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You made it. HNY 2021

So here we are at the end of 2020.

It’s been an absolute rollercoaster, and I think most of us have got through it by clinging to each other, and perhaps by letting go of some.

Personally I’ve got through it by trying to keep as many things as ‘normal’ as possible. Trying to focus on the things I can control and allowing the things I can’t to continue through my brain without giving them too much space.

I made a very active decision to focus on the good that this situation has bought out in people. The kindness people have shown, and the support of those who are struggling. It hasn’t always been easy, there has been a global conversation that focuses on the negative and sometimes I got hooked into that, but I recognised the impact it was having on me, so I pulled myself out of it and focused on the things in front of me.
My family, and the joy they bring, my friends and the support they give, my clients and the growth and resilience they show, and my volunteer group which is always overflowing with kindness.

Of course there have been lost opportunities, lost dreams along the way this year, and far too much change for someone who isn’t the fondest of unexpected change 😉

And it’s okay to feel and grieve those things.

And if all you’ve done this year is make it to the next moment, then celebrate that. You have more strength and courage than anyone will ever understand. You are amazing.

A while ago I posted about how never before have therapists experienced the same thing at the same time as their clients, and how that shared experience has bought a depth to relationships I haven’t experienced before. Not because previous relationships weren’t deep and special, but because shared traumatic experiences either break or bond us, and it seems in this instance, it has bonded.

It has been a year filled with all sorts of emotions. Fear, anxiety, hatred, anger, joy, pride, hope, love. So if you are sitting on this last day of 2020, wondering what on earth there is to celebrate, being here today is enough. You’ve made it. You got here, you coped, you asked for help when you needed it, and maybe you didn’t but you helped someone else to help you too. You’ve focused on what your immediate need is. You’ve juggled, decided, changed your mind, decided again, and possibly changed your mind again, and that’s totally okay.

If you have lost someone this year, please take my sincerest condolences. This has been the very very worst year to experience loss I should think.

So with the end of 2020, I want to say thank you for your support throughout the year. It has meant a huge amount to me to have this space to share and support others and to receive your support too. Thank you.

But most of all, I want to say this:

Congratulations for making it to today, however the hell you got here.

nye2020 #madeit

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Self Gaslighting

Self Gaslighting

Buckle up, this is going to be rough….trigger warning for emotional abuse and narcissistic abuse. Possibly also triggers around minimising and micro aggressions to self.

Okay, there’s the triggers out the way. If I’ve left anything out please let me know and I’ll add them in.

This is something I want you to really listen to if you’ve grown up in a narcissistic household.

When you say to me: ‘I don’t want to cause a fuss’, or ‘I’m really over emotional’, or maybe ‘she only wanted the best for me’; I hear you repeating the internalized messages from the years of gaslighting you have suffered.

You are literally doing their gaslighting for them. You are SELF GASLIGHTING.

Let’s take the first example I’ve used. ‘I don’t want to cause a fuss’.

Over the years, every time you have asked for a need of ANY kind to be met, if it hasn’t aligned with the need of the narcissistic parent, it will have been made very clear how much of a gross inconvenience that is. Every time you expressed an autonomous need, you will have been told something along the lines of ‘don’t make a fuss’. You may even have been physically assaulted for requesting it, possibly even sexually assaulted.

You will have internalized that every time you ask anyone for any kind of need to be met (a drink, a tissue, for them to stop kicking your seat on a plane, your food order is wrong etc etc) you are creating an ungodly fuss and EVERYONE hates you for it.

Let me say right now, they don’t.

And if they do, the chances are that it’s very much firmly in the camp of THEIR issue. Not yours. Remember what I say about boundaries? If we can honestly (key word right there!) look at the situation and without justification realise there isn’t anything we would change, then we have nothing to apologise for, and can go peacefully on with our day.

(Side note, if we are justifying, it may be that we are trying to convince ourselves as much as the other person, it might also be a sign that we’ve been emotionally abused and have to explain at length why we need to have our needs met – not healthy, not ok, not your fault. I’ll blog about it soon)

So how do we combat it? We have to adjust our boundaries and our language. One way we might do this is put ourselves in the shoes of the person we are asking to meet our need.

If you were a waitress in a restaurant and you got an order wrong, would you be angry/irritated with a customer who politely and quietly says ‘My order is wrong, could you correct it please?’

I really hope I’m right when I say ‘no, of course you wouldn’t!!’ You might feel a bit embarrassed you had got it wrong, you might even get seriously triggered, but that would be about you and your unresolved issues (probably around perfectionism/being good enough; thanks narcissistic parents!!!) not the customer.

Self gaslighting, does the work of the narcissist even when they’re nowhere to be seen. You are subconsciously continuing their abuse for them. By challenging this behaviour, you will start to establish some healthy boundaries around your self-worth and self-value, and you will break the cycle.

Be kind to yourself, this is hard, and it hurts to realise the perpetual insidiousness of their vile abuse, but awareness = healing, and I KNOW you can heal this. I know you can. Because you would have scrolled past this post and not even dared to read the rest of it. I’ve attached a table of examples of the taught message, the internalised messaged and the message we need to change it to. Read it, save it, and learn it. And heal. Stand up, you’re not an inconvenience you’re astounding.

All the love <3

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Mental illness isn’t an excuse to abuse.

There is a permanent struggle with clients over whether the behaviours narcissists exhibit are in intentional. There’s a deeper struggle around the fact that narcissism is listed in the DSM, which officially makes it a mental illness.

Society is shifting towards an understanding and awareness of mental health issues and conditions. There’s a growing acceptance that people struggle emotionally in all kinds of ways and as such we should still our judgement and increase our compassion and tolerance.

And that’s a BEAUTIFUL thing. It’s amazing. It warms my heart and I’m so grateful that we are starting to normalise it.

But there’s a but.

What can get mixed up in that is that toxic behaviour can be assigned to mental illness. And it’s just not true. Lots of people have depression or anxiety, and aren’t toxic. However in narcissism, it is toxic behaviour that characterises the condition.

Here’s the thing. The narcissist knows exactly what they’re doing. They know how to ‘play’ you. They know how to create the trauma bond. They know what their manipulative behaviours do to you.

They cannot be excused their abusive behaviours on the ground of their mental illness because they KNOW. (I have research to back this up if anyone wants the article name)

When we know we are using an unhealthy behaviour, even if it’s something that we’ve been using to survive emotionally, we have a responsibility to correct that behaviour.

Back in the day I did a law degree. In criminal law, the defence of innocent by reason of insanity is only upheld when a person is unaware that what they’ve done is wrong. So for example, when someone murders someone else and hides the body, the act of hiding the body indicates they knew what they had done is wrong.

If they know what they’re doing they’re responsible.

Narcissism is borne from extreme abuse, neglect or smothering, where a child has to develop the idea that they are okay in the world for themselves because their parent doesn’t mirror that for them. To survive they develop narcissism. That isn’t their fault. But it is their responsibility.

What I’m trying to say is that you can hold people accountable for toxic manipulative abusive behaviour, even if they have a mental health issue.

Because the first time they do it might be about survival, but if they don’t take responsibility and they don’t change the behaviour, it’s toxic. End of.

You do not have to tolerate abuse because there is a mental illness. ❤️

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DNA doesn’t equal a right to abuse.

You do not have to tolerate abuse or toxicity from anyone. ESPECIALLY those you share DNA with.

In fact. I would offer that rather than being more ready to ‘forgive’ someone from your blood family, perhaps they should have to work harder to earn your presence and trust.

Because it is within the bonds of blood where we are supposed to feel safest, most loved, most accepted, most wanted, and most needed. And when someone betrays that bond, it is a much deeper betrayal than that from someone whom you aren’t related to. After all. Those we love the most hurt us the most.

To be loved is a huge power and privilege, and therefore should be revered and respected. To not do so demonstrates the character of a person.

So put your boundaries in. Keep yourself safe. Don’t accept anything that doesn’t make you feel valued and accepted.

DNA doesn’t give someone the right to abuse you.

Blood doesn’t offer a gateway to toxicity.

And Boundaries are enforceable against everyone.

Whatever their position in your life ❤️

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Good enough is good enough

Raising kids is really really hard.

There’s a constant push pull between letting them fall and helping them fly, not to mention an attempt to retain some identity other than X’s Mummy.

So here are a few things I want to tell you about attachment theory:

If they cry when you leave, it’s a good thing. If they come to you when you return it’s a great thing.

The best thing we can do for our children is go away and come back. When they are old enough (6months plus perhaps) to understand; we mind map for them, explain what we are doing and why and that we would rather be with them and will be back as soon as we can.

Validate and mirror their emotions, reassure and listen and we build a secure attachment style.

Winnicott said that the good enough mother was good enough, and another statistic shows we only need to get it right 32% of the time to establish a secure attachment in our child.

Good enough means showing your children that mistakes are permissible.

Good enough means setting an achievable bar.

Good enough means allowing opportunity to model apologies and responsibility.

Good enough means empowering children by letting them question authority without fear.

Good enough means modelling acceptance of the fallibility of each and every human being including themselves.

Good enough fosters healthy boundaries and good self awareness, protecting mental health and relationships.

Good enough is good enough and gives everyone a break, especially the parent.

Ultimately what I’m saying is this.

Relax
Reassure
Validate
Mirror
Retreat
Return.

And your babies will be just fine ❤️

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Mental Health Awareness Week. Month. Year. Lifetime.

So it’s mental health awareness week. I’ve been thinking about what I can post to be part of this worldwide movement, but I’ve been really struggling. And speaking to someone earlier today has helped me clarify why.

It’s because it seems so reductive to draw attention to an international, perpetual crisis for a week. One week of 52 we hear media outlets championing the causes of those struggling with mental illness.

For one week the spotlight is shone on those whose battle is never ending and brushed aside or away altogether, not given the funding or support it needs to help them exist in equity with those that don’t struggle.

And that’s not okay!

Sure, there are plenty of you wonderful people who share posts and photos regularly to show you are supportive and inclusive, and for that I thank you.

Here’s my biggest problem with it all though.

There is almost like a disinfectant affect around mental illnesses.

Because it seems to me when mental illness doesn’t come in a nice little package, we don’t know what to do with it.

When someone with depression uses substances to self medicate, suddenly they become an addict, they become ‘untreatable’ and ‘deserve’ what they get.

When someone with schizophrenia stands shouting at cars, half naked in the snow, they get laughed at and mocked, shoved in a police van, or abandoned to themselves altogether.

When someone with Emotional Dysregulation Disorder (formerly borderline personality disorder) attempts suicide ‘half heartedly’ they are attention seeking and pathetic.

When someone with attachment disorder sends one too many texts looking for reassurance and support they are labelled ‘psycho as and ‘crazy’.

But THAT’s the reality.

Mental Health isn’t just anxiety and depression, as crippling and dangerous as they are, it’s bigger than that, and we HAVE to accept that someone exhibiting behaviour that isn’t ‘normal’ isn’t crazy, psycho, attention seeking, skanky, or mad.

They are struggling.

So please. This mental health awareness week. Educate yourself and remember not being okay comes in many many forms. And don’t stop campaigning for better support, access and facilities for those who need it. Mental illness doesn’t discriminate, everyone is at risk.

Be kind to yourselves, and each other

H ❤️

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Be kind to yourself…

YES. Be kind to yourself. It doesn’t matter if anyone has it worse, (in your eyes) or it could be worse, or it’s over with or any other reason you might find to minimise your experience.

Emotional events are HARD. There is no ‘should’ to how you feel, how long you have felt, how long you feel that way, how you experience your emotions. You feel what you feel, and that’s okay.

As always however, there’s a boundary where we have to recognise where we’ve been triggered and perhaps our feelings are being amplified. That’s what therapy and increased self awareness helps with. Knowing our experiences and triggers helps us process emotion and understand it too

We also have to take responsibility for those triggers and responses. Recognise that sometimes we are feeling the way we feel because we have projected emotion from a past event onto a present one, and own it.

And the final boundary is recognising when we are in victim role, and making sure that we don’t use pain and experiences to excuse and justify our behaviours.

If you remember the drama triangle/winners triangle, the healthy role in the place of the victim role is ‘resourced’. So taking responsibility for your own emotional response and increasing your self awareness, so that when we are holding other people responsible for our emotions we realise that we have power and responsibility within that too.

Ultimately though, with the caveat of responsibility around triggers and processes, your emotions are valid, your pain is true and you’re allowed to struggle with it.

Be kind to yourself ❤️

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Strict parent v Boundaried Parent

This is something I think about all the time. How many clients have sat opposite me telling me about their parent’s authoritative stance. The lack of collaboration, and instead have received harsh instruction.

Rather than creating a human who is able to know themselves, know their self worth, use their voice, trust those in authority and most importantly turn to their parent in times of difficulty; they create a hyper vigilant person. A person who lives in survival mode terrified of stepping a foot out of line but who has no idea where that line is.

They create someone who internalises and hides their thoughts and feelings, especially when they contradict those of a parent. They create someone who relies on other people to tell them they are ‘good enough’ rather than knowing it within their own core belief system.

They value the beliefs, emotions, needs of others before their own. And that requires a TON of therapy to overcome.

Don’t get me wrong. Boundaries in parenting are vital. But there’s a huge difference between telling a child what their boundaries should be, and allowing them to develop and discover their own.

Helping children develop boundaries starts when they’re tiny. Allowing them to make choices and to say no to their caregiver. Allowing them to say what they need and hearing and considering it before accepting or rejecting it.

That also means modelling good boundaries for them too. Showing them what it is to have and to hold a boundary around self worth/respect/esteem allows them the knowledge that they can do the same too.

By doing so we can teach our children to leave us, and to do so with a knowledge they will be okay in the world.

Equipping children with roots and wings is the most important thing parents can do.

By giving a child autonomy, the courage to leave the comfort of home, and the knowledge of their place being held there is the greatest gift you can give a child.

And we achieve that through minding our own boundaries and teaching them to find theirs too.

❤️

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Narcissistic parents and the complementary moral defence.

I love the words in this image, because we repeat what we know even if that means ending up in abusive situations.

The biggest problem with this is that when there is parental narcissistic abuse, sometimes those who have suffered don’t realise until they’re a LOT older and have already experienced abusive relationships.

Narcissistic parents create a world view, and as such will repeatedly tell their children that the childhood they had was amazing. And of course the children believe them.

Whenever someone tells me their childhood was perfect, I’m always wary. My spidey senses flare. And so far they’ve been right.

The problem is that you don’t know any different. You’ve been taught that everything the narcissistic parent has said and done, or the way they treat you or expect you to behave is completely normal. And because a lot of narcissistic abuse doesn’t involve physical abuse in the ‘traditional’ sense, a child doesn’t know the way they are being treated is wrong. We don’t get taught about emotional abuse in schools.

As a child you have no other point of reference, so whilst you might not have liked it very much, and maybe even rebelled against it now and again (or a lot!) you will have been taught that YOU are the problem. Nobody else, just you.

And so children of narcissists come to view themselves as fundamentally flawed and that they are lucky if anyone loves them at all, even if that love is abusive.

It’s called ‘the complementary moral defence’, and means the child of the narcissist has to absorb all the wrong in the relationship so as to maintain the attachment, because if challenged the narcissist will withdraw their ‘love’ as a punishment. To a child that isolation is catastrophic.

That complementary moral defence plays out over and over again in other relationships as the child grows, ultimately establishing itself in the adult love relationship.

It leaves children of narcissists vulnerable to abusive relationships and it’s why it’s SO important to understand all the ways in which you’ve been affected and educate yourself around all the different behaviours.

And that’s where hope lies. Because on the other side of that understanding and education are healthy relationships, self respect, self worth, self LOVE, self esteem, boundaries and so many other positive affects.

Going through and weeding out every unhealthy behaviour attributed to you is the only way to be free of the pattern but oh my goodness it’s worth it.

I watch clients go through this process and blossom into their true selves and it’s magical to see.

Be kind in the process, but process ❤️

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Valuing the right person

🙌🏼❤️

I read this and thought YES!!! Exactly! And then something niggled. And as I’ve learned to do, I stopped and let the niggle grow. Instead of squishing it down I listened.

And here’s what that was about.

When we allow our worth to be determined by others, it will never be enough. Constantly looking to or for others to recognise our worth disempowers us and empowers those around us.

Particularly when there are those struggling with their own insecurities and issues they might hide by behaving in a way that belittles and demeans us.

And so whilst the first part of this statement is true, and we should forget trying to be enough for those who won’t ever value us; and even though the second part is true too, it’s not someone else who gets to say you at your worst is enough.

Measuring our self worth using someone else’s barometer means we don’t always know what the temperature is. We don’t know how we are doing and we are using someone else’s tool to know ourselves.

So make sure that the right person is measuring your self worth, because they hold the key to your confidence, self esteem and resilience.

Make sure that the person measuring you at your worst knows that your flaws are what make you imperfectly perfect. Your down days only serve to feed your up days. Your needs, desires, loves and dislikes are all what makes up the wonderful uniqueness of you.

Make sure that person measuring you sees that you are more than so called positive character attributes, and that sometimes your ‘weaknesses’ facilitate your greatest strengths. For example, your depression or anxiety might make some people stigmatise you, but those things enable huge compassion, kindness and empathy for others.

Make sure that the person measuring you recognised that your bent to impatience is what drives you being the person to get something done, and your pedantry means you never miss a train/plane/automobile.

Make sure the person measuring you understand that to measure you is to know that nothing about you stands in isolation. You are a sum of all parts and the sum adds up to a whole.

Make sure they truly see you. Because the only the right person can do all those things. Only they can see the whole picture.

And guess what? Spoiler alert!

The right person is you.

#therapy #selfworth #loveyourself

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Autism Awareness – Communication 3/3

Okay, so today is all about Autism and communication.

I’m mildly optimistic that this won’t be terribly long, because in parts one and two, I have addressed non verbal cues, social cues, and meltdown behaviour.

In children autism is often indicated by a verbal delay, but from my experience, this isn’t always a strong indicator. I know many autistic children who have hit every milestone or even been way early on them.

What I have experienced, and which is also an indicator, for High Functioning Autism (formerly called Aspergers) is the ‘mini professor’ type of speaking. A vocabulary and turn of phrase usually attributed to adults.

For those further onto the ‘spectrum’ verbal communication may be non-existent (known as non-verbal), or may they may exhibit something called ‘selective mutism’. This means they choose or are unable to communicate verbally in certain situations.

If you are with someone who is non-verbal, or has selective mutism, never for a moment think they aren’t communicating. As a wise speech and language therapist friend said to me, ‘everyone is communicating all the time, whether they are speaking or not.’

It seems so obvious, but certainly my clients will tell you that I often notice to them a look that’s flashed across their face, the jiggle of their leg, their crossed arms, even a smile or a giggle, and ask what is happening in that moment.

Those non-verbal cues clients give me are telling me that there’s something they’re not saying. And often what they’re not saying is really really important.

So when you meet someone who has difficulty communicating verbally, look at the bigger picture and try and notice what they’re not saying. Remember the bit about stimming? Well, if you notice someone using a stim, perhaps they’re feeling anxious and need the environment or conversation to change.

Yesterday I explained that autistic people struggle with social filters and that when we give an instruction, we need to strip away all the unnecessary detail so they can process it better.

This also applies when we ask questions or are in conversation with them. Autists sometimes have difficulty processing information in order to give the necessary response, and neuro typical people often make the mistake of thinking they haven’t understood, so either repeat the question, or pose a different question, unwittingly doubling the task of processing, and overwhelming the autist with too much information to filter through.

To help someone with this, you can just wait. Allow them time to filter and process so they can answer. Get comfortable with the silence, and give them space. It’s such a little thing, but it will reduce the chance of meltdown and overwhelm.

Another co morbid trait is something called Echolalia. This is were someone repeats words from another person or a programme or film, by way of contributing to a conversation. It’s thought to be a coping mechanism and another way of communicating. Specifically to communicate intent to converse/contribute, or just because the repetition of the word or prhase makes the autist feel better, much like a stim.

So there we go. Some traits of autism explained. What’s most interesting for me is that they are presented so differently in each Autist, and just because we know one autist, it doesn’t mean we know them all.

Next week, I’m going to continue this series, looking at how to be a friend to a parent of an autistic child, the differences between girls and boys in autism,

Have a great weekend everyone, see you on Sunday for some self care

 

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Autism Awareness – Behaviour

Hello!
So as I said yesterday on facebook, I wanted to run a series of blogs about Autism to raise awareness and understanding. Today’s blog is all about the traits we commonly see in autistic people, and how we can help people who face these challenges living in a world which is dominated by neuro typical thinking.
Autism is a wide condition (I struggle with the label disorder, as I think, especially for those classed as ‘high functioning’, it is largely a different way of operating and experiencing in the world, and on top of that, the word disorder implies it can be cured, which it can’t) and as such, the first thing to note is that everyone who exhibits autistic traits will be unique within their presentation. Not all people who have diabetes have the same problems, and the same can be said for autistic people.
So what are the autistic traits? Well, it might be easier to break the traits down into three sections. Behaviour, Social Interaction and Communication.
Let’s start with Behaviour.
Autistic people may have behaviour that neuro typical people find unusual or confusing. A lot of these behaviours are being used to self soothe, and calm the autistic person, and if you seem someone using them, it would be best to allow that person to continue what they are doing, as they are likely trying to cope with overwhelm, and avoid a meltdown.
As a quick aside, a meltdown is VERY different to a tantrum. Meltdown’s do not end because attention is withdrawn, whereas tantrums tend to. It is VERY dismissive and disrespectful to call a meltdown a tantrum, because the meltdown is there to release huge emotion and overwhelm. If you see someone in meltdown, or a parent/carer coping with someone in meltdown, ask what you can do, if anything at all. Parent’s especially face huge judgement around meltdowns in public places, such as supermarkets, because the assumption is the child is being denied something rather than the noise and lights are too much to bear on top of the other things that have happened that day.
Right. Rant over, on with the blogs!
The behaviours you might see are:
1. Repetitive body movements such as hand flapping, spinning, rocking, or what look like tics. These movements are often referred to as ‘stimming’, which is short for self-stimulatory behaviour. They are used to help calm the individual down. If you’ve ever found yourself jiggling your leg, tapping a pen or other repetitive behaviour, that would be considered stimming too. Sometimes autistic people need to stim in public, and whilst children may be able to do it with out consciousness of others, adults might find themselves doing it subtly so as not to draw attention to it.
If you notice someone stimming, please don’t ask them to stop, perhaps ask them if they need anything, or if something is making them uncomfortable, although that sort of question should be asked discreetly.
2. Typically, autistic people like things to be predictable and stable, and as such will prefer routines to be solid, doing things in a particular and exact order in order to meet that need. If you work with someone autistic, or if you are a friend, parent or carer to an autistic person, you could help them by giving enough warning if the routine is going to change. For example, if you have a meeting at 9.30 every morning, and one morning it will be moved to 10.30, you could give them a few days notice to get used to the idea. It would be best to ask them themselves how much notice they need to get used to change.
3. Another indicator of autism is intense interest in specialist subjects. When an autist finds their subject they will become very very focused (known as hyper focused) on it, and find it very difficult to move away from the subject when they are engaged. If you remember my post yesterday, I shared an image explaining tendril theory. Tendril theory explains what it’s like for an autistic person when you ask them to stop what they are doing without any warning. As I explained above, change is difficult for autistic people, and therefore as much preparation as possible should be given. As a fair warning however, sometimes too much notice can actually have the opposite of the intended affect, and cause an increase in anxiety. It’s a difficult line, but with adult autistic people, please just ask them what their specific need is.
4. Autistic people can experience sensory stimuli very differently. For example, eye contact, noise, pain, smell, textures and touch can be very overwhelming. I know of a child who walked around on a broken leg for 2 weeks before mentioning his leg hurt. That’s because he experienced big pain differently to neuro typical people. That same child also screamed bloody murder when they got a paper cut, for the same reason.
Autistic people find eye contact very challenging, because they are not able to process and filter the verbal communication at the same time as the visual communication. Temple Grandin wrote a brilliant book about the autistic brain, and in it she has a brain scan. The findings (which you can Google or buy the book!) showed that the nerves that process vision were much more enhanced or developed than the control brains. This explains both her brilliant vision, and her difficulty holding eye contact.
Many clothing stores are now bringing out autism friendly clothing, because they recognise that seams, labels, buttons and materials can trigger huge sensory overload, and making sure that autistic people have access to this type of clothing makes living in a neuro typical world a lot easier.
Helping someone with sensory overload means allowing them to retreat if they need to. In schools there is often a safe space created so the child can calm themselves down and I feel like this should be available in all communal spaces. Avoiding hand driers, cleaners, obligatory touching (such as handshakes) are all helpful to avoid sensory overload. In adults, the boundaries are somewhat different, because as in children this is all unique to the individual, but in adults, somehow they are often expected to put their autism aside and meet the needs of neuro typical people.
Given how much distress that causes, it’s not very fair is it?!
I started this blog intending to cover all three aspects, but I’ve written so much about behaviour, and because I don’t want to cut any out, I’m going to separate this into three blogs. So tomorrow, I will explain about social interaction in autism. Whilst I’ve touched on it here, it’s a big subject on it’s own, and as such deserves more space.
As ever, please don’t hesitate to ask questions, and please remember to respect the experience of others <3
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Imposter Syndrome: Your Friend

Imposter Syndrome.

Well, who am I to be telling you about this? It seems a lot of us suffer from the feeling that we don’t deserve what we’ve got, or that we’ve got to the place we are by luck, or that we’ve somehow tricked everyone into giving us the responsibility we have. It seems many of us are scared that we are eventually going to be ‘found out’, and exposed as a fraud.

If you can relate to those feelings, you may be suffering from imposter syndrome.

So what is it?

Well, it’s all those feelings. It’s a psychological pattern that means the sufferer believes they’ve somehow got the achievements and accolades they have by luck, chance, or tricking others into giving them those things. It ignores the effort, work and external evidence of competence and ability and dismisses the experience and intelligence that others recognise.

Interestingly, when research first started, it focused on the prevalence among high achieving women, although it has now been recognised that men suffer it just as much. Equality rules!

Imposter syndrome is one of those things that nags at us like a little gremlin on our shoulder. The pervasive feeling that taints and stains every promotion, qualification, achievement or win of any kind is hard to ignore. Whilst everyone around you congratulates you, offers admiration, praise and acknowledgment, the gremlin sits, and whispers that you don’t deserve all that is bestowed on you.

And that whisper can be louder than any other noise in the room.

So why does it happen? Why do we dismiss our own achievements? Why do we minimise all our effort, blood, sweat and tears? Why do we sit waiting for someone to catch us out? Waiting for someone to see through this elaborate plan we’ve created to get us to the position we are in. Waiting for someone to say ‘wait a minute, you don’t belong here!’ at the top of their voice in a room full of other people waiting to agree.

Well, as ever there are a number of reasons, but largely as always in my school of thinking, it’s based in childhood. Our perception of what we are able or capable of doing is based in the messages we have received as a child. So for example, if you did well in a test, were you praised, or were you asked why you didn’t do better? Was your achievement revered as a stand-alone result of your hard work, or were you asked how everyone else in the class did? Were you told to study harder and harder or were you told you have worked hard enough, and it’s time for a break?

Essentially, what we are talking about is the knowledge that however good you are, however hard you’ve worked, it is GOOD ENOUGH.

People who struggle with imposter syndrome generally have low self-esteem and self-confidence. They may have grown up around messages such as that they aren’t trying hard enough, they aren’t doing well enough, just generally that they aren’t ‘enough’. It’s a horrible horrible feeling, and often this sense of fraudulence is something that holds people back from achieving their hopes and dreams, or even just trying for a promotion or pay rise at work, which is why it’s so important to challenge it. Imposter syndrome stops us from achieving our potential and leads to a lifetime of regret.

So how do we stop it happening? Obviously, my first thought is going to be therapy therapy therapy! If you can’t get to therapy, then you can start by challenging the thoughts associated with the feelings.

I’m going to break a boundary and share something personal with you. I wouldn’t normally do this, but I think it’s pertinent and relevant, and likely helpful.

When I got the email confirming the award of Master of Arts, my immediate response was ‘I’ve tricked them’.

My second response was ‘you’re not that clever’.

I don’t mean not clever enough to do a Masters (that battle had been beaten for me by a wonderful and supportive tutor), but clever enough to trick the two markers, and the full university exam board.

I started to reflect on everything I had done to get to that moment. I challenged thoughts that were saying ‘you couldn’t possibly have done this, you don’t deserve this’.

I looked for evidence. And that’s what I’m going to ask you to do when you’re feeling like you don’t deserve what you’ve achieved. Reflect on everything you’ve done to get there. Look at all the late nights and early mornings, the studying, the sacrifices. Look at why someone else might look at you and think ‘yeah, they deserve this’. Ask yourself how you would react if a friend spoke to you that way. Ask yourself if you would speak to anyone else that way.

And then tell that nasty little gremlin something that might surprise you to hear….

‘I know you’re there, and it’s okay. I’m sorry you feel like we don’t deserve this, but I promise we do. We worked hard to be here. We know what we’re doing. We didn’t hurt or sacrifice anyone else to get here, we belong here.’

Because you’re gremlin is scared. Scared of not being enough, of being caught out, and he’s trying to protect you. And in that way, he’s actually a little bit helpful.

Here’s the thing. That niggling feeling, that horrid squirmy, disconnected, ‘it’s not meant to be me’ feeling, is actually pretty helpful.

And here’s why:

It keeps you in check. It keeps you grounded. It keeps you working. It keeps you striving. It stops you from becoming complacent, arrogant, thoughtless, careless.

It helps you.

It’s a funny thing when you start to realise that once we’ve started building a relationship with our gremlin, once we get him into a proportional place, we can start using him to our advantage. Once we decide to talk back to him, he becomes our friend, and pushes us further than we ever thought we could go.

Thanks for waiting for this,

Helen Villiers LLB PG Cert., PG Dip., MA 😉

(no awards for drawing though 😉 )

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Instrumental Parentification

One of the things that I hear repeatedly in therapy is the parentification of children from a young age, particularly children of narcissists. It’s something that parents need to be very careful not to do to children, so as to avoid the impact of that behaviour, which I’ll explain later.

So, I guess the first thing is to establish what it is.

There are three types of parentification. The first is Instrumental Parentification, the second is Emotional Parentification, and the third is Narcissistic Parentification.

Because this topic is big, I’m going to break it into individual blogs for each one, so I can do them each justice.

I’ll start with Instrumental Parentification (I suspect most of you want to know about Narcissistic Parentification, so sorry if I’m disappointing in the first two instances!)

This is when, a parent burdens a child with too many of the household chores and responsibilities. A child who is asked to look after a sick relative, or other children in the house, who is made to cook or clean more than is appropriate for their age. A child whose natural social development is inhibited by the responsibilities at home.

One example of that inhibition might be where a teenager is repeatedly required to stay home to look after younger children instead of joining their friends to go to the shops or for sleepovers etc. Once a month or every couple of months yes, but every weekend? No. It’s not appropriate for a child to raise children they didn’t have themselves.

So, finding the line between appropriate and inappropriate might be hard, but ultimately, it comes down to asking a child to do something that is beyond the scope of their years, and takes too much of their personal time.

For example, a 10 year old can unload the dishwasher and feed the dog every day, but they can’t hoover and mop the floors every day too. They can put the bins out for the rubbish lorry with some assistance, but they aren’t responsible for emptying all the bins and carrying all the bags outside. They can sit with their younger sibling for 10 minutes, but they can’t be left with them for hours without adult support and supervision. They aren’t responsible for cooking every day, or bathing smaller children.

Good parenting means teaching your child life skills such as cooking, cleaning and laundry, but it isn’t about making them wholly responsible for those chores, and punishing them when they get it wrong or if they aren’t ‘up to standard’.

Part of family life is pitching in, but finding the balance between teaching and holding responsible for is vital.

The impact of Instrumental Parentification is one where the child grows into an adult who feels they are responsible for much more than they are. Have difficulty asking for help, could have problems with perfectionism, anxiety, control. They may struggle with boundaries and being able to say ‘no’, even when completely overwhelmed and unable to complete the tasks they already have. They may be the complete opposite of that too!

They may feel their only contribution is to help others and not be able to accept help from others at all. They will seem strong and independent.

Please don’t misunderstand this. Children need to help around the house and learn what it takes to look after themselves, but they also need to be a kid and learn about balance and fun and joy in being young.

To help guide on what’s appropriate for the varying ages for household chores I have attached an image to explain. I cannot emphasise enough that, just because they are capable, it does not become their exclusive responsibility, merely something they do to help their parent.

As ever, please feel free to ask any questions.

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Addiction….not a dirty word

I’ve been wondering what to write about lately. Lots of my blogs are informed by client work or observations I’ve made, or even conversations with friends. This one isn’t so much, but it is something personal to me that feels important to share.

When I decided I wanted to become a therapist, I started out expecting to work within addiction, but as life does, I’ve moved away from that as a particular focus, although I obviously face it in the therapy space fairly regularly, and I welcome it. Here’s why:

Addiction is something that sparks great controversy. Whenever the subject arises, I brace myself for comments that are derogatory, unkind, judgemental, and dismissive. And sadly, I’m usually right to do so.

Addiction is something this country seems to be plagued by. Whether it’s alcohol, drugs, gambling, shopping, sex, work, fitness, food, whatever, if there’s a dopamine response, you can bet someone who is struggling with emotion will use the activity to supress their emotion.

And that’s what addiction is. It’s avoidance. It would really be better to call it that rather than addiction, so that’s what I’m going to do from now on.

When someone is in avoidance, whatever their substance or behaviour, they can be VERY challenging to be around. It is absolutely your right to put in strict boundaries that meant you aren’t taken advantage of, but it doesn’t mean you have to let go of compassion all together.

If you are in avoidance, it is hard to see, because those behaviours are keeping you SO safe. They help you function day to day, or at least you think they do, and it’s impossible to break out of the behaviour, because you to do so is to face the thing you are avoiding, and that is not only hideously painful, but also incredibly scary.

When in avoidance, everything becomes about maintaining that position. Everything. In avoidance, you heartily swerve anything that may make you look in the mirror to see your pain. In avoidance, you may hurt those around you to maintain that state. Unfortunately, that capitalises on your avoidance, because now you have to avoid the pain and guilt of hurting those you love.

When someone is in avoidance, rather than judging, or directing, or insisting they stop avoiding, perhaps it is more helpful to say you are there when they are ready to face what they are avoiding. Perhaps it is more helpful to ask them how their behaviour is helping them, and to listen to the response with compassion. Perhaps it is about saying ‘I won’t help you avoid, but I will help you heal’.

People in avoidance don’t need to be isolated further, they need to be embraced and sheltered from the storm inside their own bodies. People in avoidance are in pain and their pain needs to be held until they can look at it without wincing. (Please be clear, I am not asking you to suffer for someone else’s pain, you MUST keep yourself safe before anything else.)

I have never met someone in avoidance who hasn’t experienced a horrific trauma, or abuse, or particularly painful bereavement. I haven’t met someone in avoidance who has experienced emotional stability and been given emotional resilience in childhood. Every single person I have met (and there have been a fair few) who is in avoidance does not have the emotional tool kit to deal with the horrors they have experienced.

So please, when you see someone is destroying themselves and those around them with their avoidance, acknowledge their pain, keep yourself safe, don’t enable, but do try and offer them compassion.

Avoidance doesn’t discriminate, nobody is immune.

If you’ve been affected by avoidance, please get in touch with the wonderful Drugfam You can do so by clicking on their page.

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Genuine v Fake Apologies

Okay, so here it is, the blog I’ve been promising on apologies. It’s going to be long, so grab a drink, find a comfy spot and get ready!

Apologies are tricky. Have you ever had someone apologise, but it doesn’t really feel right? Like it’s left you feeling as though somehow they don’t really feel sorry, even though they’ve said they are?

It might be because it was a fake apology.

What makes a genuine apology?

Well, first it starts with ‘I’m sorry’, or ‘I apologise’. Then there should be some expression of remorse. ‘I feel really bad for hurting you’ or ‘I wish I could go back and do it differently’.

Then, there needs to be acceptance of responsibility ‘I shouldn’t have done that, it was unkind of me’ or ‘I should have done things differently, and that’s my fault’.

Then there should be some kind of amend making, ‘I will try and make it up to you to earn your trust and respect back’.

Finally (or so they say) a promise that the behaviour won’t happen again.

That sounds really simple doesn’t it? Except so often, that’s not how people apologise. When someone is offering a fake apology, none of those steps happen, although it seems like it does, but we are left feeling deflated and defeated, and sometimes guilty for ‘making’ the other person feel bad for their wrongdoing. How on earth does that work!?

How do some people manage to walk away from apologising without actually having apologised, and how do we spot a fake apology?

Well for me, it comes down to four things. Acceptance of responsibility, or lack of, justification, deflection, and behaviour change.

Acceptance of responsibility:

When someone starts their apology with ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’, or ‘that wasn’t my intention’, it’s fake. They aren’t taking responsibility. This can come down to boundaries, after all, I talk all the time about how we aren’t responsible for other people’s feelings, but when we know we’ve screwed up (and we all do it from time to time) we don’t get to tell the other person they aren’t hurt. We acknowledge the pain we’ve caused and we accept what we did was wrong. We don’t make excuses, or turn it back on them, we own our behaviour and we take responsibility for it.

On a side note, sometimes when we are being apologised to, we have to accept responsibility for our part in things too. It can go a long way to help resolving a situation when we offer that to the apologiser. When we can look at a situation and say ‘thank you for your apology, I should have done X differently too’, we are not vindicating someone, but merely showing we know where our part lies.

Justification.

I mentioned not making excuses. That is what’s called justification. When someone starts justifying, I know immediately that they know they’re in the wrong, but they’re incapable of taking responsibility. When ever someone starts an apology with ‘I’m sorry, BUT….’, I know they don’t mean their apology.

When someone uses the word ‘but’, everything before it becomes irrelevant (Name that show 😉 ). When we justify ourselves, we are excusing our behaviour on some flimsy basis. We are exonerating ourselves of responsibility due to external circumstances.

And that is not okay. It is not an apology, it is an excuse for behaviour, and does not go any way to making amends.

Another thing that can happen when someone is making a fake apology is deflection. Deflection is when the apologiser tries to divert attention from their behaviour to another subject. They may raise a past incident where you behaved in a way that upset them. They may even use this deflection as justification. When that happens, I would probably walk away and say ‘until you are ready to focus on the issue at hand, I won’t engage in further discussion’.

Basically by saying that, I’m not allowing the apologiser to shift blame for their behaviour onto me, and I’m not allowing the apologiser to distract me from their behaviour by dragging up past hurts. This only leads to escalation and removes the focus from their wrongdoing. Not okay.

And finally behavioural change. I said at the beginning that the final part of an apology is a promise that the behaviour won’t happen again.

For me, that isn’t enough. It has to be demonstrated. The best form of apology in my opinion is behavioural change. It’s showing how sorry we are by never repeating the thing that caused the hurt in the first place.

If for example, someone says to you, ‘I find it really difficult when you criticise my hair’ (random I know!), you apologise for causing hurt, you admit it wasn’t kind of you, and you never ever criticise their hair again. Ever. Not even once.

And it is that, that change in behaviour, that shows that the apology is genuine, heartfelt, and intentional.

Another thing to remember is how to accept an apology. I always think it’s best to say ‘thank you for your apology’ rather than ‘it’s okay’. That’s because when we say ‘it’s okay’ linguistically it could sound as though we are saying ‘your behaviour was acceptable, you can do it again’. By saying ‘thank you’ we acknowledge and accept the apology with the behavioural boundary in place. Hope I’ve explained that properly, I might come back to it!

Anyway, remember, when someone apologises, they do these things:

1. Start by saying sorry or a variant of.

2. They take responsibility for their part in the incident.

3. They make amends

4. The change their behaviour.

I hope you’ve had a good Christmas, and are looking forward to the New Year. Next Friday, I’m going to do a video on making change and how to stick to it.

As always, take great care, be kind to yourselves,

Helen x

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How to choose a therapist

Choosing a therapist.

Entering therapy can be really scary. It’s a bit like going to the dentist. We don’t want to, we know it’s going to hurt, but we also know that we have to look after ourselves and we sometimes can’t do that alone.

So how do we go about picking a person who’s going to hear our deepest darkest secrets and thoughts? How do we know who to trust or who will be best equipped to help us?

The first thing to do is work out what you want to gain from therapy. What do you want to be different? How will you know when you’ve achieved that? If your first thought is along the lines of ‘I would be better’, work out what better means. What does it look like? How will you know you’re better?

Okay. So let’s say you want to treat anxiety and only anxiety. Your best bet would initially to find a CBT therapist who will work with you to challenge and alter behaviours and subsequently symptoms. However they won’t work with the root cause of anxiety, that’s something a talking therapist would do. Someone like me.

I’m an integrative therapist, which means I draw from lots of different schools to help work with you to unpick and understand what’s happening.

There are also therapists who work exclusively in their school, so perhaps Psychodynamic, Jungian or Gestalt.

So how do you know who to go for? (Obviously my bias is in integrative, so I’m going to own that and try and bracket it!)

First of all, you need to look at qualifications. It is an absolute disgrace that in this country, anyone anywhere can pop a sign on their door and be a counsellor. With absolutely not one minute of training. Not a single one.

So look for qualifications. And look for a regulatory body. There are a few bodies, but generally the main ones are BACP, and UKCP, and COSRT is for psychosexual therapists (ideally a COSRT therapist would be a member of one of the other bodies too).

If you’re looking for a psychologist, look for the BPS.

Okay. So we have a regulatory body. Now back to training. Those bodies have a minimum requirement before they support membership for practicing counsellors. The minimum requirement is level 4 qualification. For comparison I’m a level 7, and a PhD would be level 8.

Then look at insurance. Are they insured? Then DBS, if that’s important to you.

Then look for their speciality. Are they experienced in the area you want help in? Are they trained in something you want?

Then comes the most important bit. Conversation.

Finding a therapist is like shopping for new shoes. They’ve got to be comfortable and a good fit, because you’re going to walk a lot of mile in them.

So take your time. Speak to a few, ask what their experience and knowledge is of your presenting issue. Ask them all the questions you can think of.

Most importantly trust your gut. If it doesn’t feel right, move on. A good therapist won’t take that personally. They may even help you find someone else. A good therapist will ask if it’s anything they’ve done or could do differently and support you in the experience of saying no. They will use it as an opportunity to learn.

Therapy is about you and your growth, it Is your choice and you can decide whether that therapist is right or not.

Any questions?

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Why can’t they see the poison?

It can be really tough when we see through someone’s behaviour, and recognise it for toxicity, and yet, others don’t.

Especially in narcissistic families, when the scapegoat realises the parent is abusive it can be isolating and frustrating that others in the same family can’t or won’t acknowledge how unhealthy the behaviour is.

The same applies when someone is in an abusive relationship, and they keep accepting obvious and transparent lies, or emotional or physical abuse, without disengaging from the relationship.

It’s because the unknown, or rather the thought of the unknown is MUCH more terrifying than the current reality, however toxic and abusive it might be.

Adult children on narcissistic parents often ask ‘why can’t my sibling see it? Why do they think it’s okay?’

It’s such a heartfelt question and has so much pain attached to it that it can be overwhelming for the client. Naturally it touches me too.

Here’s the thing. We repeat patterns we know because they’re comfortable. Change is something everyone struggles with, and drastic dramatic change, such as leaving a partner or refusing to be abused in a toxic family system, is terrifying.

How can you help? Don’t judge, allow their process, occasionally notice behaviours you don’t agree with, but refer to self rather than them. When we try and prise someone’s eyes open, they merely shut them more tightly, most likely blocking us out too.

Hold that person in their space, and move at their speed. And when they finally open their eyes, you can be there to help them understand the new way of seeing.

 

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Self Care isn’t just wine and bubble baths…

Tonight, after spending a lovely day with family, driving 2 hours there and back, I stood at my ironing board and faced my least favourite household chore.

I’m not an ironer, I consider myself more of an ‘aggressive folder’, and when the creases finally defeat me, I throw the offending item onto the ironing pile and ignore it for at least 6 weeks. I’m terrible for it.

But tonight, I stood there and ironed everything that’s been waiting for my attention, and as I lamented the curse I had bestowed upon myself, I realised that this was actually my Sunday Self Care.

You see, here’s the thing. This week is manic. Everyday I’m doing something that means my down time is seriously limited, and as such, my down time is going to be crucial. By clearing my washing and ironing pile this weekend; by making sure every item of clothing I need is clean and in the right place, I’m self-caring for future me.

I’ve talked about this before, I know, a brief comment on how I was looking after future me, and here’s why.

Future me has a lot on her plate. Tons of responsibilities, inside and outside of client work. I’m SO lucky to be in that position, but the danger is if I don’t keep a handle on things, I will burn out. I will wake up one morning and the idea of getting up and ready will seem like an Everest task, rather than a molehill. I’m always trying to keep my tasks like molehills.

I’m not always successful, and that’s okay, I do what I can in the moment to help future me, or Wednesday me. For example, on a Thursday, I see clients until 8pm. I then do notes and tidy the room and get home about 9pm. That’s super late, and leaves me little time to chill out before I need to go to bed. So, I cook dinner in the morning, and I make sure I have everything in place, so all I have to do is walk in, eat, and zone out watching re runs of whatever box set I’m bingeing on Netflix.

So ironing on a Sunday night, or cooking dinner on a Thursday morning is self-care. Self care isn’t always a bubble bath and a scented candle, it’s making sure that morning you will thank evening you and vice versa for the job that we didn’t have to do when we were already stretched thin.

So when you think about self care like that, what do you do for future you?

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Suicide Part 2.

Suicide, part two.

When I wrote the previous post, I was thinking about people who experience suicidal ideation from a place where their external impact is perceived as one so negative that they wish not to be a burden anymore. I was describing what I can only describe as honest suicide.

As I wrote it, I knew I was missing a big piece of the story around suicide out, and it made me uncomfortable because it is big, it is vital to talk about it and I knew it was wrong not to bring it up. So here I am.

Very very often, emotional abusers will use suicide as a tactic to manipulate and control. They will threaten it, even attempt it to coerce and convince someone not to leave, because an empathic person will do anything to avoid the feeling of responsibility bestowed on them by the abuser.

Narcissists are well known for suicide attempts. In narcissists, suicide rates are higher than in general population. It’s thought that this is because eventually a narcissist will be ‘found out’, and the level of shame that this exposes them to provokes suicide.

It could however be argued that suicidal ideation is the best defence mechanism in the world for a narcissist/abuser. Because what person would criticise someone recovering from a suicide attempt? When attention is taken from a narcissist they will go to extreme lengths to pull the attention back on to them, including threatening or attempting suicide.

The point of this post is this. Whatever reason someone has for killing themselves, ultimately, that is THEIR choice. It’s the ultimate choice really, and their right to execute it with free will. I know there are legal situations where people have been pushed and provoked into suicide, so I exclude those.

We all have a responsibility for the choices we make, and choosing suicide lies entirely with that person.