The Shrink’s Links: The Things They Carried

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For today, Memorial Day, I have a quote from The Things They Carried, by Tim O’Brien:

They carried USO stationery and pencils and pens. They carried Sterno, safety pins, trip flares, signal flares, spools of wire, razor blades, chewing tobacco, liberated joss sticks and statuettes of the smiling Buddha, candles, grease pencils, The Stars and Stripes, fingernail clippers, Psy Ops leaflets, bush hats, bolos, and much more. Twice a week, when the resupply choppers came in, they carried hot chow in green mermite cans and large canvas bags filled with iced beer and soda pop. They carried plastic water containers, each with a 2-gallon capacity. Mitchell Sanders carried a set of starched tiger fatigues for special occasions. Henry Dobbins carried Black Flag insecticide. Dave Jensen carried empty sandbags that could be filled at night for added protection. Lee Strunk carried tanning lotion. Some things they carried in common. Taking turns, they carried the big PRC-77 scrambler radio, which weighed 30 pounds with its battery. They shared the weight of memory. They took up what others could no longer bear. Often, they carried each other, the wounded or weak. They carried infections. They carried chess sets, basketballs, Vietnamese-English dictionaries, insignia of rank, Bronze Stars and Purple Hearts, plastic cards imprinted with the Code of Conduct. They carried diseases, among them malaria and dysentery. They carried lice and ringworm and leeches and paddy algae and various rots and molds. They carried the land itself—Vietnam, the place, the soil—a powdery orange-
red dust that covered their boots and fatigues and faces. They carried the sky. The whole atmosphere, they carried it, the humidity, the monsoons, the stink of fungus and decay, all of it, they carried gravity. They moved like mules. By daylight they took sniper fire, at night they were mortared, but it was not battle, it was just the endless march, village to village, without purpose, nothing won or lost. They marched for the sake of the march. They plodded along slowly, dumbly, leaning forward against the heat, unthinking, all blood and bone, simple grunts, soldiering with their legs, toiling up the hills and down into the paddies and across the rivers and up again and down, just humping, one step and then the next and then another, but no volition, no will, because it was automatic, it was anatomy, and the war was entirely a matter of posture and carriage, the hump was everything, a kind of inertia, a kind of emptiness, a dullness of desire and intellect and conscience and hope and human sensibility. Their principles were in their feet. Their calculations were biological. They had no sense of strategy or mission. They searched the villages without knowing what to look for, not caring, kicking over jars of rice, frisking children and old men, blowing tunnels, sometimes setting fires and sometimes not, then forming up and moving on to the next village, then other villages, where it would always be the same. They carried their own lives. The pressures were enormous. In the heat of early afternoon, they would remove their helmets and flak jackets, walking bare, which was dangerous but which helped ease the strain. They would often discard things along the route of march. Purely for comfort, they would throw away rations, blow their Claymores and grenades, no matter, because by nightfall the resupply choppers would arrive with more of the same, then a day or two later still more, fresh watermelons and crates of ammunition and sunglasses and woolen sweaters—the resources were stunning— sparklers for the Fourth of July, colored eggs for Easter—it was the great American war chest—the fruits of science, the smokestacks, the canneries, the arsenals at Hartford, the Minnesota forests, the machine shops, the vast fields of corn and wheat—they carried like freight trains; they carried it on their backs and shoulders—and for all the ambiguities of Vietnam, all the mysteries and unknowns, there was at least the single abiding certainty that they would never be at a loss for things to carry.

Click here to get the book.

The Road to Reconciliation: Don’t be Stupid

The addiction, the madness, the lying, the cheating, and the selfishness have just done too much damage. Your relationship has been crippled and you’re not sure whether it will ever be the same again. You’ve heard enough apologies. You’ve forgiven too much. You can’t forget all the things that have happened. You’ve decided to harden your heart, dig in, and refuse to forgive any more.

I will not argue against the justice of your cause. Yes, she did things that were unwarranted, things that hurt. Bad behavior wrecks things and some of those things are your feelings. You probably can’t even count the number of disappointments. It’s your right. Your cause is just, but don’t be stupid. Don’t be one of those people who think that, just because they are right, they can afford to be stupid.

The supremely stupidest thing would be to harden your heart and refuse to forgive while you continue to live with your partner. You’ve seen couples like that, who live together in a home, protected by force-fields of hate. Their sadness is disguised as hardness. They pass in the hall, throwing invisible daggers at each other. They eat in shifts. They have their own dens, their own TVs, their own unapproachable sides of the bed. They communicate through their children. Every couple endures moments like this, maybe days, following a fight, when all they give each other is the cold shoulder. Image a lifetime of it.

Forgiving is not something you do for the other party. It’s something you do for you, so you don’t have to constantly have those toxic feelings. Like the saying goes: resentment is a poison you drink yourself, hoping that the other person will die. Forgiving means you stop drinking that poison.

The people who live like that imagine that their resentment preserves them from harm; their hate is a cold castle wall of safety. They’re afraid that, if they forgive, they’ll forget, and they’ll let it all happen again. They fear that any warmth will just encourage the offending party. Of course, they are partly right. When forgiveness is given away cheaply or when you are still at risk, it’ll do just that; but, when the opportunity to earn genuine forgiveness is extended and taken, it’s a welcome rain on a dry day.

The next stupidest thing is to take the opposite tack, to grant cheap pardon, to rush forgiveness just because you don’t want to deal with it. We talked about that already.

The third stupidest thing is to move out on your partner, just so you can continue to hate, apart from him. It’s not nearly as stupid as sharing a home with someone you despise. You have actual walls separating you, so you don’t have to maintain the force-field quite so much. But, you are still living in everlasting enmity and drinking that poison, just not as strong a dose.

It might not be a bad idea to move out before any more hurt can happen, while you work towards forgiveness. If you’re in mortal danger, then you should move out right away. However, provided you are not in mortal danger, I would urge you to pause before you pack your bags. Moving out doesn’t change everything.

It’s important to remember that, once you’re in a relationship with someone, you will always be in a relationship with that person. It’s like the Hotel California, you can move out, but you can never leave. Even if you never speak to her again; if you move to the other side of the world, put up a dartboard with her face on it, refer to her only as, The Bitch, you will always be in relationship. There will always be a corner of your brain, I dare say, a corner of your heart, that has her name on it.

This is doubly true if you are in photos in Facebook together. This is triply true if she met your parents. It’s quadruply true if you were married. It’s doubly, triply, quadruply true if you have kids together. You’re hitched.

Love may not be eternal, but relationship is. The legal end of a marriage is not the end of a relationship.

Relationship, at its minimal level, means that your partner rents space in your head. You think of him sometimes, happily or unhappily, with fondness or regret. He’s part of your story and you’re part of his. You have to account for him if you’re honest. You’ll be flooded with memories, good or bad, after the most trivial cues. He’ll affect the way you relate to anyone else. He’ll be an item to compare and contrast.

Former relationships rarely exist at this minimal level. Usually there are more feelings. Many more. You might continue to hate her, but there will still be feelings. At some point, time and time again, for the rest of your life, after the right buttons are pushed, you will be transported by your passions for the person.

You’ve seen this in others. You’ve had beers with the man who, at the mere mention of his ex, goes on a ten minute tirade about the shrew. You’ve drained a bottle of wine with a friend who combs over every detail of her ex’s pervasive perfidy. These are people still in relationship even though their divorces are final.

By the way, love and hate are not that far apart. They are both intense. They are both very, very far away from indifference. You’ll never be indifferent about a former partner, no matter how hard you try to fake it.

If you agree that you will always be in relationship, then the question is: what kind of relationship will it be? Which road will you take? You have three choices: grant cheap pardon, extend everlasting enmity, or work towards genuine, but rewarding, reconciliation. You have these choices if you stay together, but you also have these choices if you’re apart. Your address, whether it’s where you sleep, where you call home, or where to get your mail, is irrelevant.

Things in My Office: The Stone, a Symbol of Perfection

It’s time again to introduce you to another item in my office. It’s a stone.

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I got this stone while hiking in Colorado. It was a perfect day, with perfect weather, and perfect companions. The trail was the perfect length and not too steep or too flat. There were great mountains in the distance and alpine scenery, the perfect blend of woods, rock outcroppings, and fields, all around. A wonderful brook babbled by. We saw wildlife, loads of birds, chipmunks, and squirrels, as well as the odd mule deer. There were signs of a bear, but, thankfully, not the bear itself.

At one point I stopped, looked around, took it all in, and said, this is perfect. I reached down and took a stone to remember the moment, the very one I now have, in my office.

The stone, I think you will agree, is not perfect. It’s not smooth and polished, taken from a stream. It doesn’t have extraordinary colors, like turquoise. It doesn’t refract light, like a geode or a diamond. Being red, it is a little exotic to anyone from back East, but, in Colorado, it’s very ordinary. The angles are not especially pleasing. Rub it too hard and it will fall apart in your hand. To say it was an ordinary stone would be generous. It’s really a crappy stone, as stones go.

How did such an imperfect stone come to be the symbol of a perfect time in a perfect place? Strange to say, but it has.

You see, in that perfect day there were abounding instances of imperfection.

During that hike, I may have stepped wrong a time or two; I don’t remember. There was no shade every time I wanted some. I got tired and thirsty at one point and had to sit and drink some water. My companions and I did not always agree on everything. The best part of the mountain faced the other way. Some trees blocked a vista. Some huge rocks had to be walked around. My feet got wet in the brook. I missed more wildlife than I saw. And the signs of the bear? I had trouble getting it off my shoe.

None of these imperfections made a difference because the day, in summary, was perfect. Perfection is like that. It doesn’t need to be perfect.

The Shrink’s Links: 75 Ways To Add Variety

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Many couples say that, after a few years, it’s easy to get in a rut with your partner, sex-wise. You think you know each other, backwards and forwards, and have tried everything. Chances are, you’re wrong. There’s something you haven’t thought of.

Or, maybe you have thought of something new, but don’t know how to broach the subject. You’re afraid of what your partner will think of you if you mention it.

This page can help. 75 Ways To Add Variety to Your Sex Life, from the website, Passionate Wife. It lists 75 sexual activities. For many, there are helpful links for specific instructions.
Print out 2 copies. Give one to your partner. Both of you mark, “Yes”, “No”, or “Maybe”. And let the fun begin.

Click here to go to the page.

The Road to Reconciliation: Protect Yourself

You’re never going to come to peace with the awful things that have happened if they are still happening, nor should you. The most important thing in the process of coming to terms with the things that have happened is to protect yourself.

Maybe your partner has stopped doing that thing that hurt you: drinking, drugging, gambling, or beating you up, whoring around, or whatever. The madness seems to have gone away.

Has it, really?

You will be the last person to believe that it has disappeared. Everyone else will celebrate her recovery while you’re still waiting for the next shoe to drop. There’s a reason for your skepticism. You have the most to lose.

There’s another reason. Drinking, drugging, gambling, violence, and whoring around takes cover sometimes when it feels threatened. It’ll hide in the bushes and come roaring out when you least suspect it. Make no mistake, these things are cunning, baffling, and very, very patient. While your partner has been collecting key rings at his NA meeting, his addiction has been doing pushups in the dark.

Madness prefers the dark. It likes to perform its dirty deeds in secret. The night belongs to Michelob. However, the trouble is rarely ever a real secret. It’s kidding itself when it believes it leaves no trace. You can tell when madness is still afoot if you are willing to read the signs.

Your partner declares everything is changed
Your partner is not the one to judge whether anything has changed. Everyone is prone to their own kind of madness. For some, it’s addiction; others, it’s rage, and so on. Each is prone to his own kind of madness because that’s the kind that sneaks up in his blind spot, impersonating, to him, something else. When it fools anyone, it fools him first.

Your partner hasn’t done the things promised for his or her recovery
If the problem behavior is gone, but he still hasn’t been to see a therapist, attended meetings, written that letter of apology, changed associates, or done any of the things he promised, then the madness is just hoping you wouldn’t notice.

The behavioral changes have been minor
The longer that the trouble has been part of the relationship or the more serious it has been, the more excited everyone will be when there has been a slight improvement.

She was drinking every day, now you’re thrilled that she cut down to once a week. He used to gamble away all his paycheck, now he only buys a few scratch-offs. He used to beat you, now he only puts holes in the wall. The underlying attitudes towards drinking, gambling, or violence have not changed; the only thing changed is the frequency and severity.

When gardeners trim bushes back a little, they call it pruning; it doesn’t destroy the bush, it makes it grow more. The same thing happens when only minor changes are accomplished. You wouldn’t be satisfied with your surgeon if you had a mastectomy and he left some cancer behind, so don’t be fooled by minor behavioral changes.

Other problems have arisen
Sometimes the madness plays whack-a-mole by extinguishing one problem behavior, only to transfer it to another. We see this frequently with addicts who will use one drug until the heat is on, and then switch to a different drug. Instead of scoring heroin on the street and using dirty needles, they get their narcotics from a doctor. You’ll think that’s an improvement, until they start to abuse those pills, too. The underlying issue remains.

Thinking has not changed
If the rationalizations that have justified the bad behavior are still in evidence, then the madness has not gone away. He used to say he needed to drink, so he drank. Now, he doesn’t drink, but he still says he needs to. Guess what? He will drink again. If he were truly in recovery he would no longer believe he needs it.

No fence has been built
It is not enough just to change the problem behavior to eradicate an illness. You also have to know the route that it takes before it arrives. You need to put up a gate and shut out behavior that, in itself, is not problematic, but leads up to the problem.

Madness comes masquerading as something harmless so that you will not see it coming. Pedophiles start off by making friends with a child. There’s nothing wrong with making friends with a child, right? But, then they gradually groom the child to accept more and more sexual behavior. We protect children from pedophiles by not permitting them to live near schools. This is not because it is bad to live near a school, but it is bad for pedophiles to live near schools.

Authentic recovery means that you and your partner can see through all the disguises.

History is minimized
If the story your partner tells about the madness differs significantly from your own, then the trouble is still lurking about. If she talks about her gambling problem only in terms of her suffering and leaves out how it affected others, then she has not incorporated your point of view into her own. Her limited perspective is still all she has. She has an incomplete appreciation of the costs of her choices. She should be able to tell your side of the story as well as her own.

Your partner is withdrawn
If your partner is virtually unreachable, emotionally inaccessible, or sexually uninterested, then the madness may be in hiding. It doesn’t want you to ask too many questions, know too much, or get too close.

Your partner always seems to be angry with you
He may be blaming you for calling it out and challenging him. He may be using anger as a way to keep you away, off balance, and uninformed. Your partner may still be taking sides with the madness, against you.

You’re working harder at recovery than your partner is
You’ve been on your partner like white on rice. Ever since he had that affair, you’ve been monitoring his phone, checking his whereabouts, scanning his emails, opening his letters. You’ve met every single female acquaintance he has and gave them all the stink eye. You’ve scrutinized his expression when every waitress approaches. You’ve tried every new position he wanted in an attempt to reawaken your sex life. You found a therapist for him, set up the appointment, gone to every session, paid, and did the homework assignments. You are working harder than he is.

If he has not taken responsibility for change, then he will not make the right choices the moment your back is turned. The recovery is yours, not his. He is still chummy with the madness.

You’re careful not to upset your partner
If you still feel like you are walking on eggshells, then maybe you’re picking up on something. You’re still getting bad vibes; not bad enough to talk about, but just enough to make you uncomfortable.

Your partner wants to move on and not get stuck in the past
That’s the madness talking, trying to convince you to not learn from the past. Truly recovering people remind themselves of the past regularly, so that they’ll not repeat it.

Your partner wants credit for improvements
An adult straightens the house every day. He scrubs the toilets when they need it and mops the floor when it’s dirty. He doesn’t expect a medal for it. He just does it because it needs doing.

A toddler tickles the furniture with a feather duster once in a while and everyone will fall all over him, saying he was very helpful. That’s what you do for a child. Is your partner a child?

When madness takes over: the less you do, the more credit you think you deserve.

In a healthy world: you don’t earn special points for doing what you should have been doing all along.

It’s still all about him (or her)
You ought to be happy, but you’re not. There still seems to be something wrong. Not only has your partner stopped the problematic behavior, but he’s been going to therapy, attending AA, writing in his journal, and getting in touch with his feelings. These are all good things, but he’s still as self-involved as ever.

Real change means taking action to being more loving, generous, caring, and empathetic towards others.

There are no signs
You looked over this list and you did not find a single thing that indicates the madness may be lurking. There seem to be no signs. Well, that’s your sign. If you are not seeing signs, then you’re fooling yourself. There are always signs.

The road to recovery is the same road as the road to ruin; you’re just traveling in a different direction. You pass by the same markers as when you were heading to ruin. You should be seeing them now and recognizing them for what they are. You should also be seeing some signs that indicate you are heading in the right direction. You should be seeing meaningful change.

If you are not, then you are still subject to getting hurt as you were before. There is no way in hell you’re going to feel at peace with what happened, nor should you. In order for you to come to peace, you will have to protect yourself.

Protecting yourself can take many forms. Maybe you have to leave and live somewhere else. Maybe it’s enough to just have separate banking accounts. Maybe the only way to protect yourself is to press charges and put him in jail or apply for that order of protection. Maybe you just need to speak up and say you will not take it anymore. The point is to recognize when you are at risk and take steps against it. No personal peace, much less reconciliation, is possible while you are still being hurt.

The Road to Reconciliation: Commit to Values

Once you get in touch with your feelings and allow them to speak to you, they can point you to what is important. They’ll remind you of aspirations you’ve had since you were small. They’ll indicate the direction towards life satisfaction. They’ll give instructions for a meaningful life.

To the extent you’ve been victimized, your life has not been about growth, potential, aspiration, or mission. It’s been about survival. You aren’t your best when you’re fighting back. You aren’t standing for what you believe when you run away in fear. You aren’t acting decisively when you’re frozen in surprise. You’ve lost your integrity when you suck up to the enemy. You aren’t taking action, it’s all reaction.

Crisis tends to make us revert to primitive modes of behavior. Adrenaline awakens the animal in us. When things go from bad to worse, we’re reduced to four options: fight, flight, freeze, or fawn. Our brains are designed to keep it simple when things get complicated. It’s what gets us through, but it’s not a way out.

Fight is when you strike back. You’d rather be a hammer than a nail. You might, actually be violent, or your fight might be limited to emotional or verbal aggression. We shrinks call it identifying with the offender. It’s the reason abused people can become abusers. Even though you’re the victim in this case, you need to realize, if you don’t already, that you are capable of fighting dirty. You can hurt others, too; and, when you’re a victim, lashing out, you’ll feel good doing so.

Flight is when you take off to avoid danger, make tracks to get out of Dodge. You might physically flee, withdraw emotionally, stonewall attempts to engage, dissociate from the here and now, or weasel out of any attempt to speak honestly. The funny guy who can’t get serious is in flight. So is the gal who stays late at work to avoid going home. The bars and drug dens are filled with people fleeing. So are the ones binge watching Netflix all weekend and even those whose whole life is wrapped up with their children, when their partner is right there, needing attention.

Freeze is when you have lost a will of your own. You can’t make up your mind about what you want to do. You ruminate on your options until the cows come home. You let others make the decisions for you, you ask a million people what they would do. You know you should leave, but you don’t. You know you should get help, but can’t pick up the phone. Glaciers wonder when you will move. Moss grows on your shady side.

Fawn can be the most confusing. It’s the Stockholm Syndrome of responses to trauma. Fawn is when you are bonded to the person who abuses you because he abuses you, not despite. You make nice, at first, so as to not provoke him. You ingratiate yourself so he thinks you’re on his side. You know you can be the most convincing when you convince yourself, so you convince yourself to abandon your own interests. You start to believe you want this life, at first because you feel you have no choice; but then, so thoroughly that, when you have a choice, you miss your chance. The next thing you know you’re Patty Hearst, robbing a bank.

Fight, flight, freeze, and fawn keeps you alive; but that’s all it does. Sooner or later, you have to take stock of the situation, how you really feel about it, and identify the things that are important to you. Then you have to take a stand. You’ve got to serve somebody; either your ultimate values, or the agenda of the person who mistreats you.

Announcement: Coming out of the Closet

The other day I went to a workshop so that I could learn something new. Us shrinks do this frequently because we don’t already know everything. This workshop, entitled, Can We Talk, was held at the Gay Alliance of Rochester. It promised to teach me about transgender issues. I learned about transgender issues. I also learned that I, too, needed to come out of the closet.

I’m no stranger to trans clients. I’ve worked with a few because I work with everybody (except kids and people who don’t speak English, that is), but, by no means, can I call myself an expert. I was eager to learn.

We started with a brief lecture on Trans 101: what it is, what it’s not, and all the myths and misconceptions that abound. Then we formed two concentric circles. Eight trans people, in splendid variety, sat in the middle, with a dozen therapist types listening on the outside. The trans people stated how they were trans, what pronouns they prefer, how out they were, and all the mistakes therapists have made with them in the past. There were a lot of mistakes therapists had made.

Then, after a break, we switched places, with the therapists in the middle. We were supposed to talk about our reactions to hearing these trans people and of earlier encounters.

What was my reaction?

Utter, abject terror.

I was afraid of saying the wrong thing, offending someone, making a mistake, committing a social faux pas. I was wondering if I could get away with not saying anything.

The other therapists went on and on, decrying the fact that there was so little training on the subject. Some therapists in the group said they would never work with a trans person because there wasn’t enough training and they felt incompetent. They would leave this for the specialists. They spend a good five to ten minutes talking about how we need to have more workshops like this.

I was like, right, get on with it, then; but don’t ask me to speak.

Here’s some relevant things you should know about me. I’m a heterosexual white male, approaching sixty. In the workshop I learned I was cisgendered, meaning I identify with the gender assigned to me at birth. A few years ago, I didn’t even know there was a choice. My preferred pronouns are he, his, and him; although, I wouldn’t object to they. If you used she, I might be confused, but not offended. I draw the line at it.

I’m what everyone thinks of when they think of the people who have it easy in this country. They’re right, except for one thing. In my sixty years we have seen one group after another rise up and assert their rightful claim to be accepted as fully human. In every case, we learned about the injustices they have suffered at our hands, us heterosexual, cisgendered, white males, and how we continue to offend. We’ve had preconceptions to challenge and privileges to concede. Many of us heterosexual, cisgendered, white males have been told we are wrong so much that we are on the defensive.

Why are we on the defensive? Some of us are on the defensive because we are bigoted pricks who refuse to learn anything. But, I think most of us are on the defensive simply because we want to do better and don’t trust ourselves to keep up with all the changes. We’re on the defensive because of that terror I was speaking of.

It was then that I realized something. I was in the closet. I don’t mean that I have secretly been transgendered and didn’t want to tell anyone about it. I mean, I have been a heterosexual, cisgendered, white male and didn’t want anyone to notice that it mattered. I’ve been bigoted in ways that I didn’t know were possible. I’ve been ignorant and didn’t want my bone-headed, tone-deaf, tactless blunders to reveal what a dope I am. I needed to come out of the closet and admit the truth.

Coming out of the closet can free me to be honest and engage authentically with others. It means that I may make mistakes and offend. Sometimes I can’t help it. But, it also means that, when I do, they are available for correction. It means that I welcome the chance to work with any transgendered person, or, for that matter, anyone who is not a heterosexual, cisgendered, white male, if you will have me. If you understand that I have my closet, too; and need an extraordinary degree of safety, or bravery, to emerge.

The Road to Reconciliation: Honor your Feelings

If you’re the victim, you take the first step towards repair by honoring your feelings.

You’ve been putting up with a lot. This relationship is not what you thought it would be. There have been lots of problems; but, you say, there are problems in every relationship. You have to take the good with the bad, in sickness and in health, for richer or poorer. You’re the type that, when the going gets tough, you get going. You put your head down and move on. You don’t make a big deal about things you can’t change, and being hurt, you believe, is one of those things you can’t change.

Now something has happened that you can’t ignore. Maybe there’s been a dramatic turn of events. Maybe the chickens have come home to roost. Maybe the things she’s done to hurt you, she’s doing to your children. Maybe it’s you that has taken a turn for the worse; you’ve got bruises, you’re falling apart, madness has come for you. Maybe your girlfriends have taken you aside and counseled you to leave the bum because they’re worried about you. Something has happened that you can’t ignore. So, don’t ignore it.

The first thing to do is to fight off the urge to grant a cheap pardon. You may think that, in granting a premature amnesty, you’re preserving peace. The truth is, you are putting up walls dividing yourself against yourself. You are turning aside your feelings.

Feelings are like the idiot lights on your car. They’re crude messages about your state of being. When the oil light goes on in your car, you know to check the oil. When you feel angry, you know there is a perceived injustice somewhere. You don’t ignore the idiot light on your car, do you? Then don’t ignore your feelings. Check them out to see what’s causing them; and thank your feelings for alerting you to a potential danger.

I once knew a guy who had a check engine light that would not go off. He brought the car to the shop and they couldn’t find a thing wrong. They offered to turn the light off, but it would cost a couple hundred dollars. He decided to put tape over it, so he wouldn’t have to see it. In doing so, he gave up any benefits having a functioning check engine light might offer.

People will often treat their feelings this way, especially people who are in demanding environments, with demanding people. The tendency is to tape over their feelings, put their heads down, and move on. Keep a stiff upper lip. Buck up. No one is interested in how they feel.

I think there are definitely times when this kind of toughness is called for, but it is not the way out. It’ll help you survive, but not thrive. It does not contribute to positive change. Not every hill is worth dying for, but some are. You’ll live to fight another day, but one of these days, you’ll have to fight.

By fight, of course, I mean confront the issues and create change. To do so, you’ll have to welcome these strong, unpleasant feelings and honor them as the helpful allies they are. They’re trying to protect you, warn you, and ready you for a struggle. They’re also identifying and standing up for your values.

Do this thing for yourself and your relationship now. Make a list of all the crap that has come your way because of his behavior. Take note of all the messes you’ve cleaned up, the anxious nights you stayed up, the blows you received, the lies you’ve heard, the money that’s been wasted, the betrayals you’ve suffered. Just make a list, you don’t have to act upon it. Go ahead, do it now. I’ll wait.

There, done? Probably not. You will likely add to that list as you remember more and more. When you pay attention, you tend to remember better. When you remember it, take note.

Now, go to your list and jot down how those incidents make you feel now and how you felt at the time.

For example, let’s say one of the items on your list was that you had to clean up his puke after he came home drunk and called Ralph all over the bathroom floor. What emotions might you feel? I might have felt concern when I heard him puking; anger when he left it to me; disgust at the smell; relief when he seemed to feel better; shame if there was anyone else around to see it. Those are just a few.

Once you’re done doing that, see if you can spot the value that stands behind each emotion.

You felt concern because, despite everything, you love him. Anger because you believe in fairness. Disgust because puke can make you sick and you value your health. Relief because you value his health. Shame because you value your and his reputation.

You see how emotions stand in for and indicate values? If you didn’t have emotions, you wouldn’t know your ethics. If you didn’t have emotions, you would not be standing up for your standards. In fact, that is exactly the case when you deny your feelings, put your head down, and toughen yourself. You lose touch with what’s important. You misplace your moral compass.

Once you have paid attention to your feelings and reaffirmed your values, their service is complete. They’re like soldiers returning from war. They need to be demobilized, disarmed, and integrated back into polite society. To put it another way, they’re idiot lights, not the driver. You’re the driver. Your feelings should not be in charge. You should be in charge. Take note of your feelings. When they signal to you, investigate what they are trying to say, and then decide what to do about it. Don’t make your feelings do more than they are meant to do, but pay attention and respect their intelligent design.

Reacknowledgment: April is the Cruelest Month

I posted something like this last year, but it bears repeating.

Contrary to popular belief, suicide rates do not peak at Christmas time. Here in Western New York, as elsewhere, they peak in April. So does all kinds of psychiatric hospitalization, depression and relapses of addiction.

Why is this so, when hopes of Spring abound? Maybe the contrast between the inner weather and the outer weather is too great to bear.

As usual, poets express  it better than anyone. Here’s Robert Frost:

Tree at my window, window tree,
My sash is lowered when night comes on;
But let there never be curtain drawn
Between you and me.

Vague dream-head lifted out of the ground,
And thing next most diffuse to cloud,
Not all your light tongues talking aloud
Could be profound.

But tree, I have seen you taken and tossed,
And if you have seen me when I slept,
You have seen me when I was taken and swept
And all but lost.

That day she put our heads together,
Fate had her imagination about her,
Your head so much concerned with outer,
Mine with inner, weather.