All of Us

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I’ve been thinking about freedom versus connection and how we are continually trying to live in balance between the two states of being.  Freedom is the ability to experience personal power; to act on our own behalf and make choices without the burden of consideration of others.  Connection is security: its being part of something larger than ourselves, being important to another person who is equally important to us, as well as expanding our understanding of the world via other perspectives and ideas.

To be our healthy we need both freedom and connection. In relationships we need to recognize that our own balance is not going to be the same as our partners.  My friend S tells me about how her husband listens to baseball on his transistor radio.

“I get mad at him because he’s not available when he’s listening to the games.”  She wants more connection and he wants more freedom.

Another friend tells me how her husband wants her to retire like he has so she can be more available to him but she doesn’t want to give up the stimulation of her work.

“I don’t want to sit around watching TV.” She wants more freedom while he wants more connection.

This happens in non-intimate relationships as well and to make matters still more complex, different people connect in different ways.

My friend K loves to chat on the phone.  I would rather get together than chat on the phone, but because K is a dear friend and I know her preferences, I will call and talk.  She would prefer we talked more often, and thinks of the phone as a valuable tool to enhance connection.  I prefer to use the phone as a tool to make plans to get together. Both of these are types of connection, but they are different.

There’s nothing inherently superior about freedom or connection.  There’s nothing inherently superior about the phone versus the coffee shop.  We all need to find ways to negotiate getting our own needs met interpersonally as well as individually and also-just as important-we need to expect that other people will have their own formula for this same balancing act.

It’s not all about you and it’s not all about me—it’s about all of us.

The Dinner Pest Guest

By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

 

Imagine calling your best friend up and telling her,

“I miss spending time with you.  We have both been so busy lately!”  She agrees and invites you over for dinner.   She insists you don’t need to bring anything, but being a person with social sensitivity you know that showing up with a bouquet of flowers or a bottle of wine is a gracious and important gesture. 

You arrive with said bottle and bouquet in hand and note that her home is sparkling clean, with the floor freshly vacuumed and the everyday clutter put away. 

“It’s lovely in here,” you tell her.

You sit together in the living room, enjoying a plate of brie and crackers. 

“I want you to cook me a pork chop,” you say.  Her mouth hangs open in shock.  “With braised carrots and mashed potatoes.  And be sure to use that smoked paprika that I like.”

“B-But—that—that’s not what I made” she stutters. 

“I want us to eat in the kitchen, not the dining room,” you continue.  “And you need to light more candles.”

At this point your friend has decided that you either have been possessed by the spirit of a buffoon or are behaving in an unforgivably rude manner. 

An unlikely scenario?  Geez, I hope so!  And yet I see parallel situations in my work with couples all the time! 

Partner A (usually the one with the XX chromosomes) wants Partner B to be closer to them, so A asks for this.  B responds by trying to move in closer.  Yay!  But wait!  What happens next?  A then criticizes B, telling them they are doing it wrong or too slowly or not enough. 

“If you really loved me enough you would KNOW what I want,” moans A in their head.  At this point, A is the dinner guest dictating the menu. 

What message does B take away from this experience?  Being a sensible creature, B tries to STAY AWAY from A as much as possible.

And here’s the real tragedy:  all this happens in response to A wanting to get closer, not further. 

Lest you think B is getting off the hook too easily here, let me add an addendum:  B can be a bit lazy sometimes, putting off the work of relationship-tending until A is freaking out, or until Hallmark reminds B that there is an upcoming sentimental holiday in need of consumer spending. 

So here’s a helpful thing for B to keep in mind:  Make attending to your partner one of your life’s greatest priorities.

And to A: however B does it, it is fabulous just the way it is, and the more you express gratitude, rather than criticism, the more you’ll get invited in.

Amy Bloom: Writer, Therapist, Hero

When I first moved to Seattle and worked for DSHS, I had coworker-buddy who was crazy for Michael Jordan.  In her cubicle she had two Michael Jordan posters, one Michael Jordan mug, and wrapped around her office chair, a genuine Michael Jordan blanket. 

That’s a bit how I feel about Amy Bloom.   Like me, Amy is a clinical social worker.  Unlike me she is also the darling of the literary world AND best selling fiction writer.  For you non-writers out there, to be both an acclaimed literary and a best-selling author is like being a wine snob and a Colt 45 drinker.   It’s rare. 

I’ve devoured her books and foisted copies on friends only to pepper them with questions like, “Did you like it?  Huh?  Huh?  What about the part where the….?” 

In keeping with my “we are all just carbon based life forms here” attitude, I took a deep breath and emailed her assistant to propose an interview for my blog, fully expecting some response along the lines of,

                “Thank you for your interest, little insignificant human being, but Amy is far too busy for you and your teeny tiny blog.” 

But no!  Imagine my happy surprise when the assistant got back to me and said,

“When would you like to do the interview?”  So we chatted on the phone last week.   

Me:  How did you come to combine writing with psychotherapy?

Amy:  They are not really combined.  There is nothing about writing that makes you a better psychotherapist.  Writing is solitary and narcissistic.  Psychotherapy is in service to others, an engagement with another human and not primarily for the therapist. 

Me:  To me the inward energy of writing and the outward energy of therapy seem like a perfect balance.  I’m surprised more therapists don’t write. 

Amy:  Oh I’m sure lots of therapists would like to be writers and keep journals and diaries.  Having an interest in self expression doesn’t mean a person has talent. 

Me:  Okay, so if writing doesn’t help you to be a better therapist, does being a therapist help you to be a better writer?

Amy:  Yes, because to be a good therapist you have to learn to listen, observe, keep your mouth shut, and all of these have been helpful as a writer. 

Me:  When I’m writing fiction I feel like I’m hunting my characters and following their path through a forest.  I don’t know where they are going and it’s my job to find them.  What is your writing experience like?

Amy:  I see my job in writing is to lie at the bottom of the well and not panic. It’s a slippery, slimy place to be.  I wait and see what rises out of the water. 

Me:  How did you encourage your clients to find creative outlets?  (Amy closed her private practice 2 years ago)

Amy:  I didn’t necessarily.  Very few people said, “As crappy as my life is, it is more comfortable than branching out into the unknown.”  I might tell them, “You know, you act like somebody who’d like to be miserable, which is certainly your choice.”  I believe in dipping one tiny toe in the pool.  I might say, “If you wanted to do this, probably by now you’d be doing it.” 

Me:  I notice the recurring theme of attachment in your work.  Would it be safe to say you’re psychodynamic in your theoretical orientation? 

Amy:  Yes.  What interests me is how people interact with each other.  How they attach or are unable to attach.  My interest is in all of these issues, poured into the vessel of a unique individual.  I myself am a big attacher, but I also like to spend a lot of time by myself.  Attachment makes solitude delightful. 

Me:  That reminds me of this quote: “Life is most enjoyable when it’s experienced as a series of short and long trips away from a stable home base.”  We could translate that into the language of attachment.

Amy:  That’s right.  You need to be able to go and come back.  It feels good if you know you can come back and you don’t have to pinch people to get their attention.

Me:  How do you stay grounded, now that you are famous?

Amy:  If I were famous, that might have been an issue.  I live in a small town.  People know me as my children’s mother or the volunteer at the democratic fair.  I don’t go to certain parties.  I don’t read reviews or interviews that I’ve done.

Me:  So you don’t want me to email you a copy of this before it goes live so you can correct the part where I say you said, “I hate my mother”? 

Amy:   I said pass the butter!  I love that joke.  No you can make me sound like the village idiot or a complete bi*%h, but I won’t know because I won’t read it. 

Me:  Well that’s good because I don’t actually know what I’m doing.

Amy:  That’s okay, too. 

Away, Amy Bloom’s latest book is a best seller.  Where the God of Love Hangs Out, a collection of short stories, comes out January.   Given the American appetite for novels, Amy assures me this collection of short stories will provide her a comfortable slide back into semi-obscurity.

Treating Childhood Trauma (part II)

I’ve been talking with Mara Mulcahy, LICSW, MSW a clinical social worker and childhood trauma specialist.  Scroll down for last week’s portion of this two part interview.   

Our topic is What Parents Can Do to Help their Children at Home after a Trauma

Me:  I’m a big believer in therapeutic stories and wrote one for Jonah after his rat died. 

Mara:  Therapeutic stories are great.  Parents may not be as comfortable sitting down and writing a story but there are many therapeutic stories available at the library or book store (she named a certain chain store but I shall take the liberty of making a plug for local independent book stores here:  Go Third Place Books!  Go Elliot Bay Book Company!)  Kids tend to do best speaking and talking about issues in displacement, meaning dealing with feelings in a bit of a detached but related way.  This makes them more manageable. 

Parents can also just tell their kids about anything that has happened to them that was similar to what the child has gone through. 

(Me: As long as the story turns out okay.  No existentialist, nihilist messages here, folks!  Save Ionesco for the theatre). 

This normalizes the experience which reduces isolation.  Even independent of the trauma, stories give a context beyond the immediate.

Me:  Which brings us to God (or Higher Power, Great Spirit, Goddess, Universal Intelligence, Krishna, Buddha, etc.).  For families with a spiritual belief system, making sense of suffering and death is already a part of their culture and conversation.  In my family I tell my boys that death is “going home to God.”  How do parents who do not have a spiritual belief system comfort their children when death or trauma occurs? 

Mara:  Parents without a developed spiritual belief system should know that what they believe (or do not believe) may not bring closure or offer comfort to their child.  You can make meaning of the event by creating a ritual that is tied to not knowing or to the unknown without being tied to a belief in God.  You can mark closure or celebrate what was through ritual.  And you can find help talking to a friend who has a spiritual belief system. 

Me:  Given that some trauma is inevitable, how can we foster resiliency? 

Mara:  By creating a family foundation of communication. 

By knowing what is comforting to us as well as to our child

By knowing your communication style as well as your child’s.  For instance Lila (Mara’s daughter) will literally put her hands over her ears to shut me up sometimes.  She likes less words and more proximity. 

Don’t be afraid to talk about a loss someone else has had with your child.  As long as you hold short, age appropriate conversations (don’t introduce overwhelming threats).

Me:  I want to add that parents should not watch television news in front of children.  Television news is almost entirely about what is wrong in the world and so it does not foster a safe world view.  Children (and adults) need to feel safe to function at the top of their emotional and neurological capacity.  The “fight, flight or freeze” mechanism in the brain acts as a system override, hijacking the brain’s creative thinking and problem solving capacity until the threat is perceived as being over.  Threats that we are powerless to neutralize (acts of terrorism, for instance) are treated exactly the same way as threats we can effect (a snake on the path ahead of us, for instance) by our brains: increased cortisol production, decreased digestion, increased glucose supply to muscles, decreased capacity for sleep, etc..  Frankly I’d like to recommend that nobody watch television news and instead subscribe to your local paper or some nice little centrist newspaper like the award-winning (expensive) Christian Science Monitor.  Okay, tangent over and out. 

Mara:  Also parents need to know that it’s okay for them to have their own emotions and express them unless their child is very fragile or feels responsible for the parents’ feelings. 

Remember there are lots of resources out there, from books to internet to church/temple/mosque to therapy to friends. 

Me: Wise words indeed!  Thank you Mara.

Trauma at Home

This weekend, tragedy befell us.    

“I accidentally gave Cutie a bloody nose!”  Jonah cried, tears squirting from his eyes. 

I held the little rodent, his mouth unnaturally wide open and his snout visibly bent, blood coming out of both nose and mouth.  We raced to the car to go to the veterinary emergency room, my husband encouraging me to ignore the speed limit in a residential neighborhood, my son crying, the rat snorting and squeaking.  I tried to remain calm, suggesting we sing lullabies the rat might enjoy (dying by), while focusing on the road and the labored breathing of this little pet we had all come to love.

It turned out that Cutie inconveniently got between Jonah’s knee and the floor.   I will admit here to thinking the incident seventy percent accident, thirty percent my energetic son being a spaz.  Frequently I have said things like, “rats do not go on skateboards” and “rats cannot be playfully flung across the bed.” 

A word of advice: never bring a child to the animal emergency room where you may have to engage the critical thinking part of your brain, the one that says, “is it worth it to pay more for medical care for this rat—who may die anyway—than we would for a necessary automotive repair?”

We spent $544 at the emergency room on a twenty dollar animal that most people consider a pest.  That was yesterday.   Today we spent still more money to bring Cutie to a rodent and exotic pet specialist veterinarian who provided gas and lethal injection.  How the heck did this happen? 

To use the highly clinical terminology I know and love, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that under emotional stress we are all about as intelligent as a box of hair. 

Yesterday’s vet at the emergency clinic quietly urged that the rat needed an “oxygen rich chamber” along with pain medication, x-rays, and God Knows What Else.  In a nanosecond of sanity, we drew the line at CPR, thinking that if the little furry guy went into cardiac arrest he should probably go ahead and croak.

I pride myself in being rational as well as frugal, but so help me, I think that had my son had not been there we might do the same thing all over again.  Why?  I can’t even kill garden slugs (though I do throw them over the fence into the neighbor’s junk yard).  My husband and I fed my nineteen year old, incontinent, cancer-riddled dog homemade ground beef with rice every day for over a year when he stopped chewing crunchy food.  In short, we are wimpy, wimpy people and defenseless pets activate our wimpiness like nothing else can. 

Here comes the irony:  Five years ago we had a wild rat living in our walls.  At bed time we would hear him scratching and imagine him eating the insulation.  It kept us awake.  It pissed us off.  Finally an electrician told me that rats chew electrical wires and can cause house fires.  That was all the convincing we needed.  We put out poison and a week later I called my husband to come home and remove the giant, dead rat from the center of our living room floor.   That particular dead rat only cost us four bucks and our emotional response to his demise was relief.

(In addition to the sheer relief of grousing) my point is how we feel about another, be they human or animal is based largely on how well we know them.  Exposure breeds understanding.  (This is why it’s a great idea for people who want to overcome racism to hang out with the very people they are prejudice against.)

Think of the people in your life you struggle with.  Would you feel as judgmental towards, disconnected from, misunderstood or attacked by if you got to know them better?  I’m betting the answer is probably not.

Meanwhile, I have a traumatized child to console (that’s a whole separate blog and it’ll be coming soon!), an expensive dead rat to bury and a hole in the backyard to dig.  Hopefully there won’t be any slugs in the way.