上菜咯！上星期的作品，到现在才稍微得空摆上来。这个星期又是忙得不可开交，预定让自己的脚步慢下来，可是新的案子却是一宗接一宗。而今天又刚到Pasadena上了个课程，主题是“I'm Not Sick, I Don't Need Help”。幸好公司非常支持雇员们自我提升，允许出席这课程的我们一天有薪假期。希望明天或是星期一的假期我能腾出时间再战新作品，然而眼看堆积如山的报告……唉！
It is interesting to see how people have different expectation to so-called "psychologists". I was a psychology student. There are times when I was being "too helpful" to help others with their problems. Now I realize what made my professors warned us, again and again, to hold our urge to help our friends or our family members with their problems. And yes, we study psychology and we help others on their relationship problems. It does not mean however, we are not going to make mistakes in our lives.
When there is an issue occurs in a family, and if there is someone ever studied "psychology" or currently a psychologist, he or she is normally the target to be blamed on or the scape goat of the family.
"Aren't you the psychologist helping others to fix their problems? Now fix this! Fix your dad!"
I remember we laughed when my professor told us what happened in her family. Things can be extremely intense when our family members involved. I bet there is nothing more tense than fighting with your love ones including your partner, parents and children.
From time to time, I heard these myself from my friends and my love ones, "Wow, I thought you studies psychologist. You should know what to do." "Aren't you a psychologist student? How come you still making the same mistakes like other women?" "Where is all the psychology knowledge that you've learned goes?"
They probably forgot, I am still a human being like everybody else. They probably not remember, I, too, would make mistakes like everybody else, would cry like a baby, would angry with certain things. They probably do not expect, I still have defensive mechanism in me that will be turned on if I got offended. They probably thought, all psychologists should act like saints or angels, ALL THE TIME.
Isn't it interesting? Then I know, I can't simply complain to anyone, except for my other psychologist friends. Then I know, I won't be able to get the empathy in return when I share my problems with friends, even though I gave my empathy to them most of the time.
The only difference that I can see in me while comparing to others, is that I am able to handle things in a more mature way after the storm is over. I know that when I am involving in the intense fight with my family/partner, I am as irrational as others and perhaps will do a lot of childish things. I am no difference than others, but an ordinary woman that will make mistakes from time to time. I do have emotions as everybody else.
I learned to accept my imperfections. I am learning to accept my limits as a human being. And I believe I will be a better person if I do not quit learning in my life, regardless what others expect me to be.
This Part IV of my article is research based and supported by some trusted mental health organizations. Therefore if you realized that you fit into some of the descriptions below, it is time that you need to reach out for help.
Dealing with grief and lost in life can sometimes be paralyzing. However, sadness will begin to lift after awhile. As time goes by, you started to slowly move on. Nevertheless, if you do not feel any forward momentum, you need to start looking for symptoms of whether you are suffering from depression. When you started to feel unrelenting, overwhelming, feeling like “living in a black hole”, numb, lifeless and empty, this is time when you are at risk of suffering from depression.
Please do not think that I am making a big deal out of it. Feeling down and sad from time to time is normal in life as we do experience setbacks, struggles and disappointments. We all experienced ups and downs in our mood. However, when emptiness and despair is persistently exist and won’t go away, it maybe depression.
Are you depressed?
If you identify with several of the following signs and symptoms, and they just won’t go away, you may be suffering from clinical depression.
• you can’t sleep or you sleep too much
• you can’t concentrate or find that previously easy tasks are now difficult
• you feel hopeless and helpless
• you can’t control your negative thoughts, no matter how much you try
• you have lost your appetite or you can’t stop eating
• you are much more irritable and short-tempered than usual
• you have thoughts that life is not worth living (Seek help immediately if this is the case)
Common signs and symptoms of depression
• Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness. A bleak outlook—nothing will ever get better and there’s nothing you can do to improve your situation.
• Loss of interest in daily activities. No interest in former hobbies, pastimes, social activities, or sex. You’ve lost your ability to feel joy and pleasure.
• Appetite or weight changes. Significant weight loss or weight gain—a change of more than 5% of body weight in a month.
• Sleep changes. Either insomnia, especially waking in the early hours of the morning, or oversleeping (also known as hypersomnia).
• Irritability or restlessness. Feeling agitated, restless, or on edge. Your tolerance level is low; everything and everyone gets on your nerves.
• Loss of energy. Feeling fatigued, sluggish, and physically drained. Your whole body may feel heavy, and even small tasks are exhausting or take longer to complete.
• Self-loathing. Strong feelings of worthlessness or guilt. You harshly criticize yourself for perceived faults and mistakes.
• Concentration problems. Trouble focusing, making decisions, or remembering things.
• Unexplained aches and pains. An increase in physical complaints such as headaches, back pain, aching muscles, and stomach pain.
(Source: Understanding depression) To learn more about depression, please click on the link provided.
There are a lot of things that we can do to make ourselves feel better. Feeling hopeless, joyless, sad, angry, fear, sorrow; are all normal feelings but it does not mean we should deeply sink into these feelings and can never bounce back up. Allow yourself to feel these unpleasant feelings but you also have to know when to "take a break" and stop sink even deeper into these feelings. When you think that the feelings are too much for you to bear, it is time that you need to do something else. You can allow yourself to have alone time but DO NOT ISOLATE yourself. Finding balance is always important in life. You do not want to take anything to the extreme.
Some people like to lock themselves away and do not want to see or talk to anybody. On the other hand, some may become the social butterflies (hang out with friends all the time) and have no time to deal with their emotions. Neither end is good and healthy but finding the balance between the two definitely is beneficial.
As I mentioned earlier, you want to have the time to take care of your emotions but also have time to be around people, talking over coffee and have fun. Be careful when you share your story with your friends because they might end up giving you some "advices" that may be counterproductive. I am not saying they are trying to harm you but they give their advices or words based on their own believes or personal experiences in life, which might do no good to you. (That is the reason why I say write it out instead of sharing with a random people). Better still, find professional help -- a competent and well-trained therapist. A lot of Asian probably won't buy this one. Well, don't judge until you give it a chance.
Feeling good exercises could be anything that you like to do. Again, make sure those activities are healthy and do no harm to you. Going to gym, yoga, jogging, singing, shopping (guys like to shop too, they just shop for different things), travelling, watching movies, hang out with friends are some of the things that I can think of right now. You can be more creative than me, I am sure. Once again, you do not want to do any of these to an extreme. (e.g. overdo in gym that cause injury, shopping till you broke, keep watching movies till you are not able to do what you need to do - affect your work, school and daily functioning.)
I like to sing and I do this with turning on the music loud and sang out loud with it in my room. See, be creative :P You do not need to get a group of friends to go to Karaoke to be able to do this because sometimes friends are busy with their own lives. Of course when you can get hold on them, good for you. You can tailor your own ways to help yourself feel better, as long as you know those things will not harm you in anyway in the long run.
You can also treat yourself. Watch your own budget and do what you can: go shopping, take a short vacation etc. It also can be as simple as get a haircut, take a bubble bath, eat your favourite food (don't take too much junk food tho), go to the beach (or any of your favourite place), involve more in your hobby and so on.
I like to redecorate my room like move around some of the furniture or add something on the wall. You can even change the smell of your room and change the perfume you use. If you allow yourself to make things better and to feel better, please do something different. Perhaps you will want to take down the pictures on the wall or put the photoframe away, and put all other things that bring back memories to a corner or in a box. I say do these because you do not need to let these things to constantly remind yourself of the happy time you have with him/her and make yourself even have harder time to let go. I am not saying you should do this so that you can "forget" your past. How can you try to "forget" something that had happened? In fact, later on I am going to write about how you should remember your love in different ways. The "remembering love" step comes later but in the earlier stage, you really want to avoid doing things that constantly bring back memories that prevent you from letting go.
Now it is really the time to think about yourself, not him/her. As I mentioned in the previous post, do not contact your ex partner. The reason is not only to set him/her free, but it is really also to set yourself free. You need to free yourself and find the ability to love again. And this time, you want to love the right one. To be able to do so, there are a few steps that we need to do. First and foremost, we need to take care of ourselves in this critical period of time. It is not easy and I think I know how hard and hurt it feels.
You may keep using your time to analyse your former partner:
Is he/she still love me?
Has he/she ever love me?
Does he/she loves me more or the third party? (if there's a third party)
What can I do to make him/her loves me again?
Is there a second chance? Can I turn back the clock?
I wish this is just a dream, a nightmare that never happen in real life...
You may also blame your partner or self blame:
How could he/she treat me like this? I love him/her so much...
I wish I never did this, it's all my fault. I deserved to treated like this. I am such a loser...
I am such an idiot, how could I fall in love with this J*rk/B*tch! And yet I still cannot let go/feeling sad for him/her while he/she does not even care!
These thoughts are all normal. Imagine you reconcile with your former partner with these feelings: guilty, anger, sadness, hurtful, insecure, resentment, jealousy... How good do you think it is going to contribute to the "friendship" between the two of you? Thus, it is really time for you to pull the focus back on yourself. It is really time to LOVE yourself more.
In the process of starting over, there are times we feel ok and good, and there are times we feel miserably lost. Again, it is completely normal when we feel that we want to go back to be together with our ex partner so badly, to the extent that you feel it is impossible to feel happy and joy again in your life without him/her. Even though there might be chance for reconcilement, it is definitely not now. At this time, you need time and space and certain essential steps to heal your broken heart. Sadly, we never taught how to do it in school. Therefore so many people struggling so hard and they either deny the feelings, never trust love again and fool around, or they lost their ability to open their hearts to love again.
How to redirect your attention from focusing on him/her back to yourself? I wrote a "sample of feeling letter" on January 2010 under the title "Single vs. Couple". Writing the letter to your former partner or to an angel (or your own spiritual believe) is definitely one good way to release all the negative feelings. One thing that I want to emphasize here, the purpose of writing the letter is to help you find the forgiveness. People said time is the best medicine in healing the pain. However, Time itself cannot fully heal the pain and make your heart healthy and be able to love again.
When I said write the letter to your former partner, please, please, please, DO NOT SEND the letter to him/her. You may think, "Why not? I want to let him/her know my true feelings and this is a good way of 'communication'." Starting over is different from when you have a fight with your current partner. The word starting over means, you really have lost your partner and love. Therefore sending the letter to him/her seems like, you still have the intention to patch back. I do not see the benefit of sending the feelings letter to your ex partner. In addition, the intention of writing the letter is to help ourselves to find forgiveness and let go, not to make our ex partners feelling guilty or upset, or come back to you. When you still holding on to the hope that you and your ex partner has chance to get back together, you are losing the chance to feel the emotion of fear and fully let go.
Since I have just completed my program that concentrated on relationship, marriage and family, I think I should write more articles that related to my field of study. I choose to write some of the things to do and not to do after a painful break up due to my previous personal experience as well as most of my friends are facing the similar challenges after a painful break up. They either simply follow their friends' or family's words blindly or they suffer so much and do not know what to do. I always wanted to write something about break up but for some reasons, it took me forever to start writing it. I call this "my" to-do and not-to-do lists because they are my personal opinions, with no empirical research base and no quotes from famous psychologists. You may find these are helpful or you may not and it is totally fine.
The reason I add the word "painful" before the word "break up", is because break up, divorce or lost of a love one could be very painful. Why does it hurt so much? I read a paragraph written by a famous relationship expert, John Gray, and I think the reason he gave best explain this question. He said when we faced other disappointments and injustices in our daily lives, it is love that comforts the soul and makes our pain bearable. However, when love is lost, there is no way to find relief. Most often we are not aware of how much we rely on this support until it is taken away. I guess that's the reason why it hurts so much.
1. Stay away from substances or any other addictive behavior.
Whoever know me well will know how much I like to drink. Of course, I am not an alcoholic, not even close. In critical time like this however, we have to be extra cautious of not allowing ourselves to use alcohol or any other substances to avoid the painful or uncomfortable feelings. Be mindful and not allow ourselves to drink alone. This is the time when people get addicted easily. For some other people, instead of consuming substances, they will run away by involving too much in certain activities or behaviors, such as playing computer or video games, gambling or even jump into another relationship right away.
Personally, I would like to pair alcohol with pleasure feelings instead of miserable memories. Therefore I do not allow myself to lock myself in my room, thinking that I am a victim and then get drunk all by myself and do something stupid. So do you, don't do that.
2. Do not contact him/her
After a break up, you suddenly live your life all by yourself. I am not only referring to physically alone, but also emotionally. When you were in love, even though he or she is far away physically, you do not feel the pain because you know you still have him or her. After the break up however, even though he or she is right next to you, you know that you are alone. There are times you will feel the urge of wanting to find him/her, call him/her, see him/her. It is completely normal. Nevertheless, this is not the time to follow your instict. Let me give you a real life example and you will understand why.
A pair of couples were in a relationship for many years and broke up for many years and still cannot let go (when I said many years, I mean more than 3 years). They still constantly calling, emailing, facebooking, msn, sending gifts to each other ever since they "broke up" from the very beginning. No wonder they cannot let go.
Please do not take me wrong, I am not saying after a relationship is over, the couples cannot be friends anymore. I do want to be friend with my ex boyfriend and there is no doubt he is a good and kind hearted guy. However, I know that I am cheating myself and him if I said I can be friend with him right away.
When we still have feelings with our former partners, we will unknowingly do something to harm the so-called "friendship". For the previous examples that I provided, I can see how their actions of constantly contacting each other has caused counterproductive in their lives. Whatever they are doing now, is to stop each other from finding their true loves in their lives. They are stopping each other to move on in their lives. The intention of their actions has changed from love to revenge. I said so because when the man has finally had a significant other, the girl started calling more frequently and do some other things to hold on to that guy. Unfortunately, that man started feeling confused, thought that he still love her and fall into the trap.
Their story reminded me of one of my little clients. He drew a heart shape, colored it half black and half red and said, "This is my dad's love, it is bad love." Yes, their loves have turned bad. In fact, I do not think they love each other so much because if they do, they will do whatever mean to be together. As I remember the guy told me when I asked him what kept him from marrying her, "Because our love is not deep enough to make me want to marry her."
The last thing you can do for your love (if the relationship does not work out) is to let go. Let go, is really a precious gift of love. When you know you two are not able to commit to each other, it is time to really let go. That is the reason why I say, DO NOT CONTACT HIM/HER. What is the intention of continuously contacting your ex partner anyway? To let him or her know that I still love you and I cannot let go? And then what? Investing another 5-10 years to play the distance game and stopping each other to move on with their healthy lives?
Instead, I will do this: Dear, I love you. Too bad things do not work out and the last thing I can do for you, is to let you go and set you free. It is definitely not easy. However, I am willing to do this because this is the last gift of love that I can give you. I sincerely hope that you will find the love you want in your life. I feel sorry and sad that the person is not me but that's OK, as long as you get what you want in your life and stay happy and healthy.
Perhaps we do not need to drill into the topic whether or not we should be friends with our ex partners. Out of 6 billion people in this planet, I believe you will find the friendship that you want from others. It is not necessary has to be your ex. Perhaps leave your ex alone will be the best thing to do, to avoid further confusing him/her or backfire your current relationship someday.
--- to be continued
P/S: This post is about after a break-up, when things seriously cannot work out. I am not telling you to simply let go your love. Please do not expect that an ideal relationship should be no conflict or argument. If you think he/she is the one, do not simply let go but treasure the fate that brought you two together. As Shakespeare once said, (well I am not directly quoting his "Shakespearish" words but simply translated from the previous Chinese version that I posted) "If that's something you should treasure, please never let go. But if that's something you should let go, please do not turn back and cherish." Therefore please do not affected by this post when you have argument with your lovely partner.
(This article was written on Monday but wasn't finished until Tuesday evening.)
I am feeling so good now as I have a productive day today. I have started my practicum in this private Catholic school since September 2009. Before I realized, 6 months have passed. There were times that I couldn't help but kept thinking, "What am I doing here? What have I done to these kids? Whatever I have done, are those helpful?" I doubt my own ability in helping these kids although I am really passionate in what I am doing. There were times that my feeling of anxiety arised when I thought of I did not help them improve or even worsen the situation.
For some reason, my supervisor very sensitive to have anyone of us label the kids with the word "angry". He said we are not containers that store feelings of anger. Those kids behave aggressively or get frustrated easily because they borned like this. I have the totally different view from him. He believes in token system and rewards system. To me, if only things are so easy then I do not need to spend so much money, time and energy to study what I am studying now. If those inappropriate aggressive behaviors, lying, attention issues, can be solved by giving the kids extra time for TV, ice-cream, video games, cookies or sleep over at friends house; we will have a peaceful world decades ago and the job of therapist will not exist.
I have a 5-year-old boy whom has been seeing me for about 5months now. He was referred by his teacher for his aggressive behavior. For some reason, he is my sweet heart. In my eyes, he is such an adorable sun shine boy. I have listened to my supervisor and put him into the so called "reward system" over the past 4months. His aggressive behavior has been decreased a little but still hitting people and playing rough on and off. I then decided to follow my own believe and searching for other effective ways in treating him. As I mentioned before, I admire Dr Violet Oaklander's work very much. This 82-year-old sweet lady really inspired me a lot in my therapy journey with kids. Her unique ways of working with kids are amazing and really are something I believe.
Two weeks ago when I played Play-Doh with this boy, he decided to make snakes to eat my rabbits. I then talked to the snake instead of talking to him as what Violet always did with her children in therapy. I made another rabbit and tried to make friend with his snake. He hid his snake behind a little container, stayed far away from my bunny and then said, "I am a snake. I am poisonous. Don't come close to me. Everybody get close to me will get hurt by me." He then became silent. After a few seconds, he changed topic and wanted to move to next game.
Children do not convey their thinking and feeling verbally and straight forward. They respond better through the third party instead of speaking on behalf of themselves. This is so true when I work with this boy. He does not have many friends in his class because he plays rough and even hits people sometimes and gets into trouble. You can see why he made a poisenous snake and this statement.
Today when I went to his classroom to pick him up, I saw him with his Lego Navy ship. I then said, "Why don't you bring that ship with you and let's play with it together later?" In this session, we played Lego. I started asked him something about his family while we were making some trucks, cars and buildings to set up the scene to play "good guys vs bad guys" game. For the very first time, he told me his sad feelings when his father yelled at him. I lowered down my voice and asked him carefully, "If you dad was here, what would you say to him?" He replied softly, "Dad, would you please don't yell at me? Cause that make me feel sad..."
This is powerful in therapy. It is especially powerful for a child to be able to say this. Although I do not get paid to work here, but the hours that I collected and the precious experience that I can't find elsewhere is priceless. After six months putting the theories into practice, I have to say I love my job as a therapist.
A girl that I have seen for 3 months came in today told me she did not have a good day. After the session she said to me, "Ms Zoe, thank you so much. I wasn't having a good day but you made my day." I smiled and felt so warm inside my heart.
A teacher set an appoinment with me earlier and I went to talk to her after seeing couple of children. She referred another two students to me and said, "Thank you Zoe. You have done so much. It is so good to have you here compare to last year. Last year wasn't a good year. I appreciate what you have done." I stunned for 2 seconds and then replied by looking into her eyes sincerely, "Thank you so much. Your words really mean a lot to me."
How precious! What the lovely responses and rewards!
To all my fellow colleagues out there, believe in what you are doing because you really can make a difference in other's life.
