Repairing Trust: Why and How

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

At birth our developmental “job” is to receive love and care. This systematically builds our capacity to trust on three levels:  first with our caretaker (the immediate, intimate relationship), then our environment (the larger world), and finally ourselves.  With this trust-skin in place we can show up in the world with discernment of who to trust and who to avoid, and confidence that we are worthy of receiving love.  Just like a good immune system, a healthy trust-skin allows us to protect ourselves when our emotional or physical safety is jeopardized.

A former client came in recently to show me her beautiful new baby. It was awesome to see the way she attended to her child, anticipating her needs, offering help but not interfering with the baby’s exploration.  Her baby was calm, curious and joyful. This child was getting her needs met and felt pure trust in her mother as well as the world around her.

Of course none of us received or can possibly provide perfect care all the time, so we all bear some wounds in our trust-skin. The size of our wounds varies due to family circumstances as well as individual temperament and mitigating influences. Children born to parents with addiction, depression, anxiety, abuse, poverty, and discrimination have caretakers only partially available. Imagine watching a toddler only half the time.

A child who grows up without a trustworthy caretaker and safe environment becomes an adult who cannot trust themselves. Mistrust of others is a healthy adaptation in a physically or emotionally dangerous environment.  But without repair, adaptation becomes mutation. The neglected or abused child might become the adult who shields themselves in isolation and cynicism in order to avoid the pain of relationship disappointments. They may become rigid and judgmental, striving to control people and situations around them so that they feel safe.  They may lack interpersonal boundaries and accept or perpetrate abuse.  They may compulsively people-please, taking care of the needs of everyone within a mile radius in order to feel likable.

These painful adaptations do not have to be life sentences. Our trust-skin is formed, damaged and repaired through the magic of relationships. Healing damaged trust happens naturally in stable and long term relationships where we feel safe, deeply known, and valued.  The best form of this is a healthy love relationship with a partner who can express their own as well as accept their beloved’s full range emotions (love/anger/sorrow/fear/joy/curiosity/etc.) without alarm or rejection.  Honestly, this is rarely seen. Typically women are emotional virtuosos able to indentify, describe and express emotions while men treat emotions like Shaggy and Scooby Do entering a dark cave: with mortal terror.  But men need repair of their trust-skin as much as, if not more than women.

And these generalities are not limited to heterosexual couples.  Gay and lesbian couples have the exact same patterns, with one party typically being more emotionally expressive and relationally oriented and the other being more emotion-avoidant.

Providing the safety to heal our trust-skin requires both members to value their connection above the familiarity of emotional withdrawal, above being better-than and above the moment’s convenience.

How do we value connection over the moment’s convenience? It means you stop playing on your computer or reading your book or watching your show when someone you love is talking to you. It means eye contact, listening, asking clarifying questions, responding thoughtfully and affirming your partner/child/best friend.  It means asking for time and space to meet your own needs so that you do not show up for your loved one filled with resentment.

Therapy is a venue for this type of repair as well. In therapy you are attended to in a safe, stable and predictable fashion by a person whose agenda is your wellbeing.  There are no distractions and the time is limited so the experience of being solely focused on is not too overwhelming.

People in therapy are then able to bring the experience of finally feeling valued into their larger life as a functional set of expectations for how they treat and are treated by those around them.

It’s never too late. We are never too old. And we are–every single of us–worth the work it takes to heal.

Divorce Support Group

Divorce, Exterior lantern, Restaurant, View (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Unexpected Path: A Divorce Support Group

By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW,MSW

For half of the adult population, marriage ends in divorce.  Divorce is often one of the greatest challenges of adult life.  Typically, divorce comes after years of struggle to make an incompatible marriage work. 

This means that divorcing people feel exhausted and depressed from the struggle.  Even if divorce is a liberation from that failing struggle (as often is the case), on a meta-level it also represents the loss of a shared dream, on the micro-level it is the loss of a person to sit next to on the sofa and check in with, and on a practical level it is the loss of someone to help maintain a household and build a future together with.  If the divorcing couple has children, fears about the children’s emotional stability can (and frankly should) preoccupy and concern the parents. 

I am starting a divorce support group in response to the adjustment challenges I see taking place in this major life transition.  We will discuss:

• ·         The stages of grieving ,
• ·         How to create a sense of closure,
• ·         Managing co-parenting issues,
• ·         Constructing a post-divorce identity,
• ·         Talking about the end of your marriage with friends and family members,
• ·         The importance of self care during the process
• ·         When and how to begin dating again

Additionally we will develop and practice resources for self-soothing using techniques such as mindfulness based practices, writing and breathing exercises. 

This group will meet for ten weeks in the North Seattle area. 

Cost is $45 per group (payable as a onetime upfront fee of $450.  Payment options will be available for those who need them)

Additional cost:  Intake is a onetime fee of $95 to assess fit between potential participants and the group.  You will not be charged for intake if you are not an appropriate candidate for the group.

There will be one reduced-fee spot available for someone experiencing financial hardship.  For more information please inquire.

 In order to learn more about the group or to schedule an intake, please call 206 375-7690.

About the facilitator:  Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW is a therapist who specializes in trauma work and adult attention deficit disorder.  She works with individuals as well as couples and currently also runs a group for adults with social anxiety disorder.  You can learn more about her approach online at http://www.therapistseattle.net or check out her professional blog at www.seattletherapist.wordpress.com

Divorced and dating?  Check out my post on dating for the single parent:  http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/everyones-happiness-counts-single-parents-guide-to-dating-0701137

 

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!

Befriending Fear

Scared child (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

English: Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

Working with trauma survivors, there are patterns that come up again and again.  One is the persistence and intensity of fearful feelings in the face of change.  Trauma survivors brace themselves against “the other shoe dropping” or “the devil you don’t know” and will tolerate abusive partners, loveless marriages, demeaning work, and unkind friends all to avoid making changes.

One easy way to check in about your own anxiety level is to ask yourself; “How many changes have I voluntarily (meaning not foisted upon you by circumstances) gone through in the past year?”  If you can’t think of one, or you can only think of one, you may be stuck in this pattern of stuckness.

Fear is supposed to be our pal, along with anger and joy and love and all the rest of the feelings.  Fear exists to keep us safe and provide some important inhibition when useful.  The problem is that fear (and anger) are both prone to over-growth, particularly when we have childhood trauma to feed them.

If you find yourself stuck in fear or responding to new situations with defensiveness and hostility, it might be time to find a good therapist and do some healing.  That’s a change for the better that you get to choose!

Related articles

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Bean Esteem

English: Christmas variety of Lima Beans (Phaseolus lunatus). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

My self esteem is increasing.  I think it’s the homemade lima beans.  I’m doing something really difficult right now.  But it’s getting easier.  For the past week and a half I have been doing a two week seasonal food cleanse, which means eating absolutely no wheat, potatoes, corn, coffee, beef, sugar or dairy.  This diet, recommended by my naturopathic friend, is supposed to help flush out the toxins that accumulate from stress, environmental pollution, convenience foods, and the like.

I have learned a lot from this experience.  For instance, that I have a strong pain tolerance.  For the first three days I had a headache like someone was drilling a pilot hole into my brain.  But I got through it.  I learned that gluten free buns taste like cardboard holding a grudge against humanity. But I ate it anyway.  I discovered the joy of blending raw cashews with dates and fresh mint and ice cubes and almond milk which tastes—honest—as good as ice cream.

I also felt my self esteem rise.  After all I was doing something really hard that was good for me.  I broke free of my addiction to morning coffee.  I felt clear headed and optimistic.  If I can do this difficult thing, what else can I do?

Just like me on my cleanse, when clients enter therapy, they are doing something really hard.  When they open up, tell their stories, and revisit painful emotions from their past, they are doing something really hard.

Self esteem is one of the few positive emotions that do not come from our relationships with others.  It doesn’t come from being loved.  It comes from doing difficult things that are good, for us and/or for others.  Self esteem comes from esteem-able acts.  Esteem-able acts vary, depending on our values and abilities.

Conquering a physical challenge, submitting for treatment to conquer an addiction, learning something new, entering therapy, exiting an unhealthy relationship or job, volunteering, being friendly (if you’re an introvert) or spending time in solitude (if you’re an extrovert) are all self esteem building acts.

I encourage you to think about one difficult thing you can do this week!

 

Related articles

• How to Boost Your Self-Esteem (everydayhealth.com)
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Social Skills: Why Say Goodbye?

Goodbye Stop (Photo credit: Peter Kaminski)

Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

Summer is upon us and between working and parenting and engaging in some serious garden neglect, I have failed to maintain my blog posts: Bad, bad, blogger!  Here are two little things to tide my readership over (all two of you!):

First, a reminder that I am starting a social skills group for adults with social anxiety on the first Saturdays of the month.  To attend, you must schedule an intake with me so that I can keep participants consistent in terms of abilities and intentions.  So far we have a highly intelligent and interesting core group which I am looking to add 3 more participants to.

Second, “Saying Goodbye:” a chapter in my upcoming book on social anxiety disorder.  Cheers!

Saying Goodbye

Years ago I attended a week long yoga and meditation retreat.  Throughout the week we started and ended our days with silence and movement.  We ate the finest organic vegetables and wandered through the wilderness surrounding the retreat center.  Of course we also befriended one another in that way of people who are uplifted and in possession of vast swaths of free time.  We bonded, big time.

Towards the end of the retreat, an interesting thing happened.  People started strategizing about ways to leave early, convincing themselves that the rural California freeways would be full on a Sunday afternoon if they waited until the conclusion of the program.

It’s hard to say an honest goodbye because it hurts to feel loss and it’s uncomfortable to display emotion.  And yet, saying goodbye is a universally significant way to honor and declare the importance of other people in our lives.  Saying goodbye is a social ritual in which both the departing person and the remaining people are acknowledged.

No one should head off into the unknown without the security of feeling loved.  Likewise, no one should lose a “tribe member” without the opportunity to say goodbye:  if it upsets us to misplace our pencil, imagine how much more upsetting it is to lose a friend or an acquaintance.

Socially anxious people bolt out of meetings, work, church, and even social gatherings.   The move away abruptly, unsure of how to say goodbye, afraid that if it is known they are leaving, either they will get trapped into an unwanted conversation (not the end of the world if it happens) or that no one will care (that’s the end of the world).  Suicide happens for this same reason (the belief that one doesn’t matter to anyone else).

Rather than bolt, it is a healthy practice to linger and talk to the people around you so that you can connect with new ones and reinforce connection with old ones.

Related articles

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ADHD Resource Recap and Social Skills Group Opportunity

English: A child not paying attention in class. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

I had a lovely time at the ADD Resources Spring Conference on Saturday, where I presented on social skills and got to attend the presentation of Dr Nancy Payne on ADD in the workplace and learned an interesting fact:  the #1 complaint of employers in Washington state is the lack of “soft skills” among employees and perspective employees.  Soft skills are interpersonal skills and complement “hard skills” or technical learning such as knowing how to program a computer or drive a sixteen penny nail.

Dr Payne runs http://www.payneandassociates.com/ a consulting service specializing in inclusive and adaptive business practices.

I also ate lunch with Kendra Wagner, a buddy of mine who runs http://www.readingwritingthinking.net/ a tutoring service for children with learning disabilities and learning differences.

Brooke Gray from Shire joined us for lunch as well and is currently working to get the word out about A Shared Focus, a free, evidence-based informational website for adults and children with ADHD as well as providers.  You can join and read here:  https://www.adhdandyou.com/adhd-patient/adhd-resources/adhd-a-shared-focus-sign-up.aspx

Unfortunately I didn’t get to attend the headliner as I had to zoom home for a party, but Gina Pera, author of “Is It You, Me or Adult ADD?” spoke on the topic of ADHD on relationships and made a very funny comment at lunch:  She wanted to join the peace corps, but upon learning from a friend of the parasites and sleeping conditions faced by peace corps volunteers in the third world, she decided instead to do her own “domestic peace corps” and dedicate herself to helping people with ADHD.

I am starting a monthly group for people wanting to enhance their social skills.  If you or anyone you know might be interested, please let me know! 

The focus will be learning in depth social connection techniques, successful managment of personal vulnerability, the four conversational fouls, ways to become a better listener, developing a robust personal conversational menu, learning how to politely disengage from unpleasant or unproductive conversations, ways to manage conflict while preserving the friendship/relationship, and how to be assertive without being aggressive.

We will practice these skills in a safe, non-judgmental atmosphere of mutual respect and confidentiality.

We will also incorporate participant’s requests and communication issues.

If you are interested, reply via email (tanya@therapistseattle.net) or phone (206) 375-7690 so we can schedule an intake.  In order to keep the group cohesive I shall meet with potential participants in advance to make sure that everyone is in the same boat in terms of expectations and needs.

Cost: Intake will take one hour and cost $60.

Group will meet the first Saturday of the month from 9am to 11am, and will begin when I have an appropriate number signed up.

and cost $45

If you know of anyone who might be interested, please send them to this blog post.  Thank you!

Related articles

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• 12 Tips to Navigate Summertime When Your Child Has ADHD (psychcentral.com)

Workshop Opportunity: Social Skills and Attention Deficit Disorder

Symptoms of ADHD described by the literature (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I will be presenting on social skills at the ADD Resources Spring Conference Saturday, June 2nd in Renton. 

This conference is open to the public (you do not need an ADHD diagnosis to attend, and much of the information is universally applicable), will be filled with useful information, is cheap and easy to get to. 

Here’s the flyer: 

ADHD Adults Workshop – 2012

Real Life Management of Adult ADHD Relationships, Work, Social Skills & Life Strategies Saturday, June 2, 2012 Blackriver Training Center in Renton, WA 8:30 am – 4:30 pm

Start putting the puzzle pieces of your life together with the help of four experts, including Gina Pera, the author of the award-winning book, “Is It You, Me, or Adult A.D.D.?”!! Join ADD Resources and these amazing presenters for our Adults’ Workshop to learn meaningful strategies to help adults manage different aspects of their lives. This will be full day of exploration and discovery for an incredibly low price.  Register early as space is limited!

Registration Fees

Early Bird Extended…prices go up $10 on May 12, 2012

$30 Members $40 Nonmembers $25 Students

Members save $10 off the registration fee and now for a limited time when you join or renew your membership you also receive a hard copy of our newest 3rd Edition ADHD Reader (value $25). The ADHD Reader is a 183 page book of articles written by nationally prominent authorities and adults with ADHD.  Join or Renew!

Agenda:

8:15 – 8:45        Registration 8:45 – 9:00        Welcome/Intro 9:00 – 10:20      Misfit to Ms/Mr Wit! (Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti, LICSW) 10:20 – 10:35    Break 10:35 – 12:15    ADD in the Workplace (Dr. Nancie Payne, PhD) 12:15 – 1:15      Lunch, pre-ordered or on your own 1:15 – 2:50        Cultivate Your Authenticity (Dr. Naomi Zemont, PhD) 2:50  – 3:00       Break 3:00 – 4:30        Impact of ADHD on Relationships (Gina Pera)

Description of presentations

Help us spread the word! Print this flyer and pass around or post!

Start your summer off in the right direction!!

Saturday, June 2, 2012 Blackriver Training & Conference Center Puget Sound ESD 800 Oakesdale Ave SW Renton, WA 98057 8:30 am to 4:30 pm

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Managing Anxiety

Image via Wikipedia

by Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

   Know Your Symptoms

To prevent potential fatalities from a full-blown heart attack, the public has been educated about the signs and symptoms of an impending one. With this information, people are better able to self assess, spot the crisis coming and get immediate help.

Anxiety, which can turn into a full blown panic attack, has signs and symptoms as well. Figuring out your own symptoms during a time of calm is useful because at the START of an episode of feeling anxious you can course correct, or engage in some intentional self-soothing behaviors with far greater success than at the height of a panic.

My mother regularly thinks she has misplaced her keys. They are almost always simply hiding in the bowels of her purse. But as she looks for her keys her anxiety becomes heightened. She becomes increasingly convinced that she has lost them, which turns into fears that she has Alzheimer’s, which turns into fears that she will lose her ability to live independently and experience freedom and happiness. When she is digging frantically around her purse for her keys, she is completely unable to engage in problem solving to prevent this pattern from re-occurring. Any suggestions are immediately shot down (“hey, why not get one of those purse inserts with a dedicated spot for your key?” Or “Hey, why not always put your keys into a zippered compartment so you know where to look for them?”)

Normally an open and receptive, highly intelligent person, in full blown panic she—like all of us—simply cannot think to take in new information.

As anxiety builds, it goes from wave to tsunami. It is much easier to manage a wave than a tsunami.

Get to know your anxiety wave: Think about all of the physical (body) mental (thinking) and emotional (feeling) ways that your social anxiety shows up, and write them down. Do you experience changes in your breathing, heartbeat, a sense of pressure in your throat, sweat, dryness of mouth? Do you stutter? Do you imagine passing out or throwing up or suddenly swearing like a sailor? Do you tell yourself things like, “I’m going to die” or “I can’t get through this.”?

Write it all down!  Try to remember all the ways that social anxiety grabs you by the throat. This information is important for two reasons: one, you can stop anxiety early on if you recognize it. Two, you can talk back to your anxiety if you can pick out your self-talk. “No, it’s not the end of the world if I flub the interview.”

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Social Anxiety Disorder

By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

Image by benchilada via Flickr

I’m writing a book, tentatively titled “From Misfit to Ms Wit” about social anxiety disorder because in my work with people with PTSD, depression and ADHD I’ve noticed that social anxiety disorder is like a backpack condition: it often comes along with other mental health conditions and it slows healing down.

Why?  Because without a tribe of people to check out our experiences and perceptions with, we are left trying to figure everything out on our own, or trying to solve issues with the limited perspective of immediate family members, so the effect of social anxiety disorder is greater than mere loneliness:  it decreases functioning.

Additionally, because we humans experience ourselves relationally (meaning we form our identities based upon the qualities we are told we contain) limited social connections amputate a major venue for self awareness.

I belong to no less than three consult groups and on top of that have weekly lunch dates with various therapist friends.  I tell folks that I do this so that I can appear more intelligent than I really am, but it really does make me better at what I do.  Hearing what trainings my friends are attending, the outcomes of research they are reading and creative interventions they have successfully used allows me to expand my knowledge and abilities.

My goal is to try to post excerpts of the book on this blog every two weeks as a way to help me stay productive because it’s amazing how appealing doing laundry is when I have time I could spend writing.

Any comments, questions, disagreements etc… are welcome!

 

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