Apr 25 2013

Reframe

Shingles (Photo credit: Voxphoto)

by Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

As a hard core pointy headed intellectual, I rarely get to do things with my hands that result in anything more impressive than dinner. But I yearn to have practical abilities. So it was thrilling when Liza, a carpenter and one of my best friends agreed to teach me how to shingle a kitchen bump out.

(An irresistible aside: years ago Liza and I built a shed together. When I say “together” I mean Liza built it and I helped in exactly the way a toddler helps sweep the floor. At a certain point I proudly told her, “I’m not afraid of the Skill Saw anymore!” to which she replied,

“You need to always be afraid of the Skill Saw.”

“Me personally, or do you mean “you” in the universal, second person, plural form?”

Liza looked at me levelly.

My left thumb was bruised from me whacking it with the framing hammer (oh. the. pain. The apocalyptic pain of a framing hammer meeting a body part), my forehead scraped from brushing against a protruding roofing nail (okay twice) and my legs just a bit bloody from dropping a sheet of plywood.

“Yes” she said simply.)

For those of you who have never swung a framing hammer or driven a sixteen penny nail, you are seriously missing out! It’s major magic to take a trunk full of Home Depot material and turn them into walls, space, and beauty. It’s empowering to be part of that alchemy, particularly if you are a cerebral, geeky gal like yours truly.

So we started shingling. First you snap a chalk line to measure down from, then you lay an under course across the bottom, and then you shingle left to right, bottom to top. It’s important to measure each shingle to the chalk line to make sure you are hanging them straight. Everything was fine until I got to the third row. Suddenly, I couldn’t make the shingles line up visually and still measure even. I kept going, thinking that somehow things would work out eventually. They got more and more wonky and I decided to take a break, make some coffee, have a snack, and check my phone. After about the third snack I realized I was avoiding the work, sure I was doing it wrong (I was) and not sure how to correct it, and embarrassed at my incompetence.

I asked for help. Liza took a look at what I had done and said, “You forgot to cut the first shingle.”

Ah. The first shingle had to be beveled to hang straight, which then allows the subsequent shingles to hang straight. We agreed she would cut the edge pieces. I started over (on a less noticeable side) and recommitted to using–and obeying–the measuring tape. I worked with much more focus and productivity once I figured out how to do it right.

All of us are more successful in any endeavor when we know what we are doing. That’s why change is difficult, because we run into our ignorance and incompetence and retreat, like I did, making snacks and brewing coffee. This is when getting outside help, be it an accountant or a carpenter or a therapist can untangle us from our mistakes.

We are all of us afraid of appearing stupid. But we live in such a complicated world, with so many areas of specialization it is impossible to be the self-sufficient, narrowly focused people our ancestors were. My mental health wish for us all is to be unapologetic in our areas of growth, and to courageously and repeatedly ask for help. Good luck to you in building and adding on to your life!

Mar 13 2013

Social Skills: The Best Thing since Sliced Bread!

Friendship, Göteborg, Sweden (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti

As a once awkward and nerdy kiddo, I have a great passion for the importance and teachability of social skills. Observing both clients as well as friends, I’m convinced that the capacity to build a tribe of mutual support around us is one of the most important adult tasks of leading a satisfying life. (Yeah, I get a little soap-boxy about this stuff, I know. Just hand me my megaphone please and step back so I don’t hurt your ears.)

Social skills are not taught in educational institutions and if we didn’t come from a socially functional family, it is up to us to develop a framework for understanding why, how, and when to connect.

In two weeks, on March 27^th, at 7pm, I’m giving a presentation on social skills called “The Four Conversation Killers” at the monthly ADD Resources Support Group, held at the Homestreet Bank at 8200 35^th Ave NE in the Wedgewood neighborhood of north Seattle. The meeting is free and open to the public. You need not have a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder to attend.

I am starting a second monthly social skills group for adults on the first Fridays of the month from 11:30 to 1:00pm, to begin in the next couple months. We will be exploring how to build community and express vulnerability in a safe, supportive environment.

Previous participants have made new friends, taken positive new risks and expanded their social skills and social comfort as a result of this group. Plus it’s a lot of FUN. We laugh and learn.

The cost is $45 per group as well as a one-time $95 intake fee to ensure that the group participants are compatible with one another.

If you are interested in joining or just want more information, please call me at 206 375-7690.

Feb 27 2013

Cynicism and Vulnerability

Cropped screenshot of Hedy Lamarr from the film Dishonored Lady. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

Why do we equate vacancy with appeal?

Americans worship cool people. Dark sunglasses, blank facial expressions, stony silences, we perceive as toughness, and we all long to be tougher than we really are. Think Sylvester Stallone in Rocky and Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Terminator series.

Hedy Lamarr, (an actress and mathematician from the 1940’s who invented spread spectrum communications and frequency hopping which are used in wireless communications to this day) once said “it’s easy to look glamorous; all I have to do is stand there and look as empty-headed as possible.”

A friend of mine said something the other day that perfectly captured the way children can inspire us to become better humans. “Now that I’m a parent, I can’t afford to be cynical anymore. I don’t want my children to be cynics.”What he wants for his children is openness to the magic and joy of life.

Cynicism is a defensive mental habit of pushing away the very real and painful experiences of life with a dismissive, jokey “I expected that.” It lowers our individual experiences of disappointment by creating global expectations of disappointment. It’s a bit like lighting a candle with a blow torch. In the same way that depression hits a global emotional mute button, cynicism is a removal from the immediacy of our experience.

We do it out of a superstitious attempt to push away our vulnerability/ fear of loss or of exposure by hiding it under an attitude of “I’m too cool to care.” The problem with this approach is manifold:

It doesn’t work
It turns other people off and therefore isolates us
It is no fun! A cynic can enjoy being clever and right, but they can’t trust enjoyment itself, can’t lean on it and feel its durability and cyclical nature.

I propose a revolution. Or at least, an inversion.

What if we collectively decided that pretending to be invulnerable is as appealing as turning into a granite slab? That what so-called cool people lack is the very quality we all actually crave, which is warmth and that we cannot convey warmth without also being vulnerable to rejection?

Imagine attending a dinner party. Would you rather sit next to someone with enthusiasm or someone who acts disengaged? Who is easier to connect with? Who is more inspiring? I would take goofy over glossy any day.

Cool in my book is passion, enthusiasm, and excitement. It’s silly and experimental and risk-taking and fun. It’s bold and geeky and snorting with laughter with a big ol’ wad of spinach between your teeth.

Try this:

If you find yourself thinking or speaking in a cynical manner, gently refocus. A great question to ask is “How can I trust that no matter how this experience turns out I will be okay so that I don’t need to prematurely destroy it?”

Feb 11 2013

Lazy/Greedy

Tablets and Patches of Clonidine, Comprimés et patch transdermique de clonidine (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

Most of the time, I write a pretty positive blog here at the old WordPress site. I try not to cast aspersions on anyone’s character or promote theories of reality that increase our collective cortisol levels.

But once in a while, the urge to snark strikes and even a doggedly cheerful gal like me needs to vent.

I’m talking today about an evil symmetry that exists between the general public and the multinational corporations known as the pharmaceutical industry. Now big pharma should be a friend of mine. They pay me well to take provider surveys. They have both improved and even saved the lives of some of my clients who needed medication in order to get better. And you sure can’t beat an antibiotic when needed.

The problem is that for many people in our society, psychotropic medications plays to their basest fantasy of swallowing a pill to solve a complex condition. And guess what? The pharmaceutical industry actively promotes that fantasy, advertising before and after that look like depression turned to active engagement with life.

We human beings are multi-cellular creatures, and like all cells we seek to expend as little energy as possible to get the job done. In other words we are all just a bit lazy.

Corporations are like multi-cellular creatures without skin: there is no limit to their expansion. In medical terms we would consider the behavior of corporations to be quite like a cancerous tumor. They are insatiable, greedy creatures beholden to profits rather than social/environmental impact.

So what happens when you put lazy together with greedy? There is a cycle of consumption that feeds the corporate interest of expansion and the human tendency towards passivity.

Psychotropic medications work as stand-alone treatments in 20% of cases, but you will not find that statistic in the disclosure forms on your medication packs.

If you are suffering from any mental health condition, review your basic self care. Are you sleeping? Eating vegetables? Do you get exercise (walking totally counts) at least every other day? Do you have friends? Are you hugged daily? Are you living a life of honesty and integrity? Do you feel you are making some contribution to the world at large? If the answers to any of these questions are no, you must make some lifestyle changes if you want to feel well.

Medication may very well be a part of your recovery, but it will not save you.

Jan 28 2013

Therapy is Not Enough!

Calm Sunset (Photo credit: me’nthedogs)

Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW

I was doing an intake (an initial meeting) the other day and was pleased to be meeting with someone who had an acupuncturist, a Chinese medicine doctor, and a yoga practice.

From where I sit, it doesn’t matter what types of support a person has—be it a social group or a creative passion or a church community or a chiropractor—but what matters is that a person has more than one source of emotional food.

When people have multiple sources of inspiration, health, joy, healing, and growth they just plain feel better.

There are multilayered effects at work: First of all, we treat our valuables differently than we treat our dust bunnies. Valuables we protect, dust bunnies we ignore. So if we spend time and money on our wellbeing we are automatically treating ourselves as valuable, which translates into higher self esteem.

Second the combination of what constitutes the support we need changes over time and circumstance, so in addition to therapy at one point in our lives we might need an art class and a ukulele to feel alive, and at another we might need a twelve step group and a meditation retreat or a prescription for antidepressants and a poetry journal. So trying different things at different times means it’s more likely that we will have our changing needs met.

Third, no matter how much you love bananas, you will come to hate them if that’s all you eat. We all have just enough ADHD to need novelty as a core psychological requirement.

So many of us go through our lives following the well worn paths of our families of origin. It’s familiar, it’s safe, but there is a whacky, beautiful world out there with sunsets (remember those?) and open air marketplaces in remote foreign lands. Embracing an attitude of experimentation means we lead more interesting lives and get to tell better stories.

This weekend I found myself boosting a 75 year old woman up a climbing wall so that she could post a picture on Facebook for her grandkids. Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!

Dec 17 2012

In Response to the School Shootings

An icon illustrating a parent and child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

In the wake of last week’s school shooting in Connecticut all of us in the mental health profession have had to deal with our own as well as our clients shock and terror.

Three big questions come to mind for me:

The question of individual liberty versus collective rights: what right does society have to compel mentally ill people to receive treatment, even against their will?

What about gun control and the possibility of an amendment to the second amendment (the right to bear arms), which was created prior to the event of an organized and nationwide legal system of police, courts, and prisons?

How do we as a society lower the shame and stigma connected to mental illness? If people were not ashamed of their family members’ or their own mental health struggles, more people would get help.

Years ago I read an interview with a concentration camp survivor, who was asked,

“How did you keep your faith in humanity in the face of all the brutality?”

“I saved myself,” he said, “by focusing instead on the kindness we showed one another.”

There has been an incredible outpouring of love and support from all over the nation flowing towards the families that have been affected by this tragedy. It is vital that we keep a sense of context in mind: there are many more good people in this world than bad. To quote a great t-shirt “Love Wins.”

Bipartisan Mothers’ Call to Action After Connecticut School Shooting: An Open Letter to American Leadership Voices (momsleadershipvoice.org)
Mental Illness and Murder… and stuff (thesynergisticpen.com)

Dec 10 2012

Brain Rules by John Medina

Cover of "Brain Rules: 12 Principles for ...

Cover via Amazon

by Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

Right now I’m reading and loving John Medina’s book, Brain Rules. Medina is a developmental molecular biologist (no I don’t know what the heck that means, either) who teaches bioengineering (ditto) at the UW.

Here’s what I do know: It’s a GREAT BOOK. Full of interesting anecdotes, case examples and simple action steps you and I can take to enhance our little two pound miracle. This guy is one of those rare folks who can break down crunchy impenetrable science into fascinating story telling.

Some highlights:

Human beings evolved to solve problems while moving. Our ancestors roamed nine to twelve miles a day on foot. The first brain rule is EXERCISE. I’ve blogged repeatedly about the importance of exercise for mental health and how it reduces depression, anxiety and boosts serotonin levels, but Medina has this great, simple point: exercise boosts oxygenation of the brain by boosting circulation, so it literally makes our brains work better.
We don’t pay attention to boring things. Unfortunately much of what we have to accomplish in a given day is less than scintillating. Personally I have never found a kitchen of dirty dishes or a pile of laundry all that interesting. My work-around is to put on good music or a TED talk while I clean.
Repeat to remember. If information is not emotionally charged we are likely to forget it (see above). The reason why I wander into the grocery store to get milk peanut butter and wander out with twenty items not including those very things is that milk and peanut butter don’t emotionally engage me (that or I’ve got early Alzheimer’s). If you want to remember something, repeat it to yourself.
We are incapable of multi-tasking. so let’s all put that cell phone away while driving!

This one is not related to Medina’s book but I’ll include it here in the spirit of mental health tips and tricks:

Wake up fifteen minutes earlier than you need to. Most of us have our morning routines ground down to a fine slice of time: we know exactly how long it takes us to get ourselves and our kids ready, breakfast made, lunches packed, and we wake up in just enough time to do these things . Like taking out the maximum debt-to-income allotment, functioning in this “barely enough” manner creates anxiety. Wake up just fifteen minutes early to begin your day with some space and calm.

Much of what we think we know about the brain is…wrong (brightfutures4me.wordpress.com)
Inspiration: Paolo Cardini’s Case for Monotasking (alexrister1.wordpress.com)
Brain Rules: The Ultimate Guide To Brain Rules Ideas in Education (educationinnovation.typepad.com)

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Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

I’ll be presenting on social skills and ADD. In case you attended the spring conference where I also presented on social skills, my material will be different.

Here is the link: http://www.addresources.org/?q=node/2234

I hope to see you there!

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