Parenting and Reparenting

My step-daughter was visiting recently over the holidays.   She is in her mid-twenties and has recently launched into her full-fledged professional career.   She is an amazing human being.  Sure, I'm biased but I am also far from being alone in holding her in high regard.   Along with my enjoyment in hanging out with her over the holidays  I have also felt some wistfulness.   Actually,  quite a bit.

What I feel wistful about is seeing the platform she is working from and comparing it to the one I had as a young adult.   The two are very different.   

 I had, in many ways,  poor parenting as a child.   I always knew my mom loved me.   I still know today that she loves me very much.   But her capacity to be a good parent was very low.   She had received poor parenting herself.   She was a single mom working a professional job.   She had an untreated mental illness of which she was unaware.  In fact,  one of the symptoms of bipolar is being  unaware of even having an illness,  no matter what kinds of strange behaviors pop out.  

Not exactly a recipe for parenting success.

I happen to be married to a woman who is way above average as a parent.   We have been a couple for more than a decade now and so I have had a front row seat as she has parented her two daughters.   It's both wonderful and painful.  On the one hand I am part (and important contributing member) of a successful family.   I define success in that we are all doing well,  we get along well with each other,  and we all are at least reasonably happy.   The painful side,  naturally,  is that I am all-too aware of all the gaps in my own upbringing.    Gaps which continually shake my confidence and sense of self-worth.

Before I go any farther I will answer a question that some of you are likely thinking of right now:  "Has my wife re-parented me?"   That is to say,  has she provided the family context that I never had growing up,  and am I able to fill in some of those gaps?   The answer is yes.   

And what are those gaps?   First of all,  it's really hard to get a handle on it because it pertains to countless experiences I had as a child.   Experiences which gradually formed significant parts of my personality,  basic behavior and thinking patterns which I carry with me today.     This blog continues to help me become aware of said patterns,  allowing me to change some of those which clearly don't serve me.

But the patterning goes back into early childhood and spans all the years I lived at home.    A primary theme is that there was never anyone who was tuned into my feeling life.   My mom provided for my physical needs and she wanted to be a parent who provided for emotional needs.  She just didn't know how.   And the illness meant that she was not aware of the deficit.    Without the mental illness I think she would have at least  been more aware of which of my needs were being met and which were not.

So from the get-go my mom was not really tuned into my inner life at all.   And because she tended strongly towards the manic side of life she could talk.  A lot.  If being narcissistic means always bringing the topic of conversation back to you,  then my mother is narcissistic.

In my blog I have talked about how I created a survival mechanism from the time I was about six years old.   Its name could be "Support mom at all costs".   What this meant was that I was emotionally supporting her from an early age.   Good parenting means that the adult is supporting the child and is tuned into the child's inner life.   She knows if the child is having a good or bad day.  She knows when to give advice,  when to ask questions until the truth of something comes forth.    When to talk and when to listen.  She knows how important it is to spend time with the child and to always be inwardly looking for the spark of who the child is essentially;  the part which has nothing to do with the experiences the child has had since birth.

These basic mental habits of a good parent I have seen up close and personal as I watch my wife parent her kids.   I have seen what good parenting looks like when the child is four and she is twenty-four.    I have seen the daily conversations,  the step-by-step support and care that produces the results we all love to see.   Good parenting requires a very deep level of empathy.   

As a child I would have greatly benefited from someone "seeing" me.  Someone who was tuned in to my needs and feelings.    I could have brought problems I had at school,  with friends, in the neighborhood and gotten help solving or at least understanding them.   A parent could have explained things to me in a way that I could understand.   They could have listened to me.   And when I spoke they could have listened deeply and asked questions to try and understand what I was saying and what the meta-message might have been behind what I was saying.

As a teenager someone could have empathized with my experience of adolescence,  the joys,  the storms,  the conundrums.   Again,  the person could have explained things to me to help me orient to how things work in the world.   They could have shared their personal experiences insofar as they could be helpful and instructive to me.   They could have comforted me and reminded me that the teen-age years don't last forever.

As I came into adulthood they could have shared with me what it means to be an adult.     What the workplace is like.  What are some of the options,  the lay of the land,   in figuring out one's career.     What's it like to fall in love and have a successful relationship.   What are the elements of being a good friend and being a good partner.

The parent could have seen how I was becoming an adult and given me the space to grow into that while maintaining a loving and supportive connection.   As that process developed,  we could have found a mature,  adult relationship as parent and child.   We could have depended on each other like good friends,  respecting boundaries and enjoying the simple pleasure of being in the other's presence.   As the parent aged I could have been there to support knowing that there was no unfinished business,  no deeply held resentments,   that all of the painful experiences had been talked about and worked through.   All that is left is pure connection and appreciation.

To be a good parent is very, very difficult.   People don't realize how difficult it is.     To be a great parent is really a high art.   Few people are able to achieve that level.   In my opinion,  my wife is a great parent.  What I have described above is something she has been and continues to create with her two children.  It is a massive amount of work,  something to which a person must devote a significant part of their life to in order to be successful.   

I have seen how such a level of parenting creates a platform on which the child stands as she steps into the wider world.   That's when I sometimes feel a bit wistful.     I wonder who I might have become if I had had strong parenting.   But that's a different life.   It's not my life.  And it's really pretty pointless to dwell on it.   So I won't.

Here's where I get to say how lucky I am.   I really am quite lucky.    Given the facts of my childhood,   my adult life could have been a lot bumpier than it's been so far.     My path of healing has been relatively  steady and fruitful.    My life has been been much easier than for either of my parents.   I count my blessings regularly.   And I also give myself a break.   When my internal voice comes up critical and points to my shortcomings I just tell myself "relax, kid--you're doing pretty well all things considered."   

 We need,  as ACMIs,  to be able to see our progress from the perspective of the platform we were given.     It is not an excuse to engage in self or other-destructive behaviors.   It's just that we need to be gentle with ourselves,  and remind ourselves of our successes (even small ones),   as we work to create a positive outlook on life. Forgiving myself allows me to keep my head up and see how I can further transform my pain.   As I do so I will be increasingly able to help others.   And that is what makes me really happy.

I have decided to apply to social work school.   It is clear to me that  part of my path is to develop the issues I talk about in the blog;  to place them near the center of my life rather than at the periphery.    Working as a social worker I hope to find a work-place where I can reference my family history and not be seen as a freak.    I hope to help others who have dealt with similar kinds of issues as I have.   Given the healing work that I have already done,   I think I'll be able to empathize with and help others who have been touched by mental illness.   This feels like the right move.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Healing The Child Within

I have recently come across a book called "Healing the Child Within" by Charles Whitfield.   I think it's a great book.   It sold a whole bunch of copies back in the 80s.   Whitfield started in the Adult Children of Alcoholics (ACOA) movement and has written extensively about various kinds of recovery and overcoming co-dependence.     He is an M.D. and works as a therapist in addition to being a prolific writer.

Whitfield's premise with this book is that we are born into this world as a spiritual being.   We are each a beautiful child filled with goodness.   As the world impresses  itself on us,  however,  we can learn different ways.  Traumas of all kinds can have the tendency to bury that beautiful child.   What comes up instead is a survival or coping mechanism which is a way we deal with experiences that might otherwise overwhelm us.   Those coping mechanisms can become personality traits, mental habits and ways in which we perceive ourselves and our place in the world.     Often these coping mechanisms,  and all their permutations,   end up blocking us from experiencing ourselves as the beautiful and radiant being we have always been and always will be.

One thing I like about the book is that it carries a spiritual picture of the human being, and one which seems fairly similar to how I try to perceive myself and others.   Another attraction is that Whitfield speaks very clearly and gets right to the point.   It's pretty easy to understand his concepts and to see ways they can be applied.   I find him to be a very good communicator of ideas.   I also think it's cool that his book was a best-seller back in the day.    That tells me that perhaps my own ideas about spirituality are not as wacky and fringe as I sometimes tell myself.

Whitfield speaks very eloquently about how we can heal ourselves.   I am looking forward to taking up many of his ideas and seeing how they may help me in my process.   

As Christmas arrives in a few days it seems like a good time to reflect on the possibility that each of us has a holy child within us;  and that,  no matter how buried it might seem to us,  this child may very well be the truth of who we are.   

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Group

For about three months I have been in group counseling.   The therapist I have been seeing over the past few years has a group he facilitates with his wife,  also a therapist.   The group has four men (including me)  and three women,  in addition to the two facilitators,  both of them licensed social workers.   We meet once a week for two hours.   

The group has been very helpful for me so far.   I had stopped the individual counseling last spring and expressed interest in group work.   The reason I stopped is that I felt like I wasn't moving forward in my recovery work and the sessions are expensive.   I told my therapist that "I wanted to rub the stone from another direction."   The issues that I am working with are embedded very deeply.   They are about some very basic themes in how I imprinted on this world as a child.      

The group therapy allows me to process my own issues while also witnessing and assisting in the process of others.   We are each trying to allow our essential self to take hold of the "stories" we tell ourselves.   The stories are related to our early experiences and are ways that we shoot ourselves in the foot over and over (and over).   We each try to reach through our pain and suffering into our higher self while seeing and encouraging each other in striving to achieve the same thing.   

The witness in ourselves,  the being which is us,  and which is much higher than any of the worldly stories,  is always there.   It is always us.   But we get buried.   Buried in our experiences of shame,  pain,  anger,   confusion,  feeling unloved,  feeling unlovable,  feelings of deep loss and sadness.     And these stories do everything in their power to make us believe that they represent what we are essentially.     They are very, very wrong but can be awfully convincing.   

The idea about the group I am in has to do with experiencing the extremely unpleasant emotions which we carry quietly around with us and which try to torpedo our well-being at every turn.   If we can experience the deep feelings of shame and anger inside of us in a supportive group,  the witness who is us is strengthened.   Our pain is rendered less powerful in our experience.   We experience our growth.   So far I have experienced this as a gradual process.   The members of the group, me included,  make gradual progress and build on it over time.   After a year or so one can,  I imagine,   see significant growth among each of the group members.

We are going to have a retreat in a month or so.   We'll spend a weekend a few hours drive away.   The theme of the workshop is "What are the stories we are telling ourselves?"   We are supposed to think about stories which come out of our survival mechanisms,   the mental structures we developed as children in order to survive traumatic events.     Some of the structures we created back then,   now hold us back in becoming the person we want to be.   

So my homework is to decide which part of my mask,  my lower-self,  my double,  my doppelganger,  I wish to bring to the group.   There are some very painful and shameful aspects of my lower self which readily come to mind.   The group feels safe to me.   I think I am ready to share.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Birthday

It was my birthday this past week.   I turned forty two.   Every year I experience my birthday in a fairly similar way.   I feel anxious.

I am guessing that under my feelings of anxiety I just feel really, really sad.   Birthdays have often been that way for me since I was a little boy.

After my dad exited my life when I was six,  he moved to a place which was about 3,000 miles away.   My mom and I occasionally would travel that kind of distance from where we lived but we never talked about visiting him.   

As a child I always dreamed that I would grow up and maybe go to college near where he lived.   I dreamed that he and I would get to know each other.   It was like he had the key to some important part of me.   And that he was the only one who could help me manifest whatever that important part of me was.

For a few years after he left  he wrote letters;  often they were funny and involved characters he made up.   He had a rich and kind of goofy imagination.   I loved to read them.  But it was very painful because I missed him so terribly.   I would laugh at the stories while my heart-space was clenched tightly like a fist.

After a few years the letters became less frequent.   The one thing I continued to actively anticipate was the call he made to me on my birthday.    Starting a few weeks before my birthday my insides told me that I was going to have my yearly conversation with my dad.   By the time I was eight or nine my body would start to tighten up in that time leading up to my birthday.

It was usually a fairly perfunctory conversation.   I was often sort of in shock and so he would do the talking.    He asked me questions that I could offer a short answer to.      He would reference the imaginative stories from the letters.   The whole conversation usually lasted about fifteen minutes.    Then wait for next year to talk to him.

On my thirteenth birthday he asked me if I had been laid yet.   I told him no even though I actually had.   Four months later he took his own life.

After he died,  It didn't really occur to me that part of my birthday experience was waiting for his call,  and making damn sure I was near the phone in the afternoon and evening on my actual birthday.    I think I was in my thirties when I started realizing that my experience of my birthday was often sad and wondering why that was so.

The other part of my birthdays which has left a definite signature is related to my mom.   

My mom always took me out for a special dinner on my birthday.   She took us to a nice restaurant,  one we would only go to on special occasions.   She'd get the staff there to bring me a nice cake and to sing me Happy Birthday.    Those are happy memories.

Sometimes my mom has gotten me really thoughtful gifts too.   Stuff I was really interested in and about which I was thrilled as soon as I opened a tear in the wrapping paper.    A number of other times,  however,  she was in a more manic state and could get me gifts which were odd and which did not match my tastes or interests in any way.    Usually they were things that she liked but that I couldn't care less about.   I have forgotten most of those gifts I received from her but now,  whenever I open a package from her I inwardly flinch just the slightest bit.     

My wife and family are very sweet and thoughtful to me on my birthday.   They are helping me to gradually transform the sadness which every year comes over me at this time.

What a wonderful gift.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Stigma

Stigma:  An invisible mark of disgrace or dishonor

I probably don't look like someone who has been deeply touched by stigma.   I am white,  straight,  middle class,  raised protestant;   I dress in a fairly casual fashion,  but not too sloppy;   I am reasonably good looking,  and though I could drop a few pounds without doing myself any harm,   I am not particularly over-weight.   

And yet stigma has had,  by my reckoning, a massive influence,  negative I might add,  on my life.   See,  when you're a kid,  you can't really tell people that your mom has a  mental illness and that dad did too,  and that his was bad enough that he ended up shooting himself.  You just can't say stuff like that without expecting people to move away from you as fast as their manners will let them.   Actually,  come to think of it,  you can't say that as an adult either.    Unless you're in a group like the ones forming around the work NAMI is doing.

NAMI has a refinement of the stigma definition which relates to mental illness:  

Stigma in mental illness:  "The banishment and scapegoating of people with mental illness whose conditions are considered so fearful,  and so repugnant,  that they are judged to deserve their fate"  (from Family to Family materials)

In one important way I am very lucky.   Though mental illness has touched my life very deeply,  I do not suffer from a biologically based brain disorder myself.     And considering the fact that both of my parents did,   that makes me particularly fortunate.   Statistically speaking,  because of my genes I was more likely to get mental illness than not.   

One of things that is so horrible about mental illness is that a person not only has a terrible disorder,  but they are also shunned by others because they didn't have the good graces to come down with a disease that people are more comfortable with.

My mom has suffered way more than I ever will.

Between her bipolar and the high wall of protective denial she's built,  it's pretty hard to see her essential being.   She carries a lot of baggage around with her every day.   To help her cope with some of the challenges of her life,  she comes up with fantasies which help her keep her head up.   

I have no doubt that if stigma hadn't been such a force in her life,  her psyche would not need such a high number of protective structures.     I can't help but think that without stigma she would be able to bring forth much more of her self,  mentally ill warts and all.   

Until I was fifteen she did not know she had a mental illness.    We were on our own wavelength and somewhat in our own world.   No one told me "your mom is crazy" or anything like that.   I knew my family was different than others.   Pretty much all of my friends had two parents at home while I was in a single parent household.   I knew my mom was wacky and a bit off the wall at times.   And that she could be very irritable.

After her diagnosis I was in shock.   No one told me about her illness or what it meant.  When she was in the mental hospital she's the one who told me her diagnosis--first it was schizophrenia and after several days the doctors changed it to bipolar.   She told me that the doctors had determined that she had another personality,  a little girl,  inside of her.   That's why they originally made the diagnosis of schizophrenia.   

I was already having a pretty tough adolescence.   My dad had died just over a year before that.   I seriously disliked my mom's new husband.   And she became psychotic just a month or so after she and he were married.   He was way freaked out.

All of a sudden I had a mom who was "crazy".   I previously had thought of her as "quirky",  "difficult",  "impulsive" but now she she was determined to be f***ing nuts.   I tried not to think about it.   She tried not to think about it too.   And there was no way in hell we were going to actually talk about it.   In our minds we were running from it as fast our little mental legs could take us.

Stigma:  An invisible mark of disgrace or dishonor

I tried to carry on in life as if nothing was different.     I worked hard in school and on the weekends drank beer, did drugs and tried to maneuver myself into situations where I might get laid.    As a high school junior I was looking at colleges and such but,  in retrospect,  my focus was really just on survival.   

But to look at me you probably would not have guessed that.   The same protective denial my mom used seem to work pretty darn well for me too.   Just pretend this giant,  terrifying monstrosity called mental illness in your family is  not there.   

The fact that no one ever talked to me about it made it easy for me to keep it in the closet.    Just ignore it and it will go away.   Yeah,  right.

If my parents had died or been maimed in a car crash my friends and extended family would have all rallied around me.   If my mom had contracted cancer or some other terrible, but socially acceptable,  disease I could have talked to people about it.     They would have come in to support me.   "Does he understand the condition?"   "Is he in counseling to help process the feelings he must be having?"   None of that came toward me.   The silence was deafening.

 This shameful silence is something I took deeply into my soul.   It is something that I carry with me every day of my life.   It is always with me.   If you read my previous post you know that it has powerfully impacted my speech,  my ability to express myself,  my throat chakra.

I need to gradually transform this shameful silence;  to find the radiant and beautiful parts of me which have been buried in the mudslide that stigma let loose on me.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

The Neck

Twelve hours into mom's visit this week I woke up with a really bad "crick" in my neck.   The whole neck space,  front and back,  from the head down well into the shoulder area.   Tight.  Painful.   Clenched.

Just being around her has a certain level of emotional toxicity for me.   My neck area is often where I have severe tension after I am around her for any amount of time.    Why the neck?   

I think what we're talking about here are issues around the throat chakra.   My throat chakra is very, very blocked.   I easily wear out my vocal cords from talking (drinking a fair amount of coffee probably doesn't help).   And my neck is almost always the first place for me to collect stress.

The reason is that I have not been able,  throughout my life,   to speak my truth.   This blog is a tremendous help in remedying this fact.   As a child raised by a single mom with bipolar I had to buy into a certain version of reality.   Her version of reality.   And often,  the version was deeply influenced by mental illness.   I bought into many of my mom's fantasies about what was what.   I believed them because there was no one else around to refute them or give me a different take on things.

It's only been in the past several years that I have seriously analyzed my mom's views on life and seen them in a different light.   I think that my mom is a very intelligent and perceptive person;  who has a serious mental illness;  and who is fundamentally very fearful.   Her views on life are deeply steeped in protective denial and her bipolar disorder. I believe she thinks that if the truth about many different aspects of her life came out that she would be unable to cope with being seen by others in the cold light of day.  She is very insecure.   To add a little spice to the mix,   her memory can at times be startlingly poor.

All of this I modeled as a child.   And well into adulthood I bought into quite a bit of her side of the story.   I bought into her fantasy.

Additionally,   because of our culture's stigma around mental illness I also was not able to talk to others about my mom's condition,   fantasy thinking,  mood swings,  etc etc.   If she had had Parkinsons disease it would have been something that the family and friends of the family could have talked about with me.   "That comes with tremors,  right?"  "What kind of medication does she take?"

But because she had a mental illness no one talked to me about any of it.  No one.  Any of it.  

Instead of getting support from others for a sick mom,   it was a topic that was taboo,  even shameful to bring up.   In my late teens and early twenties, when I did bring it up with my grandparents or aunt,  we would move into "hushed tones" and they would try to change the subject as soon as possible.   

So by the time I was 25 years old I had two forces slamming into my throat chakra 24/7:    first was my mom's fantasy thinking;   and second was the shame around her (and my dad's) mental illness.   The former was my truthful interface with my family; the latter my truthful interface with the world.   Both were compromised.

So as we pass through the Thanksgiving holiday…..

My wife's support.   Counseling.   Blogging.   NAMI.  Books that give me insight into the issues I'm working with.   These are parts of my life I am very thankful for.

Because they help me to speak my truth.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben

Symptoms part 6: Reckless or Ungrounded Behavior

In these past several posts I have been trying to look at my mom's illness on a symptom by symptom basis.   My purpose is to try to understand the effects of her illness on my emerging self back when I was a kid.   My mother was far and away my primary model.   Dad was completely out of the picture by the time I was six and there was no other person who was a regular, daily part of my life during the time I was growing up.

It seems to me that the personality of a person emerges in and is formed by one's family environment.   This fact is no less true for someone whose parents are mentally ill.    As I survey my behaviors and personality now at age forty one,  I can see plenty of things I like,  and other things that make me pretty uncomfortable.   It can be disconcerting to think that a personality trait that one values may be a direct reflection of  a mentally ill model.     And it's scary to think that my own behavior could,  at times,  be seen as "mentally ill".  

In spite of my discomfort I must look at this piece and try to make honest sense of it.

The next symptom from the DSM IV is the following:

"Excessive involvement in pleasurable activities that have a high potential for painful consequences (e.g., engaging in unrestrained buying spree, sexual indiscretions, or foolish business investments)"

My mom has often been an easy audience for people peddling ideas.    She quickly wants to sign on to something when there's hype around it.   She has jumped on many, many bandwagons and spent a lot of money in the process.   Because she's had the support of the family her financial habits have not had dire consequences.   

This has been both a blessing and a curse.   The obvious blessing is that she is not in financial meltdown due to her challenges in effectively managing money.   The  curse is that she hasn't reviewed the errors to see how she might have done things differently.     She does not acknowledge any of her mistakes and in the rare instance that I bring up something of this nature,  she quickly changes the subject.

For the most part mom has kept away from sexual indiscretions.   One exception when I was a kid was when she took me to a man's house who I never saw before or after.     When we got there he showed me to his garage where there were some pieces of wood,  hammer and nails (he was a builder).   Then he and mom went back into the house.   After I had built something with the wood I wanted to show my mom and he what I had done.   I came through the living room and onto the back deck where they were having sex.   I was shocked and stood back.   They did not become aware of me though I was only a few feet away.   I went back to the garage and waited for mom to return.   

   

I have never brought this up with her and I am guessing that she wouldn't remember it if I did.

She did seem to have a regular sex life when I was a kid.   I remember a number of boyfriends she had over the years who came over to spend the night.   They were pretty discreet compared to the episode mentioned above.   What stands out to me is how she told me when I was older how she forwent having relationships for many years "because she was focussed on parenting me."     That is a picture very much at odds with the one I hold.   

For me,   "retail therapy" has often been an outlet with negative consequences for my credit card bill.   My own buying behavior has never been "unrestrained" but it has been ungrounded for much of my life.    I have had the habit of buying things because it made me feel good to have an experience of material "abundance".     I am gradually coming out of this kind of psychological dependence on the act of buying.    Sexual indiscretions have been there for me too,  though not since I was in my early twenties.   

There have been a number of instances in my life where my thinking became ungrounded,  and I displayed manic-tinged fantasy-laden thoughts and reasoning.   Usually, but not always,   it was times when I was under stress.   I have been very fortunate that there have been people around me who have pointed out my behavior to me so that I could become aware of it.   If no one had it might be very difficult to change the behavior,  and the affects on my life of behaving that way would not be positive.

The way the manic pattern works has a similar basis each time it's happened.   Often it has to do with something I want to do but which is not really grounded in the "facts on the ground".  Once it was wanting to buy a house which was way out of my price range.   Another was a hiking trip in bear country.   Another was a relationship with a girlfriend.   In each case my recklessness was kept in check.   I am fortunate that the consequences of my own ungrounded behavior have not been more serious.   

Reflecting back on these experiences make me question my own thinking.   It seems to me that part of the reason I have few friends I keep in touch with is that I am ashamed of my occasional ungrounded thinking.   I don't want to be "found out".   

A big part of the reason for this blog is to root out my own shame.   I want to be able to see my own behavior clearly,  acknowledge the shortcomings both past and present,  and then forgive myself.

I'm not there yet.   But by talking about it I am steadily gaining ground.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Symptoms part 5: Increase in goal-directed activity

The symptom I'm talking about this week is 

"Increase in goal-directed activity (either socially, at work or school, or sexually) or psychomotor agitation."  

The first half of this sentence seems like one of those symptoms that sounds more like an attribute;  something we'd like to add to our behavior repertoire,  rather than a function of a disease process.   Isn't "goal-directed activity" a good thing?   I think this might be where a person is very focussed on a certain goal and does not notice other details of what's going on around them.    Like their kid,  perhaps....  

My mom has pretty much always been involved in goal-directed activity.   She always has projects she's working on and wants to share about.    Work was an extremely important part of her self image.  She identifies very strongly with her role in a professional job that she held for nine years,  during the time I was a child.      Looking back,  I think she was basically "ramped up" during the whole time she held her professional job.     A big challenge for me was that she was so focussed on the goals at work that she had very little left over for me.     Then the double-whammy of "lack of insight about her illness meant that she was not aware of there being a problem.    As long as I did not display symptoms of neglect,  any challenges I might be faced with were out of her consciousness.   And as I have said before,  I fastened my survival hopes on keeping stress OFF of her as much as possible.   I reduced my needs to about as low as they could have been.

My mom also has processing issues;  cognitive deficits apparently related to her illness which make certain things very difficult for her.    I've seem them come out in many different areas.     As far as I know she has never acknowledged any of these deficits,  at least not to me.      I think it is very likely that she used her natural intelligence and ability to "ramp up" to cover these deficits as much as she could in her job.   I believe that ultimately, however,  these deficits are what caused her to resign from her job when her supervisor let her know she was about to be fired.   She just couldn't cover them up over the long term.    The swings of of her bipolar plus the cognitive deficits just made the road for her much steeper than had she not suffered from the disease.

When I was eight years old mom decided that she was going to install a lawn and grow a large garden.   I was the person who was going to help her do it.    Rather than pay someone else to do these projects,   or just take on a piece of it,  she wanted to do it all.   If I wasn't "pulling my weight" she would become angry.    It was a tremendous amount of work and she was very focussed on getting it done.   This is how we spent many summer weekends when I was seven years old.   It's taken me years to feel at all interested in doing things around the garden.    

I remember being in tears several times as a child because she wanted me to shovel the snow off the driveway and when I had,   it wasn't good enough.   At times I had to get the ice-scraper and chip all the ice away down to the bare pavement.   Not because it was so necessary;   she was just focussed on having all of the driveway cleared and I was going to do it.    As far as I could tell I was the only kid on the block whose shoveling was held to this standard.

I naturally learned to keep my space clean and help out with the chores without being asked.   My not doing so would have brought the critical and agitated eye.

In my adult life I can "ramp up" just like my mom does.   It's happened several times in such a way that my wife gets a bit worried and  points it out.   She is concerned because it can lead to decisions being made that she is not as much a part of as she'd like.   I can "get a head of steam going"  and she finds it's hard to get herself understood in that context.   What happens is that there is a loss of steady process.   Thinking becomes more harried,  pressed for time,  less grounded.    "We have to do this NOW"   comes to the fore as the reasoned approach fades.   

The second part of this symptom,  "psychomotor agitation"   is not something I have seen a lot in my mom.   According to about.com 

"Psychomotor agitation is an increase in activity brought on by mental tension.

Symptoms may take the form of restlessness, pacing, tapping fingers or feet, abruptly starting and stopping tasks, meaninglessly moving objects around, and more. Psychomotor agitation is frequently, though not exclusively, associated with agitated depression."

I don't remember this as being a regular behavior for her.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Symptoms, part 4: Flight of ideas and Distractibility

Clear eyes.   This is a look a person has when experiencing being centered,  even if only briefly.     A person is willing to "just be" in the moment and the eyes tell us that s/he is confident to be in that moment.   S/he doesn't have to rush to get anywhere.   S/he doesn't have to do anything other than what s/he's doing.   The mind is relatively still.   S/he comes across as grounded.

I don't remember my mom ever being there.    My experience of her is always moving along towards another idea,  another perception,  another explanation of something from her life.   Pushing with some urgency from one topic to another.   When talking with me she has never,  in my memory,  stayed on the same subject for more than a few thoughts,  before moving on to the next one.     We have never really delved into a topic;   rather we skim along and hop from one relatively surface aspect to the next.  And then to something unrelated to the previous subject.

This skipping from lilly pad to lilly pad is a strong element of how my mom thinks.      It's how she approaches any situation she faces in life.   Her way of thinking seems to me to intertwine very closely with the bipolar symptoms of "racing thoughts",    "flight of ideas"  and "distractibility".   And because her model of thinking is the one which formed the basis of my thinking,   the symptoms are part of my approach as well.

Here are some descriptions from bipolardisordersymptoms.info

What are racing thoughts & flight of ideas?

Racing thoughts literally mean that thoughts race, or go very fast. Racing thoughts usually present with flight of ideas.

In flight of ideas, the subject of thought changes very quickly. A person suffering from this bipolar symptom will change the topic of conversation frequently.

What does it feel like to have racing thoughts & flight of ideas?

Racing thoughts and flight of ideas leave the person feeling exhausted and overwhelmed.

Although the person may feel worn and tired, the inability to fall asleep can result in feelings of frustration.

How do I know if someone suffers from racing thoughts and flight of ideas?

The person may be highly distracted and change the subject of the conversation constantly.

Pressured speech is common. The words may sound rushed and sentences are scrambled. He or she is unable to talk fast enough to keep up with their thoughts and ideas.

The person may share with you that their thoughts are going very fast, feeling uncomfortable and annoyed by their incessant thinking.

How does this bipolar disorder symptom impact life?

Racing thoughts may trigger insomnia or interfere with a person's ability to work, study, or to enjoy leisure activities. It is difficult to fully interact with the external environment when the mind is active and draws attention inward.

The person may be busy, but unable to accomplish a great deal. Their attention shifts consistently and the person begins to work on other things without finishing tasks in progress.

Bipolar mania sufferers often report they have no control over their thoughts and are unable to slow them down. This may prevent them from falling asleep at night.

What is distractibility?

Distractibility is an inability to maintain focus or attention. Minimal stimuli cause the mind's attention to divert and wander.

The person may be distracted internally (thoughts, feelings, ideas or emotions) and externally (environmental events and physical stimuli).

What does distractibility feel like?

The person may feel frustrated by their inability to pay attention. The mind may feel out of control.

How can I recognize distractibility?

The person's productivity decreases. He or she may seem 'lost'.

New projects are started prior to completion of current or old ones. The person is unable to maintain attention on simple and short activities.

The person changes the subject of the conversation frequently.

He or she seems busy and occupied, while at the same time, not getting much done.

How does distractibility impact life?

Tasks of daily living such as work, studying, or leisure activities become difficult. For example, a student may be unable to stay attentive in class and find it difficult to submit assignments on respective deadlines.

Distractibility, by itself, is a cognitive challenge. When present with other symptoms of bipolar disorder, distractibility is debilitating. It makes the success of already unrealistic and manic goals and activities even less likely.

Distractibility usually presents simultaneously with other bipolar mania symptoms. The combined effect of these symptoms can leave the person unable to perform activities of daily living

The symptoms of flight of ideas and distractibility are basic parts of of the mental environment I grew up with.   I dealt with them in different ways.     

One response I had was to become more quiet as a person.   My mom was almost always getting a new idea in her head and she wanted to share it.     I learned how to listen.   But my listening had two modes.  One was that I would more or less pretend to listen but took very little interest in the content of what she was saying.    There was often such a stream of information and it was jumping to a variety of topics which may or may not have much to do with each other.     

I still do this on the phone fairly often with my mom.  When she's in a manic state and needs someone to talk to.   I half-listen and "skim" for relevant information.   

My other way of listening was when part of me feared that she was escalating.   Then I would listen to the meta-message behind the stream of words.   I would get indications about whether I needed to go into a protective or "alert" status.      When I went into alert I would feel like I was the adult and she was a teenager I needed to look out for.    A big problem with that,  of course,  is that I did not have the resources of an adult,  just the feeling of being responsible.

An example of this recurred when she and I were on trips.   It seems the symptom of distractibility is relevant in this case.   A typical scenario unfolded as follows:   We would fly into a city and get a room at a motel or hotel.    She would be very excited about a variety of things she could do in the city and would want to drive the rental car off to explore these ideas of hers.    I was not interested in said adventures and told her I would sit in the room and watch TV.    She would say she'd be "back in an hour"  and that we'd do something together after that.

After about 2-3 hours I would start to worry.   Scenarios of what could be happening began to run through my head.   She was dead.   She was in the hospital.   What was going to happen to me,  I wonder?   Would I live with my grandparents?     After four hours I would start pacing the room.   This was in the time before cell phones.   You couldn't just call someone if they were out and about.   And she never called me.

Finally,  she arrived back at the room.   The light and excited mood she was in when she left  has been replaced by stress,   upset,  tension.   She got lost.   Someone cut her off on the road.   She couldn't find the place she was looking for.   She was going around in circles for hours.   It was a disaster.   I need to sleep.

So then,   by hour five or six in the motel room,   I am watching her sleep.   Part of me is relieved I don't have to figure out how to call the police and report a missing person.     Part of me is very irritated because this is not the first time it's gone like this.   

Finally,  she's slept and is ready to get up and go get some supper.    By now her mood is on the upswing and she's sharing the thoughts that are coming to her.    I listen.    If I ever do share something she finds something in her experience which is like what I said and continues talking.    Did she ever listen to me?    Has she ever listened to me?   I can't really say she has.

It seems to me a truism that to parent well one has to give attention to the child for sustained periods of time.  A parent has to be present with the child even when it's hard or if there is something else that might seem more interesting in the moment.   One has to be able to focus on being with the child and noticing what his needs are.   One has to be interested in the child's thoughts.   A more advanced level would be to not only be interested in the child's thoughts but to help him develop his thinking through listening deeply and offering helpful feedback.

My mom's frequent distraction and the stream of ideas she had coming to her much of the time meant that she was not able to focus on me.   She was with me physically but her attention was somewhere else.  The constant surge of thoughts coming into her mind made empathy very difficult.

Beyond the obvious self-esteem issues that come along with not having been listened to,   there are other challenges I find in myself.    The fact that mom was often distracted and had bursts of ideas coming through her a lot of the time means that my own thinking and ability to plan and follow through are diminished.     I have a natural intelligence that can make me seem pretty capable.   But often I find that it is very hard for me to get into the details of something,   track it all the way through a process,  and follow through to the ending point.     My mind starts to scatter at a certain point.   I lose focus.  I forget the previous details and lose track of how to pick up the process where it left off and move it forward.      I tend to look for processes that I can wrap up in one session,  because it can be very hard for me to effectively track more long-term projects.

One place this impacted me was in getting my footing with education.   I never really oriented to what higher education was about.   I was taking classes.  I was getting good grades,  getting a degree.   It was just what I was supposed to do.   But I was not oriented in how one translates that into a job.    My mom was not able to orient me to any of the issues beyond "get a college degree".   

Now one could say,   "If your family couldn't do that for you,  why not just ask someone else to do it?"   The thing is,  I didn't have the consciousness to ask for help.   I didn't admit to myself that my mom's thinking was off.   I pretended like I knew what I was doing,  even though I didn't.     When I graduated college I was stuck.   I did not know what to do.   So I went home.   My mom had recently divorced her husband and so the mood of the household felt much safer to me.   I could be clueless in a place where I didn't need to pay rent.

I began working retail and substitute teaching.   A friend of the family approached me with a Myers-Briggs type indicator and told me I should be an elementary school teacher.   I did not know what else I would do so I enrolled in the program at the local college.     My sense of planning and intentionality about that decision was very low.    "Well,  I might as well do something" I said to myself and plowed into more schooling.    As it's turned out being a teacher has been a very rewarding path for me, though not without it's ups and downs (see blog posting for April 1).   

In something as important as my vocational path I had almost no process for figuring out what to do.    "Throw yourself into life and wing it"  is the message I got from mom.    I am only gradually finding my way out of that attitude and into one which is more plan-ful.

A question for me as I talk about these kinds of deficits is:   which of them are skills which I can improve and which are processing issues which I just have to adjust to?    I'd like to think that I can improve the places where I have deficits.    I guess a first step is to acknowledge that I've got them.   Then work to change them.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben

Empathy

Inside Mental Illness:   The inner battle of someone with Mania

From NAMI "Family to Family" materials

Inner feelings of power and self-importance expand to awesome heights;  ideas burst forth brightly;  everything is deliriously possible;  thoughts race with the speed of light;  the center flies apart,  unhinged;  feverish activity churns,  goes nowhere;  "brilliant revelations" get a startled response from others.

In a lightening shift,  exuberance disintegrates into hostility,  paranoia;  sudden rebellion flares;  intense resentment against authority calls up rage,  stubbornness and rejection of counsel; all appeals are repelled with fierce and haughty righteousness;  others draw back out of range,  unable to withstand this relentless manic antagonism.

The mind is spinning,  flying away;  excitement demolishes all control;  reckless abandon and sexual misadventure will be protected by magical invincibility.  Nothing will stop me now!  Why are you putting me in restraints?  I am superhuman,  uniquely gifted,  divinely inspired.  You are nothing.  I will destroy you.

Humiliation, shame,  disgrace,  mortification crush the soul as the mind reassembles the pieces of the outrageous,  unthinkable folly of the manic seizure;  the self must hide,  concealed,  never to come out;  guilt, embarrassment overwhelms;  feelings of failure and resignation to soiled identity are intense;  redemption,  restitution restoration are impossible.  I am doomed.

The fear floods in;  when will the tempest return?  When will all I hold dear be swept away again?  I have no way to control this mind-storm;  I am terrified it will overrun my weakened fortress.  I must hold on tightly so I will not crack.  People shrink from me.  I think they fear me;  I dread discovery;  I avoid contact.  This vigilance is exhausting.

I am lost.  How can I rekindle my life?

Joyce Burland, PhD (creator and director of NAMI's "Family to Family" program)

When I read this description of what it's like to be in a highly manic state I feel a sense of empathy.  Empathy for my mom.  Empathy for myself.   I am amazed that she did as good a job as she did given what she was up against.   I give myself kudos for being able to get through a childhood which had plenty of storms.  And neglect.

I am grateful that I have as stable a life as I do,  given my primary parent and model has suffered from the illness described above,  untreated until I was fifteen years old.   I feel grateful.   It could have turned out a lot worse for both of us.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly, Ben