Apples vs. Pears

Apples vs. Pears

 

            The other day I was with the kids and found myself telling them about my paternal Grandmother.  We used to travel to England every year and visit both sides of the family.  My paternal grandparents were my favorites. 

            They lived in a little village called Ugham and there was a pub called The Forge that had a shop next to it that sold candy from jars with scoops.  I can remember the colors and the smells and the wax paper sachets they gave your candy to you in after twisting them at the top with a flourish.  Beyond The Forge was a little war memorial to the local men who had died in both World Wars and further still a bridge over a small stream where I would go and catch tadpoles in jars and skip stones.  As I grew older, I would take a book down to the stream and read, listening to the water babble by.  It was one of the most peaceful escapes of my childhood.

            But best of all was waking up in the morning and crawling into bed with my Grandmother.  She was a big lady and very cuddly and warm and she would read us books and tell us stories until my Grandfather came upstairs with breakfast on a tray for us all, singing out-of-tune all the way.  He would get up early and make us a full English breakfast.  Eggs, bacon or sausages, beans and toast with butter and jam.  Sometimes he would also give us black pudding (blood sausage) but I could never bring myself to eat that!  I’d hear the Grandfather clock downstairs chime and then he would appear with his tray.  I can’t express how loved I felt.  My paternal grandparents weren’t perfect, they fought at times.  I can remember them getting into frequent squabbles; one ending with my grandmother throwing a packet of biscuits at my grandfather’s head and him muttering (loudly) “Damn and blast”!  But they were very loving and very interested in everything that we did.

            In any case I was telling my kids about my Grandmother and the breakfast-in-bed memory and stated to them that they would have really loved her if they had had a chance to meet her.  Dermot asked me if they would have liked my maternal grandmother.  I thought for a moment and then said, “My Grandmother on my mother’s side was a lot like my mom.”  He paused for a second and then said “Well I guess that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree in your mom’s case.”  I nodded and then raised my hand and said, “But this one did.  In fact I think I may be more like a pear!”

            At which point he rushed at me and gave me the warmest hug.  It is the kind of hug he used to give me so much more often when he was little and not so self-conscious and tweeny.  From this embrace he raised his head and said, “And I’m so glad you’re a pear Mom!”  And then I predictably cried.

            My point in telling the story is that trauma and addiction are frequently systemic and multi-generational.  I have come to see people through a lens of both love and tolerance, but also now with the beginnings of a clinical mind. 

I can look at my maternal Grandmother and my mother now as women who must have suffered in their own pasts.  I see them now as women who were sick and lacked the resources to get better.  I think they also lived in times where mental illness was not spoken of and certainly any abuse would not have been discussed.  We, as a society, don’t speak about abuse or addiction or mental illness readily even now so I can only imagine how swept under the rug it must have been when they were both growing up.  My healing didn’t begin until I started talking about it though.

I firmly believe that you have to bring these things into the light in order to start getting better.  You have to examine all aspects of these things no matter how painful it might be.  You have to be brave and you have to get up after you fall.  If you don’t then the cycle won’t be broken and that would be a tragedy.

For the record, I’m glad I’m a pear too.

The Chumming

“The Chumming”

 

“When we put pen to paper, we articulate things in our life that we may have felt vague about.  Before you write about something, somebody says, ‘How do you feel?’ and you say,’Oh, I feel okay.’ Then you write about it, and discover you don’t feel okay.”  Julia Cameron

 

Every therapist over the course of my lifetime (and there have been many) has encouraged me to journal.  I always blew this off.  In my mind it was an exercise in futility.  My creative side identified as an actress and a singer and I thought I only had room for them.  It wasn’t until my second stint at rehab had me so utterly de-moralized and desperate that I was willing to try everything that was suggested to me that I began to journal.

I found a simple, almost hokey-looking journal at the Caron bookstore and bought it.  It has a stick figure on the front and is entitled, “Me, A Personal Journey”.  For each day you fill in one side with answers to questions like “What is the weather today?  What is in the news today?  What are the events for friends and family today? Who brightened your day?  What did you do to brighten someone else’s day?”  As I said, it sounds pretty hokey, but it is the perfect way to start the day and get my mind on track with what is on the agenda and what I am grateful for.  I answer the questions about what has affected my day using what happened the day before given that I choose to journal in the morning.  The flip side of the page is blank and I usually write an inspirational quote and them journal about whatever comes to mind.

I have bought and filled half a dozen of these journals over the past three years.  I haven’t gone back and read a single one of them and I’m not sure that I ever will, we’ll see.  The point is they calm and focus my thoughts.  I can speak for many people in recovery and some not in recovery that our thoughts are all over the place.  My thoughts swirl and eddy around in my mind and it can be overwhelming. 

When I am anxious about something it gets worse and I have manic thoughts.  I have been assessed to see if my mood swings would give me a diagnosis of Bi-Polar disorder and they do not, but they are significant enough to affect my life.  I will make a list of things I have to do and it becomes colossal within minutes because my mind is telling me that I have to get it all done and ridiculous things that don’t really have to be done in one day appear on the list as well making me ever more anxious and manic.  The racing in my head feels like a chumming with my mind throwing out fish to the sharks of thought.

There is an article from the website PsychCentral that does a good job of outlining the effects of old-fashioned journaling (http://psychcentral.com/lib/the-health-benefits-of-journaling/).  It is a short read and outlines some significant psychological AND physical benefits to writing.  I knew about the psychological benefits but reading that journaling strengthened some forms of immune cells was fascinating and encouraging.

Writing to me is a form of mindfulness.  Mindfulness is something that should be taught to people in the fast-paced world of today.  Something about the act of physically putting pen to paper and forming the letters give you a singleness of purpose and concentrates your energy.

It turns out that the benefits of journaling have opened up my mind to a new form of creativity and spirituality that I will ever be glad I made room for.  It helps me to process my feelings and thoughts and slows me to a pace that means I actually accomplish more and stress less.  It also turns out that I am a pretty good writer.

The Best Divorce Ever

 

The Best Divorce Ever

 

Last year I spoke for a graduate counseling class about addiction.  The professor is the daughter of a former neighbor of ours from our days in Annapolis.  This neighbor saw me at my worst whether she realized it at the time or not and has been a big support to me from a distance ever since.  She had mentioned me to her daughter and I was happy to oblige.  She asked me to come back this year and speak and asked if maybe Frank would be willing to go as well and speak from the perspective of a family member.  Frank agreed to go and we drove up to NJ together.

I will admit that I was unexpectedly nervous to speak, because I would be doing so in front of Frank, and then I would be hearing what he had to say.  Now, over the past nearly three years I have spoken at meetings and rehabs and conventions and events and have written in detail about my addiction and it affects, but here I was nervous about what my ex-husband would hear and say, as if he hasn’t heard it all before.

I started speaking and discovered that it isn’t all that different speaking in front of Frank, in fact as the class wore on and I had said my piece and he had said his, we stood together and answered questions.  It became easy and flowing.  It was easy to tell, I guess because it is our story after all, his and mine, spoken from two different viewpoints that sometimes overlapped and sometimes veered off in different directions, but ours none-the-less. 

What a difference time makes.  If someone had asked me three years ago, or even a year ago if we would be able to do this I would have looked at them in utter disbelief.  I am proud of what we have forged and I look forward to co-parenting and enjoying life with Frank in this way till the end.  We joked the other day that we will have to get adjoining rooms at the home when we are old.  Which is not to say that we don't ever get on each other's nerves.  I won't even mention the near disastrous family shopping trip to IKEA earlier this year, but still!

I was talking to a co-worker the other day about our divorce and she said there isn’t a word for it.  She said it’s so rare it’s like a unicorn, something you hear about but never see.  I have to agree.  I hear of other peoples’ situations and there almost always is overwhelming resentment and anger and bitterness on one or both parts and it makes me sad, especially if there are kids involved.  If you have to get divorced (and oddly I will say I am not a proponent unless you have really tried everything), then for the sake of your children you have to do some work.

This is not to say that it was easy.  It may look easy now but the effort it took on both our parts was Herculean and the grief, anger and discomfort were, at times, oceanic.  But it is doable. 

Frank and I were having a painful late lunch together at a diner after Thanksgiving last year when I asked him for a divorce.  It was a bit of an out-of-body experience.  We were once again hashing things over and trying desperately to fix something that couldn’t be fixed.  When it came over me that this wasn’t all about me and it wasn’t all about alcohol.  There were other things involved, fears and hurts that Frank had that I could not control and in some cases had nothing to do with.  I realized that we were causing each other pain just being together as a couple, even though we care very deeply for one another and always will.  It came over me that I no longer wanted to be a source of pain in his life.  If being with me meant he couldn’t be the best version of himself and vice versa, then we had to make a painful change.  It was as if I heard my inner voice say, he does not want to be with you anymore and you no longer want to be with him anymore and it no longer matters why.

I could easily write a book about all the ways Frank has wronged me or hurt me over the course of time knowing him and trust me he could probably write three about me, but what is the point?  What is the point of hanging onto all of the negative and ignoring the positive?  When I hear people bash their exes I often long to say to them, “what does that say about you”?  After all you chose that person, so there must have been something good in there at some point.  Why not try and focus on that.  I know there are some serious exceptions to this, but not all situations are so bad that you can’t at least try and see some things from the other person’s perspective.

We tearfully drove away from lunch together knowing we were entering a period of fear and grief but both feeling a great sense of relief.  I remember relaxing into the idea and seeing him as my friend again.  I made a decision right then and there that we could literally have the best divorce ever and I told him so.  Luckily for me and for the kids, he jumped on board with that idea and we began the work of re-building what being “us” looks like.

I think people feel societal pressure to “stick it out for the sake of the kids”.  I get that, I really do, but what if you staying together is actually bad for the kids?  I know that our kids are better off seeing their parents as friends and not enemies.  I also know that our kids have not come out of this unscathed, but I know that this is part of their story now and that we can’t shield them from all pain.  I know we can honor the pain they feel about the divorce and work together to support them as best we can.  What Frank and I can do is become better chapters in our kids’ stories and our own going forward. 

So much about living a congruent life is acceptance.  It is a concept I learned in recovery.  In order to live congruently, which is something most of us strive to do, it means you have to accept the divine reality of situations and life in general.  If you can do that, then you can move forward with integrity and faith. 

And for the record we are going out for dinner on the 29th of December on what would have been our 15th anniversary, because why not?

“Somewhere in the Middle Lies the Truth”

 

“When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know.  But if you listen, you may learn something new.” Dalai Lama

 

These are divisive times for sure.  Whether you voted for Trump or Clinton you are probably looking at friends who voted the opposite and wondering how they can think the way they do.  I have been caught up with it this week myself, but then I remembered something very simple.  It is a principle I know all too well from growing up and moving through life in recovery.  That principle is, “there are two sides to every story, and somewhere in the middle lies the truth”.

It should no longer astound me that people can look at the same thing and see it very differently.  My brother and I grew up in the same family, in the same house with the same parents and had vastly different experiences.  I can state with assurance that my father was an alcoholic, my brother would argue (and has) that my father was not an alcoholic.  I would tell you without hesitation that my mother is mentally and has been since I was a child.  My brother would tell you that she has dementia that started only a few years ago.  It would appear that we are both right and we are both wrong and somewhere in the middle lies the truth.

I look at my children.  They have the same parents, lived until recently as a family unit and share mostly the same life experiences but they could not be more different.  They see the same incident and come away with different perspectives often.  Wren has her reality and truth and Dermot has his own reality and truth.  But here is the thing…  They have SHARED experiences and they STILL see things differently.  Now imagine if they had vastly DIFFERENT experiences and think how vastly different their realities could/would be?  That is what is being highlighted now I believe.

A close friend of mine posted a cartoon on his Facebook page the other day and I shared it on.  It shows two men facing each other and looking down at a number painted on the floor.  One says, “six”, the other man standing opposite looking at the same number says, “nine”.  They are both right and they are both wrong.  They are seeing the same number but they are looking at that number from different perspectives.

I guess my hope is that we recognize that we are looking at the same number (or country) but some are seeing “sixes” and some are seeing “nines”.  I am attempting, by listening, to make my way at least halfway around the issue to see the other number so I can understand the perspective.  In understanding I think we can find a way to work together and not against each other.

For the record, I agree with peaceful protests but I abhor violence.  I am a fan of debate, as long as it is civil.  I know where I stand on humanitarianism, refugees, immigrants, race, gender and orientation, not I want to understand where others stand on those same issues so we can move forward.  I will continue to post the things I believe in and I will continue to listen to those who see a “six” when I see a “nine’.  Because in the end, “there are two sides to every story and somewhere in the middle lies the truth”.

Coping

                “Coping”

 

 

“The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.”  William James

 

I recently helped with an open house at the counseling center I now work with.  A number of clinicians were there and I kept hearing this one counselor saying to others, “People just don’t know how to cope.”

It is so true.  People don’t know how to cope because we don’t teach people how to cope.  Maybe it is a sign of the times or maybe it just isn’t the American way.  I know other countries and societies are better and incorporating meditation and work-life balance than we are.  It seems to me the East is better with meditation and yoga practices and the Scandinavian countries are better with work-life balance.

Portugal is leading the way in terms of how they deal with addiction.  They had one of the worst drug problems in Europe until they changed the way they looked at the problem.  They have now cut their addiction rates basically in half.  How did they do it?  They de-criminalized drugs.   They took the money they used to spend on prosecuting and jailing the drug users and instead put it into getting the drug users into holistic recovery.  They treated the users, taught them about the disease, helped them learn coping skills and got them connected to communities again.  They got them on their feet and gave them purpose.  Even those who radically opposed this method in the beginning are now touting its success.  I got this information from an article in Yes Magazine but I had been hearing about it from many other sources.

I recently read on Upworthy that there is a school in Baltimore that has gotten rid of detention and instead they send the children to the “Mindful Meditation Room”.  They are taken through breathing exercises and meditations to get them centered and then they talk through the problem and their feelings with a teacher there in the room before returning to the classroom.  The school incorporates mindfulness practices and yoga as well and their suspension rate dropped to zero. 

Dermot has been struggling to concentrate lately and it stresses him out when it surrounds homework.  The other night I was with him when he started to get upset over his homework.  I had him stop and got him to sit with his feet on the floor and his back again the back of the chair and I took him through a 2 minute meditation using an app on my phone called Insight Timer.  When the meditation was over he was able to calmly start working again and though it wasn’t perfect concentration, it was improved.

What does this tell you?  We need to teach coping skills so people don’t turn to addictive behaviors and substances.  We need to be kinder, more mindful and more connected so we as a society can cope.

               “Intention”

 

 

      “Our intention creates our reality.”  Wayne Dyer

 

I recently had a conversation with a patient about a legal issue he has to face as a result of his actions while in active addiction.  He was understandably nervous about the outcome of his court case.

He was obsessing about the outcome as you might imagine and kept saying what he wanted to have happen.  He was hoping that the person bringing the charges against him would just drop the case.  When the other counselor working with me started to prepare him for the fact that the other person may not drop the charges, she asked him what he would do if that was did not happen.  The patient started down the road of saying that if the plaintiff did not drop the charges then he would be forced to bring up things about the plaintiff that would damage their reputation.  Basically his tact was going to be tit for tat.

I understand that the legal system will likely advise him to do so and I suppose he will do what he has to but we tried to talk to him about intention.  Rather than shaping the incident in his head around what he wants to have happen, look at it in terms of intention.  We asked him what his intention was and he said it was for peaceful resolution.  We encouraged him to look at it that way rather than think of it in terms of “If they don’t do what I want, then I will have to do such and such.”

I find that if I start going down a rabbit hole in a discussion with someone and I start getting argumentative with them, I have to pause.  If I start to lose my temper or my focus then things generally don’t work out for one or both of us.  However if I stop and say what is my intention in having this discussion, then my focus returns and I am generally able to resolve the situation or problem in a positive manner.

I can get into an argument with someone about an opinion that I have.  I can start getting heated because I repeatedly state my case and I feel I am right in what I am saying.  They can do the same.  We can continue to butt heads all we want, I may never convince the other that I am right and then we just continue down the road of trying to out-argue each other and getting more and more frustrated.  Or one or both of us can pause and assess our intention.

For example, say I am at a family dinner.  The conversation turns to politics (shudder!), and a simple matter of policy is brought up.  I, being a liberal, am going to see this matter of policy on one light and my father-in-law, being a conservative, is going to see it in a much different light.  I could argue with him for hours and we could start to get angry and upset with each other or I could stop and think about my intentions.  My intentions are not to convince him to change his mind, my intentions in that moment are to have a nice family dinner!  That doesn’t mean that I need to lie and say I agree with him or expend energy trying to “be right”, but if I keep my intention as my focus, it will vastly change the way I approach this discussion.

Dermot and Wren recently went back to school and last night Dermot was struggling with a situation he had with his new teacher.  He had asked permission to leave the classroom to retrieve an item he had left in his classroom from last year.  His old teacher said he had kept it for him and asked him to come and get it when he could.  Dermot asked permission several times, (he says he only asked three times, but knowing Dermot it was probably more like 6) and in frustration it sounds like his new teacher told him he had lost the privilege at the end of the day. Dermot was upset about this and making sweeping statements about how his new teacher was really mad at him and that he thinks she hates him in a very defeatist manner.

Frank and I offered him some suggestions on how to approach his teacher about the situation (none of these included us sending an e-mail or calling on his behalf).  He dismissed most of these suggestions as he was so frustrated.  His take was that she was only going to get mad at him and that she would never let him leave the room to get the item he left behind.  We tried to say that if he focused only on getting what he wanted (to leave the room) then his approach might not work.  Instead we encouraged him to speak to his teacher with the intention of understanding where she was coming from and having the opportunity to let her know where he was coming from.  Then, likely they would be able to resolve the issue one way or the other, and they would be able to move forward without hard feelings.

It remains to be seen what the patient will do and indeed what Dermot will do, but I stand by the idea that if your focus is on your intention rather than the outcome, the resolution will be acceptable even if it doesn’t go the way you thought it might.

 

I'm Glad You're Not My Sponsor

“I’m Glad You’re Not My Sponsor”

 

 

“Most men would rather deny a hard truth than face it.”  George R.R. Martin

 

“I’m glad you’re not my sponsor.”  A patient recently said this to me and I smiled.  I had been talking about one of the steps and mentioning that I had called out one of my sponsees for calling me late for their daily check-in.  The same thing happened to me when I was working the steps so I am simply handing down the process in the same way it was handed down to me.

I was asked if I was willing to go to any length in working the steps and I said “yes”.  My sponsor told me she wasn’t going to ask me to do anything that she herself had not done.  I was to pick a time to call her each day.  I had about 5 minutes lee-way before and after that time and I needed to call her then.  I made it a while before I was late.  I was a half-hour late.  She answered the phone and said, “You’re late calling me.”  I was in a recovery house at the time that had only one phone and even though I had a note on the phone asking that no one be on it at 8:00am, someone had grabbed it while I wasn’t looking. I explained this to her and her answer was, “If your recovery isn’t important to you, then why should I make it a priority of mine?”   

Some people will read that and think it harsh.  It stung a little at the time, but I knew it was coming at 8:30 when I dialed.  She had warned me.  She had told me she was serious about my recovery and she was.  It takes time and effort to sponsor someone and it isn’t a job to be taken lightly.  It is a life and death battle you are fighting and your sponsor is your sergeant major.

Tough love is so hard to reconcile.  It is distasteful in the extreme to the people doling it out and to the people meant to swallow it down.  It is, however, an essential nectar.  People attempting recovery are in their situations because they have an illness that sends them to the depths of “self-will run riot”.  Our thought process will constantly be whispering in our ears that we can control our using.  Our thoughts tell us we can handle it. Our thoughts tell us we aren’t that badly off.  Our thoughts tell us we weren’t as bad as some other addicts we know.  Our mental illness tells us that we should be in control when in reality our taking control of the ship lead to its sinking. 

I had another patient tell me that the kind of sponsor that he needed was someone who would celebrate his successes with him but not to get on his case when he slacks a bit.  I smiled and said to him that that was exactly the opposite of the kind of sponsor that he needed.  If you want a cheerleader, then look to family members and friends (if they are still speaking to you).  If you want to truly get better, then you need a drill sergeant.  You need someone that is going to hold your feet to the flame to make sure you get through this process in one piece.  There is no reason this can’t be done, it has after all, been done by many before us.  But you can’t get through it alone.  And if I am lost in the wilderness, then I want a guide who is a survivalist and knows the terrain.  Someone who will get me out alive, not someone that simply knows how to make a comfortable campground in the midst of the void so we can sit in seeming luxury while we wait for the apocalypse.

So I will move forward making sure that the people who ask for my help get the same kind of help from me that I got from others before me.  The kind of help that enabled me to be where I am today.  Tough love is a beautiful thing, it just isn’t for the faint of heart.