Posts tagged help

There are times throughout life when someone dies and we all feel we lost somebody who has touched our lives. Whitney was certainly one of those people. What happened Whitney? Was it drugs? Or was it something else? There are many people today, Valentine’s Day, who are without someone to love them. Some of these people have been emotionally, physically, or sexually abused. I hope this was not true for you.

We miss you and the smiles you brought to our faces when you sang. No one knows what happened to make you use drugs, but I know and treat many people who suffer from drug abuse. Many of them have been survivors of childhood sexual abuse. It is incredible how their lives were changed by this kind of violation. For them Valentine’s Day is usually a day of remembering feeling unloved and abused.

To all of you who have suffered at the hands of pedophiles and predators I wish you a Valentine’s Day of peace and healing.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Whitney, I wish the same to you and hope that you are finally at peace.

I don’t think my father was addicted to alcohol. However he drank too much. I usually did not mind when he drank. Usually he was fairly funny, and fun to be around. It was the next day that really stank. He’d have a hangover that would make him cranky, and harsh towards me, for at least a day or two. As I’ve said in other posts he was way too free with his hands and was way too harsh with his criticisms of me. When I grew up and became a mental health and substance abuse professional I began to fully realize the pain that I carried with me everyday.

Alcoholism is a family disease. It affects the whole family, not just the alcoholic. It is not uncommon for a child of an alcoholic to become an addict.

There are consequences that affect the family very similar, physical and emotional can arise.

Here are some common problems that family members of alcoholics face:

• Lack of money and fear of running out of money or food

• Physical, Sexual, and Emotional Abuse

• Emotional and psychological disorders such as depression, codependency, and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

I suffered most from physical and emotional abuse. For me, and I’m not saying that this should be for everybody, I preferred being hit to what I got emotionally. At least when I was hit my punishment would be over. Some of the worst emotional abuse that I suffered was hearing both of my parents telling me that I wasn’t too smart, and that I wouldn’t make much of myself in life. I’m an only child, and I really never had anyone who I could turn to for support or solace. So I lived down to their expectations. I am an only child. I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s, when there was not much known about learning disabilities, specifically ADD, and almost dropped out of high school.

I should also introduce myself, “Hi I’m Mark, I’m a friend of Bill W.” For those of you who don’t know what that means, it means I’m in recovery myself. I’m proud of this. I have two grown sons, and I stopped drinking and drugging early in their lives. I know the effect that it had on me. I grew up believing I was and still am not too bright. There was a time in high school when my father told me I didn’t have to go to school on a Monday. He said that I would never amount to much, and he wanted to take me to his union, and sign me up, so that at least I would have a skill to make money with.

The effect my father’s drinking had on me, combined with the emotional abuse I suffered at both parents hands, I’m surprised (and so are my friends from the Bronx), that I’ve made it as far as I have in my profession, and in my life.

The two most striking differences in the way I have been as a father to my sons is that:

1 – I never, never hit either of my sons.

2 - I have always encouraged them to follow their dreams. Whenever there were problems I would work with them to find good solutions, always supporting any good reasoning abilities that they were developing.

As a result one of my sons is in a PhD program in philosophy; my other son is in law school. My wife and I are very proud of them, and we’ve done a good job raising them.

I’ve had a lot of good therapy in my life, and that has helped me tremendously. Still I have to keep working on myself because the beliefs that they instilled in me about my lack of intelligence still plague me to this day. This may surprise you since I’m quite respected in my field; I have a full-time psychotherapy practice, I’ve written a book, and I’m an international lecturer.

I know many of you have had it worse. I wonder how many people who I’ve responded to about cutting and self harm have suffered from growing up in this way.

I wonder how many of you suffer from depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, or alcohol and drug abuse. Let me give you a word of hope. While my story isn’t unique, and I’ve heard many stories from people who have had it much worse than me, I still know firsthand the damage that can be done. Take heart, good therapy, Al-Anon, Alateen, and other 12 step programs for families who have a member who is either addicted or abusing substances can make a great difference in your lives. If you followed my blogs, you’ll notice that I’ve referenced a number of problems that I have had and overcome (at least mostly).

While I would’ve liked to have become a physician, I’m happy when I can help people as a psychotherapist, lecturer, and writer.

If my blog has interested you, you can check out what I believe in the articles that I’ve written at www.markdworkin.com.

I wish you all a safe and peaceful journey through life.

Mark

Sometimes I can be a bit dense. I’ve been very upset about this spate of robberies at pharmacies near my house. At first I thought it was just an issue about addicted people needing to find ways to satisfy their cravings. I also didn’t like the idea that crime seem to be on the rise.

Dense, dense, dense! I also recently wrote about a friend who successfully committed suicide. It broke my heart. She was so depressed, and I had no idea. She also moved far away so we weren’t in touch. And she was just a friend, but a good one.

Part of her suicide was taking an overdose of pills. It never occurred to me that the pain I felt hearing about the robberies was connected to my friend. You see, the robbers were stealing pills. My friend died of taking pills. How could I be so dense?

Obviously I know the answer. As Stuart Smalley said in Saturday Night Live, “denial is not just a river that runs through Egypt.” I think this is the nature of things for all of us. When something so horrendous happens to us we go into a freeze, or traumatized state. Then things in the present that may remind us in any way shape or form about the trauma, will reactivate the painful emotions associated with.

Now I train people in trauma therapy, called eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). I’m being pretty compassionate with myself, because I know how these things can go. “We are all more human than otherwise,” said the Great American psychiatrist Harry Stack Sullivan.

So please take a lesson from a guy who’s been in the mental health field for almost 40 years, has had experience in a lot of therapy, is an international lecturer, and an author. If I could go into denial, anyone can. If you ever find yourself in this kind of a situation please remember even those of us who try to have awareness of higher consciousness can be blind to what’s right in front of us.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Namaste:

Mark

About seven months ago the mutual friend let me know that his wife, a friend for many years committed suicide. I’ll spare you the details, and just let you know that I wish I could’ve been there to help. But she moves a few thousand miles away, and we had lost touch, except for maybe an occasional Christmas card. Her death was a great shock to me; it still is.

I keep wondering even after all this time why she didn’t reach out to me. We were good friends, and she used to talk to me when she was upset. Her husband told me that he tried to encourage her to talk to me, or a therapist in their area. She wasn’t open to the idea.

There are some people who will tell you many times have their planning to kill themselves, but they never do. In this case, sadly, my friend did not let anyone know what she was planning. She was meticulous, organized, and thorough. She left nothing to chance. We are all bewildered. I speak to her husband, and some of their family members. We are all in a quandary. She was a great person, would do anything for anyone, at any time. We need more people on this Earth like my friend. Her death has left me impoverished.

Please take what I have to say as some guidelines that you can use to see if a friend or family member is in danger of taking their own lives. Here are some of the guidelines:

Do they have a plan and a timetable?

Have they made a suicide attempt before?

Have a thought about suicide?

Are they sober?

Are they depressed?

Do they engage in risk-taking behaviors? Bar fights? Speeding?

Have they expressed any fatal illness thoughts? For instance “I wish I were dead.”

Have you seen any changes in their behavior?

Have you seen any changes in their mood?

Have they been expressing how life isn’t worth living?

Have you noticed that they’ve been stockpiling pills?

Have you noticed any recent purchases that don’t make too much sense?

These are just a few of the many indicators we can try and look at to predict how intense the person is on ending their lives. But you should know that even being vigilant, may still not get you anywhere. Approximately 4/5 people who think about suicide, usually talk to a friend or family member about it. But then there are some like my friend, whose behavior changed, whose beliefs changed, but you never ever gave any warning that she was about to do what she did.

Remember, if someone has made the commitment to suicide, there is nothing we can do, except to be as vigilant as possible.

All we can do is mourn and grieve. Chastising ourselves about what we could’ve done just doesn’t seem to cut it. I have her picture on the side of a file cabinet with the words, “were things really that bad?” Anyone in my shoes will know just how painful it is to think about. I found that writing a letter to my friend, which I kept to myself obviously, was helpful. Other people find using the creative arts means of expression of the grief is useful.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

To anyone who is in my shoes, I wish you peace and healing.

I hate bullies. When I was young I was a victim of many of them. They were the “cool kids” and I was short and fat. While I never thought about cutting (we didn’t know about this back in the 60’s. But I do know about hurting so badly that I wanted to end my life. My parents weren’t helpful. They were too busy with their lives. So when I came home crying at 14 (“Be a man and stop crying”), because they gave me the nickname Twaddles, it hurt so badly that I felt ashamed to go outside. I never got any help back then (help only started after my heart was broken 5 years later).

I’m 61 and I can tell everyone who cuts, or is a victim of bullying, that the boys who mocked and humiliated me didn’t do so well in life. A number are dead; some are recovering junkies, and some have menial jobs.

So take heart. You’ll get through this period. Keep remembering that there is a tomorrow where you have grown up, and healed the wounds of your childhood, like I healed mine.

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

Have a Safe and Happy Holiday everyone.

I just finished a session with a 17 year old teenager. She has been cutting for two years. No one ever found out. No one cared. Melinda (not her real name) was raped by her uncle when she was 8 years old. When she went crying to her mother, seeking safety and calming she got slapped in the face. Her mother told her that if she ever told those lies again that she would be driven into the woods at night, in the winter, and left there. Her mother was drunk; her father had divorced her mother, and moved to California (She lived in Queens NY).

Melinda was obviously terrified. She couldn’t sleep, her appetite suffered, and she had many tummy aches. This went on for two weeks until she convinced herself that she must have made the story up. To try to get back “her mother’s love” she confessed to making the story up. Her mother then beat her over her naked bottom with a hairbrush. She told me that her only way out (except for suicide) was to tell herself that she was lying to herself and she should just forget about the incident.

After a number of weeks Melinda started to forget, only the pain and emptiness remained. She had dissociated the memory.

At 15 she was in 10^th grade, and when she went to the bathroom she saw two other girls taking a paper clip and scratching themselves deeply until they bled. She was fascinated by this and timidly approached the other students. They explained that what looked painful, was actually more pleasurable. They didn’t know why or care. They showed Melinda how to cut, and after a short while Melinda started feeling better than she did for a long time.

This is how she started to self medicate. I say self medicate because cutting releases endorphins (“feel good” inner chemicals). None of the three girls realized the dangerous turn their lives were about to take. One of her friends got sent to boarding school; the other got thrown out of her house. Melinda didn’t get caught until two years later when someone noticed the cuts on her upper arm.

She ended up in my office because her aunt (whom she was staying with is a social worker). When she confronted Melinda, she admitted to cutting, but could not remember why she had started. It was a few weeks later when after being with a group of friends, a boy she liked tried to kiss her. She freaked out and ran away.

This incident triggered many painful memories of being raped (more than once) and having been beaten. Because her aunt was a colleague of mine, and knew I worked with traumatized people, and cutters as well, she called me and I started seeing Melinda.

Stories like Melinda’s are all too common in my practice, and the practices of my colleagues.

Self harm can be caused by many reasons, but most self harmers share a common problem, they have an inability to verbalize their emotions.  Unless you are the abusing parent I strongly suggest that you immediately sit down with your child and start a conversation. “How did you get that cut?” You can expect every excuse known to human kind. Please do not criticize your child (or friend). They are doing the best they can. Cutting is usually not a means of trying to suicide. That doesn’t mean that you should wait one minute.

Why Teens Cut Themselves

It’s usually hard for parents to understand why their teen would cut himself or herself on purpose. There are many reasons teens cut themselves.

 Among them:

·      It helps them release of pent up emotional stress.

·      Through cutting they express anger or other negative emotions.

·      It is a way to exert an element of control when their lives seem out of control.

·      Teens who cut have trouble feeling something other than emptiness,

·      Cutting is a way of punishing themselves because they feel inadequate or worthless.

Those who cut don’t intend to injure themselves seriously or permanently. Rather, those who cut are feeling emotional pain and resort to physical self-injury in an attempt to feel better. Cutting releases endorphins, the brain’s feel-good chemical, providing a respite from the pain or helping the teen “feel more alive.”

Here are some possible solutions that you and your child may try, but sadly cutters usually will need professional help as soon as possible. If you aren’t ready to take your child to a psychotherapist who is an expert in self harm, I written out a few suggestions that you can try with your teen. BUT PLEASE! If you do not see a marked improvement in a very short period of time, please go the professional route. Here are some suggestions to try.

·      Teens who cut themselves need to learn coping skills, including asserting themselves appropriately.

·      They need to learn emotional regulation and distress management skills in order to deal with strong emotions.

·      There are many self-calming skills that can quell the urge to cut so that they can deal with intense stress.

·      Relationships are sometimes difficult; teens need to be able to practice using their words rather other means of expression.

There are teens who have other relationship problems. They may feel clumsy in their attempts to fit in with a group; or ask a girl out; these teens may need social skills training.

There are a multitude of stress management techniques that they can easily learn, such as Progressive Muscle Relaxation.

They usually can’t stop immediately after being found out. They need your support, if you are their family or their friends. Support doesn’t mean liking it, approving of it, or any other nonsense like that.

Support means that you as family or friend sit and have conversations with the teen who is cutting. Try to get them to genuinely tell you what hurts.

Let your child (friend) know that they can call you any time that the urge to cut becomes unbearable.

Teach them that rubbing ice on their wrists may help calm the urge to cut.

Sometimes snapping a rubber band onto your wrist may help to take the urge away.

Many teens use a journal to write down their thoughts, or write a letter to the person(s) who harmed them and tell them the effects of their harm (this is especially useful when cutting is a way to block out the pain of being sexually, physically, or emotionally abused.

Other teens may use other mediums to express themselves. These may include:

Painting

Drawing

Finally, love your teen. He or she is hurting and need help. If you would like further information please go to my website @ www.markdworkin.com

Peace

Thursday is Thanksgiving. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? For me, I get to watch football and eat pumpkin pie with friends and relatives. But what about the people who do not want to see family, but feel that they have to? How would you like to be greeted by someone who abused you emotionally, physically, or sexually? Do you embrace them, or give them a swift kick where it hurts (I’m not advocating this, I am just wondering?

What about families where you have to sit around the dining room table, not being able to say much because others won’t shut up. What if they go on about their children while you sit quietly with yours? I had that problem for many years until I finally got the courage to say, “No More.” And I haven’t seen parts of either my family or my wife’s in years.

What if your tormentor starts to needle you, calling you fat? Let’s say that you are bulimic? Do you excuse yourself and go to the bathroom? You get the picture of what can be both ways. Some people wil get sleepy from the tryptophan in the turkey, while others will feel like they are living in hell for the time that they are there and long after.

The question I always ask myself in these situations is, “Is it worth it to expose myself to people who may emotionally hurt me?” I can’t tell you what to do. I only know that I go through a reflective process.

I hope that only a handful of you who read this blog have to think about the negative side about spending time with people you can’t stand. As I said, I know how it feels, and I don’t subject myself to anyone I do not like. Period!

If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com

To everyone else who reads this blog I wish you a healthy and happy holiday.