David Foster Wallace on Meaning of Life or How to Think

Waking up on this beautiful spring morning I wanted to share this with my readers (and my clients). Listen for his emphasis on "the default settings" of the self, which "make us automatically think that we are the center of the world." Becoming aware, or tending to our awareness is the escape key from this default setting. Sounds like mindfulness practice to me.

I also love how he defines true freedom: ". . . attention, and awareness, and discipline and being able truly to care about other people and sacrifice for them over and over, in myriad, heady little unsexy ways. That is real freedom."

This is just one part of the talk, for the other half please follow the link.


Here is a meaty quote to ponder from the commencement speech delivered at Kenyon college in 2005.

"If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It’s the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already — it’s been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up-front in daily consciousness. Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out. And so on."

I can't close a piece on DFW without mentioning his suicide. I don't have much to say at present other than again raise the connection between creative people and mental illness. BTW, one piece of fact I do know is that he hung himself as he was trying to wean off psychiatric medications he had been taking for many years for depression.

FYI: April Is the Cruelst Month and Child Abuse Prevention Month

I. THE BURIAL OF THE DEAD

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

excerpt from T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land

Yes, in case you didn't hear, April is child abuse prevention month. The connection between the poem and government-sponsored, PSA-worthy month which goes unnoticed is beyond tenuous. But child abuse is cruel as it makes lasting negative impact for the rest of that child's life, I make no apologies for quoting T.S. Eliot.

As a social worker I am a mandated reporter, which means by state law I have to report to ACS (Administration for Children's Services) suspected cases of child physical, neglect or sexual abuse. Teachers, doctors, psychologists, nurses, police, EMS are also mandated reporters. I am sure I am forgetting a few professions.

Physical and sexual abuse is easy to define and comprehensible by non-professionals. Neglect, however, is a bit more difficult to define. It can mean abandonment — leaving children under the age of 12 unattended, using drugs around minors (cannabis excluded), not having food in the home, children missing school and providing inadequate medical care. Since I am listing them from memory I am sure it's incomplete. Child neglect/emotional abuse is difficult to assess, but it can damage just as much as other forms of abuse.

Working with children can be one of the most rewarding/heart-breaking experiences. Most children end up in therapy due to "benign neglect; their parents (in my case single mothers) simply lack the energy (depression, poverty) or their attention have been compromised by their own needs (boyfriend, job) to be fully emotionally present with their kids (or to provide good-enough parenting). But children are amazingly resilient, and like the way plants forgotten in the corner become revitalized with regular watering and sunlight, children respond to undivided attention and adult presence.

On a couple of occasions, children who were actively being abused were put under my watch. And making that report was heart wrenching knowing what I know about the overburdened system. It felt like I was handing a child over to a barely functioning bureaucracy with my fingers crossed, hoping their welfare didn't deteriorate.

For a brief overview on the lasting impact of childhood trauma, go here.

NCA PSA 2013 "Stand Up, Step Forward" from Ian Buchanan on Vimeo.

Importance of Sleep

http://www.animal-ethics.org/sentience-section/

Whenever I see a new client, I always review their sleep pattern. Quality and length of sleep is indicative of general mental health. Inability to have a good night's rest indicates anxiety, which tends to be a close companion of depression. Depression can make one sleep too much or too little; and it can make one eat too little or too much. (Here is a very moving talk on depression.)

Below is a small set of questions I ask my clients at the start of therapy and periodically thereafter to monitor their overall mental health.

• Are you able to fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time?
• Are you able sleep through the night or do you wake up in the middle of the night and find yourself unable to fall back to sleep?
• Do you require alcohol or other depressants like marijuana to become "sleepy"?
• Do you wake up early morning but not able fall back asleep right away, only to fall asleep after a period and then wake up later than planned?
• Do disturbing dreams or nightmares regularly wake you up?
• Do you regularly get less than 6 hours of sleep a night?
• Do you "catch up" on the weekends?
• Do you experience sleep apnea?

Most adults require at minimum 6 hours and at optimum 8 hours of sleep a night. Younger adults require more sleep than older people. It's a myth that you can catch up on sleep. What's actually happening is that your body is resting for a longer period than normal, but sleep itself cannot be made up.

Here are some suggestions to help you re-regulate your sleep to a more healthier routine to help you feel recharged.

• Make the room as dark as possible. An eye mask can do the trick, as well as ear plugs.
• A cooler room is better for sleeping. We all know how it's hard it is to sleep in the middle of a heat wave.
• Remove or cover your clock, or smartphone. Being conscious of time can worsen insomnia. Being a clock watcher during the night can increase anxiety. Even a small amount of light from an alarm clock can affect the production of melatonin, an enzyme released by the pineal gland in the brain that regulates your circadian rhythm, or your natural sleep cycle.
• Keep the bedroom for sleeping, or for sex: Don’t work, use your computer or watch TV in bed, at least not right before going to sleep. (Personally, reading in bed during an off day is one of the greatest luxuries.)
• Stay away from all electronic devices before sleep. We all know why. 
• Stick to a routine: Human bodies work better on a schedule, so try and unwind an hour or two before bed and go to sleep at around the same time each night. We get our best sleep between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m., so don’t stay up late.
• Have a spoonful of honey before bedtime. 
• From Tim Ferris: Eat a small snack of celery with almond or peanut butter. He will give you scientific reasons why it works, along with other super high-tech, downright odd hints about getting optimum sleep.
• Take a hot bath or shower. (Tim Ferris suggests a cold bath before bed.) Lavender oil in the water and on your temples will help you relax.
• Journaling before sleep will help you clear your mind and set the agenda for the next day. My suggestions to clients: What 3 things went right today? Or, you can write in a gratitude journal. 
• Make a list for the morning, important things that need your attention right away. If you are anxious about something you have to wake up for, make a check off list and check off everything on that list, so your mind can shut off.

Before reaching for Tylenol PM, or asking your doctor for Ambien or another prescription sleeping pill, try chamomile tea with honey, valerian tea with lots of honey (valerian stinks but is a mild sedative), or melatonin (essential for business travelers). Melatonin is available at drug stores and is a nutritional supplement.

One of the greatest sleep aid is strenuous exercise like running. In addition to promoting good sleep, great skin turns out to be another benefit from running.

Mortality

Whenever I feel indignation, this brings me back to reality.

Hitchens wrote this just days before dying from cancer.

Peaches Geldof: Eating Disorders and Body Dysmorphic Disorder

Peaches Honeyblossom Geldof March 13, 1989-April 7, 2014

Peaches Geldof died the other day. Autopsy results are still pending, but given her family history, many, including myself, are guessing that it's related to drugs and/or eating disorder. She was just 25. Horrifyingly, next to her body was her 11-month old son. When PG's mother died, her half sister, a baby at the time, was also found next to their mother who had overdosed from heroin.

PG had gone off radar, at least for me, for a few years, during which she seemed to have grown up —she had gotten married and became a young mother two young boys. Before this she was primarily known for being an English party girl famous for her druggy antics and her father.

I couldn't help knowing who she was just as I know Paris, Lindsay and Brittney. I've given up being resentful about celebrity culture and accepted that this is the pop culture we deserve; we celebrate the famous for just being famous.

In PG's case she was the daughter of Sir. Geldof. For anyone who came of age in the 80's, his name is difficult not to remember. Her mother, Paula Yates, died from a heroin overdose three years after the "suicide" of Michael Hutchence, the INXS singer, another difficult name to ignore from the same era. And as mentioned earlier, Yates' body was found in bed with her youngest daughter.

I am not interested in focusing on celebrities, but these occasional tragedies provide access points to discuss finer points about the nature of addiction and different forms it can take. Her mother was also diagnosed with an eating disorder (anorexia, bulimia, or dependence on stimulants to lower appetite or misuse of laxatives?), so the issue of "heritability" of addiction can be discussed, not just addiction to alcohol and drugs, but behavioral addictions. And is there a positive correlation between early trauma and addiction later on? (My answer? Duh.) Here is an ominous last interview she gave to The Independent, an English newspaper.

In my work, mostly I deal with addictions to drugs and alcohol. But over the years, I've encountered a few clients with eating disorders and body dysmorphic disorder (BDD). Always, these food-related, self-image centered issues were just one part of a larger cluster of addictive behaviors to drugs, alcohol, sex and self-defeating relationships (both romantic and social), in addition to poor self-esteem and a history of early loss of a parent, divorce, parental neglect, emotional abuse, and sometimes sexual abuse. Working with these clients (I am not an expert in eating disorders, btw) it felt as if one's body was the easiest, most readily controllable target onto which to transfer unprocessed negative feelings and memories, all of which take time and lots difficult work. Rather than looking inward to dig at the source of pain, eating disorders and BDD forces the body, and ultimately the self, to take all the blame.

History of substance addiction in the Geldof clan is well known, and the experience of losing one's mother at a young age to addiction without the privacy that is afforded to ordinary people, would have made any young woman susceptible and fragile to becoming self-conscious.

Ultimately, I feel PG's addiction to drugs and alcohol was replaced with pathological obsession/addiction to her weight and appearance, and partly at fault is the celebrity industrial complex, whatever that is exactly.

My heart goes out to the two young children who've just lost their mother, as well as rest of Peaches' family and friends.

What Not to Say to Someone Who Is Depressed

Depression is the common cold of mental illnesses. Statistics of Americans with diagnosable symptoms of major depression is staggering. Nearly 20% of Americans experience major depression during their lifetime. As someone who have struggled with it myself I know personally how it feels like to live with it.

During our lowest point, our inclination is to reach out to people close to us, to remind ourselves that we are not alone. Sadly, many people, even those who love us who haven't experienced the darkness of depression misunderstand the illness of depression and believe it is a personal choice the depressed person makes.

So here is a helpful guide to what not to say when someone reaches out to you (those of you who haven't experienced the psychic pain of depression). And for those of you who are struggling with depression, I hope that it can help you educate/inform those around you to become more sensitive.

What Not to Say to Someone Who Is Depressed:

1. “Get busy, and distract yourself.”
2. “Do you want to get better?”
3. “Change your attitude.”
4. “Stop focusing on the bad stuff, and just start living.”
5. “You have everything you need to get better.” 
6. “You can snap out of it. Everyone feels this way sometimes.”
7. “Just pray about it.” 
8. “Why can’t you work?”
9. “You have the same illness as my ______.”

These are bullet points from a longer piece by Margarita Tartakovsky, M.S.

Again, I am reposting this illuminating talk by Andrew Solomon on depression. 

When Life Kicks You in the Ass

The Importance of Addiction Counseling in Staying Sober

flickr commons

One of my favorite bloggers writing on the subject of sobriety, the Drunky Drunk Girl, recently posted a piece about why counseling should be part of living sober. She does not downplay the importance of AA and other types of mutual support groups to maintaining sobriety.

But, she says, professionals are needed to help "unravel the core issues" hidden under the addiction.

I've been doing this work for a few years, and I glimpsed some of these core issues. I mean glimpses because even the those in therapy are not completely invested in the process. It could take years of work and courage to digging, and for many this is too daunting.

Whether a client has had the most horrific childhood, suffered abuse and neglect, witnessed addiction and violence, and subjected to immeasurable harms caused by poverty; or the client comes from old money and had access to all the educational and vocational opportunities afforded by money, the underlying issues are very much similar — unresolved, unprocessed emotional pain originating in childhood. It can be parental neglect, enmeshment, a traumatic event, or even a habit (modeling) — if your parents drank fine wines with every meal, it wouldn't seem abnormal that you consume over 5 or 6 drinks during an evening out, which becomes the norm.

My job is to ask question, then listen, ask more questions and listen some more. And what comes to the surface is magical thinking, habitual (mindless) behavior, projection, distorted negative self-image, lack of a support network, anxiety and depression, etc. And they all intersect at one point or another.

It's possible to work through all this. However, you have to be willing to work at it and learn to be okay with the discomfort. There is just no other way.

https://drunkydrunkgirl.wordpress.com/2014/03/30/the-importance-of-professional-counseling/