To Make things Exciting and Different – Is in our Hands- “The Forgotten Birthday.”

Marcia and looked dolefully out of the window. She was a miserable. She felt rejected, uncared for, deserted  and useless. Obviously she meant nothing to anyone. It was already  9 am and no one had phoned her,  not one member of her family. Obviously no one cared at all. No one cared enough to remember, or if they did remember they were too busy to phone. She was just not important to anyone.

She made herself a third cup of coffee adding a little too much sugar to it. Well she needed the extra sugar. She had to have it. Did it matter how much  she ate if it mattered to no one? It was her 59th birthday and just no one seemed to have remembered. There where it no early-morning calls,  no flowers coming to her door. But maybe there was still time. Maybe her family where busy. Maybe they would phone later.

There was a ring at the front door and Marcia cheered up. That was surely the flowers. They had remembered. Eagerly she opened the door only to find the man who usually read the water meter outside. He was looking a little agitated. "Excuse me ma’m," he said,  "someone has put  bricks in the hole where the water meter control is kept. We are having difficulty reading it. She walked with him outside and saw the problem promising that he could came back the next day and she would make sure her gardener would  remedy this. Disappointed she went back inside, noting that it was now 10:00am. There was no message and there had been no flowers.

 Miserable, she made another cup of coffee and went to lie down, the phone next to her. It was 2 p m when she awoke, the telephone still silent. She lifted the receiver to make sure that phone was actually working. It was. She felt more and more depressed, disillusioned, miserable, rejected and destitute . No one remembered her birthday and no one loved her. She was quite sure of that now. Her family simply did not care. She began to think about all the birthday parties she had made for her children. She had spent hours, in fact days, making and icing the delicious  cakes, making savory snacks, shopping for special trinkets and toys to put it into small tie- up bags for each small guest at the party. She remembered the treasure hunts she had prepared in the garden, and the apples strung up on strings, and the pass- the- parcel so neatly wrapped up in wads of paper.

Then there  was no such thing as forgetting any of her children's birthdays. And anyway, they reminded her constantly, counting the days towards it with enthusiasm. But here she was alone. She made herself two cheese sandwiches and turned on TV, watching her favorite serials only half halfheartedly. At 7:00pm she went to bed, but sleep would not come. She tossed and turned, aware that she was becoming more and more depressed distressed and upset. Nobody cared. They had proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that they did not care. They had proved it beyond a doubt. And she was crying freely now as she realized that no one at all had remembered what day  it was. No one loved her. They were all too busy with their own lives to be concerned about their mother’s Birthday.

At around 8pm, the phone rang. If it was her daughter, just speaking about her own day, with not even a hint about the birthday. Marcia was much quieter than usual, but when her daughter asked her if she was alright she just said that she had a bit of a headache. Pam told of her to take some Tylenol and go to bed early. “Love you mom,” she ended.

Marcia put down the phone. ‘Love you Mom.’ How could Pamela  say a thing like that, a thing she did not mean? How could she say that and ignore her birthday? She felt wretched and neglected and alone as she put on a robe and got out of bed to make another cup of coffee, becoming absorbed in the story on the TV, but not too absorbed. She was devastated. That last call had proved that her birthday meant nothing. She would  let them know how much they had hurt her, but she would wait, wait until her forgotten birthday was finished .

At the stroke of midnight she phoned Brian. He was worried when he heard her voice. “Are you alright, mum?” He asked.” It is late. Are you OK? Do you feel well.?”

“No I am not OK,” she answered “and I see that none of you care at all whether I am OK or not. “

“Why Mum, why, what's the matter? “

“What ever the matter is, you wouldn't care  anyway. None of you care about me. One day you will get a report from a neighbor that I have died and it will just be a relief to all of you. “

“Mum, mum, don't say that.” said Brian. “We all love you. We love you so much. “

“No you don't,” she said bitterly.

“Mum why are you saying that ? What is the matter? “

“Today was my birthday,” she said at last.

Brian calculated that date, the 28th, yes it was his mother's birthday .

“Mom, I'm sorry,” he said. “Mom, happy birthday.”

“It is past midnight now,” his mother said. “It he's no longer at my birth day. It is too late. You missed it. “

“Mum why didn't you phone me before? Why didn't you phone me in the morning? We could have had such fun together. Maybe we can celebrate tomorrow. “

“Tomorrow is not my birthday.  Today before midnight was my birthday. What is there to celebrate? “

........................................................................

Does this or part of this scenario seemed slightly familiar to a greater or lesser extent? Let us look for a moment at what happened.

From the mother's point of view she was hurt victimized abandoned and rejected by her family. She waited all day for them to contact her and acknowledge her birthday but they didn't, and only after it was finished did she contact them to let them know the situation was unforgivable and nonredeemable.

She spent her birthday in extreme unhappiness, loneliness  and disillusionment. Her family had failed. They had forgotten her birthday. They did not care at all.

Let us also  take a brief look at how this happens with wedding anniversaries. The wife is well aware of the date of the anniversary and she looks forward to a special dinner, and red roses and perhaps a present. When that day goes past and it does not happen she becomes cold, angry and unresponsive, and again only tells her husband at midnight that he had missed their anniversary and that she felt angry and unloved. When he tries to say that they can make it up the next day she might be even more angry letting him know that for at least the next few weeks she resents him for showing such a lack of love.

The birthday scenario will probably also strain relationships for many weeks or even months, with all parties feeling uneasy and upset  with one another. The children are guilt ridden and the mother reminds them of this at every opportunity. as does the wife in the case of the forgotten anniversary .

 Suppose we write the story another way, a way which would make every one enjoy the birthday even though it takes a little pride, as she might see it,  away from the mother. However one can see it well worth it.

Suppose she had arisen knowing it is her birthday and wondering if her children  would remember. In the meanwhile she spoils herself making her favorite breakfast. When she sees at 9am that her somewhat scatterbrained children  have actually forgotten, she phones them up, saying: “It is my birthday today and we must all celebrate.  What shall we do?  I know I'm getting old, but it is great to be 59 now.”

 The daughter, Pamela, might feel a pang of guilt, but that is quickly and easily replaced and quelled  by her mother's happy tone of voice. “We are all coming to see you, mum, straight after work ,when children are also home. We also want to buy you something special. Happy birthday, mum, we love you. “

Marcia sits down and phones her son. “Hi, Brian, Pam and the kids are  coming over later because it is my birthday. I am going to get a cake and some goodies for them.”

Brian is immediately grateful that he was reminded. “ Mum what can we buy for you? We want it to be something special. What about the classical CD you were listening to, would you like it?”

“I would love it”, she would say, really thrilled.  When she puts down the phone she realizes that she has to do quite a lot of shopping and baking for the party. However she also wants to celebrate her birthday that morning, not to miss a bit of it, so she phones a friend, but she is unavailable.   Refusing to go on a mind trip about it she then phones another friend who is delighted to accompany her friend to a cafe for a  birthday tea, to be followed by a shopping spree.

For the anniversary, the wife can organize a wonderful supper with candles and roses. To refresh her husband’s memory , she phones him and tells him that she wants to buy him a present as today is their anniversary. She tells him that she really wants to buy him a part that he has wanted for his computer, but she does not want to do it without telling him as she might order the wrong one. The husband will then immediately go out and buy a present and book a movie for them for that evening. Of course the person can also pre-empt the anniversary as well  saying perhaps a week before: “It is  our wedding anniversary on Wednesday. Let's make it special. What shall we do?” They can then plan together.

With the birthday, Marcia could phone her son and daughter well before, and say :”I can’t believe that next Tuesday I will be 59 . Do you think I'm getting old?  How will we celebrate?”

What happens to us? Why do we continue to do it the first way?

 It is as if we board a black train, being carried along faster

and faster by our own fantasies and thoughts, where we

gradually eliminate or taint everything positive until we are

left with varying degrees of blackness.

 We all know that there are stations which we pass ‑ stopping

points which we for some reason speed past, driving ourselves

further and further towards destructive and negative thoughts.

  We all know these stations or choice points on that

black train ride.  We must learn to take them, to deliberately

'get off' that train, to deliberately stop this "train of

thought" and busy ourselves with something else ‑ anything else ‑ until we have

left this trap..

Change tracks, and get into a brighter, lighter train. You might believe that this is too hard  but it is not. You have to let go of a little pride or anger, which really isn't worth holding on to. Have fun and enjoy your anniversary or your birthday.  Why not?

To make an uncomfortable situation exciting and different is in our hands.

I Find it so Difficult to diet. I have given up

I find it so difficult to diet!
I have given up !
I start off well and starve myself but it only lasts a few days and then I think I eat much more than I ever did.

These are just some of my thoughts on the subject.......


What makes one choose the unhealthy way of Life?
The general population is gaining a great deal of knowledge about medical things which might have been unavailable before. People are aware, generally, of what is healthy and what is unhealthy, what is dangerous and what is safe. Despite this knowledge, they often choose the unhealthy or even the dangerous.
 There are a series of tricks and traps that people use to a greater or lesser degree, which cause them to do the opposite of what they know they should be doing. This is often the case when it comes to doing something about obesity.
 Some of us may have been told by our doctors to lose weight. We listen vaguely and then go back to our old ways perhaps feeling a little guilty about what we are doing.
 There is an ongoing debate as to whether obesity is a disease. Though there are at times health or disease states which can cause or perpetuate obesity, there are often strong psychological and emotional factors.
 Millions of people have tried various diets, exercise programs, and medications in order to lose weight. This all too often leads a yo-yo situation, with fluctuations upward and downward in weight taking place over the years.
Domination and 'Reverse Domination'
 People often become very sensitive and angry if someone suggests that they should lose weight and they may say to themselves or others that any chance of them trying to lose weight is gone because they are not going to be dominated by someone else.
 A word about domination and the need to express oneself: People who have been dominated as a child or teenager might live their whole lives trying to escape domination by someone else. In fact, once they have what they call their freedom, they might then do the exact opposite of what anyone tells them to do. This in fact becomes an even greater domination because now they are not only dominated by the original dominator but are ‘reverse dominated’ by anyone who, even by the slightest intonation might be appearing to dominate them. In this way they never do what they truly want to do because the minute someone tells them to do that they will do the opposite.
 A person may have decided to lose weight and be really thinking about it but when someone tells them they should lose weight (unless they are a doctor. Doctors sometimes fall into a different category) they abandon all plans of losing weight because they refuse to be dominated.
 Emotional Factors Negating Weight Loss Efforts
Sometimes a low sense of self-esteem makes people not take care of their weight and in fact their general health. They somehow don't think they are really worth caring for, unless they really seem to be sick, and even then they only do the bare minimum. It is important for them to recognize this and to realize what they are doing and to change it. They might see this more clearly when a third person tells them to watch their health and cooperate with the doctor and eat what they have to. They often take advice from this, almost as if they have been given 'permission' to care for themselves. (This of course could be ‘cancelled out’ by the reverse domination mentioned above).
 Guilt trips can send a person into a demotivating depression, where he or she  feel hopeless about his or her weight (as opposed to a motivating depression where a person can see where they are and where they want to be and is motivated towards it.)
 Anxiety can also cause people not to watch their food intake and therefore their health, as can depressive feelings, as mentioned above. Sometimes people are so anxious about their obesity that they avoid as much contact with the doctor as possible. Or they may use denial, that they are not really overweight.
 The person can have a fatalistic "whatever will be will be no matter what I do" approach. He or she might even have the fixed belief that he or she were born overweight and this is his or her destiny.
 Relatives can also sabotage a person’s health program. Perhaps without realizing it they see how much enjoyment their food gives their loved one and they find it difficult to stop feeding them delicious, rich, fatty foods.
A Commitment to Losing Weight
It is extremely difficult to lose weight and it has to be a decision made by the person. Whatever the method used there has to be that decision and that inspiration and the commitment, which is that person’s alone. There has to be a change of heart, a turning around. The whole thing is deeper than just finding the right diet.
 It is important not to see the fat as an essential part of SELF. It is weight that the person is  carrying around and at times it becomes quite burdensome. To get rid of the weight is not to get rid of the SELF, as it were.
 Once the person has made a real decision to lose weight, he/she then has to go to a doctor to assess his or her medical condition in an honest way. He or she then has to change the lifestyle so that certain foods become forbidden forever.
 It is important for people to make friends with themselves and to love and care for themselves. It is also important to realize that they are allowed time to care for themselves such as finding and cooking the right food rather than snatching something from a fast food outlet. A sense of humor is always good so as not to face this all with a grim, heavy determination. One has to do this out of self-love rather than self hate. If their needs are met, it is easier to look after others without resentment or heaviness.
 To accept and to enjoy this way of life is difficult but possible and rewarding, because if this is done with even a tinge of self pity one leaves open a crack where one can go on a whole mind-trip where ones gives oneself permission to eat something one is not supposed to eat. It is important to track those mind trips such as: ‘I really need to eat this pastry because I have an important meeting and I need energy and this is the quickest way’ etc, It is important to recognize this kind of thinking and to talk it down.
 Give Yourself Permission to Lose Weight and to Look Good.
One has to give oneself permission to lose weight, to care for one’s body and slowly become healthy, energetic and slimmer. One has to remember that one is important, important enough to look wonderful and to reconnect with life. One might have thought one was being kind to oneself and ones body by giving it unhealthy food, but in actual fact one is being cruel to it. One pampers oneself and one’s body in a healthy way with healthy food that one learn to really enjoy and exercise, which makes one stronger and feeling better every day.
 The person should not be pushed or pulled into exercises, which they are not yet equipped to do. From this one would induce that even exercise such as walking when done at an imposed, uncomfortable speed, would lead to less enjoyment and potential drop out, whereas walking at comfortable speed, though producing a slower weight loss, would be longer lasting, incorporated into the changed lifestyle, and therefore more effective.
One Day at a Time
It is not all that important which diet people follow or which method they use as long as it is based on healthy nutrition. One may feel one needs to talk to someone and or be part of a group. The psychological groups are all good and have often the same results… The support groups using twelve step principles have proved themselves in the realm of alcohol, drug abuse, gambling and overeating and well as other unwanted habits a person might be struggling with. They use the principal of one day at a time, which is a powerful one.
Often with a diet a person might lapse and eat, for instance, a whole bar of chocolate one day. Often, then, they decide they have broken the diet and they can put back on whatever weight they might have lost. When one looks at one day at a time, today becomes yesterday and tomorrow becomes a new day, where one has a day encapsulated in time, where one has not eaten even a square of chocolate (which in the past would often be the whole bar)
 Today you will follow a healthy diet and today you will exercise or go for that walk or run. And so on the next day and the next. You start to feel alive and the inspiration and energy, which you had become, a stranger to, begins to surface and to become part of yourself. Of course if you do make a mistake during that day it does not mean the whole day is lost. You can return immediately to your goal.
 It is often not the method of treatment or the actual diet used that is the cure. It is something deeper than that, a life change and decision, an essential in essential inner change.    

Borderline Personality. They have found the Silver Lining at last !

At last psychiatry and psychology have seen the silver lining in Borderline Personality Disorder. (BPD)

Less than a month ago Medscape (Psychiatry) reported on an interview they  had with Christopher J Hopwood (PhD), assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Michigan State University about his new research that suggested a silver lining for patients with BPD.
Traditionally people with BPD have been seen as extremely difficult to treat successfully and the time consumed doing this was often seen as not worth the effort.
I have treated and am still treating many patients with BPD but I came towards them from a completely different angle. For many years I have been very aware of the silver lining, sometimes even a beautiful, bright , golden lining or perhaps a lining of brilliant, dazzling colours.
I am going to take you back with me to many years ago when I emerged from University as a Social Worker (long before I was a clinical psychologist). I found a job with Child Welfare and was immediately plunged into a sordid, terrifying world.
Let me construct a scene for you, a typical situation for a social worker at Child Welfare:
“The case” would have been referred by a neighbour, a friend or an enemy perhaps. They would report that the children would be living with heavy drinking or alcoholic parents who would fight brutally with one another. They would have dubious friends and inevitably the children would have to leave the house to walk the streets with their mother in the early morning hours until the father would stop his violence to everyone or everything that came near him.
This would be one scenario. There might be a drunken brawl in the home until the main players would fall in a stupor on the floor.
But that would be the night before. I would visit the next morning and meet the children.  There would inevitably be a girl child of eight or nine who would be trying to feed and dress the younger children. Both parents would have passed out and perhaps thrown up on the floor. The young girl would be working consistently trying to find food, trying to take control in an uncontrolled environment, herself the victim of whatever her father and his friends had dealt out to her.
 It was obvious that the children were exposed to unremitting  Traumatic Stress experiencing every evening situations which would need trauma debriefing in anyone who experienced it only a single time..
I might have to visit the home of a nine year old boy who was bruised and bleeding because the night before he had stood between his father and his mother because the father was trying to kill her.
I could go on and on about these situations and their traumatic variations.
My questions in getting to know  these children in these situations were…
Do these children survive.?
 How did these children survive?
And then, later,
What happened to them? Where are the?.
When I went into psychology and psychiatry I met some of them, those who had been in those situations, and had survived. Often they had  done well academically and creatively. Some of them were doing great things for other people or for animals.
True and understandably they were often insecure and had problems with self esteem. True they used all kinds of legal but often repetitive ways to get what they felt they needed. (I found this very accessible to psychotherapy once the person realised that though they needed these methods to survive and to care for their siblings as children .However this tended to ‘drive people crazy’ as adults and they needed to find other ways of doing things.)
At the same time they had often come through with a certain depth of thinking and living. They were often very sensitive to others especially others in pain and they would  do all that they could to help them. Many of them were dynamic and had produced strong leadership qualities. They would be active in the charity organizations and the political and other agencies seeking good for and defending the ‘underdog’.
As I met these people as adults and got to know them I could only hold for them a powerful sense of respect because they had experienced the severe unremitting stress and  they had somehow ‘got through it.’
Many of them were diagnosed with BPD . On the other hand, all BPD people do not have a background like this, but there has often been some kind of unremitting traumatic stress, whether this stems from the cycle of cold rejection and over effusive love of the alcoholic mother or the terrible tension and devastation in a home on the verge of divorce.
The later research on BPD was pointing this out and therapists began to see these ‘impossible patients’ differently.
A person with BPD has been through too much in the adult world to find they can easily trust someone. A therapist has to be true to him or her self and to be sincere in the relationship with the patient . Eventually you can win their cooperation as well as their loyalty and affection.
Not only do they begin to work well in therapy but they start to achieve extremely well academically or in the creative arts.
There is nothing more disappointing  for a child than to come home with excellent results which are only received with apathy. Not to be able to share bitter and anxiety provoking experiences is very difficult. To have no one to care about the BPD’s achievements is far more difficult. They will work hard and achieve well if someone really appreciates it.
To work with BPD is difficult , hard and lengthy work. However it is rewarding and well worth it.
The professor has found that these people do and can change. Psychiatry and psychology are having a glimpse of their silver lining.