old woman’s breasts.   Now much more time full of nourishing thoughts bless me.  I am in awe.

    My patient came in sighing deeply.  He wasn’t better.  No, he said.  He lacked motivation and interest and connection from the world.  He felt selected out to suffer.  A dumping ground for misfortune and misunderstood.  Efforts through medication, after medication changes were like looking for love in all the wrong places.

    We talked about cognitive distortions, tapping into things that used to make him happy, road-blocks in poorly designed neurological grooves – volunteering at the library or animal shelter, journaling, sharing his life story with others, exploring his spirituality.  No.  No good.  Nor could he consider psychotherapy as he’d been through too much of it already to consider it again.  And he just couldn’t get interested in groups such as through NAMI.

    His brain, assaulted by stressors, disease, and disuse was growing silent.

    Being a friend means yelling, fighting to reclaim your journey, finding something to connect you to your process of life.  My patient was letting squatters take his property simply by being absent.

    Self Care Tip #60 – Claim your right to health.  Be a friend to yourself.

    Question:  What has helped you connect with your own journey in life?  What do you think?  Please tell me your story.

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    How I Feel About You

    Sorry folks.  Not much of a writer today.  My dog is sick sick.  I’m distracted.  My daughter got upset.  “Mommy, you love Maggie more than you love me!”  Huh?

    We’re in the middle of a garage conversion and our contractor said his 14 year old daughter wrote him a letter when he had his 3rd child.  “Dad, I know now that you have another baby you won’t be able to spend time with me any more….”

    Readers, my dog is sick but that doesn’t change how I feel about you.  (Smile.)

    Sleep well.

    by

    Sensory Overload

    crying-baby

    Image by bbaunach via Flickr

    Sensory overload.  There are some neurodevelopmental disorders that cause heightened sensory awareness.  People might need to brush their arms to be desensitized to the sense of touch.  Or use a vibrating toothbrush or wear shades even with little to moderate light.  I hear most about the senses of touch and hearing from my patients who will hit their head, scratch themselves, or do other self-injurious behaviors to self soothe.

    Hearing about these people might feel like you are far removed.  However, many of the general population have some sensory issues although to a lessor degree.  These things come out when we are tired.  When we have multiple emotional stressors.  When we feel trapped or overextended.  It is linked to anxiety and so we may notice tension crawling up our skin or into our throats.  If we could escape we would.  Some people can push through this and make it until a window opens.  Some people end up reacting.

    Today I found myself squinting more.  My energy was low and I yawned a lot during clinic which is rude.  My inner milieu had a lot to do with what I was bringing to the table and little to do with what was happening to me or around me.  However, there I was, a player in life.  I did my best.  And then the sound level started going up.  It felt like my skin was lifting up and contracting all at once.  Sound travels so it followed me around the house.  Before I had to put a dollar in the family money jar, I remembered my ear-plugs.  Ah.  Things went down a notch.  I could cope better.

    Self soothing.  Babywise by Gary Ezzo and Dr. Robert Bucknam, the much disputed early parenting book, tells new-by’s that babies need to learn to self sooth.  Parents are advised to let their babies cry at night until they quiet down, rather than pick them up and sooth them externally.  Thus teaching  a baby that they can’t use Mom or Dad as a sleep prop.

    Many of us even as adults struggle with self soothing.  Awareness of what is bothering us helps.  Getting that awareness might be a deliberate effort or it might come effortlessly.  Either way, knowing what is the trigger helps to know how to respond.  Anyone can describe a time in their life when this didn’t happen and they tried to self sooth in a way that was hurtful to themselves or someone else.

    Whatever the feelings are, whatever the stressor, self soothing should be something simple, easy and fairly obvious.  Today, I was surprised at how much better I parented with ear-plugs in place!

    “Mommy, why are you wearing earplugs?”…

    Question:  What do you think?  Agree or disagree?

    Self Care Tip #32 – Self sooth simply.  Be a friend to yourself.

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    Fear

    I dropped my kids off today.  All of them.  We had been very happy about this.  After laboring towards patient parenting for 7 years, I was also looking forward to today.  I’d never had all three out of the house at once, and the strangle squeeze on my insides grabbed me by surprise.

    We used to have this black cat when I was a kid who would hide in our plants.  In the middle of the night when I’d occasionally wake up and go to the kitchen to get a drink, she’d jump out at me with her claws.  While walking today between preschool, kindergarten, and 2nd grade, life jumped.  What left me breathless was how easy it was to get rid of my kids.  Appropriately by social standards.  School you know.  They’re doing what they need to do.  And just like that, if I wanted, they could be mostly gone.  I suddenly felt how it could happen to us, easy like that.  Like a body returning to dust.  My spirit, my soul, my essence yelled a loud “Wait!”

    My reaction can be confused by some as a hidden desire.  Sure, I acknowledge the obvious need for parents, including yours truly, to get space from their kids. But that wasn’t the slap I felt.  It was fear.

    I’ve treated many mothers, but one in particular comes to mind.  She voluntarily admitted herself to the hospital because she was afraid she would hurt her baby.  She wasn’t fantasizing about it.  She was having specific vivid imaginings that cut into her consciousness.  After enough of those, she lost confidence in herself and hid.  She confused these day-terrors with a fear that they were really some unconscious desire she didn’t understand.  Common for panic disorder.  It is the medical disease that historically gave us the phrase of “I feel like I’m going crazy!” With medication therapy she returned to a capable woman who trusted herself.

    Have you ever noticed that in the Bible, whenever God or an angel is talking, they almost always start out by saying, “Fear not for I am with you,” or some version of that?  I didn’t, until my kids came home from Vacation Bible School 2 years ago, and the refrain for the week was “Fear Not!”  They still scream it at each other with glee.  I love that about God.

    However when I hear that Bible verses or prayer or God should make us overcome fear, I am more than bored.  I’m angry.  Fear comes for many reasons.  It isn’t a spiritual thermostat.

    Today I did several things to deal with my fear.  I cried.  I prayed.  I went to work.  I felt better.  However, my patient did not feel better after doing those things.  What should God have done for her fear?  I knew that she came to my hospital.  I knew that what she felt were symptoms of a medical illness affecting her human brain.  I knew that medications could play a part in helping her.  Maybe that came from God.

    Question: What do you think? Agree? Disagree?

    Self Care Tip #31 – Fear not!  Be a friend to yourself.

    by

    The Paradox

    On my mind today are the unfortunate kids I have seen in clinic. One in particular whom I have treated for several years. I now realize the horror of his situation. I’m angry at myself because I have treated him for this long and didn’t realize till last week in clinic that he was being trafficked. I now understand that other kids I work with are also. He’s suffering emotional neglect in his home. It looks like his family despises him. Last week I told his Mom that I wouldn’t see them again in clinic if she didn’t go to parenting classes. I’ve also been recommending regularly that he go to a group home until things get better. I finally heard the reason that for years, she has refused. She said, “If he goes to a group home, we’re going to be homeless.” Ouch. She and hers are living on the government support they get for “taking care” of him.

    Upset, I told my husband about this form of child trafficking and he said he’s seen something similar in his profession. Whole families become homeless once their mother (government supported), dies. They don’t want her to die. It’s not the same though similar. It would be more similar if they were neglecting or abusing their mother while “taking care” of her through the dying process. That probably happens too in other families.

    To make matters more complicated, I found out from my nurse, that now the government requires the families to pay part of the group home placement to offset the costs. And if CPS is called, they just ignore it. She cited one case when CPS was called 13 times, each time stating that there was insufficient evidence. Apparently the funding to CPS has also been cut down significantly.

    Today in my son’s church school after collecting offering, the teacher prayed, “May this money go to help all the children who need You around the world.” I found my prayers were for these people. A handful of coins and dollars to help. And prayer.

    My husband‘s friend, Emilio Russ, quit his work a couple of years ago and went to the Philippines to fight child trafficking. He started a home and school for those prostituted and enslaved kids – “My Refuge House.” When he came back with his pregnant wife and 3 kids, he didn’t have a job. But they were uncomplaining and loud mouthed with praise and hope. Many months later, my husband’s friend has a job and those kids in the Philippines still have their home and school. Wow!

    Madeline L’Engle, says that we’ve forgotten how to walk on water. I’ve seen skeeters do it and I don’t think it’s that many steps away from me being able to do it. But I’ve forgotten how somehow.

    “Madeleine L’Engle understands that real art is only created when the artist gets out of the way and allows himself to be worked through, which, paradoxically, requires work on the artist’s part.”

    — AIDAN GRANO

    These states of horrible suffering call for something amazing to happen. All great work, even on our own selves allows for what I call magic. Magic of letting go, but at the same time giving all your passion and muscle. I am angry at myself for not seeing what is around me. I think in this case, that is the beginning or maybe the continuation of something magical in me. I plan on getting my water feet yet.

    Self Care Tip #15 – Embrace the paradox. Be a friend to yourself.