Posts tagged pain
Posts tagged pain
Tomorrow is the Hallmark greeting card dividend day. Please forgive me for my cynicism. While I’ve been happily married for almost 29 years I know what it’s like to have your heart broken. What I don’t know is what it’s like for those unfortunate souls who have been victims of sexual abuse or domestic violence.
What kind of day will it bring for them? Can you imagine a husband who beats his wife and then goes out and buys her flowers, chocolates and Valentine’s Day cards? What about those poor women and men whose lives were shattered way too early by the viciousness of pedophiles.
Since I’m a psychotherapist, I treat these people daily. I can tell you from experience that this day is not a day of celebration. For many of them it’s a painful reminder of how unlovable they feel.
It’s time to stop all forms of violence and abuse. We are supposed to be much more advanced than that as a civilization. Unfortunately were not.
But what the heck, whatever parent company owns Hallmark will be sending out nice fat dividends, I’m sure. Ain’t capitalism grand.
If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com
I read the paper every day. Many of the stories have to do with people hurting other people. Sometimes there are shootings, sometimes there are muggings, sometimes there are murders. But the thing that makes my blood boil is when I hear about other children who been picked on by bullies. Sometimes it’s at school, sometimes it’s while they’re playing, and sometimes it’s what we see on social media outlets.
Truly I don’t know which is the worst. I think they’re all pretty awful. Being the father grown sons I know what it’s like to raise boys to become men. I’m proud of how I have raised them. They’re now in their 20’s and doing really well. When they were young and growing up I spent a good deal of time teaching them the importance of respecting other people. When I would hear one of my boys talk badly about someone in their class I would sit down and tell them stories of what happens to me when I grew up. You see until I was 17 I was short and fat and I couldn’t defend myself. Growing up in the Bronx is not easy. I wish my father could have been there for me, but he was too busy trying to put food on the table. I know what it’s like to be bullied. I was called names, pushed around, and never knew how to fight back. I also had no one to go to who could help me figure out what to do.
As my boys grew my wife and I taught them good values. I knew it was like to be picked on and not be able to fight back. I decided that I would teach them the importance of talking things out and walking away from other kids who might want to hurt them. Back in my day we didn’t have computers, so cyber bullying wasn’t part of it. But kids passed notes to other kids in class, and more than once I had a kid pushed bubblegum into my hair. Trust me it wasn’t fun.
I don’t believe in fighting. Yet we live in a world where if we can’t talk with others, and work things out, bullies will start to pick on us. Walk away, talk your way out of a fight but if a fight begins there are no rules. I made sure that they had martial arts training in both became quite proficient in being able to protect themselves if they needed to. Fortunately it never came to that. The to the matter is, that when you teach martial arts you’re less likely to get into a fight that if you don’t know how to defend yourself.
I bring this up only because I know how it felt to be picked on and not know how to defend myself. There are many things that parents should be teaching their kids. Respect for everybody is one of them. If a parent doesn’t teach that, and his or her child becomes a bully, they should be severe consequences for both the bully and the parents. The bully should have to do a minimum of 100 hours of community service, the parents should be hauled before a judge and either fined or made to do community service. If are going to teach our kids how to live in a world and make it a peaceful one it has to start when the born. If that doesn’t happen it’s up to all parents and all teachers and all administrators in schools to create an atmosphere where bullying can’t occur; and if it does occur let’s make the consequences so severe that bullies will never hurt another child again. I don’t ever want to see another newspaper headline about a child or teenager committing suicide because the “system” failed them. The system starts with you, me, and every American.
If you’d like to read more on these issues please go to www.markdworkin.com
Let’s stop bullying now
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:
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
