Oh WOW! - alcoholism

Scientists Confirm Runner's High

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 15:18:53 GMT

Runner’s high no surprise to me

Many afternoons when I was at the gym I watched a young girl run around the track multiple times, then quickly move through rotations on all the weight equipment and then repeat the process. She looked like an addict in pursuit of a high. Now in a CNN article, it seems scientists have confirmed her experience as real.

I know most people who use exercise and run do so to be healthy, there are and always will be, those who have found what they consider to be a “positive addiction”. William Glasser wrote a book of that title back in the ‘70’s.

But anything that is used addictively is used to avoid something. If you are using running, work, exercise, sex, food, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, shopping, television, or anything else to “lift your mood” in an addictive way you are an addict.

The addictive process

What happens to us is that when we are hurting we think we can’t tolerate it. For whatever reasons, our upbringing or our fear, prevents us from realizing that pain is temporary and we think we have to stop it or we will feel this way forever. We feel like a Victim of something that is torturing us and we look for some way to Rescue ourselves from that pain. Of course, it doesn’t matter what that thing is that removes the pain for us, over time, that thing will end up hurting us. Therefore, we are in pain again, and because we are in pain and can’t see a way out, we once again look for something to medicate it. The process repeats itself over and over again.

Looking for Rescue

When we are in pain and someone offers us a way out, we generally will take it. This is part of my frustration with locking up drug addicts. These people are in pain and desperate for a way out. I recall the case of Karla Faye Tucker, a woman put to death in Texas in 1998. Karla was the daughter of a prostitute drug addict. Her mother had started her on drugs as a young girl and she had, like her mother, learned to use them to keep her pain at bay. When Karla was arrested for her part in a pick-ax murder, she had never been sober that she could recall. Once she was in jail she learned to manage her pain without drugs and became a model prisoner, helping other prisoners deal with life on the inside. The little girl who never knew any other way than drugs to deal with her life until she was in prison was put to death.

The importance of understanding the addiction cycle

In Texas alone (2005) the total of inmates serving time for possession of less than a gram is s: 4,846. The annual cost of incarceration is more than $12,000 per inmate — $59 million a year! The average time spent in prison for possession is 35 months. Then of course, having been convicted of a felon, they are unable to get an apartment, often unable to find work, and forced into a life of crime just to eat and find a way to live. All that money and time served for having possessed less than a gram of an illegal substance.

Now, of course, those of us who choose less illegal forms of addiction can rest on our laurels feeling confident that we are okay. But in fact we are no different than they are; we just chose a different way to manage our pain. Smarter perhaps, but not better for us in the long run. Running to avoid our pain does not make our lives any better than using cocaine to avoid it.

Why is pain so hard to face

Pain is hard to face for many reasons. Our bodies’ recoil at the idea of pain instinctively don’t they? We may have never seen anyone go through it and on a primitive level fear that it will kill us or make us insane. We may have been conditioned out of allowing the feelings up by parents or coaches or a society that tells us pain is bad and wrong. We may have been beaten out of our feelings. There are good reasons for us to carry this false belief about pain.

But all of us can learn to manage pain differently with patience and a lot of care and support from the people who love us. When we learn to do this, it changes everything. We can release the pain, and let ourselves feel not only pain, but joy.

You see, when you block pain, you block all the other feelings, too. Sure, you may have some feelings of enjoyment in your life if you are person who blocks your pain. But to have an experience of being fully alive and feel real joy and pleasure in being alive, you have to let yourself process through whatever pain you are Rescuing yourself from using whatever form of medication you prefer.

What is your addiction?

Do you have an addiction you prefer? Do you think its okay and positive? Or have you experienced the pain and found the pleasure of being alive? Tell me about it. Comment below.

> >

England's Child Abuse Horror by Melody Brooke, Author, Conflict Coach

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 15:10:48 GMT

Horror's in Jersey, England

Since 1867 there has been a children's home in England reported to have been a haven for pedophiles and a hell for children. Over a hundred years of it's history at least some of that time children were raped, tortured and beaten. Many of the survivors are still alive today and report the after effects of living with that kind of trauma. Some did not survive and ended up killing themselves. They have found evidence of murders as well as torture and sexual abuse.

These are the stories of real live human beings, who as innocent children suffered things no one should have to endure. There are stories of these things happening all over the world, at various times and places, and seldom are they verified in the end. It is a rare thing for the evidence to be coming out in such a way as to actually validate the survivors reports.

Does this happen in the U.S.?

In the US we tend to find ways to sweep the incidents under the rug, so to speak. Most of the time when there is a report of systemized abuse of children the report is in the news with much sensationalism. The facts seem irrevocable. Then, over time the facts, the evidence slowly erode into nothing. The evidence disappears, the witnesses suddenly become unavailable for comment or retract their earlier statements. The False Memory people are smug.

The results

Then the adults show up in therapy suffering from PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), depression, suicidality, extreme anxiety, drug and alcohol abuse, DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder), obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality disorder, self-abuse, and psychotic breaks. Some therapists don't believe their stories and the sufferer feels like a "liar". Some are put on anti-psychotics and treated as if they were Scizophrenic. Some are put on Lithium and treated for Bipolar Disorder. A rare few get taken seriously and treated for their pain.

Survivor -ism

During the '90's there was a huge wave of sexual abuse survivors coming out and confronting their parents and other perpetrators in the media and in courtrooms. Their justifiable rage aimed at their perpetrators resulted in accusations, charges being filed, and arrests being made. The "bad guys" were called on the carpet and an adversarial situation, fed by the media, was perpetuated. This began a backlash resulting in the organization of The False Memory Syndrome Foundation. The accused took back their power by organizing, hiring lawyers and accusing the accusers of lying, and being manipulated into believing they were abused by "well meaning" therapists. Now, few people will dare risk coming out in the open to accuse their perpetrators.

Here is the rub.

People treat other people the way they were treated. When these things occur, and they do occur, it is because the abusers were themselves abused. Treating them as criminals instead of recognizing their wounding sets up an adversarial condition not conducive to healing.

After years of working with DID clients, I have come to the conclusion that most abuse happens in the form of a dissociative episode. The abusers own splitting creates more splitting in the effects of their abuse on the child they have abused. The abuse is then perpetuated on and on if no one ever recognizes what is happening.

Good-guys versus bad-guys

Putting the abusers in jail without treatment doesn't help the abused. They feel guilty because they know the person in jail is just like them. Now, I am not saying society doesn't need to be protected from people known to be abusers. But I am saying we must begin to treat them as wounded human beings deserving of our help.

Our cultural response to bad things happening is to find someone to blame. When we discover who is to blame, we punish them. This sets us up to live in a split world, one in which black and white never meet and the good-guys and bad-guys are well defined. Unfortunately this perpetuates the cycle of abuse and ignores reality.

It's not so simple

In reality we all have good parts of us and not so good parts of us. When we have been abused and deny it's reality, we have to split off this part of our awareness into a dissociated part of our brain. This part of us needs to heal so it pushes its way out in the form of repeating the trauma in some way or another. We either do it to others or put ourselves in situations where it will be done to us again.

Setting ourselves up as Victims or Perpetrators of the abuse allows us to continue to work out the trauma. It's our brain's attempt to heal. Unfortunately, without treatment, it also perpetuates the abuse cycle.

Staying stuck in the Victim/Perpetrator/Rescuer cycle prevents healing and sets us up for more trauma. Recognizing that we are all at once all of these things,and moving out of the adversarial positions of good-guy versus bad-guy gives us a chance to change and heal. This really changes everything./p>

Let me know what you think.

I know I've gone on longer than you were perhaps prepared to read. I know you must have some opinions. I'd love to hear them. Comment below.

Happiness at What Price? By Melody Brooke, Motivational Speaker, Conlfict Coach, Author

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 20:59:34 GMT

Sadness Phobia
This past week there was a great article in Newsweek about the value of sadness. Funny thing is that of course, depression and "sadness" are not the same thing. We have become so phobic of depression that we obsessively label anyone with normal sadness, stress or grief as being depressed. We even say that about ourselves don't we?
When we get down we say to our friends "I'm a little depressed today." Depression is such a catch all word. What does it really mean? In the DSM for clinicians it means more than a bit of sadness or even prolonged grief. Depression is when we lose the capacity to function at normal levels for prolonged periods... not weeks, but months or more. When we can't sleep, can't eat, lose interest in our favorite activities and lose awareness of our appearance and it goes on for months; that's depression.
Showing Sadness
When we allow our sadness to be seen by others, we risk being labeled as "unhealthy" or "depressed" when what we are feeling is NORMAL. Isn't it normal to be upset if our cat dies or we lose our jobs? Isn't it normal to grieve for a loved one over a period of years? What happens if we don't allow ourselves these feelings?
I read something recently about a new trend in Japan among business managers. Japanese workers are REQUIRED to keep a smile on their faces at all times. The result is that the incidence of depression, anxiety disorders, suicidality and alcoholism have radically increased.
Toxins
Our bodies are designed to release the the pain we feel through our tears. Tears actually release toxins created from the pain. Tears from watery eyes are not the same, chemically, as tears from pain or sadness. When we stuff these feelings and or pretend they are not there, the result is like a toxic waste dump in our bodies creating stress and illness in that show up as a variety of illnesses.
Being sad or suffering from grief is what makes us human!
My clients often feel they are "wrong" for feeling sad about sad things. Yet isn't this what separates us from the psychopaths of the world? Because we can feel sadness when something horrid happens, we know we have heart. How would you feel about someone talking about the shootings in Northern Illinois with no sadness about them? Someone who could hear of horrors like these and not feel something is missing a piece of their humanity.
Isn't this what we do to ourselves?
We limit our own ability to process or grief and sadness when we tell ourselves we "shouldn't" feel something we feel. This week a friend of mine said, "I was driving home from work today and just started crying. I don't know what is wrong with me." Yet this very friend was going through a painful divorce, moving into a new home and having to deal with her children blaming her for the divorce, and her mother died last spring. I said, "Your are kidding me! You have every reason in the world to feel sad. I want to cry just thinking about what you are going through."
When we minimize or deny our very real sadness we set ourselves up for depression. Depression, as it turns out, is less about being sad than it is not being able to BE sad. When we keep ourselves from having our sadness we are much more at risk of depression.
Let yourself cry!
Allow yourself to have your feelings, and better still, let yourself cry on someone's shoulder. A man I know recently realized the career choices he had made have limited him so much he now feels trapped. He turned to me and said "I just want to drive up to my sister's have have her hold me while I cry." "Do it!" I told him. This would be the healthiest thing he could do for himself. Oh, wow, this changes everything, when we let ourselvs feel our pain.
Therapy
Therapy is largely about helping clients connect with and release the feelings they have stored up in their bodies perhaps for a lifetime. Therapy works as well as antidepressants for depression, and it's effects last longer.
But you may not need therapy, you may just need the shoulder of someone who loves you.
Do you let yourself cry?
Let me know what you think. Is it too hard for you to let loose with your tears? If so, what do you think this has cost you? Maybe you think these emotions are best avoided. Let me know, comment below.

Empathy on OPRAH by Melody Brooke, MA, LPC, Conflict Coach, Speaker

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:22:13 GMT

Empathy finds it's 15 minutes of fame
This is great. On CNN's website this morning was a link to a story about how cardiovascular health is improved through the experience of empathy. "This workout consists of deliberately cultivating empathy. To empathize literally means "to suffer with," to share the pain of other beings so entirely that their agony becomes our own", says Martha Beck of OPRAH.com.
Developing Empathy
She goes on to talk about how you can develop the capacity for empathy by putting yourself (imaginatively) in a stranger's shoes. She suggests trying on their posture and facial expression (this is a great exercise because it really works) to discover what it feels like in the other person's body. Trying it with difficult family members allows you to transform your relationship with them. Even if you still don't feel you can communicate with them, or want to spend time with them, it alters how you feel about them.

A real time experience of Empathy
A client of mine, I'll call her Samantha, had always resented an uncle who had, she felt, abandoned her as a child. Samantha had worshiped this man as a child and he had chosen to spend special time with her when her parents had been horribly abusive and uninterested in her emotional well being. Her uncle, Jack, had been playful and empathetic with her, and suddenly when she turned 13, he completely withdrew his attention to her. He even moved out of state and rarely visited her. Samantha's parents had died and virtually every other extended family member. Jack was her last connection with her family, but she was terrified of contacting him because she felt such intense anger toward him. In session one day, Samantha began talking about what it had been like in her family at the time of his abandonment of her. Her parents alcoholism had escalated to the point no one was safe from their verbal attacks. Samantha herself had become a rebellious teen using drugs and alcohol to medicate the pain she was experiencing. Samantha realized, that Jack, though he loved Samantha's mother dearly, had left the scene because it had become too painful for him to witness what was becoming of his sister and his sister's daughter. Melting into tears, Samantha suddenly felt a wave of empathy for her uncle. The fear of calling him, the anger at his disappearance, and her resentment toward him vanished. Now, she could call him and have the chance to reconnect after 30 years of resentment.
More than Empathy
But empathy alone is not enough. Many of the clients I work with suffer from "too much" empathy. Because without respect, empathy becomes rescuing. If we don't respect the other person's choice to be how they are, to live with the choices they have made, and to be strong enough to feel their own feelings, we have the tendency to try to take their pain away. Often, we will step in to take over for them to relieve them of the pain we sense they are experiencing.
But this doesn't respect their ability to manage things on their own. When we do this we are keeping them small and encouraging them to stop evolving. As a parent we do this when we see our children really wanting something, so badly, say an ipod or a set of drums. We have so much empathy for how much they want this thing, we feel their pain. What we do then, often, is give them what they want without their having to do anything to earn it. We take from them the character building opportunity to earn and save money toward purchasing this thing for themselves. Now, I'm not saying giving our children gifts is a bad thing, what I am saying is that giving them everything they want kills their potential for growth. When everything is handed to you, you become unable to reach for things yourself.
Owning our own stuff
Empathy without ownership is equally painful. When we have too much empathy for someone we can loose our sense of self. In order to experience healthy empathy, we have to be able to know where we start and end. We have to be connected to what feelings are ours, and what feelings belong to the other person. We are not responsible for the other person's feelings; we are only responsible for our own.
Compassion is what is required
Together these three elements: Empathy, Respect and Ownership are what make up compassion. We have to be able to experience all three, together, to be fully present for ourselves and others. Compassion allows us to remain wholly ourselves and yet present and available for others. Compassion allows us to move out of our egocentric view of the world and experience ourselves and other people differently. Oh, wow, this changes everything.
How about you?
Have you experienced empathy without respect or ownership? Have you been able to be fully compassionate for another person? I'd love to hear your story. Comment below.

Patty Hearst Wins at Westminster! by Melody Brooke, Conflict Coach, Speaker, Author

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 12 Feb 2008 15:51:30 GMT

You Go Girl!

Patty Hearst has had injustice done to her that was tragic. First by being kidnapped by terrorist organization (one that supposedly had ties to the religious cult 'Synanon"), then by a justice system that ignored her trauma. Fortunately President Carter, and then President Clinton released her from her sentence.

She was held, not just as a prisoner, but as a torture and brainwashing victim. They kept he in a closet, denied her food, drugged her, beat her and terrorized her. Then they began calling her a name they made up for her. Who knows what else they did to her. Eventually they managed to split her identity and she accepted the name and persona of "Tanya". At that point her torture and brainwashing stopped, but the very real threat of her going back into the closet was constant.

That any court could not see what had happened to her as being a psychological trauma over which she had no control, was handing out injustice.

Patty now

Today, it was announced that she was a won a top prize at the famous Westminster dog show with her little french bulldog. Its a long way from "Tanya". Patty has also acted in a number of productions from film to television in the past several years. Her life has obviously turned around since the horror. One can only assume she got the help she needed. Good for her.

The splitting that results from abuse

In my practice I have had clients whom grew up in this cult. Synanon practiced and got quit expert at mind control tactics. They are reported to have learned how to shock, beat, humiliate, isolate and rape its members into complete acquiescence to their ends. Their leader was a power crazed psychotic that was eventually murdered by a former cult member. Reportedly, hundreds, perhaps thousands of people were indoctrinated in this way by their bizarre and cruel tactics.

How was Patty identified to be used in this way?

Perhaps it was desire for funding from Randolph Hearst, perhaps it was merely opportune. We'll never know. But what my experience with it's victims has taught me is that they knew quite well how to psychologically split personalities and to use those split off parts to their own ends.

Patty was not their only victim, just the most notorious.

When children are subjected to traumatic, horrifying experiences their minds naturally reject what is happening to them. While the event is so horrific it cannot be fully denied, it can be rejected as theirs. The child looks at what is happening and says to themselves something like "Oh, look at that poor little kid over there. What an awful thing."

Surviving at any cost

This splitting themselves apart from the experience allows them to psychologically survive the event. Many of us have experienced a few events that we experienced as traumatic, and we split off the experience, but because we did not continue to experience repeated traumas of a similar kind, we did not form separate personalities to deal with it. We may have split it off if it was foreign enough, or outside of our known family history (say a child molested by a neighbor and the family never knew). Or, if the event was a part of our family history but no one ever talked about it (say a parent had a mental breakdown and became self abusive in front of the child, but then received treatment and it never happened again), we may have split off the experience. Other traumas like our parents beating all the kids and all the kids knew and talked about it might not be split off, unless it went beyond beatings into repeated torture.

Understanding how DID happens

Okay I'll bet you've had TMI at this point, (too much information). These are the stories of what happens to sufferers of Dissociative Identity Disorder. They have had a series of horrific events happen to them (of course sometimes it can develop from an overly imaginative child left alone too long). But I give you this information to help you understand how DID happens to most sufferers.

My heart goes out to Herschel Walker, and perhaps Britney Spears, who knows what they have been through, too.

We all have "parts"

While we don't all have DID, we do all have separate ego states that we go in to under certain circumstances. When we feel threatened, overwhelmed or out of control we will move into certain behavioral sets that dictate our behavior and our choices. If we are DID we simply split off into a different identity.

Making the choice to respond differently to those feelings is not always so easy. In our culture we are taught to medicate our pain and fear with whatever method we can find. Some of us choose drugs and alcohol, others food, sex, work or exercise. We become our own Rescuer, doing whatever we can to stop the fear and pain. Of course we end up being a Victim of our own attempts to stop it don't we? We hurt ourselves and the people around us when we do it. Yet it is a accepted part of our culture.

< But,we can change EVERYTHING when we do things differently.

How about you?

How do you handle it when you feel threatened, overwhelmed or out of control? Do you know anyone medicating their pain? Someone with apparently split off parts of themselves? Comment below and let me know what you think.

What's your problem with anger?

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 21:36:07 GMT

What is it with people? We seem to think that we can get close to others by just being around them and doing what the other person wants. Closeness is brought about through a sense of closeness that can only come from shared intimacy. Intimacy literally means: in-to-me-see from the Latin root. Without letting our partner “see into” us we cannot experience intimacy.

What people are afraid of being seen. So the idea of intimacy is really scary. I believe this comes from well meaning parents who try to get us to do what they want us to do by forcing us into their model of what we should be. Who we really are is discouraged, shamed, controlled and strictly forbidden.

The lesson we then learn is that it is not okay to be who we are.

Now, of course, this varies in the extent to which it dominates each of us depending on how severe or controlling our parents were to us. But even parents, who on the surface are very sweet, can be very controlling in their own way. Don’t get me wrong; I am not, really blaming our parents, as is vogue. Because they can’t help it, they were raised in the same way they raised us. >

The thing is, we learned to repress our thoughts, our feelings, our needs, our desires and our very selves in order to get along with those who raised us. Yet to be close to someone we have to unlearn what we learned. We have to learn to let ourselves risk being seen.

How do we know that what people are not going to reject who we are? That is the fear, of course, that no one will like us or want us if they really knew us. That comes from the rejection of our unpleasant feelings we received as a child.

When our parents, understandably punished us for our angry outbursts as a child, or shamed us for displaying anger instead of teaching us how to express our anger appropriately.

What if we were to learn that our anger is always appropriate? The reality is that how we express it is not always “appropriate”, but anger is like all of our feelings a normal part of being a human being!

We have feelings to provide us information. Happiness tells us that things are going well and that this is what we want. Sadness lets us know that we are in a situation we don’t like. Fear lets us know we are in danger. Anger lets us know something is wrong and that we should do something about it.

The problem people have with anger is that they don’t realize that it’s just a feeling. We might feel compelled to act on it, but we don’t have to react instinctively as our gut tells us we should. We have the option, as adults, to figure out what to do with that anger.

Unfortunately, most of us were not taught what to do with anger. Of course we watched what others’ did and that is what we learned. We might have learned that it’s okay to scream, yell, hit and beat others into changing what they are doing. We might have been so frightened by those behaviors that instead of mimicking them, we rejected them and chose to never express anger, thinking that the expression of anger was the problem. We might have learned, through watching those around us that using drugs and alcohol are how you deal with it. Many of us just learned to reject the feeling altogether and pretend that we don’t get angry.

That gets us back to my main point. If we ourselves reject our anger then we can be terrified at the idea of anyone seeing it. And since anger is a part of who we are, we then believe that if someone really knew us they wouldn’t like us.

Therefore we hide ourselves from others, especially those that mean the most to us. The more important someone is to us the less we want them to know us. The result is that we keep ourselves distant from the one person we most want to be close to!

So, stop hiding!

Tell me what you think. Which type are you? Do you hide your anger or what?