Blog – Page 46 – Keith Wilson

The Shrink’s Links: Spiritus Christi Mental Health Clinic

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

You can still get mental health treatment in Rochester, even if you’re not made of money. If you have a high deductible health insurance plan, or have a high co-pay, or if you are violating the law and have no insurance at all, just contact the Spiritus Christi Mental Health Clinic. It’s a free clinic. Amazingly, there is no waiting list. As of today, you’ll be able to see someone within a week.

The clinic is a ministry of Spiritus Christi Church, but you don’t have to belong to the church to use it. You just have to have a need. A couple dozen therapists, including myself, volunteer there. They don’t have to belong to the church, either. They just have to be licensed.

Oh, they also host a number of groups. Check out their website.

Click here to go to the website

Acknowledgment: April is the Cruelest Month

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 know it better than anyone. Here’s TS Eliot, in The Wasteland:

APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.

What is Madness?

Someone asked why the name of this blog is Madness 101. Shouldn’t I call it Mental Illness 101? Isn’t mental illness the proper, politically correct term?

It is, but it’s not really mental illness that I’m writing about. I’m writing about the related subject of madness.

Illness is something that happens to you beyond your control. Some diseases are inherited, like Huntington’s; others are transmitted, like Ebola. Mental illness is thought to involve a multi-factor genesis called the Diathesis-Stress Hypothesis. (I love saying that. Try it yourself. Once you learn how to say it, you’ll love it, too. Diathesis-Stress Hypothesis.)

The Diathesis-Stress Hypothesis states that people are born with a genetic predisposition which is then activated by stress. You may have schizophrenia written into your genetic code, for instance, but it is not until you encounter the peculiar stress of adolescence or early adulthood that the symptoms of schizophrenia emerge. You may tend towards depression, on one hand, or anxiety, on the other. Most of the time you are fine, but when that decisive straw lands on your camel’s back, the camel falls one way or the other.

Other conditions are normal reactions to abnormal experiences. Almost anyone who smokes enough tobacco will become addicted to it. Addiction is the result of ordinary physiological processes whereby the body changes as a result of the substance ingested. All addictions are just as inevitable if you use the substance enough, although studies suggest that the path towards addiction may be speeded up or slowed, depending on genetics.

Post Traumatic Stress is another normal reaction to abnormal experience. It is true that not everyone who experiences a particular horrible event develops post traumatic stress over that event. However, we do believe that the accumulation of stressful events, or experiencing a single event in early childhood, when you are particularly vulnerable, will lead to the development of the condition.

The Diathesis-Stress Hypothesis is a powerful theory, but it leaves out one important factor: personal choice and responsibility. I’m not saying people choose to be schizophrenic; but the person with schizophrenia does choose whether or not to isolate himself, take his medication, and work with the people available to help him. The depressed person has a choice about whether to stay in bed all day or open the blinds to let the sun in. The anxious person can decide whether to avoid or face that which makes her anxious. The alcoholic chooses whether or not to drink.

When an alcoholic doesn’t drink, he is still an alcoholic, but he is not adding, through his own actions, to the condition. Similarly, the depressed, anxious, or psychotic person can do a lot towards addressing their conditions. They do not have to simply be passive victims.

I am aware that people with mental illness are subject to extreme social prejudice. I know that they often get blamed and blame themselves for things that are out of control. I work with them intimately on a daily basis. However, I am a counselor and it is my business to help people identify the ways that they contribute to the problems they face and the things they can do about them. It does them no good to tell them that they are the unlucky recipients of flawed genes or a chemical imbalance or have too much stress in their lives if they do not also address how they unnecessarily add to that stress.

Madness is my word for the things ill people do to make themselves more ill.

Having alcoholism is not madness, but drinking when you know you have alcoholism is madness.

Being depressed is not madness, but not getting up to start the day is madness.

Having anxieties is not madness. It’s very normal, and even may be desirable, to have anxieties; but, letting your fears control you is madness.

You are not responsible for having an illness, but when illness takes over your life and controls you and the people around you, that is madness.

In this series, I will describe the ways of madness and the things you can do about it.

The Shrink’s Links: Secular Organizations for Sobriety

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

If you like the idea of a self help group to assist you in your recovery from chemical use, but think AA and it’s kin talk about God too much, there is another choice: Secular Organizations for Sobriety, otherwise known as SaveOurSelves. It’s AA without the Higher Power.

Click here to go to the website

What if relationships were like Calvinball?

If the traditional forms of relationship are not working for you, and you need a role model; you don’t need to go far to find one. You only need to read some old funny pages. There you will find a perfect trusting relationship illustrated in Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin and Hobbes is a wonderful comic strip, published in the 80’s and 90’s by Bill Watterson. Calvin is a mischievous ADHD-like six-year-old boy. Hobbes is his stuffed tiger.

Early in the series, we find that Calvin doesn’t get the whole team sports thing.

We soon see Calvin and Hobbes create a new kind of game, called Calvinball. Here’s Calvinball:

Calvinball is the perfect game for those who can’t tolerate organized sports. All you need to know is that there are no rules; rather, that the rules are liquid and supple. You make them up as you go along.

You can imagine that can lead to some disputes:

But, generally, the players have a great time.

No one keeps score in Calvinball. The fun is purely in the joy of playing the game. Because there are no winners or losers, you don’t need rules. There are no scapegoats, as there are in organized games, and no reason to control the other player. Calvinball fosters community, rather than competition. In this, it is an illustration of a different way relationships can work.

Traditional relationships, which your parents may have portrayed, have been scripted by hallowed convention, sanctified by religion, and legislated by governmental bodies. They’re the equivalent to organized sports. They may be fine for many, but they may not be fine for you. If that’s the case, you can tear up the script, quit the league, and play Calvinball.

If your relationship has become a zero-sum interaction, if it’s become competitive, if there’s been a lot of blaming going around, then you might want to play Calvinball with your partner. Because there are no ordinary rules, they can be made as you go along, Calvinball can only be played in a spirit of trust and mutuality. A rousing round of Calvinball might clear away the stultifying convention and rock-ribbed power structures that keep you and your partner stuck.

Look at what happens when Calvin invites his nemesis, Roslyn, to play Calvinball. To Calvin, his babysitter, Roslyn, is the personification of evil.

Roslyn is a little skeptical.

But, quickly, she gets into it.

By playing along with Calvinball’s non-rules rules, entering Calvinball’s trusting, non-competitive, relational space, she begins to effect change.

And, by the end, everything is different.

If you go a little deeper, all games and relationships are Calvinball, anyway; even organized sports and traditional marriages. In the final analysis, rules only have authority to the degree that people chose to follow them.

(Thanks to Bill Watterson and Richard Beck)

The Shrink’s Links: The Night of the Gun

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

Cultural commentator, David Carr, of the New York Times, died recently. He was a recovering cocaine addict.

Fourteen years after he stopped using, he decided to write a book about his addiction. Being the journalist he was, he did not write it the usual way, as a memoir. He knew that, as an addict, his version of events could not be trusted; so he interviewed everyone he could find who witnessed his addiction and was involved in his recovery. A brave, brave thing.

His conclusion? His recovery was not a personal accomplishment. Many people were involved, many people helped.

You might say it takes a village to recover an addict.

Click here to go to the website

A New Lease on your Relationship: Money

No relationship can go on for long before the couple has to work out what to do about money. Even at the dating stage there’s that awkward moment when you first fight over the check at the restaurant. Couples didn’t use to fight over the check, the man always paid; but now the woman is almost as likely to earn more than the man as the other way around. The way that the couple resolves this problem at the dating stage may have more to do with the sustainability of their relationship than the fact that they both like the same music and long walks on the beach.

In married and living-together couples, there are three basic arrangements about how to handle money. In some cases, both partners keep the money they earn individually and divvy up the bills in some way that seems fair. In the second method, the partners put all their earnings into a big pot and pay all the bills out of that fund. Finally, there’s the hybrid arrangement of yours, mine, and ours where both partners ante up to pay most of the bills, but also keep a discretionary fund all to themselves.

It seems to me that the people who use the first method more often run into problems. It’s the most primitive arrangement, akin to a bartering system. Also, if your partner pays the light bill, you take for granted that the lights stay on and have little interest in conservation. It doesn’t lend itself to much coordination and flexibility to meet changing needs, but it is easier to pull out of a relationship when you divvy up the bills. To be fair, it’s generally the couples who have little trust in one another who gravitate towards this method. Your partner won’t run down your credit score when you don’t let her near your checkbook. Consequently, I am not sure that it’s the method that causes the problems, or that couples with problems tend to choose this method.

The second method: putting everything into a big pot, puts a lot of pressure on the person who keeps the books and requires the most coordination and trust to make it work. If you’re not the household accountant, you might not like that another person controls your money and resent having to go to her every time you need cash and justify the expenditure. If you are the accountant, not only is it a lot of work and responsibility, but you may start to feel like the only adult in the household who has a real handle on what’s going on.

Most experts believe the last method to be the best, as it combines the personal independence and responsibility of the first with the efficiency of the second. I believe any arrangement will work just as long as both partners can set a fair financial policy and be honest and consistent about the execution of that policy.

The Shrink’s Links: The Evil Hours

We are born in debt, owing the world a death. This is the shadow that darkens every cradle. Trauma is what happens when you catch a surprise glimpse of that darkness, the coming annihilation not only of the body and the mind, but also, seemingly, of the world.

So says David Morris, author of The Evil Hours, an account of his battle with Post Traumatic Stress.

Click here to go to the website

A New Lease on your Relationship: Space

Here’s a surprising bit of science: studies show that married couples who live apart have the same levels of satisfaction as those who live together.

Here’s another: it’s a growing trend; especially, it seems, in Britain, where ten percent of married couples have separate addresses. It’s somewhere between six and nine percent in the US. The New World is often much more conservative than the old.

There are even acronyms for it: LAT, Living Apart Together or LDR, for Long Distance Relationship. Take your pick. Once something has an acronym, it’s official.

It may not be your cup of tea, but just imagine the advantages: you don’t have to step around his underwear strewn all over the floor. You have room to shave because her makeup has not taken over the bathroom. Then, when you see each other, the spark of romance ignites.

Men and women are often such different creatures, that perhaps they shouldn’t live together. Maybe they should live next to one another and visit sometimes.

Many LDR and LAT couples have little choice in the matter. Some are deployed by the military, some are forced to follow jobs that split them apart. The interesting thing is that, if they try to make their relationship work, they can do so. The rates of infidelity and split ups are no higher than couples living together.

How do you make it work? LDRs and LATs work for the same reason relationships work when people are together. The partners act like adults. They take responsibility for themselves, can comfort themselves, and accept temporary hardships for the sake of meaningful objectives. When you can do those three things consistently, you can go anywhere.

If you are having trouble with your relationship, then living apart is unlikely to improve it. Trial separations when partners are battling seldom result in reconciliation, they are more often a prelude to divorce. However, if you and your partner can act like adults, then you can change the terms of the relationship as conditions demand and be more flexible to match the relationship to your career and other interests.

The Shrink’s Links: Dylan Mariah

Bringing you the best of mental health every week.

This week’s link from the shrink is the website of a colleague, Dylan Mariah. I first met Dylan when we both worked together at a community mental health center. She is one who understands what is really important.

Today, she, too, has a private practice and blog, but both are very different from mine. She is a registered nurse, yoga instructor, Reiki master teacher, workshop leader, and health educator, putting your mind, body, and spirit in a holistic harmony that will transform your life.

Click here to go to her website