White Nationalists at Charlottesville: Scaredy Cats

Christian Picciolini, ex-skinhead

Jews will not replace us!

It is a white nationalist chant heard at the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville on Saturday.

What does that even mean?

The crowd with the rally permit directs its anger, uniting its right to hate Jews. The other minorities, Blacks, Hispanics, all other persons of color, get a pass for awhile.

What is at the core of a personality that drives someone to drive or fly  across the country, even don a white sheet, take a torch, or bare-faced, nonchalantly trash talk millions of people he doesn't know to a television reporter?

James Alex Fields, Jr, white nationalist

We can assume most people saw Schindler's List, know about the atrocities of the Holocaust, and that most people feel compassion. But no. Not everyone is made of compassion, and some people have this odd gift, a way of detaching from other people, dehumanizing humans. My skin's better than your skin. My genetics are better than yours.

To those who work with mental illness, who understand the whats and wherefores, how people become who they are, being racist is a manifestation of fear. The media likes to use the word hate. Crimes like this one fall under the very worst hate crimes. But hate is, at its core, fear.

I fear spiders; I hate spiders. (Spoken with real emphasis, conviction).
I fear mosquitoes, they bite; I hate mosquitoes. (Ditto).
I fear snakes; they bite, too; I hate snakes.
I fear Jews (unconsciously, for that would be a sign of vulnerability); they seem so successful, they are everywhere (they are 2% of the US population); I hate Jews.

Thought follows a emotion, although it can go both ways. Not so complicated.

Add another CBT tautology, another emotion, jealousy. Fear is at the heart of jealousy, and jealousy loads heavy into this equation, too. Fear, add jealousy, equals hate.

For example: I might be  fearful that a particular person is trying to steal my husband. I'm jealous if my husband pays attention to her. I tell my friends: I hate her.

In Charlottesville, James Alex Fields, Jr., rammed his car into a group of counter-protesters, people who took offense to the white supremacist display of hatred towards minority groups. Because in the end, white nationalists didn't only come because they hate Jews, they hate anyone whose potential success and power scares them. Heather Heyer, only 32,  murdered because a man feels he has to make a statement, flex a muscle (foot to pedal), get some respect from the gang.

Fields thought the Nazis were really cool, he once told his history teacher.

Some of Fields' classmates at the school recalled a trip to Europe after graduation in 2015, when they visited the Dachau concentration camp. Two of the students on the trip said (that) when they arrived at the concentration camp, Fields said, "This is is where the magic happened."

Weimer (Alex's history teacher) noted that Randall K. Cooper High School is not particularly diverse, and said that as a result, he didn't have many opportunities to see Fields interact with many non-whites or Jewish people.

So that's a reason to hate people, lacking personal exposure, ignorance. We know this, that if we put Palestinians and Israelis together to talk and get to know one another as people, there is understanding, friendship, detente. But Field's friends weren't exposed to Jewish people either, and we don't hear about them coming to Charlottesville.

A better explanation, beyond the theory about fear, is that Fields is a sociopath, based upon his comments to his history teacher. He has an idol, Hitler, and thinks that murdering Jews in Europe was a great idea; the Holocaust, a time of history magnificent, brilliant. The idea gets him high. Sociopathy, law-breaking (murder is universally taboo) feels good to a sociopath, really good, especially if you can justify it, benefit. Having this diagnosis one need not even have the need to dehumanize the victim, or blame him for something, it just feels good. No guilt.

But he did look nervous in the videos taking him off to prison.

The larger lesson of the rally in Charlottesville, and the probable reason for the crime, assuming Fields has no other big or little crimes under his belt, signs of sociopathy, lies in the very same reason that most other white nationalists also came to town, passively encouraging Fields to do his thing. We're back to fear.

The chant about being replaced, WE WILL NOT BE REPLACED has its genesis in the fear of being replaced, replaced at the top of the social pecking order in this country. The business about he statues is just a good excuse for a meeting, exposure.

Their psychology is that if people of color are given opportunities, they will excel, reach the "top", take what is not rightfully theirs.  If ethnic and racial minorities are accepted in this country (and even the sexual minorities, gays and lesbians, transgendered, etc., are accepted now so anything can happen) their talents and drive for education, gumption and initiative, will likely push those who have fewer talents, less drive or imagination, down the economic-social-political ladder. People of color (and Jews) who make block-buster movies, earn high salaries in television and music, find executive positions in business, finance, are stealing them and must go. And we cannot have any more of this. We have too much of it already, in the form of the Jew.

This rant goes on, sorry, but there is so much to say to stop now.

Last night I heard a white nationalist express genuine disgust that the beautiful daughter of the president married a Jew (what he must think of her conversion to Judaism, we can only imagine),  Jared Kushner.

Kushner has what this man certainly wants, a beautiful woman, who is now the president's daughter. So Jared has money, power, and a woman who is not rightfully his, according to this logic. He's not deserving. The white nationalist is surely jealous, would love to take Mr. Kushner's place. Feels replaced. Jealousy is at the core of his hatred. He is afraid that he will never make it in this world as long as there are people like the Kushner's taking his place.

It is irrational. This is a big, wide, plentiful nation, and with any interest, anyone can get higher education, jobs, status, success. There is room for everyone in this country to succeed, no cap on how much talent and brain power the society can sustain.

How un-American to think any other way.

If I personally could interview the men carrying torches, Uniting the Right, brazenly hating, I would ask different questions.

Do you think you got enough love as a child? Was there laughter in your home? Did you, as a family, enjoy relative harmony? Was there music? Did you sing? Did your parents welcome others to their table? Did you feel understood? Do you think you had quality time with your parents? Did they sit and read to you, hold you, tell you to love others, to give to others, and that you would be happier in life if your worldview came from a place of love, cooperation, with all people, even people unlike yourself? Especially with people unlike yourself? Did they tell you that we are 98% alike, when it comes right down to our DNA, and that most people are lonely and could use you as a friend?

Or was it more like child abuse and neglect, lots of beer, drugs, whiskey, sexism and all the other isms, domestic violence, blame, scapegoating others for problems? There will always be others to blame, if you look for them, and minorities are traditional favorites as scapegoats.

We can only hope this will change.

Christian Picciolini

Christian Picciolini describes himself as having been lost and lonely, recruited to become a white nationalist in Chicago. He rose in the organization, became the leader of the Chicago Area Skinheads. Now, at 22, reformed (fatherhood changed him), he cofounded a group called Life After Hate and has written a book,
Romantic Violence: Memoirs of an American Skinhead.

Mr. Picciolini, in an interview with NPR:

I think ultimately people become extremists not necessarily because of the ideology. I think that the ideology is simply a vehicle to be violent. I believe that people become radicalized, or extremist, because they're searching for three very fundamental human needs: identity, community and a sense of purpose.

This makes all the sense in the world to me. Preaching hate and violence is the language of bullies, and bullies are people on the hunt. They need to displace negative feelings like self-doubt, loneliness, poor self-esteem. They identify with the aggressor, often a parent, sibling, neighborhood gang members, to feel better about themselves. Better to be the one on the top, than on the bottom, in the scuffle.

It is a need for power, strength, community, a need Mr. Picciolini felt before he became a skinhead, a neo-Nazi.

About negative self-comparisons to others, therapists ask: Why would you do that? You're special. You are you. You are important. You don't have to be anyone else.

A person only has to watch the movie The Help to key in on on these words, to remember why they are important. We never have to compare ourselves to others, we only have to be our best selves. That is all we have to be, ultimately, to have it all.

therapydoc

P.S. One more thing.

It is easy to see why the Jewish people get under the skin of the skinheads and their like. So stinking driven, achievement oriented, personable, and smart. Just a few things that Jews are responsible for:

From Kathryn Bernheimer’s presentation on why Jews have been innovators in disproportionate numbers at “Smashing the Idols: A Teach-in and Launch of MoVeRs”:

. . .Jeans, Lipstick, the Ballpoint Pen, Contraceptives, Instant Coffee, Television Remote Control, Traffic Lights, Scotchguard, the Flexistraw . . . God, Genetic Engineering, the Nuclear Chain Reactor, Virtual Reality. . . .Hollywood, the Sit-Com, the Long Playing Record, Woodstock, Sound Movies, Videotape, Color Television, Instant Photography, Holography, Monotheism, Psychoanalysis, the Theory of Relativity, the Weekend (Shabbat), Capitalism, Communism, Circumcision, Cheesecake, Cafeterias, Discount Stores, Pawn Shops, the Shopping Cart and the Ready-to-Wear Clothing Industry, Prozac, Valium, The Polio Vaccine, Radiation, Chemotherapy, the Artificial Kidney Dialysis machine, the Defibrillator, the Cardiac Pacemaker, Vaccination against the deadly “Hepatitis B” virus, the Vaccinating Needle, Laser Technology, Google, the Wire Transmission Facsimilie (FAX) , the Microphone, the Gramophone, the Microprocessing Chip, Optical Fiber Cable,  Laser, Cellular Technology, the Videotape Recorder. . .Drip Irrigation, Scale Model Electric Trains, the Pager,  the Walkie-talkie,  Refrigerated Railroad Car, High-vacuum Electron Tubes, the Incandescent Lamp, Kodachrome Film, the Blimp, the Adding Machine,  Stainless Steel, Tapered Roller Bearings.

And worse yet, they keep getting Nobel prizes.

At least 178 Jews have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 23% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2008, and constituting 37% of all US recipients during the same period.  In the scientific research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Medicine and Physics, the corresponding world and US percentages are 27% and 40%, respectively.  (Jews currently make up approximately 0.25% of the world’s population and 2% of the US population).

Man, I hate 'em.

All Our Waves are Water

 A very different book, All Our Waves Are Water. 

Journalist-biographer-resident surfer, and guru,  Jaimal Yogis (he might shudder to be referred to as "guru", a modest man) is on a quest. Jaimal takes his mind's-eye with him, his awareness, and ramps it up, as he journeys through life, a search for his best self, and more than that, he's running away from a bad break up. It is a physical journey, and an inward trip, too. 

Having one parent of Jewish ancestry but raised in a Buddhist tradition, it is no surprise that a stream of guilt is laced into the words of this delicious biography. I look forward to reading his other book, Saltwater Buddha.

All Our Waves Are Water

All Our Waves Are Water

All Our Waves Are Water might be a metaphor, but is probably what every surfer is feeling while finding his way in the ocean. There is an attachment to water, detachment from all else, as it must be, because anything else, and down you go. Fall off the board, hit a reef, good for no one. So unconsciously, unknowingly, every surfer is something of a Buddhist surfer, at one with the water. It may the same with skiers like Kristen Ulmer, who wrote the thought-provoking Art of Fear. (I was a little hard on her in the review, but she's totally got a point, even if it isn't new, that we have nothing to fear but fear itself. Skiers, back to the point, are at one with the snow. 

Not so different from swimmers. In my imagination, we swimmers all share the wondrous feeling of weightlessness in water, the unbearable lightness that our heavy human bodies attain, floating (or riding) atop of it. 

Unless you have flying dreams, there's no better way to feel it, save becoming practiced at meditation, which takes years. But swimming is easy, and relatively cheap, as surfing must be, excepting the occasional payout for a new board, or neoprene shirt, or trip to Thailand or Hawaii. (We'll talk). 

So I relate to Jaimal because he is surfer, and as a woman who makes it her business to find a pool, be it salt or chlorine, finding a swim, common knowledge, isn't hard to manage. Unless the pool is closed for some reason, which can be infuriating, which may or may not be  Zen-like, depending upon your master. More than likely, anger is tolerated, even encouraged, also good. Jaimal's best friend, a Bali monk, about a depressive episode: This too, good.   

All Our Waves Are Water, aside from being about the oneness between our bodies, mostly water, and all of the water in the sea, the ski, also promises words about enlightenment, and who doesn't want to explore enlightenment? Even if it only to quiet us down, meditation is the cheapest form of bio-feedback around.  

It is a quest for enlightenment, a search for the ultimate answers to consciousness, awareness, our very existence. Some of us live vicariously, we read about these things in books, we even pray, too, hoping to connect to something higher than ourselves, or use meditation apps like HeadSpace, or videos. (Have we talked about the F-that Meditation video? Not for everyone, but it had this therapist laughing.) 

We talk about it, achieving serenity, but Jaimal walks the literal walk, travels the miles, to find his answers. We'll like this author because he's not a rigid guy, or even particularly messed up. The journey, as most trips go (just wait for this weekend's trek to see the eclipse in totality) is stop start. Find one master, switch gears, work an internship for school, meditate on the fly, get on a plane, find another master. Start the journey, fall off course, get back on, lose focus, find it again. And relationships will be at the core of everything, learning and love. Being in contact, attached to people, loving them is very much what enlightenment must be about.

And always, always, look for the next wave. The metaphors about water, waves,  bring meditation into the non-meditator's world, the world beyond introspection, more accessible than repeating a mantra. We each have a zen as we walk, run, surf through life.  

Nice worldview.

Wise, too, in knowing what all yogis and scientists know, too, that everything is dying, the moment is gone before we're aware that it ever was. There is no true present, it is only a line between the past and the future, like that line on the horizon that doesn't exist (I heard that part on an NPR Ted talk, Shifting Time.)

Being here now means being between yesterday and tomorrow, which is impossible, so meditate on that.

If you liked Eat, Pray and Love, you’ll like All Our Waves Are Water.

A winner. Take Jaimal to the beach with you. Watch the waves.

therapydoc

Snapshots: My Glory Was I Had Such Friends and Blue Whale

New from Harper-Collins

(1) My Glory Was I Had Such Friends is a memoir, the story of a lawyer who needs a heart transplant at the tender, life-affirming age of 25. We tune in at 50 when she needs another. The first donor heart is failing quickly, symptoms painfully communicating that she is in trouble.

Amy Silverstein's My Glory I Had Such Friends-- glorious

The disease turns unbearable, and she has endured a great deal. This is an emotionally strong woman, but we all have our limits. Pain medication can kill her, slow her heart to a stop. She is going it alone, white knuckling pain.

Not easy reading. But it is chick lit, and we love any book with the word "friends" in the title.

And Amy has friends, many of them, amazing women who will leave their daily lives to travel across the country, tend to her when she needs them the most.

How in the world does this happen? How are some people so blessed, or so lucky?

Once I asked a man why he married his wife. He told me that he had to marry her. She was the only one, outside of himself, who still had all of her friends from childhood. Not many of us can say that.

To have friends who will stay with you when your life is at its most challenging, this is nirvana, heaven on earth. As it is written, not sure where, but someplace holy, probably the Ethics of the Fathers, A close friend is better than a distant relative.

On Saturday, Shabbas, the last day of the week, almost finished with this biography, I'm looking around the sanctuary, checking out who is here, listening to the reading of the Torah, all the while wondering:

If, G-d forbid, I were in this position, sick and stuck in a hospital prison, waiting for a donor organ to come through, not knowing if it would or it wouldn't be on time, could I count on any of these women to fly to California and stay with me for a few days, then maybe come back and do it all over again? 

After all, being alone in a hospital room for months, isolated from the usual and customary everything, well, that's pretty depressing.

Amy has a rotation of super stars, and they are furious, no distressed, that she has lost her will to live. Her irritability, her anger, her pain, all of it is on the surface, she can't hide a thing. She is in agony, breathless. Her pacemaker, working to keep her heart beating, mercilessly, repeatedly sparks all night. It is electrifying, begins just as she dozes off. But her friends are there.

There will be a decision, and it is hard for some of us to even read about this, wanting, like Amy's friends, for her to choose life. Is there really any other choice? But she has a choice. She can legally let go, refuse treatment, choose death as an alternative. I want to close the book, stop reading.

But she writes too well. The book is beautiful, so stopping is impossible. As a coping strategy, Amy quotes poetry, by heart. (Who does that?) She never whines. You don't want her to die. You are her friend, too.

Not fair to spoil it any further, check out My Glory Was I Had Such Friends. Enough to say that it is a lesson in friendship, how to be a friend. It isn't easy.

(2) There's something else going on, the Blue Whale Game. This is painful, too. This is about who not to choose as your friend.

A 16 year old girl (her name is protected) kills herself, identifies with the blue whale, a species that voluntarily beaches itself to die.*

The girl has followed the rules of a Russian internet game, one that has claimed many teenage lives. The creator is a 21 year-old psychology major, Philip Budeiking, since found in Russia and arrested. But the game continues in other countries, has other administrators, or "curators."

News sources have reported two teenage suicides in the United States associated with Blue Whale Game. There are likely more.

The "game" takes place over 50 days. The curator gives players daily tasks to accomplish and requires them to submit photographic evidence that they have completed each, keeping their communication private.

The tasks leading up to it include watching horror films, cutting their lips, incising an image of a whale on their arms, sitting on the highest rooftop they can find, legs dangling. The are to visit the ocean, find railroad tracks.
. 
. . .the curator sends teens to scope out the location of their deaths in advance as one of the challenges. . . Each task becomes riskier.

The final task is to kill yourself. Jump.

130 teen suicides could be linked to the game, because almost all the victims were in the same internet group. However, it later said that only 80 of those could be proved . . . definitively linked to the game.

Oy vey. Eighty validated suicides related to a . . . game.

Teens are told that once they begin the game, there is no turning back, that the curator knows who they are and he will come after them.

To see a list of all 50 challenges, go to Youtube.com.  Suffer through the info-video by Anonymous titled Blue Whale Group Exposed- 2017 #OpBlueWhale.

 

I just couldn't bring myself to link to it, or embed it. This is too scary, too upsetting. They have enough attention already, these sociopaths.

But tell everyone you know about the Blue Whale game, because people have to know these things. Warn friends, talk to parents, and especially talk to children.

Maybe it has never been harder to be a parent, or perhaps, even a child.

therapydoc

*There are many reasons that the blue whale might beach itself, none proven conclusively.

The Art of Fear

A friend of mine was telling me over a piece of Torah (This could be anything learned from the Jewish holy books, from the most complex argument, to a simple story.) He added that on the day he learned it, he also came across the same lesson from a different source. And then it happened again, the very next day, same lesson, while reading something secular. 

Cool, right? We both said it at the same time. But a part of me thought, Or random. What my friend is referring to is Torat Emet, a sign, repeated pointers, to the truth of the lesson. The emet. It is a spiritual thing that manifests in the real world.

Knowing this, while reading Kristen Ulmer's book, The Art of Fear I had a similar experience.

Otherwise it would be easy to dismiss this bio-self-help book, like my professional self insisted. Because Ms Ulmer isn't a mental health professional, and she cites no research or empirical validation of her methods. The Art of Fear is about the lessons she has learned from life as an extreme skier, as the first woman to break into extreme ski jumping, or simply, flying off mountains. On skis. She's learned much from her Zen master, and we could say that this teaching, her book, is her Torah.

So two things happened in that odd, spiritual way, that pointed to taking Kristen's work seriously, one anecdotal, the other clinical. We'll get to them. But something is bothering me. There's a huge problem, and it is laced within the pages of The Art of Fear. It isn't content, not the lack of empirical evidence back up her own claims of treatment efficacy, but an opinion, a slap in the face, a narcissistic injury. Our author dismisses the whole of psychotherapy, all of it, behavioral treatment, dialectical, cognitive therapy, everything, you name it, based upon a handful of visits to a psychiatrist and a therapist. She thinks that time spent with people like me, or maybe you, too, the clock ticking dollars and cents away, is time and money wasted.

What, Kristen, you didn't think we'd notice?

A short rant to the author is in order:

My life, and the lives of every other therapist in the world, the millions of patient hours that we spend with the people we see, matter. Our time with people helps. And although some might benefit from The Art of Fear, I'm sorry, many will not. 

 The online courses offered on your website may be fabulous, Kristen, but the bias, your accusation about the mental health professions are simply outrageous, and not nice. And those online courses that promise, well, everything? Smack of snake oil.

That just came out, the part about the snake oil, because meditation isn't snake oil, not at all, far from it, or quackery. We see good results with patients who have studied with zen masters, and many of us recommend meditation almost always for emotional management. Yes, management. It is like sending an alcoholic to an AA meeting, very helpful. When it works. If he works it, it is therapeutic to manage emotion, when we can pull it off, and more so, to make behavioral changes. Life should be about change, growth. Not navel gazing.

Still, this method does help. And Kristen's way of seeing, a nice way to conceptualize emotion, so we won't dismiss it. To sum up her therapy in two words, they would be body meditation. In this practice one learns to switch from nagging thoughts to the body, to feelings and where they are located. Body meditation practice can be very very helpful, especially for anxiety, thus no disrespect. But my patients come back to me a month or two later as if they have forgotten all of it. They lose the entire Torah.

"Are you still meditating?" I ask.

"Well of course, and it is very helpful. I'd be a mess without it."

"Keep that up," is my stock response. Then we proceed to discuss the entire gestalt, feelings, thoughts, behavior, the past, the future, all of it, everything that is bubbling over in that moment. And yes, we are speaking, feeling, in the here and now, yet talking about the past and the future. Because being here now, the patient is still a mess. And needs to talk about it now.

So here's the story.

The Good Reads book tour sends me intriguing paperbacks for review, and The Art of Fear landed in my mail box a few days before my vacation in early June.

Having buzzed through half the book before leaving, I get a call from a patient having a huge panic attack. His anticipatory anxiety is about an upcoming event, and his state of panic is his worst ever.

We had worked on the likelihood of ensuing panic before and during the event, and he had a few tools to work with. These usually worked: the breathing, the muscle contraction, finding rational reasons for and counters to his fear. He wanted to try a treatment strategy, virtual reality therapy, or VRT, that based upon my review of the research, might help, too. But the treatment center that advertised it still hadn't set up a program. So glad you called. Try us in December.

Kristen's words still fresh in my head, it was a no-brainer to try her intervention.

Listen, I said. You and your fear are one person. And you are a good person, Fear is a part of your self. It is you (one of you). You have fear for a very good reason, and you are showing respect by letting Fear out of the basement, not repressing her. She won't kill you, she loves you. All she's saying is, Pay attention to me, would you PLEASE? Because if you don't, I'm going to mess up this event, it will be a rocky affair and there is nothing you can do about it.

Fear can be a relentless, mean part of our psychology, And it is true, our emotions, ourselves, one in the same. Every therapist knows this. We don't suggest running from it, avoidance, or repression. Those are primitive defenses. We talk, and experience, feel and dialogue. It is what therapy is. We do a million other things, too, because there's no one size fits all in this business.

Fear, Kristen rightly tells us, is on our team, working for the good, just one voice, one of ten thousand employees at work in our community of selves. All for one, one for all, our feelings are hard at work, teaching us about ourselves, and they are starved for attention.

Her advice in The Art of Fear? Just listen, give Fear all of your attention, bow to her. Fear deserves respect. And pay no mind to all of that negativity in your head, those scary interpretations about fear, and her representative, anxiety. Negative thoughts build on one another (as if you didn't know) and grow more powerful as we obsess, even when there's no reason to believe any of it to be truly likely to happen. There's always a chance, however, so the thinking brain will go crazy, lawyering around, defending reasons to feel afraid.

I like to tell patients,

When you hear a rustle in the park, it could be a bear, but it could be a bird. 

Giving negative thoughts all that power is irrational, so goes traditional cognitive behavioral therapy. Kristen would say, and she's not wrong, that the thoughts are our off-course way of controlling Fear, and Fear doesn't need to be controlled. She just wants some respect, time. We try to come up with a plan to keep her in the basement, but she will not be denied! Give her a few crumbs, heck, the whole loaf, junk the thoughts driving her.

(Because that's easy).

The treatment: To stop the madness (the thinking), shift to the body, become aware of how it feels, find the emotions, especially fear. Give her equal time, no, much more time than you spend justifying why you have cause to worry. need to be afraid.

Brilliant! It is. And if you like metaphors and little stories, the book is full of them.

The therapy is called Shift Therapy, and I like it very much, because it is so familiar, a warmed over version of Psychotherapy 101, first year graduate school education. Social workers (most therapists, believe it or not, are social workers) since the early 1900's, are trained to tell patients to give emotions their due, to validate them. The patient should get in touch with her feelings. Just feel. Stop working on not feeling, because feelings might escape in one way or another, disguised as anger or resentment, jealousy, blame, shame. Let the tears come, we say, and it is okay for the heart to quicken. It is telling us we're alive.

Old school, still delicious.

And what goes up, you know by now, must come down.

The art of feeling is nothing new, still remains the essence of a good psychotherapy, despite the dozens of manuals prescribing treatment protocols. Kristen's is now one of them, or could be, if she didn't have to diss the mental health professions to go it alone. That, darling, should say something, not to play therapist here.

My patient, the one with the panic attacks, reported that the event went spectacularly, by the way. He had a great day. It could not have gone better. I took that as evidence, validation of some of the truth of Kristen's book, grateful to have found it by chance. Or was it chance?

Then, last night, a few of my friends and I had movie night. We don't go out. One of us goes to the library and takes out five or six DVDs. We bring our own dinner, chow down and talk, then go through the selections to find one we haven't seen. We chose Eddie the Eagle.

Sounds like a dumb kids movie, but this is about a little boy who becomes a big boy, then a young man, who remains a little boy, forever. Eddie has always had just one ambition, to be an Olympic contender. He wants medals. He has a cute metal box awaiting them.

He fails miserably at all sports, is told that he is not an athlete, that he never, ever, will be in the Olympics, but he doesn't care. He keeps looking for yet another sport. He will practice, hard, because he is determined to be an Olympian, to compete with the gods of athletics. He is positive, he is sure, and he is, in a word, almost fearless.

I don't want to ruin this one for you, so we stop right there. This is a feel good movie, and a true story.

A seemingly random choice of a film, still, a sign pointing in the direction of Kristen Ulmer's book. Why? And why was I a day late blogging for the book tour? Because apparently, it had to wait until three women poured over some DVDs, only to decide to watch one about an Olympic ski jumper.

Kristen Ulmer's new book

Kristen Ulmer is a ski jumper, the first female extreme sport hero with accolades to prove it. Most of her life, she tells us, she kept Fear in the basement and fearlessly pursued all things dangerous, like flying on skis off cliffs.

Simply mind-boggling to anyone with a Jewish mother.

So that's it, the story, the whole truth.
A final word to our author:

I love the technique. It will work for some, not all, and I will continue to refer out to zen masters. My advice to you, however: Refer out, as well. Punt when you're in over your head, tackling the hundreds of other diagnoses in the DSM 5. Stick with athletes. You get them. For this work is not all about fear, believe it or not, and there's no one size fits all to calm that monkey brain.

Avoid all shades of autism and be very, very careful with patients with severe personality disorders and psychoses, even OCD, and certainly suicidal patients.

This is painful work, you will absorb more of it than you care to admit, and you'll cry, too, and laugh often if you love it.

But obviously you won't be keeping your emotions, and hopefully not your laughter, in the basement.

therapydoc

The Inevitable Welling Up and The Fidget Spinner

I asked FD, one morning, having been chased inside by mosquitoes the night before, "Why is it that mosquitoes come out at night, and they're gone in the morning?"

He thought about it for a minute and said, "You know, they have lives too.

And I didn't see that coming. 

Just wanted to start with a joke, even if it has nothing to do with the rest of this. Some of us are wanna be stand up comics at heart. Except, that would be so vulnerable-making.

Here we go. 

It has probably happened to you, that moment of unparalleled embarrassment and emotional powerlessness. It comes out of nowhere, but definitely, somewhere.

You are speaking with an acquaintance or a coworker, maybe, or especially an old friend. And she asks about a touchy subject, a topic that tends to be upsetting, and this unexpectedly renders you defenseless. You want to cry, escape.

It is a hot button. You're aware that the subject hurt, but until this moment, not entirely how much. It might be an innocent question, maybe about an ailing relative, a parent, child, or spouse. Or maybe it is entirely about you. Your friend didn't know the project failed, or the application, rejected. You had such high hopes, you told everyone. (This time for sure!). But no, not this time, and those tears rush in. You're dying here. It is a Shoot me moment, you tell your therapist later. 

Even if this is a person who would understand, could empathize, the reaction is the same.

Sometimes you know perfectly well you are about to step into a landmine, you're already a little shakey, well before the tears rush in. But when they do, that dialog bubble over your head shouts an expletive. 

This is about feeling vulnerable, caught weak, flawed, pathetic. Being comforted implies we are needy, that we need comforting, and what is comfort, if not love? And what if we aren't lovable, really, what if we aren't worth that. (Many people are raised in just this fashion, sure that showing weakness, being needy, falls on deaf ears, proving the ridiculous false thesis of unworthiness.)

There are reasons a person wouldn't want to be caught being human (highly imperfect). Reasons the tears that rush in feel so bad.

Fear of being judged unfavorably, as a loser of some sort.

Fear of the intimacy of the moment, the exposure. The relationship isn't there, we're not ready to take comfort from this person, and this isn't a choice, there's no control.

Being weak is not what the other person expects, and now we will have to deal with their feelings about what we're feeling. 

We like our distance, integrity, our identity, persona as strong. 

As women, this is the last thing we want a man to see, for men already perceive us as needy.

The role of comforter is a lot easier, many of us are well-practiced at it.

The other's question is invasive, this is a sensitive subject, one we would prefer to open up on our own time, i.e., Yes, she's still on heroin and she lives in her car

Feeling unworthy of connection to others.  

There are more, let me know if you think of them.

Years ago, before I took notes on a laptop, I did process recordings and treatment plans using pen and paper. It was convenient, for me, having a pen in hand, because if someone said something outrageous, and this often happens in couples therapy, I could whip the pen into the air and it would land behind my chair, or occasionally on someone's lap. After this I would smile at their reaction: "Seriously, what was that?!*" We would discuss what was said just prior in a more productive fashion. Eccentric, sure, but sight gags work. 

Alas, this is 2017 and even finding a pen in my office is difficult. There's one somewhere (and this kills a little time, allows room for thought on the patient's end) because pens are sill needed to illustrate family relationships with circles and squares, at times.

The pen, as we've established has multiple functions, and helping us out of vulnerable situations, those moments before the tears, when a well-meaning person has asked us about that job hunt, is one of them. We can't always, as we've also already established, lean in and embrace the pain, cry in front of others. So we need one on hand, when we're in social situations, in our purse of pocket protector.

Then, when triggered, we drop it. We can drop anything, it is true, keys work. Drop it something handy and spend a few seconds retrieving it, collecting yourself. A marble would be perfect for this. Upon retrieval, of course, the object needs to be wiped off, so search the room for Purell and a tissue.

Avoid eye contact at all costs. "Just a second I forgot . . ." Then drop your fidget fidget spinner. I got one for free for buying over $20.00 worth of tee-shirts.

A fidget spinner

(They say the fidget spinner is good for ADHD, next on the list of things to discuss). A fidget spinner is not for everyone, may cause nausea or possibly seizures, so think before giving one as a present.)

Other strategies during the vulnerable moment:

tie your shoes fake a sneeze or a coughing jag, thenlook in your purse for a cough drop 

fake taking a call, or having to make a call 

have an answer ready ahead of time, or just

answer. 

Oh dear, answer. Be honest. Authentic. Be who we are.

You must know that this problem really is about being vulnerable, feeling unworthy of love and belonging, fearing of rejection. And yet, emotional vulnerability, those fears, flaws, weaknesses, our very humanity, is what make us lovable. Nobody loves a robot. 

In therapy we say: Fine, if you must, work on what you see as your faults. But you don't have to be a work in progress all of the time. Being you is unique and interesting and worthy, as is. 

They never believe us. The message is a tough sell. Which is why below you'll find the Brene' Brown, exposing her own vulnerability, empowering us to do the same 

Take 20 minutes and listen, closely. Then listen again, especially to the parts about numbing our vulnerability, how we go about masking who we really are, and how much work that is, trying to be perfect, trying to perfect our children. 

therapydoc

Snapshots: Book It

I didn't really have to go to school all those years, we're finding. So much self-help out there, catchy titles and awesome covers to grab our attention, and much of it is surprisingly, helpful. If only to talk about it, half the time. Still, there's a lot of wisdom to be found at $15.99.

In graduate school in the previous century, academia beat us over the head with the notion that what we heard on the radio, watched on television, read about in magazines, newspapers, and self-help books, journalism, is not science, isn't even social science. But that's not the way it is today.

Research-based academic journals, think Science, Cell, Lancet, Nature, Nature Genetics, Human Relations, Journal of Marital and Family Therapy, Family Process, American Behavioral Scientist, Qualitative Research, and dozens more, are invested in public relations, shoot out press releases to the AP to herald new scientific discoveries, the ones about to go to print in their publications, of course. Journalists follow up and we get smarter.

Researchers publish their own books, too. Two of the three mentioned below, for example, The Compassionate Achiever and Proposing Prosperity: Marriage Education Policy and Inequality in America as products of scientific study, really took years to write. The authors lived these books.

You won't find Proposing Prosperity for $15.99, but if you are a student of social policy and have always wondered how the government works to turn around the number of single mothers on welfare, this is an excellent choice. Plus, the author attended so many relationship therapy workshops  you can't help but learn something.

Compassionate Achiever

The Compassionate Achiever: How Helping Others Fuels Success,  by Christopher L Kukk, PhD proposes four steps that maximize compassion, a little known key to success. I'll try to write more on it in a post about compassion, but for now it is enough to know that the definition is very different than the definition of empathy. An empathetic person intuits, senses another's feelings. One with compassion does something about it.

What about Extreme You: Step Up. Stand Out. Kick ___. Repeat.

Sarah Robb O'Hagan's Extreme You

Not academic, but we learn from the stories of others. A good anecdote is data, too.

Sarah Robb O'Hagan is entertaining, full of energy, confidence and creativity. So her book is too. I admit, I jumped around to find the stories.

Extreme You: Step Up. Stand Out. Kick ___. Repeat

If I got it right, it is about risk, putting yourself out there.

Well, from a therapist's chair, it isn't easy to take risks. We can work in therapy for months, years sometimes, before a naturally anxious, safety-prone person is willing to step out of a comfort zone. But this is the message of Extreme You, a just do it book. In all fairness, she did work for Nike. This one is about how she made it in marketing. The road, if it works in that field, probably generalizes to others, too.

Go ahead, try out your latest brainstorm, tell it to your boss, get an audience if at all possible, with the Pope. Silence won't get you anywhere.

Assert, assert, assert. Any therapist will tell you this is key to beating depression, and passivity is depression's friend. So act. Just do it.

Whether or not Sarah Robb O'hagan will sing to you might depend upon how you were raised, because it is the message of supportive families, the ones that raise kids to hold their heads up, to strut their stuff. But supportive is the active ingredient.

Our author holds nothing back as a writer, doesn't edit out words that once upon a time would have been edited out, censored. Some of us liked it that way. But the author's intent, remember, is that we try the wild side, for once.

And we wouldn't want to throw the baby out with the literal bathwater, right? The tone of Extreme You is very Mindy Kaling; her voice is the same, too. Some of us first saw Mindy on The Office, became huge fans. Her books are in the airport bookstores, with titles like Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me (and Other Concerns). and Why Not Me?  She dishes out advice, as does Sarah, from her experience, lately writes about the Impostor Syndrome, something else we should discuss one day, on CNNBC's Make It. 

If you're wondering whether or not this concept is a good fit, if perhaps you are too conservative, probably should shake out the emboli, take a walk over to Sarah's website and take her quiz. I did it but didn't leave my name or get more information, like is the quiz reliable and valid. Still, what have you got to lose?

The premise of Extreme You, that we're all highly individuated and the world needs to hear different sounds, new ideas, works for me. But are we all talented, so talented that we can and should cross lines, step out of line, take risks?

A systems therapist would say, know your system, know your audience, before you express yourself. I'm pretty sure Sarah tells us that, somewhere in there, because heads do roll, we hear about them in therapy, patients who hardly know the names of their teammates before the team changes.

That said, lathered with sensitivity, we can get away with almost anything. If you have to draw attention to yourself to make it, let it be known how incredibly sensitive you are. And empathetic. And compassionate. Extreme, to all of the above.

Because when all is said and done, really successful people work really, really hard.

therapydoc

13 Reasons Why

I know I've been away for awhile, and have so much to say, but all those snapshots about less essential things will have to wait. 

Because this is really important. 

There is a new show on Netflix, 13 Reasons Why, capturing the attention of teenagers and adults everywhere. When I saw it on the Netflix menu last week I passed without thinking. It seemed so much like work, you know?

But it is at the top of my list now. A therapist has to be informed.

This is a series of 13 shows focused on 13 people, people who in one way or another contributed to a teen's decision to end her life. Hannah Baker has already done the deed, leaves behind 13 audio cassettes implicating others. The screen adaptation is based on teen fiction writer Jay Ashers'  2007 novel of the same name.

Any therapist will tell you that we all, in one way or another, have at some point in our lives, affected the mental health of another person, for better or worse. Indeed, there is a therapy adage, well-understood:

For every suicide, there is someone else who wanted that person dead. 

Yes, that sounds macabre, but it is true. Well, sometimes it is true. Certain personalities are so grating, so annoying, so abusive (whether intentionally or not) so hard on us, so needy and intrusive, that loved ones (loved ones!) wish they were dead. And the one who is the problem picks up on that.

The suicides of patients diagnosed with BPD, Borderline Personality Disorder are often blamed (in notes) on family and friends who could not meet insatiable needs, or who outright rejected them, ended the relationship. The one who took his life likely put impossible demands upon others, expected them to drop everything to help. But it catches up on people, dropping everything else. It takes a toll. It becomes a matter of survival to limit the relationship.

We can't love everyone, and love can hurt. Mostly it is the lack of love that hurts the most, the withdrawal of love.

Borderline Personality Disorder is probably not what 13 Reasons Why is about (remember, I haven't seen it). In Alexa Curtis's article in Rolling Stone (a must read) we learn that Hannah has been raped by a popular boy, and witnessed sexual assault, suffered from bullying and the rejection of friends. She likely didn't have BPD, rather suffered loneliness, hopelessness, low self-worth, and depression.

Alexa Curtis, nineteen years old herself, a survivor of teenage bullying, upon hearing about 13 Reasons had to watch it. She is the founder of Media Impact and Navigation for Teens (M.I.N.T.), an online guide to media, self help. Alexa thought to herself, Had I watched this as a young teen I would have done it! I'd be dead today!  In her Rolling Stone opinion article she suggests that the show does more harm than good, the risk of glamorizing suicide is too great. Her opinion-- Hannah's story lives on forever in the audio tapes, and suicide should be an ending-- that's the point.

Which is not true, unfortunately. It is never an ending, because those who have loved and lost someone carry that person's legacy forever. They never forget the salient details of that person's life, now snuffed out, and will talk about it in therapy, given the opportunity, speak with tears and self-recrimination, of their own guilt, their failure to provide enough help, support, love. The survivors own it, right or wrong, their contribution, and attribute death to their failure.

There is that percentage, one in five of all borderline patients in a clinical population, for whom suicide will be the answer. The act is often to punish the "failures"of other people. The suicide literally says,

It Is Your Fault. 

For others suicide is the choice because they can no longer cope with their depression and need it to stop. Suicidal patients are at the greatest risk when they feel a little better, have the energy to do it. It takes a lot of energy to kill yourself. Depression, abated somewhat, is still close enough to touch. Why not now, is the thinking. It will come back.

And sometimes, with mental illness, even with much, much therapy, the memories of the many reasons not to do it, reasons discussed in therapy, are entirely erased. It is as if, in the throes of an episode, either manic or depressed, the only right thing to do is end it. It is the logical choice of an impaired, illogical mind, a painful choice, sometimes, and always illogical.

And there are other reasons, more than 13 of them, most likely. Complicated reasons.

So we have to have these discussions, talk about them. Make them long discussions.

Teenagers will be watching this new show that depicts fictional Hannah Baker's suicide in one of those episodes, and it looks frighteningly real. And our kids, our friends, the ones who watch, who are vulnerable and depressed, who have been bullied, perhaps, will consider the option. Peers, siblings, children. There will be copycats. Some are videotaping themselves right now.

It is a graphic show, we're warned, one that begs discussion, conversation.

And there is a media debate about it:

Is this the best way to raise suicide prevention, to get the conversation started?

Yes, because everybody's talking about it.
No, because there will be copycats. Kids will die as a result, will feel empowered. Hannah did it, so can I. 

We have a teenage suicide epidemic going on.

I thought about it and made a note in my calendar to make a few calls, catch up with the adolescents I've seen in the past year who haven't come back, who for one reason or another, dropped out of therapy or terminated therapy. That's one thing I can do.

What can you do?  Well, ask any teenager you know,

Have you seen 13 Reasons Why?

And get a conversation going. You might save a life.
Because for every reason why, you're likely to be able to counter with a good reason Why Not.

therapydoc

Other discussions on this blog about suicide:

Ten Reasons Not to Kill Yourself

How to Save a Life

How to Save a Life, Part 2

How to Save a Life, Part 3