When I went to college I had a great plan. I was going into the field of psychology with the intention of being a person who could really relate to and help kids who were going through the kinds of things I had been through growing up as a ward of the state. I never liked being called that, it made it seem like I was a ward, a prisoner, like I had committed a crime by having dead parents. It doesn’t help that some of the group homes you go to indeed do have “troubled” kids that have actually committed crimes living there. Immediately, you are stereotyped as trouble just for being adjacent to the ones who are. It didn’t help that my older brother had me convinced that since stress causes cancer and I cause stress, I had directly contributed to the death of my mother.
As a freshman in college I thought I had it all figured out, we were supposed to have it figured out by then after all. As I looked around me at the other students in my class, however, I got an unsettled feeling. It got more and more intense as time went on. In discussions of projects and theories it became clearer all the time that I had nothing in common with these other kids. I also realized that they would have nothing in common with the kids I thought I’d be able to help. In point of fact, I wondered who they’d be able to help at all.
I came to the conclusion that they’d be able to help a lot of people and I was over-thinking it. Then I over-thought it some more and considered the fact that these were all kids who had lived pretty standard, “regular Joe,” or ‘Josefina,’ of course, kinds of lives. Apart from what they had learned about those extremely rare text book cases, how would they relate to the people they were meant to be helping? I realized their range would be quite limited, that it was already like that out there and overall, the field of psychology wasn’t what I thought it was. Of course, all this happened decades ago, I never did end up working traditionally in the field.
My experience in college never stopped me from making a study of people though, I have always been a savvy observer. My experience was much less limited than that of my counterparts in school who had the text books and not much else to draw from. Eventually, they’d enter the field and basically just get good at another form of type-casting, figuring out which label and medication goes with what chapter in the textbook as it pertains to each client. Once the client is in the right box, figure out the best way to placate them so they can get through the day to day. Getting through the day to day, that appears to be the American dream of the 21st century.
I’m not here to criticize (too heavily) the way mental health is being handled in the United States, (I can only speak to how things are handled in my own country.) I am here to say, it isn’t working. This fact is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention. Without ruffling too many feathers here, all too easy to do in the current climate, I’ll simply say that one of the biggest problems I see are people not being honest with one another or with themselves. There’s a lot of sunshine and daisy acceptance in word, but little to none in deed. There’s hypocrisy abound and mass denial.
There’s also extremism, “Agree with everything I say or you are cancelled and no longer exist to me! Also, if I can, I will publicly shame you.” These exact same people then turn around and go about posting online about acceptance, patience and understanding. Everyone wants to be heard but nobody wants to listen and there’s a difference between waiting for your turn to talk and actively listening that seems overlooked these days. It’s worse online where people attach tonal quality to text messages which is technically impossible by virtue of the definition of the word “tone.”
Most people either deny assuming tone in text or try to argue that word choice still sets a “tone.” To an extent, they are right on that latter part. Truth be told however, we are attempting to communicate and in communication, all things being equal, tone makes a difference and to assume it is problematic. It’s strange to me that more people don’t say, “Did you mean…?” It’s a shame people in general make no effort at clarity, just throw people away as though they are garbage.
To demonstrate how tone makes a difference, read the following sentence. Each time, put the emphasis on the bold-italicized-underlined word and tell me if you don’t notice how different the connotation is based on tone:
Anyway, I’m over here with my dusty psych training seeing the ways in which the theories are right and wrong and taking into account decades of experience building communities across the country and helping people from different walks of life understand one another. My experience differs from the sunshine and daisies of today in that it is from a time when it was about communication before cancellation to ensure there was a reason for it.
I suppose the point I am trying so desperately to put as tenderly as I am able, is that I’m not here to tell you it’ll be all sunshine and daisies or tell you you’re all peachy-perfect just the way you are and seal it with a big fat kiss. There are loads of people online already who are outstanding in that capacity though, and I love them to bits for almost always having a positive word of encouragement.
Sunshine and daisies isn’t me though, I’ve been around too long and seen too much. What I am here to do is to scrape you off the ground when the balloons all drift down to the floor out of helium and the pretty flowers inevitably die. I’m here to tell the truth and then lend a hand to help folks stand up tall when they find out that there is more to coping than the sunshine daisy part of it and sometimes, being placated isn’t enough. It’s like this, the sunshine people are treating acute conditions, of which there are more than there are of chronic conditions. They play an extremely vital and important role. Meanwhile, I am here to help with the chronic issues.
I have done mediation and offered my counsel to far more people than I can count off the top of my head. Over the course of more years than I want to age myself with here, I have received letters, and later emails, of gratitude for being of help to people and have been posed questions by people seeking advice on a variety of issues. I have always loved being available and I always will be. I suppose what I continue to offer is an approach to self-evaluation that’s based on facing hard truths and changing behaviors that no longer serve rather than trying to change people just because they notice said behaviors.
I am not comparing styles, I am not competing with anyone’s interpretations regarding what is solution oriented and what is not. What I do know is that there are more people than ever before suffering from mental problems of one kind or another. I have observed more hypocrisy in current culture overall than I’ve seen in my lifetime. I’m here to help folks see that they can easily turn a mental breakdown into a mental breakthrough no matter what approach they take but only if actual, not self manipulated, truth and accountability are a part of the equation.
I was never issued rosy colored glasses but that doesn’t mean that in this crazy world there isn’t room for people who want solution-oriented ways to put the SELF back into self-help. To that end, I can help.
I came to the conclusion that they’d be able to help a lot of people and I was over-thinking it. Then I over-thought it some more and considered the fact that these were all kids who had lived pretty standard, “regular Joe,” or ‘Josefina,’ of course, kinds of lives. Apart from what they had learned about those extremely rare text book cases, how would they relate to the people they were meant to be helping? I realized their range would be quite limited, that it was already like that out there and overall, the field of psychology wasn’t what I thought it was. Of course, all this happened decades ago, I never did end up working traditionally in the field.
My experience in college never stopped me from making a study of people though, I have always been a savvy observer. My experience was much less limited than that of my counterparts in school who had the text books and not much else to draw from. Eventually, they’d enter the field and basically just get good at another form of type-casting, figuring out which label and medication goes with what chapter in the textbook as it pertains to each client. Once the client is in the right box, figure out the best way to placate them so they can get through the day to day. Getting through the day to day, that appears to be the American dream of the 21st century.
I’m not here to criticize (too heavily) the way mental health is being handled in the United States, (I can only speak to how things are handled in my own country.) I am here to say, it isn’t working. This fact is abundantly clear to anyone paying attention. Without ruffling too many feathers here, all too easy to do in the current climate, I’ll simply say that one of the biggest problems I see are people not being honest with one another or with themselves. There’s a lot of sunshine and daisy acceptance in word, but little to none in deed. There’s hypocrisy abound and mass denial.
There’s also extremism, “Agree with everything I say or you are cancelled and no longer exist to me! Also, if I can, I will publicly shame you.” These exact same people then turn around and go about posting online about acceptance, patience and understanding. Everyone wants to be heard but nobody wants to listen and there’s a difference between waiting for your turn to talk and actively listening that seems overlooked these days. It’s worse online where people attach tonal quality to text messages which is technically impossible by virtue of the definition of the word “tone.”
Most people either deny assuming tone in text or try to argue that word choice still sets a “tone.” To an extent, they are right on that latter part. Truth be told however, we are attempting to communicate and in communication, all things being equal, tone makes a difference and to assume it is problematic. It’s strange to me that more people don’t say, “Did you mean…?” It’s a shame people in general make no effort at clarity, just throw people away as though they are garbage.
To demonstrate how tone makes a difference, read the following sentence. Each time, put the emphasis on the bold-italicized-underlined word and tell me if you don’t notice how different the connotation is based on tone:
- I never said we should kill him.
- I never said we should kill him.
- I never said we should kill him.
- I never said we should kill him.
- I never said we should kill him.
- I never said we should kill him.
- I never said we should kill him.
Anyway, I’m over here with my dusty psych training seeing the ways in which the theories are right and wrong and taking into account decades of experience building communities across the country and helping people from different walks of life understand one another. My experience differs from the sunshine and daisies of today in that it is from a time when it was about communication before cancellation to ensure there was a reason for it.
I suppose the point I am trying so desperately to put as tenderly as I am able, is that I’m not here to tell you it’ll be all sunshine and daisies or tell you you’re all peachy-perfect just the way you are and seal it with a big fat kiss. There are loads of people online already who are outstanding in that capacity though, and I love them to bits for almost always having a positive word of encouragement.
Sunshine and daisies isn’t me though, I’ve been around too long and seen too much. What I am here to do is to scrape you off the ground when the balloons all drift down to the floor out of helium and the pretty flowers inevitably die. I’m here to tell the truth and then lend a hand to help folks stand up tall when they find out that there is more to coping than the sunshine daisy part of it and sometimes, being placated isn’t enough. It’s like this, the sunshine people are treating acute conditions, of which there are more than there are of chronic conditions. They play an extremely vital and important role. Meanwhile, I am here to help with the chronic issues.
I have done mediation and offered my counsel to far more people than I can count off the top of my head. Over the course of more years than I want to age myself with here, I have received letters, and later emails, of gratitude for being of help to people and have been posed questions by people seeking advice on a variety of issues. I have always loved being available and I always will be. I suppose what I continue to offer is an approach to self-evaluation that’s based on facing hard truths and changing behaviors that no longer serve rather than trying to change people just because they notice said behaviors.
I am not comparing styles, I am not competing with anyone’s interpretations regarding what is solution oriented and what is not. What I do know is that there are more people than ever before suffering from mental problems of one kind or another. I have observed more hypocrisy in current culture overall than I’ve seen in my lifetime. I’m here to help folks see that they can easily turn a mental breakdown into a mental breakthrough no matter what approach they take but only if actual, not self manipulated, truth and accountability are a part of the equation.
I was never issued rosy colored glasses but that doesn’t mean that in this crazy world there isn’t room for people who want solution-oriented ways to put the SELF back into self-help. To that end, I can help.