WANT RELATIONSHIP ADVICE FROM AN EXPERT? ASK YOURSELF.

no. this is not my car. I couldn't find the damned photos. Where the Hell are they?

 

How I came upon this theory.

You already know that I think too much. You may not know that I do much of it while driving. I was going to say in my car, but, what else would I be driving? Anyway, twice weekly I have to drive 40 minutes south which gives me enough time to think and possibly remember what it was I was thinking about before I get out of the car.

It’s no shock, that being female, I think about my relationship with my husband, and with my friends, and occasionally with myself. Oh, also with my family although I can’t really change those, because except all but one or two are deceased, so I’m not sure that figures in.

There are, and have been throughout the years, that I at least have been alive, countless call in radio shows, TV shows, and books. I wonder how much money is made from people buying books about how to fix, find, or forget, some relationship.  Oh yeah. And psychotherapy, counseling, psychics and horoscopes.

I ought to know something about it. I saw enough patients who were troubled by their relationships, or lack of them, and spent many hours listening and attempting to come up with helpful/healing, solutions. What I know is, that if people took the advice they got from whatever source they chose, there would be huge industry still cranking out more books.

THEORY:

People in relationship pain want relief. They go to many sources to get answers and yet, usually, nothing helps. This is because either they are going to the wrong source, or they really don’t want help. They want people to feel compassion for them and they want to vent and be told it’s the fault of the other person.

 

HYPOTHESIS:

If asking for relationship advice worked, people would take the advice and change. Most people, in enough pain, seek advice. If it’s from a person, they explain why the advice is wrong or say thank you, and continue doing what they’ve been doing. If it’s from a book, they underline things, take notes and put the book down and take no action. Therefore, since all change happens from within, the person they should be asking, is themselves.

Research design:

My findings are based on years of observation, personal interaction with family and friends and years of psychotherapy. The psychotherapy consists of being on both sides of the couch.

     

FINDINGS, OTHERWISE KNOW AS ANECDOTAL EVIDENCE.

Have you ever heard or said these words? Yes, but? I’ll bet you have. My favorite thing about the word “but”, is that it allows you to say all sorts of wonderful things to someone else, and then negate them all with a little, slipped in, three letter word.

YES BUTT.......

Example conversations:

“If you break up with him, you can afford your own apartment, you have a good job, and you then have the opportunity to meet someone who will treat you well”. 

“I’d love a new apartment, but aren’t they really scarce? And my job is great, but what if something happens and I lose it? So if he’s not there as a backup, what will I do?” 

All of these statements are true. What did you think you were going to hear?

“From what you’re telling me, you are so depressed that can’t function. Your unhappiness seems to be coming from living with someone you no longer love, who has controlled you since you met and allows you no privacy and is constantly verbally abusing you. What do YOU want?”

“I hate it. I stay in my room and listen to loud music to drown him out. It’s been my whole life. It’s all that I know. I hate it when he talks to me like that. Sometimes I get so upset that I yell back and say terrible things. Then I feel worse. He can’t help it. He’s sick.”

That was a wonderful deflection. Don’t answer the question. Just continue to complain about what the problems are and keep doing that until the other person, well, either stops talking and just listens, or tries to break through the resistance.

You think I should do ...What?????

What’s clear is that is doesn’t seem like these people are on the same page. Maybe not even in the same room.  Why is that?

WHO DO I WANT TO CHANGE?

I recently read a quote and I hope I can remember it well enough to get the message across.

When a person blames another, he is not educated.

When a person blames himself, his education has begun.

When a person does not blame anyone, his education is done.

All of us believe we are right. I think that’s instinctive.

It may have been a great survival tool for our ancestors, but it’s not working so well in this time in our evolved lives.

Even if I am right? At what cost? I’ve talked before about how the only one we can change is ourselves. This may be a theme, but it’s also a truth as I see it.

This reminds me of a light bulb joke.

How many psychologists does it take to change a light bulb?

None. The lightbulb has to want to change itself.

So, that brings me back to my premise, that you are your own expert and if you want advice on a relationship, you are the only one who has any answers.

How to go about being your own expert?

I’m a proponent of writing things down. Anyway that works for you. A story, a series of tales, a list. That’s not important. What is important is that you write down the details of all your relationships.

Where should you start? Well, I like to go back to the beginning. That works for me.

What was my relationship with my mother, father, and siblings? Those would be the first ones and perhaps the ones that could shed the most light.

Writing a saga is probably not what you need. The salient points will do. Was there conflict? How was it resolved? How was love shown? What were your interactions usually like? How did that relationship make you feel? Were you given too many or two few responsibilities? Were you allowed to voice an opinion?

There are many, many questions you can ask. These are examples.

oops. maybe I forgot this one. anyway. Just ask yourself questions.

Then you can move on to friends and romantic relationships. The questions should be similar.

OKAY. NOW WHAT?

This is the part where you start to look for patterns. I previously wrote about people pleasers in a former post. You would notice a pattern of doing what you were told by everyone so you didn’t cause waves. The reason doesn’t matter. The pattern does.

Did you get yelled at a lot? How did you respond? Do you find yourself in relationships where you are still getting yelled at and responding in the same way?

Look at the patterns that you find.

If you find that there are patterns in the relationships, you will be able to see what it is that YOU are bringing to the table. Even though the people we pick may appear to be so very different from our families, or our other relationships, the patterns of behaviors will be there. Generally, those are the problems we bring to the relationship and the ones we can decide about changing.

 

ONE OF MY OWN PERSONAL REVELATIONS.

About ten years ago my marriage had reached one of those really bad rough patches. We never had yelling matches or name calling, but we did argue and of course, it was quite unpleasant.

My husband changed. He decided that he wasn’t going to argue with me anymore. As he would say, “I know where this is going, and I’m not going down that road”. So, at the start of an argument, he’d just walk away and go into another room, or leave the house.

I was more than upset. I couldn’t believe that he would do that. It initially made me angrier, but then I noticed that what it was really doing was triggering anxiety. At times, it got so bad, I needed a valium.

I finally started to ask myself what was going on. There were two things that emerged.  When he cut me off, he triggered old abandonment anxiety that had plagued me since childhood. I had never learned to self soothe, so it would get so uncomfortable that I would feel trapped in my own skin. Once I was able to could recognize it, I was able to respond as an adult and not a child. He wasn’t abandoning me. He just didn’t want to fight or talk about something and that was all it was. I was able to calm myself after that without medication or having to go to sleep because I could recognize it. If I could recognize it, I could stop it from going any further. That was really big and very helpful.

The other thing I felt, was unloved. That took some looking at, as well. I thought back to my life at home when I was living with my parents.

Arguing was what we often did. It was frequent. It was how we communicated. More so with my dad and sister. My mom was more of the silent treatment type. I realized that in my nuclear family, our connectedness was through negative interaction and that I came to believe that, this was how love was shown. A bit disturbing, but that’s how it was.

I realized that when my husband wouldn’t communicate with arguing it made me feel disconnected and unloved.

After I put those things together, I understood my reactions to him and was able to stop running after to him to try to continue to argue.

I was able to stop feeling abandoned and unloved. And, we were able to communicate without getting into fights and bad places. We still don’t go down those bad roads. We disagree, but know when to just stop and let it be.

CONCLUSIONS:

Advice is usually given for free. And often, we take it at the value we paid. I don’t want advice. I want things to be different. Except, usually, I don’t want to be different, or do anything differently.

Knowing this. That’s the first step. If I’m willing to look at myself, and take responsibility for me, I can come up with answers to questions that I might not be willing to hear from someone else.

Or course, input from someone else is often important. The trick is knowing who to ask. Usually it’s the person we already know will agree with us. Not a good idea when you want to grow.  So, we need to find someone who doesn’t have a preformed notion and who we respect.

P.S.

Some years ago I read a Harville Hendrix book. I think it was called getting the love you need, or something like that. Being that it was really, long ago, I can’t say too much of what it was, although, what I’ve written may be similar in some way.

What I do recall was several questionnaires throughout the book.  Towards the end, you were asked to go back to different sections and take words you had written. In the instance I remember, the words would give you what you thought of marriage.  My words were, dead-end, death, trapped and some similar adjectives. I had never imagined that I had an image like that, but when I saw it, and thought about it, it was right on.

So, what do you think? Are you up to the challenge?

                                    Thanks for reading.

 

MR. ROBOT, THE TV SHOW. MY THEORY IS LIKE NO ONE ELSES. I GUESS THAT'S NO SURPRISE.

     I'm sorry, but there will be no pictures today.
I had taken an hour to put them in this, but I copied this page because I wanted to post it on my other blog. Apparently, it wasn't saved. Thankfully, I had the text on Word.  So here it is.

It's probably just as well. The photos made me angry, and it's better not to fan any flames.

 

If you haven’t been watching the TV show, Mr. Robot, I’m going to paste in a Wiki synopsis so you will have some idea of where my theory is coming from, and there will be a spoiler or two, so if you intend to watch it, don’t read on.  You can read my conclusion though. I don’t think it will affect what the show does or doesn’t do.

 

Mr. Robot is an American drama–thriller television series created by Sam Esmail. It stars Rami Malek as Elliot Alderson, a cybersecurity engineer and hacker who suffers from social anxiety disorder and clinical depression. Alderson is recruited by an insurrectionary anarchist known as "Mr. Robot", played by Christian Slater, to join a group of hacktivists. The group aims to cancel all debts by attacking the large corporation E Corp.

 

Last season, we found out that Elliot was, more than a bit depressed. He’s paranoid with dissociative identity disorder along with a host of other mental illnesses.

I told my husband my “theory” and he suggested I go online to see if anyone else thought the way I did. The answer is, I didn’t find any that were even close.

The most prevalent theories are that Elliot and what we see happening, are all going on in his mind. Some posit that he’s in prison, others that he’s in a mental institution. All of which make sense given what we’ve seen happen in the show. However, he may not be, and we may be seeing something that is happening. And for my idea, it makes no difference.

 

 

Some things that will help you understand why I’m thinking the way I am.

I write theories because I have a strong need to understand things. It’s part of my nature, and as a psychologist, it was part of my job.

In my case, as with many other people, understanding something has to do with control.

Humans like to believe that if we know the cause of something, or understand it, we can have control over it. Of course this isn’t true because the only thing we can control is ourselves. But the illusion is important.

The reason people have been divining reasons for things since the beginning of time, is based on fear. At least that’s my take on it. If we can find a reason, we can control it and then we don’t have to be so afraid.

Just look at ancient primitive cultures. They had no explanation for a seasons or much else. So, for example, when they were without rain they came up with the concept that deities controlled the natural world and if they knew what the specific deity wanted, they could give it to that deity and would then get what they needed. Therefore, if the Rain God wanted a human sacrifice and a series of dances to make it rain, they would gladly give that God what he/she wanted. Of course, if it failed, they blamed themselves. They did it wrong and the God was still angry.

That may have seemed like a digression, but it really wasn’t. Usually my digressions help with the understanding. Which will probably be followed by another digression before I get to my point.  But I promise. I will get there.

 

 

THE DAY THE TOWERS CAME DOWN

 

September 11, 2001. A date American will never forget. I lived in Great Neck, NY at the time. Three weeks prior to this date, I had back surgery in Manhattan and was recuperating. Meaning that as lying on my bed watching television because that was the only thing I was allowed to do, besides get up and walk around my apartment for five minutes every now and then.

I watched the attack, live as if unfolded. I cannot begin to tell you who how freaked out I was. I don’t need to. You no doubt, felt the same way.

 One of my patients worked in one of the buildings and had been there when it had been attacked a few years before. Another patient’s husband was in finance and possibly in the area, as was my ex-husband. Of course it was impossible to reach anyone. You’ll remember the cell phones were all down.

It turned out that another of my patients had been there for a meeting and was just leaving when the plane hit. He watched the people jump or get blown out the windows.

Another two of my patients were on the Throgs Neck Bridge going on a vacation. They watched it unfold from the bridge. These things I found out later.

 

That afternoon I got a phone call from my neurosurgeon’s office, asking if I were coming in for my appointment the next day. 9/12. To say I was surprised would be an understatement, but I said I would if I could get into the city. It was three weeks since the surgery and I needed the follow up visit. His office was on Third Avenue and 33^rd Street. At the Tisch Hospital Center I think.

By some miracle, The Long Island Railroad hadn’t been shut down yet. I have no idea why, but my husband and were able to take the train into Penn Stations.  We got off the train about a quarter of 9 am, when Manhattan is usually bustling with people who are late for work. This day, the streets were deserted. The wind was blowing gently. Papers were floating around and the only people out were the street people who had nowhere else to go.

The usual noises of traffic were gone, replaced by sporadic sounds of sirens of every type of official vehicle that I could think of. The Police, the Fire Department, the Army, the National Guard. Those are the ones I think I remember.

We began to walk from Penn Station. From 7^th Avenue and 34^th Street over to the East side where the doctor’s office was.

 

As we turned around, on Sixth Avenue, we were able to look straight downtown without any obstructions. What we saw was billowing smoke rising up in what seemed to be a never ending stream of white. Whatever wind was blowing, was not coming in our direction. Fortunately we didn’t feel the smoke or smell the odors. Oddly enough, two days late, it was still burning and the stench came wafting into Great Neck. At least we were spared that day.

We saw the surgeon and he was satisfied with his work.  I would not need to see him again. He showed me some stretches to do, and gave me instructions on how long I could sit up at any one time, how much to walk and all the things I needed to know so I’d be “whole” again. At least for my back. My mental state was not his area.

PTSD is said to affect people in different ways. One theory is that the closer the person was to the actual trauma, the more likely it was for them to experience the disorder. I hadn’t lost anyone personally. Yet, like everyone else in our country, I was frightened, angry and at a loss for what to feel. The expression I heard was that “I can’t wrap my head around it”. I felt that way for a very long time. I was afraid to go into Manhattan for a really long time. I was especially afraid of being on a train. I forced myself to go, but I was always aware of an undercurrent of anxiety. Two years later, I was able to retire and moved to Florida. I believe that I really wanted to get away from New York City, in particular. Many years have passed, but I still don’t like going into Manhattan. Before we left, my husband and I did to in to see the crater. Just another nightmare in a series of many.

I’ve come to understand why the Muslim radicals hate us. Our culture is so very different from theirs. If I were a Muslim man I would want my wife to know that she could have freedom. I’d be very happy with my ability to have total control. I get it. And, when I see our lack of morals, way of dressing, I am sometimes inclined to agree that we have gone a bit too far.

 

I also understand that they hit the World Trade Center to cripple our economy.  They did a pretty good job of it, even still. Except we’ve forgotten how it began. And so, we blame Obama. Like it was his fault. Maybe had the previous presidents been more proactive we could have been on alert. I’ve learned that coulda, wouda, shoulda get me nowhere.

 

Which finally leads me back to Mr. Robot.

The hackers are going to cripple the economy by hacking into the most influential financial corporation which they all refer to as Evil Corp.

My first question is, do you remember who calls America “Evil”? Many of the Muslim countries. Yes?

The hackers in the show are seen as noble because they are trying to free the average person from their debts which have been incurred from credit cards, mortgages and banks. And of course they need a personal tag, so three of them lost their father’s due to a corporate cover-up by none other than Evil Corp.

If you’ve been reading my blog, I hate the banking industry, truly. However, in the TV show, they don’t seem to allow for any personal responsibility like spending money you don’t have, and getting into debt because you are/were irresponsible. All the blame is put on someone else. Well, that is actually one of the more true to life aspects of the show.

 

MY THEORY AND OBJECTIONS TO THE SHOW:

I did a little background research on Sam Esmail. He came up with the concept and then developed it. He managed to get it on USA without having done anything much before it. That’s a pretty big feat. I’m curious to know who his backers were. Anyway.

As per Wiki:

According to Sam Esmail, he is fascinated by the hacker culture and wanted to make a film about it for around 15 years. In the production, Esmail consulted experts to give a realistic picture of hacking activities. Another inspiration for Esmail, who is of Egyptian descent, was the Arab Spring, where young people who were angry at society used social media to bring about a change.

As per me, what the fuck?

Mr. Esmail goes to great lengths to tell us that everything he shows in the series is possible. All the hacks into banks, the FBI, all have been done. Or at least, are possible.

This does not make me feel good. Nor does the fact of the idea to target the economic backbone of our society in order to bring about chaos. Somehow, this is not something I personally reassuring. It is also very reminiscent of 09/11. Or am I just paranoid?

A good deal of the time, I’m not even sure what’s going on because Elliot is out of his mind and the plot can be confusing.

What set me off was the last episode. Elliot’s dream of what the world would be like if he could be, well, normal?

The scene showed a long table in the middle of a deserted street in Manhattan, looking downtown.  One by one, his family and friends come to the table and Elliot takes his seat at its head. He is facing downtown. And as looked around him happily, we watched as one building imploded upon itself, leaving a billowing of smoke.

I was horrified. No, it wasn’t the Towers. It was a smaller building, but, it was eerily reminiscent of the nightmare we lived through. And with my own experience of having seen it first hand, I was truly disgusted that something so similar would be shown.

 MY HYPOTHESIS:

Whether on purpose or by chance, it seems that Mr. Esmail is giving a blueprint for hackers and haters to destroy whatever they hate in order to leave the world in chaos. It’s a take what you want mentality, as seen when the sadistic Evil Corp Executive accidentally murders the wife of man who took the job he wanted. Talk about rough sex.

In the guise of entertainment, is Esmail using “social media” to bring about change? Is he using a television show to make these radical ideas acceptable? Is he advocating for a hacker revolution in the guise of entertainment? Or am I someone with PTSD who is a bit paranoid? Your guess is as good as mine.

MY MAJOR CONCERNS:

All the other theories on line were related to the fantasy aspect of the show. I’m looking at it from the “Real World” in which I live.

At present, there are terror attacks happening, mostly in Europe, but we have had our share.

When is entertainment crossing the line? Even before the building collapsed, I had concerns about the politics of the show. You know, it reminded me of the time people got upset because of the fact that there were instructions on how to build a nuclear weapon online?

His questioning of what is real and what is in Elliot’s mind is a good one. Where does reality begin and where does insanity take over? Who in the audience watching this, is insane enough to attempt it? How many hackers out there are asking if it could be done? And if I’m not mistaken, hackers do love a challenge.

Of course, for real, I’ve no clue. And, maybe I’m as crazy as Elliot. Although I know I’m not. It’s also surprising that Elliot know he’s crazy. (His term, not mine). Most people who are delusional, paranoid and psychotic are not in the least bit aware of it. Just saying.

CONCLUSION:

We Americans are very lucky. We have freedom of speech and limited censorship. Some exceptions are that we are not supposed to incite people to riot. We are not allowed to use our speech to promote hate and there is fine line between artistic expression and pornography. Okay. Those are our rights.

I don’t know where the show is going. I don’t have any idea what will happen. I just know that I don’t like the premise. It makes me nervous. I especially don’t like that Esmail keeps telling us this is all possible. So, okay, Sam. Why?

 

 

                                THANKS FOR READING.