Political Bullying: What Are We Modeling to Our Children?
As the political season heats up, I can’t help but to notice that the ads seem to get nastier and more personal, so much so that it takes me back to some of the countless meditations I’ve done with high school students and initially I couldn’t understand why, but then it hit me, these campaign ads are reminding me of bullying.
Just like a lot of the bullying that goes on around school campuses across the nation (and now across the internet via sites like Facebook and Twitter), these politicians are often attacking each others characters, credibility and other qualities.
Unlike the bullying I see on school campuses, this type of bullying is different, and yet similar. It’s different in that it is much more of a sophisticated type of bullying, but it’s similar in it’s purpose and even worse, it is bullying that is played out across the nation, on television screens several times a day for millions to see, often during the times our young and impressionable children are watching.
These kids may not care about either candidate, and they may not even realize what they are witnessing, yet they are being exposed, often several times a day, to a form of bullying that they may subconsciously model, especially in situations where they want to make themselves look better than someone else, rather in their social circle, sports or even in running for high school level campaigns.
Two adults bullying each other may sound ridiculous, but that is exactly what politicians do all the time. John Mica, who won the Republican primary House District 7 acknowledged that during a brutal campaign, he was severely affected by the mean spirited ads and statements made not only about him, but his family and integrity.
Although many political analyst believe that negative campaigns are necessary as they tend to get more voters attention than positive campaigns (what does that say about our Nation), at the end of the day I am concerned about how much of that negativity and mean spirited attention truly affects us.
As the campaign season continues to play out and ads are likely to get even more cruel, don’t just turn a blind eye to your child sitting there as it interrupts their television show. You may want to change the channel, or better yet, use it as a teaching and bonding opportunity to discuss with your child anything from bullying, the state of the Nation, the economy, to your political views. After all, they are likely getting all that anyway from watching the campaign ads, just that the information they are getting is likely tainted and smeared in figure pointing and character bashing.
A Quick Glimpse at ADHD in Teenage Girls
As I wrote in a previous post, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder is 2 to 4 times more common in boys than in girls and thus often doesn’t get discussed much when it comes to teenage and adolescent girls.
In her article Calm Down, Boys, Adolescent Girls Have ADHD Too, Mary Bates discusses how ADHD goes unrecognized in girls because they often don’t present with the stereotypical hyperactivity and attention deficit that boys usually present with and because diagnosing ADHD in itself can prove difficult because teenagers can be impulsive, inattentive and disorganized, but not noticeably hyperactive.
Kathleen Nadeau, a clinical psychologist in Silver Spring, Maryland, and coauthor of Understanding Girls with AD/HD states that girls are less likely to be hyperactive and impulsive, but instead may appear “spacey,” unfocused, inattentive, have trouble staying organized and/or remembering directives or homework.
It wasn’t too long ago that ADHD was two separate disorders, ADHD and ADD (attention deficit disorder), but now they are almost always diagnosed as ADHD with a sub-type of either predominately attention-deficit, predominately inattentive or combined.
Since girls often present with different symptoms, they are often diagnosed five years later than boys or go un-diagnosed altogether, thus missing out on proper treatment for their disorder. “A 16-year-old girl who runs stop signs and can never find her homework might not be a rebel- she could have ADHD” Bates says.
Treatment for ADHD includes stimulant medications, school and family counseling. Families can try ignoring minor annoyances while creating a point or contract system (“Wash the dishes now and I will leave you alone while you play your video games”). ADHD is not a curse, many successful and brilliant people today and in history have ADHD, just look at Michael Phelps.
Written by, Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
Based on a question I had from my parent affirmation about breathing last week, and because I teach people the mechanics of breathing several times a week, I decided to take a moment to really break this breathing thing down for everyone. Breathing is the first step in getting connected to our bodies and what our body is telling us. Before you think that you already know how to breathe, take a moment to ask yourself whether there were any times in the last week where you noticed you had been hungry and meaning to eat for several hours but did not get around to it. Or, alternately, did you find yourself mindlessly eating away at your child’s leftovers as you were doing the dishes? Maybe you realized you needed to go to the bathroom and just did not give yourself the time to…
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Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, A Brief Primer Part 1: Automatic Thoughts, Assumptions and Personal Schemas
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is one of the most popular forms of therapy used in the Western world. The premise behind CBT is that stressful states such as depression, anxiety and anger are often maintain or exacerbated by exaggerated or biased ways of thinking. The role of the therapist is to help the patient recognize his or her idiosyncratic style of thinking and modify it through the application of evidence and logic.
One of the key components of CBT is getting the person to start recognizing their automatic thoughts which usually serve to maintain their undesired state.
Automatic thoughts come spontaneously, so much so that we often give no thought to them, and they appear to be true even when distorted, which often lead to problematic behaviors and disturbing emotions.
Some forms of automatic thoughts include fortune telling, dichotomous (all or nothing thinking), catastrophizing, personalizing, mind-reading and labeling.
Automatic thoughts could be true or false. For example, someone may have the mind-reading thought that “My boss doesn’t like me” and that could be true. However, the problem is that without sufficient evidence, we usually believe our automatic thoughts to be totally accurate, even when they aren’t. Combine this with the other underlying assumptions and rules that we all have, which tend to be rigid, over-inclusive, almost impossible to attain and ascribe vulnerability into the future, and we have a recipe for repeated disappointment, anger, depression, anxiety and a host of other unhealthy feelings and thoughts (Leah, 2003).
For example, if the person who has the automatic thought “My boss doesn’t like me”, also has the underlying rule that “Everyone must like me or I am a bad person”, will be deeply upset over the thought that his/her boss doesn’t like them. The same is true with rejection which partially explains why some people do not take rejection as well as others. One person can ask someone out on a date and if that person politely says “no”, that person goes on with their day, giving little thought to the rejection. But if another person has the rule and automatic thought “If she rejects me, that means I am undesirable to all women and will spend the rest of my life alone”, they will handle the rejection totally differently.
Underlying assumptions are deeply linked to personal schemas. Personal schemas are basically the core beliefs of what we belief about ourselves. We all have personal schemas, some positive and some negative, which influence the way we interpret information filtered through our automatic thoughts.
Back to our example. If someone has the personal schemas, “I am undesirable”, “I am worthless”, “I am unattractive”, they will have selective attention and memory as they look to validate their core beliefs about themselves and thus their automatic thoughts will also work to validate their core beliefs. So if the person already has the personal schema “I am undesirable”, and the automatic thought “this person will probably reject me” (mind reading), if they get rejected it will validate their personal schema and thus send them into a tail spin of self-pity, depression and anxiety, building on the strength of their erroneous thinking, assumptions, and schema.
(The ego always wants to be in balance with you and wants to make you happy. “The ego’s mission is to take the beliefs of the self and turn them into the experiences of the self.” – Falco, 2010)
This person, like many people with depression or anxiety, will filter out any information that contradicts their negative personal schemas and assumptions. For example, they may not notice the cute guy that flirts with them, but will fall to pieces at the person who makes a disapproving comment about her hair or her dress.
The goal of a CBT therapist would be to get the person to start recognizing all of these erroneous patterns of thinking, unravel them and replace them with more accurate forms of thinking.
We will discuss in a later post how thoughts create feelings.
Kate Oliver, MSW, LCSW-C
I usually get an eye-roll when I mention the idea of breathing or paying attention to one’s breathing in my office. It is so simple. We all breathe all day, everyday. As my dad would say, “It’s better than the alternative.” This week, I want to give you a simple task to go along with your affirmation. Pay attention to your breath. Notice how you are breathing at different times of the day. If each breath is felt most in your shoulders, try taking in a breath that fills your belly like a balloon, then lets the air out of the balloon. It only takes a moment.
Take a deep breath- through your nose if possible- and let it out slowly. You can even try the trick my meditation teacher taught me called the “mindsweep.” When someone has entered your space and left a bad feeling…
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Human Rights Violations, Psychological Damage and Caster Semenya
Most of us know Mokgadi Caster Semenya as the South African middle-distance runner who’s gender came into question after she blew away her competition during the women’s 800 meters at the 2009 World Championships with a then world record time of 1:55.45.
I remember when her gender came into question first in the media, then among my peers who insisted due to Semenya’s masculine appearance, voice and astonishing athletic feats, that she had to be a man, or at the minimum, not all woman.
The International Associate of Athletics Federation (IAAF) reported that they had to investigate Semenya after she made improvements in both her 800 and 1500 meter times by 8 seconds and 25 seconds respectfully, improvements in performance that usually arouse suspicions of performance enhancement drugs (PEDs) use. At this time, the IAAF also tricked Semenya and performed a gender test without her permission, something she confirmed during an interview with NBC before her Olympic race in London. Semenya stated that she knew she was being tested for PEDs, something she was used to, but didn’t know she was going through a gender test until the testing became more of a violation, poking and probing in areas she knew weren’t part of any PEDs test she had ever been through.
If this is true, which various sources confirm, it is a violation of her human rights. Furthermore, she had to seek the legal services of Dewey & LeBoeuf who are acting pro bono to make sure her legal, human and civil rights will not be further violated.
After more gender tests and speculation over her eligibility to compete as a woman, the IAAF finally cleared her in July 2010 to return to competition as a woman and has yet to release their findings from her gender tests. Since her medical records are private, it may never be known if much of the embarrassment and scrutiny Semenya was subjected to was all for nothing, but one would suspect that if the IAAF had enough evidence to suggest Semenya wasn’t “technically” a woman, they would have released it.
I have to imagine that this young lady, at the time this all began she was only 18, suffered imaginable psychological damages having the world not only question who she was as a person, but to be examined like an animal with the world waiting for the results.
Since returning to international racing Semenya hasn’t been her self. During her 800 race in the London Olympics she got silver after trailing most of the race and only running hard towards the end to secure a second place finish. Many commentators, sport analyst and spectators commented that Semenya seemed to lose the race on purpose, saying that she didn’t seem tired after the race, much like she had in an earlier international race where she got a silver. If this is true, it is sad, but can you see why someone who previously fell under world scrutiny after finishing first, would purposely opt out of being in that position again.
In an interview after the race, Semenya stated that her head just wasn’t into it. This is the Olympics, what professional athlete’s head is not into their Olympic event? Maybe one who had her human rights violated and was kept out of competition while the IAAF tried to verify her gender which indeed caused an untold amount of psychological damage.
In that same interview with NBC, Semenya asked the interviewer, Mary Carillo how she would feel if she was subjected to the same scrutiny while the world watched through a microscope and the interviewer had no response. Semenya stated “you might even think about taking a suicide” which to me suggests at some point, Semenya did indeed think about committing suicide. I am so glad that she was strong enough, confident enough and resilient enough to overcome that destructive and irreversible thought. Now if only her psychological damages can be healed enough where she can feel free to race at her best and win without fear of once against being cast into the world spotlight for anything other than being one of the best women 800 meters runners ever.
Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas and A.N.T.S.
Recently I watched as Gabrielle “Gabby” Douglas won two gold metals in the Olympics and made history by becoming not only the first African-American woman, but also the first woman of color to win the individual-all around in gymnastics. Remarkable feats for anyone, let alone a 16 year old. Being an African-American I was so proud of her, so you can imagine my shock when I was told that much of the talk about Gabby within the African-American community online wasn’t about her gold metals or her history making accomplishment, but about her hair. Her hair? Are you kidding me?
I took some time reading different blogs and websites and was shocked to see that a lot of people were more concerned about the texture, style and condition of her hair than about what this 4’11” exceptional athlete was doing in London. The more I read, the more I found myself enraged at the ignorance of those who expressed that Gabby was representing all African-American women “and her hair should look good” while she was doing it. This is so ridiculous. She is representing African-American women, showing that if you are dedicated, focused, work hard, refuse to take no for an answer and never give up on yourself, you can accomplish all of your dreams. Instead, many people are worried about the superficial and that got me to thinking.
There are so many places I could go with this. I could talk about the psychology of racism, self-hate, the European standard of beauty, stereotypes, the psychodynamic value (or devaluation) of African-American hair, post traumatic slave syndrome, images in the media that make many African-American’s consciously or sub-consciously reject their own images as attractive, self esteem, and the list could go on and on. However, I decided to try to stay as true to this blog as possible, and discuss something I think everyone could benefit from and that is understanding automatic negative thoughts, or ANTS.
You see, we all have automatic thoughts which are thoughts that just pop into our head without us giving much thought about them. We will discuss this more in detail next week. We all at times even have ANTS (automatic negative thoughts), but some people seem to be infested with ANTS and when reading those disparaging remarks about Gabby, I realized that those people were infested. Instead of looking at a beautiful, successful, incredible young woman, they quickly pointed out the negative and decided to focus on that for whatever reason (in the African-American community, the word “crabbing” is often used to describe when other African-American’s complain about more successful African-Americans, often in attempts to make the other person feel bad while also making the person complaining feel better about themselves). Those ANTS keep them from being able to truly see or recognize the beauty right in front of them.
People with ANTS, if you take them to a beautiful beach will complain that it’s too hot, the waves are too loud, it smells too salty or that the sand is getting between their toes. If you take them on a beautiful midnight stroll they will complain that the moon is too bright or that their feet hurt. Or, if you show them a beautiful teenager making Olympic history, will complain that her hair isn’t done nicely. They will never be happy unless they are complaining about something. They are so used to being miserable that they are only happy when complaining. These people usually don’t even know that they have a problem because they have lived with the ANTS for so long that they are part of them.
Are there people in your life who have ANTS? People who always seem to rain on your parade, point out the negative in every situation or seem to only be somewhat content when they are complaining about how miserable they are or pointing out flaws and imperfections in other people? If so, recognizing that they are infested with ANTS helps keep you from making their issue, your issue, and allows you to detach from them either physically or emotionally. Maybe you recognize that you have an infestation of ANTS. Start paying attention to your automatic thoughts, especially those ANTS and next week we’ll start working on getting rid of them.
How to Resuscitate Your Life
The other day as I was sitting in a CPR recertification class, I couldn’t help but to think how could I apply the principles of CPR to my daily life.
Compressions
In the CPR recertification class we were taught that compressions are the most important part of CPR, keeping the blood flowing through the body. That got me to thinking that when it comes to resuscitating your life, perhaps the most important thing is to find, or rediscover the things you love and actually do them.
Many of us have hobbies or things we love to do, yet often allow the stressors of daily life to rob us of those joys and before we know it, it’s been weeks, months and sometimes even years since we’ve done those very things we claim to love. As a result we often find ourselves feeling drained, burnt out and unhappy as our time is spent more and more with obligations and less and less with the things that actually make us excited about life. This leads many of us to feel like we have lost a part of ourselves and sometimes don’t even know who we are because the real us has been smothered by this other person who doesn’t have time to do the things that actually make our hearts beat with joy.
Breathing
The second part of CPR is breathing, and I take that to mean breathing life back into yourself. Sometimes it’s easy to just come home from work and do nothing because we are tired and before we know it, a whole year has passed by without us accomplishing many of our goals or developing our personal lives the way we would have wanted to. We have to find motivation and inspiration to actually live life, be active participates in life and not just participate in it passively. What is it you need to do to breath life back into yourself? Maybe it’s getting up and going for a walk instead of taking a nap, or calling a friend instead of texting. Maybe it’s registering for a class you’ve always wanted to take, but never find the time or motivation to actually do it. Our maybe it’s surrounding yourself with people you know will help breath life back into you.
AED
Lastly, if all else fails in CPR, an Automatic External Defibrillator may be required to try to shock the person back into life. Do you need a jolt? Do you need to jump in head first in order to get past your initially trepidation? I know a friend who was afraid of heights and he signed up to sky dive as a way to overcome his fear. I’m not suggestion something so drastic, but what I am suggesting is that you push yourself out of your comfort zone if you know the reward for that is worth it. I know overweight people who are afraid to join gyms because they think people will look at them. Truth is, most people in a gym could care less and will actually compliment them when they start seeing results. They could find encouragement there, make friends, find motivation, but they can’t get over that initial fear enough to even step foot into the gym. Do you need to push yourself through that door, step into that uncomfortableness, recognize and accept that you feel uncomfortable, but know that it will pass and you will be a better person because of it?
Here is a very short list of suggestions, I would like to hear more from you and you can always create your own personalized list. Now, go out and reclaim your life!
- Eat some chocolate
- Go for a walk
- Take a three minute breathing space
- Do something pleasureable
- Meditate
- Be mindful of yourself and surroundings (mindfulness is something we will talk about in another post)
- Keep a gratitude journal
- Go to a movie
- Go for a walk
- Call an old friend
The Relationship Between Anger, Control and Fear
A lot of times when I am working with people with anger problems, I realize that two of the main sources of their anger come from either the need to control other people and fear.
Anger and fear are part of our natural flight or flight responses. The problem is, we are genetically geared to survive real threats that our ancestors who had to deal with threats to their lives on a daily basis were designed for. Today we don’t have to constantly worry about getting attacked by a leopard or the tribe across the river attacking us, and so our mind often generates fear and anger even when it is unnecessary or the threat is just imagined.
Anger in it’s self is not a bad emotion and can actually motivate people to make changes for themselves and their environment. The Civil Rights leaders in our recent history were angry and so they marched, protested and boycotted to make changes. Anger can make you write a letter voicing your disappointment in a company’s costumer service department or make you search for a new job instead of taking the abuse from a harsh boss. It can make you leave a bad situation, stand up for something you believe or protest against something you don’t.
However, anger can be destructive if it’s not dealt with in a healthy way which is when people run into problems.
Most of my clients with anger problems, once they get to the point where they can verbalize and dissect where their anger is coming from, are actually afraid. They are afraid of losing control, being taken advantage of, being ignored, etc. Take a client of mine who got into a fight while standing in line at a burger joint when he felt someone had blatantly skipped him. Does it make since for a grown man to get in a fight over a $5 hamburger because he had to wait an extra two minutes? Was it worth him going to jail and having to take anger management classes? Of course not, but to him at the time it was. He was eventually able to tell me that the reason he got so angry so quickly is because when he got skipped it made him afraid that he was invisible, that he would be seen as weak, and that he wouldn’t be respected. His fear is what made him so angry and caused him to act in an irrational way. At the same time, his need to be respected caused him to want to control the situation by making the other other person respect him and beating him up until he did.
Often times clients tell me, “She ignored me so I hit her”, “He came home late so I burnt his favorite shirt”, “He didn’t say excuse me when he brushed my shoulder so I had to push him”. All of these statements show both fear and control. Fear of being ignored, fear of being cheated on or left by a spouse and fear of being disrespected. They also show the desire to control the other person, to make them pay attention, come home on time and say “excuse me.” The problem is, we can’t control other people, just ourselves. The desire to control other people will always end up stressing us out, making us angry and causing us to act in irrational ways.
Another example is the constant wars that are waged across the world. People are afraid of losing their religion or xenophobia (the fear of people different from you), and will fight and kill out of that fear and the desire to control other people by either making them convert, conform or leave a region.
Lastly, a client of mine and her teenage daughter got into a very big fight after she found her daughters diary and read it. She didn’t like what she read in her daughter’s diary and decided to confront and punish her for the contents of her diary. Now nothing in that diary was life threatening or even “bad”, they were just her daughter expressing how she really felt about her mother and some of the things her mother did. I felt it was wrong 1) for the mother to have read the diary and 2) for her to try to punish her daughter for her private thoughts. Eventually the mother expressed to me that she felt like she had little control over anything in her life except her daughter, and she was terrified of losing control over her daughter. That need for control was actually pushing her daughter further away as well as causing the mother all kinds of anxiety and anger issues.
We have to understand that the only people we can control is ourselves and that if we can’t change a situation, we have to change the way we think about it. Wasting our time trying to change other people or change a situation instead of changing the way we think about it or removing ourselves from it, will only cause us to develop angry feelings as we try to control what we cant.
Licensed Mental Health Counselor 