Finding the Hope Beyond the Sadness

"Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." 

-Viktor E. Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning

Often when I first tell people that I am a therapist, their initial response is to ask "Oh my GOD, are you analyzing me right now?!" This is a common question that many of us therapists are accustomed to answering, and have scripted responses for. I tend to cater my response to my audience, ranging from the straight forward, "No, I don't do that when I'm off shift," to the flippant "If you want me to analyze you, you're gonna have to pay me at least $150 an hour" (I actually picked that one up from a professor).

Once the person is comfortable, this question is generally followed by a string of inquiries that usually indicate the person's overall attitude toward mental health services, or their own personal experience with them. On a number of occasions I have been asked "Isn't that SUCH sad and heavy work? How do you NOT take that home with you?"

Although I understand where it comes from, I always find this question amusing. It's not to say that the work that therapists do is not, at times, sad and heavy. And I would be lying if I said that I NEVER take my work home with me. When you are working with people in just about any capacity, I'd say there is a strong likelihood that at some point you will take your work home with you (I am recalling seeing the best and worst of humanity while working as a server in a restaurant throughout college. There were certainly days where I took that work home with me as well).

The reason this question is amusing to me is because it misses the very essence of what I am so fortunate to call my life's work: the hope that is such a central part of what I do. Many people- not all, but many- come to therapy because they are suffering, and they want to feel better. Those that do not come for that reason often discover it once they are invested. And it is our job as therapists to help clients become invested when they are not, and to find the hope when it has been lost.

It is an immense privilege to witness a person who has lost hope find it again. I have had clients tell me that therapy is their church, a place of spirituality and safety. I find comments like these incredibly moving, and I take these experiences with me when I go home just as often as I take the tough stuff. Yes, it takes tolerating the heaviness of pain in order to get to that place- and sometimes we never do- but when hope is restored, it is one of the most beautiful and moving experiences in life.

The alcoholic who gets clean, the mother who reunites with her child, the young woman who overcomes an eating disorder- these are the experiences that keep us doing what we do. It is incredibly humbling on days where your own life feels less than desirable to watch others bravely face their biggest challenges. I have often thought to myself, if they can do it, so can I. I am constantly inspired by this work.

And so, I answer that question here with a smile: "Yes, it can be sad & heavy work, and sometimes I DO take it home with me. And I am so, SO grateful to be able to do it."

The Grass is Always Greener: Or Is It?

When I was in undergrad, a good friend of mine met the love of her life and married him shortly thereafter. Over the years I watched in admiration as they moved around the country, got pregnant, and bought their first house together. She also managed to achieve her Master's degree in that time, and even started her own business. Meanwhile, I struggled to find a consistent partner, a career path, and to live in anything beyond a studio apartment. While it appeared to the outside world that I was a free, spontaneous, single woman (which was partly true), the reality was that a lot of the time I felt lonely and confused.

And then, within months, my friend's relationship fell apart and they were divorced. Suddenly the adult lifestyle that they were living didn't seem so desirable anymore. Real issues such as how to pay the house payment, divide custody, and date again entered the forefront. I found myself grateful to be in the ambiguous stage of life that I was in.

In many late night conversations, this friend and I shared with one another how we had always admired the other- and still did- for the qualities that we felt we ourselves lacked. We also identified how very similar we are in many ways. We grew closer as we struggled to find our footing through life's unbeaten path. At one point I even jokingly said to her "Well, I guess now we're both in the same place in life- single & dating in this crazy world!" We had a good laugh.

It's striking to me how often we get caught up in what we don't have, what we lack- or what others do have. Perhaps this is just part of the human condition. Perhaps this is what draws us to friends and partners- sensing that they somehow possess the magical qualities that we are short of. When I find myself engaging in this kind of thinking, I try to remind myself of the things that I am grateful for, and the qualities that I appreciate about myself. We are, at the end of the day, uniquely individual- so why not try to embrace it?

Always we hope
someone else has the answer.
Some other place will be better,
some other time it will all turn out.

This is it.
No one else has the answer.
No other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.

-Lao-Tzu

Learning to Appreciate Life: Thoughts on Boston

Part of growing up means learning to appreciate life. I spent the past two months stressing about something that was largely out of my control. After undergoing a competitive and anxiety-provoking process, I received somewhat miraculous news on Monday morning that I had been gifted the training experience of my dreams for my next year of graduate school. Mouth gaping, hands shaking, I jumped in my car and started driving to school.

And then I heard the news on the radio: explosions at the Boston Marathon.

Suddenly, life was put back in to perspective. All the worries and woes I had experienced in the past two months- and even the joy I had experienced that morning- now seemed irrelevant. People had lost their lives, lost their loved ones.

At one point I had begun to deal with my stress by training for a 10k (see Inspiring Ourselves at Any Age). This new beginning had inspired me and re-awakened my soul, eased my worries. Understanding the significance running had for me, I was heartbroken to hear the news of the dedicated athletes, many of whom might not run again because of the injuries sustained in the explosions.

There are no words to make sense of tragedies like these. For me, however, the bombings were a reminder that life is short, and at the end of the day very few things in life truly matter. So today I am going to thank God that I am alive & healthy, tell the people that I love how much they mean to me, and go for a run in the beautiful sunshine while carrying with me those who can't.

Boston is a tough and resilient town; so are its people. I’m supremely confident that Bostonians will pull together, take care of each other and move forward as one proud city. And as they do, the American people will be with them every single step of the way.

- Barack Obama

Life in Your Early Twenties vs. Your Late Twenties

I recently had a good chuckle looking at this on a friend's Facebook page.

I've been trying to touch on some of the differences between being a young twenty-something and being an older twenty-something or thirty-something in this blog. Sometimes, visuals are so much more powerful.

Inspiring Ourselves at Any Age: My Journey Back to Athletics

When I was in 7th grade, I tried out for and was cut from the basketball team. Devastated, I came to the realization that perhaps I wasn't cut out for athletics; maybe I should stick to theatre instead. And then my gym teacher encouraged me to try out for the volleyball team, and at the ripe height of 5 foot 4, I figured why not? Little did I know this would begin my involvement in a sport that came to define my childhood. It turned out that, while I wasn't athletic, per say, I had the determination and work ethic to train in a sport that I loved. And when I made the varsity team as a freshman at my high school, I came to realize that I was an athlete.

8th grade. Perhaps I had not grown into the mature athlete I was to become quite yet.

Those who commit to a sport know that it can encompass a large part of your identity. At my school, being on the volleyball team meant something: we were the 2nd best team in Northern California for two of the four years I played. Our games against the rival team (the #1 team in Northern California) would sometimes last until 10 or 11pm and would sell out the gym. The majority of the players trained year round, pulling "double days" during the Sonoma summers, sometimes running the track in over 100 degree weather. In addition to my high school team, I played on a club team as well, traveling to other states to play at tournaments specifically arranged for college recruiters to scout players. Some of my former teammates later went on to play professional ball in other countries.

Memorabilia

High school team

Sophomore year club team

When I made the decision to focus on academics in college and not play on the UCSD team, a part of my identity died. It was a decision that I still wonder about today. While I continued to play year round on intramural teams and on the beach, my life was simply not the same without regular teammates, training, and travelling. There was something about those long days in the summer heat, the camaraderie that came with physical suffering and emotional toughening. My teammates were my sisters. Years later I attended weddings, baby showers, and even coached at my high school with a former teammate.

Sisters. The woman on the right just gave birth to her second child.

Coaching at my high school with my former teammate

Some years later, I began to fantasize about the idea of running some kind of race. Despite having been an athlete all those years, the idea of running long distance terrified me. I had never been a distance runner; in fact I was known for my speed in short distance sprints. And the idea of pacing myself has never been a particular strength of mine. So, rather than try running, I simply would picture myself doing it from time to time.

But stress does funny things to a person. This year, while completing my second year of graduate school in the most academically challenging year to date, I found myself engaging in behaviors that were unlike me: compulsively eating, choosing to stay in rather than hang with friends on a Friday night because of pure exhaustion, blowing entire weekends on homework alone. After several months of this, I was running on reserves. I needed to tap into another part of myself, something deep down & non-intellectual to re-energize and re-motivate myself in life.

This is what I looked like at the height of the stress.

The funny thing about inspiration is that it travels via osmosis. As I was going through this non-active period  of my life, I was reading my friends' Facebook pages & blogs, seeing pictures of people participating in Color Runs, 10ks, and even Ironman competitions. One friend wrote in her blog about how she went from "couch potato" to "marathon runner," and even provided tips on how to do this. My best friend, another former athlete who had retired many years ago, signed up for a half marathon with her sister in an effort to get back in shape.

A real life picture from a friend's Facebook. The woman on the right is a former teammate.

At some point I tired of reading about other people's success and began to think about my own. And then it dawned on me: maybe this was the part of myself I needed to tap into- the inner 16 year old athlete who used to win "Most Inspirational" awards, not because she was the best player on the team, but because she had the most heart.

Gotta love the 1980's graphics on these babies.

So I bought some running shoes, strapped my Iphone to my arm, and went for a jaunt around Lake Merritt. Or part of it at least.

...And thennnn I pulled my hamstring.

It turns out that being nearly 30 meant I couldn't get away with not stretching before my runs. While my mind was tapping into my 16 year old self, my body was reminding me that I was nearly twice as old now. Humbling, to say the least.

This is not me, but this woman is demonstrating excellent stretching technique.

I've continued to run and can confidently say that I am ready to complete the 5k I recently signed up for. My real goal, however, is to finish a 10k. And who knows? Perhaps the rush I get after I complete the 6.4 miles will launch me into an even longer race. There's something addicting about this whole running world. But I actually don't care so much about the time or the distance- for me, it's more about the inspiration I feel setting these goals and achieving them. Running has brought me back to life and reminded me that I am, indeed, still an athlete at heart. 

This young buck still resides in my heart.

Change: A Defining Feature of the 20's

As I reflect upon 2012, I realize how truly remarkable the change that can occur in one year can be. At the beginning of this year I was days out of a 3 year relationship, an ending that was devastating and painful. After 10 years of being completely independent, I came knocking on my parents' door, needing a place to stay until I could muster the money for a deposit to a new apartment. I was back in the town I had grown up in. And I was only 4 months in to the first year of a doctorate program, part of which involved working at a community mental health agency in Marin.

It was one of those periods in life where everything shifts and is re-evaluated. It was time to take a good long look inside and figure out what I truly wanted out of life, and how I was going to get there. Although I was grieving, I felt something inside of me change, open up. A fire was lit in me. It was time to start over, start new again.

We hear about such change in the form of the "mid life crisis," but this kind of monumental shift can occur at any point in one's life. For me, this period served as a "light bulb moment," a realization of where I ultimately wanted to go in life. For years I had asserted my feminist opinions in the form of denying any interest in ultimately having a family one day. I wasn't sure I wanted to be married at all. I didn't know where I wanted to live, or what I wanted to do. I had always felt there was more to life, but I wasn't sure what it was.

I was months away from becoming engaged when I realized that I could not see one year in the future with this partner, let alone a lifetime. And as I packed up the last of my things from our shared apartment, sorting through our shared CD case of movies to find mine, I realized I no longer had the patience or the time to date frivolously anymore. I never wanted to sort through another CD case again.

Of course grieving is a process. So I began the year by reconnecting with old friends from my home town, a place that has always held me and supported me through many transitions. I like to think of it as a landing pad for my airplane to go when it needs a base point. I worked on my relationship with my parents. And I poured myself into my work at school.

Eventually I gathered the money and began to look into places to move closer to school. I fell in love with Oakland the first time I visited. It exemplified the kind of place I wanted to live in at this very moment in time: adapt to adversity, community-oriented, and full of life. I knew this place needed to be my new home.

I moved into my quaint Lake Merritt studio in April. I was finally in the land of public transportation and 2 hour parking (another change I had to figure out- luckily, it only took about 15 parking tickets before I got it). I started expanding upon newer friendships. Over the summer I allowed myself to relive my early 20's and get a bit reckless, staying out late and dancing. And in my free time I explored this new city, and discovered all it had to offer (secret parks and lakes, Friday art gallery crawls, wonderful food, to mention a few things).

At the end of the summer I met a new man. He was caring, intelligent, gentle. I felt safe with him. Still, I took my time getting to know him, cautiously resisting the urge to jump into something serious again. For the first time ever, I listened to my head as much as my heart in a romantic situation, and I consciously chose this partner. Suddenly the future didn't seem so far away any more. I was growing up.

In the fall I began my second year in the program. This year was to be the toughest academic year, and that was the case. I was assigned to work in the Mission district in San Francisco, quite a difference from my work in Marin the previous year. By the time school started I felt strong and ready to begin another chapter. So far, I'm charging through it.

In one year I lost a relationship, moved home with my parents, moved to a new city, ended a school year, found a new kind of relationship, and began a new school year and a new job. Lots of change. Change seems to be a defining feature of my 20's. But as I grow older, I feel myself longing to bury my feet in the soil somewhere. I can finally admit that I do, in fact, want a family one day.

And so I look forward to 2013, and maintain hope that perhaps in my 30's I will find more stability. Until then, I'll continue to roll with the changes ;)

Happy holidays everyone.

Love,
Your favorite twirty-something 

Thoughts on Newtown, Connecticut

In solidarity

 

I was working at a community mental health agency in a rough part of San Francisco when I received the news of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut. This news is terrible...27 dead at an elementary school in Connecticut. I can't even imagine what this must be like for those families. I read my partner's text in horror and instantly thought of my sister, a sixth grade teacher working that day at an elementary school in a nearby community.

Tears began streaming down my face 5 minutes after turning on the news that night. The scene of the crime, a small town across the country, looked so familiar- once ranked "The safest town in the US," it could have been the town I grew up in. Pictures of innocent babies, horrified parents, and young school teachers flashed across the screen. I couldn't watch but a half hour of footage before having to turn it all off, overwhelmed. And then I thought about those who weren't going to be able to "turn it off," get away from the pain of these losses. I thought about the questions my sister was going to have to answer the following Monday when her students would return to school full of fear. I tried to imagine the sixth-grade version of the answers to their questions, and when I couldn't, I found myself thankful I am not a teacher right now. And then I thought about what I would do if I were a psychologist assigned to help one of these families deal with these losses, or help this community rebuild after this tragedy. All I could imagine was sitting in a room, crying in solidarity with a mother or father.

As a psychologist in training, I have a morbid fascination with making sense of these crimes. I so desperately want to know why they continue to happen, what the contributing factors are, how we can work to keep these unfathomable crimes from reoccurring. I am angry that the story is always the same: a white male, somewhere between the age of 18-25 kills innocent victims and then himself, ridding the world of the opportunity to know what led him to such a dark place. I am equally as obsessed with the reactions of others and myself, to such acts. Everyone is so terrified, so rageful, so deeply sad that we hopelessly defend whatever cause we feel will bring justice to such loss. We argue for stricter gun control, the death penalty, media censorship, while the answer to the question Why does this keep happening? remains unanswered.   

I personally do not believe that stricter gun control will keep crimes like these from happening. Don't get me wrong- I don't think it would hurt- but someone hell bent on wanting to kill others will find a way regardless of the means (you can easily find recipes for homemade bombs online, frighteningly). I am also not certain that media coverage of such events is to blame. In fact, I am hopeful that media coverage will inspire more people to react and become motivated to get involved in the solution. And I certainly don't believe that tougher sentencing for crimes is an answer either. Our prison system is broken and overcrowded. Call me an optimist or maybe even a dreamer, but I have a very hard time imagining a person- purely evil- who is capable of killing not one, but 20 babies under the age of 7. I have read of such "sociopaths" and "anti social personalities," and I am sure they are out there, but I am also aware that statistically this is a very small portion of our population. Someone who is capable of killing babies seems to me very, very ill.

Perhaps the most disheartening and unbelievable part of this story that keeps getting told are the folks who say "He was such a good boy...I can't believe he did this....there were no signs at all." And then the more and more I research the killer, I see all kinds of "signs": social dysfunction, withdrawal, isolation, a history of academic and occupational struggles, usually family discord. From what I have read, Adam Lanza exhibited all of these classic symptoms of mental illness. And it's not a hidden fact that the average age of onset for Schizophrenia in men is- gasp- between 18 and 25 (this information resides in our very own DSM-IV).

I'm not arguing that every person with Schizophrenia is a violent killer, or that I am able to diagnosis Lanza based on the media coverage. But I am struck by this story that keeps on repeating. The killer is always the same- age, race, class, personality features. How are we as a society failing to intervene, to end this story once and for all? I hold a serious responsibility and privilege as a psychologist to put forth my very best effort in thinking about mental illness, not just in treating those who struggle with it, but also in educating the public about the signs and symptoms of various illnesses. We have the knowledge, so where is it going? Why does this story continue to be told?

I offer my sincere condolences to the entire Newtown community. My heart hurts not only for the victims and their families, but also for our country-  we all suffer when something like this happens. We must continue to talk about mental illness, and strive to find ways to stop this story from being reproduced.