Posted on by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Me, Skillfully Demonstrating What Not To Do


Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

An unnamed twelve year old year old boy I happen to share DNA with has entered a phase that can only described as Complains-about-Every-Single-Thing.

This morning for instance, he complained that the cookie bar I packed for his lunch was larger than yesterday’s cookie bar, clear proof that yesterday I robbed him.  He complained that he had to do his morning chore as per usual instead of yesterday when I let the boys skip their morning chore due to the challenges of waking up early for daylight savings.  When I drove the kids to school so that they wouldn’t have to carry their musical instruments three blocks, he complained that I stopped the car directly across the street from the school instead of entering the parking lot round about.

All this, before 8:30a.m.

It was at this, third-ridiculous-complaint breaking-point that I let out a shriek and used two words I do not recommend in anyone’s vocabulary. “Shut up!” I said. Okay… I yelled.

When I pick my children up from school today I have some repair work to do. First I will apologize for losing my temper and for saying “shut up”– words I do not allow them to use. Then I will ask for forgiveness.

We all make mistakes. We make them in interpersonal relationships, in school or work, and in large and small ways throughout our entire lives. It is vitally important that we remember: we all make mistakes.

Emotional wellbeing is not the result of achieving perfection or personal excellence. Wellbeing comes from loving ourselves totally enough to accept our imperfection, which then allows us to love and accept those imperfect beings all around us. Self love and acceptance of imperfections supplies us with both the capacity for and the moral obligation to take responsibility when we make mistakes.

This is the heart of repair: By taking personal responsibility for our mistakes, we show up in our relationships, in our jobs, and in our lives as humble, teachable humans. We acknowledge what we have done wrong, ask for forgiveness and move on. We make new choices the next time a similar set of circumstances occur.

And one thing we can rest assured of: those circumstances, the challenging, finger-nails-on-the-chalkboard moments in which we made the mistake to begin with, WILL reoccur. The universe is really generous in allowing us to rinse and repeat a lesson until it’s good and learned.

Which means tomorrow or next week or next month, my kiddo will be complaining about something I find utterly ridiculous. And I will get the opportunity (Please God help me!) to calmly say, “Can you notice something positive instead of complaining?”

Posted on by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

The Complication Factor


By Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW

It all started out so simple in theory.  I never went to Disneyland as a kid, so naturally I wanted the experience of a wildly overpriced amusement park that required four plane tickets, a hotel suite, and twice daily restaurant meals to be part of their childhood. 

I explained to my kids that this year we would forgo their birthday party and fly to California instead and go to the most exciting place on earth.  They looked at me with alarm and superstition as if I had just announced, “Now we shall stir fry the cat and eat him for dinner.”

                “How about we skip Disney and just have the birthday party?”  Benji proposed. 

                “No, no!” I said, “This is for YOU, much more special than a mere party.”  I stopped myself from saying:  This is an iconic childhood experience! 

                “But we would rather have a party,” said Jonah. 

                “That’s because you don’t know how special Disneyland is!”  I said.  Never mind that I don’t know either, never having gone… 

They dug in and I relented. 

“Okay, we can have a party too, but only at our house, just a play date with cake.  And you can only invite eight children each.  This will be just a simple, nothing fancy birthday party.”

Oh, my naivety! 

                What followed were vigorous negotiations involving a stunning number of details and politics of small child parenthood:  So now in addition to Disneyland, there is the party at our house which at its most basic level requires snacks, cake, beverage, candy and getting plastic junk for those infernal goodie bags that are the demise of eco-footprints everywhere (I tried to suggest just putting cash in a bag and again got the “my mom wants to cook and eat the cat” look).   There are family friends whose children must be invited because, frankly, I love the moms, but those kids unfortunately are not the “cool” (read: future truant) boys that my own wee ones favor.  Okay, and separate from Disneyland and the birthday party, there are the treats that must be procured for the classroom, cleared with the teacher, and food-allergies that must be considered.  And the pre-birthday party school treats must be different:  One of the boys favors cupcakes and the other chocolate chip cookies.  And this list doesn’t even touch birthday gift shopping and wrapping. 

In short, this business of birthday celebration stresses me out.  In my mind’s eye it looks like a walk in the park on a sunny day.  In reality it is a snarl of to-do lists; endless errand-running, cleaning, preparing and party-disaster-averting. 

All this is to say that even semi-self-aware psychotherapists can fail to learn from their experience.  I’m just hoping that Disney offers us all the fun we crave with none of the responsibility.

Posted on by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Stay Tuned: More Will Be Revealed


 

When I was in college, I taught art classes to young adults with developmental disabilities.  As a young person I had zero artistic skill, no teaching experience, and very little common sense.  Oh, the mistakes I made!  I nearly burnt down the parks and recreation building by baking Fimo, a plastic modeling clay at 500 degrees instead of 250 degrees, for one.  What I had though, was an incredible enthusiasm and class enrollment quickly climbed from two participants to twenty four.  I am proud to say art class was the most popular special education course offered by the parks and recreation department. 

The problem became threefold: how to teach art with no artistic skill or training on a very slim supplies budget, and managing the many different personalities and quirks in the classroom.  For example, there was a man I’ll call Ted who had prader willi syndrome, a chromosomal abnormality manifesting in high relative IQ but extremely disordered behavior.   Ted would use his finger nails to pick into his leg and eat the flesh.  I instituted the rule “No eating skin in class” as a result.  There was a young woman with Downs Syndrome who would weep if her art was touched by another participant.  “No touching Clara’s art” become another rule.   There were a set of middle aged African American twins who sent their social security dollars crumpled up in the mail to country music stars in exchange for signed photographs.  I was unable to convince them “no sending money to millionaire strangers” was another art class rule. 

But my greatest challenge was a boy I’ll call Mark.  Just like there are a variety of personalities in the general population, there are a variety of personalities among people with mental retardation, and Mark was just plain mean.  He would sneak up behind the females and pinch their breasts when I wasn’t looking.  He slouched in his chair and stuck his legs out to trip people and complained about every single project we did.  “That’s dumb,” and “I don’t want to,” were his standard reactions to each week’s offering. 

I begged my supervisor to let me kick him out of class but she refused, pointing out that I was there to serve people who did not have access to other activities.  I would see Mark and swallow a great big sigh of annoyance, forcing myself to greet him with the same cheery “Hello” that I gave all the other, nicer students. 

Then came the day that Mark died suddenly during a seizure in his home.  My supervisor called to tell me.  I was in the midst of finals and did not re-arrange them to attend his funeral. 

With surprise and horror I learned that the eulogy delivered by his parents focused on how much art class had meant to him, how it was a source of light and joy at the end of his short life, how much he looked forward to coming each week, how much he talked about it at home. 

If Mark was ill-behaved in art class, I was something much worse:  I was unforgiving and blind to the significance of his return, week after week and month after month, to an activity that he had choice over, unlike the brain damage which limited his life in every way and killed him at the age of seventeen.  I took personally behavior that had nothing to do with me.

Mark has been one of my greatest teachers in my work as a therapist, as a mother, as a friend and as a wife.   My experience with him reminds me to look below the surface of things and to remember:   Pay close attention.  Don’t take it personally.  I don’t know the whole story.   More will be revealed.