Spooked to Serene

 

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I’ve been reading a good deal about the direction our current administration appears to be headed and major concerns folks have regarding its anticipated impact on the environment, immigrants, women, families in poverty, and people of color…basically every vulnerable human and carbon on the planet. The response to all of this unknown worry varies from productive to preposterous.  People have mentioned stockpiling gasoline and bullets ala The Walking Dead.

It’s easy to get caught up in dire predictions. The generalized and pervasive feelings of fear, powerlessness and anger so many of us feel create a breathless anticipation of disaster. Many are now living in a shared cultural trauma, similar to the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks when people around the country were terrified that they would be the next target of terrorist attacks. Friends of mine who work and hang out with immigrants and refugees report that men who used to play soccer are no longer showing up at the park, that families who used to use the library are too frightened to check out books. There is cause for concern. Agreements to slow the pace of environmental destruction are being overturned. Meals on Wheels, a program which allows low income seniors to age in place is at risk of losing all federal funding. PBS, long considered free preschool for the public, is also on the chopping block. (Check out this cheeky call for funding: http://whatstrending.com/video/23876-elmo-gets-fired)

It’s an uncertain time. And yet, we become less effective as humans: less empathic, less articulate, less focused when we fall into fear and hysteria. The human race is a story of struggle and survival. We impressive humans have harnessed fire, created agricultural surplus, made music and art, discovered penicillin, built machines that fly and drive, invented solar power grids and the internet. We are AMAZING creatures. And by many measures—current political administration aside—things are getting easier: we mostly no longer starve to death in developed countries. The national homicide rate has fallen 51% since 1991, per the Bookings Institute. According to the Guttmacher institute, 90% of sexually active women in the United States at risk of unintended pregnancy are using birth control. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education reports that nearly 4.6 million African Americans now hold college degrees, as compared with just ten thousand in the 1920’s.

Staying calm and reminding our freaked out brains that the world is not about to come to a crashing halt allows us to maintain perspective and make contingency and response plans. And that makes us more effective humans. There is cause for celebration and unity. Even across the political/economic/gender/educational divide we have more in common than separate: we are all trying to make sense of the world around us—even if we come to different conclusions about what it all means and how to respond, we all spring from families who pass along good and bad ideas in the process of raising us, we all love our children and want them to grow up healthy, smart and capable. We all thrill to the sight of spring flowers bursting out of the ground. Almost everyone wants to do the right thing, to be proud of ourselves. None of us have all the answers and none of us are done growing into our best selves.

Working towards change while remaining grounded in connection allows us to better deal with this world we live in. It allows us to be at peace with (or at least grudging acceptance of) the time/energy/money we have available to contribute. Maintaining our sense of calm and connectedness makes better individuals while we try to make the world better for all.

Seasonal Sanity

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Goodbye Sunglasses!

The trees outside my office are turning to flame and every day I’m scooping tracked-in maple leaves off the kitchen and living room floors (dog doors are a wonderful opportunity for clean freaks to practice surrender).  It’s autumn, a time for homemade soup and hot baths and hanging twinkle lights against the darkness.  After nineteen years in Seattle, I’m finally getting the hang of coping with the long, wet winters here.  Here are my top seven tips for maintaining mental health over the fall and winter:

First of all, you gotta do something seasonal. Tacky Halloween décor is awesome. Ditto going to haunted houses or whatever autumnal offerings float your boat. Not into the whole Halloween thing? Throw a party or go see some live theatre.

Second, nourish yourself with food that is warm, creamy, salty and substantial. Our lizard brain needs reassurance that we will survive the coming winter and nothing says “I am safe from starvation” to the lizard brain like salted fat.

Third get swept up in a story. When the days are dark and cold it is delightful to travel in our imagination. This is a great time to read novels, watch a show or a movie.

Forth, have at least one warm and beautiful jacket and a seriously comfy pair of house slippers. Spend some money so that you have a delicious tactile experience every day.

Fifth, remember that creativity ignites your inner sunlight. Take a workshop or a class to learn how to make something, or pull out creative supplies you already have and spend a weekend afternoon playing with them.

Six: Do something for someone else. Look around you. There are needs everywhere and if you have a time or talent, share. Look for a non-profit addressing a problem you care about and volunteer. This is the fastest acting, side-effect-free antidepressant not on the market. Sorry Pfizer!

Seven: Exercise. It makes endorphins and keeps us healthy. We Americans are a fat lot because we love to eat and hate to move. This is especially problematic when the outside world is about as inviting as a bed of nails. If you don’t already have an exercise routine, make a sustainable, incremental plan to increase your movement. If you already do, switch things up by trying out a new class or dance or type of movement.

Lifestyle adjustments are not always enough. If you are doing all you can to take care of yourself and still suffering from depression and/or anxiety, get professional help. But here’s the other thing you should know: professional help will not be enough without positive lifestyle choices.  For instance, psychotropic medications (antidepressants for example) work as standalone treatments only 20% of the time.

I wish you all a happy fall!

Should I Stay or Should I Go Now?

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

Your Relationship Shouldn’t Feel Like a Wrestling Match

Certain life skills are baffling to many people.  How to keep a tidy home or cook a reasonable meatloaf or pick a flattering dress are all skills that come with practice and by practice I mean screwing up.  This is all well and good and in some ways the only justice in aging: we’re not as hot as we used to be, but we’re a heck of a lot more sensible and competent.  Twenty-somethings dinner parties suck, while fifty-somethings dinner parties are delicious AND interesting.

There are certain areas where screwing up costs a lot more emotional coin than a lousy diner or an ugly dress.  I’m talking about intimate relationships and the discernment it takes to decide whether to stay and invest or sever and heal. Most of us were never taught how to assess the quality of our love relationships and that makes it hard to decide when things are bad enough to leave.

Without a functional paradigm to make this assessment, we may find ourselves bouncing between distress and hope when our relationship is troubled, telling ourselves “maybe it will work” and “I hope it will work” and “I just don’t want to start all over again.”  Many good-hearted people with a lot to offer (as in folks who can find love again) will stay in preoccupying and damaging connections due to two factors of human nature: our universal reluctance to change and our universal fear of being alone.

Here’s how emotional attachments are supposed to work: we meet someone we feel a natural affinity for. They have enough qualities in common with us that we easily connect to them, and enough qualities different from us that they are interesting. We spend time getting to know them before becoming physically involved.  Why delay jumping into bed?  Not because our grandmothers would disapprove, but because good sex is so captivating—our very cellular biology is interested in the perpetuation of the species and doesn’t give a hoot about compatibility– that if we are having it we won’t pay attention to major incompatibility markers.

A healthy connection progresses over time from purely delightful to durable and real.  Along the way it loses some of its magic sparkle (wah!) but develops into a deeper and richer thing of mutual understanding and enjoyment, comfort, a shared history and vision for the future, and a sense of safety. There is conflict (always!) and it is managed in a way that allows both parties to tell their truth, to listen and learn from one another, and maintain their own dignity.  The most vital overriding emotion of a good relationship is mutual gratitude. Gratitude happens naturally when both parties value the connection, feel seen and loved by one another and know that the other doesn’t have to, but chooses to be there.

The opposite of gratitude is contempt. Contempt is the active expression of disrespect and stems from feelings of superiority and judgment (secretly the contemptuous party actually feels bad about him or herself but that’s for their therapist to deal with and not something their romantic partner can repair).

Contempt is a subtle but poisonous emotion.  It manifests in scornful communication, eye rolling, rejecting or disregarding reasonable requests, avoiding contact, saying cruel things, private rage and public politeness, and withholding information about why one is upset.  No one is contemptuous all the time and this makes things even more confusing.  A contemptuous partner is a Jekyll and Hyde routine and you never know who is going to show up.

If you are in a relationship with someone who treats you contemptuously, first check yourself: are you showing up respectfully?  Are you making requests and not demands? Contempt can be a (lousy) defensive strategy by people feeling attacked and judged. If you are communicating with respect and being met with contempt, ask your partner to get help.  If they are unwilling, ask yourself if you can tolerate living the rest of your life giving in to a bully while biting your tongue or enduring explosive conflict to stand up for yourself.

Intimate relationships require daily collaboration and decision making between two different people with separate agendas and experiences, differing skills and deficits, therefore relationships will always have problems to solve.  Conflicts arise from two people rubbing together through time and space and sometimes rubbing each other the wrong way.

If those inevitable conflicts can’t be discussed and solved in a manner that honors both parties’ legitimate human needs for dignity, that’s a good reason to go.

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.

Deserving Good

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I’m starting an adult anxiety support group in March.  It’s going to be good. Details are here: SeattleAnxietySupportGroup.com

Therapy practice offers a daily meditation on healing. Lately I’ve been talking to clients about the healing practice of feeling like they deserve the good things they have or want in their lives, be they a loving relationship or nice home or even the simple ability to go to sleep at night without a litany of worries and tasks trampling their brain.

Many people grew up on homes where they were not told “I love you exactly the way you are.” Instead they were told directly or indirectly “you are loved only when you please me.” This earn-my-love message creates a belief that they are not worthy of esteem or success unless they are performing a task to benefit another person or agency/business.  This creates a people-pleasing workaholism that prevents them from developing true self worth.  The lack of self worth then creates anxiety, feelings of phoniness and unworthiness when good things do happen.

Self worth exists independent of our actions or their effect on others. It is an internal sense of value and dignity that alerts us if our boundaries are being violated and thus functions as a protective barrier. Self worth also allows us to give to and receive from other people comfortably. If we are valuable internally, we can “afford” to share our things because they are not overly precious. If we are valuable internally we can receive generosity from others because we are worthy of time, attention and material.

Many people worry that feeling good about themselves will make them selfish, that developing self worth will cause them to become socially abrasive or exploitive. In truth operating from a place of self worth will be off-putting to those who don’t have any. That’s because asking for what you want, meaning what you say, communicating directly and unapologetically is terribly threatening to people who don’t have internal permission to do the same. So as we develop self worth there is sometimes a readjustment of friends.

But becoming our own friend means that we actually have more compassion for others, more patience and generosity because we are no longer sinking our energy into trying to derive worth from others’ recognition of our effort (no one can possibly track our accomplishments all the time anyway).

For the New Year here is my wish for you:  Deserve the good stuff in your life. Deserve to change the not so good stuff. And if all this sounds like I’m speaking Swahili, get some help. You deserve that too.

 

Is it Pain for Gain or Just Plain Pain?

 

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

As a trauma therapist I often feel like a dentist: it’s my job find the painful places and clean them out. It sucks to make people hurt but I have a theory about pain that helps me and hopefully, it can help you.

I separate pain into a couple categories. One is repetitive and worsening pain. This includes phobias, compulsions, and addictions. They are repetitive in that they are triggered by the same things over and over again (elevators! driving over bridges! imagining germs! walking past a bar!) and they are worsening in that they create an increasingly limited range of choice for sufferers who don’t get help.  The purpose of pain in this category is actually vital and healing: it is meant to break through our barriers of denial, minimization and resistance to change and tell us THIS IS NOT OKAY.  We are meant to listen to this emotional pain the way we would listen to the physical pain of a toothache. It means STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND GET HELP.

The second category is transitory, productive pain. Think about a woman in labor. Think about a teething toddler. Think about a teenager applying to college. None of these scenarios are any fun. But they are necessary for what comes next: human life! Teeth! A more secure adulthood!

Changing lifelong patterns of self criticism and hyper-vigilance—patterns that were productive during childhood abuse because they mitigated some of the helplessness that all abuse victims feel—feels like a risk and even an outright lie. “If I hate myself how can I possibly treat myself kindly?”

Well, you have to change your inner self talk BEFORE your self-regard changes, because self-regard is a product of self talk. And it will make you feel uncomfortable, disingenuous, dishonest, and all manner of out of sorts when you start to change because positive self talk doesn’t feel true…yet. This is transitory, productive pain.  This kind of pain doesn’t mean stop. It means GO. Transitory and productive pain is a big huge fluorescent pink arrow that points in the very direction you are going and is your body’s way of marking change.

Here is how you can tell the difference: Repetitive pain happens when you are isolating. Productive pain happens you are exposing vulnerabilities. Repetitive pain results in more of the same (misery! hating all of humanity!) and productive pain pisses off your defense mechanisms because you are doing something different and don’t know what the outcome will be.

Here’s a super-duper secret available only to you…shhhh….don’t tell anyone: no one knows what the outcome will be. Of anything. For anyone. At any time.  We can hope and set an intention and make an educated assessment and run statistical analysis of likely outcomes and we can prepare…but we never really know. So our task is keep going on living and deciding and evolving while holding the weight of our powerlessness as part mystery, part magic, and part universal human challenge.

 

Good Boundaries: How to Stop It With the Winning Friends and Influencing People Already!

by Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW, MSW

I was at an event this summer where a certain very famous gentleman was also in attendance.  We were listening to an impassioned presentation about serving at-risk youth in Seattle. I was painfully distracted because the sun was shining.  It was shining directly onto us through a sliding glass door and the light was hitting a patch of recently treated skin cancer on Mister Very Famous’s scalp. His armed bodyguard sat right next to me.  I yearned to tell the body guard to move the man away from the sliding glass door because sunlight was currently the biggest threat to his client.

Once upon a time, possibly not too long ago I would have been unable to restrain myself from “helping” in this manner.  This helping habit of mine has resulted in bad choices: physically stepping in-between a man and a woman fighting in the street, cleaning dog poop off the floor at a professional training I was volunteering in when the dog-poop-tracker-in-er was right there not cleaning it up, moving a suicidal woman into my home when I served on the board of her nonprofit.  On and on the list of Really Dumb Things I’ve Done To Try and Help goes.

So today I’m thinking about boundaries and the arduous process of developing them. A physical boundary such as a fence or wall defines private space, separating private/personal from public/impersonal. Unlike a physical boundary, interpersonal boundaries are invisible so they are harder to read, but are vital for our mental health.

Back when I was in turbo charged helper mode I worked constantly and still never felt like I could get everything done I needed to get done because…I couldn’t.  At least not to the standard of servitude I assigned myself. Unless you live on the moon, there is no way to meet all of the needs of all of the people around you.  A better bet is to relieve yourself of a sense of obligation to every carbon-based life form you come across (yeah ladies, I’m talkin’ to YOU).

I now keep my sphere of obligation limited to family, friends, clients and friends of family and friends.  I don’t try to help everyone I meet and I don’t think that just because I notice something (sunlight on skin cancer for instance) I need to open my big mouth and help.

Further defining my interpersonal boundaries, all of my relationships have to be reciprocal.  At work I get paid to listen and attend to my clients’ needs.  The medium of exchange is money for attention which is fair. Outside of work I am not anyone’s personal therapist so if I have a friend who repeatedly and exclusively wants to talk about themselves and their struggles when we get together I will exit that friendship.

To improve your boundaries, limit your sphere of responsibility and keep your relationships reciprocal. That’s pretty simple.

An Unexpected Twist

By Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I clung to the black steel ladder forty feet off the ground as best I could, repositioning the oversized leather gloves that my wet, sweaty hands were swimming inside of.   I looked up but not down.  Never look down when you are climbing a seven story ladder. Thirty more feet to go. My sons were ahead of me and my friend and her daughter behind.  Individual harnesses attached to a steel cable astride the ladder kept us safe from death if not bruises and fear. We were in the final stretch of an eleven course zip line in Guatemala.

This whole week had been one uncomfortable experience after another.  Our first night found us sleeping in a pantry in a Guatemalan house with no hot water, a barking dog, and two tiny single beds for me and my two children.  We transitioned to another home stay, but still tossed and turned in a boiling hot room on mattresses that would have been garbage north of the border.  The city of Antigua lacks almost all grass and trees, and as a result airborne dust permeates skin, clothes and hair from the moment one steps out of the shower.

All this because years ago I saw my sons were getting an imbalanced picture of the world. One based on comparing their possessions to television actors and other American children rather than humanity at large. It made me mad and worried to be raising youngsters who thought they should each have their own latest model I-phones just because they wanted them.

A trip to a developing country with a home stay and a language immersion program would be just the ticket to resolve this little prince syndrome. A dear friend agreed to go and to bring her daughter along as well.  My boys balked at the idea so I offered the compromise of ending the trip with a fancy hotel and then added the zip line experience to boot.

And so we found ourselves climbing a steel frame high in the air. I was terrified and sweaty but also somehow triumphant.  I used the same skills I teach my clients of positive self talk to get through. “You can do it!” I told myself, “I got your back.” Weirdly telling oneself that you have your own back–as three-dimensionally impossible as this promise may be—is greatly reassuring. I ascended to the wooden platform and sat down while cheering on the others.

The day after our return one of my sons looked around our house and proclaimed, “We are so lucky.”  During our trip we had seen a pre pubescent child singlehandedly running his family bodega late on a school night and a teenage boy sent around to beg for stale bread. We saw babies and toddlers hanging out in the street all day while their mothers sold handicrafts from large baskets balanced on their heads.  We heard the stories of our Spanish teachers who lived with parents in surrounding villages in order to make ends meet.  Even in the relative affluence of our hosts’ home there was not enough food at meal time.  There were positive experiences as well: The people were friendly and kind, the city was beautiful, with ancient churches and Spanish architecture.

We returned gloriously awake to the lifestyle we take for granted. The washing machine was praise worthy. A trip to the grocery store: exquisite. The backyard so lovely I could kiss each tulip.

I am trying to hold on to these lessons about unearned good fortune and gratitude.  So in the end, it turns out the trip was at least as much for me as it was for my children.

Fully Grown: How To Be An Adult

Tanya Ruckstuhl LICSW

I’ve been talking lately with clients and friends alike about Adulthood, and what makes this different from just being a grownup, which any bozo with a certain number of years on planet earth can claim.

Near as I can figure, adulthood has three requirements.  First, an adult is primarily responsible for themselves.  This doesn’t mean they never need help from others–in fact the capacity to receive is a hallmark of emotional health—but it means that an adult is someone who tries to meet their own financial and practical and emotional needs first, before turning to others for support.  An adult knows that they are their own responsibility regardless of what another person did or didn’t do to them in the near or distant past.

Second, an adult protects the freedom to make their own choices.  This means avoiding or getting treatment for addiction because addiction creates the removal of choice. This also requires getting treatment for mental health conditions, because depression and anxiety remove the freedom to choose fun things like throwing a party or asking that cutie out on a date.

Third, an adult feels a moral obligation to try to help others.  This need extend no further than one’s own family: being a good parent and/or a loving spouse is one of the most radical acts of social improvement we can engage in.  It can extend to one’s larger neighborhood or a marginalized ethnic group or city or this whole gorgeous blue and green planet we are all spinning around on.  It doesn’t matter what scope of impact we choose, but we must try to have a beneficial effect in order to be a full-fledged adult.

It’s never too late to heal.  If you find yourself falling short of these or your own internal benchmarks, reach for whatever support is available. We live in a generous world of second and third and five-millionth chances. We live in a generous world with many paths towards healing.

Hoarding Ain’t Rewardin’ :)

http://www.publicdomainpictures.net/view-image.php?image=5905&picture=shoe-rack

Tanya Ruckstuhl-Valenti LICSW, MSW

It is late August.  The chilly breeze and the sky changing to a more subdued hue reminds me that this glorious summer is coming to an end.

Lately, I’ve been talking with clients about problems they are having with hoarding. I wonder if there is a primal connection between being in the harvest season and struggling with the urge to over-collect.  After all, just a short few hundred years ago a well stocked larder at summer’s end made the difference between life and death over the winter.

So much of mental health boils down to the capacity to be conscious of and present in our current circumstances.  As mammals with a kluge for a brain (a machine that adapts while in use, thus adapting imperfectly because none of the data is ever deleted) with both our ancestral and individual experiences to integrate, it can be hard to be in present time.

The problem with over-collecting is that it is a form of oppression that feels like a form of security.  If I have too many shoes (well yes, I do) I have to squeeze them together to fit in the space available and that creates tension every time I look at my closet floor.  Our right brains are primarily visual/symbolic, so when we look at clutter we feel tense because there are too many patterns, colors, shapes, and textures presenting themselves to sort out.

I am going to make a Good Will drop off this afternoon and get rid of some of my silly shoe collection. If you struggle with over-collecting (aka: hoarding) a quick trip to the produce section of your local grocery store can help remind you that in this day and age and in this particular corner of the world we live in a world of abundant, almost endless choices. You too can let go of your unneeded stuff.