How I Could Have Saved the Chicago Cubs This Season

I'm writing this at the behest of a friend. He honestly thinks that a little marital therapy could have gone a long way to save Addison Russell, the promising Cubs shortstop. Addison helped the Cubs consistently on the way and during that World Series run in 2016. But this year, accused and found guilty of domestic violence/spousal abuse, his performance at bat, and sometimes on the field, greatly disappointed.

Addison Russell and his kids

"I don't know much about the case," I shot back, "but it makes sense. He had a terrible season, probably because he felt indefensible-- not a good feeling for a guy playing defense for a living."

Shortstops tend not to be the greatest performers at bat, but their agility and dexterity in the field are highly valued.  Addison, the bright star in 2016, can hit, too. But this year he slumped and didn't hit very often, slumped the whole season. We didn't even see him play all that much.

Melisa Reidy-Russell left him after he hit her one time too often. She told a reporter the following:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6245297/Who-Addison-Russells-ex-wife-Melisa-Reidy-need-know-her.html?ns_mchannel=rss&ito=1490&ns_campaign=1490

She writes further on that Addison warned her that leaving him would be a big mistake, he had so much to offer (by way of money, lifestyle). How could she leave him? She must losing her mind, he allegedly said, and she would never find anyone who loved her as much as he did.

Ms. Reidy-Russell came out with the stories on Instagram. Apparently she has found someone else who loves her, perhaps more. If you love someone, you don't scare them, hit them. That's not a definition of love.

But that's as much as I, personally, know. And I haven't even really looked at the Instagram account. 

So how could I have saved the Cubs? Frankly, the team never gelled this year. So many players were out with injuries, the manager, Joe Madden constantly juggling the line-up. It was an unusual season and that they did as well as they did surprised and inspired Cub fans. Five games ahead of Milwaukee at Labor Day, only to blow it at the end. But that's baseball.

On the other hand, there is one thing I would have told Addison Russell, had he asked me.

It is that domestic violence is no longer treated as merely anger management: self-relaxation/leave the room/breathe/  behavioral strategies. Therapy is about changing individual belief systems.  It is an individual cognitive therapy that confronts misogyny* and hegemonic masculinity, the belief that as a man, one needs to have the power to decide in a relationship. It is a right is embedded in social institutions and families and it is challenged by feminists.

At this point-- I'm just saying--men and women need to start listening more closely to the feminists.

The case of the Russells makes it abundantly clear that anything-- misogynist thinking is one variable, perhaps the most important variable-- that enters into an equation, a recipe that cooks up violence, destroys relationships (and work performance). The character of the perpetrator, all that enters into becoming who he is, is worth tweaking (changing) and rethinking.

Hold on. We're not supposed to use the word "perpetrator" anymore. The "perpetrator" is someone we want to become a client in therapy. The word  perpetrator is negative, demoralizing, blaming, and  clients emotionally check out when they hear it, already thinking:

She made me do it.

So therapists, stick with non-threatening language, as should everyone else.

In the new Intimate Partner Violence therapy, the Duluth Model, the victim IS a victim, not a catalyst, a person who instigated or deserved to be on the receiving end of violence. The victim has been victimized, pure and simple.

The client, in the Duluth Model, owns the responsibility for the problem.

Among the things the client needs to change is the tendency to emotionally manipulate to  win arguments. This person needs to see that aggression is beyond checking out, 'seeing red" or becoming an animal driven by a primal aggressive need. It has been socialized (taught as masculinity), and it manifests as negligence of care for a partner's health and security.

Other reasons for violent behavior will be unveiled in a good therapy.

The current thinking, no matter, is that the most important intervention is acceptance--admission of a problem, owning it entirely, not blaming anyone else for having triggered an outburst,  eroding that person's sense of worth over time.

Own it, admit, it, get therapy to find out why this is the person you have become.

It is a very rich, fascinating therapy. If it becomes a couple therapy--and couple therapy has to be considered VERY carefully, because it can trigger more violence--the client may find himself on his knees, literally-- as anyone who truly harms anyone else should be.

Addison Russell, the still promising Cubs shortstop will be suspended from MLB play until May, 2019. By that time he may no longer be a Chicago Cub. But I hope he is. I hope he gets the right kind of help and feels the power of self-containment. Breathing can probably help him at bat, too.

But honestly, he wasn't the reason the Cubs didn't make it past the Wildcard this season. The team didn't have it. No matter the reason for that, the text FD sent me the night the Cubs lost to the Rockies lifted my spirits:




And as all good Cub fans say, There's always next year.

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Many thanks to Jorge Argueta for teaching me more about Intimate Partner Violence. If you have a problem with it, contact him at AVANCECOUNSELING.COM. He's amazing.

* Misogyny is the hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women or girls. Misogyny can be manifested in numerous ways, including social exclusion, sex discrimination, hostility, androcentrism, patriarchy, male privilege, belittling of women, violence against women, and sexual objectification.

Predicting Dating Violence

That's a mugshot, above.

He's thought to have accidentally killed the girl he loved, Yeardley Love. Bloggers jumped on the story last week. Now print journalism is catching up, picking up where we left off.

The girl on the cover of today's People could have been a model. But Yeardley Love chose sports. Her athletic boyfriend, lacrosse star George Huguely V, beat her head against a wall in a drunken rage, killed her on May 3, ten days ago. Both were students at the University of Virginia, neither will return.

Page 63, lower left,

Now many are asking, how could this have happened? Could school officials have done more to prevent dating violence?

Some of us are of one mind, and the answer is a resounding YES. (See Relationship-Wise, and previous posts. Or maybe you're tired of the story.)

We only care because they're so attractive, athletes like George Huguely and Yeardley Love. And the potential of kids like this, having it all-- looks, talent, money. To blow it, to lose everything-- it makes everyone wonder. If they can't make it, who can?

The schools are getting the blame for ignoring the warning signs, which won't make the Loves, Yeardley's family, feel a whole lot better.

University President John Casteen is shouting about it, suggesting we all have a share of the process:

"Don't hear a scream, don't watch abuse, don't hear stories of abuse from your friends and keep quiet."

Or you're an accomplice, if not in the strictest sense of the word.

How many people are guilty of this? Millions, for sure. Most of us don't get involved when it comes to intimate partner violence. Most of us don't know about it. Even the cops will say: It's rough sex. People like it.

What we have so far on George Huguely V, the young man accused of murder, is that

he was fine --a happy, friendly little boy-- until age eight.

That's when his parents divorced. His father, George Huguely IV, was born to money, lived a plush lifestyle, but was in arrears in 1997 to his estranged wife Marta to the sum of $11,478.

Born to money, you sort of think, that kind of sum, he could have found it anywhere. His son was probably ten when the power and control played out. Who knows what little George saw, what he heard, what he thought.

According to People, a peer of the elder Huguely said that George the younger grew up watching his father "thumb his nose at authority."

That role model thing; it really matters.

Whereas his father thumbed his nose at the judge for child support, the younger, as a collegian, thumbed his nose at police, displayed disorderly conduct while intoxicated in 2008. Most of us don't swear at police, use racial epithets. George Huguely V, star athlete, did.

He didn't learn from his community service or alcohol abuse program, either. In 2009 he took matters into his own hands, flaunted the laws about battery, beat up a sleeping teammate. The teammate had allegedly kissed his girlfriend.

Yes, Yeardley Love.

What's interesting from our perspective is that the psycho-dynamics of childhood, the interplay between parent relationships and how children perceive their parents, themselves, their identity, the past, isn't always the focus of therapy anymore. The first order of business is to think about what's going in in the here and now, make sure no one is suicidal. Treat it all, make the symptoms abate with either meds or a very intellectual, cognitive-behavioral therapy. We don't get mired in history.

Well, some of us still do. The lesson here is that it is best to do both, mire yourself in history, and stay in the here and now, too. Make sure no one wants to bash in anyone's head. It's not as hard as it sounds, flipping the channels in therapy. Give us forty-five minutes, we'll give you your soul.

And here you have it, smoldering backlash against CBT. History does make a difference. It molds our personalities, sculpts our responses to things like. . . abandonment.

Not that people shouldn't divorce for fear of that separation, the effect it will have on the children. And not that we can truly shield our children from our emotions, our anger. These things are often unavoidable, the expression of anger, they are inevitable in life, feelings. You can't make all relationships work. Most of us can't. And kids aren't stupid.

But please. When there are kids, and they are in the middle in divorce? Take care of their emotional needs. Address their issues. Never normalize your rage or your partner's, not to yourself, not to your kids. It has to go, the rage, or it's revisited. It can be.

We hear that male members of the University of Virginia Lacrosse team carried Ms. Love's casket down the aisle of the cathedral during the memorial service. George Huguely V wasn't there, as much as he surely loved her, the girl his passion stole from him. He's in jail, awaiting a June 10 court date for first degree murder.

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For Love: George Huguely and Yeardley Love

Can you really blame kids for getting drunk? Isn't that what they do, as college students? Make that, high school students? Athletes?

Well, no. Not every college kid drinks until he loses control, and not every high school student does this. Not every athlete. We can leave the other drugs alone for a minute, concentrate on America's favorite drug, for this is what docs learn in graduate school. Alcohol is America's favorite drug. And it's likely alcohol did drive George Huguely over the edge.

Here. Read the New York Times for yourself, Juliet Macur's got the byline:

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. — On a night that was supposed to be a quiet one, with final exams just a day away, more than 1,500 students at the University of Virginia put down their books Wednesday and paid tribute to a fellow student killed this week.

An amphitheater was packed for an hour with students and administrators, some holding candles, all honoring the memory of Yeardley Love, the lacrosse player who was found dead in her apartment early Monday.

Another Virginia lacrosse player, George Huguely, has been charged with first-degree murder in connection with her death. . .

Court documents released this week, though, gave details of how that fateful night unfolded. In an affidavit filed in support of a search warrant, Huguely, a 22-year-old senior from Chevy Chase, Md., told the police that he and Love, also 22, had recently ended a romantic relationship. He said he broke into her bedroom and attacked her, shaking her as her head repeatedly hit a wall. The police said Love’s head was badly bruised.

This post is a little late on the draw, I know. But it's ironic, because I wanted to post about narcissism today, and yet this one smacks of intimate partner violence, or domestic violence, DV. Maybe George Huguely has this disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder. We know that some murderers do. I just finished a novel by Alan Jacobson about a serial killer on this. Don't read it if you need to get to sleep at night. Crush. Set in Napa Valley. We get a really good tour of the vineyards.

Today's theme. Crushed grapes, crushed people. Alcohol. Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Intimate partner violence.

We can blame alcohol abuse for the murder of Yeardley Love, and everyone will. But while some drink to oblivion, and don't murder anyone, there are those who do. So it's likely there are other disorders at work, what is called a duo diagnosis. It's likely there's another diagnosis tucked inside George Huguely. He's had priors, meaning he's been arrested before. The Washington Post:

In November 2008, Huguely pleaded guilty to resisting arrest, public swearing and public intoxication after a drunken scuffle with a female police officer during a visit to Lexington, Va. The officer said Huguely told her, "I'll kill you. I'll kill all of y'all. I'm not going to jail," in a diatribe laced with racial, sexual and other vulgar terms. She used a Taser to subdue him.

Oy vay, a Taser.

He received a 60-day suspended sentence, emphasis on the suspended. He had six months of supervised probation, a fine, 50 hours of community service and 20 hours of substance abuse education.

Mostly punishing a bad boy. But are kids bad? Can we say an athlete is misbehaving like that, when he's abusing alcohol, when he's cursing out police officers? That kind of behavior, cursing out an officer is sheer narcissism. Most of us cower when an officer of anything just asks us our names. Well, some of us.

But if you injure some people, offend their egos, what we call narcissistic injuries, then you're likely to catch hell for it. At best, you'll be snubbed. At worst? Maybe murdered. Ms. Yeardley broke up with him. She rejected him. End of a promising young life. My condolences to her family, my prayers for her, for them.

Did she need a police escort to do that, break up with George? Some of us would say yes, maybe. Certainly the police are useful with stalkers. Bring a cop to the door of a teenage stalker and that teenager is going to think twice about bothering his prey again. Catch the kids young, when their personalities are still changing, developing, and you never know.

But order therapy, seriously, not a substance abuse program alone.

And maybe we can prevent deaths like this one.

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