Emotions - Fear, Sadness & Disgust

Fear

Fear occurs when we perceive a threat.  Extreme fear can take the form of terror, which is immobilizing.  In its milder form, fear makes us feel nervous or anxious.

Fear is an emotion designed to protect us.  To make us more cautious, keeping us away from potential hazards.  Fear initiates the fight or flight response.

But as we know, fear can take us over.  And prevent us from living healthy lives.  Especially when the fear is imagined; not based in reality.

Sadness

Sadness is a natural response to loss.  Sadness can develop into unbearable emotional pain or depression, leaving us feeling passive and powerless.

Some people get stuck in sadness.  Forever grieving a perceived loss, of something or someone.  One thing is certain, none of us are going to get through life without some sort of loss.  So it is best to move towards acceptance.

Sadness can take away our will to try, even to live.  I know I have felt sadness for the whole world, and the tragedies that occur.  But I can't take on the whole world.  I need to learn to accept what I can't change, and try to see or trust there are lessons and some purpose in everything that happens.

Disgust

Disgust has its utility in reducing stress levels and maintaining a pleasant environment.  We move away from things that revolt us or cause us distaste.

Disgust helps protect us from things that would upset our stability, tranquility, equilibrium.  At the same time, disgust can make us agitated and disapproving.  For perfectionists like myself, disgust can almost become a way of life, greatly impoverishing my experience of living. 

To be continued...

Emotions - Shame, Anger & Guilt

As we consider these emotions, it might be useful to keep a running journal of when you have felt interest, pleasure, surprise and the emotions which follow.  It may be a way of getting in touch with yourself and seeing where you might have work to do.

Shame

Shame is caused by a loss of self-esteem, usually through an unfavourable comparison with someone else.

Shame can be experienced in a group (as when you fluff your lines in a play) or alone (as when you envy something someone else has).

In its extreme form, shame can become humiliation, causing those who experience it to withdraw completely, avoiding the scrutiny of others.

Shame is one of those almost useless emotions.  It feels terrible; but as discussed earlier in this blog, it serves little purpose to compare ourselves with others.  We can never know the entirety of what they are going through.  And although it may seem they are doing better, somehow, in the moment; there is much we don't see and don't know about another's life.

No one gets out of Earth School without lessons.  You have no way of knowing another's life, so it is futile to compare.

Anger

Anger occurs when you feel victimized.  When you feel wronged.

As with all emotions, anger runs the full spectrum from minor irritations or annoyance, to full-blown fury or rage.

Whether we are merely irritated, or furious, it is unpleasant emotion that tells us something is wrong.  There are times when anger is an appropriate emotion; but it is the one that can get us in the most trouble, socially.  It is the one emotion for which there are numerous anger management workshops.

The real danger with anger, is sometimes it is old reaction to a current situation that "looks" the same; but isn't.  Additionally, anger takes a lot out of us.  So understanding clearly what is going on, and managing our response, is critical.

Guilt

Guilt arises when you feel you might have taken advantage of someone else, or done something "wrong".  Broken some rule.

For me, guilt and shame are closely aligned, and are often part of the 'trip' laid on one by some forms of Christianity.  The idea that a child can be born with 'orginal sin' seems ludicrous.  It starts us off with a negative before we've even had a chance to exercise our free will.

Additionally, guilt and shame are often used to manipulate people to conform and live by someone else's rules. 

Examine carefully why you might feel guilt or shame, as you may not have actually done anything "wrong".  Is someone trying to shame you into doing something they want you to do or be?  Consider carefully your rights and obligations. Chose what is healthy for yourself.  Don't beat yourself up because someone may be disappointed about you looking after yourself, for your own emotional health.  We need to be protective of ourselves and create healthy boundaries.

Be prepared to suffer the displeasure of others in order to be true to yourself.

To be continued...

Emotions - Interest, Pleasure & Surprise

Emotions have their place in a healthy human response system.  An important place in functioning well.  Let's look at a few of the primary emotions:

Interest

The emotion of interest is elicited by fulfilling a consciously perceived need.

I hadn't thought of interest as an emotion; but I can see how it functions as a primary element of human survival.

If you are hungry, you might be interested in food.  If you are curious about something, you might be interested in finding out more about it.  Investigating.

Interest is a powerful emotion which engages us in our world.  Healthy people are interested in their environments.

Pleasure

Closely aligned with interest is pleasure.  We are all aware of "the pleasure principle".  We seek pleasure and eschew pain.  Like interest, pleasure is the fulfillment of a need.  Pleasure can range from simple satisfaction to ecstasy.

Abusing substances is an unhealthy, unbalanced choice in eliciting pleasure.  It is understandable, from a chemical basis, why we do it; but there are other healthier, better choices.

The emotion of pleasure is a powerful motivator to repeat the kinds of behaviour that gave us pleasure in the past.  It is important to identify the healthy things that give us pleasure and build those things into our lives.

Surprise

The emotion of surprise occurs when something happens that we don't expect.  We feel surprise when an unforeseen event throws us off balance, and for a moment, we don't know how to react.

As with all emotions, there are varying degrees of intensity.  Mild to intense.  Accordingly, surprise will be followed by various reactions--from a ruffled indifference (shrugging your shoulders) to evasive tactics on which your life may depend (jumping back to the curb as a car speeds by).

To be continued...

Emotions - The basics

In group recently, I was despairing about feeling sad; only to be reminded by the facilitator, that it is normal to feel sad sometimes. It is a valid healthy human response.  Not to be feared or run away from.

Being able to feel and express emotions appropriately, is part of what makes us human.  Emotions are a kind of built-in radar we have to provide us with information that helps us survive.

In numerous films and programs in popular culture (think: Dr. Who, Spock in Star Trek) emotions are seen as a curiosity, unique to human nature.  Yet, often in our society, we are taught to squelch or deny our emotions, from childhood on.  Especially, and sadly, I think, for men.

We are taught not to be afraid, told that it doesn't hurt.  Not to be a baby. Often we go through life without having our experiences and perceptions, with the accompanying emotions they elicit, validated.  Suck it up.  You're too sensitive.  We all know the phrases used to encourage us to deny our feelings.

In my case, I became so detached, that I have often felt like I was watching a movie of someone else, third person observer, when going through situations too intense for me to process.  Even positive emotions, like love, I can't feel or receive.

But all these emotions don't just disappear.  They go underground.  And this is probably where I get into trouble.  I become depressed.  Angry.  Triggered by small things.  I break down.  I am anxious (fearful) without knowing why.  I become overwhelmed and can't function.  I harm myself and others.

So where do emotions come from?

Emotions are psychological reactions to our perceptions--both external (what is actually happening) and internal (imagination and interpretation of events).

They guide us in what we should do next.  How to respond. And in the case of imagination, they provide us with the ability to enjoy a good book, or create something new.

Did you know that regardless of where one is in the world, or one's culture, that all human facial expressions of anger, good will, happiness are the same and understood without language?

So there is something universal in the feeling and expression of emotions for us humans.  And for me, it is time to understand, rather than fear them.

Emotions

Emotions.  Who needs them?!

I think most of us with mental health issues have problems with our emotions.  Feeling them.  Expressing them.  Regulating them.  Knowing when to trust them.  When are they based in reality?  When are they a function of frozen responses to old situations?

Over the next few postings I would like to explore the world of emotions.  Where they come from.  How they serve us, and how they don't.  How to reign them in when they get out of hand.

As someone who has suffered from severe depression for most of my life, I find myself afraid to be sad.  I want to run away from anything that feels the way I used to feel.  I become afraid that my emotions will take me over, and that after all my work, I'm in despair that I can still feel this way.  All is for naught.

But that is not the case.

Emotions are important feedback loops that help us stay safe and make healthy decisions.  Rather than fearing or stuffing my emotions, I want understand them.  Learn how they work, and how to regulate them in my life.

To help us explore this topic, I will be referring to Alain Samson's Life is Unfair, so what?

Note to the Reader

I am currently researching my next blog topic, and may not post for a few days.

Please bear with me and thank you for following my blog.

Resilience and Adaptability Summary

So, 14 posts later, and we are finishing our examination of Resilience and Adaptability.

My focus has been mainly on resilience.  I'm beginning to see the difference between the two.  Resilience is the ability to bounce back and carry on.  Adaptability is not only the ability to bounce back, but to change in response to whatever has happened; perhaps to thrive.

Although I have focused primarily on Growing up Resilient: Ways to build resilience in children and youth, by Barankin and Khanlou, I have read many other books in conjunction with this topic.

Let's sumarize the last two areas of resilience addressed in Growing up Resilient:

Family:

The factors contributing to a resilient family are:

Secure Attachment 
Effective Communication
Family Structure & Parent Relations: Stability
Parenting Style & History of Mental Illness
Sibling Relations & Community Context

Community:

The factors contributing to a resilient community are:

Inclusion
Social Conditions and Access
Involvement

I hope those of you reading this blog have found something in this discussion of resilience which will help you on your journey.

If I would take away one thing I can work on, it is in developing a better community fabric for myself.  I'm beginning to see through the study of the Psychology of Happiness, and now with Resilience, that I will be happier and healthier if I put more effort into connecting with others.  Engaging and becoming involved; rather than isolating and turning inward.

Community Reslience Factors II

How have I experienced the factors of inclusion; social conditions and access; and involvement in my life growing up?

As I have mentioned in previous posts, I did not have a feeling of inclusion in my community.  Even though I grew up in an all-white, all Christian, unilinugal community; there was much discrimination, bullying and isolation.

The part of rural Ontario where I grew up is an area of regional disparity.  So not only were we as individuals or a family poor, the whole area was poor.  Because it was rural, access to support services were minimal or non existent.

There was a low degree of education, a lot of ignorance, few professionals.We had limited exposure to media, and what little there was, was dominated by images of whites.  Blacks and women were beginning to break through, but only in the areas of entertainment and sports.  I don't believe any minorities (if women can be considered a minority) were shown in a position of power or leadership.

Involvement opportunities were limited, due to the sparseness of population and distances; but there were opportunities to be involved in clubs like 4H, Guides, Brownies, and of course, the Church.

So, in what ways can I improve the environmental factors of community in my life now?

For me, inclusion and involvement go together.  I have so often felt isolated and alone.  Living with a mental health issue, undiagnosed and unsupported has been a kind of hell.

But now, I live in an urban area with access to many supports.  I can become more engaged in any number of volunteer activities, and create a life outside the treatment world,  building balance and resilience in my life.

As far as social conditions and access go, I am building up resource files, some of which I am sharing in this blog.  A lot of what I have discovered, has been through word-of-mouth from the group I attend.  How an isolated individual would find out about these things, I have no idea--because some of the information is not available anywhere in print, and the programs available are constantly changing.

There are several areas where I feel there is a glaring need, about which I could write a great deal; but I will only mention one briefly here.

Housing: No one can get well and function unless they have the stability of a home.  This would seem beyond obvious; yet we have large numbers of homeless people, or people living in awful substandard housing.

No one would chose to live this way if they could do otherwise.  The majority of the homeless or low income individuals are in their situation due to mental health issues.  Yet, we have no mental health clubs or sheltered workshops where people who live in shelters or in social housing can go during the day.  (For those who don't know, most shelters don't permit the homeless to stay there during the day.)

In my opinion, building more social housing is not the solution.  We are only creating ghettos, more marginalization, more discrimination and unsafe environments.

There are probably three types of housing we should be creating:

Transition housing/halfway houses, where those who are getting help and trying to stabilize can have a room in a supervised setting.

Supervised supportive housing, apartments where people with disabilities and mental health issues live independently, but with trained staff available.

Units within for profit market rent buildings where those who have stabilized and are able to live independently can apply and live; but at a geared to income rent.  Incentives such as tax breaks and subsidies, perhaps tied to obtaining building permits, can create conditions favourable for a landlord to provide a certain percentage of units available, at no loss of income to him/herself.

There is no health without mental health.  And there can be no mental health without stability of habitat.

If there is one thing I would like to take on when I am stronger and more stable myself, it would be to solve this most basic human issue. It is a great shame that we as Canadians have this problem.  The very poor and the mentally disabled have no place to live.

Community Resilience Factors I

We will finish off Barankin & Khanlou's book, Growing up Resilient, by looking at the social environment which contributes to resilience.

Inclusion:

The doctors define inclusion as a sense of belonging.  Societies providing an optimal environment for building resilience:
a) embrace and accept their members
b) have respect for diversity 
c) remove barriers and create equal access opportunities.

Social Conditions & Access:

Socio-economic factors and media are two elements on which the doctors focus. When, for whatever reasons, individuals and families are poorly educated or poorly paid, access to providing basic needs becomes difficult or not met.

There is a need for universal education, health care and housing.  Free or low fee recreational activities.  Free or low fee counseling.

The media has come a long way since I was a child in reflecting the diversity of our world, and I hope it will continue to do so, as so many people seem to look to the media as a way of defining and modeling themselves.

Involvement:

This is the process of engaging in community life.  Joining clubs, becoming involved in civic or volunteer activities, participating in sports--these are all ways of building healthy ways of interacting with others, social skills and resilience.

In my next post I will discuss these factors as I have experienced them, and ways I think we can improve our social context to promote resilience and mental health.

Family Resilience Factors II

Continuing with family factors contributing to becoming a resilient person:

Parenting style & mental health

Barankin & Khanlou suggest that the best parenting style is "authoritative".  This is not authoritarian.  It is consistent, involved, firm but fair, focusing on the positive rather than negative.  Explaining, listening, communicating clearly expectations and consequences.  Managing anger responses.

My parents were very different in how they parented.  My mother was authoritarian, basing her parenting on a punitive interpretation of Christian principles.  My father was inconsistent.  Mostly, he was uninvolved; but occasionally he would intervene; usually to take something away.

I don't blame my parents for how they were.  They did the best they could, given where they were coming from and the paucity of information they had available to them.  They were both suffering with their own mental health issues and challenges. 

I have discovered, primarily through genealogy research, that there is a history of mental illness in both family lines.  Something hidden and approached with shame.

What I can do for myself now, is to use that fair, kind parenting style in constructing my new life.  To not be so hard on myself. Focus on what I did right; learn from what I did wrong.

And perhaps by being more open about my illness, I can help de-stimagtize mental illness for those around me.

Sibling relations & community support

I would say there was an uneven hand in our sibling relations.  Mostly, I think my mother was overwhelmed.  Then, and I'm certain this is perceived differently by each of us, different siblings were favorites at different times, by different family members.  Between my siblings in myself, we were pretty much left to work out our relations on our own.

As far as external community connections, we had the Church community; and my mother tried to get involved with things like Brownies.

But I'm not sure there was a sense of belonging, or support available.  The Church community was exclusive, and the belief system set us apart from the rest of the world.  In fact, we were not to mingle with "unbelievers" except to proselytize/convert them. The answer to every problem was prayer and if something was "wrong" it was shameful, a failure of faith and tended to be hidden.

We belonged to a rural community, and there wasn't much in the way of supports available.  And, much like the Church, if people had problems, it was something more to be whispered about, a source of shame, to be dealt with behind closed doors.

I think what my mother tried to do in terms of becoming involved in the local community at the level of us children was good; but by that time I was older and well on my way to being "apart".

This all led to an isolated, restricted life for me, with very little in the way of community connection.  In fact, I was probably raised to distrust others, with the expectation I would be persecuted for my religion.  There was a great deal of intolerance, as we were taught that our "truth" was the only truth.  We were right and the rest of the world was wrong.

My experience demonstrates some of the negative aspects of what can happen in religious communities of any faith.  They can generate a sense of elitism, exclusivity, and intolerance. There is a tendency for members to be self and other, critical/judgmental.  This not a healthy mindset conducive to embracing our membership in humanity on the planet.

I know not all churches are like this; and being part of a church or religious community is generally thought of as a positive, additive aspect of an individual's life.  Generally, it gives one a sense of belonging, a connection with a community of shared values, a spiritual sense of something bigger than ourselves.  Usually, there are many social activities connected with membership, and as an aspect of the religious practices.

To summarize, I think there was an uneven hand in the treatment of my siblings and myself; and little in the way of community connection/supports available.  Additionally, what little community connection I did have via the Church tended to contribute to further isolation.

The more I write about what is required to raise a resilient child, the more I understand why I don't have this attribute, and realize the work involved to build this in myself.

Although I left the Church, I can see how my tendency to isolate and hold myself apart remains.  It is going to require some effort on my part to reconnect with the world; to build healthy honest relationships with others.  To become more tolerant and accepting.  To reach out, rather than tuck in (and roll :).

No person is an island; although we may feel that way sometimes.

Family Resilience Factors I

Barankin & Khanlou suggest that families have different resilience levels, just as individuals do.

At first, I wanted to skim over this section.  It has been my habit to think of individual factors. What I could do as an individual to make changes.  I have tried to be self-reliant. Then, I realized there is probably a correlation between mental health and the kinds of families in which we were formed.

When I think of my family, I feel sad.  And when I read through the list of factors for resilient families, I realize most of these factors weren't present in my home.

The doctors describe resilient families as having strong bonds, they show affection, they support one another.  Resilient families are flexible and committed to problem-solving together, when challenges arise.  They are optimistic; approach things with humour in good times as well as in bad.  They are protective, grounded, stable.  They can count on each other.  These families have good boundaries; exhibit love, acceptance, and encouragement; they are effective communicators; and provide a safe environment.

To be fair, my family has not been static.  There have been fluctuations in our closeness.  Many of the elements missing as children were added later in life.  There are times we have been fairly harmonious; and times when we were not.  And I imagine this flux is as unique as the individuals that make up my family.  And it will continue as long as we are alive, as we all continue to learn and grow.

Let's look at the factors Barankin & Khanlou mention:

Secure attachment:

This is something I didn't have as a child, and have been unable to achieve with anyone during my life.  This, I would say, is the big hole inside me.  And perhaps one of the underlying factors in developing BPD.

How can this be filled?

Some suggest looking after animals helps.  Ideally, it would be good to be well enough, stable enough, to have an honest, intimate relationship with another human.  For the time being, for me, it is something that will have to wait.

Effective communication:

Listening skills, openness, honesty, encouragement rather than criticism and judging.  Respect and healthy boundaries.

I think none of this was present in my childhood.  However, group therapy helps a lot with developing these skills; as well as various workshops.

Family structure & parent relations

Families can take any number of formations; but the key ingredient is stability; plus healthy relations between the adults/caregivers in the situation.

Although my family had a traditional structure growing up; there wasn't stability, emotionally or financially.  And for my last years at home, my family moved a lot, adding to a sense of insecurity and hopelessness.

What I can provide for myself now is some sort of geographical stability.  I can learn how to protect myself from emotional damage by controlling who and what I allow into my space.  I can create a life that isn't overwhelming for me.  That is peaceful and healthy, with self-care rituals and routines.  This is my work now.

To be continued...

Summary of Individual Resilience Factors

In the next couple of posts I'd like to finish off with Barankin & Khanlou's book, Growing up Resilient.

To summarize individual resilience factors:

Temperament                             Ways of thinking
Learning strengths                      Social skills
Feelings & Emotions                    Physical health  
Self-concept

I've looked at each of these factors and tried to find ways to give myself/yourself what we may have missed as children.

Barankin & Khanlou also talk about Family and Community factors.

I will try to look at these briefly, to see if there is anything I/we can arrange for ourselves as adults that we have missed in our formation.  I know for myself, my environment is very important to me.  I am very sensitive physically and emotionally.  How can I create a more caring and nurturing environment for myself?  One in which I can thrive?