It Isn’t Our Fault: Being in Love with a Narcissist

Note: Although I share thoughts from personal experience and refer to the narcissist as male, narcissism is not discriminatory.

Maybe you are feeling a desperate need to try and salvage a relationship you intuitively know is unhealthy and imbalanced; or maybe you are wondering why you can’t “let go” and “move on” from the loss of your relationship. It’s possible that you are in love with a narcissist, and now owning the blame for all the sudden problems or downfall. A narcissist is someone who will enter our life and consume our entire existence all for selfish benefit. Understanding the whirlwind and accepting the finality of a relationship with a narcissist will show that we possess tremendous value.

We are smart and confident, so why did we allow ourselves to fall for the narcissist?

He is too skilled to reveal any red flags when we first meet him. He is drawn to our beauty, kindness, and selfless nature because of his own emptiness. The narcissist will be attentive, generous, and impressive, at first. He will charm us with compliments on every small detail giving us attention with such intensity that we believe he is our “soul mate.”

Enchanting promises will be made that make us feel alive and invincible, and he will spend exorbitant amounts of time with us. We will quickly be mesmerized and feel so exhilarated, adored, loved, and then…

Almost instantaneously, the relationship will twist.

Time together will dwindle leaving us confused and craving any small amount of attention from him. We try to connect and share our accomplishments, but he will minimize our effort and make us feel inconsequential. We try to look beautiful for him, but the attention is gone. Intimate moments will leave us feeling used and insignificant.

The partner that once made us feel like royalty is now making us feel insecure and needy. The partner who was affectionate is now a stranger. The narcissist has taken our power to feed his own warped ego.

Why are we hanging on to this relationship?

Our emotions felt heightened so intensely and quickly, and in a blur the table turned leaving our head spinning. We now feel blindsided, angry, and betrayed. It’s almost as though our heart couldn’t catch up with our brain quick enough to understand. So, we are left constantly questioning what went wrong.

We no longer feel a connection to him and wonder if the person devoid of all emotion is the same person we love. We fear the happiness we remember was just a fabrication in our mind. The narcissist has robbed a piece of our soul and we desperately want it back. This is a deeply confusing and emotional process because intellectually, we thought we knew better.

We are assertive and attempt to resolve these relationship issues, but he is so adept at projecting and leading us to believe whatever happened is our fault.

Simply questioning the narcissist will cause him to push further away and punish us with the silent treatment. Being ignored feels so horrid that we will forget why we were upset with him and apologize emphatically to try and win his forgiveness. He preys on this kind of attention, and is incapable of recognizing any personal fault. Our self-esteem has plummeted and our self-respect has diminished.

The narcissist will not show awareness or remorse for the imposed hurt so we assume the downfall was our fault.

We have become so intertwined in making this person happy that we will exhaust and lose ourselves in the process. We start to question our own morals wondering if we deserve this abusive treatment. We start to feel obsessed with “fixing” what is broken in order to feel better, and the more our efforts are ignored, the more persistent we become. We question who this person is that we are chasing and start to feel “crazy” because nothing is changing. It’s a losing battle because after depleting all we can give he no longer has any use for us.

The inevitable downfall with a narcissist.

This relationship is bound to end when we are no longer a conquest and cannot fill the emptiness the narcissist feels inside. The ending feels so awful because we put all our energy and effort into pleasing someone who was never going to genuinely reciprocate, and is too self-absorbed to acknowledge our pain.

The partner we once trusted has completed the narcissistic cycle of abuse and needs to draw the energy and innocence from a new victim. He will end the relationship just as quickly and smoothly as it began, and the coldness and apathy leaves us feeling worthless. He will cut off contact so callously that we feel so defeated and want to curl into ball and disappear. But, this experience has not been in vein, and regardless of how painful the ending feels, it is a gift.

Accepting reality and moving on.

Being under the narcissist’s spell is not our fault and recovering from this will take time. The most important first step is to commit to “letting go.” There is nothing positive that will come from seeing him after all this inflicted damage. We need rebuild and empower ourselves from this experience.

Solicit support from trusted loved ones and make a plan for when there is temptation to reach out to him. Making this commitment will bring relief as the poison is released from our body, mind, and soul. The air will feel fresher and we will welcome healthy people and kindness into our life, slowly beginning to feel like ourselves again.

Overcoming this emotionally torturous experience will produce a stronger self and allow us to feel more attuned, perceptive, and emotionally intelligent. Let’s take the time to define our convictions, keep our heart open and full of courage, and we will find our way to the loving fulfillment we deserve.

Yeko Photo Studio/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/31/it-isnt-our-fault-being-in-love-with-a-narcissist/

Words of Hope for Anyone Struggling with Depression

One of the worst parts about depression — and there are certainly many — is that it robs you of hope. Hope that you’ll actually feel better. Hope that the darkness will lift. Hope that the emptiness will fill up and you’ll feel motivated and excited. Hope that it won’t be like this forever. Hope that you’ll get through it.

“I’ve been struggling with depression for almost 35 years,” said Douglas Cootey, who pens the award-winning blog A Splintered Mind. “In that time, I have often felt hopeless, usually during times of suicidal ideation…Depression has a way of warping our outlook so that we only notice the bleakest parts of the world.”

The darkness stops feeling like a lens that distorts your reality, and starts to become your reality, said John A. Lundin, Psy.D, a psychologist who specializes in treating depression and anxiety in adults, teens and children in San Francisco and Oakland, Calif.

“Depression often robs you of the memory of joy or happiness, so it becomes difficult to draw on happy memories to give one hope for the future,” Lundin said. Depression even makes hope seem foolish, like an illusion, he said.

Many people with depression aren’t able to articulate that they feel hopeless. Because doing so requires putting “words to an experience that just feels as real and encompassing as the air they breathe.” Saying you feel hopeless, Lundin said, can actually be a positive step. “[I]t holds the implication that hope is something that is possible.”

“Depression can be overwhelming,” said Cootey, also author of Saying No to Suicide: Coping Strategies for People Dealing with Suicidism and for the Loved Ones Who Support Them. “All those negative emotions are suffocating. This makes it difficult to believe that things will get better.”

Most of Rebecca Rabe’s clients say they’ve lost hope because they feel alone. They feel like no one understands what they’re going through. They feel like they can’t talk to anyone.

Loss of hope also might represent a loss of belief that you matter or that you can be loved, Lundin said. (This is something he works on with clients, helping them understand why they don’t feel adequate or lovable.)

What can you do when hope feels unfamiliar or impossible? What can you do when you’re in the middle of the storm?

Cootey stressed the importance of using a wide variety of coping strategies. “When I use my coping strategies to overcome depression, the next day isn’t a prison of more of the same. It’s a brand new day free of the sadness.”

Colleen King, LMFT, a psychotherapist who specializes in mood disorders and also has bipolar disorder, stressed the importance of having a treatment team and support system. This might include a therapist, doctor and several friends and family. Ask them to help you remember the times when you’ve felt better, she said. Ask them to “encourage you to be in the moment when you do experience temporary joy, even if it’s for a few minutes.”

Both King and Lundin suggested participating in activities that feel nourishing to your soul, activities that you love to do when you’re not depressed. Do them even if you don’t feel like it, King said. “You will most likely alter your mood at least a little bit, and [the activity] may be a welcome distraction from depression.” Plus, it helps to “arouse glimmers of hope that you can feel whole and healthy, again.”

It often feels like depression will last forever, King said. Which is why she also suggested placing prompts at home and work to remind yourself “that you are having a depressive episode and that it’s not a permanent state of being.”

Don’t underestimate the power of small steps. Rabe, LMFT, who specializes in treating children, teens and young adults with depression, anxiety and trauma, shared this example: She worked with a woman who was struggling with depression and complained about “not being able to do anything.”

They worked on tracking small but significant accomplishments and setting small goals. “For example, she would strive to check 10 things off her list. Sometimes just getting to therapy got her these 10 checks.” After all, getting to therapy is anything but trivial. It involves getting up, showering, getting dressed, driving to the office, making the appointment on time, talking in session and driving home, among other tasks. Her client also started reaching out to supportive loved ones (instead of isolating herself); taking walks; and writing in her journal—all of which has helped to diminish her depression and create a more positive outlook.

“I’ve been through the worst my mind can throw at me. I’ve felt the pain of suicidal depression,” Cootey said. “I’ve wished and even planned for my own death, yet I learned an important truth: Depression lies to us.” This is another reason it’s helpful to surround yourself with support: These individuals can help you see through the lies, he said.

“You do have worth. You will overcome this. You won’t be sad forever.”

There is always hope for someone struggling with depression, Rabe said. “People are resilient human beings, and they can do so much more than they think they’re capable of.”

Also, remember that “how hopeless you feel does not correlate to whether you can feel better,” Lundin said. Depression is an illness that extinguishes hope. It’s the nature of the disorder.

Thankfully, therapy and medication can help. So can participating in support groups. “Some depression requires a short treatment to work, and other takes a long time. But I have never met a patient who didn’t see significant progress if they stuck with it.”

If your therapist or doctor doesn’t seem to be helping, seek out new providers, King said. “Having a trusting and caring treatment team greatly assists with creating confidence and hope for the future.”

For people who don’t respond to therapy and medication, other treatments are available, such as transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), Lundin said.

With good treatment, effective and varied coping strategies and compassionate support, you can feel better. The heaviness gets lighter.  The world becomes brighter.

So no matter how hopeless you feel right now, please don’t throw away your shot. Hope and relief are not some foolish illusion. They are real. They are possible.

gor stevanovic/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/31/words-of-hope-for-anyone-struggling-with-depression/

The Psychology of Donald Trump & How He Speaks

Donald J. Trump will go down in American history as one of the most unusual politicians of all time. He is an enigma to everyone in the political establishment (and to much of America) as he continues his 2016 run for the American presidency.

What makes this Republican nominee tick? Why does Donald Trump speak the way he does, saying clearly outlandish things, then taking them back a day or two later? Let’s find out.

I’m not the first person who has had serious concerns about the mental health and stability of Donald Trump. Many others have commented on their concerns before me, especially about Trump’s apparent narcissism.

But I felt that these issues were best summarized in a short article to explain why these concerns exist in the first place. After all, when there’s a presidential election, a candidate’s mental health is usually not even a concern — much less the focus of the amount of media attention given to Trump during this presidential election season.

Does Trump Suffer from Narcissistic Personality Disorder?

Therapists, researchers, psychologists, and experts in mental health appear pretty consistent in their belief that Trump suffers from narcissistic traits consistent with Narcissistic Personality Disorder:

“Textbook narcissistic personality disorder,” echoed clinical psychologist Ben Michaelis. “He’s so classic that I’m archiving video clips of him to use in workshops because there’s no better example of his characteristics,” said clinical psychologist George Simon, who conducts lectures and seminars on manipulative behavior. […] “Remarkably narcissistic,” said developmental psychologist Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Maria Konnivoka, writing over at the Big Think over a year ago nicely summarized the evidence for Trump’s personality symptoms. But for a reminder, let’s look at the symptoms for this disorder one by one.

• Has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)
  Trump does this regularly, exaggerating every achievement of his. Remember when he proudly proclaimed he “knew” and was “friends” with Russia’s President Putin, then later acknowledged he had never even met him?
• Is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love
  Trump constantly proclaims how great everything he suggests he will do as president will be “fantastic” or “the greatest.” His entire business career appears focused on creating the impression that this is one successful, brilliant, power guy. But he’s actually been a pretty mediocre businessman according to most yardsticks.
• Believes that he or she is “special” and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)
  Trump bought and refurbished the 118-room, 20 acre, multi-million dollar estate called Mar-a-Lago in Florida, allowing him to associate with only those others who can afford the $100,000 membership fee and $14,000 in annual fees.
• Requires excessive admiration
  “All of the women on The Apprentice flirted with me – consciously or unconsciously. That’s to be expected,” said Trump at one point.
• Has a very strong sense of entitlement (e.g., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations)
  “I’m running against the crooked media,” said Trump. Trump apparently wants to eviscerate the First Amendment, arguing that Congress should “open up our libel laws” (making it easier for people to sue for libel). If someone prints or says something negative about Trump, he immediately attacks back (usually with a name-calling tweet).
• Is exploitative of others (e.g., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends)
  After 9/11, apparently Donald Trump — not a “small business” — took advantage of $150,000 in government funds to help small businesses. He’s also been accused of taking advantage of the tragic Orlando shooting and U.S. bankruptcy laws — exactly as you’d expect a billionaire to do.
• Lacks empathy (e.g., is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others)
  When a grieving U.S. Muslim mom and dad who lost their son during the Iraq war in 2004 appeared at the Democratic national convention to berate Trump for his proposal to ban all Muslims from entering the country, this was Trump’s tangential, non-empathetic response to their grief: “His wife … if you look at his wife, she was standing there. She had nothing to say. She probably, maybe she wasn’t allowed to have anything to say. You tell me.” (Or, look at the way he mocked a person with a disability.)
• Is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her
  While I’m certain Trump believes others likely envy him, there’s not as much support for this one: “One of the problems when you become successful is that jealousy and envy inevitably follow. There are people—I categorize them as life’s losers—who get their sense of accomplishment and achievement from trying to stop others” (p.59, Trump: The Art of the Deal).
• Regularly shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes
  Trump: “You know, it really doesn’t matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.” (Or, again, look at the way he mocked a person with a disability.)

How Trump Uses Indirect Speech

Trump is a master of speaking indirectly to whoever his audience is. This is when he doesn’t come out and explicitly say something, but rather simply implies it. Psychologists call this indirect speech and Trump excels in it.

Here are a few examples of it:

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

The implication is that Trump was asking a foreign power to intervene in a national election through illegal activity. He later walked it back — as he does nearly all of his indirect speech comments — by claiming he was “only joking.”

“Only joking” or “don’t you get sarcasm when you hear it?” are rationalizations used by others when they want to say something, but don’t want to stand up for what they said. It is the type of speech that psychologists see regularly used by cowards and bullies, not usually politicians or distinguished statesmen.

“If [Hillary Clinton] gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks… Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”

Most people took this to mean that Trump was calling for the “Second Amendment people” to “do something” about it. Later, Trump claimed he was only encouraging those folks to use their voting power, but many people took this comment to mean something more nefarious. “[…] Literally using the Second Amendment as cover to encourage people to kill someone with whom they disagree,” commented Dan Gross, the president of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, after he heard Trump’s comments.

Indirect speech has many benefits. By not saying what you mean, you encourage every listener to form their own opinion about what you intended. That means his supporters will hear one thing, while his detractors hear something completely different. If anything he says is taken the “wrong way” by too many people, he can simply negate it: “You misunderstood,” “Only joking,” “That was sarcasm.” It’s a perfect linguistic and psychological trick that Trump exquisitely deploys to his benefit. It allows plausible deniability for anything he says. This makes it very hard to pin him down on anything he says, much like trying to nail jello to a wall.

He’s had to walk back so many of his comments, people have lost track of the count. Just last week he claimed that President Obama and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent in the presidential race, were literally the “founders of ISIS,” the Islamic terrorist group that has its roots during the time of the Bush presidency:

“No, I meant he’s the founder of ISIS… I do. He was the most valuable player. I give him the most valuable player award. I give her, too, by the way, Hillary Clinton. … He was the founder. His, the way he got out of Iraq was that that was the founding of ISIS, okay?”

The next day, typical of Trump’s behavior, he took the comments back, after it became clear everyone knows he was lying about Obama’s “founding” status in ISIS. (President Obama, of course, had nothing to do with the founding of this terrorist organization based in the Middle East.)

Trump: Crafty Liar or Just Plain Bullshitter?

The other week, the Washington Post’s Fareed Zakaria had an insightful article about whether Trump’s constant lies are purposeful behavior in service of some ultimate goal, or are they simply symptoms of a “bullshit artist:”

[Princeton professor Harry] Frankfurt distinguishes crucially between lies and B.S.: “Telling a lie is an act with a sharp focus. It is designed to insert a particular falsehood at a specific point. . . . In order to invent a lie at all, [the teller of a lie] must think he knows what is true.”

But someone engaging in B.S., Frankfurt says, “is neither on the side of the true nor on the side of the false. His eye is not on the facts at all . . . except insofar as they may be pertinent to his interest in getting away with what he says.” Frankfurt writes that the B.S.-er’s “focus is panoramic rather than particular” and that he has “more spacious opportunities for improvisation, color, and imaginative play. This is less a matter of craft than of art. Hence the familiar notion of the ‘bullshit artist.’ ”

Trump — with his indirect speech patterns and ability to step back from any lie he tells — appears to be the consummate American bullshit artist.

And if he wins this presidential election, he will have shown that the American people will buy any line of B.S. it hears, as long as the person shelling it out is confident enough in the telling.

 

Reference

Lee, J. J., & Pinker, S. (2010). Rationales for indirect speech: the theory of the strategic speaker. Psychological Review, 117(3), 785.

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/31/the-psychology-of-donald-trump-how-he-speaks/

Vicarious Trauma: How Much More Can We Take?

Another week, another tragedy. It’s hard to take it all in, let alone make any sense of it.

How does bad news affect us?

We can all be affected by vicarious trauma. That is the “one step removed” trauma that didn’t actually happen to us directly, but which still affects us nonetheless.

Obviously, for the victims’ friends and relatives the effects are acute, but for the onlookers (also from the news, social media and the press) these events have a profound cumulative effect.

When experiencing physical or emotional trauma first- or secondhand, our brains are affected by the perceived threat to well-being.

We are affected not only by the shock and outrage, but also by the emotional tidal wave that accompanies a significant traumatic event.

This is registered in the emotional, or limbic, part of our brain, and we then try to give it a narrative story with which to file it away. The problem is that our mental filing cabinets are already overflowing with traumatic stories.

For those of us able to feel empathy and compassion for our fellow man, we then feel compelled to act, to alleviate suffering, and to get things back to normal.

However, when we understandably feel impotent in the face of such huge national and global threats and traumatic events — whether natural or man-made, one-off or repeated — our distress becomes compounded, and we can lapse into a ‘freeze’ state of emotional overwhelm, inertia and collapse.

One way we try to minimize the threat to ourselves is to create distance from the event, by rationalizing it.

We might say things such as ‘oh well, that’s their culture.’ ‘At least it’s not happening here in my country.’ ‘Stuff happens.’

When an atrocity affects one of us or our tribe who happens to be in a foreign land, in the wrong place at the wrong time, then that coping mechanism of distancing fails to protect us from the more personal ‘that could have been me’ impact of the trauma.

A highly significant factor which determines how much we are affected by trauma is our previous exposure to traumatic events in childhood.

If we’ve had an abusive and traumatic childhood, we then defend ourselves from the impact of further traumas by our emotional shutdown.

We needed this form of psychological self-defense years ago for our emotional and physical survival, but it limits us as adults. We’ve become overly sensitive and vulnerable to further emotional overwhelm.

Early childhood traumas will have set us up to have an oversensitive amygdala (part of our limbic brain area), which will be rapidly activated whenever the brain makes a new association with a perceived threat, physical or emotional overwhelm, or a victim/oppressor dynamic.

What can we do?

• We need downtime between major traumatic events so that we can regain our equilibrium and turn down the dial on our emotional reactivity.
• We need to convince ourselves that we are sufficiently safe and protected, which of course we never really are. The best we can hope for is ‘I’m safe right now.’
• Realize that it’s a balancing act between allowing ourselves to feel what we feel and still having our logical, rational brain functioning available to put things into context and perspective.
• Look at the statistics and probability factors which can help to reassure us. Impartial objective education also helps us to make some sense out of a traumatic event.
• If we can get a glimpse into the mindset and belief system of the perpetrator (no matter how bizarre and dysfunctional) we can at least see the ‘why’ behind their actions. Behaviors always have a reason, even if it’s hard to understand.
• We can rate the impact of an event, and use our cognitive brain functions to recalibrating our emotional brain. This rating scale would be based upon both the personal impact of a traumatic event and the wider impact upon society. The higher the impact, the more we need to self-soothe, find our inner resilience, and get ourselves ready to do something that helps our fellow man in whatever way we can.
• Share your feelings, particularly with close family and friends who will also be affected by the vicarious trauma, in a negative ripple effect.
• Grief can immobilize us and delay processing our trauma, so it’s important to talk things through with a professional if you are finding that your vicarious trauma feels overwhelming, or is reactivating your own traumatic memories from the past.

The big challenge to us all is how to feel safe in this unsafe world, and to keep ourselves calm and on an even keel in the violent storms that we must all navigate our way through.

Andrea Lea Chase/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/30/vicarious-trauma-how-much-more-can-we-take/

How 30 Minutes of Exercise Every Day Can Boost Mental Wellbeing

When we discuss the advantages of regular exercise, it’s usually the benefits to physical well-being that take centre stage, and for obvious reasons.

Most are aware that physical exertion can aid cardiovascular health and protect against a plethora of hypertensive conditions. These reasons, alongside wanting to lose weight and improve the way we look, are among the chief motivations for embarking on an exercise program.

But perhaps lesser known and lesser discussed are the benefits regular exertion can have on mental wellbeing, which are numerous. In fact, courses of regular exercise are becoming a more utilized tool in the treatment of mental health issues, for a variety of reasons.

As we’ll discuss, regular exercise needn’t constitute arduous back-to-back shifts in the gym. Just 30 minutes a day can have a range of benefits on mental health.

Mood improvement

Firstly, physical exertion is thought to stimulate the release and activity of endorphins. This process, referred to as the ‘endorphin hypothesis’ and explained by Anderson and Shivakumar as the ‘binding of [endogenous opioids] to their receptor sites in the brain’, has been explored in several analyses.

Besides their analgesic effect on physical pain, the increased activity of endorphins during exercise is also credited for improving the mood of the person practicing it. For instance, one study examining patients living with clinical depression found a convincing link between 30 minutes of aerobic exercise performed on a daily basis and “substantial” mood improvement.

Stress reduction

In addition to the stimulation of endorphins, exercise is also known to have a direct effect on the presence of cortisol and adrenaline in the body. These are natural stress hormones, often referred to as the “fight or flight” chemicals which can be triggered by a range of stimuli, including danger or emotional trauma. In persons with chronic stress or anxiety, levels of these hormones may be continually raised.

Intense physical exertion is thought to acutely increase cortisol levels, which is perhaps unsurprising due to the strain the body is being put under.

However, performing 30 minutes of low intensity exercise has been linked by one study with reduced cortisol levels.

Furthermore, regular exercise has been associated with a decreased overall presence of cortisol levels in the long term, as the body will become more used to physical exertion and not need to produce as much. So for those who make a habit of exercise, their resting levels of these stress hormones may significantly decrease.

Raised self-esteem

Another mental benefit of frequent physical activity is that it improves body image, and consequently this aids self-esteem.

One analysis undertaken by researchers at the University of Florida found that exercise at all levels had a positive effect on the way people felt about their bodies; and their results suggested that this wasn’t limited just to those who undertake exercise on a regular basis.

However, most will know from experience that one-off episodes of physical activity aren’t enough to sustain these feelings over the long term, and a person’s positive self-image may wear off after a prolonged period of inactivity.

Frequent exercise on the other hand contributes towards higher energy levels and better overall physical health; and the better we feel, the more comfortable we are about the way we look.

Increased social interaction

One particular advantage of participating in a team sport is that it raises our level of social contact with others.

Recently, I headed an investigation into the calorie-burning value of participating in 28 different olympic activities for 30 minutes each, which celebrated in particular the role team sports can play in helping someone to maintain a regular fitness regime.

The social interaction hypothesis is a term sometimes to describe the link between physical activity in a communal setting and improved mental health. By facilitating the development of social relationships through team and communal fitness activities, exercise can help to reduce feelings of isolation and provide a supportive environment.

Regular social contact is of course more beneficial, but team sports don’t have to account for every session of someone’s entire workout routine. Participating in just one communal activity per week can contribute towards better mental health.

References:

Anderson, E. et al. ‘Effects of Exercise and Physical Activity on Anxiety.’ Frontiers in Psychiatry. 2013. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3632802/

Guszkowska, M. ‘Effects of exercise on anxiety, depression and mood.’ Psychiatria Polska. 2004. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15518309

Dimeo, F. et al. ‘Benefits from aerobic exercise in patients with major depression: a pilot study.’ British Journal of Sports Medicine. 2001. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11273973/

Harvard Health Publications. ‘Exercising to Relax.’ Harvard Men’s Health Watch. 2011. http://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/exercising-to-relax  

Hill, EE. et al. ‘Exercise and circulating cortisol levels: the intensity threshold effect.’ Journal of endocrinological investigation. 2008. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18787373

Hausenblas, H. et al. ‘UF study: Exercise improves body image for fit and unfit alike.’ UF News. 2009. http://news.ufl.edu/archive/2009/10/uf-study-exercise-improves-body-image-for-fit-and-unfit-alike.html

Osborne, W. The Olympic Exercises That Burn The Most Calories. 2016. https://www.treated.com/dr-wayne-osborne/how-to-burn-calories-like-an-olympic-athlete

monkeybusinessimages/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/30/how-30-minutes-of-exercise-every-day-can-boost-mental-wellbeing/

Is It Withdrawal Symptoms or a Depression Relapse

Four years ago, a good friend of mine put her 10-year-old son on Prozac (fluoxetine). He had always suffered from anxiety and anger outbursts, but at age 9, his behavior turned violent, and his ruminations were keeping him up at night. My friend and her husband went to a variety of child psychologists, but the cognitive behavioral therapy wasn’t enough. Finally, they got a referral to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed the boy with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). The doctor prescribed both Ritalin (methylphenidate) and Prozac.

The boy’s behavior was much better initially, but the drugs presented other problems: His weight dropped, and he stopped growing. Once a kid who was born with a healthy appetite and would try any food, such as chicken curry at age 1, his parents now couldn’t get him to eat anything. He went from being in the back row of his basketball photos, where the tall kids line up, to the front line, where the short kids kneel. And after six months, his old behavior returned.

The parents weaned him off the Ritalin, and the boy’s appetite returned. They tried to get him to eliminate gluten and sugar as much as possible, and have him load up on protein. They began giving him fish oil supplements, a multivitamin, and a probiotic. The dietary changes had a substantial impact on his behavior.

A few months later, they decided to try to taper him off the Prozac. He did fine initially, and the parents thought they were home free. But two months after he was off the Prozac, their son’s worrisome behavior returned — and it was worse than ever. My friend thought that they should take him back to the psychiatrist, but her husband disagreed. He had researched the half-life of Prozac and other withdrawal stories, and told her that many people go through a delayed withdrawal two to three months after taking the last pill. Unfortunately, he said, they would have to tolerate the bad behavior for a few months until the synapses in his brain made the adjustments.

The husband was right. The boy had two-and-a-half rough months, but he pulled through. Today he is eating, growing, and thriving — managing his anxiety some days better than others.

I remembered her story because I recently tapered off of one of my antidepressants. A month off, I was doing fine when all of a sudden I was hit with some acute anxiety. I wondered, “could it be a delayed withdrawal symptom?” I brought this up to my fellow depression warriors on Group Beyond Blue and ProjectBeyondBlue.com, and received confirmation: When you have tapered off an antidepressant, it is incredibly difficult to know whether you are relapsing into a depression, or if you are merely experiencing withdrawal symptoms that will go away in a few weeks or months.

My friend Margarita Tartakovsy interviewed Ross Baldessarini, MD, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Harvard Medical School, and director of the psychopharmacology program at McLean Hospital, for an article on Psych Central distinguishing withdrawal symptoms from depression. Dr. Baldessarini believes that when the depression re-emerges quickly, it’s easier to identify as withdrawal. If it happens weeks to months after discontinuation, then he thinks there is much more risk of its being a relapse.

But after weighing in with several of the members on both forums, I’m not so sure I agree with Baldessarini.

For example, one woman went off her antidepressant in March, and got really depressed and anxious in July. Her doctor said this is to be expected and is not unusual at all — that it’s a natural part of the brain’s readjusting process. According to her doctor, it takes a few months for the brain to realize something is missing, and to start the readjusting. The whole process can last six months to a year.

That makes a lot of sense to me. There are so many organic changes going on in the gray matter of your brain when you stop taking an antidepressant. For people like me who have a significant response to a teaspoon of sugar or three bites of pumpkin pie, think about the mayhem that’s going on inside the limbic system of my brain as it tries to reorganize all the synapses after it’s no longer getting a hefty dose of a powerful psychotropic drug. Although I don’t believe most classifications of antidepressants to be addictive — unlike benzodiazepines — I do believe your brain becomes dependent on them, so that it needs to relearn how to ride the bike again without training wheels when you go off them. Lots of skinned knees…

Of course, the withdrawal process is different for everyone. Much has to do with how long a person has been taking the medication, and at what dose. Obviously, someone who was taking 60 milligrams (mg) of Prozac for 20 years might need to wean much more slowly and endure many more withdrawal symptoms (and for much longer) than a person who was taking 10 mgs for a few months.

For some, the withdrawal symptoms are very distinct from the symptoms that they were experiencing before. They might resemble that of the flu: headaches, dizziness, nausea, or fatigue. In fact, Baldessarini discusses the “SSRI Discontinuation Syndrome” in his interview with Margarita that occurs in 20 percent of people who withdraw from antidepressants. A person may become agitated and angry more than depressed (if he or she was depressed before), or sad and lethargic more than anxious (if he or she was primarily anxious before). If a person is suddenly having crying spells after going off a medication that treated her anxiety and insomnia, chances are she is experiencing withdrawal symptoms rather than a relapse of her condition.

After reading dozens of articles on typical withdrawal times, and corresponding with dozens of folks, it seems as though three months is the average recommended time (and this begins once you start having symptoms, which could be two months after you’ve weaned off your drug) to wait to see if the symptoms clear up.

Jim Kelly, a member of my forum and a mental health advocate and speaker living in Westchester, Illinois, never agrees to a medication change without a transition plan.

“Changing medications, either starting or ending, cannot be fully assessed until two or three months in; that’s for me,” Kelly says. “And I always request some transitional medication in a small dose to ease side effects.”

Kelly has learned to be patient with the ugly process.

‪”I’m undergoing a change right now, and two weeks in I feel terrible,” he explains. “It feels like withdrawal from the old, rather than anything to do with the new…yet. I wish the two or three months would go faster, but it is what it is.”

Ultimately, I think you know yourself better than anyone and can tease apart the difference between withdrawal or relapse more easily than you think you can. After comparing my symptoms this week to the symptoms of depression I’ve had for so much of my life (for this reason, it’s important to keep a mood journal!), and assessing other things going on in my life (different diet, changes in schedule, etc.), I could recognize it was my brain just readjusting to a different chemistry, and that I’m on the right track.

Much like my friend’s son.

Join ProjectBeyondBlue.com, the new depression community.

Originally posted on Sanity Break at Everyday Health.

restyler/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/30/is-it-withdrawal-symptoms-or-a-depression-relapse/

Mental Health Care in Massachusetts: Needs Rise While Spending Falls

What happens when society decides it will reimburse tens of thousands of dollars (or even hundreds of thousands) for a surgery that may offer only incremental improvements to a person’s health or longevity, but won’t spend thousands to help that person’s mental health?

You get a second-class system of care. In America, we call this the mental health system, which is a separate and completely unequal player in the U.S. healthcare system. In fact, it is so dysfunctional and underfunded that American mental health care resembles some third-world countries.

The Boston Globe continues its examination into the Massachusetts mental health care system. And what they find is hardly surprising.

A lot of people think of Massachusetts as a liberal state, home to world-class renowned, very rich universities such as Harvard and MIT. They believe that because it’s a blue, liberal state with a lot of wealth living within its borders, it must offer some of the best social services in the nation.

However, nothing could be further from the truth.

Funding Budgets on the Back of People with Mental Illness

The sad reality is that Massachusetts continually funds its budget deficits by cutting the barebones social services it does offer, slashing those services to its most vulnerable citizens — those who are poor with serious mental health concerns. While mental health outpatient spending per capita has stagnated over the past decade, spending on inpatient services has been cut in half.

Much-needed inpatient beds have been cut as the state has closed all but two of its public hospitals for those with psychiatric problems. While it did open a state-of-the-art facility during that time — the Worcester Recovery Center and Hospital — the facility only serves a tiny portion of those who need inpatient services. In short, the state apparently doesn’t believe such services are needed much any longer.

Meanwhile, the state’s role overseeing mental health care shrunk steadily, and work once done by state employees, such as tracking down patients who missed appointments, was increasingly left undone. […]

The result, the Legislature’s Mental Health Advisory Committee concluded in 2014, is a system in which accountability for the care of the most severely ill people is often “lost or nonexistent.” They bounce from hospital to hospital, caregiver to caregiver, until, with some frequency, something awful happens.

Still, governors have continued closing psychiatric hospitals. Under Mitt Romney, the state shut down Medfield State Hospital in 2003, and, crucially, shuttered a specialized unit at Taunton State Hospital for men with severe mental illness who were prone to violence but not necessarily criminals.[…]

A few years later, the Patrick administration shut Westborough State Hospital earlier than expected to erase a $13 million hole in the Department of Mental Health budget.

Private Health Insurance is No Better

Most Americans carry health insurance now, and it’s been mandated in Massachusetts long before the nation’s Affordable Care Act became law.¹ So maybe it’s not so bad in the mental health care market most of us access…

But the underfunding of mental health care also affects people who rely on private insurers for their treatment. One in six mental health clinicians in private practice say they no longer even accept insurance because repayment rates are so low, according to a 2015 study by CliniciansUNITED, a union-affiliated group. […]

One Brookline social worker said she stopped accepting United Behavioral Health insurance because its payment rates were so low that her take-home pay came to well under $35 an hour.

“Rates have remained flat. My cost of living has gone up significantly,” said the social worker, who asked that her name not be used. “It’s embarrassing how poorly we get paid.”

But it’s far worse than that. I hear stories every week about people looking for a new psychiatrist in their community. They’ll call every psychiatrist listed on their insurance company’s directory, and count themselves lucky if they get a single call back within a week. The earliest appointment available? It can vary from 1 to 5 months out. You claim people don’t wait for healthcare in the U.S.? Millions waiting for mental health care will tell you differently.

One of the biggest problems is that apparently we’re not willing to pay mental health professionals what they’re worth. Pay and reimbursement rates for outpatient services has stagnated and barely budged in the past decade for most therapists, psychologists, and, to a lesser extent, psychiatrists.

Meanwhile, physician pay in general healthcare continues to increase year after year. In 2010, a general surgeon earned a median salary of $343,958, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 2015, that rose to $395,456, a 15 percent increase. Compare that to clinical psychologists, who earned an average of $66,810 in 2010. In 2015, that rose to $70,580 — a meager 4.6 percent increase (which barely keeps pace with the annual inflation rate of 1-2 percent).

In many health plans, rates have actually been cut, driving professionals to stop accepting health insurance from some of the biggest providers. As a career, entering into the mental health field makes less and less sense as a way to make a living that will grow along with your experience.

Credit: Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff

 

Solutions for Mental Health Care in America

There are no easy answers to the growing problem of people’s increasing lack of access to mental health care. Things are actually going to get far worse before they get better, since nothing is even in the pipeline for discussion. The latest U.S. Congressional bill to help address the mental health needs of the nation is stagnating in a Senate committee (and didn’t really increase funding for mental health care at the levels needed to make any kind of meaningful difference).

Many states in the country are facing significant problems of opioid overdose among their citizens, resulting in 78 Americans dying every day due to overdoses. Despite this public health crisis, Congress could only muster a bill that encourages people to get treatment but doesn’t actually increase any funding or resources to help combat the crisis. This is what passes for “action” in Washington, D.C.

In short, if you’re an American and don’t want to (or can’t afford to) pay cash to your professional, you’re getting some of the worst care in developed countries for any kind of mental health problem. And that’s unlikely to change anytime soon.

 

Read the Boston Globe article: Spotlight: The Broken Covenant

 

Editor’s Note

While I admire and respect the Boston Globe’s venerable Spotlight team for this series of articles highlighting the poor mental health care in Massachusetts, I’m also completely put off by their focus on violence in people with mental illness. Time and time again, they illustrate their argument for needing more mental health care resources in the state by sharing stories of violence. I guess they only motivating factor that might move the needle in the public’s mind is fear. This, despite the overwhelming evidence demonstrating people with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence than its perpetrator. It’s a disappointing slant that only goes to reinforce the mistaken prejudice that people with mental illness are prone to violence, allowing people to feel free to discriminate against them.

Footnotes:

1. The Affordable Care Act was modeled on legislation passed in Massachusetts mandating every citizen carry health insurance.

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/30/mental-health-care-in-massachusetts-needs-rise-while-spending-falls/

What to Do When Your Partner Doesn’t Support Your Career Dreams

Does the idea of selling something to someone you love sound sleazy or conjure up images of a salesman with a greasy mustache and bad suit promising low, low prices on used cars?

We tend to confine our thinking about sales to business contexts – and more often than not it’s something we seek to avoid or shy away from.

But think back to the last time you put your best influencer skills to work, whether that was convincing your colleagues to take a new direction on a project, demonstrating your experience in an interview or pitching a startup idea. Chances are, you’ve developed some pretty good sales skills over the years.

In reality, sales is crucial for more than pushing used cars or hocking the latest as-seen-on-TV product. You can leverage this essential skill to success not only professionally, but also in your personal relationships. Whether you want to win over investors, land a job or organize a team you have to persuade others to support your vision or dream – and this same principle of motivation holds for romantic partnerships as well.

As you chase your dreams, it’s important to “sell” your partner on the positive aspects of  change if you’d like them to come along on the journey with you. You can’t expect another person to read your mind, but chances are, if they have a clear sense of your needs and objectives, they’ll be your biggest cheerleader.

How Sales Skills Can Improve Your Relationship

Let’s say you’ve spent the last few months frustrated with your job, feeling that you are underpaid, undervalued and not doing something you really love. You feel defeated, unconfident and a bit lost. After much thought (and a few sleepless nights), you decide it’s time to start looking for a new gig.

This is a big decision that will involve substantial time and energy along with emotional up-and-downs. Without a doubt, your career transition will impact your relationship whether you want it to or not. Ultimately, you know that a change – whether that’s landing a new job or being your own boss – will have a positive impact on your relationship. Not to mention, the extra money in your paycheck sets you up for a stronger financial future.

Sounds like a good deal, right? Now it’s time to get your partner on board. Here are six tips for selling your career goals in a way that benefits everyone involved.

Give Them Insight Into Your Decision-Making

Even though you’re a smart, self-made woman who is independent and can call her own shots, involving your partner in your career change instills respect, creating a “were-in-this-together” bond rather than a “me-versus-you” divide. This may include discussing when you start job hunting (before or after your upcoming vacation? when the kids are back in school?), talking about how much you disclose to friends and family or designating a workspace in your shared abode. Even if you think you already know how you’ll address these topics, make sure your partner is aware that you’re thinking about them so that they can feel included.

Share Your Doubts And Fears

Taking the leap into entrepreneurship or switching careers can be overwhelming and scary. Allow yourself to be vulnerable and share your uncertainty with your partner. Everyone appreciates feeling needed and chances are he or she will go out of their way to reassure you. Allow yourself to be cared for – your success doesn’t have to be a source of loneliness and suffering .

Set Boundaries

Outline what kind of support you do and don’t want from him or her. Educate your partner about your goals and how they can best support you. For example, would you prefer they listen without always trying to fix things? Gently explain that when he or she asks how your day went, you’re really looking for someone to listen, not offer advice. If you’re used to spending after work hours together, be clear how you’ll need to adjust this schedule to create time to work on job applications or hustling on a side-gig.

Make The Case For How They’ll Benefit

Explain the return on your investment your career change will have for you as a couple. Showcase how short term sacrifices will pay off in the end and benefit your relationship. For example, “When I get this new job, I’ll finally be in control of my schedule and can leave the office at a reasonable hour. Why don’t we have Wednesday night dinner dates?” This will incentivize them to support you all the more.

Keep Them In The Loop On Your Progress

Once your partner has “bought” what you’ve “sold”, it’s only fair to keep them posted on your progress, like you would a business client.

As you embark on a significant life change – whether it’s changing industries, going back to school or launching a startup – sharing this experience with your partner in a way that gets him or her to buy in and support you is essential to maintaining a healthy relationship that grows over time.

How well this works, in many ways, is up to you and how you sell it.

Get the FREE toolkit thousands of people use to better describe & manage their emotions at melodywilding.com.

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/29/what-to-do-when-your-partner-doesnt-support-your-career-dreams/

The Denial of Trauma

“I don’t have trauma.”

“What happened to me isn’t trauma.”

“Trauma is something horrific.”

“I should have been able to cope with it.”

“It’s not sad.”

“I’m not upset.”

Accepting you are suffering from trauma is by far one of the most difficult aspects of recovery. I thought that admitting I was suffering from trauma suggested I couldn’t cope with the events in my life or I didn’t have the strength to deal with and process those events. I thought (and sometimes in my dark moments still think) that suffering from the effects of trauma made me weak, broken and a failure. I have met many other people who share this sentiment. They are stuck in a cycle of denial which keeps them prisoner in a cage of negative behavior patterns and harmful symptoms.

Admitting you are suffering is not only difficult for you, but has an impact on everyone in your life, in particular your family. Others around you may not want you to be suffering from trauma as it makes some difficult truths real.

Admitting trauma means other people have to look at themselves. The denial of trauma absolves everyone of their own feelings. Having the strength to say, actually, you know what, this happened and this has contributed to where I am today, is the hardest thing many sufferers will have to do in their lives. Having the strength to say this trauma is mine and I am owning my feelings will mean others have to step back and own their own feelings. Refusing to hold other people’s reactions as my own has been, and still is, nearly impossible. Often you will go against the opinion of nearly everyone closest to you.

Admitting you are suffering does not mean you are blaming anyone. Trauma’s reality does not mean someone must be responsible. The nature of getting better is to look internally and to accept that trauma is a subjective experience as opposed to objective facts of what happened.

So what is trauma? Why are some events considered traumatic to some and not others? Why did this event affect one person and yet have no impact on another? Why do people find trauma so hard to accept? I believe it’s because it is an unspoken topic. There is no narrative for trauma.

The psychological definition of trauma is “damage to the psyche that occurs as a result of a distressing event or an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds the ability of the individual to cope and integrate the emotions involved.” This definition often gets simplified into the dictionary definition of “a deeply disturbing or distressing event,” which is where we all get a little lost. It’s very easy to understand trauma as something horrific, like war, or mass violence, or a natural disaster. It’s the “exceeding ability to cope and integrate emotions” section that gets lost on us.

We need to get rid of the view that trauma is an action (an event). The more psychology tells us about trauma, the more it becomes clear that trauma is a reaction. Most importantly, it is an individual reaction.

My therapist is always telling me that some children are born more sensitive than others. The word “sensitive” always irritates me, so we have decided to agree that some children are born more emotionally intelligent than others. They are more in tune to others’ emotions and more able to connect and empathize with others’ feelings.

These children are the ones most susceptible to trauma. Combined with the lack of protective factors such as the ability or willingness to ask for help and inbuilt resilience characteristics, the possibility of trauma already seems higher. Trauma can happen to anyone. It does not discriminate.

The view through trauma-tinted lenses is one of constant fear. It makes the world seem a frightening and dangerous place where no one can be trusted. Trauma leaves people feeling confused and insecure. Many children carry these tinted lenses into adulthood and this is when signs of post-traumatic stress disorder become apparent.

These normal reactions to abnormal events in childhood provided a function while the world was inherently dangerous. However, in adulthood these reactions become abnormal and become a hindrance to the ability to live, love and be loved.

digitalista/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/29/the-denial-of-trauma/

7 Ways to Improve Your Emotional Intelligence

Howard Gardner argued that instead of intelligence being a single ability, humans had the ability to develop multiple intelligences, 9 to be exact. Some people have a natural proficiency in emotional or interpersonal intelligence but others have difficulty with this. Although this article focuses on one type of intelligence, I suggest for each individual to practice personal insight and assess him or herself on each intelligence scale.

1. Opening the door

Emotions are like visitors that knock on your door on any given day and leave once they have gotten what they have came for. Emotional development starts by opening the door and allowing those emotions to be felt. Part of coping with distress involves allowing the emotions in instead of ignoring the knock on the door.

2. Releasing all judgments

This is where our societal norms come into play and interfere with our healthy development of emotional intelligence. All emotions are equally important. Because they are equally important and vital to each person, they are neither better nor worse than each other. By this, our society emphasizes on happiness and discourages any anger or sad emotions. This unfortunately causes and imbalance in each person and contributed to distress.

All emotions should be focused on equally as experiencing each emotions equally contributes to a balanced psyche. To illustrate, take a look at the duality of the ying yang circle.

3. Emotional insight

This, for me, is my favorite part of the therapeutic process and is really the driving force in recovery. Emotional insight is each individual’s unique experience throughout his or her life of every emotion. It’s like a library of memories that begins at birth.

Part of developing emotional insight consists of recognizing what events trigger certain emotions and why. It consists of recognizing what emotions visit you the most, what emotion you have the most difficulty experiencing, and what emotions are encouraged and discouraged in your nuclear family and culture.

4.Disentangling emotions

Emotions are so complex that they get enmeshed with other emotions, other people, and cognitions. The feeling of love can get enmeshed with feelings of disappointment. Most commonly, feelings of sadness manifest themselves as anger.

People can too, enmesh emotions with each other. For example, an individual can transfer anger to his or her partner causing an unhealthy cycle of resentment. A mother might overcompensate feelings of disappointment to a child and thus cause the child to develop unresolved issues as well.

Lastly, emotions can also become enmeshed with core beliefs. This statement is a good example of tangled beliefs and emotions: “ I feel like everyone thinks I’m a joke.” No feelings were actually described here and this statement is actually a distorted cognitions. A disentangled statement would be something like this: “My belief that people think I am a joke causes me to have feelings of sadness and disappointment.” An individual who masters this skill is able to not be affected by the emotions of others and can separate emotions from each other and from cognitions.

5. Practicing compassion

To say the least, emotions are complex. They are not easy to balance and can be tough to experience. Be compassionate towards yourself and others when emotions are at play.

6. Closing the door

This is probably one of the trickier parts of emotional intelligence and can shed some light on how an individual comes to develop mental illness like depression. If you begin by ignoring the emotion, it becomes more difficult to find peace with the emotion once you have allowed it in. This is why it is important to start from the beginning.

It is also important to remember that just because an emotion knocks on your door, doesn’t mean you need to act on it. Allow yourself to listen to what the emotion is teaching you about yourself. Closing the door to anger, contempt, and sadness is difficult so it is important to realize when you could use some outside help.

7. Connecting the dots

Developing emotional intelligence is an active intervention that requires constant attention but gets stronger with practice. In connecting the dots, you begin by opening the door to your visiting emotion, releasing all judgments of that emotion, understanding your personal experience of that emotion, developing compassion for yourself and others, and closing the door to that emotion.

nruboc/Bigstock

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/29/7-ways-to-improve-your-emotional-intelligence/

Is this the Age of Narcissism?

Are we in a vicious cycle in which narcissism and other character impairments become more common, then more acceptable, and then ultimately enabled and rewarded? How much will attitudes of entitlement cost us?

Tags: character disturbance, personality disorders, politics, society

from Psychology, Philosophy and Real Life http://counsellingresource.com/features/2016/08/29/age-of-narcissism/

Forgiveness & One of the Most Important, Overlooked Things for a Relationship

There are a lot of factors that make relationships work well. One of the most important keys to a successful, long-term relationship is forgiveness. The act of forgiveness is immensely powerful and humbling. Some people have a hard time with it, usually due to past hurts that they can’t let go of. Without forgiveness, however, your relationship is likely to suffer.

Why is forgiveness so important? What is it about forgiveness — and this other, mystery factor — that makes them so important to the long-term success of a relationship?

Relationship researchers have long examined how different conflict strategies — how couples fight — impact a relationship’s health. Interaction patterns that are characterized by criticism, defensiveness, contempt, and stonewalling predict higher relationship dissatisfaction — and eventual divorce (Gottman & Notarius, 2002). Partner hostility and lack of warmth are strong signs the relationship is heading toward a breakup over the long-term.

We know from prior psychological research that forgiveness acts as an important component in relationships and helps to promote most positive, effective conflict strategies in couples (Finch et al, 2007). Yet forgiveness often seems like an afterthought in a fight, overlooked, and not always expressly given.

Forgiveness Helps Heal Relationship Wounds

Forgiveness can be seen as a type of coping strategy used in response to the stress of dealing with transgressions, betrayals, offenses, and wrongs in a relationship. Tsukasa Kato proposes that forgiveness is an important part of “constructive coping, which refers to actively seeking to improve, maintain, or sustain a relationship without aggravating others when encountering an interpersonal stressor” (Kato, 2016).

The ability to forgive one’s partner is one of the most important factors in maintaining healthy romantic relationships. – Fincham, 2009

Kato (2016) was interested in further exploring how forgiveness helps a relationship over the long-term. So for his study, he recruited 344 Japanese young adults, 18-28 years old, who were in a committed relationship but were not married. They filled out a survey about their relationship, then had them fill out the same survey again 10 months later, along with their current relationship status (were they still in the same relationship with the same person?).

The survey measures included the Forgiveness of Partner Scale, a measure Kato developed in 2015 to help assess forgiveness and benevolence in a relationship.

Approximately one-third (just over 31 percent) of participants’ relationships broke up during the 10 month period. And in terms of the relationships that stayed together, the research had this to say:

Those with intact relationships reported significantly higher scores for benevolence, relationship satisfaction, and romantic love, and significantly lower scores for unforgivingness than did those whose relationship had broken up.

But forgiveness by itself is apparently not enough. Because the relationships with the highest romantic satisfaction in this study also had the highest levels of benevolence or kindness. Yes, being kind to your partner is very important, and something that’s often overlooked in relationship research.

Lessening unforgiving behavior (e.g., by forgiving your partner more often) helps, but it appears to just return the relationship to a “state of neutrality,” rather than increasing the positivity of the relationship (Kato, 2016). It’s fine to go back to neutral, but a relationship is destined to stagnate and slip toward entropy if it’s not growing and becoming more positive. The more a relationship was characterized by kindness and forgiveness, the higher the relationship satisfaction.

Why Forgiveness + Benevolence Work

Forgiveness with benevolence works by helping to repair the relationship after a conflict has caused harm to the relationship’s integrity. It appears to act as an important coping strategy, just as a person might use exercise to help cope with stress in their life. People prefer kind people more so than unkind people, so it’s no surprise to see that relationships that score high in kindness also score higher in satisfaction.

If you have a hard time forgiving your partner for perceived or real transgressions against you, or after some mutual fight, take it is as a warning sign about the future health of your relationship. The good news is that forgiveness is a coping skill you can learn, just like any other. If you need help with it, consider talking to a couples’ therapist. Such experts help people navigate through difficult times in a relationship to get people to deal with their conflict in a more positive, healthy manner.

 

One important concluding note — it is not helpful to forgive your partner for physical, psychological, or emotional violence against you. The research suggests that by doing so, it simply promotes more partner violence in the future. If you’re in an abusive relationship, instead of forgiving, you may benefit more from fashioning a plan to exit that relationship as soon as possible.

 

References

Fincham, F. D. (2009). Forgiveness: Integral to a science of close relationships? In M. Mikulincer, & P. Shaver (Eds.), Prosocial motives, emotions, and behavior (pp. 347–365). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Fincham, F. D., Beach, S. R. H., & Davila, J. (2007). Longitudinal relations between forgiveness and conflict resolution in marriage. Journal of Family Psychology, 21, 542–545.

Gottman, J. M., & Notarius, C. I. (2002).Marital research in the 20th century and a research agenda for the 21st century. Family Process, 41, 159–197.

Kato, T. (2016). Effects of partner forgiveness on romantic break-ups in dating relationships: A longitudinal study. Personality and Individual Differences, 95, 185–189.

Thanks to ScienceDirect for providing access to the research discussed here.

from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/29/forgiveness-one-of-the-most-important-overlooked-things-for-a-relationship/

Know What Feeds You

When you were a baby, you were helpless and dependent upon your parents and caregivers for nurturance and sustenance. You were the recipient of other people’s care. Your caregivers fed you food, loving touch, and appropriate learning stimuli to help you grow, thrive, and feel loved. Shelter and protection from harm was presented to you as well as the adults in your world could offer. Your needs were met as best as your caregivers could supply. Parents and all human beings do the best they can with the skills and awareness they have at the time.

To whatever extent they could care for you reflects what you received and learned was available to you. The care you received growing up taught you a great deal. Early trust (or its lack) was formed and the bonding process was portended for your future relationship with that person.

The same is true for your relationship with others and yourself. What you grew accustomed to helped to feed your self-worth, knowing what you truly deserve, or it may have created a lack of that.

As time marched on, you began to identify your needs and found ways to feed yourself. Perhaps some habits you have developed work well while others need working on. The concept of self-sustenance conjures up dietary needs but demonstrates physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs as well. Break down the necessities for your personal sustenance to connect with your overall best self-care routine.

Here is a self-care checklist for you to assess where you stand with each item:

• Do you put yourself first, last, or forget to take care of yourself most of the time?
• How well do you meet your regular physical, intellectual, emotional, social, and spiritual needs?
• Do you find yourself making excuses or blaming others for your self-care or the lack of it?
• Is self-care factored into your daily and weekly life or just on special occasions?
• When you are stressed, does your self-care increase, decrease, or stay the same?
• What practices regarding how you feed yourself give you the most nurturance and stress relief?
• If you are under great stress or are in an abusive relationship, what feeds and comforts you?
• Are you comfortable asking for assistance from a trusted family member, friend, medical or helping professional if you need help in caring for your needs?
• How well do you acknowledge and forgive yourself around meeting your own needs?
• Are your self-care choices healthy and life-sustaining for you, or do you need to incorporate new ways of self-love into your repertoire?

Like a rapid, rushing wave, you are compelled to continuously move forward to be present in the flow of your life. When you awaken to your self-worth and honor your valuable, singular place in the world, your presence naturally leads you to pay closer attention. As a growing and grown person, you are responsible for taking good care of yourself.

When you are a well-balanced, fully functional adult only you can ensure that you’re well cared for. You grow your self-worth, actively choose and find your lessons, live with integrity, and accept the flow of life and all its potentials. Your wisdom shines brightly with a wellspring of peace, joy, and confidence. Happiness that was there all along is finally realized (Sidell, 2015).

Whether you got what you needed or did not receive the care that you deserved, you are responsible to yourself as a fully functioning human being. Pursue that which truly feeds you today and every day moving forward. When you give yourself what you need, you are most alive and at peace. You then are free to shine your light most brightly into the world. Those in your care and who are watching you can see what self-love and self-respect look like and are given permission to do the same for themselves.

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from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/28/know-what-feeds-you/

Harnessing Our Racing Thoughts

To stop overthinking (also known as ruminating), we first have to understand why we do it.

Our brains favor a hardwired “negativity bias.” It keeps our subconscious scanning our environment for any kind of perceived threat to our physical or psychological safety. If our brains, consciously or subconsciously, interpret any kind of threat, we have a psychological and physiological response called “fight, flight or freeze,” that will go into effect to keep us safe.

We’ve all experienced dry mouth, jitteriness, butterflies, or dizziness prior to a speech, game, interview or test. We fear, and often predict failure, social scrutiny, rejection or some other disastrous outcome. Overthinking is one example of this “negativity bias” that has become stuck in the “on” position as a way to keep us safe from real or perceived psychological threats (Siegel, 2007). Depending on our genetics and environment, we may fight, flee, freeze, or all three in any given situation. We are all wired to instinctually seek safety, but how we react will vary.

Fight.

We might experience:

• Racing thoughts as we try to solve our sometimes-unsolvable feelings or circumstances (“this can’t really be happening”).
• Temporary relief from feelings of helplessness because we feel we are actively doing something, even if it includes self-blame.
• Verbal sparring in our mind between all parts of us, as self-doubt and fear mount.
• Feeling mentally exhausted and unable to focus or concentrate on other things.

Flee.

• Exhaustion from trying to solve our sometimes-unsolvable feelings or circumstances, we try to avoid thinking about it as a means to bring temporary relief.
• We might literally put physical distance between our problems and our selves.
• An ongoing urge to be running to escape something, but not knowing from what.
• Feeling no real progress toward relief or resolution.
• Feeling mentally exhausted and unable to focus or concentrate on other things.

Freeze.

• Literally feeling physically or mentally frozen in our excessive thinking. This is when we become a deer in headlights.
• Fear of the “what if’s” keeps us frozen for a long time. “What if I get it wrong?” “What if things don’t change?”
• No real progress toward relief or resolution, we can experience further discouragement.
• Feeling mentally exhausted and unable to focus or concentrate on other things.

Our bodies also experience the effects of overthinking, ranging from body tension, shallow breathing, sweating, difficulty sleeping, agitation or lethargy, and change in energy, eating or sleep patterns. Overthinking keeps us in our head, despite the fact our body is also sending us strong and valuable information.

We can regain a sense of safety by reconnecting to all of our parts — mind, body and spirit. It begins with feeling safe and familiar within our body, since it can hijack our thinking in times of perceived threat. Some of my clients work hard to just tolerate a feeling within their body before they can even talk about its impact or origin This is learned by devoting a minimum of 3-5 minutes every day of being still, in a comfortable position, and simply noticing your breath. If your mind wanders, bring it back to your breath. Repeat each day for two weeks.

According to a 2014 post in Psychology Today, calming our nervous system in this way sends a signal to our organs to “rest and digest,” creating an inner calm. Feeling this inner calm and safety then grants us the permission and patience to be curious about how overthinking may be serving us to feel safe from fear, rejection or other emotions.

Neuroscience research tells us that mindfulness (intentionally focusing on our thoughts, feelings and body sensations without judgment), informs us how our experience is affecting our thought, feelings, body and beliefs — good, bad or indifferent. Resting in this knowledge lets us drop our guard and release the fears that have been dictating our decisions. When we take action, we are able to disprove our fears when inevitable setbacks are experienced as a challenge, rather a confirmation of our own self-limiting beliefs. Now we are able to set the pace of our growth, adjust our expectations and offer ourselves empathy along the way.

There is a saying in recovery, “What resists, persists.” Too often we think if we release our denial, or drop our guard, and allow what persists within us, we will feel overwhelmed, exposed, or misunderstood. However, the opposite is actually true. Much like holding a beachball underwater, if we notice the pressure, release it slowly and often, and receive it with curiosity and kindness, we reduce our own tension and fatigue.

Each time we do this, we are learning how to identify and release pressure in healthy ways, avoiding or reducing ruptures or chaos in our lives. Over time, we create a reservoir of resources from which to draw for self-care and joy while creating our life, not afterward.

Mindfulness helps to reduce overthinking. There is no prior knowledge necessary, and there is no right or wrong. Inhale deeply through your nose as you ask yourself kindly, “What do I need?” or “What am I trying to solve?” and exhale any guilt or self-criticism. Repeat daily for minimum of 3-5 minutes.

Being curious and open to learning about ourselves can make us feel vulnerable because it’s an admission there is still more to know about ourselves and our world. (Imagining that a loved one or mentor is speaking to you exactly what you need to hear in that moment of vulnerability also is helpful.) This allows us to ease our fears about not always having the answers. Instead, we accept times of knowing and not knowing as part of the human condition. We increase our patience and reduce our reactivity to things we can’t control. Staying connected to the good in you breeds contentment and patience, allowing for more authentic expression without fear.

References

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/the-athletes-way/201405/how-does-the-vagus-nerve-convey-gut-instincts-the-brain

http://www.mindful.org/mindfulness-and-learning-whats-the-connection/

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from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/28/harnessing-our-racing-thoughts/

I Love My Family But Not Their Politics

I’ve come to understand the reason for the old adage that “you don’t talk about religion or politics.” People are very passionate about these subjects, especially during a presidential election year, so political discussions even among loving family members can become heated. Some people align so much with their religious beliefs or political values that they feel like it’s a personal attack when others have differing views from them. But what do you do when your own politics differ greatly from your family’s views?

Here are a few tips to help temper heated arguments:

• Choose to understand their perspective. Discover how their own life experiences contribute to their current political beliefs.
• Do not become defensive. It may feel like it’s a personal attack on your character but it’s not. Remember that the basis for your relationship is love and support for one another.
• Do not shoot insults. Telling them they are wrong for who they’re voting for is not helpful especially if it is wrapped in expletives and criticisms.
• Be respectful and kind. Everyone wants to feel that their opinion matters so don’t dismiss their point of view just because it doesn’t match your own. Show them respect even if they are not showing it to you.
• Understand that you are not going to convince them to vote your way. This is most likely reason arguments begin and they could be ended quickly if you accept this notion.
• Choose to not engage in political conversations with them. This is often the best option because sometimes silence is the most loving solution.

In essence, riveting political conversations can be ruined by ignoring these important practices. Don’t let political differences put a strain on your personal relationships because our family bonds should be about what brings us together, not what drives us apart.

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from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/28/i-love-my-family-but-not-their-politics/

How to Forgive Yourself after Divorce

Divorce guilt comes in all sorts of mutating forms. It is normal for many of us to feel like we are somehow to blame for the divorce.

Culturally, we are taught that keeping the household and marriage successful was our responsibility, without so much a thought that it takes two people in a partnership. And naturally, because there was a lot of pressure on us to be perfect, when the marriage unraveled, our reaction was to blame ourselves for it.

It is time to knock it off. In order to overcome guilt, you must forgive yourself.

Forgiveness is a beautiful thing. It’s a gift that we are usually generous in giving others, yet for some reason, we don’t give ourselves the same luxury. For some reason we think our actions, especially divorce-related ones, are somehow reprehensible and we feel like the worst people in the world for letting everybody down.

Accepting responsibility and working to avoid mistakes in the future is one thing. But constantly blaming yourself for things in the past is neither helpful nor healthy. So why not put that energy you spend on feeling bad about the past into something better, like creating the good life you deserve?

Forgiving yourself is challenging right now because you are looking at the divorce with warped vision. Right now, you are looking at it with 20/20 hindsight, where you have the luxury of picking your past self to pieces. And that’s just not fair.

Sure, you have made mistakes in the past. But who hasn’t? Remember that it takes two to tango in a marriage. You must accept that you did everything within your power at the time to make the marriage work. And even if you, for some reason, have still convinced yourself that you didn’t, the past cannot be changed anyway.

When a wave of guilt hits you, remember that guilt is a gray, looming fortress (like the Tower of London) where you feel trapped. Here is the crazy part, though: all the doors are unlocked, there are no guards, and there’s no reason for you to stay there. So why not leave?

The next time you are feeling guilty and are unsure of how to forgive yourself, ask yourself this one question: “How will this guilt serve me in the future?” If you are coming up with a blank, that’s the point. Guilt does not serve you, so you must forgive yourself and let go.

Guilt speaks the language of “maybe, should have, would have.” These are not action words. They are passive words that your guilt is using to make you create a false past reality that doesn’t exist. The next time you find yourself with those thoughts, nip it in the bud with compassion for yourself. Take a look at the following example.

Guilt thought: I feel guilty because maybe I should have suggested we go to couples therapy sooner.
The forgiveness mindset: We went to couples therapy when we thought we needed it, and did everything in our power at the time to fix it. You were brave to try it, and should not feel bad about any of that.

Guilt thought: I feel guilty because maybe I should have brought up the fact that we weren’t communicating anymore.
The forgiveness mindset: It takes two people for a marriage to work and you were not responsible for both of you. You did what you could with the strength you had at the time. Be proud of yourself for that.

Now it’s your turn. Write down the specific things that are making you feel guilty, then neutralize them with the compassion you deserve. Do this whenever the guilt sneaks up on you. As long as you are mindful and consistent with this practice, you can keep the guilt monster at bay.

The road to forgiving yourself and overcoming divorce guilt can be a long one, but showing yourself much-deserved compassion will ease that journey.

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from World of Psychology http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2016/08/28/how-to-forgive-yourself-after-divorce/