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Remember that just give me 20 minutes of your time once a year speech? Here are the recommendations to back it up!
Tag: violence
Feel like there are no options left? I am telling you that there are. Let’s discuss it right now.
What I am talking about is violence and abuse. Yes, that’s right, Violence and abuse, whether it be toward you, your kids, your relatives or whoever. It is everywhere and increasing every day. I am faced with an ever-increasing amount of patients who are facing this issue regularly.
So, what’s the worst that could happen? Well, someone could actually end up dead or permanently damaged in some way for one. Dead. Never coming back. Dead. Someone could end up permanently emotionally damaged and use that as an excuse to continue that style of behavior and life even into their next phase of life or worse, if they were an abused child or spouse, continue on to abuse their children or next spouse because that is the scenario they are familiar with or they are using that as their excuse. The things that I hear the most is ” I just don’t know what to do. or…That’s how I was brought up…or..That’s the same stuff I went through….or….It’s all I know.
These are the most heart breaking responses I ever here. I picture in my mind the terrified children or the terrified spouse or girlfriend. When there is abuse going on, everyone suffers, not just the person actually undergoing the abuse. It has wide ranging, awful ripple effects. Too often I am trying to work with someone that has already given up and just figures that there is nothing they can do and that is just the way that it is.
I am here to tell you that that is not true. Despite what you think, there are always possible options, if you chose to take them. They require fortitude, strategy, secrecy, and sometimes heartbreaking techniques, but they can be done. I refuse to believe that there is no option. Before I go any further, I need to tell you that I personally have had more than my fair share of abuse and violence in my past. I had to keep secrets that no one should have to keep. I had to live through things that no one should have to live through. So, I get it. There is no easy way out. Finally, as an adult I try my best to live a healthy life and be a good parent to my kids and be a good wife to my husband and break the former cycle. I am telling you there is a way to make it stop and move forward, even if there is no one that you currently know who can show you.
First, before you even get started you have to give yourself a moment of calm to begin planning. You need to have a relocation plan, even if it is to a safe house or local shelter. You need to set aside a separate source of funds. You need to get your papers in order. You need to be willing to stop and accept and sacrifice yourself or worse, your children as if you somehow deserve it. NO ONE deserves abuse. NO ONE! You need to value yourself and your kids enough to get the heck out of there before something irreparable happens. If it is safe to do so, you need to stand up to that partner or spouse and say look, my poor heart may love you for the rest of my life but my children and I cannot live with you another day if this crap keeps going on. If it is not safe to do that, then just get the heck away while you can and figure the rest out later. Nothing is worth risking your life, your childrens’ lives, or your mental health to stay.
I am telling you that it can be done. You can get away. You can begin to live a healthy life again. Please do not use your experiences as an excuse to re-enact the same poor behaviors to others or your kids. Please do not inadvertently teach your children that abuse is ok and that there is nothing you can do. I am living proof that it is possible. Here is the link to the National Domestic Violence Hotline. Please use it if you need it. They offer support in over 200 plus languages.
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1-800-799-7233
Dr. Katz
Someday I am going to have to relearn that one twinge somewhere does not have to mean that imminent doom is upon me.
Cancer related PTSD is real people. Did you realize that one in three cancer patients suffer from cancer-related PTSD? That is over 30 percent. That is actually a huge number. First of all what is PTSD? PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. Post traumatic stress and post traumatic stress disorder are two different things. Post traumatic stress is a normal response to a stressful event. It’s like getting nervous before a scan or a blood test. Post traumatic stress disorder takes things a step further. This consists of severe stress responses to triggers that last longer than 1 to 3 months. They are responses that are so severe that they can prevent you from going to appointments or even living your life. It can be very disabling. It is nothing to be taken likely.
So, who is at risk? Everyone who has had a specific traumatic experience is at potential risk of this. Some examples would be combat, abuse, assault, violence, mental or physical disasters, severe injury, or illness, like cancer. You are also more at risk if there is any previous history of anxiety or depression or you do not have a good support system.
You have to keep in mind that there is not one single cause of PTSD. It is different in terms of triggers and severity for everybody. The symptoms can range from nightmares and flashbacks or intrusive thoughts. There can be avoidance behaviors of people, places, or things. There can be a general disinterest in participation of any kind. There can be guilt or shame about your particular trauma. There can be insomnia. There can be a feeling of general disconnect. All of these are kind of attempted internal protection mechanisms that our brains come up with. But, none of them are actually helpful.
For me, the biggest trigger is any slight hint that something could be wrong such as a pain or a headache that I cannot explain. It immediately sets my brain off to a path of potential disaster if I don’t put a stop to it right away. I mean, to be fair, it makes sense, my previous headaches and pains led to me being in an unresponsive coma with a head full of brain tumor and mush. I am right to be leery and a little hypervigilant. It is my own hyper-vigilence that has helped save my life more than once. But,I still can’t let it rule my life. I have spent enough time locked up in hospitals and struggling to get people to listen. I can take a break right now. I have fought every fight with valiance. I have all the scans and the tests that prove that I am doing ok, including a scan that looks like an actual tumor-free brain. Win! I am going to admit that it is still a work in progress. It is hard not to jump to the bad news. I am just going to keep doing my best and not beat myself up about my jumping to possible bad conclusions. It is what is is. Every day I get to wake up and see the sunshine out of the window of my own house is a blessing. I just have to keep believing that the worst of days are behind me, and get help when I need it.
Dr. Katz
Once a manipulator, always a manipulator
There are manipulators everywhere. I am pretty sure all of us have fallen victim to their wiles at one point or another. Depending on the skill of the manipulator, the process may be so sly and so subtle that you don’t even realize that it is happening until it is too late. I personally have been on the receiving end of countless manipulations over the years. After doing a lot of research and reading, plus a side dose of life experience, I have realized a few things about manipulators that are the key to foiling their efforts and getting your life back.
First, you have to recognize a manipulator. A manipulator is a person who uses other people to seize power, influence outcomes, create scapegoats, gain control in relationships and reap the benefits of the work of others. These individuals use a lot of different tricks to accomplish these goals: deceit, guilt, false hope and last but not least, lies.
Second, master manipulators can twist any situation in their favor. They are very skilled at making you talk more about you than themselves. This is a how they gain information about you and use it to exploit potential weaknesses. They feign supreme interest in order to gain your confidence and learn all your inner most secrets. They may be genuinely interested in you, but not for the reasons you think. Their interest and your information reveals may ultimately be your undoing. Turn those questions around and ask them probing questions instead. This is like putting a deflector shield up and may result in the manipulator backing down.
Third, a manipulator is always two-faced. He or she acts differently to different people in different situations. Beware of the person that is smiling and chatting with a person one second and then talking about them to another person the next.
Fourth, a manipulator will always try to make you feel guilty for standing up for yourself and what you believe in. Anyone that tries to make you feel bad for expressing your opinion or maintaining your ground is trouble. It is said that belief can be manipulated while knowledge is truly dangerous. Knowing yourself and your boundaries and your beliefs makes you less vulnerable to someone’s efforts to put you down and undermind you.
Fifth, a manipulator’s actions never meet their words. They may tell you what you want to hear but their actions spell out something completely different. They promise to support you but fail on the follow through. They compliment you and tell you how amazing it is to be with you, but then turn around and act like it’s the biggest cross to bear in the world. This is just one more way that they attempt to mold your perception of reality of the world around you to one that works in their favor.
Sixth, a manipulator will always play the victim in every situation. They are experts at pointing the finger in every other direction but toward them. They blame everyone else for everything. They take no accountability. Nothing is their fault.
Last, they are all about intensity. Everything is too much too soon. They pretend to reveal everything right away and expect you to do the same. They pretend to be vulnerable so that you will be flattered because they “let you in.” It is all part of the plot though to make you feel sorry for them and to make you completely responsible for their feelings, regardless of what they are actually based on.
All of these attributes are important to spot, but once you do, now what? Use this awareness to maintain emotional distance from the manipulator. Refuse to participate in their guilt traps. Control the chaos. Don’t get sucked into it. Delay your responses to situations rather than offering instant gratification to the manipulator.
In the most serious cases, these manipulative relationships can progress into violence. This is a situation in which outside intervention is often needed because the victim has been so conditioned to think the interactions are normal that they cannot see their way out of it. This is where national hotlines come in.
The bottom line is, when it comes to manipulators, you need to trust your instincts. If your gut is telling you that something is off about the relationship, reassess and break away. Don’t let the worry and self doubt that they have carefully implanted in your mind take over. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose by staying in the relationship. Extricate yourself while you can.
Dr. Katz