Me, too

It isn't a new story, not to me. Not a new thing, sexual assault, rape, harassment, but having listened to dozens of victims (fine, survivors) tell their stories over dozens of years, surprisingly it never gets boring.

A man in his thirties talks about his experience as a young boy, age six, and a rabbi (rabbi!) who took his youth. You see, it is not only the priests, this is cross-cultural.

Or a woman in her twenties. She writes the details in long-hand, cannot talk about what happened to her. She is married now, hates sex.

Another man is introduced to porn and sex as a schoolboy, an older cousin. My patient cannot maintain a relationship, cannot finish what he starts, hardly ever initiates. He is addicted to online porn.

A prostitute tells me that she's had sex with hundreds of men, was told that it was all she was good for. She believed it for the longest time.

A mother brings in her daughter, says that incest is in the family and she fears that her daughter has been molested repeatedly by an uncle, her brother. The daughter will not talk about it. The mother discusses her own trauma, the abuse she suffered from him.

A young woman in her early thirties tells me that she has a choice. She can "date" her boss, or she can look for another job. There's a company retreat, required attendance, and she knows he will force the issue there.

A college student on break for the summer comes to therapy to get over an acquaintance rape. She'd been drinking. He walked her home.

Another woman recalls the tragedy of her life, a violent rape. He slit her throat, left her to die in the snow. She was under the influence, blamed herself for years.

Now there's #Me, too.

Women are opening up the proverbial can of worms, telling their stories to anyone who will listen. We are telling the world on Twitter and on other social media sites, screaming to other women that we are not alone. This happens.

Who doesn't have a #MeToo story? Find me that woman and I will tell you that likely she's (a) been very lucky or (b) she can't remember, lives in denial, head in the sand (this happens). Prove me wrong, tell me how a little girl, a young woman, a little boy, a vulnerable man, can avoid this abuse of personal boundaries. Because rape happens even if you wear long sleeves, long skirts, wear a bag over your head. It makes you all the more of a challenge, is all.

Therapists have to work out their own Me Too.  Most of us, by a certain age, have told our story countless times. We do it in classes via the small group, designed to be intimate, set up to smoke out our interface. We've had our own therapy, encourage our patients to speak with us about their experiences. Better out than in, purge it. Now this opportunity is available via social media, so much support for the survivor, no blame any longer for the victim.

This is something phenomenal and unexpected. That women would come out, one after another, after another, a seemingly endless chain of stories, amazing. That it is the rich and the famous are in the spotlight as predators, all the more incredible, but it comes as no surprise.

We might grieve that #Bill Cosby got away, a hung jury, and that #Bill O'Reilly has somehow crawled under the rock he came from. But #HarveyWeinstein has not escaped an unrelenting public eye. He will likely go to jail. And from there he'll make the movie about himself, ugly and shocking, like him. If he is smart all of the proceeds will go to the international fight against sexual assault

I'm not sure in the ten years of blogging anonymously that I've ever done a #MeToo.
Now would be the time, no? Being female, I have more than one (I think I counted four, including the father of a friend, I was 16). Here's the least emotionally damaging:

In college, a junior. I have an apartment in a co-op, am resident advisor. I accept a date from a man I know peripherally on campus, not even from class. He walks into the little apartment, closes the door, puts his hands on my shoulders and attempts to push me to the floor.

My adrenaline is greater than his, and maybe my anger, and I wrest myself free, push him out the door, lock it. Collapse. I kept the story a secret for years. It is why, to this day, FD tells me that he pities the man who tries to assault me.

This is no joke, however, having to fight off sexual assault, and it is something that I fear, as do most other women when they go out, even to their cars to go to the store in the evening, and men, too, who have been the objects of sexual assault.

That story, however, is hardly a #Metoo.  It is a survivor tale, not a victim story, and I never had him charged with attempted battery or assault. We could call it a Not me! in fact. In the treatment of rape Not Me is what we're after, but it is rare, this transition from victim to survivor, and placing the blame where it belongs, on the perpetrator, not ourselves. But that was sheer luck, pushing him out the door. If he had a gun or a knife, would I have been so bold?

There's a post on this blog, first steps toward treating rape, and it is far and above the most read on this site. Because most of the time we don't get away, and we're searching for those first steps in recovery, if not for ourselves, then for a friend, a relative.

Rape (the preferred legal designation is sexual assault) is a 1 out of 3 phenomenon for women, 1 out of 8 for men. It is possible there is even more of this crime now, or maybe less, I'm not sure. But it should be a 0 out of 3, 0 out of 10. No means No is not a new mantra.

Sexual assault begins as a violation of physical boundaries, and as such, has far reaching emotional consequences, several likely diagnoses will present soon after the event. A short list:
post-traumatic stress, 
depression, 
anxiety, 
insomnia, 
sexual dysfunction, 
addiction to alcohol and drugs, 
intimacy fears, 
rage

The body memories, the pain, the pregnancy and disease that go along with the trauma, these physical manifestations magnify the emotional pain.

But still, most telling is that the stories we are hearing now have been the dirty little secrets for years, feeding self-blame and anger, embarrassment, stigma, marginalization.

We might compare the experience of sexual assault to a different type of crime. Consider the man who has been a victim of frequent muggings. He tells his therapist that he this happens often, probably because he isn't a big guy. He appears vulnerable, and he is. But he tells everyone when his wallet is surrendered to a masked fellow with a gun on the street, near the alley. It doesn't even faze him anymore that this happens. He's learned to carry only one credit card.

When you read a MeToo story in the coming weeks and reflect upon your own, think about finding a way to share it, even if it anonymously. Even if it is a where do I begin, kind of thing, as it is when it comes to how many times we women are molested in our lifetimes, or approached for sex that we don't want, coerced, physically forced. We are vulnerable, and when we are young or old, unarmed and disempowered, we don't know what to do, so we do nothing.

What should we do? Tell someone, preferably a rape victim advocate, even years later. Or call the state coalition against sexual assault. Ask for someone trained on the crime at the emergency room, if it just happened. Make sure to ask for a rape kit, too.  And get some therapy, even if you think you don't need it.

Last night I listened to an interview on NPR. A female lawyer who specialized in defending sexual assault victims said that she wasn't sure that on the job sexual harassment training really does any good.* She said that the online training offered at most jobs with over fifty employees is sometimes good, never great. And she wasn't sure that any training, honestly, made any difference in the corporate world, where promotions are dangled, demotions expected. I always suspected as much, and after the prevention workshop phase of my life ended, segued to treating known perpetrators.

The lawyer's message, that prevention efforts haven't been shown effective, and that maybe it is impossible to eradicate sexual assault, seems terribly dark. But she ended on an upbeat note:

When well-respected, affluent men are outed for sexual assault, when the producers at Amazon, the managers at Fidelity, the Harvey Weinsteins, Bill O'Reillys, and even past Presidents (George H. W. Bush) must apologize, we are making progress. These high profile men influence the decisions of other high profile men, and if they go to jail, all the more so.

We can only hope.

therapydoc

*You might remember that I developed a series of these, offered them to corporations and schools. Online training made me obsolete and I abandoned the initiative.

Steven Paddock's Mental Illness

Stephen Paddock talks about is happy-go-lucky self

Unusual, isn't it, that mental health professionals aren't chiming in with a diagnosis for Stephen Paddock? We usually do. I usually do. No small crime, massacring 58 innocent people, injuring hundreds more. 

People died for doing nothing more American than listening to country music. 

Yesterday's New York Times

The Las Vegas police believe Mr. Paddock may have had a secret life. 

More accurately, he didn't advertise his intentions. We all have secret lives, and he was particularly private. But he could be friendly. He went on a gun shopping spree in October, 2016, and the salespeople found him pleasant enough.

Reports from his brother Eric Paddock:

From an early age, he focused on gaining complete control over his life and not having to rely on anyone. He cycled through a series of jobs he thought would make him rich

“He went to work for the I.R.S. because he thought that’s where the money was, but it turned out the money wasn’t there,” the younger Mr. Paddock said. “He went to the aerospace industry but the money wasn’t there either. He went to real estate and that’s where the money was.”

Which only tells us he wasn't into being poor. He went to work at the postal service, too, where his father's picture stared down at him: MOST WANTED, a doubtful coincidence.

with two failed marriages, both short and childless. Stephen Paddock started gambling. Some who met him described him as arrogant, with a strong sense of superiority. People in his life bent to his will, even his mother and brother. He went out of his way for no one


“He acted like everybody worked for him and that he was above others,” 

We can understand why the marriages didn't last.  But narcissism, loving only one's self, isn't necessarily a predictor of sociopathic behavior. It might help, certainly functions to put people off socially, distance from others (protection, exposure avoidance). The son of a psychotic bank robber, Stephen Paddock had to work hard to project an image of normal, ended up shooting for better than, superior. Feeling superior beats the alternative, masks feelings of inferiority by trying to make it so. Fool them and you can fool yourself, too. 

“I would liken him to a chess player: very analytical and a numbers guy,” 

 Mr. Paddock cherished his solitude, his brother said.

He knew that he was smart, could succeed in business, even at poker, and at the slots (there are ways to beat the house). In that cold, analytic, unemotional fashion, he could plan the logistics of a mass murder. It becomes a game, how many guns would it take, how long would he have before they discovered him, etc. The detachment from reality that tells him he's superior, different, enables him to murder. Most of us love other people, want to be a part of their world, admire how they look, how they smile. Not Paddock. If they don't admire him, serve him, he has no use for them.

A 1969 newspaper story described him as a “glib, smooth talking ‘confidence man,’ who is egotistic and arrogant.”

That's about Stephen's father, Benjamin Patrick (Hoskins) Paddock, who had a long rap sheet, bad checks, stealing cars, robbing banks.  

Benjamin Paddock was arrested when Stephen was 7 years old. If he didn't know why his father disappeared, it is likely he knew that he was a criminal, and at some point found out. It is possible his father even contacted him while on the lam, when he evaded law enforcement after his escape from prison. 

For certain Stephen knew he would have to rely upon himself, that his mother needed help. In school in California, wanting to win a contest, he apparently cheated. Others accused him. He merely smiled, as if to say, I can do that, I'm above those rules, better than you. Make it so. 

Investing in real estate in Los Angeles made him a millionaire. But he personally attended to the buildings, treated tenants well, wanted them to be happy. So he wasn't detached from people who depended upon him, who could see him as somebody. I would bet he tipped well at the hotel.

a midlevel high roller, capable of losing $100,000 in one session, . . . Mr. Paddock may have lost that amount at the Red Rock Casino in Las Vegas within the last few months.

This could be when he began to lose his sense of self, shake up those manufactured feelings of superiority that kept him going, provided him a reason to love himself.

The story skips to Paddock's total detachment, social isolation from his neighbors in Nevada.  

Mr. McKay (a neighbor) yelled out, “Merry Christmas!” Mr. Paddock kept walking. “He said nothing,” Mr. McKay said. “Not a word. No eye contact.”

It may seem that I'm making a case here for personality, narcissism or schizoid (below) but there are other diagnoses that apply. When we diagnose there are two types of diagnostic categories, one personality, the other the primary disorder, like alcoholism, or depression. Briefly, let's look at the options based on that short narrative.

(1) Gambling addiction

He stopped working to gamble full time, compulsive behavior that makes a rich man poor. But having nobody home waiting for him, the addiction wouldn't come to anyone's attention.  

Gambling, like using cocaine, can lead to crime to recoup one's losses. That he might be reduced to that, become like his father, might have stressed him. He took comfort in making money legally.  

If we might think he had a grudge because of his losses, then we would think he would act out on a casino, not innocent people, perhaps bomb the hotel. But his state indicates that the human race is the target, specifically happy people going to concerts. They're happy, he's not. Been there, done that his whole life. 

So far, calling Paddock's problem a gambling addiction doesn't explain much, but another diagnosis might 

(2) Bipolar Disorder

Mania is the "high" end of the bipolar spectrum, and it presents as excessive energy, no need for sleep, excessive everything, irresponsible spending and behavior. The "low" pole, depression, is vegetative. That Paddock gambled for very high stakes indicates a preference to excessive and a need for stimulation, what some people call an alcoholic personality (no surprise, there can be an association between the two disorders). Paddock wanted an even better win. An exceptionally big win.

So many lives.  An exceptional number of lives.

(3) Depression

The father, a bank robber, had suicidal thoughts, one of the symptoms of depression, and at the end of his life, the son completed the act, killed himself, along with the others. 

 I'll take you all down with me. 

He might have thought that, likely wasn't the cocky, cheery man he liked to present in public. (But who is?) Certainly plausible for a depressed man with no children who ultimately couldn't control his life, could fail at the casino and at online poker, couldn't keep a wife. Wasn't enough to keep a father and lost him at a vulnerable age, seven. 

A neighbor suggested that Stephen Paddock did seemed depressed. And quirky. One of the features of depression is avoiding socialization, presenting as irritable, unapproachable. There are many different diagnoses, all types of depression, and again, it is the opposite pole in bipolar disorder.

So maybe we're back to bipolar disorder.. 

But depression, remember, is often a secondary diagnosis, can be caused by all kinds of disorders, like alcoholism, eating disorders, attention deficit disorder, high functioning autism, borderline personality disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, the list goes on and on.  

(4) Schizophrenia

We would be remiss if we didn't look at schizophrenia, at its worst a type of psychosis, unmanageable without medication (like bipolar disorder). Maybe he heard voices in his head that screamed: 

People are evil. You are evil. Kill many, as many as possible, and kill yourself. Tell no one about us (the voices). 

Imagine. 

The voices only come out at night, when he's about to go to sleep. So he stays up and gambles to have something to do, to keep them at bay, sleeps during the day to avoid the pain and torture of these demons and their escalating, damning voices. Voices in the head can wear a person down. A man might cave.

And his brother mentioned that he seemed tired, not himself. Perhaps he couldn't fight the voices anymore.

(5) Social phobia/anxiety

He didn't speak with classmates as a child, kept to himself, and apparently ignored neighbors as an adult. A solitary man who played solitary games, slot machines. No desire to join a neighborhood poker games drinking beer with friends (loved online poker), or go to a Dodgers playoff game, perhaps, just to be with people, to be a part of something. 

But this doesn't mean he had a fear of people, or that he wanted to be with people, just lacked the confidence to initiate friendship. People with social phobia come to therapy because they want to join in, want to connect with others. 

We're not feeling that with Stephen Paddock. If he went to therapy for social skills training, we would have already heard about it.

(6) Schizoid personality disorder 

Here the pattern of detachment from social relationships, deliberate, is by definition the most salient feature-- no desire to be with people, not even family. The disorder is marked not only by the dearth of relationships, but indifference to praise or criticism and a palpable emotional chill or flat  personality affect. 

And little interest in sexual experiences with others, yet we hear Paddock hired prostitutes. And more important, he was nice to his tenants, the people who needed him, who admired him.

Also, the symptoms of schizoid disorder cannot concur in another, such as bipolar or schizophrenia, depression with psychotic features, or autism spectrum disorder. So it is a tough call, and we rarely see them in an outpatient clinical population. If we do, engaging the patient is extremely difficult. When he doesn't return we suspect premorbid schizophrenia, might even reach out to an emergency contact on an intake form. 

(7) Narcissistic Personality Disorder

That grandiosity, wanting himself to be better than everyone else, special, and the feeling that he has that he is unique, gifted, works to enhance low self-esteem. Sufferers of NPD are fragile emotionally, and lack empathy with others, are described as self-centered, arrogant, manipulative and demanding, harboring fantasies of success. They seek admiration and attention, are intolerant of criticism, suffer "narcissistic injuries" when criticized, are antagonized, angry, irritable and vengeful.

Enough said.

(8) Antisocial Personality Disorder

This is the one commonly referred to as sociopathic, or psychopathic. Features include a pattern of disregard for others, or violations of their rights; failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behavior; deceitfulness, conning; impulsivity; irritability; reckless disregard for the safety of others; consistent irresponsibility; lack of remorse; evidence of conduct disorder before the age of 15; and that the occurance of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

One need not have them all. Paddock tied up many of them in one day. 

Now you see why everyone's so reluctant to put a ring on the diagnosis? 

There are life circumstances, reasons these disorders unfold as they do, although it is tempting to blame genetics. Therapy in early childhood for someone like Stephen Paddock might have gone a long way. But the family didn't have resources for that. The boys drank powdered milk. And he didn't seek therapy when he could afford it. If he did, we can predict he would be the type of patient that if we failed to flatter, and continue to flatter, would lash out at us, threaten to sue us, or otherwise make us feel like a fool. .

What happened to bring out the very worst in this man? 

A boy has a father who is above the law, takes from others, ruthlessly. A Most Wanted man, and a fugitive. The father is incarcerated when the boy is 7, but escapes. He is in hiding for six years before capture. The boy theoretically knows none of this, but we don't know if he hadn't been contacted, sworn to secrecy. 

Tell no one we talked.

Now they are in collusion. 

His mother has moved the family to a small community, a place where people don't know her. She struggles, has no money, like most of her neighbors. Her eldest son is aloof, seems arrogant to classmates. Like his father, he doesn't play by the rules, either. He has no friends. He's learned that he needs to depend upon himself if he'll ever get out of that place. 

He tries various jobs, finds a niche in real estate, invests in properties that sky rocket, ensures an early retirement for his mother and his brother.  Somebody had to do it, and it is important to him that he be somebody. Maybe somebody other than a man like his father.

We call this conflict in therapy. Do I make it legally, or as a conman, like my father. My feeling is that he synthesized the two, found ways to beat the house, but played the slots legally (more on this in that article cited above).

Either way, he's socially detached, maybe because of the shame of having an incarcerated father, a failure, a pariah, a psychopath. And this is fifty percent of his DNA. He went to school, he knows this. He has to keep his father a secret, too. It isn't something you can brag to people about. 

There's trauma beyond the shame, perhaps intrusive thoughts about the man's methods, waving guns, behaving in a violent fashion (we should have included Post Traumatic Stress Disorder above). PTSD is one of those diagnoses that coexists, causes depression and other anxiety disorders, especially hypervigilance (wanting to own guns, perhaps). 

But maybe also identification: My father, myself. Larger than life, a man on the run, a cloud covering everything. A black mark. Or, at some point, admiration. A genius. I'm like him. People are tools.

At some point he tires of real estate, retreats to the casino because he's good at this, gambling. He's systematic, counts cards, hogs the slot machine. It is a happier place, the casino. But nobody wins all of the time, and inside he's still harboring very real negative feelings, jealousy and envy toward others, people who have normal lives, normal fathers. 

He can change that, even the score with one formidable, unthinkable act of violence. 

therapydoc

Dryland: One Woman's Swim to Sobriety

Housekeeping: A quick update on email subscriptions: New subscribers should write to me and I'll add you to the list. Contact me at lorenlivner at gmail dot com. No, that isn't my real name.

Dryland, by Nancy Bercaw

Now on to one of my favorite subjects, alcohol.

We're very cheap drunks in my family, and if a person has more than one beer or one glass of wine, or more than one shot of whiskey,  it's a bad sign, a running away from it all, sign.

This very light drinking isn't unusual for my culture. The reasons are as old as time: (a) over-indulging makes it hard to get ahead in an already difficult society, and (b) being high, the state of inebriation, impairs one's ability to learn. And we like to learn.

That said, the assumption that Jews never let go, or that we're all teetotalers, is wishful thinking. Ours is far from a sober tribe, certainly at this point in time. At any party there are groups within the group working hard to let alcohol take them away.

And yet. The rest of us know that relative sobriety comes with advantages far beyond what our heritage suggested. Not only will it help us learn, but embarrassing situations and blurts are less likely sober, there are fewer wasted calories, less of a hit to the pocketbook, and no hangover (unless it is a sugar hangover).

The disadvantage is the difficulty empathizing with people who cannot stop drinking until they get high. Therapists, upon hearing the havoc and dysfunction directly related to substance abuse, will advise patients to skip even the first drink. Stay home. Or start with a soft drink and stay with it. Water is better. Abstinence is good! No empathy whatsoever.

The thought that abstinence is good is a tough one to buy into. It isn't for everyone. It isn't the only way to control alcohol abuse, either. But it is the best answer for people who can't stop after one or two alcoholic beverages. Behaviorists (like me) believe that to achieve sobriety, to stop endangering one's health and mental health, to stop ruining the lives of others, alcoholics need to do something else. They have to replace drinking. Replace the usual and customary.

Nancy Stearns Bercaw is one of those people who can't stop if she starts. Luckily, she's always had this sport, swimming, something to do other than drink. Her memoir is about being a master swimmer, nearly an Olympiad, and trading it in for alcohol. It makes a good story.

DRYLAND: One Woman's Swim to Sobriety is the female answer to DRY: A Memoir by Augusten Burroughs, if you remember that, probably my favorite memoir of all time. Finally, a pulpy book to recommend to women who know very well that it is time to stop and haven't the will. This might be the one that scares them into it. Even though you know how this one will turn out, you really want to know how she gets there. Nancy Bercaw as a washed up athlete, you wonder, too, if there will be a comeback.

The story isn't that much different from those that therapists hear in the office on any given day, or people tell over at Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. We're just waiting for the trauma that kicked off the self-destructive, compulsive behavior, then the subsequent traumas that will keep the compulsion alive, magnify the need to drink, self-medicate. The plots for substance abuse and recovery can be formulaic.

And yet, we're drawn to them. (Spoiler, predictable, so forgive it)

Nancy's first trauma, recounted early, is a loss. She competes to be in the Olympics; loses the deciding trial for her race, the one she traditionally wins. Having no place to go, no other plans for a meaningful life, she quits swimming, bombs the pain with booze.

Then she joins the Peace Corp, travels the world. Making lemons out of lemonade, Nancy does find meaning, but can't stay dry, even in a literal desert. Dryland is set in several countries, and our voyeuristic peek into these foreign land makes us question our xenophobia, and fear of traveling outside our comfort zones.

Question: How does one eat live octopus legs?
Answer: With several shots of the local whiskey, before and after.

There's even a murder in this book, which takes away the wanderlust, come to think of it.

If she were in therapy, the story-telling complete, the doc asks a few questions. The answer to one of them is almost always in the affirmative:

Do you have a close relative who also drinks like this? A relative you might call an alcoholic?

For our author, it is her maternal grandmother. The genetics manifest with Nancy's first alcoholic episode, drinking for the first time with girlfriends, as young teens, raiding the liquor cabinet and running naked outdoors. The other girls swear off booze after this, the memory and the hangover enough to deter them. Nancy is just getting started.

Her first love, one that even trumps the love of her son and husband, will be alcohol. But you knew that.

You wonder when and how the bottom will come, because when a person drinks as much as Nancy Bercaw does, health issues are inevitable; or serious, sometimes fatal accidents; emotional breakdowns, even suicides. And these happen, like the disease, gradually, slowly, and inevitably.

GoodReads passed this one onto me, and the publicist, Trish, didn't even know that I'm that woman in the pool at 6 am every day. (Not a real swimmer, only a dozen laps, not a hundred). And that like Nancy, I love watching the kids practice their strokes, splash one another on the weekends.  And I love watching FD, his form, the way he glides through the water, a thing of beauty. We're not in it for speed at our age, but nobody said we can't try.

We watch the Olympics together and realize how incredibly far we are from "real" swimmers. Those kids who made it there are surely making their parents proud. But nothing makes a parent more proud than a kid who fights that battle against addiction, and wins.

Nancy, just want you to know. People like me, reading your story? Really proud of you.

therapydoc

Harvey

Houston under water

I take the pictures right off the TV screen, not unlike taking pictures for twitter when Anthony Rizzo hits another home run.

Current Events

It is 5:30 in the morning and I'm watching from the balcony as the sprinklers soak the lawn. It is about to rain in Chicago, so this annoys me. We're all a little sick of seeing so much water. It is all there is on television.  

In Houston 30,000 people are homeless. Some of us feel bad because we can't take anyone in, and don't have a boat, can't rescue anyone. 

We cannot stop watching the news. The rescue stories, extractions, captivate and keep on coming. It seems like there will be no end. The rain won't stop and there is no place for the water to go. Houston is flat, concrete, an urban center, not a national park. The water doesn't sink into the ground when it hits the cement. People, like the rain, have no place to go, either. 

Survivors of other hurricanes, Katrina, Sandy, Ivan, Andrew, Patricia, the list goes on, are reliving, retelling their trauma. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, a top mental health challenge, will be the topic of therapy sessions in coastal towns across the nation.  

And your therapist just wants to be in Houston, in a boat, paddling around and saving lives. The thought of getting wet isn't scaring her, nor is the hunger or lack of sleep. It is an adventure, a once in a lifetime. After all, she has a home to come back to when the waters settle down. 

There's the story of a mattress king, Mattress Mack, who is opening his store to the new homeless. Mattress Mack cried  real tears during the television interview, told us that these are his people. He doesn't care if they are black or white or where they come from, these are his people. He's in a people business, has sold many a mattress personally, not a guess. He knows regular people who just want a bed to sleep in. Mack modestly explains that he has to do something. His solution will cost him, the damage to the store about $30,000 a day, but he doesn't care. Too bad there aren't more mattress stores.

Somebody interviewed a scientist who firmly opined that the storm is due to climate change. It is an environmental storm, and this will become the new normal. There will be many more furious storms in our future. We don't need a crystal ball.

Another scientist explains that progress, urbanization has exacerbated the problem. We shouldn't have paved paradise, developed every stitch of land. The water has to run off someplace. It will begin in your basement, rise to the bedrooms. Paving paradise has come with a huge price.

My grandfather, who was a farmer, hated the big cottonwood tree in my backyard.  He would come over and observe our feeble efforts at growing tomatoes, mutter under his breath. That cottonwood is a nuisance tree. He'd go on, saying that the fluffy seeds get into everything, bring pests, have to be raked up. He doesn't even realize that the cotton is an allergy trigger, that our eyes hurt every spring, and the neighbors hate us, want us to cut the tree down.

The tree, the largest on the block, had grown so big they feared a lightning storm would split it, thick branches would smash through windows, the roof, probably mine, but maybe theirs. Who knows which way the wind is going to blow?

But razing that tree would cost about $10,000 and FD and I did not have that kind of scratch to throw around.

One day a Commonwealth Edison (our electric provider) representative knocked on the door and offered to cut down the tree on their dime. The tree limbs were growing dangerously close to the electric lines. Sign on the dotted line, he said.

Sure!

And with the stroke of a pen we are without the big tree, left with an enormous tree trunk. I love it, am content to sit on it with my granddaughter and talk about life, how it is a highway, with occasional  twists and turns. Raindrops.

Hearing the story about Houston's concrete issue, how rain isn't absorbed by impermeable surface area, I remembered the reason the great City of Chicago planted all those cottonwoods long ago. Much of the town was built atop swampland. Cottonwoods, very thirsty trees, soak up water. Deep Tunnel construction built under our streets in the seventies took care of what the trees could not. So we never flooded.

The waters will abate, and people will be relocated. Maybe Houston will be planting trees, but for now, building houses will be the priority. 

A Houston nursing facility

therapydoc  

Snapshots: The Eclipse and Deadlines

Totality

Those of us who get anxious are likely to be very anxious at the thought of a blinding sun. Last week we cautiously awaited instructions about the eclipse: what to do and what not to do.

The media tells us that while the sun is still out, and the moon is slowly walking its way across the master orb, during the partial eclipse, we're to wear special glasses. But some say, don't look for very long.

Everyone buys the glasses ahead of time. Amazon stocks up, only to find that some venders sold them defective goods. Refunds are awarded, sincere apologies. Entire schools of children disappointed. Class cancelled.

Too much panic for this therapist. And it is contagious. Now we have to worry about our own glasses.

Are these legitimate? How does one know? Ah! Try them ahead of time. Look up at the sun before August 21. If you see nothing, you're good. So I do that, and to my delight, nothing.        

Didn't get the memo

There are other unanswered questions, however, more things to worry about.

Is seeing totality, when the partial eclipse becomes a total eclipse, really okay to view without glasses?

Some of us can't even get over that it is happening at all, a tiny moon, overshadowing the sun, still wondering how that works, exactly. Those of us who've had some physics, or art history, assume it is perspective, but still, too cool for words.

This question about viewing with or without glasses is answered during the eclipse. You learn experiencing it, because with the glasses on during totality, you see NOTHING. That's how you know it is totality. Take off the glasses or you miss what you traveled so many miles to see.

And again, what about that 3-10 second rule. Is that only during partial? What about Total? So much to worry about.

FD is one of those people who knows everything, can answer the Why questions that little children ask. Ask FD, we tell them. He will explain all, especially medical conditions, intelligibly.

Or he'll say, "I don't know," but will probably find out. For himself.

So I tend not to stress him when he's on a science mission, like seeing totality for the first time ever. This is a big field trip for the doctor, as it is for millions of others, but especially scientists.

Having heard that many millions will hit the roads to experience the big event, puts me off, initially. Sitting in a car for 10 hours, competing for gasoline at the pumps, water at the convenience stores, spending hundreds of dollars for lodging in a 3-star hotel, or a residence hall at a state university, isn't appealing.

3 men fishing

But he finds us  a very nice AirB&B at Lake Ozark, only about an hour drive to totality from St. Louis, where we first will greet some relatives. A home on the lake, a pier to fish. This is living.

before sunrise in the Ozarks

sunrise at Lake of the Ozarks before the eclipse

But before we even leave, there is so much anxiety. We have a place to stay, but still have to figure out how to travel. I check flights, find a cheap one one SouthWest to St. Louis, but when FD suggests the train, I pounce on that.  Amtrak is cheaper still, brags a large bathroom in every car (unlike the little closets on airplanes), a food car, sockets for electricity in each row.

We'll rent a car when we get there.

But there isn't a car to be found in St. Louis. Thankfully, my b-i-l has an extra.

We take advantage, eat our hearts out with the relatives, then head out to the Ozarks, hoping for light traffic.

It is amazingly light (this is Sunday, the day before the eclipse), a good sign. There in a few hours, we meet up with my daughter and her family, settle in. We're set to chase the eclipse tomorrow.

When tomorrow comes, FD wants to leave three hours early, around ten a.m., because he can't tell from the cloud patterns where we'll find totality. He wants to have some flexibility.

As we get closer, he's getting very nervous, moves our launch time back yet another hour, wants to leave at 9, and everyone is pretty much ignoring him. He's grousing and grumpy, because no one else is in a big hurry. This is supposed to be a vacation.

I ask him where this angst is coming from. (This is a bridging behavior, asking someone to talk about their stress).

I HAVE DEADLINE ANXIETY! he shouts. 

He has made up a new kind of anxiety.

Wow. There it is.

WE HAVE A DEADLINE. THIS WILL LAST ONLY A FEW SHORT MINUTES AND THEN, IT IS OVER! 

True. Thank you for sharing.

We decide to get moving, head out on our own, scout out the sunshine, tell the others where to find us.

We sing (I sing)  Bonnie Tyler's Total Eclipse of the Heart. Together we sing about a dozen other songs, until our voices give out.

I haven't seen the research on singing and happiness, or heard any Ted Talks on this, but there has to be an association.

Still, even with the singing and Internet radio, classical, jazz (WBGO), whatever we want to hear, this is stressful, because a band of clouds is covering the sky all the way, and the sun only comes out for certain farmers, not others.

And what about the dog? (My daughter has a dog). Will he look at the sun? Does he need glasses?
Deep thinkers have answered this, tell us that dogs are smart, have no interest in looking at the sun.

Ah, but if everyone is looking at the sun, might not the animals do it, too? I text people this question. No one can tell me the answer to this. They are all tired of my panic.

FD finds us a spot in Hartsburg, MO at Katy Trails State Park, lovely, and there are only about fifty eclipse-seekers in this tiny town, locals and nice bikers from all over the country. Katy Trails brags a paved train track for bicyclists, my people, too.  We file this information away.

Yes. The crickets stopped chirping.

Not a sound to be heard. And thanks to FD and his vigilant perusal of the maps and the sky, we see totality for the totality, almost three minutes. It is breathtaking, and just like at the movie theater, when people clap for the movie at the end, there are cheers and hollers of appreciation punctuating the stillness. All of us in wonderment, awe.

And some of us say a prayer, even though in our religion, this is a questionable practice.

Sometimes you just have to go with your heart.

therapydoc

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