The Black Hawks Win, and the Gay Pride Parade

They don't seem to have a thing in common, at first glance.

O'Doul's- the non-alcoholic beer

But for an addict, they have everything in common.

(1) The Hawks

I feel pretty lame, and in some ways traitorous, but as a Chicagoan for over half a century, I should have been posting on Facebook like all of my young friends.

Haaaawwwwwkkkkkkkssssss!!!!!!

OMG!  ANOTHER WIN!!!!

THEY DID IT AGAIN!!

And I should have been to a game, and I should have been at the rally, a huge Mardi Gras that many are still talking about. The pictures in the paper make me feel that as a blogger I missed a tremendous photo op. Foiled again.

The Hawks won the Stanley Cup in 2010, too, and the revelry in the city made the angels in Heaven look down and wonder if perhaps they should attend. Nothing could be better.

And indeed, if you looked closely at the celebrations, you would have thought we found Osama bin Laden. No, really, the two don't compare. The only thing that compares with the feeling are other titles, the World Series, the NBA championship. Entire cities can't get out of bed the next day.

Players, fans alike, sodden in beer, the Mayor declared last Friday a Ferris Bueller's Day Off. No self-respecting lawyer worked. Chicagoans, proud of the accomplishment of their team, partied like it was  . . . .2010.

Those of us in my business hear about it up close and personal just a little differently. The desire for social inclusion is very strong. And drinking, as any fool knows, makes socializing much easier. The shy among us develop a personality they never had, sober. Drinking is a lubricant, a way to find that brave, intelligent, funny person inside. Who wouldn't want to do that?

It is also a way to alcohol dependency. What is fascinating is that over-indulging is encouraged in the cooler companies, at least once a month, a perk! Employees are invited to go out on one Friday, a "no-work" day, on the company tab. Drink until you see double, or perhaps aspirate on your pretzels and peanuts.

Sounds like fun. But if you are an alcoholic in recovery, and new on the job especially, wanting to fit in, it isn't fun. It is torture. You go and sip your O'doul's, your non-alcoholic beverage, and you remember how you used to celebrate with your friends merely that it was Friday, because after all, you had worked a full week and that, for many, is a cause for celebration. You are angry-- livid-- that you are the only one out with your colleagues-- not getting high.

Perhaps you remember celebrating the Stanley Cup win by the Hawks in 2010. You don't remember it well, but you do remember the revelry, the communal high. Being cool. Among friends.

If you are in AA, maybe, at that one-Friday-a-month work bash at the trendiest bar, you text your sponsor who writes back, GET OUT OF THERE AND GO TO A MEETING. But you don't want to go to a meeting, don't want to be with those people. You want to be with these people, the ones who are having so much fun. You want to be a part of this party, to be the funny woman, the funny man, that person who is laughing it up.  You don't want to be mature, emotionally excluded, out of the loop, detached, and boring.

If you make it through the afternoon unscathed, you tell your therapist the next week how angry you are that you have to be an addict, that you can't drink, that forevermore you can't party, can't be a part of this wonderful abandon.

The therapist tells you it is good to be angry, good to grieve that loss, because being like this, drinking to abandon, is an attraction to you, even though you know it is very much like being a child, perhaps three-years-old, plus or minus a few. The selfishness, the need for attention, the desire for undivided attention, special attention, is roaring. It was great being three, it was great being a child, but adulthood, finally, has set in.

Welcome to your bar mitzvah, I like to say. We Jews have big (sober, used to be) parties to celebrate becoming a man, a woman. It is a different world, by far, adulthood. A better one, really. You get to drive, not just a car, but your life. Now you are responsible, have to quit blaming everyone else.

Go Hawks.

(2) Gay Pride

I love the gay pride parade, let's get that straight. But like the Stanley Cup celebration, for addicts, it has its downside.

Not to cast aspersions, but some people come to therapy for sex addictions. Not that the percentages of sex addictions (obsessed!) are higher for the sexual minorities, my guess, they are not, but sex addicts, like all others with dependencies, have triggers. One of them is being among others who are, what in my day we would have called, promiscuous.I don't think the word exists anymore.

Most sex addicts are on the internet, not the streets, buying porn, passing it to their friends, or selling it, or they have sunk to other levels. This aside to lend perspective to the idea that being gay and openly looking for love-as-a-one-night-stand is a mere sub-category of sex-addiction. Ministers come to therapists to ask what to tell their straight porn-loving parishioners, or their spouses. So we're not throwing stones on anyone's parade here. An obsession with sex is not a gay thing.

That said, the Gay Pride Parade in Chicago, if you haven't been to one, is a love fest and a must see. The colors, the joy, that feeling, pride, makes all of us happy, and it is so hard to find pride and happiness like this on an average day.

We're Americans, born to a culture with Puritan roots, so being proud of ourselves for merely having a sexual self at all, is hard. Ninety percent of us pray, or used to, according to a Life Magazine poll, not that we can believe that number. But it even if it is fifty percent it is significant. And the gods, last we heard from them, those of us from the Big Three religions, aren't saying that being gay is a good thing.

Gay pride parades in Heaven?  Unlikely. But maybe!

So I ask my gay patients, Are you going to the parade this week?  The newly out of the Ikea armoire are excited. Yes!  Looking forward to being with my people, seeing people who understand. I'm looking forward to openly being proud!

The sex addicted, the ones who handle their feelings by impulsively running off to pick up someone to take someplace to have sex, give a resounding NO!

 Do you know what people do at the parade? They look for someone like me to grope, to follow around, to hook up with. Do you know what that feels like to someone who actually wants to be groped, be followed, be loved?  It is irresistible. So no.  

Proof positive that it isn't necessary to follow the crowd, to be where everyone else seems to want to be. Better, my alcoholics tell me, to figure out who we are, watch it all on television, all the revelry, the parades, and do a little soul searching, maybe, just maybe, think back on some of those memories, the ones that ultimately drive us to therapy.

The memories are the generic form or Antabuse* for every addiction.

therapydoc

*Antabuse is a drug that if you take it before drinking reacts violently with alcohol, makes you physically ill. Some take it when they think they are vulnerable so that they won't drink. Nobody wants to get sick like that and you won't drink if you're very sure that you will.

Paula Deen: What She Did Wrong

I’d link to a pic about Ms. Deen, but at this point just can't look at her anymore. 

Check out  Carlo Allegri / AssociatedPress / January 17, 2012 in the LA Times Daily Dish.

Ms. Deen used to host a beloved cooking show. Now perhaps she's back to the restaurant, among friends, maybe hostessing. What happened there?

...  a leaked deposition quoted her as admitting to using the N-word and wanting to plan a"plantation party" that would have had black men dressed as Civil War-era servants. The deposition was part of a harassment suit brought by LisaT.  Jackson, a white former employee who claims that pornography, racism and anti-Semitism were prevalent at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House in Savannah,Ga., where she worked. Uncle Bubba's is one of two restaurants operated by Deen and her family.

In case you’re unfamiliar, harassment/discrimination suits would tag any one of six protected classes:

 race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. This according to Title VII of the 1964 United States Civil Rights Act  [U. S. C. §2000e–2(a)]

Paula's status as owner of the restaurant makes her culpable, possibly, of three of the five:

(1) pornography: showing pornography or links to it in the workplace when others are offended by it constitutes unwelcome sexual conduct,

(2) racism, and 

(3) anti-Semitism -- a national-origin ping.

We have a new interpretation of that law, as of June 25, 2013, vis-a-vis retaliation and the "but for" clause of tort law. Not being a lawyer, I can't tell you if it will help Ms. Deen, but it is fascinating reading. The short version is a little less wordy, lacks the individual justice opinions. 

 But quickly, employers are not to discriminate against the protected classes. Amendments to the Civil Rights Act since added age, veteran status, pregnancy, and disability, maybe others. Sexual orientation is subsumed under "sex, " tested originally when Joseph Oncale quit his job on an oil rig because he couldn't stand harassment from his crew, men threatening daily to rape him. The Supreme Court ruled it a form of harassment based upon sex.

The story about Ms. Deen caught me because as a therapist, I know that cultural discrimination and sexual harassment, certainly all of the hate "isms" hurt people.  There is an entire industry, thankfully, of designer workshops to stop relationship violence. Some workshop professionals load them heavily with empathy training. The goal is to teach it, what it feels like to be on the receiving end of harassment, abuse. That's the objective. 

Crossing the line isn't always conscious. Paula Deen will say as much. A hostile environment isn't usually recognized as hostile. Harassment often makes other people laugh, ironically, obsessed with inclusion they are afraid to speak up, join instead. This is the group think we've discussed on this blog before.

Worse, many still find jokes about the isms funny. Oy vey.

Every workplace, every public figure, everyone over the age of three, really, should have empathy training. We therapists would have less work to do, but that's good.

So thank you, Ms. Deen, for bringing this world-wide attention.

We will hear that Paula loves black people. And Jews, too.

Jackie Mason, a famous Jewish comedian (I went to see him live, expected to laugh but couldn't), is caught on tape in 2009, calling newly elected Barack Obama a shvartze.

If you Google the word shvartze you’ll find it means black in Yiddish, a derogatory expression, one our grandparents, if they immigrated in the twenties, might have used. The children of those immigrants, now in their sixties, like Paula Deen, used the word, too, people like my parents who knew it was derogatory.

 The schvartes are going to riot downtown because that man assassinated Martin Luther King.

And people did riot. People broke into businesses, expressed their rage, tired of oppression, low wages, discrimination. 

My generation doesn't use it, never did. But people like my parents, who had been oppressed in Europe, who worked hard for what the owned (easier being white, no question) did not particularly admire this behavior, the destruction of property, theft, retaliation. The riots surely reinforced their fears of people who were different from themselves. Jews of that generation, fresh from the Holocaust, feared everyone, really. That experience in Germany, their experience historically with outsiders, tended to be negative, replete with collective memories of the rapes and exterminations of entire villages, courtesy of the Nazi's, but also Cossack pogroms, and the Crusaders, more rape and murder in the name of holy something.  Let’s not forget the Spanish Inquisition. Good times.

So yes, a fear of others surely is laced into their DNA, and let’s not excuse it, but there were no workshops desensitizing the old Jews in the sixties. They needed empathy, and as whites, didn't get it.

But what about Paula Deen?  Her case smacks of wanna’ be White Supremacy, of all things! Although she is sorry, has expressed her remorse sincerely, and we believe her, maybe, she seems a paragon of racist southern white, complete with drawl and sweet tea. And appearances mean something in this world. She will have a hard time bouncing back. Martha Stewart could do it, Tiger Woods, too. But Paula Deen may not. Why?

Because discrimination is different than white collar crime and sex addiction. Racism is different. The mere suggestion of a plantation party with black slaves as wait-staff should have made her cringe. An invitation like this should make all of us cringe:

Come to our DJANGO UNCHAINED Ball!  

Where: Anywhere, but it will feel like the Deep South
Why: Because we love that movie, Django, it brings us back to the way things used to be.
Your Hostess: Not sure, but Paula Deen, America Cooks Deep South, is catering!
What to wear: Big hair, heavy make-up, beautiful gowns, gloves, tails
How to speak: Practice that Southern drawl
Meeting you at the door:  Black slaves in their very best. You’ll finally get that respect, the Suh and Ma’am you deserve!

Not funny, right? The Washington Post:

. . .  her scandal reinforces stereotypes — simplistic ones, to be sure — of Southern culture. She already personified perceptions so often used to mock the South: the deep-fried cooking and the big hair, heavy makeup and even heavier drawl. For those people who, consciously or not, already paint all Southerners as prejudiced people, the Deen lawsuit deposition fits squarely into the mold.

She’s lost her show, her sponsors, and honestly, many of us are very tired of looking at her face. Gazing at us in each photograph we see a person lacking empathy, clueless as to how it might feel to have dark skin, forced to serve white people.*

Picture the ball:  A sea of white faces, dotted only with black ones dressed in black and white serving the white faces their dainty hors d'oeuvres on those little round trays. 

Oh, Paula! How could you even think like this?! Get a workshop.  Don't put it off. You need the intensive version, we're thinking.

therapydoc

*This reminds me of why people choose other service jobs (for the money), like waiting tables at Hooters. The women who wear skimpy clothing to serve men in restaurants, bars, do it to get paid. But they don't always like it.

Extremes, Exaggeration, Cut-offs, Boundaries and Homeostasis

Or: How Failing to Establish Boundaries, thus Needing to Cut Someone Off, an Exaggerated and Extreme but Sometimes Necessary Measure, Can Be Avoided 

(1) Extremes and Exaggerations

There was a Jewish sage, the Rambam, I think, Maimonides, who lived in the twelfth century. A doctor, (they didn't specialize then) he recommended that if you want to change something about yourself, your life, then err on side of extreme. If you are shy, exaggerate working the room. Act social.  Make yourself talk until people are bored listening to you. (All this my interpretation of a distant memory, probably wrong.)

If you are angry, become the Dalai Lama.

If you are late, strive to make every appointment really, really early.

Pushed too far it is ridiculous. If you are old, work at being young. If you are sick, make yourself well. Exaggerating doesn't work for everything, and surely the Rambam knew that.

The chachma (Soft "ch" not like the "ch" in "chuck", but sounds like "chuck", roughly; means wisdom in Hebrew or Yiddish or both), the chachma is that if you try to exaggerate a behavioral trait, if you over-shoot, aim for much more or much less, you are likely to fail, to miss that faraway objective. But the arrow will fall center, and you will be in a better place than before you tried.

I'd add, keep those expectations low (he may have said that, too). We all lose weight, then gain weight, then lose weight, then gain it back, hundreds of thousands of times in a lifetime, and the goals are usually unrealistic. Expect less, try for just a little success, and be grateful that on occasion you still enjoy eating.

Over-shooting works in that we improve, if only temporarily. Systems are homeostatic, especially behavioral systems, depressingly predictable. And yet: if we can handle failure, adopt a benign pick yourself up, brush yourself off, start all over again mentality, then at least we won't completely go to seed. We'll succeed some of the time. The job is to keep those times coming with practice.

Rambam's cognitive-behavioral therapy is useful in that way. The problem, of course, is that someone who is too shy to walk into a room isn't able to work one, not right away, not even for a day. So most behaviorists suggest baby steps. We'll get to those.

But first, what about the hocus pocus of The Secret, that book I never read but heard about from at least a dozen patients when it made the rounds and spotted right away as a great visual cognitive therapy.

The idea, seemingly, is that we all want to be different, better, but before we shoot off our new great idea, or buy new clothes, or invest in a weight-loss pill, maybe even get therapy or a lottery ticket, before doing anything to improve, best to imagine the change.

Start with a vision, a picture of more of a good quality, a picture of less of an undesirable one. If we mentally focus on the new me (rich!) and do it often, spend significant amounts of time imagining what change looks like, we are likely to wear it. In that Iphone video in your head, you are the star:

 No thanks, I'll pass on the cake.  

First you see yourself saying that. There you are, passing on the cake.

As opposed to everyone's favorite lyric, a send-off on a maudlin, yet wonderful Les Mis song, A little drop of rain can hardly hurt me now, that spawned my family's concessionary joke

A little piece of cake can hardly hurt me now.It's here, that's all I need to knowwww.

Better: See me. See the cake. See me taking the classic pass on the cake.

No thanks, I'll pass on the cake.

Too extreme for some people, and too time consuming, all that imagining, if it is going to be effective. And there may be something about depending upon the spirit world and who knows how that will go? Thus many of us recommend moderation.

I'll have just a little piece of cake. Please.

Moderation is the go-to strategy, most likely, of every great philosopher. (All of us don't make it through Philosophy 101, so I really don't know.  But probably even the Rambam loves moderation in another chapter of the same book, or a different book. Ask a scholar.)

So that's good. But as I said, I like Baby Steps, made famous in some movie or another. A toe in the water, then the entire foot, ankle. Take it slow. No need to do everything in a week, no need to accomplish everything in a month, think the year. The New Year's resolution but break that puppy down. Don't swim every day, not at first. Don't jog every day. Don't eat well every day, you won't anyway; why beat yourself up about it. Plan only your next step. Even with religion, slow it down. Baby steps.

Get used to the water.

It's all good, any attempt at change is good, but the extremes get us into trouble if we go there directly. The problem with extremes, even wanting to go there, is that they are so extreme. Never eat chocolate. Never get angry. Can we battle homeostasis, a law of nature? Hardly. The consequence of never get angry is blowing up out of context, scaring the daylights out of everyone.

And as long as we're rambling and losing focus something else happens when we deny our anger. We lose self. Nobody knows who we are. We lose such a huge piece of ourselves, our passion, we become unidentifiable, blend in with the sofa.

We have to manage anger, obviously, but losing it altogether is like losing salt and pepper. The food is missing something and we're not interested. We're not even going to discuss chocolate.

(2) Cut-offs and Boundaries

A social cut-off is extreme. Doing it feels extreme, and being cut-off is sometimes a call to panic. No one there to tell you, No need to freak out. Homeostasis.

Years ago a friend told me that her father-in-law was such an impossibly insensitive man, he said so many insensitive things, that she couldn't be around him, had an averse response to just being with him. Panic attacks at family dinners. Her therapist suggested she cut him off. She called the dad-in-law "borderline."

As if this is a reason to cut someone off. Understandable, but extreme. There are books about difficult people, understanding why a person is difficult. I prefer the word, complicated.

But it happens quite often, therapists recommending cut-offs, usually when someone won't respect boundaries. Figuring that out, how to set a boundary, and keep it set, is an objective of many therapies. Loosening boundaries to open up to more intimacy, is another.

Not going to lie, it is healing to cut off  contact for awhile with particular people, maybe for months, even longer. But it should be discussed. Anyone with the chutzpa to blast through personal boundaries can handle our labeling their behavior. And it shouldn't be forever, the cut-off.

It is easy to cut people off by moving away. Too busy to call anyone back, hoping the needier, more dependent, or difficult individuals will lose our scent, it is a lovely, expensive way to emotional relief.

Inconvenient and cowardly. Better to assert, label the hurt, the criticism, the panic attacks at the sound of criticism, the negativity dripping from that someone's mouth, even when it is negativity about others, not us, when the negativity is about the universe, or one of the protected classes, those gays, those whatever.

All of it, label it all. Make a splash in a calm, assertive, no need to get emotional fashion.

I disagree, why bring yourself up by putting other people down? 

Not that this will necessarily work. But we script it in therapy. Nothing to lose. Nothing. (We're not talking about physically abusive relationships).

Those who are cut off seek help, too.They are sad, don't like that they chase and lose. They are often seeking intimacy, ironically.

That's why it is so admirable when a person doesn't want to be the bad guy, when we want to say, in so many words, Don't call me anymore, don't visit, and I'm de-friending you on FaceBook, when we want to do this, say it, but don't. We just can't bring ourselves to it. To survive, we make an occasional process comment like the one above about putting people down, or we're straight about why we don't spend so much time with the other person.

I'm a conflict avoider, and you're really negative, a lot.

Such strength to say those words. Feels impossible. It isn't.

People who don't cut off difficult others (again, a disclaimer, not talking about sociopaths or even almost sociopaths) have learned that when there is a reunion, a party, when backed into a corner, our boundaries about to be seriously compromised, we need an exit strategy or a magazine, a puzzle, a game, something to rip out and use to disappear.

You know that cutting someone off is shooting them in the heart.

How do we mend that particular broken heart when it is our heart and we have been cut off?

Best to assume that the one who cut us off is self-protecting, setting a boundary. Most of us, if we rationally examine our behavior, can see our own faults. If we can't, we should ask someone who knows us well. We may not think our words or actions are hurtful, but if someone isn't talking to us, then they may have been hurt. Apologies upon that epiphany, what we did wrong, sometimes work, but are no magic bullet. And if someone doesn't take our apology, at least we tried.

And if rapproachment, or detente, never happen? If the relationship stays disengaged, cut off, a seeming non-relationship (as if there ever could be a non-relationship) wait.

Have it in mind, always, to wait. In the interim, both of you grow, become infinitely more interesting, funnier, smarter, wiser, less-judgmental. Deeper. Not always, but often.  When people change, there's nothing quite like it. We want to be their friend. They want to be ours. We have to respect those boundaries until that happens, even after we have grown.

Those who cut off, who set what feels like an impermeable boundary, can only hope that the ones shut out will still want to be with them by then.

therapydoc

Snapshots: When Your Kid Gets Married

You work long enough at this job, and it feels as if all of the people you see are relatives, kids. Just a few random snaps from the past few weeks.

The New Bride in the Family

Liza Minnelli

(1) Guilt by Association

First Snap:  Maybe This Time

I'm talking to a patient I've known for years. He knows I blog and has always wanted me to blog about him, but I just can't. Shelly is not his real name. I tell him:

"One day, Shelly, one day there will be a way to bring your story in front of the camera and not identify you, embarrass you."

We're there.

Shelly could really be a woman in her sixties, for all you know, but for our purposes we've designated him male, about forty. He has had no luck in relationships, picks the wrong women to love. They find him solid, the perfect catch for marriage because he's kind, loving, works steadily, and can dance. He's also generous, likes to cook, goes to church, and doesn't drink. And he could have been cast for Graceland. He is everything they want a man to be.

The first wife cheated on him, as did the second. His third engagement never made it to the altar because she cheated, too. Now, having fallen deeply in love for the fourth time, he's singing ala Liza Minnelli, straight out of Cabaret, or do you prefer Glee-- Maybe This Time 

Glee Maybe This Time

He's in love again and so, so worried, after four months of dating, that she's interested in someone else, too.

But she isn't. I know she isn't from what he tells me, and we bring her in to talk about Shelly's past, so that she can forgive his paranoid accusations, his insecurities, and they can work on these as a couple.

He has had a bad history with intimate partners, but hearing about his childhood and the women in his family of origin, his adult relationships don't compare. The house?  A crack house. Role models brought home multiple partners. And not only were they not terribly private, they saw nothing wrong with this.

The only true survivor of an unpredictable zoo, Shelly is the stalwart of the family now, the one everyone comes to for advice, for money, too, naturally. He never could be, never wanted to be anything like them.

But he thinks he is, that everyone knows, that he is tainted. You can read the dysfunction on him, or so he believes, can see it in his words, his smile. So goes the irrational way we see ourselves, sometimes, imprinted at a young age by identity.

Some of us are destined to define ourselves by the people who raised us, our flesh and blood, our families. No matter how different, the shame is so deep that it feels as if it shows, we feel guilty for being a part of all that. Logical? Not at all. But that feeling-- shame, unworthiness, dirty--irrational, ridiculous because he's nothing like anyone in his family, is wonderful in every way, comes from association. Guilt by association.

Second Snap:  Country Boy

Aaron Lewis Country Boy

Andrew (again, all of the details are entirely made up) has a PhD in economics from a top school. He married a girl he met in college, and has two adopted children, one foster child, and one biological child. He adores all of them. He's been working in a university for years, but still doesn't have tenure. He keeps getting knocked around, and publishing, for some reason, eludes him.

He's a country boy.

He doesn't look like a country boy, and he certainly doesn't have Aaron Lewis' self-acceptance, the self-esteem of a real country boy. But Andrew's parents moved him at critical moments in his life, and his haircuts didn't match the haircuts of his peers, his accent stuck out. His clothes were too gray, and he had a last name that predicted he would be the brunt of many jokes for as long as he lived.

Tall, handsome, built, he still sees himself as gawky, awkward, with features that are too large and a voice that sounds, to him, tinny, whiny. It isn't. He could broadcast the news. Hard as he tries, he sees himself as a geek, an outsider. His parents are both shy, socially introverted, and they didn't introduce much panache. Depressed, he calls them.  His diagnosis? Dysthymic Disorder, 300.4. He's suffered that low-grade depressive fever his whole life.

Too much teasing. Too much bullying for being the boy he had to be, coming from the family he didn't choose. He lived in areas of the south that didn't take kindly to all kinds of people, certainly not intellectuals. And although he lived on a farm until he was fifteen, and can milk cows and hunt pheasant, he is an intellectual and always will be. No chicken feed for him.

Guilt by association.

Is there any hope for people who suffer this enduring condition that is bound to sabotage, bite us in some way or another?

Well, of course there is. Begin by not judging so much, not judging anyone, not ever (this is the only way to true empathy and understanding, even of ourselves). Begin by assuming that we all come from someone, and if others don't like where we come from, or who we come from, their bad for assuming themselves better.

Begin changing by tempering the effort to differentiate. No matter how we leave our roots behind, whether or not it is by dressing better (or worse), getting better haircuts, trimming our beards, studying Emily Post or shamelessly social climbing, our history is us. And it makes us so much more interesting than a two-dimensional magazine photo.

Aspiring to being better than the people who raised us works and we should, but to tackle self-esteem, we have to start with what we have, seeing ourselves objectively, as children of the universe, saddled with a past that should be something we can talk about, let go. It is only some of us, not all.

Change on the outside (not that we can't or shouldn't) is so much work.

No wonder the diagnosis for guilt by association, very often, is one form of depression or another.

(2) Marrying off my son
Sure, you deserve pictures, and I stole the one at the top of the post from a friend, and this one below, from her daughter's wedding, with permission, naturally. It was beautiful, and exhausting, no big affair. And I didn't crash, truly, until this week. Between the mental and physical exhaustion and the cottonwood allergy, I thought I needed an annual physical. Married to a doctor, you get one of these every twenty years.

Third Snap:

Girls in White Dresses

The wedding was in New Jersey, and we're from Chicago. But we have people there, and finding things isn't that hard, now that we all have more than a compass. One of the things I took on was hospitality in the hotel. I wanted to be sure people felt cared for, had a few snacks, (good snacks) in the hotel in case they were too tired from traveling to want to go out.

So I rushed around the day before the wedding and took care of people. But there were guests, I soon learned, from the other side, that weren't on my list. I had some extras, but not enough.

A man from the tribe (we identify with those skull caps, you know what I mean), approached the desk in the lobby while I was talking to a clerk about delivering the hospitality bags.

"Are you here for my son's wedding, by any chance?" I ask, smiling.

"Oh, how nice!" he replies. "A wedding. Are you inviting me? I'll come!" (Oy vey.)

"Uh, sure. Maybe. What are you here for?"

"It is Memorial Day and my daughter arranged a memorial service." He's still smiling. (It gets better)

"For who?" I ask, carefully.

"For my wife." (and better, even).

"And when did your wife die?" I squeak out.

"Two weeks ago."  (And still smiling. The power, the sheer power of a positive personality).

"I'm so sorry."

"It was so nice, just being greeted here, invited to your son's wedding" he says, winking. "I'm from Pasadena."

And we launch into a discussion of Pasadena.

(3) Crazy dreams

My youngest, the one who got married, asks me what the band should play when my daughter walks down the aisle with her spouse and their three young sons. They moved back to Chicago last year after ten years in California.  Considering winter past, and this ridiculously cold spring, California Dreaming, obviously.

Which brings us to our last story

Fourth Snap:  About a month ago, having trouble sleeping, up and down all night, I woke up for the fifth time at five a.m. and started the coffee. No big deal.

I told myself, that this is how it is when you're older. You merely don't sleep much. Gradually you need less and less. It is like you want to live every day, every minute, don't want to waste any of those demarcations of time. You're looking at that Facebook timeline of life and the future is coming up short.

My father, in those years before his death, deep into his eighties, hardly slept at all.

But I know that on Friday night I'll catch up, regardless, because I drink a little wine with my meal, and am often down for the count by ten, book open. It will be an eight to ten hour night, no question, and the rest, the sleep, is healing.

Not that I'm recommending anyone drink wine for sleep. It is counter-indicated. Sleep problem? Talk to your primary care doc. He'll probably send you to the likes of me.

Anyway, that night happened to be a Friday night and the system didn't work. The rich food, the glass of wine, no magic bullet. I was up late reading, which is fine, but woke up very early, as usual. On a Saturday! That surprised me, as did my headache. One crummy glass of wine.

Two Tylenol, a cup of half-caff later, I'm in bed again, reading, and asleep in fifteen. This time I REM.

REM is Rapid Eye Movement, the stuff of dream sleep, and there is nothing like it, we all know. Refreshes a body's soul. My dreams are transparent, too, no need to work to understand them.

In this one, FD runs off without me in a strange place, some convention in a suburb not that far away. The subtext is that I am looking for him, but am also looking for my daughter, who has moved away. I can't find anyone to tell me how to get to my car, or where the parking lot is located. I'm in a hotel which is also home to a/synagogue with a hundred people I vaguely know but cannot name. At a convention booth is a news crew shooting footage of someone, maybe a news anchor, speaking into a microphone, looking directly at the camera. Someone points to me and tells the anchor (I think it's Jane Pauley), that she should interview me, that I know a lot about the subject. I say sure, and am waved to a chair, handed a microphone, and answer all of the questions well, loving it. All of my anxiety in the dream dissipates as I pontificate on some random topic that I don't remember upon waking. At the end of the interview I realize I have left my purse somewhere, with my phone, but even this doesn't bother me. I am in the moment, living it, and all is well.

I wake up and In Sickness As In Health, Helping Couples Cope with the Complexities of Illness is open to page 139.Barbara also blogs. Always lovely to stop by to see her.

Outsmarting Anger

Barbara Kivolwitz and Roanne Weisman have pieced together a lovely little how to and I recommend it highly.

How to Outsmart Anger is barely dented, and I don't understand this, and keep apologizing to the publicist, who wants a review. But the truth is that when I get like this I prefer chick lit. I did like it, and am going to read it and discuss it in more depth when something anger-specific comes to mind. But for now, check out the review by Jamie Ducharme on how to outsmart anger, and if it fits, check out the book. And if you have questions, the author, Dr. Shrand, promises to answer them for us. He'll even grant me an interview. Comment and let's take advantage!

 Anger is stupider than it looks. Recommend a rager near and dear, or one you wonder if you love.

Soon after the wedding the spell broke. As you certainly suspect, the sleeplessness had to do in part with aging, but more likely, is that fear of abandonment we've talked about so many times, and definitely a little performance anxiety, stage fright related to an upcoming workshop.

I'll be that person, the one who is supposedly able to work without notes, the one who will be in the moment, entertain, and teach. #readslikeaTedTalk.

And face it. We're all afraid of losing our phones.

therapydoc

How To Make a Terrorist

Tamerlan and Dzkohar Tsarnaev, the Boston Bombers

It seems that when someone plans or executes a multiple murder, I have mentioned schizophrenia. Some say I see it in my sleep, but there is reason to the madness.

James J. Lee Discovery Channel

James J. Lee didn't like the Discovery Channel's programming. He thought Planet Green should encourage mandatory sterilization of the human race. His website is replete with paranoid ideation.
He didn't kill anyone, but was prepared, carried weapons. James J. Lee went down when police raided the building where he held his hostages.

James Egan Holmes, the Joker who pumped 33 bullets into twelve people in a Colorado movie theater, had been treated for mental illness. Unable to communicate verbally, he drew the doctors pictures of what went on in his head. He didn't just go postal.

James Egan Holmes-Batman Joker

Cho Seung-Hoi, a student at Virginia Tech, murdered 32 and wounded 17 others before killing himself. With a diagnosis of either Schizoid Personality Disorder, prodromal to Schizophrenia, or both, he likely had the angst of a psychotic.

What are we to think about the Boston Bombers, Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother, Dzhokhar?  Is there something sick about them? Is being pro-terror a sickness?

Most think that the older brother influenced the younger, that Dzhokhar looked up to Tamerlan, did what many younger brothers do, tagged along. Families are powerful.

Tamerlan, taken down by the police, has been implicated in other murders, back in 2011.  A drug deal gone bad, three dead. Tamerlan's alter-profile, a religious Muslim who used or sold drugs, doesn't sync. The religious tend to be aesthetics, not drug users. They have conscience. This is clearly a complicated person. He had friends, too, people who were with him at the time of the murders, partners in crime.

Ibragim Todashev, who died during the interview with authorities, not only confessed to his direct role in slashing the throats of three people in Waltham, Massachusetts, but also fingered Tsarnaev.

Seems the victims were Jewish, at least one, Brendan Mess, who boxed with Tamerlan. The gloves came off, apparently, over something more than drugs and money. Perhaps hatred.

Investigators of the crime reported at the time that the heads of the three victims were pulled back and their throats slit ear to ear with great force. Marijuana was spread over the bodies in a "symbolic gesture," and several thousand dollars in cash was found at the scene.

When parents talk about their kids smoking pot, stealing, acting out, they want to believe that other kids have brainwashed theirs. It would be nice if youthful criminal behavior was a stage, a coming of age thing, having to prove independence. A way to be cool, garner the respect of their peers.

But acting out, scoffing laws, sociopathy, isn't a stage. Family dysfunction and genetics conspire to interact with social influences, shape personality. Tamerlan's mother, for example,  surely a social influence, doesn't respect the law. She's been arrested for stealing expensive designer dresses from high end retail stores. She allegedly ripped off the sensors, stole the dresses, then attempted to return them, cash out.

Tamerlan's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni  speaks of his nephew finding a new friend at Cambridge, a convert to Islam. Misha, from Armenia, a neighboring region of North Caucasus, lured Tamerlan away from the family. He told him that boxing, the youth's passion, isn't the way to God. This friendship, according to Mr. Tsarni, changed the Boston Bomber.

The US government is calling Tamerlan and Dzokhar self-radicalized terrorists, but they apparently had help radicalizing. Others are complicit.

No evidence of Schizophrenia. The 2011 murders point to Antisocial Personality Disorder, however. The features? A callous disregard for exacting pain and suffering, no guilt or remorse. Begins in childhood. No auditory hallucinations. We call it a personality disorder because there is something seriously wrong with hurting others. It is antisocial. The current research buzz is to have compassion for those who have the disorder-- abnormalities in their brains.There is a movement for leniency in the courts.

Except that Antisocial Personality Disorder is usually picked up in early childhood. These are the kids who throw cats in the river, who trip little old ladies, who cut up insects. 

The lite version, when a child or an adult knows enough not to get caught, when the behavior is sneaky, the crimes less overt, when cheating matures to rising up the corporate ladder at the expense of the reputations of colleagues, we think-- almost a sociopath. 

It could be that Tamerlan was an almost turned definite. We're sure to find out over time.  

One more story of disaffected youth. William Plotnikov's son Vitaly, shot down by police in Russia last week. Plotnikov had turned on his son, called authorities. He was concerned that Vitaly left his Canadian home to join an Islamic terrorist cell  He did not want his boy responsible for flying arms and legs, mayhem, destruction. Russian authorities found the young man in the woods with known and wanted gang members. Weapons  abound, Kalashnikovs everywhere, ammunition, improvised explosive devices. They took no prisoners. 

Ironically, Vitaly Plotnikov is thought to have known Tamerlan Tsarnaev. 

Vitaly, like Tamerlan, turned to radical Islam as a young adult, bored. His father says he always looked for excitement. Strangely enough, he had boxed, too.

So what is the recipe here, what does it take to become a terrorist, or a jihadist? We're aware that self-proclaimed jihadists believe in personal agency, their own justice. Are terrorists modern day Robin Hoods? Is the creed to rob from the rich, give to the poor? They identify as idealists, for sure, which might be cute, were the goods not human lives.

This is so complicated, it begs a new DSM diagnosis. We'll call it Terrorist Disorder, just to be clear: 

Terrorist Disorder

I. To make a diagnosis, must meet eight of the eleven criterion below.

A. Age 16-29

B. Tends to split beliefs, events, people, into good/bad, black or white, idealization or devaluation.

Splitting between one extreme or another is considered the defense of an immature personality-- reduces stress. In adults It is associated with Borderline Personality Disorder. Splitting is normal in early childhood.

C. Perceives those who do not agree with extreme beliefs as weak, ineffectual, cowardly and inferior. Minimization mirrors the rationalizations of persons affected with Antisocial Personality Disorder. It is not limited to Antisocial Personality Disorder, however.

D.  Describes spiritual attachment to God, having a mission inspired by God to better all of humanity. May feel appointed by a Superior Being to perform mass destruction of human life (in the absence of Schizophrenia).

E. Takes on self-denial, aestheticism associated with mystics, chooses a subsistence lifestyle believing the afterlife will be more rewarding.

F.  Embraces a creed, belief system, or manifesto that is either religious or political that the majority of citizens in peaceful nations would deem dangerous and antisocial. 

G.  Either volunteers for or is recruited by a group or an individual that recognizes psychological vulnerability, a need for approval, and/or inclusion in a group.

H.  Before associating with a jihad group, was disaffected, depressed, and underprivileged, suffered financially. The depressed mood and emotional detachment are relieved upon identification with the creed, sense of community, and purpose. 

I.  Manifests features of a manic episode: inflated self-esteem, grandiosity, a decreased need for sleep, flight of ideas, and goal-directed activity.

J. Identifies with a group that serves as an alternative family, brothers and sisters who advocate criminal acts, destruction and violence, mass homicide and suicide.

K. Cuts off entirely from former family and friends who do not advocate violence.

 II. The patient is not suffering from a Schizophrenia and does not meet the criterion for Antisocial Personality Disorder, but may suffer Bi-polar Disorder or other Axis I and Axis II disorders.

What did I forget? 

Oh, why not see it all in action. 

Michael Lavigne's The Wanting

Read Michael Lavigne's new novel, The Wanting, an engaging, fanciful (in its way) treatment of the development of a Palestinian suicide bomber in Israel. 

Amir, one of the many Jerusalem Bombers that we are all too complacent about today, a fictional anti-hero, wears an expensive suit, carries an expensive brief case. He blows himself up, takes others along.  

Wanting is the essence of a terrorist. Wanting. Dissatisfied. Told in three voices, Lavigne is master of first person. We hear from: (a) a survivor of the bombing, a middle-aged Russian architect, a man who doesn't even identify with religion; (b) his adolescent daughter who changes in its wake, becomes vulnerable to "religious educators" with a political agenda; and (c) Amir, the regretful terrorist, the haunting third voice.

Mr. Lavigne researched the book for three or four years. He granted permission to the following excerpts.  The terrorist, narrates. 

(1) In the days leading to my shahadah, I was immersed in prayer. I bathed my feet and hands in the waters of el-Kas, the well of al-Aqsa, which they told us rises up from the rivers of Eden, and I entered the great mosque and stayed there for hours on end, meditating. Then I would take the bus back to Jabal, to Walid's place, where we would talk and study late into the night. Only then would I sleep a few hours, lying between Walid and Fayez on the hard floor. In the morning we would wash, pray, and prepare a little hummus and tea. He always had dates and figs, sliced apples, and sweets of various kinds, and at night there was usually maqluba. We were never hungry, even though we fasted on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

(2) The slave may rebel from his master, the son from his father. Your father does not have the power to stop you, for your power comes from Allah, praise be to the All Merciful.

(3) And Yusuf al-Faruk trained me day and night and I, like a falcon on the path of All-Knowing Allah, swooped up his leavings. These were my happiest days. These were my days of light. "For the call!" I repeated after him. "For the Muslim Brotherhood!"

He writes poetry. But what have we here?  Religious asceticism, a call to a mission, the cut-off from family, the mentor. Religion, many of us are aware, feels good. We are called, follow a creed because we believe it is right, and that others are probably wrong, not as right. Some of us believe that nonbelievers will ultimately learn the error of their ways. One day. Rarely do believers take matters into their own hands.

When it is a matter of personal agency, when the methods are violent, when even parents and friends are disavowed, cut off, when human lives are dispensable, clearly something is wrong, something is sick about the creed. It is a cult, not a religion.

Deprogramming is the answer, if there is an answer at all. 

therapydoc 

On Mother's Day

It is like a Memorial Day, but in reverse. Rather than look down, we look up.

Many are not happy with what they see, is the problem, making a celebratory day more of a day of reflection.  It's not so easy, showing gratitude to mom, sometimes.

Much of a therapist's ordinary week is about the mothers that are difficult to see, to understand. There are the ones who are selfish (narcissistic), who think every day is supposed to be Mother's Day, and that every day their children should be gazing back at them with love, appreciation, and attention.

We speak in therapy of those mothers who are confused, too, who feel too strongly, whose emotions spill over on us, far too often, for whom life is black and white, or mostly black, and their children are supposed to change that, at least understand them. Their children are to think of them, consider them, respond to them right, as if there is a right way, right for everyone. It is very hard to understand these moms and their needs when our own need for a mother that cares goes wanting.

And we speak in therapy about alcoholic and drug addicted moms, too, many of whom have left us in the care of others, often an older sibling or to foster care; moms who are passed out somewhere, not necessarily in their own beds.

And we speak of mothers who are far away, who we left to live their lives without us, without sons and daughters because these special mothers (and fathers) launched us properly. We took off, married, found work, or merely . . .left, because it seemed the right thing to do at the time.  Far away. Dinner with Mom by Skype on her birthday, on Mother's Day. Sure.

And then, there are those of us who have lost children. For moms with this issue, what can anyone say?

Such an easy, happy holiday, let me tell you, to discuss in the week before the dawn, in the weeks before the holiday that many people actually dread. And we're not even talking about the brunches, which for many are insufferable. What are the odds that a brunch or a dinner is sufferable? Fifty percent or less? Yes, probably, depends how much champagne is poured, and that could make it worse, not better!

Nothing left to do, so why not celebrate Mommy Bloggers?  Because these kids, women, grandmoms, are getting it together, have found an outlet, a way to find sales and coupons, and share. They love their children and often their parents to the degree that they tell their tales to all of us.

Some are bringing up children they adopted, or have taken on foster children. Some are single and broke, or single and working, but have figured it out, how to manage a family, yes, and do it without the help of a significant other.

Let's celebrate everyone, who is a mom or who is not, because honestly, not everyone has a mother, many have lost one, and not everyone is blessed with children. A short list of bloggers who talk about their lives as mothers or almost mothers isn't a bad place to start.

I did a little cruising, searched for happy blogs and here's what I found in my first hour or two. If you think your blog should be on the list, email me or comment and we'll link over. Granted, it isn't as if I read very far, or got to know these bloggers, but I would like to get to know them, like I would like to get to know all of you.

Here we go.

What about What Not to Say, on Then I Laughed. Terrific.
:
Okay, on adoption,  It’s expensive, adopting, many future parents solicit to defray their costs, but then, boy, can they write!

Two cats and a cradel

BumbersBumblings: /

The conversation about adoption. 

Adoption advice, 

And about that long road to success, Mom At Last 

Life for mothers is a mixed bag, but when your spouse is arrested, when life changes forever, you have to write about that, too. Life Turned Upside Down. 

How about single moms? Mom Solo, for one. And Single Parent Adventure.

For a peak at women who think out of the house, yes, do it on the road, try Mommy Adventures.

First time mother? Well, First Time Mom and Dad, obviously.

Lots of babies at once. Quadruplets always thrill me.

Need more of a' tude? Or a banner with heels and those dopey balls kids love to fall into? Cloudy with a Chance of Wine.  Or better,

http://hotmessmom.com writes about menopause

Then there are honest moms. Refreshing, since most of us lie every ten minutes, according to a Ted lecture I watched. Or some statistic close to that. 

And mom’s who have an occasional special kid, women who know how to love. Dysfunctional Dose. 

Crafts and recipes? The Photographer's Wife, Mommy Katie

Baby products? No end to these, but lets end it.  Or just products: These Four No More

Kvetchers, but not really: Just a Little Nutty

Taking care of number one, One Classy Motha. on body waxing.  

What we would expect, When Crazy Meets Exhaution

 One thing we have to respect about the entrepreneurial mommy bloggers who review, sell, direct the female blogger traffic-- they are the life of the blogosphere. For an incredible list of mommy bloggers, forget about mine, go to Bloggy Moms. 

There is such a thing as influential social media mommy-ing. They usually are giving away something.

There are the creative moms that make us feel totally incompetent, like Mom Candy.
And RealHousemoms.

Or those who inspire us to take out our cameras. Mom Photographer, for example.

And Mommy reviewers, who get to wear cool shoes in exchange for a few words on the blog, and post nice pics, like SunnyDayTodayMama.  And shameless product promos, who doesn't like a good ad, as in, I Gotta Try That.


We have to include Childless Mothers Connect, although I would disagree that all women have the heart to be a mother. Not every mom has it in her, is the sad truth. But the bloggers at this website have their hearts is in the right place, and we salute you.

And why not read The Mom's Day Eve, and grocery shopping:

For women who wanted children but never had them, age forces some level of acceptance upon them. Grief and regret transition to “it is what it is.” Seriously, it’s worrisome if you’re 64 and still crying at the sight of a very pregnant woman.

Yes, dear, but some do. The Happy Mother's Day marketing everywhere, begins in early April. It gets obnoxious even for those of us with children.

Crazy thing, I couldn't find a homeless mom's blog. But there are blogs for victims of domestic violence, whose partners beat them or who are hurt and have no place to go. Joyful Heart Foundation is one.  Women Thrive is another.  Violence Unsilenced is another. Warning, this mom is really angry. It isn't a happy blog.

Hardly much of a list, considering that there are thousands of bloggers, but it is Sunday and this mother will still go to work, talk to other mothers who aren't terribly comfortable today.

So many kinds of moms, including older moms like mine who bemoan the losses of their lives, that they did so many things and just can't do a damn thing anymore. Still an inspiration. Every single day.

Happy Mother's Day Mom, and to all of you, no matter how this Hallmark holiday hits you.  It really will be over soon.

therapydoc

Teaching Them Things

(1)  Strike Two!

Spring League

It is baseball season, and my grandsons are old enough to throw a league much better than me. This hasn't always been the case. Having had two athletic brothers, when other girls played with Barbie dolls,  we played running bases. You learn to use a mitt. I never looked back.

  
Except I haven’t had my own mitt for a long, long, time. When it would have made sense to play catch with my own sons, work got in the way. If you don't work the afternoon/evening therapy shift as a young therapydoc, you don’t establish a practice, not quickly. If you do work until late evening, you won't see the afternoon sun, nor the sunset, not in the winter. Or your kids, either, you won't see them. It is a trade-off. The dues we pay. 

You hope quality trumps quantity, and that you will get by with your charm.

Wilson A300 baseball glove

But Thursday, because it is spring and because I can work as little or as much as I want, I stop at Target, pick up my mom’s meds at the pharmacy, then head for the sports section. 

I go through every single mitt before choosing a Wilson A300. The Wilson A300 is a shorter glove, has a shorter pocket than, say, the Wilson A350.  

The larger the mitt, the easier it is to catch those hard to reach flies. But for me, it doesn't matter; this one will work just fine. It is exactly the size of my childhood glove. 

That one my older brother gave to me. He was eight, I was six. Nobody else would use it, that's how used it was, probably my father gave it to him. This one is the same chocolate color, and it is new. 

There is, however, some difficulty in the decision. My two grandsons only have one mitt between them. Buying two mitts might be a more elegant idea. The three of us will play together. Except they will mostly be playing without me, because although I'm the boss of me, no workie, no foodie. So one mitt is enough to start us off. 

Other variables matter, too. I want to see how well they will take care of a mitt, even if it isn’t technically theirs, before shelling out another thirty plus bucks. Will the  glove make its way into the house after they argue and one child stomps inside for water? Or will it lie fallow overnight on the front lawn, or even for a few days, until a punk walking by considers it public domain, walks off with it.

One glove is enough to test their maturity.

So I tell the eight-year old, on the way to school, that I plan on buying myself a mitt and ask if he wants to play with me when I get home from work. Indeed he does.

Home at about six-fifteen, waving my Wilson A-300, he looks absolutely astounded. “You really bought a mitt?”

“Uh, huh. You’ll need shoes if we're going outside. Come on.”

So we go out to throw the ball around, but the sun blinds us, and his older brother pops outside to see what is going on. I throw my the new glove to him and the two boys discuss whether or not it is any good. They can't decide. Their father comes home from work, enters the mix, and I sneak back into the house to check some laundry. Upon my return they are throwing a football. My mitt is on the ground in the damp evening grass.

“I’ll keep it at my office,” I tell the younger.

“Why would you do that?”

“It will be stolen if you guys are in charge of it, for sure. This is Chicago. You heard the story about the woman who drove up to the curb and tossed a plastic Big Wheel tricycle from our front yard into her trunk. And it wasn’t even a new tricycle. I’m not over it.”

          
“Oh yeah, I heard that story. Did she go to jail?”

 “No, we didn’t press charges. She said she didn’t think anybody cared about the trike. She thought we had left it out as garbage. That’s exactly what will happen with my new baseball glove if I leave it to you guys. Except this time we won’t get a license plate on the thief. He'll be long gone when we notice the mitt is missing.”

He promises up and down he’ll take care of it, and I relent.  He has a special place in the house for bats and balls, mitts. He is confident my glove will be well-guarded.

Cool. 
Five minutes playing catch, an entire lesson—learned.

(2)  Appreciation

 It is a case of overbooking, and if you are a doctor, or maybe just a person, sometimes you pack your day too full. Or you make a mental note about time and lose it. Call it mind fatigue.

When I made a 9:00 doctor's appointment for my mother on a Friday, I forgot that I drive the boys to school in the morning. That I drive them every day is routine, a pleasure for me, and we all take it for granted. It is simply what we do.

My mother lives in a residential facility and I’m never far away if she needs me. She has some difficulty getting herself ready for early appointments, but manages independently. Still. Would she be ready in time for me to pick her up and get the guys to school on time? There's her make-up, her hair.

I decide to take the boys first and swing back for her, even though it is out of the way.

            
One of the guys gets an earlier ride, so it is only me and the eight-year old on a beautiful spring day. He seems happy that it will be just the two of us. He opens the door to the front seat and hesitates before asking, “Is it okay if I put my backpack in the front?”

This is an odd request because there’s no reason it wouldn’t be okay. What he wants to ask is, “Can I sit in the front?” But he balks.

“Sure,” I tell him.

As we drive in the opposite direction from his grandmother’s residential facility, he cries out: 

“Hey! I thought we were picking up Buba.”

I explain the new plan.  

“You sure do a lot for her!”

“Nah, not really. She takes perfectly good care of herself. All I do is drive her a few places on occasion, not all that much.”

“But you visit her when you don’t have to visit her. Like, you’re there when we’re there.”

What he’s picked up on is that a visit to an elderly person can feel like an act of kindness, but it might be an inconvenience, and if someone is already there, then the job is done. Why the overkill?

I reinforce. 

“People who can’t get out, who can’t drive over to see their friends anymore, really like company. So it is great that you and your parents walk over to see Buba on Saturday. If I’m there, too, it is because it is in my mind to go at that time, no matter what else is going on. It is a rote thing. Do you know what rote means?”

He did not.

“Automatic. Rote means automatic. Habit.”

What I don’t say is that when there is a set time to visit, I know that at least someone has visited. He is captivated, so why not roll on:

“And Buba really shows her appreciation for the things everyone does for her. She’s very appreciative.”

 There is a pause as this sinks in. In case it hasn’t sunk, I deliver the blow with more impact.

“It’s a really important thing, showing appreciation. When people go out of their way and do things for you, they expect a thank you, even if was their idea to do it. Even if they love doing it, a thank you makes every effort worth the effort. It makes the good deed even better.

When you do something for Mommy or Daddy and they say Thank you, you like it. A silly, small thing like a thank you and the day is a happier day. It's so weird.”

 He thinks a moment, then says, 

“Well, I appreciate you!”

“You do?!” I exclaim. “How nice! For what?”

“Well, for playing catch with me yesterday. I appreciated that a lot!”

We get to school and as he takes his backpack from the front seat, he looks up and asks, 

“Do you think sometime I could sit in the front seat?”

“Sure. Why not?”

“In California it is against the law for kids to sit in the front seat."

He has recently migrated to the less enlightened Midwest. We are in the new social experiment, three generations under one roof for about a year now. He is still making comparisons. My job is to clarify. 

“But here it isn’t against the law," I say. "I don't think. In Chicago, kids can sit in front. Ask your mom.”

“I will!” He smiles an empowered, satisfied smile before slamming the door.

No Thanks for the ride! that day, but he hit a home run the following.

therapydoc