“YOU PUT MY HEART IN THE CLOSET.”

March 26, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

A young military couple, married a short time, sat on the loveseat in my counseling office.

With no college and not much rank, the husband’d learned at The School of Hard Knocks about irresponsible purchases, credit card debt, and overspending in general.

Some women are easy to buy for: Some of us are into birthstones. Others die for pampering massages, facials and manis. Me, I’d kill for a personal chef and a housekeeper.

She was all about purses. Leather not pleather. Not something you’d throw in the backseat. And definitely not one that doubles as a backpack. Instead, a handbag that speaks about itself in understated, accented English.

Back in my office, the talk was about unmet wants and needs when the husband brought up a gift he’d given his wife the previous Christmas:

What is it you like to get?

Handbags.

And what did I give you?

A handbag.

How come I gave you that?

Because I love handbags.

No, I mean, why did I give you a handbag?

Because you love me?

Yeah. And where is it?

The handbag?

Yeah.

In the closet.

Yeah. That’s where you put my heart.

Lots of times we take for granted that the person we love pays attention when we give hints about what we like. Sometimes so much so we have to clarify that we’re not asking for something if we’re only admiring it.

Just as much as you (ought to) strive to give gifts that are meaningful (to them), your partner is (hopefully) doing the same in return.

Sometimes a husband’s gift-giving repertoire isn’t very varied; that could be because most women aren’t very gracious when they get an unwanted gift from a loved one. And because lots of men hate to be on the bad side of women, sticking to a sure thing may be boring, but it’s safe.

Don’t tell me men aren’t sensitive. My client gave his heart by giving his money, something especially meaningful to him.

Would he agree those handbags are worth the asking price?

Probably not.

But his wife is.

Specializing in couples work, Kathe Skinner is a Colorado Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Specialist. An MSer herself, Kathe works especially with couples where invisible disability is part of the mix. A gift-receiving ingrate in the first years of their marriage may explain why David gave up creativity after he promised her the world and she took him literally. For over 10 years, she and David have been Certified Instructors for Interpersonal Communication Programs . Find the schedule for their next Couple Communication Workshop at http://www.beingheardnow.com

Image courtesy of supakitmod

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7 TRUTHS ABOUT COUPLES THERAPY

March 13, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Junk.

That’s the name I give to those reams of paper already printed on one side, fit only for recycling. The remains of old binders of stuff from grad school account for this week’s batch of junk paper for my printer. Like a paper I’d written almost 20 years ago: Assumptions, Approaches and Issues in Marital Therapy: A Personal Definition.

Amazingly, what I believed then, minus the naïveté and lack of experience, is largely the passion and promise of what I believe today:

1. Ease the pain. Right off the bat, a therapist’s job is to give a couple hope about the future, no matter if it’s separately or together. A therapist’s first role is to soothe heart hurt, restore faith, and normalize anger. The hard work can wait for later.

2. Children’s and pets’ behavior is about you. Overstated, but you get the point: Misbehavior, theirs or yours, is a symptom and not necessarily the cause. When you want things better at your house, start by working on the big boys and leave the small fry alone.

3. You’re driving the bus. Where we go is yours to decide; my job is to help you get there. A good travel agent doesn’t tell you where you want to go; you tell the agent. Think of me in that way, gathering information then putting a package together that gets you on your way, lending a hand when problems along the way.

4. I’m not immune to the issues you have. Part of my skill is being able to tune in to your problems. Although I’ve often been there, done that, I may see in your struggles things I have yet to resolve in my own life and relationship. In the that’s called counter-transference, and all therapists are touched by it.

5. For each step back take 2 steps forward. The family system we grew up in, and how relationships worked within it, predict behavior in our relationship now. Think of it as an individual version of “driving the bus.” Called individuation or differentiation, couples therapy looks hard at each partner’s ability to separate from those automatic behaviors we learned about ourselves and relationships so long ago. Remember that it takes two strong individuals to make a relationship work.

6. Without Action, Knowledge is wasted. Put another way, “So what’re you gonna do about it?” The whole aim of coming to therapy is “behavior change” and not just “changing your mind.” Those are things for me to know and you to learn.

7. Crisis = Opportunity. Going into marital therapy, or any kind of personal work, is an adventure whose outcome is largely unknown. What I do know is that when things come to a head tremendous opportunity for growth exists when things burst. Relationship is dynamic and as individual as each of you and the two of you together.

Hardest for me to learn has been that I can never want change more than my clients do. You will be (and ought to be) the trump card, driving force, bus driver, agent for change, mover and shaker.

What I know is that all of my skill, compassion, and knowledge will never be enough to right a boat when the passengers have jumped ship.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist, Coach, and Relationship Specialist who, for almost 20 years, has been in private practice along Colorado’s Front Range. She has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis longer than most relationships she sees and specializes in working with couples where invisible disability is part of the relationship mix. Kathe and her husband, David, teach Couple Communication Workshops where participants get a peek at how this team manages a marriage where 2 very different personalities see things from 3 perspectives – and where class-goers learn to do the same. Workshops are offered throughout the year. Get the schedule and learn more at http://www.BeingHeardNow.com.

Image courtesy of Vichaya Kiatying-Angsulee/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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CAN MILLENIALS AFFORD TO BE DISABLED?

March 7, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Millenials: They’re (over)educated,tech savvy, passionate about social causes, and cocky.

Also called the Peter Pan Generation, these 20- and 30-somethings seem confident that the U.S. will change for the better in many social and economic ways, even as they resign themselves to a future without Social Security.

A wave of immigrants greater than the one in the early 20th Century will become part of a country already becoming culturally and racially diverse.

Children are more likely to have been born out-of-wedlock, with no stigma attached.

A generation larger than the Boomers will oversee significant sociocultural and economic shifts. The transformation won’t be as profound as to inspire another Dylan, but the times indeed will be changing . . . and already are.

All of us aging hippies ought to be comfortable with the free spiritedness of this cohort. However, it’s important to note that lots of us traded in our love beads to learn about stress as investment bankers, suburban moms, and mid-level managers.

Disability claims for anxiety and depression are on the rise, and according to a study commissioned by the American Psychological Association, the most stressed of all are Millenials.

It’s no wonder: Stressed about finding work in the career they studied for; often living with partner and children in their parents’ basement; uninsured, ironically, because of its expense; and facing overwhelming debt from loans for education.

Stress responses are often invisible, at least for a time. Pre-existing chronic conditions worsen with stress and latent ones blossom. And there can be no doubting that stress alone does a number on organs like the heart and gut.

While all organisms are designed to respond to stress self-protectively, no organism is designed to withstand long-term stress without breaking down into symptoms or breaking down entirely. Think of migraine, bipolar disorder, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, and others. Invisible.

With a visible trend toward increased stress, the Millenial Generation needs to preserve themselves and our future. There can be no reliance on Big Institutions that, with their enormous bulk, change very slowly (i.e., religion, politics, social reform, education). But in a fairly rapid response to the increased demands on mental health, therapists are returning to the ancients by teaching us how to soothe our troubled minds.

Each of us, and especially Millenials, needs to be self-preservation in our approach to family, job and education. That means tuning into ourselves through meditation and relaxation.

It’s true that the times are a ’changin’ but that doesn’t mean our individual lives will be changing soon. In order to afford being invisibly disabled now demands self-awareness, self-focus, self-care, self-responsibility, self-determination.

Getting sick isn’t cheap; that hasn’t changed

Ask any aging hippie.

Specializing in couples work, Kathe Skinner is a Colorado Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Specialist. An MSer herself, Kathe works especially those couples where invisible disability is present and knows the toll that stress takes on her health. For over 10 years, she and husband, David, have been Certified Instructors for Interpersonal Communication Programs . Find the schedule for their next Couple Communication Workshop at http://www.beingheardnow.com

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IT TAKES TWO TO DO-SI-DO

February 14, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Doin’ the do-si-do’s impossible to do by yourself.

I spent lots of years hanging out with girlfriends or not hanging out at all, which was more likely to be true. Most times, none of us even had someone who filled in for love. I’m not ashamed to say there are times I would’ve settled – my need for affiliation was that great – at least for awhile. Although I did draw the line at that Mafia guy.

Being un-paired suggested to me that who I was was unacceptable; someone whose standards, suggested Mom, were sometimes too high. This time she was right.

The upshot was a 10-year marriage I never wanted and that didn’t work, anyway.

And when, post-divorce, I found someone to love, conundrums followed double-behavioral-messages and I was as heartbroken and needy as if I were one of those women who stand uncomfortably on the periphery of social situations. How humiliating that, when I bought myself a dozen roses to make him jealous, he knew no one else had done that but me.

If you haven’t been there, done that, and are newly-bummed by Valentine’s Day, here are some thoughts:

1. Scoundrels are plentiful. Scoundrels will always be scoundrels. Scoundrels become scoundrel-ier the more you like them.

2. Singles gatherings are very sad. While such encounters are billed as “fun”, they never are. They’re too often a forum for people to tell their bad/sad story. While good forums for social science researchers, mixers like this can suck the breath out you for weeks.

3. Visit the zoo. Animals who live in enclosures have other fish to fry so they’re not upset when your dump truck of emotions backs onto their turf. Just don’t dump on their food.

4. Develop a mental solidarity with women who become collectors of cats. Every cat-loving woman I’ve ever met understands how this happens, and is comforted by knowing that homeless felines are plentiful if all else fails.

5. Diet only if you want to. A hungry person is a grouchy person, not at all lovable. By the same token, if you’re ashamed of evidence of those ice cream orgies, remember that a shamed person often lies.

6. Going to a bar is noisy, phony, expensive, sometimes dangerous but often depressing, especially when your friend gets hit on and you don’t. People sucking up the bar scene are generally alcoholic, shopping for a good cut of meat, or both.

7. At the first sign of abuse run. Fast and far. Never look back.

8. Everything you’ve ever heard about kissing frogs is true. These days you really can get warts.

9. While the world feels like Noah’s Arc. fact is that with the divorce rate at 50%, out there’s a pretty big pool of people rejected by someone else. And they’re yours for the taking.

10. A clean bill of health is as important as it was to have a passport in Nazi Germany. The consequences are about the same, too.

Pairing up is about lots of things, many of which we have no control over, like the biological imperative to reproduce our species, and to protect what we create. Humans are meant to affiliate; we’re social animals who rely on, and need, each other. The herd is enormous – 7 billion and growing.

The odds are in your favor.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Coach who’s been in private practice for the last 17 years. She works especially with the invisibly disabled. Kathe finds real-life adventures in Front Range Colorado, where she lives with husband David and their hooligan cats, Petey and Lucy. Neither of them has square danced since they were in 6th grade. Learn more about Kathe & David Skinner and the Couples Communication Workshops they teach at http://www.BeingHeardNow.com and be sure to keep visiting Kathe’s blog at ilikebeingsickanddisabled.com. P.S. Pass it along!

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INVISIBLE DISABILITY GOT YOU SIDELINED THIS WINTER?

February 9, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

Even if I walked away, I wouldn’t be able to walk very far.

For those of us who are disabled, invisibly so, preparing for weather that turns wintry follows a simple self-care rule: stay inside.

As multiple sclerosis has progressed in me, simple tasks loom large.

Accumulation of simple tasks makes negotiating my environment literally hazardous to my health.

And I’m not alone in what can happen:

Impaired mobility. “Give me something to hold onto, like a railing, or a walker,” I said confidently, “and I’m good to go.” This from a woman who managed the unbelievable – falling down and taking the shopping cart with her. Not just with her, on top of her. The same woman who stepped off a sidewalk and fell face-first on her rollator into Chicago traffic.

Adding ice, snow or both increases the danger, whether I want it to or not. Cold temperatures stiffen already-Frankenstein-like limbs, reduce feeling, and can even shut down body functions altogether. For me, any extreme of temperature, hot or cold, and I look and act like a zombie.

Impaired senses and abilities. When it’s cold, the body’s heat is centralized to protect the core. Extremities function poorly, if at all. Try counting change at the grocery store, or picking up something you dropped. Even bending over is dicey and can result in a tumble. Even worse? Getting up again.

People with breathing difficulties may struggle, even with little or no exertion. Arthritis sufferers are crippled all the more. And the head-injured’s thought processes slow. way. down.

Anything already stressed responds negatively to even more stress. Think of the knees of someone overweight: when chubby becomes obese, knees already weakened break down when more weight is added.

Of course not everyone will have such a dramatic response to arctic-like conditions, but some will. For me, balance and strength, ability to write, well-being and fatigue, mood, motor skills, bladder control, cognitive functions, like word finding, are some of what fall to unacceptable levels.

It’s just plain dangerous. A wheelchair-bound client of mine was hit by a bus when the driver’s vision was impaired by a snowstorm – he didn’t see her crossing in front of the vehicle. My massage therapist suffered brain damage when she hit the pavement after slipping on ice in the parking lot.

Our focus on independence may cost us, like the guy who refuses to leave when the flood waters rise. Thinking about who picks up the pieces doesn’t cross our minds.

Can you afford to get stranded for hours?

Can your heart or lungs hold up to strenuous efforts to free your car from a snow bank? What happens when your body’s attempts at staying warm mess with your blood sugar? Or the stress of the whole ordeal brings on pain and diarrhea?

I have a highly polished ability to ignore what I don’t like. I especially don’t like staying home on those arctic days when others are doing ordinary things, like going to work. This is true even though experience tells me how I’ll hurt my body, mind, and self-esteem by ignoring how the m.s. in me behaves in harsh conditions.

Instead, control what you can. Don’t know about you, but I already know what happens when I ignore what that is.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Coach working especially with the invisibly disabled. She looks for real-life adventures in Front Range Colorado where the environment’s sometimes restricted by weather extremes. Currently, she’s cleaning up her home office while groovin’ to the oldies. A pirate’s treasure is stacked on the floor; who knows what she’ll find in all that paperwork? Learn more about Kathe Skinner and the Couples Communication Workshops taught by Kathe & David at http://www.BeingHeardNow.com

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THAT GIRL KEEPS FALLING ON HER BUTT

January 29, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. 2 Comments

My balance, isn’t.

So when I head straight toward the bushes at the entrance to my building it isn’t surprising.

Bushes are a trigger in picturing my first (and only) experience as a new MSer in an MS support group. Recommended by my neurologist, the group experience was meant to help me cope with the way-past-due-diagnosis of my disease.

Instead, it freaked me out.

Walkers, wheelchairs, canes, crutches – and me, invisibly disabled, in high heels looking at a future unable to wear them.

Big time downer.

Especially when a guy lost his balance and landed on his butt in a bush. That he laughed it off was horrifying.

I understand, now, the reason he laughed. Not only is laughing at the faux pas around the commonplace common, but situations that elicit that kind of response are also all too common.

The reality he must’ve experienced then is one I now share. Today I laugh, too. Because it’s truly comical at times and also because laughter is socially reassuring. “It’s alright, folks. I’m alright. Nothing to see here, move along.”

Knock wood, I’ve yet to experience anything dire in my navigational mistakes. Embarrassment to be impaired in public is what hurts. Most of us don’t know what to do in a situation like that. I put lots of effort into looking unimpaired, but when I catch sight of myself in a shop mirror, the reality of how I walk, for example, isn’t normal at all.

When I use an assistive device, a rollator in my case, parents scold their children for staring. I’ve yet to hear mommy or daddy use the opportunity as a teaching moment to talk about disability; rather it’s “don’t stare” before hurrying away. No wonder society hasn’t made much progress in accepting the disabled community who, except to children, remain largely invisible.

Recently, Disability.gov blogged an article about steps to take when being newly disabled.

It’s worth a read, especially if you’re not.

Specializing in couples work, Kathe Skinner is a Colorado Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Specialist. She works especially those couples where invisible disability is present. For over 10 years, she and husband, David, have been Certified Instructors for Interpersonal Communication Programs . Find the schedule for their next Couple Communication Workshop at http://www.beingheardnow.com© 2014 Being Heard

HAVE SEX OR DO LAUNDRY?

January 24, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

No brainer, right? But for many women, it’s not as stupid a question as you’d think.

The 21st Century may see a socioeconomic shift in favor of women, e.g. more upper-level management positions, more business owners, greater control of wealth.

Success comes at a price; working harder for longer hours upsets the already teetering balance among personal, relationship, and family demands. Another price? Women are just as likely to experience heart disease as men.

For decades men have steadily increased the amount of time they put into housework and childcare. Even so, the reality in most families where both partners work still reflects a scale that’s less than balanced. And while the workforce is trending toward containing equal numbers of men and women, that increased role doesn’t usually reflect other, needed, social changes, like equal pay, daycare, maternity leave, or scheduling flexibility in attending to family needs (like staying home with a sick child).

Women as breadwinners are another phenomenon of the new century’s economic downturn. That kind of role-shift between partners rocks a boat already sinking with the weight of household needs – who does what? How long before hunting dust bunnies pales in comparison to hunting mastodons?

It’s a 24/7 job, no matter who does it and whether the family knows it or not, holding fast is everyone’s job. While men may be able to put sex toward the top of the pyramid (at times even the tippy top), most women are still in the burial chamber, getting the mummy ready for bed.

Fact is, too many married women look to their partners to lighten the loads of laundry, not for sex.

In this context, how does a willingness to do some horizontal exercise together move up in your list of must-do’s?

Talk Together. Remember how it was when your relationship began? You two talked forever. It worked then; why not now? Remember that part of what makes your marriage exciting (and sometimes turbulent) are your differences.
Mourn. Be brave; acknowledge that some hopes and dreams are no longer attainable or even reasonable. Holding on can pull you both down. Move forward by dreaming in a different color.
Say it Out Loud. No one knows what you’re thinking unless you say it out loud. You may have always expected your partner to be a mind reader, thinking “If they loved me…they’d know.”
Re-Prioritize. And share the list with your partner. Working toward workability takes two. Are you tired of seeing his clothes on the floor? Does he get crazy when your hair’s in the drain? Negotiate a win-win; it’ll save you both time and aggravation.
Negotiate. Working toward workability takes two. Are you tired of seeing his clothes on the floor? Does he get crazy when your hair’s in the drain? Negotiate a win-win; it’ll save you both time and aggravation. Be sure to follow through.
Delegate. Neither of you is superhuman. Trying to do it alone hasn’t worked, has it? Too many women excuse children from sharing in home tasks. This often untapped resource can learn, starting as early as age 3, responsibility, ownership and pride. And you catch a break.Cluttering our days with unreasonable expectations and unspoken needs is so much less necessary to our happiness – and health – than being together. So what’s stopping you?

Specializing in couples work, Kathe Skinner is a Colorado Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Specialist. She works especially those couples where invisible disability is present. She and husband, David, have lots of practice re-prioritizing retirement in interesting economic Find the schedule for the next Couple Communication Workshop at http://www.beingheardnow.com

50 YEARS LATER: IS MARRIAGE A WEAPON IN THE WAR ON POVERTY?

January 14, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

If nothing else, after 50 years fighting poverty, one thing’s clear: America hasn’t found the right WMD.

Poverty’s still the winner.

Among the most ill-advised social programs developed to counteract the effects of single parenthood on women is one that promoted marriage as an effective weapon. While it’s true that a healthy, stable marriage between two committed people helps in the battle against hopelessness and helplessness, there may be a population not committed to marriage in the first place.

Whoever conceptualized that encouraging the chronically ill-prepared to otherwise marry was delusional at best; a bureaucratic butt-kisser at worst.

What were they thinking?

Not in doubt is that solid relationships can be beacons, gateways to education, employment, mental and physical health. The kicker is that such relationships can’t just be imagined, wished for, or expected without knowing how solid relationship works and passing it on, for at least 5 generations that adopt healthy marital functioning.

Marriage, itself, is a complicated construct that, in the hard sense, pre-exists poverty. Lack of knowledge is a set-up to failure to anything (imagine wiring a house without knowledge of electricity), especially regarding something as profoundly complicated as building a better relationship. Put bluntly, how can anyone expect that partners raised in dysfunctional families would, by dint only of wanting to, create a functional one? That marriage is imbued with such magical powers that, by its very existence, an intricate human condition is untangled? Or that the people who inhabit those relationships remain, generation after generation, committed to their marriages?

Welcome to the Magic Kingdom.

Children learn what they see. Further, children seek more than anything to belong and to be loved. When the cost of having that is withstanding an environment that is counter to family/relationship health — e.g. abusive, withdrawing, uncommitted, adulterous, enabling, permissive, angry, addicted or violent – children often choose unhealthy over healthy. Immature brains learn that this is what marriage and family looks like. Even people who strongly react against their upbringing stand the risk of riding the pendulum to the other extreme, becoming overly compliant, accommodating, permissive, rigid, pious, rule-bound.

The knottiness of relationship is that each of us brings a perspective on these experiences that are often different from our partner’s. Often explosive, this confluence paves the way for increasingly unhealthy negative behaviors for each partner as well as the relationship.

Marital success is promoted when partners participate in learning relationship skills. Partial participation, which seems the rule, doesn’t count; it’s like being “sort of” dead. Besides, when a parent is struggling to provide the basics of life, little, if any, focus is given to the hard work needed to sustain a healthy union during formal couples education, let alone past its end.

Abraham Maslow put it elegantly when describing what needs to be in place before someone can even minimally “become”. The condition of being poor, pregnant and female plays out on a stage of basic needs where relationship improvement is trumped by paying the rent. In the same way, one wonders if self-esteem can be extrinsically motivated in generations raised dysfunctionally.

Poverty in America is generations-old; institutionalized; a mind-set. It would stand to reason that any upward movement on the psychosocioeconomic ladder would also be a lengthy process. A multidimensional process. And a difficult one. As we see development of the New Poor, Americans’ marital behavior will be interesting to track. Will there be a relinquishment of the values that inspire healthy relationship? Will difficulty bind people closer together? And what will happen to the trillions of dollars spent on social welfare programs that, fifty years out, have been unsuccessful in eliminating poverty?

That social success in other countries is not surprising given the unique social structure and size of the United States. While a nation as small as Finland, for example, may be socialistic success in reducing the strife of single parenthood, Finland is not the United States. Not in vastness of size, diversity, political structure, and multiculturalism. Even in the best of situations, marriage is no less multidimensional or difficult; with behavioral and attitudinal improvement also measured in generations.

While I offer no resolution to the multiple dimensions encompassing poverty (my magic wand is broken) better minds than mine have tried and failed.

I do know that a uni-dimensional solution to single mothers’ poverty through marriage insults the problem and ignores the complexity of the fix itself.

For more insights, read Julie Baumgardner’s response to the Council on Contemporary Marriages position on this subject. Ms. Baumgardner is the Chair of the National Association for Relationship and Marriage Education.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist in private practice in Colorado. Over almost two decades, she has seen low percentages of middle-class couples who have engaged in relationship education continue to apply what they learn. She calls the ones who have, like Adam and Leslie, “Super Stars” and their existence is cause for a smile every day. For almost 30 years, Kathe and her husband, David, have been committed to each other and to their marriage. As Jethro Tull once said, nothing is easy. Read more about their programs for couples at http://www.BeingHeardNow.com.

NASA’S PHOTO: PROOF OF GOD’S EXISTENCE?

January 10, 2014Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

NASA/JPL-Caltech/McGill

What’s a hand doing in deep space?

And what’s it attached to?

Is God just a big hand?

Wait a minute. Is that a hand at all?

The so-called “Hand of God” is the result of a combination of NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuStar, combined with Chandra X-ray Observatory’s imaging. God (and Superman) only knows what that pulsaristic, X-ray, and magnetic energy stuff’s about.

That we humans jump quickly to proof of what we so desperately want proof of is telling.

When familiar objects are seen in otherwise vague ways, a phenomenon known as pareidolia is at work. Examples include seeing the face of Jesus in an apple core or your neighbor’s poodle in a cloud. When the need to believe is strong enough, we “see” what reinforces what we believe. Those who are especially adept at recognizing and interpreting such “signs” are attributed with magical abilities that enable them to understand the past, explain the present, and foresee the future. They’re called shamans, therapists, or witches, and every culture has them.

Anyone who holds the hand of God is powerful indeed.

Our fervency at making a disconnected connection can be seen everywhere in our lives, not just in questions about transcendence. When we’re always looking for signs, signs are always found. For some of us, magical thinking beats realism every time: I’m always a bit miffed when my husband can “explain scientifically” what tingles to believe. Like yeti or synchronicity.

A peek at the animal kingdom demonstrates how natural it is to go for glitzy — brightly colored and smiling is more alluring than earth-toned and frowning. If you still aren’t convinced, go to Vegas. Shake its pockets and the likely fallout will be all manner of charms, amulets and carved stones. If you’ve ever played anniversary or birth dates in the lotto, you’re exercising the same belief in magical power.

How powerful is it to “know”?

People have been hung or burned alive for failing to share explanations we want, figure they have, but would rather die than tell. Curiously, we never fault our dysfunctional thinking when plague continues after we’ve roasted all the cats.

Distressed couples or the chronically ill may get caught up in the myths of “other reasons”, blaming themselves or those around them for what is ultimately ours to carry, even when understanding is absent. Better communication in marriage or the development of chronic illness are examples.

Nevertheless, many of us feel helpless when comprehension fails. So far-reaching is our need to know that we look outside ourselves for a “magic cure”, “quick fix”, or to blame. It’s as if we were cognitively incapable of apprehending knowledge by ourselves, alone.

Facing the Great Unknown is frightening.

We call for help that protects, soothes, and explains.

And that’s as good a reason as any to search out the Hand of God.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage and Family Therapist and Certified Relationship Specialist. She’s especially keen on working with couples whose relationship includes invisible disability (e.g., cancer, lupus, hearing loss, depression). Kathe and her husband, David, live in Colorado with their two cats, Petey and Lucy. They know that holding the hand of god is as easy as adopting a pet.

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December 31, 2013Kathe Skinner, M.A., L.M.F.T. Leave a comment

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2013. If it were a cable car, it would take about 58 trips to carry that many people.

Wowee zowie!

There’s still a long way to go in making people aware of invisible disabilities. And that so many of us experience them.

Of course, ILIKEBEINGSICKANDDISABLED is about much more than invisible disability. That’s as it should be because our lives are so much more than how we feel or what chronicity label we carry.

If you read my blog because of my sly humor or because something has touched you , made you laugh or think or angry, I’m happy for that. I challenge you to share with someone you know who might appreciate something I’ve said. Oh…and please let me know what you think about something I think.

Thank you, readers, for putting on a smile on the face of the last day of 2013.

Click here to see the complete report.

Kathe Skinner is a Marriage & Family Therapist and Relationship Coach in private practice. Diagnosed with multiple sclerosis for over 35 years she’s like many who experience invisible illness — most of what happens in her life is not directly attributable to being disabled. With her long-suffering husband (that doesn’t have anything to do with illness, either), they’ve been married almost 28 years, sharing their Colorado home with two resourceful hooligan cats, Petey and Lucy. Read more about the Skinners at http://www.beingheardnow.com

© 2013 Being Heard, LLC

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