Welcome to the TherapyLinx Blog

By: Mary Scott, M.Ed.
maryscottplanet.com

Forever, I fear, the name Katrina will provoke in me, overwhelming feelings of disaster, humiliation, helplessness, embarrassment, sadness and anger. That once beautiful word that brought to mind images of a sweet, young girl from some region of Russia, are at once submerged, invisible and inaccessible.

The indescribable amazement of trveling the world and knowing through experience in one’s heart the connection of people to their culture; their land; their traditions and their genealogy seems as though it should be stronger and have a more lasting impact than a unnatural disaster but my sorrow seems endless as I see human beings dying before my eyes; while the world watches, crying, frantically hoping the richest and most technically savvy people on earth would find some way to get water, food shelter and medical care from the most prosperous and powerful, to New Orleans, so that people would not die of dehydration, hunger, exposure and unsanitary conditions.

How can it be that a gigantic flotilla of ships sitting less than a mile of the coast of New Orleans, could not mobilize anything, yet that same army could land soldiers by air, land and sea on a distant shore in the middle of the night and wage war against fierce enemy.How can it be that we could send people in space for months at a time, carrying all the food, water, medication and other necessities needed for a relatively comfortable existence in space but we couldn’t figure out how to get water, food, medication, toilets, tents and comfort to a small city filled with floating dead bodies, whose numbers rose before our eyes? Day after day the anxiety grew. I thought surely today the marines will come rushing in; we will see air drops of men, supplies, whatever is needed…like dropping jeeps from helicopters during the Normandy invasion.Why were the reporters and cameras able to come and go but others, could neither get there, nor leave. All the while, the torturous death of thousands continued.If soldiers never leave anyone behind on a battlefield on the other side of the world…how could the images of human bodies sitting in pools of water, floating with the garbage continue day after day…how could this be a reality in a world seemingly so advanced?

By: Beth Strong, M.A., LPC
www.bethstrong.com

I admit it, I have become as embroiled as everyone I know about the election, reading daily blogs, arguing with commercials and ice cream servers who have different political ideas, even mooning the pundits on TV when I don’t like their opinion. OK, so mooning the pundits on TV might not do anything, but it does make me feel better, for a little while. Why couldn’t it be like it was in the old days, when the outcome of an election might be upsetting but wouldn’t bring to mind images of rioting in the streets or taking a very long vacation in another country? I’m the worst when it comes to political debates – I couldn’t even get my dog to vote the way I wanted her to – because all anyone would see is my terrifyingly deep feelings about the whole thing. Rational? Maybe on a Simpsons episode. Otherwise, even I cringe from my sickly, drippy debates. So there’s no happy part of me this year when I find myself as obsessed, compelled, and to be honest, quite neurotic about the campaigns as a Fox or MSNBC News anchor riled up by a convention or a new VP announcement. Still, as a psychotherapist / analytic type that I am, I can no more easily keep myself from exploring just what the heck is going on underneath these rantings, in the depths of my psyche than a pundit can keep from predicting the next vice president. I thought it might be interesting to share these discoveries, with the hope you might be inspired to dig around and find some of your own. . . .

No one can deny that the stakes in this election are as high as they have ever been. We’re talking about life and death, poverty and abundance, peace and war. We might even be talking about the life or death of a country, a way of life, our way of life, that seems each day to be closer to the edge of the cliff. I get it that both sides believe their way is the only way to salvation. (Geez, almost sounds biblical – that wasn’t intentional.) Some of you may be familiar with some very frightening views of where our country could be headed if we continue to allow the disturbing trend of apathy to continue. (For instance, read The End of America, by Naomi Wolf, One Party Country by Peter Wallsten and Tom Hamburger, 2008, or this provocative piece by buzzflash.com, “Karl Rove’s Master Plan: A One-Party America,” in July 2004, http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/04/08/con04361.html#top – still eerily relevant today.) I will readily admit that many of these discourses sound radical, too wild on the surface to be taken seriously - almost as ridiculous as certain campaign “facts” I see coming from the right. Yet, when I dig deeper, I find the concern for right-wing domination of our country to be very well substantiated. So it makes sense that those who have different beliefs than the right-wing Republicans would be alarmed – we should be. The threat is real. But there’s another component that drives the enraged reactions of so many people I see, myself included. The Republican arguments are what we call in the psychotherapy world “crazy-making.” They are telling us the sky is green and chiding us for thinking it is blue. They are using our arguments against us by suggesting the left wing is to blame for the problems we’re suffering with under the Bush administration, and only the Republican Party can truly bring change. (Huh???) Anyone who has grown up in a family where the parents didn’t tell the truth (read alcoholism, personality disorders, an atmosphere of abuse of any kind – physical, emotional, verbal, sexual, or religious) is going to be emotionally triggered by this kind of tactic. And once we’re emotional, well, we stop looking like we’re making sense. It’s a very effective tactic to make the Democratic side look weak. Feel weak. Feel incredibly hopeless and frustrated. Because as too many of us know, it’s just not possible to argue with someone who can’t even start with the truth.

My own private Alaska

If staring crazy-making in the face weren’t frustrating enough, it gets even more trying when other deeply emotional wounds are triggered at the same time. When I heard about Sarah Palin’s addition to the Republican slate, I found myself in a week-long rage. I’ve never been this politically embroiled in any campaign. I had to get to the bottom of my reactions, which even for an emotional type like me were way over the top. So I let myself roam over my obsessional musings, and noticed that what I kept coming back to was Ms. Palin’s youngest child Trig, who, we all know by now, has Downs Syndrome. And the fact that Ms. Palin, this stalwart model of family values was so ready to put him in the back seat while she feeds her own needs for fame and power. I know I’m treading on feminist thin ice here so let me say right away that I am very supportive of women being independent, strong, and an equal part of the work force and leadership of our country. I also now understand that Todd Palin seems ready to shift to the stay-at-home-Dad role if so called upon. But here’s how I was triggered:I was the fifth child of a woman who, by the time I was two, had more important things to do. She did her thing while I was sent to another state to live with my grandmother for six of my first eight years, to do mine. The parallel struck deep. It makes me crazy to see a mom leave a young child for the sake of her own needs. From what I read in the press, Ms. Palin was back at work three days after giving birth to Trig. The work must go on! As I look at it now, the two situations don’t seem quite so similar, but my gut reaction didn’t care. The difference in story is that my mom was newly divorced in 1957, in bed with rheumatic fever, and unable to care for herself, let alone me, while the four older children were in school. At least, that was the story for the first year; the other five years I stayed away from the rest of my family were less easy to explain. When the Republicans chide Barack Obama for his mystical guidance to lead the country in our greatest time of need, two thoughts come to mind: Does Sarah Palin really think of herself as God’s answer to our country’s time of great despair, due to her extensive experience as mayor and governor and her personal line to God’s wishes about pipelines? Secondly, if she does, is that enough of a reason to put her child (children, and grandchildren) second? And if John McCain’s history of recurrent melanoma persists and makes him completely unable to perform his duties as president (do to a devastating program of chemotherapy), as many medical doctors suggest, how long will Ms. Palin really be able to “do it all”? My mother used to try to convince me that I could “have it all.” I have had too many life experiences that contradict that lovely possibility to believe it, but even if I did, I’ve come to know that there just isn’t a way to “have it all at the same time.”Is it really possible to separate the personal from the public in this campaign? Hasn’t the Republican party thrown in our faces the inseparability of the two? Isn’t Pro-Life all about defining one’s personal beliefs for the rest of the public? Isn’t crazy-making talk the way to keep us confused, emotional, and unable to separate the heart from the mind? Isn’t that weaving of mind, heart, and body what we are hoping to achieve, after all?The worst of it for me is that all this polarization and contentiousness makes me want to run and hide. I hate it as much as I hated plates flying and drunken relatives pushed through glass plate doors when I was a child. It’s why it took me three weeks to write this blog, because it was all too emotional for me. But what would be the worst would be for me to keep quiet. Then that crazy-making talk just gets left unanswered, which leaves too many who aren’t willing to examine it, believe that it’s true.

May all your years of marriage take you to new heights.Beth Strong, MA, LPC
www.bethstrong.com