Skäms du…eller tycker du att man kan skämmas å andras vägnar? Typ då de själva inte har vett på det? Jag har faktiskt funderat på det. Kanske när man var yngre, omogen, osäker och beroende av ständig bekräftelse, tyckte man eventuellt att ens bästis bar sig underligt åt, sade konstiga saker eller klädde sig för flummigt… Fast tyckte man ändå att det var pinsamt? Näää, jag har nog aldrig tyckt eller tänkt så, då jag själv ofta gjorde saker för att hävda mig. Tyckte jag att någon i min närhet gjorde något “udda” skrattade jag bara och insåg att det fanns då andra som storögt såg på och fascinerades utav  dem och  själva önskade ha sig modet att VÅGA!

Som äldre blir man bara tryggare i sig själv och inser sin styrka även i misstag man begår. Man måste vara självkritisk, ödmjuk och samtidigt storsint för att utvecklas. Jag tänker direkt på mig själv och Staffan där vi inser de misstag vi gjort, men som format oss till dem vi är idag. Jag skulle A L D R I G komma på idéen att skämmas över mina val här i livet! Jag står för vad jag gjort, sagt och O M jag nu gjort något jag ångrar – har jag BETT OM URSÄKT! Allt för att kunna leva med mig själv och känna mig stolt över den jag är. För att återgå till kärnfrågan: Skall man då  skämmas för någon annan? Jag anser INTE det…och främst då för att då kan man ju INTE på riktigt gilla/älska den personen om man nu skäms över honom/henne.( gäller även dem som skäms över sig själva och det de “ställt” till med)

This is finally a Thanksgiving Day where we can be truely grateful for this sexual recovery process.

Two years ago, our world was falling apart.  Jeff’s sexual sin was discovered by some good friends, and his failings were exposed to Marsha, our families, our church, and our friends.  We were not grateful.  We were in shock and in despair. 

One year ago, Marsha had fallen into a depression.  We were experiencing the hardest year of our marriage and the consequences of Jeff’s sexual sinning.  We had moved to a new area and lost most of our old friends.  We were tired of the hard work.  Tired of the slow regaining of trust in our marriage.  Tired of having to learn more lessons.

THIS YEAR 
We continue our counseling.  We continue our support groups.  And a slow healing is taking place.  A slow rebuilding of our relationship.  We are no longer in shock and anger.  We have less times of grieving.  We are starting to feel restoration and new growth. 

We have been feeling gratitude this year.  It is an important change.  We are grateful…

• God caused Jeff to get found out.
• The courage of Jeff’s mentors to intervene in his life. 
• God helping deliver Jeff from bondage to pornography and lust. 
• God helping Marsha through her hardest times
• Our friends’ presence during the hardest times.
• Finding  great sexual recovery groups and counselors.
• Provision of jobs, home, and well-being of our kids
• Restoration of financial losses
• Those that told Jeff that recovery was more about the inside than the outside. 
• For the opportunity to share our heart with you through the Porn to Purity blog. 

NOT GRATEFUL RIGHT NOW?  IT’S OK.
It has taken us two years to get back to feeling gratitude on Thanksgiving.  We were very angry with a lot of people.  We were very angry with each other and with God.  We did not have gratitude for a long time.  We had pain and suffering. 

Your Thanksgiving may suck because of all the hurt you have.  You may not be with your spouse because of a separation.  You may be getting worse right now, instead of better. 

Have faith that gratitude will come.  The bigger picture still remains.  God is still patient, loving, merciful, and present.  He will help you walk through it.  He will help you find the support and resources you need. 

Take care today.  May God bring you one step closer to the healing you need. 

Jeff & Marsha Fisher
Porn to Purity.com

I’ve been itching to write again for the past couple of days but not really known what to talk about. I guess that while work life is extremely good right now, I’ve been failing in more personal areas. I have realised, yet again, that it’s always the ones we love who seem to bear the full brunt of our crappiness. That brings me back to understanding that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

This week I finished reading Jane Wharam’s book, “Emotional Intelligence: Journey to the Centre of Your Self“. It’s certainly not the first book I’ve read on the subject, but it brought me back to the personal application of the psychological knowledge that our society has come to accept. For most of us, it seems to me, the psychologists are wasting their time: we just can’t be bothered to learn from them and practice what they recommend. Jane’s book sets out to engage us on a personal and real-life level, daring us to learn and practice what we learn. That, of course, is fine until you find yourself confronted by your partner saying something which you completely misunderstand and can feel the inferno of rage burning up your throat. Can you really remain in control of yourself and tackle the conversation with a balance of rationality and calmer emotion? I believe that you can - if you commit yourself to learning how.

I used to suppress my emotion. Spock-like, my wife tells me, and probably quite scary. I could quite happily “flick the switch” and go from angry or upset to calm. It was something I was quite proud of for many years too. It wasn’t that great a feat, actually, because pushing your feelings aside and learning to focus your rational mind on the moment is easier than it sounds, but I felt in control. The real problem, however, is that the feeling – in my case the anger, for the most part – doesn’t get dealt with. What used to happen is that the anger would get stored and, like the ghost containment system in the movie “Ghostbusters”, it needed a laser energy field to hold it in. Sooner or later, usually when I least expected it and least desired it, some inner part of me would flick another switch, bringing the defenses down and letting the rage flow free. In those moments I would lose control and feel as though some demon had possessed my very being. It wouldn’t last long, but it would hurt other people profoundly… and leave me with a sense of shame. Spock was a myth, after all.

I am learning to allow my feelings to flow. I tend to agree with Jung that until you have felt the full force of an emotion, you cannot master it. Yet, the emotion must be channelled and understood. When it is not appropriate, you need to reflect on what is triggering the reaction and start to work through digging out the cause. You also need to have the courage and honesty to admit that, sometimes, anger and other so-called “negative” emotions are actually the appropriate response. The trick is to refrain from turning into a crazed 3-year-old child when you feel the anger. There are other ways to express the emotion. As for me, I am still learning… in fact, I hope that I never stop learning, because to believe otherwise would be an illusion. The bottom line, however, is to explore your motivation for change. I want to stop hurting the people I love. What about you?

Well it’s been 2 days now and I haven’t had one cigarette. I know going cold turkey is next to impossible, but what choice do I have? My health is getting bad…

So the other day I was trying to find a good way to motivate myself to quit smoking. I ran through the usual reasons: better health, longer life, etc. But none were powerful enough.

Then I started thinking about all those fat corporate bastards who run the cigarette companies I was giving my money to. Like if you were walking down the street, and a long limousine rolls up. Out comes this fat bastard in an impeccable suit and he says to you in a drawl, “Ah say – young man, times are tough my son, would you mind helping a brother out? Maybe like ten bucks a day for the rest of your life. See my jacuzzi needs fixing, and my 4th mistress needs a new boob job, and blah, blah, blah.”

Like I said, it’s been two days. I’ve noticed that anger is good motivation for me when it comes to dealing with bad habits.

I know your secret.
A butterfly whispered it in my ear.
A beautiful soul you have torn. Sweet and delicate innocence you have taken.
You shall be hunted above all men.
Run… run fast, run hard for this will sweeten the chase.
You shall be bound to your transgressions and they shall be taken by the pain of your flesh.
Your torn and bleeding body will be placed on a bed of thorns
and shall be tossed in a shallow grave before you breathe your last.
In this tomb, an image of your victim will remain
Your eyes shall be pierced with the fangs of vipers so you will see this image.
You will implore to look away and your supplication will not be answered.
Screams of torment and agony will go unheard and you will receive no relief.
A tree shall be planted next to this grave and it will feed on your rotting flesh
It shall be cursed for this and die. It will crash to the ground and crush your bones.
Your evil soul will be ripped from you and the hounds of hell shall feast on all that is left.
You are no more. Your wretched existence is forgotten but one.
Only God can comfort the precious butterfly that whispered in my ear.
May God cast his love and heal broken wings.
May God forgive my hatred and transgressions.

I’ve not updated my blog much lately. I went through a break-up of sorts and didn’t really want to put the details out in the blog-o-sphere out of respect for both the situation and the woman with whom I was in the short-lived relationship. She is a very kind and beautiful woman, but the situation wasn’t a good fit for me. And ultimately, I realized that my marriage was where I want to direct all of my relationship energy. I didn’t enjoy the ups and downs of dating again, and I realized that I had what I wanted right in front of me. Yes, he has boy parts, but I love him and I don’t need random sex with random people. I just don’t.

I’ve also been working very hard at my therapy. As my last post intoned (rather “screamed”), I’m chin deep in childhood issues. Ironically, I was set to begin my first round of intensive exposure therapy next week and the topic du jour was going to be my step mom. Being the ever-suffering woman that she was she must have intuited my emotional progress and decided that it was time to step up my therapy game. So she died.

If I sound a little narcissistic right now, it might be because I’ve been rapidly studying Borderline Personality Disorders to better understand my step mom.

This revelation, that she was probably BP, came from my therapist and I am in shock of how accurate the diagnosis is. IN SHOCK. I read this scientific article, which was like a detailed description of my childhood, replete with constant verbal abuse; emotional blackmail and manipulation; happy one second, screaming the next, craziness… I can recall this woman, towering six feet tall to my cowering 5 feet, berating me, telling me that I was crazy, useless, unlovable, a bitch. I remember, in vivid detail, the silent treatment for weeks on end with no explanation. Her kicking down my bedroom door because I missed a spot when cleaning the bathroom. Her smacking me in the face for something that I wrote in my diary about her. Her tearing up the only wedding picture that I had of my parents and then denying that it ever happened. Telling me that I was delusional for thinking that she had done that. That I’m literally crazy for making up such a story. That I must have something to hide with such crazy stories. That I had a guilty conscious because I did something wrong.

She built walls between me and everyone else. I was not able to speak to my father, even though we lived in the same house. I was punished for enjoying time with my brother. I was given the silent treatment when I returned home from visitations with my mother. I was cut off from my father’s side of the family. Humiliated in front of them at family functions, but denied access to them outside of such functions. Our phone was on lockdown and I could use it for 10-minute increments and no calls after 8 pm. I was not allowed to have friends over or to visit at friend’s homes. I was not able to participate in after school activities. I was to be home immediately after school and in my bedroom as soon as got home. I was in prison. Until I was kicked out on my 18th birthday.

Where was my father during all of this? Another revelation. I think that my father had Asperger’s syndrome. He shut down completely. He couldn’t fight her. He couldn’t stand up to her. He simply retreated within himself. She broke him and he gave up. Then, in 2001, he killed himself.

Next week I am going to relive some of the highlights of this time under her “care”. How apropos, since I’ll be getting on a plane just a few days later, headed towards the home where so many people were destroyed. I’ll pack it up, tag it for sale, and open the doors for strangers to come in and take the remnants away. I will be the one who removes the last vestiges of the lives that buckled under the weight of mental illness. Where once I had no power, I will ultimately decide the fate of what was left behind. Small consolation. I wish that we could go back to the beginning and start all over again.

I’ve noticed that over the past couple of months, I have used to this blog not only as a place to vent my frustrations and hurt but also as a tool to help me accept things that are happening and ultimately move on from it.  It’s been my salvation when at 3am in the morning my head is whirring and I need to talk to someone.  Ridiculous I know, after all the laptop can’t talk back to me right?
No, but it does reflect. 

It forces to me to look at my own thoughts, in black and white, and truly understand and admit to myself how I feel.

 There’s been a lot of anger on this blog, and I’m not completely devoid of any anger now although I do think that I’m not as angry as I was seven weeks ago.  At the time I needed somewhere to just go crazy, because I was trying so hard to be the better person and not scream at him for what he did.  My god, I wanted to. 
A lot of my friends and family are puzzled as to why I didn’t literally attack him, scratch his eyes out so to speak, but I knew if I did I wouldn’t stop… I would have seized every emotion and impulse I had at the time, and I would have torn him to pieces.  I was genuinely scared that I had the potential to physically harm somebody, even worse that I wanted to. On top of all of this, I knew if I attacked him then it would, in some way, justify what he did.  I didn’t want to give him that.
So I did what I knew I did best, I wrote.  There are pages and pages of short stories, journals, poems, lyrics, proverbs and the occasional big letter scribble of ‘I FUCKING HATE YOU, YOU LYING CHEATING TWAT!’ stacked away in some box that I can’t bring myself to open again.  It helped.  It’s still helping.  It’s my way of coping with everything, almost like a self counselling strategy that my mind seems to have created.
I also started blogging again, and more often, becoming a new routine in my week to replace the time I would have spent with him.  Also, if I’m completely honest, I was very aware that he checks my blog (still now) and I think it was my way of expressing just how much anger and hurt I had felt towards him without me screaming and attacking him. 

So, you’re probably wondering what’s brought me here this time?
I’ve just confessed this is my ‘go-to’ point when I’m feeling particularly blurgh (sorry, couldn’t think of a better word), so what has happened now? 
I was perusing my photos on facebook, looking for a photo of my brother and myself, when I happened to accidentally scroll onto a picture of myself and my ex in happier times.  I paused, I looked, I wasn’t bothered… until I noticed that he had detagged himself from it.  I couldn’t resist looking at other photos of us on the site, and found that he had done the same for every photo of a similar nature. 
I have to be honest, as I always am on here, it bloody hurt.  To add to the hostility between us, the history between us and the mountain of issues that were never addressed, it now seems that he does not want to be associated with me in any way, shape or form.
It’s almost like he is removing me.  That sounded melodramatic, I didn’t mean it in the sense of removing me from his life because he is quite welcome to do that (I have) but more as if he is denying my very existence and our relationship all together.  After everything.

He has detagged and detached himself from me.

I don’t know if he is doing this to move on, or to please his new girlfriend, or to be hurtful (in which case, mission success) but he kind of needs to know there will come a time when we meet again.  It’s a small town.  You can’t run away from your feelings forever, I learnt that the hard way.
I can almost see him reading this now, scoffing at certain things and saying ‘what?!’.  After everything, he still sees this as my way of personally attacking him, making him seem this evil and vindictive person.  However, this blog is not about him, granted he pops up a LOT in the content of the blog but as I said earlier, its my therapy.  It’s about me, don’t be so self-centred as to think it’s about you!
I don’t know what else is to come, but I know there’s more mile stones to reach.  The next one will probably be Christmas, my first without him and our silly traditions, but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it – I’m sure you’ll get a blog out of it!

Until the next issue guys x

I started taking Prozac again.  Yep, I did that.

I used to be on Prozac in High School, back when it was cool.  Now I’m on it in real life and it sucks, I’ll tell you why.  When you’re young your body can handle pretty much anything.   Hangovers?  Yah, I had a few more than most back in my early 20’s, not that I remember them all that well, I usually just woke up from a night of drinking, ate a cheeseburger and carried on with my day — this was after consuming at least 5 shots of Bacardi 151.  Today, give me 2 glasses of wine before bed and I’m up in the middle of the night guzzling orange juice out of the carton to hydrate myself and wiping sweat off my brow (mainly just because I drank the oj too fast).  Anyway, back when I was a young punk I took Prozac like it was candy, and it was, pure, sweet, serotonin boosting, endorphin releasing, candy.  It didn’t bother me, I was fine, I was tired some of the time, but with my days filled with keeping myself out of detention, who wouldn’t be?  Fast forward in time 10 years and I feel like I’m about to die and not just because I want to, any more.

It isn’t just that three hours after I took my first dose I was feeling a full 95% better than the day before when I was at the bottom of a dark, brick well surrounded by spiders, moss and bad smells (mentally);  And that 3 days later, I felt like I was back in that same well, only this time there was a shoddy looking rope ladder that I could use to get out depending on how desperate I was feeling (although, by the looks of it, in my brain, it didn’t seem like a very safe option).  It’s the way I feel physically.  I mean, I took a pregnancy test because I thought I was having morning sickness!  Morning sickness that turned into all day sickness combined with dizziness, weakness and, my personal favorite, insomnia.  Seriously, insomnia?  This stuff is supposed to help that!

I went out with Lindsay last night.  Lindsay who is currently going to school to become a Physician’s Assistant and knows all about everything there is to know about medicine, Lindsay.  She asked me what’s new and I responded, “I’m back on the ‘Zac.”  She made an audible gasp and said, “You must be feeling like shit!”  Thank you, Lindsay!  Yes, I am feeling like shit, and until you said that, without any prompts or complaints from this end, I thought it was all in my head.  Then she said, casually, as if it were no big deal, “Well, you should start feeling better in about 8 weeks.”

EIGHT WEEKS?!  What am I, some upper-middle-class white person who tends to her garden for a living!?  No!  I have a job!  How the hell am I supposed to feel this way for EIGHT WEEKS and still be able to afford to pay my rent?!  Also, how is making someone who has crippling depression take a medicine that will not only continue to make them feel depressed, but sick, tired and unable to sleep, a good idea?  Can’t my doctor just write me a prescription for some pain killers so I can develop a chemical dependency on something that actually makes me feel good?  Oh, wait, I/she/we already did that.

I know Prozac works.  It worked so well the first time that I thought I could stop because I wasn’t actually depressed, just paying my $10 monthly co-pay to Eli-Lilly.  Wrong.  Sixteen months off and I’m worse than I ever was.  This stuff is so tricky, man.  I mean, the first time around it gives me no side effects, makes me feel great and later seduces me into thinking I am a strong enough person to live without its tasty nectar coursing through my veins.  The second time around, after finally convincing myself that being on drugs for the rest of my life is something I am just going to have to accept,  it gives me the cold shoulder, not to mention weakness, nausea or insomnia, and makes me wait.

“Look, Prozac, I’m sorry I doubted you, but you’re the one who made me feel like I wasn’t depressed anymore.  What did you want me to do, continue our love under false pretenses?  I had to find out, for myself, how truly miserable I was without you!  Take me back!  Take me back and I’ll do whatever you want!”

I have been having that conversation with my pill bottle on a nightly basis for the past 4 nights.*

Only 7 weeks and three days to go!

*Prozac also forces me to sound as if I’m in an abusive relationship when I’m talking to myself

great.  right now, I’m the bad guy.  For wanting her to get better, for wanting things to change, and for not wanting her to hide all the time.

This was after I tried to talk about tomorrow with her and work out some kind of compromise or see what she really felt about everything (she’d been avoiding having an actual conversation about it.).

instead, the anger came out.  and i got accused of trying to make her someone shes not…

so whats the next step?  i left the room.  she just took off the bracelet thats supposed to be her reminder of me and the important things in her life, then went to the bathroom.

And this afternoon, I was talking to my dad (we’re supposed to go there tomorrow).  He seemed suprised and irritated with my warning that depending on what happens i will text him if were late or can’t come…  which is looking more and more likely by the minute.

sigh.

Not a good day, really. First thing this morning I had an appointment with my doctor, requested because I thought maybe I want to try anti-depressants again, to combat the naturally increased levels of anxiety associated with my job. The doctor ended up seeing me half an hour late, as he always does, causing a great deal of stress as I would have to be at work within the hour. He only gave me a few minutes, just like he always does, in which I had to persuade him that my problem really isn’t just a case of mild newcomer nerves. I got a prescription for three months’ worth of citalopram, which I was on last year. I had thought it might be useful to try something else, something that won’t cause all the unpleasant side effects that put me off citalopram before, but since the doctor was clearly too busy for a proper discussion, I had to make do with what I was given. I really can’t wait to move next month so that I can sign up with a new doctor.

When I was finally out of the doctor’s surgery I rushed home to take the first tablet in the course, before I had to go to work. Maybe it’s an alcoholic thing to do, rushing home in a frenzy to take a pill in the hope that I might feel better, rather than leaving it for tomorrow. With some extra serotonin in my system, I think I felt OK on the tube to Notting Hill this morning. I certainly didn’t feel horrible like I have every morning for the past two weeks. That can probably be put down to the expectation effect, rather than any real chemical action. SSRI’s such as citalopram take weeks to have any real effect, which is how they are not habit-forming.

At work I had three hours of customer service to look forward to – after yesterday’s ‘experience’ they seem to think I’m ready to be let loose on the public properly. I logged on to find about 300 customer e-mail enquiries that urgently needed responding to. The same guy who sat with me yesterday at the helpdesk sat with me again today, offering help when it was needed. I got the impression after an hour that I should be starting to feel more confident in answering the enquiries on my own. My supervisor began to sound tired and bored with my endless requests for help. After two hours, I noticed him rolling his eyes nearly every time I spoke. I began to panic, horrified by the thought that I was being a burden, and I made a few mistakes, choosing to go ahead and respond to enquiries alone rather than risk further eye-rolling by asking for more help.

After three hours I had to take a break just to calm down. I went out to Starbucks, sat down and stuffed my face with sugar. My hands were shaking; I was sure that I’d finally proved myself to be the failure that I always thought I was in their eyes. I’d reduced someone who was supposed to be helping me to eye-rolling boredom. In his eyes, I could be a bit slow, at best. Stupid, at worst. The thought of being seen as stupid is absolutely horrifying to me. I don’t know why.

After using up my paid break I returned to the office where I was allowed to get on with the other part of my job, the bit that I’ve got used to over the past two weeks, where I have to update the website with retailer offers. I’m comfortable with this bit of the job: it’s got nothing to do with customer service, it’s just typing words and numbers into a live website. Of course, two weeks ago I was in a similar place with this part of the job to the place where I am now with the new part. I thought I’d never understand any of it two weeks ago. Now it’s almost a piece of cake. If I can get my head around that, surely I can understand anything. Well, that’s what I’m hoping.

At 5pm Melanie announced to the office that our thanksgiving dinner was ready and waiting for us downstairs. I didn’t know why the whole company was choosing to go to a thanksgiving party, until I got downstairs and saw all the alcohol. About fifty fresh bottles of various descriptions sat on a table in the corner of the room, and the thirty or so employees of the company were fighting their way over to the table to lay claim to their share of the night’s alcoholic refreshment. Melanie and some of the other directors had cooked turkey; with all the booze distracting everyone the food was almost a second thought at this point. I put some meat and potatoes on a paper plate and went to sit on the only free seat in the corner of the room. It’s a really bad space for a party: only one large sofa and a few swivel chairs had to accommodate thirty people with their dinner and drinks. From the moment I sat down I knew I wasn’t enjoying myself. Everyone separated off into their little cliques where they were bound to stay for the rest of the night. Melanie, who I might have felt comfortable chatting to, was busy serving up the food in the kitchen and didn’t look as if she would be mingling any time soon. I forced the food down my throat in three minutes and decided I’d had enough of the party. I had to leave. No one was really interested in socialising: it was all about getting pissed as quickly as possible. I had hoped that tonight would finally be my opportunity to meet the other people in the company, get to know some faces and names outside of the small, uncomfortable little team that I always work in. Alas, I didn’t stand a chance of making a single friend.

I wasn’t the first person to sneak out early tonight. One of the guys who trained with me three weeks ago was out of the door like a shot after forcing his food down in a similar way to me. At least I didn’t have to be the first to leave. Just five minutes of the event was more than enough for me. It’s not the fear of drinking that puts me off these kinds of things: it’s the fear of being around drunk people. I can’t handle it.

As soon as I left I was full of doubts once again about the future of my job. Someone was bound to notice my sudden departure. They could be thinking: what an ungrateful arse, staying only long enough to eat our food without bothering to talk to anyone! With the added pressure of the extra work that I am now being expected to do every day, I’m really fearful about the whole thing tonight. I went straight to the gay step 11 meeting from Notting Hill – I desperately needed to be in a safe place with safe people. There I managed to share about what had just happened, though it was an incredibly busy meeting and I don’t usually manage to jump in when there are so many others needing to speak. I’m glad I was able to go to the meeting tonight, and I’m really glad I was able to talk about all the things going through my mind. As a consequence I felt much better, for a while. People came up to share with me their experiences of dreaded office parties, how we all find it impossible to deal with so-called ‘normal’ people in the real world where getting drunk is the highest priority for most. The trouble with socialising in the ‘real’ world is that it’s all so meaningless. None of the conversation that I heard tonight was of any real interest to me; a few years ago it wouldn’t have mattered as I would have been too wasted to care. Today I can’t ignore the fact that most of what these people want to talk about is utter shit! I don’t want to be judgmental, it’s just the way British society works. As long as you can get really drunk, nothing else matters.

This uncertainty with C is doing my head in. I spent this afternoon looking online and through Yellow Pages for private clinical psychologists in my area and found the sum total of two such half-decent practitioners, one of whom I’ve already seen (!). I then tried to work out if I could even afford weekly private therapy whilst unemployed – it can be done, in the most literal of senses, but it’ll take about half my monthly earnings to finance it.

Maybe I am overreacting and maybe C has no intention of ending this herapy in January, unless there is some miracle (and if there is some miracle then it is obviously fine to finish in January – but of course there will not be). But the mixed messages from him are sublimely frustrating – “don’t worry, we will never just suddenly end things” and “we will get there” versus “you know this is a finite process on the NHS,” yadda yadda yadda.

Partly the annoyance is with him and partly it is with this stupid bloody system. Sometimes I think we’d be better off with private healthcare after all.

On the one hand, C is the person that makes the immediate decisions on how long he sees his clients (as far as I can tell, anyway), so he could just say to me, “let’s keep on meeting for the next six months,” or whatever. He refuses to lay down any long term plans, ostensibly as he feels it is important to work to short-term-ish goals. I disagree, but at least he has a rationale, and in any event I am no psychologist. However, if therapy is coming to an end in about five weeks then what is the rationale for that when I am clearly still a nutjob?

On the other hand, C is constrained by all the financial bullshit of the NHS, not to mention the ludicrousness of the service’s inherent bureaucracy. No doubt he has targets and timeframes, must palm off the stupid mental within a few months cos the trust can’t (won’t) pay for the stupid mental any further than that and if he hasn’t cured the stupid mental in that time then he is an evident failure, don’t you know. Targets, man, targets!

The problem with this is that it will end up costing the health service much more in the long-run, and perhaps in more ways than one.

Let me break it down.

1. I am 26. I have been utilising mental health services on the NHS since I was 13. Had I seen a proper therapist for a proper length of time then, how much money could they potentially have saved themselves? Instead, as this post attests, six different public sector salaries were funded, some of the resources of which were devoted to me. Epic fail. (Of course my own money was spent on three other therapists because of the NHS inadequacies. Epic fail again). The point is, one way or another, I will end up back at the GP’s or psychiatrist’s office begging for help yet again, and we’ll be back to square one. Why not just agree a sensible timeframe with someone I know and trust – and clear things up to whatever extent that is achievable – now?!
2. I am so mentally and – yes – emotionally fragile as things stand that if therapy ends in the near future I am convinced I will end up in the bin. One hour of C’s time per week versus 24 hour care by several RMNs, psychiatrists and auxiliaries. Which one sounds cheaper to you?
3. A third possibility, and this may be seen as a threat which it is not intended to be, is that I finally can’t cope and do myself in. When my mother and A instigate litigation against the NHS, as they inevitably would were this possibility realised, even if the NHS won hands down, they would be forking out a fortune to fund their fuckhead solicitors. I used to work for litigation solicitors specialising in the public sector. I know what they charge; even for minor cases that are easily contested and won, it is a bloody fortune. That’s not even including barristers’ fees if it came to court, or out-of-court settlements.

Other points to consider are the following:

1. Dr C is constantly reminding me that psychotherapy is the “mainstay” of my treatment (rather than medicine), yet it seems to be her intention to see me long-term, albeit hopefully only for monitoring purposes once a suitable cocktail of drugs is found. How can therapy be the mainstay of my treatment if I am only seeing her, who only deals with the medicinal and organic sides of things?
2. I know I’ve ranted about this before, but it so utterly and completely fills me with disgust and contempt that I have worked in both full- and part-time capacities since I was 14, and given 11% of my salary to the health service since I was 16. I had two major breakdowns, including this one, during that time – but it still amounts to, I think, eight years of work. When you think about it, is it really that different from US health insurance? Maybe the percentage figure is lower, but then my employers had to pay a percentage of my salary for my insurance also. So why would I get medium- long-term therapy in America, but I can’t here?
3. I am familiar with people in other NHS trusts that have been guaranteed therapy of at least a year and a half on the health service. Now, one person I can think of has a lot more issues than I do, and so that’s fair enough – however, that individual is one of five people I can think of off the top of my head. I would hasten an educated guess that I have much more psychological baggage than each of those other four, but if not, certainly two or three of them anyway. Why, then, is it OK to fuck me about? (Incidentally, I noticed none of them had any trouble seeing psychiatrists either, so maybe my trust is just shit. Now it sounds like I’m playing a teenage game of “but they’re allowed it, so why am I not” – but I hope I’m not. I’m just genuinely mystified as to why my case is different).
4. As stated yesterday, I have been mental for many years. I received my first diagnosis (clinical depression) 13 years ago or so, but as I have discussed here at other junctures, I was mental well before that. Normal children don’t try to amputate their limbs. Normal children don’t hallucinate. Normal children aren’t obsessively paranoid. Normal children don’t deliberately coop themselves up in the house, listen to Bach, read Grey’s Anatomy and seek out the company of the elderly for intellectual discourse. They go outside and play with their friends. So when I said ‘13 years’ yesterday, I probably really meant 23, to be honest. Point being, how can two decades of madness be alleviated in less than a year? It’s fucking preposterous.
5. If I had a physical ailment, the NHS would treat me until it was cured, or, were it chronic, then indefinitely. I am not asking for indefinite treatment for my psychological difficulties, make no mistake. But the striking inequalities between the health service for physical health and the health service for mental health disgust me.

In any case, I cannot see why C has to keep reminding me that the psychotherapeutic process is finite. Of course it is fucking finite, I am not stupid – and I certainly don’t want to be in need of it indefinitely as I want to be able to manage my conditions by myself. However, for the NHS’ sake as well as my own, surely that finity (if that’s a word) ought to be directly correlated with the progress of the patient? Surely it is the height of irresponsibility to discharge someone that is clearly still fucked up and only going to, at best, waste more resources?

Fuck it all to hell. I feel like emigrating.

Bottling up work woes increases heart risk: study

LONDON (AFP) – November 24, 2009 – Men who bottle up frustrations about unfair treatment at work are twice as likely to have a heart attack, a study published on Tuesday suggests.

Those who express their feelings openly, for example by getting angry, have no increased risk of heart problems, said the study which warned of the dangers of “covert coping.”

“Covert coping is strongly related to increased risk of hard-endpoint cardiovascular disease,” said the study, published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

The research, led by experts at the Stress Research Unit at Stockholm University, grouped men according to how they react to conflict, with reactions ranging from: saying nothing, walking away, or expressing their anger at home later.

Men who sometimes or always walked away from conflict had three times the risk of a heart attack or dying from heart disease, with overall figures showing those who avoided conflict had twice as high a risk.

By contrast, those who reacted to unfair treatment in an open way, such as talking directly to the person with whom they were in conflict or getting angry, had no increased risk of heart attack, it said.

“We all find different things stressful and symptoms of stress can vary,” said Judy O’Sullivan, senior cardiac nurse for the British Heart Foundation, responding to the study.

“But the important thing is that we need to find ways of coping with it in our lives in a positive way, whether at work or home,” she added.

The average age of the more than 2,700 participants was 41 at the start of the study. None had had a heart attack when screening started in 1992. But by 2003, 47 had suffered a heart attack or died from heart disease.

http://health.yahoo.com/news/afp/healthheartbritainswedenlabourpsychology_20091124155855.html

These days we job applicants are assailed not just by illiterate person specifications, but also by the particularly piquant pleasure of the on-line psychometric test. These are supposed to alert employers to, well, to what some psychologist believes one can infer from the enforced answering of bizarre questions. Since I’ve perforce become familiar with being on the receiving end of these charades, I now cringe with shame that I allowed my Head of HR to persuade me that they should be introduced for some high-level posts at my last company.

Generally these tests ask you to say which of 4 statements is most like you, and which least. About 150 times usually, with different combinations, sneaky repetitions, and seemingly designed to force you into either inconsistency or lying about yourself.

An example: I’m modest about my achievements; I do most of the talking; I don’t like keeping to the rules; I keep a tidy desk.

Next question: I’m prepared to stand up for what I believe; I get anxious before big meetings; I keep my own counsel; I don’t like to show my emotions.

And always, you must tick the most and the least like you. Usually, having ticked that which is most like you, you end up having to tick something as least like you that you don’t believe, but which is the least daft choice. Or vice versa. Try them out and see. But although you can often look at an individual question and give a sensible answer, it’s the sheer number of questions, and the way they force you into corners, that most frustrates and demoralises.

At the final question I’m asked what best describes my current emotional state: You want to slit your throat from ear to ear; You feel like throwing your computer in the bin; You would glady throttle the writer of this exercise. I tick all three. The computer says I can’t tick them all. Oh yes, I fucking well can.

“Tell me, Mr No-Job, how long have you had this difficulty with anger management?”

“Oh, about 45 minutes. In fact, ever since you started asking me these damn-fool bloody questions!”

But sadly, my future employment may yet depend on this psycho-babble nonsense.

Unappreciated . . . Unwanted . . . Unloved . . .

The child in me cries every time those emotions erupt. They come too often for me to ignore, and I finally meditated and traced my ”anger” to its source and saw a truth: I felt unappreciated, unwanted and unloved when the latest PTSD  explosion occurred. And maybe now, after looking within and seeing how  those feelings may have surfaced, I can cope with them better .

From what I learned, my mother nearly died during my child-birth. The baby Michael was shipped off to a “farm” in Mays Landing, New Jersey, where the grandmother raised the infant.

The boy’s father had been quoted as saying he would have preferred to see the son dead, and not see the pain such a birth caused his wife.

Could any of this have been absorbed by an infant, and more importantly, could those long suppressed feelings affect the man in middle age? Could they have contributed to events experienced in Vietnam and now mingle with fears, anxieties and a sense of loss I feel? 

That’s my struggle with PTSD. I learn more  about myself every day. Like today, I stopped at an “outlet” bread store for rolls. Picked up a dozen in a bag  and walked to the counter. An older man was standing there, waiting for an order he made the day before. The young man, behind the counter, appeared rushed. It was the day before Thanksgiving, and the store was crowded, even before noon.

I placed my bag on the empty counter, hoping that I could quickly pay and get out to complete some other chore. But the young man did not look at me He simply said to “wait a second” when I moved my bag closer to his line of vision. No luck in getting quick service here.

The clerk left the counter. Returned and said something beneath his breath, only to leave the sales area a second time for the bakery in back. Other customers had walked up behind me with multiple bags of breads, rolls, pies and what not.

When the clerk returned, he lay two big boxes on the counter. I had to removed my bag and place it behind the cash register. The older man paid for his goods and had trouble getting them out of the door some eight feet away.

“Here, let me help you,” I said, opening and holding the door for him to get by. I felt good to have provided him service. But when I returned to the register, the couple that were behind me were now being waited upon. Their order seemed to go on and on.

My patience, however, did  not!

“A good deed never goes unpunished,” I said, loud enough for the cashier to hear me. Either he did not, or worse, he ignored me. The woman in line, however, did hear and offered an apology. “I’m not mad at you,”  I said to her and the man accompanying her.

“I mad at this asshole,” I barked, my anger rising  as I still was unable to get the sombitch attention. He continued to look toward the register, ignoring my challenge to his lack of courtesy.

As the man and woman looked at me, I knew I had done wrong. “I’m sorry,” I said, and added . “I have PTSD,” as if that could explain my rude behavior. I threw the bag of rolls to the floor and walked out of the store, blowing all other chores I had intended to complete.

“God, why am I  hyper-alert, hyper sensitive?” I asked.” Please make me calm, mellow. Just don’t make death the only way for me to find that peace.”

AAARGH!!! I hate her. Hate – hate – hate… hate, hate – hate.

I don’t know whether it issued from the anticipation of another family holiday experienced all over the U.S., with its potential for innuendo and unresolved feelings boiling over, or whether it was strictly a formal aesthetic idea, but the other day I closed my eyes and immediately saw a cool blue and turquoise surface partially obscuring a roiling hot-lava ooze underneath.  The idea of cool concealing hot intrigues me because it reflects not only the physical world, but the mental and spiritual world.  Someday I will go to the Hawaiian Islands and witness for myself the pyroclastic flow steaming into the ocean!

Sometimes people are like cracked earth concealing hot lava underneath; they feel angry-hot inside for one reason or another, but don’t show it to others until it is no longer controllable and it erupts in a degrading and disrespectful display.  I think that we learn in subtle ways that anger is not justifiable and that we need to ignore and beat it back, rather than learn from it and use it to make our lives more focused.  My friend shared an old book with me about this subject.  The book is titled The Dance of Anger: A Woman’s Guide to Changing the Patterns of Intimate Relationships, written by Harriet Lerner. The author has written a number of other books in the intervening years, expanding on the same topic.  To a certain extent, both women and men have learned that to express anger is innappropriate .  Therefore, we have no idea what to do with the anger that we inevitably feel in the course of our existence!  Often the result is that we can be nice on the surface, but undercut each other and subvert each other’s plans through exemplary politeness, but lethal back-stabbing.  It would be much better not to look outside ourselves to place blame for our unhappiness and unfulfilled needs, but to look inside ourselves for information about our needs and reasonable solutions to having our needs met.

There can also be a positive connotation to hot on the inside and cool on the outside- an example would be the person who exhibits self-control and kindness to the world, but is high-spirited inside, full of life and warmth and imagination.  Most often, the metaphor for this interior life is that of a spring of water, life-giving water, but this does not do justice to the temperature of the temperament inside.  Fire is more apt for this. 

So, here is my little mosaic made in the image I found behind my eyelids the other day, smoldering underneath a chilly line-up of sharp crystals.  I hope your Thanksgiving holiday smolders only with life and warmth, not anger and unrequited love!

Smolder

Many, if not all, of you know about my love for coffee – all things Starbucks or Caribou in particular.  I love its smell.  I love grinding my own coffee beans and brewing fresh java to drink throughout the day.  I love trying new beans and new blends of coffee.

Well, then, imagine my surprise when I came across the following article on an uncommon coffee:

“Thanks to the coffee culture explosion, connoisseurs are now proactively seeking new twists on their beloved bean-based beverage.  Cappa-this, frappa-that, double mocca doodah – the permutations are endless….  [Nevertheless] Civet Coffee, also known as Kopi Luwak, is indeed the most astonishing… coffee we’ve ever tasted.

The primary reason for Civet Coffee’s distinctive taste is that it’s been partially fermented by passing through the digestive system of a Sumatran Civet Cat (paradoxurus hermaphroditis).  No, really!  Basically, this feral feline prowls Sumatran coffee plantations at night, choosing to eat only the finest, ripest cherries.  The stones (which eventually form coffee beans) are then collected by sifting through the Civet’s “number twos.”

Revered for its luscious chocolatey flavour Civet Coffee is totally safe …and delicious.  Plus there’s no discernable aftertaste. … Put the kettle on!”  (http://www.firebox.com/index.html?dir=firebox&action=product&pid=1077)

That’s the straight p scoop on a rare coffee!

I laughed when I came across this article.  What will people come up with next?  How about you?  Would you consider drinking such a strange brew?  Does the thought of where it came from bother you somewhat?  I bet there are a few daredevils among us who would take a sip or drink a cup!

Palouse Falls Gorge ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

Jewish religious leaders in Jesus’ day were very concerned about coming in contact with things that would defile them and make them unable to go into the Temple and perform their religious duties.  However, Jesus said, “It’s not what a man touches or eats that defiles him, but what comes out of his heart and mouth” (Matthew 15:11-20).

Jesus also said, “A person speaks from what is in their heart.  A good person speaks good things and an evil person evil things.  People will give an account on the day of judgment for every evil and careless word spoken” (Matt. 12:34-37).

If drinking from a brew passed through and out of the intestines of a Civet Cat bothers us, how much more should those things come out of our mouths – instead of in them!  Among the list of all the evil sins that prevent people from entering the Kingdom of righteousness are things that come out of our own mouths: false testimony, slander, gossip, lies, outbursts of anger, and arrogant boasting.

It is no wonder that the book of Proverbs constantly warns us about what we say.  Keep your spiritual garment of righteousness clean by taking the caution of Scripture to heart, “Guard your mouth!”  Be as concerned with what comes out of it as what you put into it.  What you say to other people about other people is more serious than a cup of Civet Coffee!

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

From Media Matters and Huffington Post:

No, really. She actually said that. And she wasn’t joking. And, of course, Hannity and the other guest didn’t bat an eye or, y’know, remind her about the almost 3000 people who died eight years ago or about the fatal anthrax letters.

This is a sad follow up to my last post. In today’s rightwing echo chamber, Perino gets to say that, despite the fact that the worst instance of terrorism in United States history occurred under Bush’s watch, in fact, no terrorist attacks actually occurred under Bush’s watch.

This is what passes for accurate and intelligent analysis for rightwingers and Republicans.

And the really weird part is that she wasn’t intentionally or consciously telling a lie. As far as she, her fellow rightwing Republican talking heads, and most of her Fox ‘News’ audience are concerned, she uttered the god’s honest truth.

If for a moment, they allowed a vague recollection of Sep 11 2001 to enter their consciousness, they would quickly mitigate it by reminding themselves that, of course, those attacks as well as the anthrax letters were in truth Clinton’s fault.

You can’t blame a new president for the mess the previous one left. Well, if the new president is not a Republican, then of course you can do that, but that’s another story.

Update: Via Media Matters, Perino obviously explains that, obviously, it’s your obvious fault for misunderstanding her obviously obvious meaning. Obviously.

Here’s a clip from the comment section:

A story is told of a Samuri warrior, who once asked his Zen master to illustrate the difference between heaven and hell.

The Zen master replied:

“You are too stupid to understand. I couldn’t possibly explain it to an imbecele such as you.”

The Samuri flew into a rage and drew his sword ready to cut off his Masters’ head. The Zen master calmly said:
“That …is hell.”

The Samuri fell to his knees and thanked the Master for the insightful lesson.

The Zen Master then said:
“and that… is heaven”

_________________

I often contemplate this story. It is so rich in meaning, and emotional intelligence.

What does it mean?

What is hell?

We can see that being in a state of uncontrolled rage, ready to harm another, is certainly hell. It is not a state of calm, or happiness. It is a very unpleasant state. When we ‘lose it’ and become angry, even to a mild degree, we feel uncomfortable.

Also in the story, we can see the idea of somebody else having power over us, as hellish. The idea that a few words from the Zen Master had the power to induce such an intense state in the Samuri is very interesting. And is part of the seductive illusion to which we all subscribe. We all have this belief that others ’cause’ our feelings.

But is it true? Certainly it feels true in the moment, as in the case of our Samuri whose emotional state is so intense that he is ready to chop of anothers’ head, because in that moment he believes them to be the ’cause’ of his feelings. It feels very real to us, in the intense moment of an emotional ‘hi-jacking’. But when we really give some thought to this, it is not possible for a few words to have that much power over us, without us having some prior conditioning: a preconception. We must already be carrying an idea about what those words mean to us. So what is the real cause of the emotional reaction? The words of the Master? Or the prior conditioning?

Then there is the moment that the Samuri falls to his knees. We can only imagine what realization he had. Did he recognize that the root of the emotion, the ‘hell’ that he was experiencing, originated within his own mind? Did he realize that the one who had the power, was indeed himself? Did he recognize that nobody had actually hurt him? Did he realize that a ‘false’ sense of himself had been challenged? Did he experience a feeling of appreciation, of gratitude, for the Master who had the wisdom, and skill, to bring this to his awareness? There are limitless possibilities. Certainly his rage had subsided and he must have felt ‘better’ – as his emotions returned to a state of equilibrium.

Having the wisdom that our emotions originate within ourselves is not enough to stop our habitual emotional reacting. The next time the Samuri feels someone has insulted him, he may well fly into a rage again, and again. It may happen a few times before he begins to ‘catch himself’ in the moment, in an old reaction.

Having an awareness of the process is enormous, yet it is still only a beginning. We need to develop awareness and skill to change our habitual emotional responses. In Zen, the ‘goal’ is to attain the state of inner peace that cannot be disturbed. This is achieved not by ‘blaming’ the people who push our buttons, but by having an appreciation that they were the ‘Master’ for us in that moment, who brought our attention to the fact that we have buttons that can be pushed in the first place.

The coaching process supports us in identifying and changing these habitual reactions, so they no longer have power over us. From a different perspective we can choose to respond differently. Developing this awareness and skill gives us the power of choice, so we are no longer a victim of our unconscious reactions.

In case you hadn’t noticed… the holiday season is approaching fast! Some people dread Christmas, because even though it is supposed to be a time of goodwill, it is also a time that many old emotional wounds rise to the surface and our buttons can really be pushed big time!

This year, you could take some of the stress out of the holidays by keeping your attention on your own reactions to the ones who push your buttons. It is a powerful opportunity for you, like the Samuri, to shift your awareness. Will you be in hell or heaven? The choice really is yours.

Ruth Hadikin
Supporting Stressed-Out Professionals
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All emotions have their roots in instincts,specifically Survival instinct.Emotions are natural expressions of the organism to protect itself.Bottling them up will result in physical problems,for instance when in anger or in a fighting mood more adrenalin is released and if it is not released it shall affect health.
Express your feelings and emotions.To avoid unpleasantness in life, express them in a way that is socially acceptable and at the same time give vent to your feelings.This needs training and practice. Channelize emotions, not suppress them.One simple way to give vent to your anger and frustration is to punch a soft pillow till your feeling subsides or jump in private with out clothes.Especially the second one seems to be funny, try it, you shall know.
Story:
SINGAPORE (Reuters Life!) – Men who bottle up their anger at being unfairly treated at work are up to five times more likely to suffer a heart attack, or even die from one, than those who let their frustration show, a Swedish study has found.

The study by the Stress Research Institute of Stockholm University followed 2,755 employed men who had not suffered any heart attacks from 1992 to 2003.

At the end of the study, 47 participants had either suffered an attack, or died from heart disease, and many of those had been found to be “covertly coping” with unfair treatment at work.

“After adjustment for age, socioeconomic factors, risk behaviors, job strain and biological risk factors at baseline, there was a close-response relationship between covert coping and the risk of incident myocardial infarction or cardiac death,” the study’s authors wrote.

Covert coping was listed as “letting thing pass without saying anything” and “going away” despite feelings of being hard done by colleagues or bosses.

Men who often used these coping techniques had a two to fivefold higher risk of developing heart disease than those who were more confrontational at work, the study showed.

The researchers said they could not answer the question of what might be a particularly healthy coping strategy at work, but listed open coping behavior when experiencing unfair treatment or facing a conflict as “protesting directly,” “talking to the person right away,” “yelling at the person right away” or “speaking to the person later when things have calmed down.”

The study was published in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
http://www.reuters.com/article/lifestyleMolt/idUSTRE5AN0J820091124

One of the most encouraging books that I have read on marriage and relationships is by the best-selling author Gary Smalley, who has  sold millions of videos on how to strengthen our vital relationships.  John Gray, the well-known author of Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus, comments: “If you want a lasting love relationship, I highly recommend Gary Smalley’s guide to forever love”.

One of the keys to his memorable books is that Gary teaches you how to fall in love with life all over again.  Everything he writes has to do with the age-old struggle between the life-giving principle of honour and the life-draining emotion of destructive anger.  The average person, says Smalley, has little or no idea how damaging that forgotten or ignored anger can be.  Worse yet, most people don’t even know how much destructive anger they have buried inside, much like unexploded landmines left in the middle eastern sands.  Once buried, our anger does its worst damage, wreaking havoc on our physical and emotional well-being.  Facing our anger is indispensable to Making Love Last Forever.

Anger, says Smalley, is a secondary emotion, not a primary feeling.  It arises out of fear, frustration, hurt, or some combination of these three.  Anger is actually a coping strategy to attempt to banish fear from our lives.  Sometimes our parents have non-verbally taught us that perfect anger casts out all fear, when the truth is that only perfect love casts out all fear.

Smalley comments that anger can be thought of as a sticky, bad-smelling dangerous substance that can be compressed and stuffed into something like a spray can.  Angry people tend to go around spraying their anger on other people.  The spray is felt by others as meanness, insensitivity, and general offensiveness.  Most angry people have no idea that their angry spray stings others like hydrochloric acid.  Unresolved anger is the No. 1 enemy of Making Love Last Forever.

Some of us as men pride ourselves that we are not as other husbands, who physically beat up their wives in drunken rages.  Yet even if our anger never turns violent or illegal, unresolved anger can still prove destructive.  All of us want to feel connected in our primary relationships.  But one of the most common results of deep anger is relational distance, an unwillingness and inability to let others get close.  It is as if we are living inside a relational box of thick plate glass.  Yet we keep wondering as men why our wives won’t become more intimate.

Unresolved anger, says Smalley, is not only destructive to our families.  It is also destructive to our personal health. Many of the backaches, neckaches, and headaches that send us complaining to our GPs are actually the outworking of buried anger.  Anger studies were done on medical doctors and lawyers over a 25 year period.  By the age of fifty, only 4 percent of the low-ranked easy-going lawyers and 2 percent of the doctors had died.  Lawyers who had ranked high on anger had a 20 percent mortality rate;  doctors 14 percent.  Studies are also showing that angry people are more susceptible to heart attacks – the leading cause of death in North America.  Hostile anger can boost heart rates, raise blood pressure and lead to increased clogging of the arteries.  What’s worse, says Smalley, is that the risk of heart attack seems to be greatly increased during the two hours following a bout with anger.

Why do we get angry anyways?  Smalley suggests that we get angry because either someone is taking something away from us that we don’t want to lose, or else we’re being denied something we want to gain.  By facing and grieving our losses, we break the power of anger to make our lives miserable.

Part of healthy grieving is the willingness to lay aside bitterness, the willingness to say like Jesus: “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.”  Another key to grieving, says Smalley, is to search for “hidden pearls” in any offense committed against you.  The idea here is that some good can come out of any bad situation – if you’ll just look for it.  That’s why the Good Book says that all things work for the good for those who love the Lord.  Grieving our losses is an irreplaceable key in Making Love Last Forever.

I recently watched a most disturbing and enlightening movie entitled “The Field”.  It was about an Irish farmer who dedicated his life to providing for his family’s future.  But again and again his anger rose up to destroy everything and everyone that he loved.  Given my Irish heritage,  it was a strong warning to me that I had to face the anger in my life, or it would one day destroy me.

Unresolved anger can cripple us in so many ways.  Anger keeps us distant from the very people we want to care for.  In contrast, love builds bridges of trust and forgiveness.  Sometimes anger even keeps us distant from God himself.  Smalley has found that the greater the unresolved anger, the more difficulty that person has in developing a meaningful spiritual life.  Studies after studies are confirming that a healthy spiritual life in a marriage reduces divorce rates, increases marital satisfaction, and lowers the level of relational conflict.

My prayer for those reading this article is that each of us may discover the keys to Making Love Last Forever.

The Reverend Ed Hird

Rector, St. Simon’s Church, North Vancouver

Anglican Coalition in Canada

http://www3.telus.net/st_simons

-previously published in the Deep Cove Crier

-author of the award-winning book Battle for the Soul of Canada

http://www.battleforthesoulofcanada.blogspot.com