You Can't Go Home Again, Part III

Friday, October 10, 2014


Today, in my continuing adventure to create a brand new and much better life for myself, I met with a gentleman who works for Adult Rehabilitative Mental Health Services.  I was referred to this program by a social worker I first met this past spring.  I was a bit slow to follow through on applying for services provided by ARMHS because I thought I might not be eligible for anything I do not already receive.

I found the worker who met with me to be insightful.  He also struck me as a good listener and open to continued professional development.  These are the kind of people I like to have in my life.

As I described the most fundamental aspects of my life history I was pleased to feel that I was truly being heard.  I spoke about my family of origin, the corruption I was impacted by and my own recent journey of actively and dedicatedly working to recover from my early life history that was filled with a lot of trauma.  After engaging in a dialogue for what amounted to about an hour of time we agreed I would meet with him again next week.  I do not suspect I am the type of person who will need ARMHS services for a lengthy period of time.  My life is already extraordinarily good as compared to this time last year and I believe it will only continue to improve.

I am making a new home for myself now in my apartment near Loring Park.  I feel very fortunate to have found the location I now call home.  And as I continue to unpack and settle in I am aware that my thoughts have occasionally drifted back to my family of origin and the first 'home' that I knew.

I am finally well beyond the initial phase of my healing journey.  I would say on average I have a 'bad day' no more than once every two weeks now.  I am beginning to feel consistently optimistic and enthusiastic about my life.

......

Next week I plan to write specifically on the topic of 'Complex PTSD'.  I have previously written about this subject in my blog.  Over the course of six consecutive days I will describe a particular indicator associated with Complex PTSD.  If you regularly read my blog and wish to learn more about this subject please type the term 'Complex PTSD' in the search bar located on my blog page.  You will find several entries that reference this topic.

Have an awesome weekend!  I will not be writing again until Monday, October 13th.


Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #15

Today:

• I exercised at the YMCA
• I met with a mental health worker as I noted above
• I applied a creative approach to a problem and came up with a solution

You Can't Go Home Again, Part II

Thursday, October 9, 2014


"Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending."

It is another glorious autumn day here in Minnesota.  The sky is a sharp blue, the winds are finally a bit more mellow and the sun still feels warm when you bask in its light.  The shadows are another matter.  It feels quite brisk to be in the shadows of buildings now.  Winter is still a number of weeks away and summer is long gone.

I saw the quote noted above on a previous visit to the Parkside Alternative Medicine Clinic.  I found it an encouraging quote because it reminds me that I can consciously shape my future life despite the fact that I could not do much to shape my life while I was a kid.  Put more simply, the future does not have to equal the past.  We can choose to live our lives differently and in so doing find ourselves eventually achieve a much more desirable future than we would otherwise know.

I feel reassured that I am moving in a good direction.  I attended a job fair this morning here in Minneapolis.  The job fair was specifically designed to provide access to people, organizations and related opportunities to those who have been affected by a disability.  I do not think of myself as a disabled person now nor do I intend to frame my sense of self in this way in the future.  Trauma, whether physical, mental or emotional in its impact, does not have to permanently disfigure us.

When I was first diagnosed with PTSD in June, 2013 I struggled to regain a solid sense of who I am.  In the first months of my active reconstruction of my life I struggled to decide whether I should actually seek out disability benefits.  I was so upset during the summer of 2013 that I found it difficult to work.  I ultimately chose not to seek out the possibility of being declared disabled because 1) I didn't think of myself as disabled, 2) I wanted to find my way to a more rewarding work-life and 3) I was concerned about how being declared disabled might affect my ability to find work in the future.  I have often felt it was quite miraculous that I function as well as I do.  Children who grow up under the influence of what Dr. Gabor Mate might call 'severely stressed parenting' may ultimately become poor functioning adults. Through strength, determination and a tenacious will to succeed I did not succumb.

Yesterday I began writing under the theme of 'You can't go home again'.  This continues to remain a timely way of framing my writing as I continue to work through the grief I feel as a result of the trauma I originally experienced as well as the termination of active relationships with my paternal family of origin last year and this year.  I am also reminded of this topic because the twenty-five year anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is exactly one month away.  Though I did not grow up in Germany and I do not possess dual citizenship I nonetheless feel myself very much at home when I am in Germany.  And I know this is partly due to the fact that Germans, as a general rule, are making better decisions these days as to how to live and interact with the world at large as compared with Americans.  Europe and Germany certainly have their own problems.  But we here in the United States have certain strains of paranoia, hate and prejudice that still confound me.  I often attribute these issues at least in part being a natural result of what happens when people are cut off from their deeper origins and sense of place in the world.  To be alienated can be such a horrible thing.

As a way of honoring my Germanic heritage I am going to spend some time during the month of November writing specifically on topics that have some connection to Germany.  I cannot be more definitive in exactly what I will write about at this time.

As for today it is enough for me to acknowledge that part of my own experience of trauma is very much bound up in the loss of my own sense of identity that was made possible, in part, by the loss of my mother to a serious illness.  There are many people who suffer trauma in their individual lives and yet triumph over adversity.  But then there is trauma of a collective scale.  Genocide, natural disasters and economic implosions describe a variety of what could be called collective traumas.  When a whole people suffer immensely the task of healing becomes that much more immense.

As the last month now begins before the twenty-fifth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall takes place on November 9, 2014 I find myself pondering what it means to be the man I am now.  Who do I want to be?  What is my culture?  What do I value?  What can I do in the world with the time I have?

These are not small questions.


Post Script 

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #14

My healthy activities today:

• I swam at the YMCA
• I attended a job fair and made some promising connections
• I scheduled a dental appointment to get a follow up cleaning

You Can't Go Home Again, Part I

Wednesday, October 8, 2014


Certain things are, whether we want them to be or not, irreversible.  Though we may step into what we perceive to be the same river throughout a single week, month or summer the water that flows past us is not the same water.  And thus the river isn't the same river.  Yesterday is gone and the moments that pass into the past do not often reappear to allow us to improve upon less than stellar first impressions.  Change is all around us and is truly the only real constant in our life experience.

The deep personal growth I have undergone these last sixteen months would likely not have happened if I had not made a number of choices that are not necessarily easily reversible, if at all.  I could cease to pursue my regular exercise regimen.  I could stop consistently meeting with my therapist.  I could stop writing my blog.  But I am not going to.  I like the person I am becoming as a result of the changes I have made.

Decisively confronting your family of origin about longstanding issues which have never been resolved in a thorough and healthy way is another decision whose consequences cannot be reversed.  I gave up hoping that my paternal family of origin would ever really listen to me regarding the pain, chaos, abuse and deceit I was subjected to in my formative years.  I walked away from my family of origin.  It was one of the most painful choices I have ever made.  There were some days in the last fifteen months when I felt I was a fool to be so 'bold'.  But then I would allow myself to pause and ponder what I experienced.  And I would consistently find myself feeling disgusted and saddened by the burden of trauma I experienced.

The anger I had been carrying around since my adolescence was immense.  It was a burden.  It was highly unjust.  And it affected so much of my life.  I am still working through it now.  I can still be reactive when I experience immense stress or a situation that reminds me of some of my own childhood.  But I am so much better off than I was.  My anger was making me sick.

My journey of distancing myself and moving on was made more challenging by the fact that my family of origin is comprised of a number of people who are practicing Catholics.  For a long time I struggled to reconcile what I experienced in my childhood with the fact that my family members (my father and his siblings) identify as Christians and thus supposedly follow the teachings of Jesus Christ.  I do not recall Jesus advocating avoiding those who have experienced injustice.  To my knowledge Jesus did not recommend refusing to listen to those who are in pain.  I do not handle hypocritical human behavior well.  For a long time I tried to tolerate my discomfort which was a natural consequence of the gulf of difference I perceived between my family's actions and their self-identification as Catholics.

......

I am sending a card to my (biological) mother today.  As those of you who have followed my blog since its inception likely already know my birthmother lives in Germany.  She returned to Germany about thirty-two years ago after a second episode of what was diagnosed as schizophrenia left her extremely ill and therefore also highly vulnerable.  Her life was never the same after her illness initially consumed her before the age of thirty.  My life was also never again the same once she became seriously ill.

I originally bought the card I am sending out today back in July of this year.  I had intended it to be a birthday card for my mother.  She was born in July.  Here it is October and I am finally sending out the card.  I feel a bit bad that I procrastinated for such a long time.

Tomorrow I will continue with the theme I introduced in this piece today.


If you live in a climate where the leaves are already turning get outdoors and enjoy the autumn colors.  They won't be around too long!


Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #13

My healthy activities for today:

• I went to the YMCA and did my shoulder exercises
• I spent time engaging in a fun art activity as a volunteer for Free Arts Minnesota
• I remained loyal to writing my blog

Seeing Sadness In The Rearview Mirror

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

As the leaves throughout Minnesota change to varying brilliant shades of gold, orange and red I sense an immense change unfolding within me.  I am finally, finally, beginning to overcome the significant impact of my early life history of trauma.  It’s been a true journey to reach the milestone I find myself at now.  And I am by no means done with my personal inquiry and related transformation.  But at least the pain is no longer as exquisitely sharp as it once was.

The sadness and grief I feel regarding my choice to walk away from my paternal family of origin is still within me.  But it is changing.  The mere passage of time does indeed have a way of healing wounds.  Does the passage of time lead to the healing of all wounds?  That is a very timely question.  I am inclined to say not necessarily but with the following proviso: bringing conscious awareness to that which pains you, and then choosing a course of action to address your pain, greatly increases the likelihood that you will find healing.  There are some wounds that we would be very unwise to completely ignore.  And, in my opinion, wounds suffered in childhood fall within that group.

In her book Too Scared To Cry child psychiatrist Lenore Terr makes the astute observation that childhood trauma that goes unaddressed does not often heal of its own accord.  It isn’t often a wise practice to make sweeping generalizations (as there are often exceptions to any rule) but I believe this generalization essentially holds true.  I myself am not a medical doctor.  But I am a man with twenty years of adult life experience who has traveled extensively, obtained two graduate degrees and worked with many types of people.  I thus feel I am well rounded and can make educated guesses and inferences.  And of course I can speak from my own experience.  And my own experience aligns with what Terr has observed.  Traumatized children who receive no treatment for their psychic wounding often go on to perform less well and lead less successful lives than their non-traumatized (or traumatized but later treated) counterparts.

My own experience caused me such sadness, in part, because much of my suffering was preventable.  My paternal family of origin is comprised of intelligent people.  If they set their minds to it they can indeed listen.  And I believe they could even effectively listen in a dispassionate, present way if they chose to.  But they do not choose to.  There is enough suffering in the world for everyone who is alive today.  Some of that suffering cannot be prevented despite our best efforts.  And this is unfortunate. 

But then there is the suffering we cause ourselves and others due to our manifold ways of avoiding addressing problems.  It is my sincere belief that pain avoided in the short term only leads to deeper pain in the longer term.  In short, it is best to deal with your problems now rather than continually postpone addressing them.  But that doesn’t mean it will be easy to do.  But I think it can be said that later, in hindsight, such diligence and conscious effort applied to resolve our problems will prove its value many times over.  We just have to be patient.  But being patient is also not necessarily an easy virtue to practice.  And I think American society is a great example of an impatient society.

I have come to learn patience over the last two years.  I have begun to learn patience in a way I never conceived I might learn it.  In some regards I felt forced to learn how to be patient when my world seemed to be imploding some sixteen months ago.  Sometimes we may feel virtually dragged into a scenario in which we must change.  To fail to change can have any number of consequences.  In the worst of circumstances a refusal to change or adapt can lead to the end of marriages, the loss of relationships with children, terminated employment, illness and even death.  Engaging in a bad habit for a single day, week or even month may have little long term impact.  But the cumulative harm of lifelong bad habits can eventually lead us to places of desolation we never imagined we might experience.  For those of us with a reputation for stubbornness a failure to change may ultimately result in a more immense crisis developing later on.  And if such a crisis does come to be we may find our very life hanging in the balance.

Last year, when I first began another leg of my journey of conscious healing, I had my moments when I felt as if the future quality of my own life was somehow radically contingent on the smallest of daily choices.  This way of thinking was not really healthy at all.  An ounce of chocolate or a single afternoon spent doing absolutely nothing productive will have little bearing on what our individual lives will be like in ten years.  It’s those habits we practice day in and day out that we must pay attention to.

It has become radiantly clear in my own mind that one of my self-destructive patterns was excessive rumination.  I would spend prodigious quantities of time and energy reliving and rehashing the past.  Re-exploring experiences in your earlier life history and more clearly understanding how these experiences have influenced the person you have become can be quite a healthy process when done in the appropriate time and place.  But to ruminate on old hurts and wounds time and time again will rarely produce anything of real value.  Instead, it’s very possible that repeatedly recalling hurtful imagery and events to mind may aggravate existing trauma related symptoms and slow the healing process.  In order to thoroughly heal we eventually have to come to a place of learning to forgive and release the past.

Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #12

My healthy activities for today:

• I went to what ultimately proved to be a productive and enjoyable interview
• I spent time chatting with a good friend
• I went to a birthday dinner party with another good friend
• I went to bed at a reasonable hour so I would feel rested the next day

Creating A Bright Future: No More Sad Sundays

Monday, October 6, 2014


Last night was the first night I slept in my new apartment.  My move into a new home I can call all my own (I do not have any roommates) was an important milestone for me.

I have lived by myself at other points in my life.  But I can never say that I lived by myself without some subtle influence of trauma in those earlier moments of my life.  So this new experience of once again living alone will actually be new in a different sense.  I will finally be living on my own without my early life history still overshadowing me.  I am continuing to move in the direction of acknowledging and working through how my earlier life history influenced my worldview.  The wisdom and maturity I have gained these last fifteen months has not been won without a lot of dedicated work.  I am nonetheless grateful for how much my life has changed.

I have this memory from my childhood that seems to be more than a memory of a single day.  It is a memory of a certain theme that predominated during whole stretches of time.  I recall feeling sad on Sundays.  I sat with my memory of this theme and allowed myself to slowly ponder it while visiting the YMCA last night.  And I made a commitment to myself: no more sad Sundays.

I sense I associate sadness with Sundays in part because weekends were a time when I was required to be less social by virtue of the fact that I had no compulsory school classes to attend on Sundays.  Yes I did have homework to complete like most American children have to do over the course of a weekend during the school 'year'.  There were long stretches in which my home life was terribly unsatisfying.  I recall it was difficult for me to wake up on Mondays and feel (more) enthusiastic about the coming week (it would be a mistake to claim I was a morose, withdrawn kid throughout my childhood...I wasn't) partly due to the fact that my capacity to trust had been harmed at such a young age (when I was eight).  I thus didn't look forward to being around people as much as I might have had I had the opportunity to deal with my grief and sorrow in a healthy way as a child.  In short, the harm done to my capacity to trust really and truly influenced how well I socialized with other kids in junior high as well as high school.

The sadness and grief I am still working through now is, in my estimation, a very natural consequence of the fact that I am still adjusting to awakening from the distorted perception of the world that was my way of perceiving the world for such a very long while.  Even good change such as awakening from a narrow view of the world isn't necessarily easy.  Indeed, on rare occasions I have felt the process of awakening to be genuinely harrowing.  But I am finding my way through it.  I have been blessed to enjoy an effective care team which I painstakingly assembled over the course of a calendar year's worth of time.

While waiting for my final bus to bring me to my therapist's office last week I experienced a brief moment in which I could almost see and taste the dazzling possibilities that can and will await me in 2015 and beyond.  Somewhere inside me I could feel a faith reforming that I am at the beginning of my true life...of the best years of my life.  I had this feeling that when winter wanes away and the world turns green again next spring the powerful legacy of my early life history will finally really and truly no longer feel like such an immense burden.

No more sad Sundays.


Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #11

My healthy activities for today:

• Personal training session at the YMCA
• Closely inspecting my new apartment for any issues I need to report to management
• Going to an interview with a local health resource organization

Sunday, October 5, 2014

Sunday, October 5, 2014


Fifty Day Challenge, Day #10

Healthy things I did today:

• Prepared to move into my new apartment
• Downsized my life and threw out a lot of unneeded paperwork
• Refrained from writing a full blog entry...in other words, I took a day off!

The Cultivation of Healthy Relationships

Saturday, October 4, 2014


Of the many aspects of a life that trauma can impact it can prove quite challenging to cope with how it may affect relationships.  And I believe this must be especially true when highly dysfunctional relationships are the primary cause of a person's experience of trauma.  A weak foundation of critical life skills can prove an immense challenge to address later in life.

In the last several years of my professional history I have gradually made a turn towards doing work that incorporates the cultivation and nurturing of relationships.  I have often done this through doing outreach on behalf of an organization to a local community it serves.  As I have developed and utilized this skill more and more I have come to discover I genuinely enjoy doing it.  Like anyone I have my limitations in doing such work.  Because I am most certainly not a highly extroverted person I inevitably reach the limit of my energy to be 'outgoing' and chatty.  I don't really consider myself strongly introverted or strongly extroverted.  I see myself as someone who has a capacity to embody both ways of being.


I recently discovered an inspiring blog that contains a number of posts that provide 'practical tips for productive living'.  Today I will share the contents of one particular article and make my own observations throughout.  The piece I am cross-referencing (found here) is entitled "20 Things To Start Doing In Your Relationships" and was written by Marc Chernoff.  The original content of Chernoff's article appears below and is quoted word for word.  My comments appear embedded within in italic font.  Links posted throughout the original posting have been maintained for the sake of retaining connections to other valuable resources.


1) Free yourself from negative people. – Spend time with nice people who are smart, driven and likeminded.  Relationships should help you, not hurt you.  Surround yourself with people who reflect the person you want to be.  Choose friends who you are proud to know, people you admire, who love and respect you – people who make your day a little brighter simply by being in it.  Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.  When you free yourself from negative people, you free yourself to be YOU – and being YOU is the only way to truly live. Read Stumbling on Happiness.

This tip is so very important.  And yet sometimes following just this one tip is difficult.  In scenarios like my own it sometimes proves to be a healthy choice to walk away from your family of origin.  What I have done in the last fifteen months has not been at all easy.  But by walking away from relationships in which I rarely felt fully seen and heard I created a space in my own life for better relationships to appear.  And this has begun to happen.

When we encounter people ensnared in negativity it is my opinion that there is a very real possibility that trauma may be the core reason for an unhealthy attitude as expressed in relations with others.  When we encounter such people finding a place of compassion within our own hearts can prove vital.


2) Let go of those who are already gone. – The sad truth is that there are some people who will only be there for you as long as you have something they need.  When you no longer serve a purpose to them, they will leave.  The good news is, if you tough it out, you’ll eventually weed these people out of your life and be left with some great people you can count on.  We rarely lose friends and lovers, we just gradually figure out who our real ones are.  So when people walk away from you, let them go.   Your destiny is never tied to anyone who leaves you.  It doesn’t mean they are bad people; it just means that their part in your story is over.

The ability to let go is also an important skill.  Toughing it out through the rough patches of life can be grueling.  And this can be especially so when our existing network of friends and family is a bit frayed or thin.

In letting go of my hope that my father would ever be more than the man he has long been I had to deeply let go.  Expectations and experiences we have of and with our parents can be especially challenging to navigate, modify or let go of.  In my own experience it became vital to find other ways to supplement the healthy fathering I did not consistently receive from my own biological father.


3) Give people you don’t know a fair chance. – When you look at a person, any person, remember that everyone has a story.  Everyone has gone through something that has changed them, and forced them to grow.  Every passing face on the street represents a story every bit as compelling and complicated as yours.  We meet no ordinary people in our lives.  If you give them a chance, everyone has something amazing to offer.  So appreciate the possibility of new relationships as you naturally let go of old ones that no longer work.  Trust your judgment.  Embrace new relationships, knowing that you are entering into unfamiliar territory.  Be ready to learn, be ready for a challenge, and be ready to meet someone that might just change your life forever.

This tip is perhaps one of the most difficult to follow.  Why?  Because it can become easy to armor ourselves against past hurt by weeding out or avoiding people who remind us of those from our pasts whom we associate with pain and disappointment.  As a gay man I have seen this in the gay community.  People can become easily jaded due to past relationships that did not ultimately prove to fulfill their dreams...or even their most basic needs.

To be ready to 'meet someone that just might change your life forever' requires a certain openness of heart that will likely be difficult to maintain if old wounds and hurt still trouble you.  This tip speaks to the need to simultaneously learn how to let go.


4) Show everyone kindness and respect. – Treat everyone with kindness and respect, even those who are rude to you – not because they are nice, but because you are.  There are no boundaries or classes that define a group of people that deserve to be respected.  Treat everyone with the same level of respect you would give to your grandfather and the same level of patience you would have with your baby brother.  People will notice your kindness.

This is another vital tip.  My experience of not being treated with basic kindness and respect partially explains the cataclysm of the Summer of 2013 in which my old life imploded.  I finally had come to a decision to no longer allow people in my life who do not follow this basic maxim.  Following the Golden Rule of "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you" is an important, foundational rule for healthy relationships.


5) Accept people just the way they are. – In most cases it’s impossible to change them anyway, and it’s rude to try.  So save yourself from needless stress.  Instead of trying to change others, give them your support and lead by example.

Wasting time in an attempt to change people is indeed a waste of time.  I have come to believe the only thing we can truly change in the world is ourselves...because it's the only part of the world we have any real control over.


6) Encourage others and cheer for them. – Having an appreciation for how amazing the people around you are leads to good places – productive, fulfilling, peaceful places.  So be happy for those who are making progress.  Cheer for their victories.  Be thankful for their blessings, openly.  What goes around comes around, and sooner or later the people you’re cheering for will start cheering for you.

This one can be difficult to follow when you are going through hardship yourself.  We all want to be happy.  And when our suffering goes unnoticed and unacknowledged by others we may come to feel alienated and unappreciated.  And yet no person is an island or power unto himself.  What happens to others ultimately affects us...even if we cannot easily perceive this as being true.  Support others in their own happiness and ultimately you will find your own happiness.


7) Be your imperfectly perfect self. – In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, find the courage to keep being your awesome self.  And when they laugh at you for being different, laugh back at them for being the same.  Spend more time with those who make you smile and less time with those who you feel pressured to impress.  Be your imperfectly perfect self around them.  We are not perfect for everyone, we are only perfect for those select few people that really take the time to get to know us and love us for who we really are.  And to those select few, being our imperfectly perfect self is what they love about us.

Put simply: Give up on perfectionism.  I agree that we ought to gravitate towards those who naturally evoke the best in us.  Go where the support, laughter and love is.  Anything less is beneath what is our birthright to enjoy.


8) Forgive people and move forward. – Don’t live your life with hate in your heart. You will end up hurting yourself more than the people you hate.  Forgiveness is not saying, “What you did to me is okay.”  It is saying, “I’m not going to let what you did to me ruin my happiness forever.”  Forgiveness is the remedy.  It doesn’t mean you’re erasing the past, or forgetting what happened.  It means you’re letting go of the resentment and pain, and instead choosing to learn from the incident and move on with your life.  Remember, the less time you spend hating the people who hurt you, the more time you’ll have to love the people who love you.

This could be the most difficult one in the twenty tips profiled in this article.  Forgiving those we feel have failed us (or worse intentionally harmed us, etc) can be an immense project.  When we have experienced real and deep trauma due to the actions or inactions of others reaching a place where forgiveness grows in our hearts can feel like an impossible luxury.

In my own journey I have tried to separate out my own healing from the lives of those who impacted me in ways I would have preferred never to have experienced.  It can sometimes also prove helpful to distinguish between the actions or inactions that occurred and the person that perpetrated them (or failed to act).  Will I ever be able to forgive my father for his disrespectful and self-absorbed behavior? I do not know.  What I do know is that it is wise to set achievable goals.  Rather than trying to forcibly change him or convince him of how much his behavior harmed me I can get on with my own life and live it well.

I am personally inclined to make a significant distinction between forgiveness and reconciliation.  We can forgive a person or persons for their behavior and its impact on us.  And yet that doesn't necessarily repair the damage or the relationship.  Repairing and bringing that which was harmed back to health is something I believe falls within the realm of reconciliation.


9) Do little things every day for others. – Sometimes those little things occupy the biggest part of their hearts.  You can’t be everything to everyone, but you can be everything to a few people.  Decide who these people are in your life and treat them like royalty.

This is another excellent tip.  Decide who you want to be and what kind of friends you want to have.  Once you have made that choice go out into the world and find such people to play with.


10) Pay attention to who your real friends are. – As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones.  Remember, life is kind of like a party.  You invite a lot of people, some leave early, some stay all night, some laugh with you, some laugh at you, and some show up really late.  But in the end, after the fun, there are a few who stay to help you clean up the mess.  And most of the time, they aren’t even the ones who made the mess.  These people are your real friends in life.  They are the ones who matter most.

I have learned (sometimes the hard way) how important it is to discern this.  Are your friends the type of people who stick with you through the darkness and the light?  Or do they vanish without a trace during the challenging times in your life?  And what about you?  How do you respond to hardship and suffering?


11) Always be loyal. – True love and real friendship aren’t about being inseparable. These relationships are about two people being true to each other even when they are separated.  When it comes to relationships, remaining faithful is never an option, but a priority.  Loyalty is everything.

I have tended to take a similar view of loyalty as does Marc Chernoff.  I pride myself on my loyalty to my friends.  This tenet of relationships is very much connected to the one immediately above.  In my own mind true friends are loyal friends.  They accept you as you are and love you for who you are.


12) Stay in better touch with people who matter to you. – In human relationships distance is not measured in miles, but in affection.  Two people can be right next to each other, yet miles apart.  So don’t ignore someone you care about, because lack of concern hurts more than angry words.  Stay in touch with those who matter to you.  Not because it’s convenient, but because they’re worth the extra effort.  Remember, you don’t need a certain number of friends, just a number of friends you can be certain of.  Paying attention to these people is a priority.

I agree that lack of concern can hurt more than angry words.  The attitude of my family of origin during my virtual free fall into a state of misery and desolation sixteen months ago is what prompted me to finally, and deeply, re-evaluate my relationship with them.  Who makes you a priority in their lives?


13) Keep your promises and tell the truth. – If you say you’re going to do something, DO IT!  If you say you’re going to be somewhere, BE THERE!  If you say you feel something, MEAN IT!  If you can’t, won’t, and don’t, then DON’T LIE.  It’s always better to tell people the truth up front. Don’t play games with people’s heads and hearts.  Don’t tell half-truths and expect people to trust you when the full truth comes out; half-truths are no better than lies.  Remember, love and friendship don’t hurt.  Lying, cheating and screwing with people’s feelings and emotions hurts.  Never mess with someone’s feelings just because you’re unsure of yours.  Always be open and honest.

This tip encapsulates why I walked away from my paternal family of origin.  I became fed up with how much my capacity to trust had been damaged by past deceit and by how non-challant my family was about my father's dysfunctional behavior.  Can you call a person a friend who stands by and idly watches while a mutual friend lies, disrespects or otherwise mistreats you?  

Lies and deceit can cause such immense damage.  And I believe it can be very narcissistic when people do not think through their own actions and the possible full range of consequences prior to choosing a course of action.


14) Give what you want to receive. – Don’t expect what you are not willing to give.  Start practicing the golden rule.  If you want love, give love.  If you want friends, be friendly.  If you want money, provide value.  It works.  It really is this simple.  Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

'Just' practicing the Golden Rule alone will bring so much more quality to your life.  I firmly believe this to be true.  You cannot receive what you cannot give.  If you want love you must be willing to give love.  If you want to have friends then you must cultivate the personal qualities necessary to attract that into your life.


15) Say what you mean and mean what you say. – Give the people in your life the information they need, rather than expecting them to know the unknowable.  Information is the grease that keeps the engine of communication functioning.  Start communicating clearly.  Don’t try to read other people’s minds, and don’t make other people try to read yours.  Most problems, big and small, within a family, friendship, or business relationships, start with bad communication.

In other words I will emphasize what is already written: Do not expect people to be mind-readers.  If you want your needs to be fulfilled you first must know what they are and then communicate them to those you wish to be in relationship with.


16) Allow others to make their own decisions. – Do not judge others by your own past.  They are living a different life than you are.  What might be good for one person may not be good for another.  What might be bad for one person might change another person’s life for the better.  Allow people to make their own mistakes and their own decisions.

I agree we must allow people to make their own choices.  From the perspective of trauma healing I would add the following exception to the above generalization.  When a parent has a consistent history of making questionable decisions I firmly believe it is an ethical and responsible decision to bring such a history to the awareness of those who can intervene on a child's behalf.  For people who are consenting adults of healthy mind and body I think there should be no disclaimer added to this tip.  But it's a whole different matter entirely when people make decisions on behalf of others (such as minors, those deemed 'vulnerable adults' and the like) and those they impact have no free will or real ability to make decisions about their lives for themselves.


17) Talk a little less, and listen more. – Less advice is often the best advice.  People don’t need lots of advice, they need a listening ear and some positive reinforcement.  What they want to know is often already somewhere inside of them.  They just need time to think, be and breathe, and continue to explore the undirected journeys that will eventually help them find their direction.

Part of my wounding as a child was due to the failure of those close to me to pay me more attention to me.  In short, I was left alone too often and I wasn't listened to enough.  It is clear to me that this is true because experiences now, decades later, that imitate these unfortunates realities of my childhood have a way of provoking the old pain inside me that I first felt long ago.


18) Leave petty arguments alone. – Someone else doesn’t have to be wrong for you to be right.  There are many roads to what’s right.  And most of the time it just doesn’t matter that much.  Read How To Win Friends and Influence People.

One of my influential mentors from years ago stated the wisdom in this tip quite concisely: 'Stop having to be right!'  People deeply ensconced in their egos who are determined to protect what they perceive is their power, their prestige, their career and so on may engage in ego battles which feature much petty argumentation.

As an aside I will say this: Petty argumentation is one primary reason I do not follow American mainstream news media.  In this day and age it is filled with opinion and people who believe talking over and at one another someone means they have 'won' the argument at hand.


19) Ignore unconstructive, hurtful commentary. – No one has the right to judge you.  They might have heard your stories, but they didn’t feel what you were going through.  No matter what you do, there will always be someone who thinks differently.  So concentrate on doing what you know in your heart is right.  What most people think and say about you isn’t all that important.  What is important is how you feel about yourself.

I would add a 19B to this.  Not only does no person have the right to judge you but no person has the right to tell you how you should feel.  If I find myself in a conversation with someone in which he begins telling you how I 'should' feel I will almost immediately see a red flag in my own mind.  Nobody has the right to tell you what you should feel...about anything.

If we truly follow this tip I think that would also mean we have to ignore much of American media which I referenced above!


20) Pay attention to your relationship with yourself. – One of the most painful things in life is losing yourself in the process of loving others too much, and forgetting that you are special too.  When was the last time someone told you that they loved you just the way you are, and that what you think and how you feel matters?  When was the last time someone told you that you did a good job, or took you someplace, simply because they know you feel happy when you’re there?  When was the last time that ‘someone’ was YOU?

This twentieth and last tip is perhaps the most important.  When we lose sight of our own needs and desires and start living a life befitting of someone else we essentially begin to cease to exist as a separate and authentic person.  

If we constantly ignore our own pain and behave like martyrs in which we always place the needs of others first we are inevitably creating a perfect recipe for misery, burnout and resentment.  It may take months or even years for such dark feelings to become so prevalent that we clearly see something has gone wrong.  I think it is often true that many of the problems we create for ourselves often begin with the seemingly innocent act of not paying attention to our relationship with ourselves.  So always take time, on a consistent basis, to pay attention to your own needs and desires.  

You are the creator of your destiny.  At the end of your life you will be personally accountable for how you chose to live your life.


Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #9

Healthy activities from today:

• I went to an art show and met some new people
• I took a hard-core cat nap when I felt tired early this afternoon
• I wrote my daily blog entry focused on healthy relationships

A Cause For Celebration: The Restoration of Faith and Deep Trust

Friday, October 3, 2014


Today is the day that Germany celebrates Der Tag der Deutschen Einheit.  Germany celebrates its reunification as a public holiday on October 3rd each year.  I can still remember the collapse of communism as if it had occurred last year.  It has been nearly twenty-five years since the Berlin Wall fell on November 9, 1989!  I haven't yet surfed around on the Internet to follow the ways in which my fellow Germans have been celebrating today but I hope to do so later today.

German reunification in 1990 ended a geopolitical separation between the former West Germany and East Germany that had endured since the two states were created out of the devastated German landscape at the end of World War II...some forty-five years earlier.  I never experienced East Germany during its existence.  My first visit to Berlin took place in 2002.  I visited Checkpoint Charlie and tried to take in a bit of the immense history that can be found in Berlin.  I again visited Berlin during my trip to Germany in May, 2013.  Given the special significance of this day in German history it is a fitting backdrop for the focus of my blog today.  Today I am writing about the not inconsequential topic of restoring faith and trust.  Such restoration is a necessary step in individual and collective healing.

I had a productive meeting yesterday.  My meeting was with my vocational rehabilitation counselor and  my contact person at Kelly Services.  Kelly Services has placed me in a number of positions within the Allina Health System during the last six months.  I have enjoyed working for Allina Health.  I can imagine possibilities in which I could find a fulfilling career within the system.  But I am also looking elsewhere.  I believe it very wise to keep my options very open during this amazing time in my life.

I feel so happy and hopeful today in part due to how the meeting unfolded yesterday.  I had held some fear that disclosing my health diagnosis to my employer could place me at heightened risk of discrimination in future opportunities.  Before I proceed further in my writing I feel I have an ethical responsibility to make it clear that nothing in my past working history with Kelly Services led me to believe that I might experience discrimination.  Of the varied contractual employment agencies I have worked with over the years I have been most pleased with the opportunities I have been able to find through Kelly Services.  I expect that my viewership of my blog will continue to grow in the coming months.  I thus want to be responsible and thus share correct information and informed opinions.  I find it a bit sad that maintaining a high standard of conduct seems to be genuinely counter-cultural in the United States these days.  Respectable journalism in this nation seems to be a lost art.

My meeting went better than the worst scenarios that played through my mind prior to the meeting itself.  This was not surprising actually.  I am still learning to be a more optimistic person.  I think it correct to say that being optimistic about life and the future seems like an unreasonable stretch for many people who are recovering from trauma.  When life features one disappointment after another after another it becomes easier to give up trying and hoping.  Despair is easier than effort and commitment.

I actually have a number of interviews next week.  I am excited about all of them.  And even more important I am quite excited about my whole life now!  And being excited about my life and my future possibilities was not something I typically felt in earlier moments of my life.

Deep healing is possible and, perhaps it may sound daring to say, even inevitable if you create a sufficient network of support and commit to your process of recovery.


Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #8

Healthy things I am doing today:

• I met with my personal trainer this morning...and then did an additional workout thereafter
• I am meeting a friend for lunch
• I am taking note of all the blessings in my life for which I am grateful
• I am allowing myself to dream a bigger, brighter future

The Crisis of Turning Nine

Thursday, October 2, 2014

“The change in the children’s self-awareness grows stronger at the age of nine, and you find that they understand much better what you say about the difference between the human being and the world.  Before they reach the age of nine, children merge far more thoroughly with the environment than is the case later, when they begin to distinguish themselves from their surroundings.  Then you will find that you can begin to talk a little about matters of the soul and that they will not listen with such a lack of understanding as they would have listened earlier.  In short, the children’s self-awareness grows deeper and stronger when they reach this age.”

-Steiner, Lecture 7 of “Practical Advice to Teachers”

Have you ever reached a certain birthday and considered it a significant milestone?  Has reaching a certain milestone ever caused you, perhaps ironically, to feel catapulted into an immense and consuming feeling of doom and gloom?

I think it is safe to say that most of us associate crisis with the challenges typical of adulthood.  There are moments (and sometimes whole stretches of life that come to feel agonizingly long) when we may gain a deeper sense of the current circumstances of our lives and feel positively bereft of hope or inspiration.  Sometimes crisis can strike quite suddenly.  Other times it may build slowly over the course of many months and years until one day we wake up and find ourselves wondering how we came to be living the life we are 'living'.

You can well imagine my own surprise as I have explored the tender age of nine.  Some claim this is a particularly tender moment in the development of a child.  The focus of my blog today is on my own work excavating the life and associated thoughts and memories from the time between my ninth and tenth birthdays.

My session with my therapist yesterday has provided me fresh initiative and energy to focus specifically on the time when I was nine years old.  I found the above quote on The Parenting Passageway website while surfing around doing research on what I am coming to realize is a significant milestone in child development.

According to an article posted on the above site “children at this age (nine) often have a quiet, not verbalized, ‘inner crisis’ where they begin to have questions about themselves and their purpose in the world, about whether or not rules are really justified, whether or not adults really do know everything…”

It has been difficult for me to recall much of my life experience from the period of June, 1982 to December, 1983.  This period includes my ninth and tenth birthdays.  Looking back with the benefit of fifteen months of regular weekly therapy sessions as well as substantial insight borne of my own innate intelligence I can now better recall how I felt at that time.  I still cannot seem to really bring forth memories that contain any visual imagery.  And perhaps this will always be so.  And I have come to accept the very real possibility that visual imagery of this time period will never be sharp in my recollection.  But there are worse things that gaps in my memory.  Continuing to live a life that is not worth remembering is but one example.

I certainly did experience a crisis around the time I turned nine years old.  And I most certainly did not verbalize it.  And my primary reason for not verbalizing it was the fact that I had already come to believe that I wouldn’t be given an authentic hearing anyhow.  By the time I was nine years old I had developed some fairly warped ideas about myself and the world at large. 

What follows is just a sampling of my beliefs and thoughts I had developed by that time:

• I had come to believe that adults generally could not be trusted. 

• I had also come to believe that people are (perhaps by inherent nature), for the most part, self-absorbed and thus disinclined to pay much attention to the needs and lives of others.

• On a related note I came to believe that many people are so invested in avoiding pain that they will fashion their whole lives in accord with a strategy which they believe will somehow help them avoid pain.  I think the life my father has chosen to live is a perfect example of this.

• I didn’t really have much of a sense of my own purpose in the world when I was nine.  As I have noted elsewhere in my writing in this blog I can recall feeling skeptical that I would even survive my childhood.  It thus didn’t occur to me to contemplate what my purpose was nor how I would achieve it as an adult.

Given the thoughts and core beliefs that had begun to predominate in my mind by the age of nine it is no wonder my nine year old would be carrying something that could be used as a weapon when he appeared during my session yesterday.  By the time I was nine years old I had already become something that I find truly tragic for nine year old children to be.  I was weary.  A child of nine who is weary has, in my opinion, likely endured something detrimental to his own healthy development.  To undergo such difficulty so early in life can indeed prove to be shattering to future healthy, timely development.  To this day I still marvel that I became as high functioning, educated and motivated as I did.  And yet we all have our limits.  Without sufficient love, support, stability, play and kindness I believe most all of us will be at higher risk of becoming alienated, physically ill or worse.

Through the work I have done thus far it has become apparent that I need to really zero in and focus on this particular time in my development.  In my future therapeutic work I thus plan to offer my nine year old boy self a hearty and warm welcome.  I welcome him to consciously journey with me.  I welcome him to offer me access to his heart and mind.  And in doing so I hope to find deeper healing and excitement for my own future than what I already experience now.

For those of you in recovery reading this piece I ask you to ask yourselves the following question:

What was life like when you were nine years old?

Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #7

Healthy activities I did today:

• I had an important meeting focused on my future career
• I met with a gastroenterologist as a preventive measure to be proactive about my diet
• I enjoyed an unexpected and beautiful rainbow in the evening

Speaking To My Nine Year Old Self

Wednesday, October 1, 2014


The month of October has begun.  And as we change our calendars it is definitely clear that change is unfolding outside our windows.  The leaves are changing colors.  The air is turning crisp.  The summer of 2014 is now a memory.

I had a very productive meeting with my therapist today.  We did some hypnosis work to more deeply explore the time I was a nine year old boy.  If you have closely followed my blog throughout this past summer you will know that the summer prior to my ninth birthday was an important time in my own development.  That summer followed the near loss of my father.  My alienation, fury and sadness went deep ‘underground’ in my psyche after I nearly lost my father.

Unexpected imagery filled my mind as I journeyed with my nine year old boy self.  My boy self appeared quite quickly.  After acknowledging and welcoming him I noticed he was holding a thread that disappeared into darkness behind him.  We ultimately followed that thread through an immense darkness until I found myself in a very unfamiliar setting.

I found myself in what seemed to be an anteroom of a medieval castle.  And then I bore unwitting witness to someone being assaulted and then kicked down a flight of stone steps.  The person, who struck me as being a peasant based on his clothing, was then carried outside and further attacked by a group of people.  It was raining outside as this took place.  I couldn’t even see the person once he was carried outside because he was completely encircled by those attacking him.  I could only make out occasional glimpses as he writhed in the mud and begged for mercy.

When my nine year old self first appeared he made it known to me that he was carrying a certain form of protection.  Looking back now a very short time after the therapy session concluded I cannot help but think of this scene from the movie Sybil in which her doctor interacted with one of her many personalities.  I recall her doctor taking note of the clenched fist one of Sybil’s personalities brandished to her.  This particular personality seemed intent on being armed as a means of protecting herself as well as Sybil as a whole.  I can empathize with such a hyper-vigilant attitude.  Such an attitude is not uncommon to carry after a person has been deeply traumatized.

My nine year old self eventually handed over the protective item he had been carrying.  He did so as an expression of his faith in me.  I also sensed he was willing to lay down his tool of protection and allow himself to trust in the unfolding process I have been engaged in for the last fifteen months.

My therapist reframed the protection that appeared in the session imagery as more than something that could be used as a weapon.  It could be used in a passively positive way as a form of protection.  But it could also be used in an active way to ‘cut the crap’.  Through my conscious intention I can decisively remove the dross from my life and focus exclusively on that which is healthy and good.

My therapist also spoke about introducing more light into my life as a way of addressing the dark and foreboding quality of the castle scene I bore witness to.  Whether the scene was purely a construct of my own creation infused with vivid metaphor or was instead an actual event from some past life is, in one sense, completely irrelevant.  Regardless of the ultimate ‘truth’ of the scene I found myself in I do agree with my therapist’s emphasis on light and joy.  Creating more light and joy is a fundamental priority in my own life now.

Here in the present world of October 1, 2014 I find myself feeling quite elated.  A number of positive developments are carrying me forward in the direction of a much better life.  As my therapist noted during my session today the past does not equal the future.  It certainly does not have to.  We can consciously choose to move in the direction of healing.


Post Script

Fifty Day Challenge, Day #6

Healthy activities I engaged in today:

• I swam 12 laps at the YMCA
• I went for a walk in the Loring Park area
• I met with my therapist and had a productive session as I noted above
• I volunteered some of my time this evening in support of the work of Free Arts Minnesota