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RUNNING BLIND

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

guilhermina guide 3

Super-star athletes are polishing their personas with the advent of the Summer Olympics to be held in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.  One of them, Jamaican mega-medal winner Usain Bolt, has the gracefulness of a natural athlete. With his perpetual smile and generally good nature, Bolt is no pushover.

One doesn’t get the impression that Usain Bolt would promote something disagreeable.

Despite his gifts, or maybe because of them, Bolt also demonstrates a remarkably generous spirit, e.g., his 2012 embrace of double-amputee Oscar Pistorius, who competed against Bolt.

At a recent promo event, Bolt paired with Brazilian Paralympic multi-medalist Terezinha Guilhermina as her guide runner. Vision-impaired para-athletes compete under strict guidelines that may include use of sighted guide runners. Guilhermina trains and competes with guide Guilherme Soares de Santana; tethered at the wrist, she runs blindfolded as they match each other in speed and timing.

This high-speed dance is like a successful relationship: Trust is essential.  Good communication is quick but subtle, successful only with lots of practice.  Even when a compatible partner is found — no easy task in itself — the tasks are twice as difficult, twice as demanding.

If you’ve ever run a playground race with one leg joined to another person’s you begin to understand how tough it is to run as one.

Even so, Bolt expressed concern that Guilhermina would fall over or be unable to run fast enough. Both fears were unfounded.

Like running in synch, when an able-bodied athlete joins with a para-athlete, one shadows the other. Both understand the effort, sacrifice, and ability that has brought them to the medal podium.  As in a good marriage, there is mutual admiration and respect; knowledge that the differences are not diminishments.

Now for the preachy part:  There are two separate and unequal worlds when it comes to sport.  Usain Bolt, personable as he is, sells because of his able-bodied ability, not his smile.  Paralympic athletes sell to the larger audience only when paired with Olympic athletes; it doesn’t matter that their talent, drive, focus, and commitment to excellence are the same.

“Blade runner” Arthur Pistorius got more ink because of his fall from grace than from his rise to it.

Societal disequity is an old story and not just one about disability. Overcoming innate human suspicion and dislike of what is different requires conscious and concerted effort.  The nudge may come from decades’ worth of disabled vets with their can-do mentality, greater numbers, and the societal bequeathing of a high moral ground.

Personally, I’ll take it any way I can get it:  If the result to being paired with an able-bodied celebrity is lasting inclusion and a broader definition of human value, then drop the red flag and let the sports begin.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist whose private practice focuses on couples, especially those whose relationship is complicated by invisible or visible disability.  Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis for nearly 40 years and understands that athletes go beyond themselves to compete.  With two world-class cat nappers, Petey and Lucy, Kathe and husband David live in Colorado where she doesn’t ski.

Read more about their Couples Communication Workshops at www.BeingHeardNow.com.  While you’re at it, check out our newest site, www.CouplesWhoTalk.com.

SOMETIMES YOU OUGHTA BE SCARED

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

clown hugBells should go off in your head if you’re walking in the woods and a clown in a bunker’s offering free hugs.  

Or when your guy grabs your shirt, slams you up against the wall, and says you don’t wanna make him angry.

And the whole theater’s screaming at that dumb young thing not to open up when the doorbell rings at midnight and nobody’s expected.

I’m not generally an alarmist although my husband David would disagree.  I do worry about fire starting in a trash barrel where he’s dumped grass clippings.  Or being afraid things are gonna blow up.  Or when I feel eyes on me when I’m working late by the open window in my first floor office and I can’t help myself I just have to look.

One summer my panties started disappearing off the clothesline, hang-up calls began right after my soon-to-be-ex left the house, and the guy across the street would make a racket so I’d look up to see him standing naked in his doorway.  When the phone rang at 2 one morning and the soon-to-be hustled me into the dark backyard I thought yeah, sure, I’m gonna get whacked — he had lots of, uh, connections; I didn’t for a second believe the police were evacuating the neighborhood.  But they were.  That spooky ass guy shot a neighbor who was coming home from shift work.

A bit after I rented out my condo, the woman whose doorway was a few feet away from mine was strangled at home then dumped in the woods. The daughter’s boyfriend went to prison for murder in a sordid story worthy of a bestseller.

Like people in an abusive marriage or those who return from war, I can talk about what’s happened to me as if it had happened to someone else.  Traumatic stress is often numbing and, whether the stress is long- or short-term, the need for self-protection can make us look (and be) detached and dispassionate.

Danger exists in trusting others even as protection is so desperately needed.  Laying down the guise, being vulnerable and exposed, is almost literally a deadly challenge that many won’t choose.

Traumatic stress is so often unexpected — who would set themselves up to be traumatized? — we cannot prepare or protect our psyches from it.  A system-wide shock indicates that everything in our world — most especially those to whom we are vulnerable like spouses, parents, children, friends as well as surroundings that once felt safe — is now suspect.  Add to that the invisibility of chronic, traumatic stress and the difficulty of  recognizing or relating to it adds to misunderstanding and further isolation and loneliness.

Traumatic stress can be vigilance run amok.

The experiencing, fearing, seeing, remembering of violence and harm can derail our thoughts and emotions, often forever.  Like someone who puts and keeps themselves in line for abuse, or those who think themselves immune to repeated horror, all of us need to realize that horror commands a price.  Similarly, we need to know that sometimes, not always, we can predict nasty experiences and seek to avoid them.  Problem is, the invisibility of stress disorders can mean that some people are less in control than it seems.  The creed of healthcare workers, protectors of public safety, combatants, and others who serve reinforces our expectations — and their own — about invulnerability.

Sometimes, vigilance is underrated.

Putting ourselves in charge, like not hanging out with somebody who slams you against a wall, is a proactive step to avoiding traumatic stress in the first place.  And when you can’t avoid getting bummed out, talking with a professional helper can expiate what may be stuck in your head.  That’s necessary if you want to be able to live your life without looking over your shoulder for clowns.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice who specializes working with couples, especially those for whom invisible disability — like PTSD — is part of their relationship’s mix. She and her husband David hold Couples Communication Workshops that help inoculate couples from the stress that a poor relationship can bring.  Register now for the lateswt workshop at www.BeingHeardNow.com

© 2015, Being Heard, LLC 

ON BEING A DAD

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Created for the XLIX Super Bowl, Toyota has tapped the touchy-feely market by pairing pro football players with their children in a series of commercials about being a father.

There’s no question that how a child is parented makes an enormous difference in how a child develops.

Numerous studies have shown the relationship between early childhood trauma, abuse, and in utero treatment of the unborn fetus and the mental and physical health of adults.

Debated still are the effects of divorce on children or being raised by a single parent.  In my view, the emotional health of the parent(s) casts more influence on the growing child than the constitution of the family.

Without doubt, the wider community and culture — religion, education, support network, social environment, access to goods and services, the techno environment, and the omnipresence of media — along with the hard wiring each child brings to life and how the developing fetus is treated in utero are all crucial.  No argument is being made that all children can turn out wonderfully; there is too little control over the multitude and combination of factors that incite dysfunction.

But more children can turn out well-adjusted and happy when dads (and moms) provide positive parenting.

It’s not foregone that those of us who experienced a less-than-healthy family environment will be less-than-healthy ourselves; look at the truth to the saying, “I am like this because my parents stayed together, so you just never know.” Worrisome, though, is the unawareness or reluctance many people bring to recognizing and creating a family environment they themselves didn’t have. Parents don’t have to be robotic models of their own parents, though too many are.  And there’s no proof that socioeconomic status predicts a positive parenting or family outcome.  Nasty custody battles seem to follow the money.

Summarized by a client who honestly and angrily believed that marriage meant there weren’t supposed to be any problems, parenting is much the same.  Love does mean having to say you’ve sorry; a recognition you’ve erred,  determination to do better, and changed behavior equivalent to proving “sorry”.

Despite all the self-help books, hugs, and positive modeling, parenting will never be a walk in the park.  But hugs, encouragement, and consistent positive attention can ensure that moms and dads don’t have to walk in the dark.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice where she specializes in couples work, especially with relationships affected by disability.  She and husband David attempt to parent their two children, hooligan kitties Petey and Lucy.  Kathe and David present Couples Communication Workshops in Colorado Springs.  Read about it and register at www.BeingHeardNow.com.  

copyright, 2015 Being Heard, LLC

ON BEING A DAD

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Created for the XLIX Super Bowl, Toyota has tapped the touchy-feely market by pairing pro football players with their children in a series of commercials about being a father.

There’s no question that how a child is parented makes an enormous difference in how a child develops.

Numerous studies have shown the relationship between early childhood trauma, abuse, and in utero treatment of the unborn fetus and the mental and physical health of adults.

Debated still are the effects of divorce on children or being raised by a single parent.  In my view, the emotional health of the parent(s) casts more influence on the growing child than the constitution of the family.

Without doubt, the wider community and culture — religion, education, support network, social environment, access to goods and services, the techno environment, and the omnipresence of media — along with the hard wiring each child brings to life and how the developing fetus is treated in utero are all crucial.  No argument is being made that all children can turn out wonderfully; there is too little control over the multitude and combination of factors that incite dysfunction.

But more children can turn out well-adjusted and happy when dads (and moms) provide positive parenting.

It’s not foregone that those of us who experienced a less-than-healthy family environment will be less-than-healthy ourselves; look at the truth to the saying, “I am like this because my parents stayed together, so you just never know.” Worrisome, though, is the unawareness or reluctance many people bring to recognizing and creating a family environment they themselves didn’t have. Parents don’t have to be robotic models of their own parents, though too many are.  And there’s no proof that socioeconomic status predicts a positive parenting or family outcome.  Nasty custody battles seem to follow the money.

Summarized by a client who honestly and angrily believed that marriage meant there weren’t supposed to be any problems, parenting is much the same.  Love does mean having to say you’ve sorry; a recognition you’ve erred,  determination to do better, and changed behavior equivalent to proving “sorry”.

Despite all the self-help books, hugs, and positive modeling, parenting will never be a walk in the park.  But hugs, encouragement, and consistent positive attention can ensure that moms and dads don’t have to walk in the dark.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice where she specializes in couples work, especially with relationships affected by disability.  She and husband David attempt to parent their two children, hooligan kitties Petey and Lucy.  Kathe and David present Couples Communication Workshops in Colorado Springs.  Read about it and register at www.BeingHeardNow.com.  

copyright, 2015 Being Heard, LLC

Sex and Alzheimer’s: A Tangled Web

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

This is a hugely important topic and worth the read, especially as us boomers age in place…

barbdepree's avatarMiddlesexMD Blog

No conversation about dementia is easy, especially when it regards someone you love. Talking about sex is no piece of cake, either. But any conversation about Alzheimer’s or dementia ought to include sex.

Because sex will very likely be an issue that caregivers have to deal with at some point. A recent patient told me that sex remains a very special connection with her husband, who is in the early stages of Alzheimer’s; she looks to preserve that connection as long as possible.

We are sexual creatures all our lives. Alzheimer’s doesn’t change that fact, although it will alter the experience and expression of sex in a relationship—both for the person with dementia and for the partner. It’s better to be emotionally prepared and to have your resources in place than to be taken by surprise by loss or uncharacteristic or embarrassing behavior.

So, let’s talk.

A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease is…

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A RITUAL THAT DOESN’T WORK.

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. 2 Comments

resolution

Who came up with this idea, anyway?

Blame the Babylonians and Romans who used their new year to reaffirm allegiance to the gods as well as to lesser but still powerful mortals like kings or emperors.

Much later, in 1740, John Wesley developed a religious alternative to holiday partying.  These watch night services were held as a renewal of the covenant with God.

Resolutions ran with a powerful crowd.

Ironically, less powerful are today’s resolves, which are about inwardly personal behaviors rather than loyalty to something greater than ourselves.  Resolutions about mental health and wellness concerns like partnering, parenting, drinking, drugging, smoking and eating are peer- and culture-expected but given lip service.  In an attitude of predetermined failure, resolutions about important behavior changes are almost expected to be broken and quickly forgiven when they are.

Promises expected are promises unkept.

That’s how I feel about New Year’s Resolutions.

Besides, I think most of us change not because we’re supposed to, or even want to, but because we choose to, sometimes for not-very-good reasons.  Change is something much greater and often tons more weighty and harder to handle than a New Year’s resolution.

Those choices and changes can’t be scheduled for a certain day, like January 1st.  That’d be about as meaningful as marriage vows made in an arena full of other couples.  If that’s anything like the resolutions actually kept, about half of those couples are headed for a split after only a month together.

Sitting here at the end of December, I’m in solid company:  According to a 2013 CBS poll almost 70% of Americans don’t make New Year’s resolutions at all.

I just hope none of them were married in an arena.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage and Family Therapist in private practice where she specializes working with couples looking for change within their relationships.  She and her husband David live in Colorado with their two change-aversive cats, Petey and Lucy. 

copyright, 2014, Being Heard, LLC

Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

THE #1 REASON WE DON’T LIKE THE HOLIDAYS

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

stressed christmsExpectations.

Say what you want about weariness, family dysfunction, commercialism, overeating and overspending.  Or that the sun’s been AWOL for 7 days straight and what’s left of the snow looks like it fell from a volcano.  Any number of stress disorders, worries about money, and disliking your own relatives (including Mother) count for nothing when a houseful’s coming, it’s your turn to entertain, and hubby’s at hockey with the kids.

Not much I can add to the 487 articles on Google about holiday survival except for this:  Never try out a new recipe with 20 coming for dinner.

I spent (too) many years expecting myself to live up to what I assumed was expected.  I didn’t make it “granular”; Enjoyment wasn’t My Enjoyment.  I lived the saying that expectations are premeditated disappointments.

Having a merry or happy or blessed was always accompanied by the picture of what it meant to be merry, happy, blessed.

I once believed that tramping through the snow, in the dark, to sit on a lonely outcropping at the edge of the forest to read a holiday card was worthy of a tug at my heart.   The fact, unromantic but true, was almost certainly a frozen body part, wolves in the woods, and having to pee part way there with the probability of my butt being frozen to my heels.

I don’t think we like the holidays because we’re supposed to like the holidays; we expect to, everyone expects us to, and everyone expects everyone else to, as well.  How is underwear a gift?  Who could enjoy watching Uncle Jim throw up turkey dinner after drinking too much?  Why would anyone endure the personal fallout of driving 600 icy miles to be with people you’re supposed to love but don’t really like?

Ain’t the holidays fun?

But when we have choices that lead us away from depression, guilt, hurt, or disappointment, we don’t make those choices often enough.

That underwear is given as a gift isn’t the reason we don’t like the holidays; the reason we don’t is because underwear, even if it has holes in it, is to be expected from parents, not partners.  Big girl panties don’t send the romantic message that he’d marry you all over again.  Thinking about it, though, I wouldn’t object to “tightie-whities” and “sexy” being in the same sentence.

Dissatisfaction with most holidays may have to do with the let-down that descends after shopping, spending, wrapping, waiting, and expecting.  Is that all there is?

“Lower your expectations of earth,” said author Max Lucado. “This isn’t heaven, so don’t expect it to be.”

Translation:  There is no gift wrap in heaven.

 

 Kathe KD-Winter_thumb.jpgSkinner is a Colorado Marriage & Family Therapist who always falls for  The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band’s Colorado Christmas even though she doesn’t ski and  is basically an East-coast girl.  She lives along the Front Range of the Rockies  with cozy husband David and their two kitties Petey and Lucy, who leave little  presents for them year ‘round. 

 

WordPress Tags: expectations, holidays, money worries at holidays, holiday survival, holiday enjoyment, dissatisfied with holidays, society, holiday gift giving, commercialism of holidays, Lucado, holidays and depression, holidays and stress, Kathe Skinner, Colorado, Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Colorado Front Range, romantic, Christmas expectations, emotional symptoms during holidays, surviving the holidays, family dysfunction during the holidays

How To Balance A Family, Your Job, And Your Stresses

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Stan Popovich's avatarHow To Overcome Your Persistent Fears And Anxieties In Your Life!!

By: Stan Popovich

It can be difficult for adults to have to take care of their families and manage their careers. This can cause a lot of stress and anxiety. As a result, here are a few steps in how to do take care of your family and your career without getting stressed.

Try to set goals for yourself when you manage your family or career. When you go to work each day, try to set some goals for you to accomplish. For instance, let’s say your goal for today is to finish the report that your boss wants. At the end of the day, you will feel better about yourself knowing that you were able to finish that report. When you accomplish these smaller goals, you will feel happier, more confident, and less stressed.

Delegate part of your responsibilities. When taking care of the family, get your spouse to…

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WHAT ZOMBIES CAN TEACH YOU ABOUT FAMILY HISTORY

Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment
day of dead 

Every zombie has a family.  And on the first and second days of November that zombie’s family, and thousands of others throughout Mexico, is honored in a celebration with 3,000 year old roots – Dia de los Muertos.

Like an Irish wake or an African-American jazz funeral, Day of the Dead is a combination mourning and celebration held to honor those who have died.  Entire cemeteries are cheery with flowers, lit by bonfires and candles that brighten feasts of the dead’s favorite foods.  Tequila flows freely and stories are told that relive families’ histories.

Dia de los Muertos remembers and honors the players in a family’s past, keeping history alive from generation to generation.

Proliferating like Mexican restaurants, Dia de los Muertos has taken hold throughout the non-Latino world.  What may account for its popularity is how colorfully and cheerfully death and rebirth are celebrated – music, traditional food and drink, and art highlight what is, in many places, a community-wide event.

Lacking Mexicans’ cultural traditions, though, many people north of the border live in an existential funk, lacking a sense of who they are or what they want.  Feeling directionless, without a sense of family or personal continuity, makes knowing where you fit in the Grand Scheme of Things impossible.   Both you and your family, even an entire culture, can disappear when there’s collective amnesia about the past.

In my psychotherapy practice I talk with people who’ve been amalgamated into a fractured mainstream, one whose one size doesn’t fit everyone, inevitably too broad for too many to wrap their arms around.   “Where have I been and where am I going?” are unanswerable when we appear out of nothing; phantoms are figments that have no future and no past.  They just “are”, with no “was” and no “will be”.  That’s how lots of us feel.

It’s surprising that many of my clients have no knowledge of their roots.  How each of us came to be who we are is multi-layered and multi-populated, providing the best answer to the question we asked from the time we could talk — why? 

That everyone in a Mexican community is celebrating the same thing further cements inclusion, a sense of belonging; it’s what many of us missed in our own families of origin.  In community there’s support as we mourn the many losses in our lives — family, friends, pets, our very ways of being in the world.  There is mutual support in sickness and in health, in sorrow and joy. These are the two sides to the existential coin.

Zombies, acquainted as they are with the dead, are the only ones who can help resurrect families’ missing histories.  Knowing that Grandfather was a mean drunk whose third wife was passive helps us understand reasons for our own passivity, alcoholic behavior, failures at marriage.

There’s a Mexican saying, Hay más tiempo que vida — There is more time than life.   Maximizing time on this side of the doorway is helped by knowing how we came to be who we are.   These are the ongoing tasks of our lives:  To get unstuck from feeling alone by getting acquainted with the generations inside us.  To utilize that acquaintance to fill in the outline of the lonely singular “me” with the fleshed out, colorized pictures of “us”.  To provide reassurance in our times of trouble that they, too, had troubles.

Here’s what zombies can teach us about family history:  the more information gained, the more stories listened to, the more secrets unknotted, the greater the perspective we have.

With information and perspective comes the sight we need to make choices on our own behalf.

The better we know and understand our predecessors’ successes and mistakes, the freer we become to design and live our own present and future.  And, as every wise zombie knows, sometimes a bit of mourning has to happen before the party can begin.

Kathe Skinner is a psychotherapist in private practice who specializes working with couples and the individuals who make them up.  Using in- and out of-session exercises, she helps individuals identify what they bring forward from their own families of origin so that they can identify and break free of negative patterns in their marriages.  She and husband, David, and twin kitties, Petey and Lucy, live in the land of Pikes Peak.  Find out more about Kathe at http://www.BeingHeardNow.com
 
Copyrighted by Mexican artist John Huerta, who uses the style of Day of the Dead to illustrate the women in his life who’ve died. 
 
© Being Heard, LLC, 2014

WordPress Tags: traditions,psychotherapy,behavior,marriage,tasks of life,perspective, family histories,generations,predecessors,existential
WordPress Tags: zombie, zombies, family history, Mexico, Day of the Dead, Dia de los Muertos, dead, generation, generations, family, family of origin,