An Open Letter to Parents: After a School Shooting

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

One of the most horrifying events has happened. Your child attends a school where there has been a shooting. Someone is dead. Someone else is responsible. Within this awful reality, you and your child are navigating the emotions of fear, anger, loss and trying to find a path forward.

This letter is to help you as a parent be as supportive and emotionally available as possible so that your child can feel safer and function better.

In the wake of trauma, it is normal to feel terrified, exhausted, furious and even numb, or as if nothing is real.

Imagine that a traumatic event is like a surge of electricity and that this surge pops the circuit of our mind’s normal ability to process reality.

You can expect the following behaviors from your child: they may regress in independence. They may want you to make them food or even cuddle them the way you did when they were younger. It is normal and helpful for your child to receive extra love, care, and declarations of support. If your child wants to sleep on the floor of your bedroom, this is a perfectly reasonable thing to do right now.

Alternately, they might also pull back, shut down and even direct their anger at you for expressing concern. If this happens, try not to take it personally and instead imagine that they are telling you through their behavior, “Right now I need to avoid or release pent up distress about the event.”

They may have a greater need to be in touch with other classmates and friends at this time. While you can maintain whatever rules you already have regarding screen time and social media access, you may consider liberalizing those rules for the next three weeks by allowing your child to text, Snap and Discord more frequently to process their experience with others.

Your child may have a harder time attending to school work, and may neglect homework or studying. Teachers understand that in the wake of school shootings, it is harder to focus and learn. You can reach out to your child’s teacher to make accommodations if necessary.

It is normal for your child to want to talk about what they heard/felt/and are thinking about now. If you have difficulty listening to your child talk about this event, consider getting help for yourself and/or making sure your child has a trusted adult to talk about it with.

If your child seems extra sleepy that is normal as well, but if they are neglecting to eat, shower or they are staying in bed all day, that would be a strong indicator that they need additional help and could benefit from talking to a therapist.

Additionally if they cannot sleep and this does not resolve within a few days, they may need additional support.

Above all, remember that help is available and neither you nor your child should have to navigate this scary and traumatic time alone.

Road To Relationship

I’m so excited to announce a new monthly class I’m offering with two of my favorite humans in the world: Road to Relationship will be an educational group for personal-growth minded singles who are not fully satisfied with their online dating experiences. We will be talking about communication skills, setting boundaries, appropriate expectations, etc…

Check this out https://roadtorelationship.com/ and if you know anyone who might be interested and lives in the Seattle area, please forward this to them!

Thank you!

Tanya Ruckstuhl

Half-Assed Project Completion

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

(I would insert a photo of the newly repainted furniture here–but I’m too lazy. You’re just going to have to imagine it. It’s dark brown).

I have a friend who refinishes furniture as a hobby. She and her husband go to rural antique stores and buy beat-up wooden furniture and bring them home and sand them down and stain and seal them. Her therapy office has gorgeous antiques that glow a golden polyurethane light.

My office, meanwhile, has Craigslist finds that I’ve tucked in higgledy-piggledy that are replete with water stains and scratches.

Every once in a while, I notice how beat up my furniture looks and hatch a plot. I will empty my bookcase and side table, bring them home and sand and re-stain them. But the thing is, I never actually do anything about it.  My book case is an unwieldy China hutch that has heavy glass doors that do not come out and last time it was moved, the guy I bought it from nearly lost a hand when the glass door swung over and slammed into it.

This past month I’ve been reading “Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things” by Randy Frost and Gail Steketee. It’s about hoarding, anxiety, perfectionism and obsessive-compulsive disorder and this book has motivated me to be more half-assed in my approach to non-consequential tasks.  Much of hoarding can be understood as avoidance of making decisions due to fear of imperfection/regret.  If you can think through options like “if I miss this thing, I can buy another on Amazon and have it within 48 hours—and get even a better version of it,” or “even if I make the wrong decision about this, it’s no big deal,” you might find it easier to edit, or like me, decide to try to do something you are not excellent at.  

None of my clients really care about my furniture. If they did, they wouldn’t be my clients because my furniture is—well– ratty. So, the condition of the furniture hasn’t affected my work life (which would be consequential), but it bums me out because it looks bad. Taking my new anti-perfectionist commitment to half-assery to heart, this evening I simply brought the refinishing supplies to the office. I sanded, wiped with rags, and stained just the tops of the breakfront and the side table, ignoring all the other sides. I spilled a little wood stain on the carpet and in spite of wearing gloves, managed to get some of the stain on my hands. That’s okay. All in all, the whole thing took about ten minutes to gather supplies at home, ten minutes to do the work at the office, and another five minutes to throw out the roller brush and put away the sanding and painting supplies afterwards. The finished product would make anyone with legitimate furniture refinishing skills (or OCD) cringe and shudder, but for my purposes, it’s great: the furniture looks better, it was easy to do, and most important of all; it’s done, aka not taking up space in my brain anymore.

This summer I embrace H.A.P.C. or Half-Assed Project-Completion whenever possible! I hope you will join me and relish in your own triumph over procrastination!

Dog Lessons

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Today I am writing about dogs. I used to have this sweet, traumatized rescue dog named Odie. We got Odie when the twins were eight years old. We had prepared for months, watching Caesar Milan dog training videos and discussing principles of behavior training, the importance of exercise and how to use treats to reward good behavior and ignore bad behavior to extinguish it according to the principles of operant conditioning. I felt well prepared to use my graduate school education and earnestly thought my state certification as a child mental health specialist would apply neatly to dog parenting.

Odie came from a home where he had been so neglected that when he first joined us, he couldn’t walk around the block without sounding like he was having an asthma attack. He licked the fur on the tops of his paws clean off. He licked the glass of the backdoor until his salvia etched it into a permanently cloudy surface.

Whenever someone came over or I talked on the phone, he would rocket out the doggie door into the backyard and leap up repeatedly against the door and bark as if the hounds of hell were on his tail.

When company came over, he would take out his girlfriend/dog bed and vigorously hump it in the middle of the gathering.  Having been neutered did nothing to deter his motivation.

I did all I could think of to help Odie become a better-behaved dog. I got him a variety of treats. Sprayed bitter apple spray on the back door. Held and petted and walked him daily. Tried picking him up when he was misbehaving, as well as leaving him alone, as well as putting him in time out in another room, as well as distracting him with toys.

I wish this were a story where my persistence and patience resulted in the eradication of these whacked out behaviors, but it is not. Instead, I changed. I became less distressed when he came back in through the doggie door with saliva streaming down his chin. I learned to leave the room when I made or received a phone call so the person on the other end wouldn’t have to worry that we were beating our dog. I learned to take less personally his pillow humping during social gatherings. Odie taught me high strung, traumatized dogs don’t necessarily get better.

This spring, Odie was killed by Coyotes. It happened early in the morning, before I woke up. I found his collar and a significant amount of blood in the backyard, and later found his skull under a sage bush.

There is a mathematical equation that equals the exact amount of time each of us gets on earth, but no one knows the value of any of the variables. It’s only when their time is up that we know how much time we had with our human and non-human beloveds.

Hedonic adaptation is the psychological term that describes the common tragedy of developing a tolerance for, and then subsequently ignoring, every single familiar source of joy in our lives. We forget to notice the beauty of the garden, the sweetness of ice cream, the scent of our child’s scalp, the warmth of our spouse’s sleeping body. It takes conscious effort to fight the development of immunity to joy.

Dogs never develop hedonic adaptation. They eat their treats with gusto every single time. They greet us with total focused enthusiasm. Odie, as crazy as he was, celebrated each family member with sniffs and licks and tail wags and demands for belly scratching. He had terrible breath and was banned from dog gatherings and destroyed the back door and was still the sweetest, most loving creature. Flawed is not unlovable.

Equity versus Equality, or why “Black Lives Matter” instead of “All Lives Matter”

Photo by Jumana Dakkur on Pexels.com

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

In our fantasy world, everyone has access to education, employment, healthcare, housing and support services like therapy.  In this fantasy world, we have achieved equality.

In the real world, the messy, imperfect one we all live in right now, access to all the best offerings of society are based on economics. The more money you have, the easier it is to go to college, to hire a tutor if you are struggling, hence get good grades which then sets you up for a higher paying job. The more money you have, the easier it is to live in a neighborhood with fully stocked grocery stores which makes it easier to eat healthy and be physically fit and live longer.  The more money you have, the easier it is to live in neighborhoods with quality public schools for the best possible education and socialization of your children. The easier it is to maintain stable housing. The easier it is to afford legal counsel and avoid incarceration or exploitation. The more money you have, the more likely you will have medical insurance that both provides you with medical care and prevents bankruptcy in the event of a medical crisis. The more money you have, the easier it is to pay for therapy when you feel stressed, depressed, or anxious. This helps you think about things in a way that decreases your discomfort and results in better overall health and productivity.

And it’s not just your money, it’s the money of your parents and their parents and their parents that sets you up for success: Many of us live in homes we couldn’t have placed the down payment on without parental assistance. Many of our children receive music lessons because of intergenerational money.

Meanwhile people of color have consistently been economically subjugated.  From slavery to chain gangs to sharecropping they were denied the ability to accrue wealth from work. From the segregation of schools which denied access to education, discrimination in hiring practices which solidified poverty, the redlining practices that eliminated access to better neighborhoods, to the refusal of banks to make loans to people of color.

The past four hundred years have involved extensive series of political and Supreme Court decisions that have echoed and reinforced discrimination and economic subjugation.

The reason why the Black Lives Matter movement is so important is not only due to the deaths of unarmed Black men at the hands of police officers. It’s because the whole underlying economic structure of our country has been completely unfair to people of color. African Americans have labored without the just economic benefits of that labor for four hundred years. In a capitalist democracy such as ours, there is a direct line between personal safety, resilience and well being and access to money.

Black Lives Matter because for four hundred years, they haven’t been treated that way. I don’t know how to fix this systemic problem. I don’t even know the right questions to ask. But I do know it’s my moral responsibility to learn more about the Black experience and to better recognize the systemic barriers to equality.

Inhabiting Solitude

Photo by icon0.com from Pexels

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

“All I want to do is eat chocolate cake and sleep.”

“I accidentally tried to hug my neighbor whose brother just died, and she shrank back like I was a cobra.”

“Some guy told me to stop petting his cat.”

These are weird times.

My therapist friends and I have all been messaging each other about the transition to telehealth in response to the pandemic.  We miss the immediacy and vibrancy of in-person sessions. Between audio glitches and freezing screens, we miss the ease that being in the same room as our clients provided. Like all of us, we are doing our best, figuring it out as we go along.

None of us know how long this situation will last. We don’t know how bad it will get. We don’t know if all of our loved ones will survive. We don’t know if the supply chain will be interrupted. We don’t know the long-term effect on the economy.

Humans like to quantify. We want to know what to expect and how to prepare. To feel safe, we want know what’s coming and how to endure or enjoy it.

And that is precisely what we don’t get to know right now. In the absence of certainty, many of us default to following the news as closely as we can. In this new landscape of invisible enemies, virologists and epidemiologists are the leaders. Doctors and nurses the front-line soldiers.

We must take this pandemic seriously enough to radically change our behavior for the foreseeable future. No more get togethers. No more movie theatres, or restaurants or nights out on the town. No more school. Every surface that someone touched is a possible transmission spot.

On the other hand, we still need to walk the dog, cook meals, vacuum, fold laundry. Focusing on small, doable tasks brings a sense of normalcy, of continuity to our lives.  We need to balance taking appropriate personal responsibility for protecting others along with continuing to have a full life that includes love, learning, exercise, joy, mindfulness, flavor, progress, and creativity.

As we drill down deep in to our time at home, with family if we are lucky enough to have them in the same household (and you’re right, it doesn’t always feel like luck) I wish for you an opening into realms you haven’t visited since childhood. I wish for you thinking time, staring into space time, imagining time. Dream time is slow and mysterious and a rich source of creative inspiration.

On the other end of this situation, we can emerge rested and connected to our deepest selves, ready to engage with one another from a place of deep gratitude.

Viral Fears

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Here in Seattle we have the unfortunate claim of being the epicenter of the US outbreak of the Novel Corona virus. Diagnostic criteria are still being refined, and confirmed cases increase daily. Most public gatherings have been cancelled, some schools have closed, and travel is being put on hold. This flu seems to be most dangerous for our elderly and immunocompromised, so it is unlike the influenza epidemic of 1918 which was especially lethal for young adults and children. It does however seem quite contagious.

For the majority of us, even if we get it and must quarantine ourselves, the most likely negative consequence is loss of income/education and a certain degree of cabin fever. These are inconvenient but luxurious concerns compared to death.

A good citizen is one who cares for the group as a whole. Even though we may be below age seventy and free of underlying health issues, we are each responsible for doing our part to care for the tribe that is the public. It is likely that a good number of us will need to quarantine to slow the progress of this virus.

Here are some measures that can be taken to reduce transmission:

1. Wash all of your clothes each time you wear them. It appears that the virus can live on fabric for up to a week. The dryer is a germ-killing machine.
2. Clean “high touch” areas such as door knobs, light switches, faucets and handles daily. At work don’t open doors or turn on/off faucets with your bare hands.
3. Wipe your phone screen and computer keyboard daily.
4. Wash your hands like an OCD person: hot water, twenty seconds of lathering, plus a paper towel equals clean.
5. At home, switch out your kitchen and bathroom hand-towels every day. Or switch to paper towels for the duration.
6. Try not to touch your face. This is hard! With every itch, I’m going through tissues like a fiend.

In preparation for your mental health needs, under self-quarantine:

• Put together a list of projects for yourself and your kids in the categories of household, yard and bedroom tasks as well as creative/intellectual projects so you can still experience purpose and progress in your life.  
• Pull out those books you’ve been meaning to read.
• While you’re still healthy and mobile, get the ingredients to tackle cooking something new and challenging. An hour of prep is nothing for someone with two weeks of 24 hours to fill.
• Maintain a normal sleep/wake schedule. Late nights watching Netflix plus isolation are a recipe for depression.

No matter what happens:

1. The amygdala and limbic systems are the portions of the brain responsible for recognizing potential danger. The news is a constant amygdala stimulation event. The prefrontal cortex can calm the hindbrain down with conscious and soothing self-talk. Use your prefrontal cortex.

We will get through this.

New Year New You

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I’m trying to do this thing that I’m really lousy at. It stimulates all of my defenses: fatigue, defeat, distraction, avoidance. I’m trying to create a new web site, and to do it myself because that’s a thing now…normal non-tech people can write articles and use a template to create their very own website.

Thirteen years ago, I hired my best friend’s husband and he did a great job putting my website together.  But every time I raised my fees or wanted to add info about a group or list my latest presentation, I had to go through him. Then he went and got a full-time job (so rude!) on top of being a part time musician (selfish!) so I didn’t want to ask him to find the one free hour in his week to work for me.

I like thinking and writing. Unfortunately thinking and writing are abstract and real-world change requires decisiveness on the material plane. Paint colors aside (I’m really good at choosing paint colors) I fairly suck at the million-and-one decisions required to do complex projects. My partner recently built me the sweetest little writing studio in the world. In addition to building it, he also took on the design so that I didn’t have to decide layout or siding material or the slope of the roof. Those kinds of choices overwhelm me. And so it is with designing my own website. As I look over my articles from thirteen years ago, I realize my thinking has changed so I need to update them. I need to choose a new domain name. I need to decide if this picture should be centered on this zone, while losing this other zone. On and on the decisions roll.

I’ve decided that this year my theme will be boldness. I will be trying new things, scary things, things that help me grow and become more competent and to feel more alive. I will take risks and adventure forward because here I am in the middle of my life and I want to expand my possibilities, rather than retract into stale routine.

My hope for you, dear reader is that for this new, untouched year of your one precious life, you make a commitment to pick one under-developed area to grow and nurture. You’re not the same as me so your area of construction will probably be different. Maybe you’ve got boldness on tap and could use more empathy.  Maybe you work constantly and could slow down. Maybe you check your phone obsessively and could commit to putting it away when you are with others. Whatever you chose, I wish you success and joy in the pursuit.  Meanwhile, I’ll be working on my new website.

The Diva and the Doormat

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

We find balance between the extremes Two common extremes have to do with how we relate to other people. On the one side, you have your divas. These are the folks who require an outsized amount of time and consideration to engage with the larger world. They are always running late. They need to curl their hair, paint their nails, and have the temperature just so. There was a rock band in the 80’s that shall remain nameless (only because I can’t remember) that had written into their performance contract that the stage be kept at a perfect 70 degrees for all their outdoor venues. They traveled with a thermometer.  They refused to play if the temperate was off by two degrees. These guys were major divas. Ironically, divas put themselves under massive pressure to look good and perform perfectly under all circumstances, and because no one can look good or perform perfectly in all circumstances, they try to control the circumstances which means controlling everyone around them. Family members, employees, neighbors and community members are all reduced to delivery tools in the diva’s insatiable quest for comfort.

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the doormats. They apologize preemptively. They don’t ask for what they want. They back down immediately when challenged. They practically invite domination. These folks accept mistreatment because they have disconnected from their own self-protective anger in order to protect their connection with others. They don’t believe themselves to be worth sticking up for.  Doormats are the parents who beg their near-adult children to clean up after themselves. The women who stay with mean or unreliable men. The men who stay with cruel and demeaning women. Doormats behave in passive aggressive ways because they still get mad about mistreatment, and they still punish mistreatment, but they don’t have the relational power or the emotional skill to have direct conversations about their needs.

Many people flip between diva and doormat behavior, depending on their perception of the importance of the other person. If you want to see a bunch of doormats, watch the behavior of people around a famous person. They ogle, they fawn, they do everything except act like they might have their own important ideas. If you want to see a diva, watch modern hip-hop videos. They show off money, (doormat) girls, weapons, all the symbols of social importance and dominance.

If you want to be as emotionally healthy as possible, avoid these extremes. Also avoid people who exhibit these extremes.

Good Stuff

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Lately I’ve been chewing on the balance between care of self and service to others.  I believe we all exist in a web of connection. Consider the underground fungus: it transmits nutrients to tree roots, which keeps the trees alive and in return protects the fungus from drying out.  If the fungus gives away too much of its nutrients it dies, and if it gives away too little, it struggles to live.

As humans, we hold this tension of self versus other constantly: Do we check in on our elderly neighbor or take those few extra minutes to savor some time alone?

Too much service to others creates depletion, resentment and fatigue.  Co-dependents are not happy people. They give and give, and exhaust themselves and wind up indignant and angry that their needs are never someone else’s top priority.

On the other hand, folks who only care for themselves, who spend their time and energy in sole pursuit of their own betterment suffer from isolation and meaninglessness. Without sustained and reciprocal connection to others, our existence lacks purpose.

I want to live in the intersection, to promote and protect my own well-being without apology while actively supporting the well-being of others. There’s a way to do this, but it takes a spirit of experimentation and willingness to make mistakes and plenty of time to get it right and then have the balance go and shift on you so that what worked at one point no longer works. No matter, its what we’re here for. Share your good stuff. Just make sure you keep some of it for yourself.