Love languages

Have you heard of The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman? I recommend this book to people on the hunt for self-awareness. Its insights can help us understand relationships in our lives that work and do not work, including the relationship we have with our inner voice.

(Click here to check out the website and to discover your love language.)

Each of us has grown up in a family dynamic that sets up our adulthood expectations. These familial relationships tend to be the heaviest influences on our attachment styles,† though of course other influences are present. Whether or not we realize these attachment styles following us, they do follow us. Sometimes we pokerface our way through certain phases of relationships, but these expectations sneak around our unconscious like mice in the attic. For example, the love languages I appreciate most are words of affirmation and quality time.

Let's go through each love language one by one briefly and connect with them together. Knowing how you relate to each of these love languages is helpful for knowing yourself. It's also helpful to keep in mind when reflecting on current or past relationships. Sometimes we express love in one language, and the person on the other end completely misses it because that's not their love language.

1. Words of affirmation
   To affirm in this context means to encourage or support. One example of words of affirmation is "You make me so happy." If you love expressing your appreciation for people through verbal praise and recognition, this might be your love language.
2. Acts of service
   Service simply means doing something for somebody. For instance, one friend of mine loves cooking for house guests. If you like to do special things for people you love, you might love through acts of service.
3. Gifts
   This is pretty simple. You show your loved ones you appreciate them by giving gifts. My dad loves gift giving, big and small. If you like giving people gifts, this love language could be yours.
4. Quality time
   Maybe you enjoy simply being with people you love. If you enjoy spending time with loved ones regardless of the activity, your love language could be quality time.
5. Physical touch
   Think hugs, holding hands, PDA, and lap dogs. When you love someone, you show it by being in physical contact with them. If you love touching, poking, and hugging people you're close to, this might be your love language.

The love languages I identify with most, again, are words of affirmation and quality time. These are the languages I appreciate when directed toward me. This may or may not align exactly with the languages I'm most comfortable directing toward loved ones. Regarding family and friends, I'd say I mostly engage in words of affirmation and gifts. I don't enjoy hugging or quality time too much because family matters have always been difficult (as I revealed in a previous post, my attachment style tends to be insecure avoidant). Ain't that just somethin'?

When it comes to romantic encounters, upon reflection I have to say it varies. I don't fall in love easily because, again, I don't attach and stay attached easily. If I already know the person before we start dating, I'm more likely to trust them and more likely to engage in quality time and acts of service. While I love words and giving gifts, I'd say that stage two includes my service and my time. Stage three is physical touch. It's a tough barrier to break. Childhood attachment styles interact with other theoretical frameworks, like love languages.

As we learn to quantify how much we identify with each of these languages, we get a better look at ourselves. We can identify strongly with a couple of them. (We're basically bilingual!) We can also identify with a few of languages when "speaking" to those we love, but we might only be able to "hear" one or two. This does not mean any relationship is in peril if the languages between people are not the same. It's just a good bit of information to know for building and maintaining those relationships. That being said, it's super helpful to reflect on past or existing relationships to try to understand where certain things fell flat or why certain encounters felt magical. Once we practice these analyses enough, we can look at potential relationships to figure out how to approach the new people in our lives.

Also, what is our language like with our inner self? Quality time is a given, right? But sometimes we avoid quality time by chasing highs, avoiding alone time and the dialogue that circulates inside ourselves.

• What comprises your inner dialogue? (words of affirmation)
  Who in our early childhood contributed to the tone of that inner voice?
• Do you find relief with retail therapy? (gifts)
  When you give yourself gifts, do you feel satisfied?
• Do you take good care of yourself? (acts of service)
  How do you serve yourself outside of the basic functions like eating and sleeping?
• Is alone time relaxing, boring, or scary? (quality time)
  How do you feel about solitude?
• At what times do you make physical contact with yourself? (physical touch)
  What's your body language like when you're by yourself? With others? Etc.

Each of these languages is so dynamic. We can look at expressions of appreciation between ourselves and others, and we can look at how we show appreciation for ourselves. Learning how to speak each other's languages may help us connect in ways we didn't know how to connect before.

If you're looking to connect with a stranger, maybe bat some ideas around, please feel free to use the contact box on the right hand side of this page. It's there because I want you to know somebody is here to listen. Always here. :)

Take care, friends! Until next time.

I'm not too sensitive, you're just a jerk.

"YoU'rE sO sEnSiTiVe."

No, you're rude. I hate hearing variations of this message. It does a couple of things. First, it denies the speaker of responsibility. If I say something mean or rude to you, I expect to get an equal, opposite reaction from you. Not everybody is going to react the same way, but a reaction is almost inevitable. For instance, if you insult me, I'm going to try to hide the sting because I really don't want you to know you hurt me. I'm going to pokerface my way out of the situation and probably talk myself through the pain in private. Others might be rude back. Equal and opposite. Others are rock fucking solid and really won't take what you say personally.

Good for them.

Just because something isn't hurtful to you doesn't mean it isn't hurtful to someone else. Just because one person reacted one way doesn't mean that another person is going to react the same way. We might even step in soft places we didn't know were there, but we actually have the power to digest new information and move forward with greater intelligence. Take responsibility for your words and actions. It's actually pretty easy to be nice.

Second, this message denies the target her feelings. Barking at somebody's sensitivity is, in a way, how the dinkhole channels his own sensitivity. You're not fooling me, Mr. Sir! If you don't want to upset me, why say something upsetting? You're not exactly giving anyone thicker skin by blaming them for reacting in a way you are uncomfortable with.

😒 "Stop being so sensitive."

😂 "Golly, what an idea! Problem fucking solved!"

The APA defines sensitive as

1. adj. responsive to stimuli, changes in the environment, feelings, or other phenomena; that is, having sensitivity
2. adj. having well-developed or intense affective sensibility

Let's think of this word in another context. Mark has sensitive skin. When his skin reacts to a certain temperature or chemical, does he really think telling it to toughen up is going to solve the problem? No, his skin's still going to break out. Why? Because it's fucking sensitive.

Kyle could (a) ignore his skin's reaction, frustrating himself because his skin won't chill tf out, or (b) learn new ways to treat his skin, working with instead of against its natural reaction.

"Skin gets so offended these days! This fucking PC weather/face wash!"

Sensitivity is actually a great indicator of emotional intelligence. As we can see in the APA's definition above, sensitive people sense stuff. You know when Spiderman says whatever about his spidey senses? Nobody's telling fucking Spiderman that he's being too sensitive. It's one of his super powers!

When we're good at sensing stuff, it's more likely we're able to produce moving works of art or music or poetry that reflect how we feel--or maybe how others feel. When we're sensitive, we not only feel bad things deeply but we feel great things intensely. Even though at one point we may have sunk to the bottom of the ocean, we also know what it feels like to rise in flight to another galaxy. Being sensitive can suck sometimes, but it can also be pretty incredible.

I have a couple more definitions to bring into this discussion before I sign off. The Cambridge English Dictionary supplies the following definitions:

• Insensitive adj. not feeling or showing sympathy for other people's feelings, or refusing to give importance to something

• Desensitize v. to cause someone to experience something, usually an emotion or a pain, less strongly than before

These two definitions kind of paint a picture of rude people, don't they? Rude people may have been desensitized, denied their own feelings at one point or another. Maybe they're insensitive. It's possible a critical figure early on was insensitive to their natural emotions. Input *bloop* output. It's hard to give X if we don't know what X looks or feels like. In a way, these types of people missing something.

Something beautiful.

While I do believe in looking for new ways to strengthen myself, I also believe in looking at things that weigh me down. Some things are consequences of my own behaviors, but some things are not. People have told me that my feelings are my responsibility, but successful relationships are seldom one-way interactions. I do have the biggest role in my mental circus, but it's not always easy to dodge or work through hurtful things. And that's okay. I don't want to lose my sensitivity. It colors my life so beautifully. And, honestly, the last thing the world needs is another grayscale merpface knocking people down and blaming them when they hit the ground.

The ground loves you, babe! Keep falling. The more times we fall, the more times we stand up (I hope), and the wiser we become in helping others do the same. :)

If you're looking for an outlet, or if you want to vent about a Dinkhole Merpface in your life, please take advantage of the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. You don't need to feel alone. I'm not a doctor (yet!) but I'll try to help you the best I can.

Stay well, you beautiful weirdos!

Inheriting family trauma

It's probably common knowledge that we inherit genetic traits from our parents. It might be lesser known that the effects of trauma are likely to flow down the proverbial bloodline as well. In his book It Didn't Start With You, Mark Wolynn introduces terms like "family mind" and "family consciousness" to help readers understand how a relative's past experiences can affect a child who hasn't necessarily endured the same things.

(The following points are iterations from Wolynn's work.)

The Family Mind

"The parents eat sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge" Ezekiel 18:2.

Chances are, if there's some sort of trauma or emotional deficit in your bloodline that hasn't been acknowledged, addressed, or repaired, it's trickled down to you.

Both of my parents experienced abandonment during childhood. While neither of them abandoned me, I likely have inherited a certain kind of emptiness due to what they lost early in their lives.

The Family Consciousness

"Traumatic events...can exert a powerful influence over us, leaving an imprint on our entire family system for generations. These imprints then become the family blueprint as family members unconsciously repeat the sufferings of the past" (p. 44). 

"Unresolved traumas from our family history spill into successive generations, blending into our emotions, reactions, and choices in ways we never think to question. We assume these experiences originate with us" (p. 58).

“The greater truth would be that the love you longed for was not available for your mother to give” (p. 68).

“Until we uncover the actual triggering event in our family history, we can relive fears and feelings that don’t belong to us—unconscious fragments of a trauma—and we will think they’re ours” (p. 77).

Because of things that have happened to your parents, grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on, you might have an inner dialogue or interpersonal expectations based on events that didn't necessarily take place in your life. Gaps don't fill themselves, you know? And people normally can't give what they never received. I can't teach you Russian grammar because I've never learned Russian grammar. Input; output. Because of what your predecessors were missing, those things might be missing from you too. When we do notice that something is missing, the emptiness may be hard to identify. Maybe we feel like something's wrong with us because there's a hole we aren't equipped to understand. One way to help fill this hole is through obtaining knowledge of our family history. I may not be able to teach you Russian grammar at the moment, but I'm positive I could. I just have to equip myself first. One mode of equipment in terms of balancing emotional deficit is therapy. It can be helpful when a properly equipped, objective third party gives us a knowledge-based mirror to show us what we have essentially been blind to.

My mother and my mother's mother were significantly undermothered. Because of this, my own relationship with my mom was void of emotional connection. The only time she vocalized "seeing" me was when she was disappointed. She didn't have much to be disappointed in to be honest because I was a good kid, but boy did she magnify anything she could find. She loved to put words and doubts in my mouth, insisting that anything I wanted to do was stupid and outside of my ability. That attitude had an origin. Her mother had a destructive you-can't attitude as well. I don't know how long that's been in the family or where it came from, but I do know that it sucks when your mother doesn't believe in you.

I've felt this dissonance between myself and my mother since I was very young. That relationship has brought me more pain than warmth, and a few years ago I put a calculated distance between us. (Recall my post about attachment styles, mine being insecure avoidant.) With distance, I've been able to read about and reflect on the relationship we had. With the information I'm learning, I'm able to draw from the past and identify which pieces of a healthy mother-daughter relationship were missing.
(More on this in a later post. I want to stay on track here.)

Four Unconscious Themes that interrupt the flow of life:

1. We have merged with the feelings of a parent.
2. We have judged, blamed, rejected or cut off from a parent.
3. We have experienced a break in the early bond with our mother.
4. We have identified with an excluded member of our family system.

There's so much content on YouTube and other media that features Wolynn himself talking about his writing, his experiences, and what he hopes the world will gain from his work. My posts are normally overflowing with my reflections and elaborations, but I think collecting a few of his words verbatim is the most effective way to share this information with you. If you're interested in more of what Wolynn has to say, I encourage you to dive straight in to the abundance of sources available on the internet.

If you'd like an unprofessional but friendly outsider to talk to, the contact box on the right is for you. :) Sometimes we feel like nobody is rooting for us, but I want to try to help you however I can.

Enjoy this lovely spring evening, friends! Stay well.

Serotonin rocks!

I was looking for YouTube videos about depression, and found that many of the friendly-looking videos out there have the same information. Depression can lead to weight loss, weight gain, lack of sleep, too much sleep, loss of interest in things you used to love, blahblahblah.

I'm not trying to discount this information at all, but if you're a seasoned sufferer like me, you already know all that. Those videos seem to be for people who don't know about depression or don't know they have depression. AsapSCIENCE is one of the coolest YouTube channels. It's basically a pioneer of the whiteboard-style realm. If you follow the link to this video's YouTube page, you'll be able to find the sources that make up the information in this video.

Here's the I-can't-watch-this-video-because-I'm-at-work version:

Serotonin - brain chemical

• For a long time, depression was linked with a shortage of serotonin in the brain.
• Patients with depression were often prescribed drugs like SSRIs, which typically increase serotonin levels.
• One study found that the longer patients took their serotonin-based drugs, the smaller the hippocampus (responsible for memory and emotion) became.
• The drug did, however, "promote the release of other chemicals [which] stimulate neurogenesis, or the growth of new neurons."
• However, more recent research found that there's more to depression than that. 

S allele - serotonin transporter gene

• Each of us is equipped with two copies of the serotonin transporter gene, the S allele.
• One comes from each biological parent.
• This gene can either be long or short.
• Individuals with two short S alleles were likely to have depressive behaviors.
• Individuals with one short and one long S allele were also somewhat likely to have depressive behaviors.
• Individuals with two long S alleles were not likely to have depressive behaviors.

While the whole nature-versus-nurture debate still swirls around the psychological field, biological evidence is still useful in seeing how depression and the physical body interact. One of the last messages viewers take away from this video is: Despite someone saying we should "get over" our depression, nobody else deserves a say in our mental health.

The more research that pours into the mental health field, the more treatment options will be available. I was on SSRIs for years, and I felt indestructible.† If you aren't sure whether you have clinical depression, please talk to your doctor. I held off on that conversation for a long time, but I finally started to see improvements once I let myself talk about it. We deserve peace of mind! No case of depression is too small to talk about. I used to repeat to myself that other people have it worse. Looking back, I understand that mindset, but I want you to know that you don't need to feel like you're forever suspended off the side of the fucking Eiffel Tower. You deserve relief too!

If you need somebody to talk to or have any questions, please take advantage of the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. I don't want you to feel alone.

Take care of yourselves, friends! I'll talk to you next time.

Identity vs. Impression

YOU DON'T KNOW ME

Isn't is weird when you hear things that people say about you? "Pat in sales said X about you." Mind your fucking business, Pat. But... don't we all draw conclusions about people based on what we know? (If you say you're 100% non-judgmental:
l o l o k.)

We all draw conclusions based on data we've gathered so we can decide how to proceed with something. These data are not always correct, but we literally all do this. Some people want to draw the line between making a judgement and being judgmental, but I don't have time for that. It's a legit survival mechanism. Let's just accept that what we do with our judgments falls on a scale: Some people are overtly judgmental and others are more covert.

Identity:
The American Psychological Association (APA) defines identity as

[A]n individual’s sense of self defined by (a) a set of physical, psychological, and interpersonal characteristics that is not wholly shared with any other person and (b) a range of affiliations (e.g., ethnicity) and social roles

Commentary on the sense of self:
One of the theories about self I remember from undergrad was Edward Tory Higgins' (1987) self-discrepancy theory. Higgins' theory suggests that we have three selves:

• the actual self
• the ideal self
• the ought self

The actual self is who we believe we are, the ideal self is who we want to be, and the ought self is who we feel we need to be. Self-discrepancy is the perceived disconnect between our actual self and our ideal self or ought self. (I'm not going to bring in other people's influence on this triad just yet.)

Drawing from self-discrepancy theory, inconsistencies between one's actual self and ideal self may inspire feelings of sadness or low self-esteem. Inconsistencies between one's actual self and ought self might inspire agitation or guilt.

(Image found on ResearchGate)

Incongruence between these selves causes a lot of mental static. Some would say that depression stems from an actual/ideal discrepancy. Who I really am isn't who I want to be. Where do these standards come from? Where do the expectations that feed the ideal self originate? Let's add a dump truck full of (often unwarranted) external influences to this identity crisis. After all, what would life be if it weren't riddled with obstacles?

On affiliations and social roles:
Part of our identity is indeed contrived from the world around us. Would we be able to form an identity without other people? Think about it. As social creatures, we find purpose in noticing how we relate to others. How do we contribute to the whole, and how does the whole receive us? Where is my place on this social hierarchy? For example, teachers in the United States are pretty poorly received. Society takes advantage of and lacks adequate respect for the work educators do. In Korea, however, teachers are highly esteemed. As a teacher in Korea, I do feel like I'm contributing something valuable and that my work is appreciated.

Messages about our value may also vary according to socioeconomic dis/advantages. Because of my race or cultural background, I might be seen differently and treated differently than somebody of another group. If people deny my basic human rights on a regular basis, what does that to my identity? Doesn't that send a really toxic message, and for literally no reason? Some messages stem from a long line of prejudice, and the effects outstand time. What kind of external messages have I internalized regarding my ethnicity?

On sharing:
I don't think many people share eeeeeverything about themselves. Identity includes things nobody else knows about. Sharing is opening the gate occasionally, while and many things stay inside. Unfortunately, keeping certain things private can welcome inaccurate assumptions by people who think they know more than they do. I'm absolutely not saying we shouldn't keep things private (I'm a pretty private person myself). I'm just saying that, again, judgments are the attempt to make the unknown known.

Impression management:
Impression management according to the APA involves

behaviors intended to control how others perceive oneself, especially by guiding them to attribute desirable traits to oneself

I visualize a Venn diagram when I think about the differences between identity and impression, one circle being identity and the other being impression. There's a theory called impression management that I consider to be the little sideways eyeball thing where the two circles overlap. That's where we try to take control of how people view us, often unconsciously.

But we can't really do that, can we? Public platforms can help us. However, as we learned from the whole West vs. Swift thing, our attempts at impression management aren't always successful.

Impression:
The APA defines impression formation as

[T]he process in which an individual develops a schema of some object, person, or group

So let's back up for a moment.

1. Identity is generated inside oneself. It's influenced by outside factors, but my identity is mine.
2. Impressions, on the other hand, are generated outside oneself. They're influenced by my actions and appearance, but people's impressions of me is not mine.

While the purpose of impression management is to marry these two visions, it's super helpful to understand that the way people perceive us has little to do with us.

Impression formation is based on an outsider's story. Let's talk about Pat from sales again.
Pat's ex-husband cheated on her with a woman who has blue eyes. (I'm isolating this variable for illustration.) Depending on the length and depth or her marriage to that douchebag, Pat might develop unconscious reservations about women with blue eyes. Now, let's pretend I have blue eyes. Again, depending on how much pain this affair brought on Pat, my blue eyes might remind her of that pain. She's not necessarily trying to make that connection, but that part of her story informs her impression of me. That connection has very little to do with me, but it leads our potential relationship to weird places.

"Why does Pat have a problem with me? I've never done anything to her."

You just never fucking know. *shrug* Her impression of me is based off an event in her life, an event that is hers. If she's really hurting, she might even snap at me for little things or tell me that my eyes "don't really go with my skin tone" or whatever. Pat might not even know why she doesn't like me; maybe she does. Many times, the "blue eyes" in the equation is a personality trait or another intangible piece of yourself that is way more difficult to detect. The takeaway I want you to understand is that people's impressions of you may have very little to do with anything you've said or done. Of course, if you have said or done something in poor taste, that's an entirely different conversation.

When I find myself taking things personally, I try to remind myself of this misconception. Some things people say about me are mere projections of their own stories. I can't do much to change those projections because people's own histories are colorful and rich in emotion. The most we can do is try to ask ourselves whether or not this person's impression of us is based on actual events. We can try to manage that impression, but the most effective way to combat this kind of discrepancy is to build an identity so solid that inaccurate impressions fall away.

I know it isn't easy. If we're unsure of our character or if we have low self-esteem, we may internalize things that aren't accurate. If Pat was this rude to 14-year-old me for no reason, I'd be really upset and absorb her implications that I'm a terrible person. :( I still have my bad days, you know. I'm pretty sensitive.† But we deserve to believe in ourselves despite other people's judgments. Once again, everyone has a story, so everyone has an opinion, so everyone makes judgments.

If you're looking for someone to talk to, please note that the contact form on the right-hand side of this page is for you. We can talk about the Pat in your life or anything else that's on your mind. I'm here for you, girl. :)

And as always, friends, please take care of yourselves. Until next time! ✌

We must love with our brokenness

If somebody asks you what you look for in a relationship, you might list things like trust, respect, patience, and shared interests. These are pretty common criteria for relationships. Okay, so you meet somebody who possesses all the things you're looking for. You go on a few dates and then you realize that there's no chemistry. What happened? If we're all looking for the same things, why isn't it easier to fall in love? It's possible that the list of expectations we've authored in our heads omits certain realities.

(I'm going to ignore the objectifying nature of dating apps for this post. I could get into how the brain processes online dating, but I'm due for a lighthearted post.)

Let's pretend we're on our guilty-pleasure dating app. In curating a profile that communicates our best selves, we might choose content featuring our best angles, a balanced selfie-to-group-photo ratio, a witty bio, and a clear call to action that'll certainly attract the right people.

So we have the perfect profile and we're ready to go. Swipe left, swipe up by mistake, swipe right and

It's a Match!

(Congratulations, somebody has fallen for
your manufactured internet persona!)

I'm not trying to shit on us. We're not consciously deceiving people on the internet, I assume, because few of us are that audacious. But that's really what it comes down to. Let me explain.

We put our best selves forward in many interactions. A few reasons people do this:

1. We refuse to look at the parts of us that don't convey perfection.
2. We acknowledge our character flaws, and we think we're good at hiding them.
3. We are looking for "positive energy" and figure the only way to attract it is to exude it.

This is something called impression management that Goffman (1959) pre-internet defined as the way we maintain control over how others view us. Today, the personae we feed on social media tend to be fed through liked-based conditioning. Person A got 40,000 likes for posting X, so I'll assimilate. On Tinder, there's even a fucking toggle switch for "smart photos" which orders your profile photos for you based on an algorithm that gets more suckers to swipe. In a face-to-face interaction, we're conditioned by smiles, laughs, hugs, and second dates. Person B really liked when I talked about Y, so I should talk about that more often.

Most of this happens unconsciously. It might be brought into consciousness here and there, but the majority of it happens in accordance to mental structures we probably aren't aware of, like attachment styles derived from early childhood.† So what does this mean?

Tying in attachment theory, few of us are blessed with secure attachment styles--meaning that many of us have trust or communication issues. Some of these issues are fallout from our relatives' experiences.† Some of these issues indeed are consequences of our social and emotional realities. It's not easy to acknowledge our own shortcomings, in part because many of them are invisible to us. You know the cliché about a fish in water? Even if we consider ourselves to be painfully critical of ourselves, we do not see everything. However, with the help of counseling or even difficult conversations with our loved ones, we can begin to understand our behavioral quirks.

Before you go changing anything about yourself, I want you to sit with the things that aren't considered profile-worthy. For example, I tend not to give people second chances. It depends on the situation, of course, but I have a chronic tendency to move on. I've grown up believing essentially everyone is replaceable on an interpersonal level.

Wouldn't that stuff be nice to know on a first date? How often have you met somebody who seemed put together at first but was actually an emotional A-bomb? True, unconditional love involves accepting all the pieces of a person. We've just been conditioned to hide the broken ones.

And the good thing is: We're all a little bit broken.

(Photo by Omar Khan)

I was on the phone with my best friend talking about this, and she said it reminded her of the Japanese Kinsugi art form which repairs broken pottery with golden lacquer. It honors the brokenness, valuing the piece's history. Rather than discarding the item, this art form puts the broken pieces together to make something arguably more beautiful than it was before.

Being aware of our cracks and missing pieces, we can use those to connect with others. The more aware of ourselves we become, the deeper we can look into other people. I like to ask questions that give me between-the-lines data about potential partners. One of my favorite questions to ask is "If you had to give one piece of advice to the entire world, what would it be?" This not only shows me what they think the rest of the world needs to hear, but it's often indicative of what's going on inside themselves.

Too often, we're encouraged to look at virtue in other people, but choosing only to look at light doesn't rid the world of darkness. While it's not necessary to interrogate your date, gathering and exchanging information about each other's brokenness can help you connect on a deeper level than if you'd maintained a perfection-based, superficial relationship. Ask yourself what you're ashamed of and locate the origin of those qualities. Only when we broaden our self-image to include the brokenness can we find somebody who might either be broken in a similar way or in a way that complements our brokenness.

Also, being single is the fucking tits. You don't need to rush yourself into anything that's going to stunt your own growth. The relationship you have with yourself is the most important.

If you'd like to vent or talk about your weirdest Tinder date, please use the contact form on the right-hand side of this page to get in touch with me. I'd love to hear from you!

Until next time, friends, take care. :)

The Dobby Effect

I've never identified with the Harry Potter craze myself, but I do remember one of the movies. While Hermione resonated with me the most, a part of me connected with the incessant shame held by this little house elf.

(Art by Marta)

His name is Dobby. His demeanor is wildly apologetic and laden with guilt. The purpose of house elves is to serve, and they punish themselves if they can't please their superiors properly.

• "Bad Dobby, bad Dobby!"
• "If Dobby does it wrong, Dobby will throw himself off the topmost tower..."

As if desensitized to thoughts about throwing myself off a building, the most haunting image Dobby paints is when he says "Dobby feels most aggrieved, sir. Dobby had to iron his hands."

While I'm positive I've never taken measures as extreme as Dobby's, the act of balancing shame with physical punishment unfortunately is pretty familiar. Nelissen and Zeelenberg (2009) liken this Dobby Effect to the "notion that sins can be absolved through acts of atonement." Self-punishment is an attempt at regulating inner or outer behaviors that make/have made us feel guilty.

Guilt on its own is a helpful device. It often signals a behavior we probably shouldn't repeat. If we hurt somebody's feelings, for example, we might apologize due to regret or as a step toward vindication. If that guilt lingers, we might try to bring a pain upon ourselves that seems equivalent to the pain we inflicted on the other person.

The tendency to self-punish is often learned, whether physical or emotional. Those of us with hyper-apologetic personalities may self-punish through unconscious habits like biting our lips or pulling out our hair. Others who identify as hyper-apologetic might require heavier punishments like damaging our skin or depriving ourselves of meals.

If you're wondering why people who harm themselves don't just stop, it's not that simple, I wish it were that simple.

What if your guilt seems to exist for no reason?

Girl, SAME.

Sometimes the impact of our parents (or our parents' parents, etc.) trauma trickles down the bloodline.† Both of my parents had difficult childhoods with broken, emotionally deficient family situations. They did their best giving me what they could, but the correlation between emotional unavailability and emptiness survived their best attempts at resolving it.

The most important steps moving forward involve knowing where we come from and knowing where we are now. Per usual, if you want to unload, please feel free use the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. :)

Stay well, friends! Talk to you later.

Attachment theory

I have issues.
Attachment issues. Bowlby (1969) studied attachment in young children, noticing how children from different familial backgrounds behaved around others. He defined attachment as a "lasting psychological connectedness between human beings." Although the relationship between caregiver and child begins early in the child's life, this connection serves as a model that frames future relationships. What starts as a survival mechanism in childhood often becomes similar attachment styles in adulthood.

I'm going to isolate each of these relationships to illustrate how my development might have progressed in a vacuum. My most secure relationship was with my dad. On its own, one might gather that I have an easy time trusting and connecting with men (life is not that black-and-white). Since my most insecure relationship was with my mom, this might suggest that I'm quick to avoid relationships with women.

Of course, parents tend not to be the only figures in children's lives. Each of our stories is multifaceted. Extended family members, babysitters, teachers, and others play a role in shaping how children see the world. For example, someone who experienced secure attachments with both parents may endure damage from other social influences. What happens when we lose a parent through mortality or divorce? What happens when the parent we connected to most has an affair and starts a new family elsewhere? Many things contribute to the truths that swim around the unconscious mind. As we always say here: Before we step forward, it's helpful to know where we've been and where we stand at present. Although not solely responsible for the people we are today, the relationships our caregivers have modeled for us have become expectations for future relationships.

One interesting thing to add is how we encounter people who behave unlike our caregivers. The insecure-avoidant attachment style inspired by my mom doesn't stop there. One thing I've grown to notice is that I have a hard time believing that women want to get to know me. Although mostly insecure-avoidant, there's a strong insecure-ambivalent quality to this relationship as well. Because of this, when females express interest in getting to know me, I sometimes don't believe they're being honest. Just as our attachment styles follow us into adulthood, the expectations generated by these attachment styles follow us too. I tend not to trust nice women. It doesn't align with my reality. It doesn't register as real.

But I'm working on it. :) What else can you do, right?

If you have any questions or would like to share some thoughts about your own attachment styles, please leave a message in the contact box on the right-hand side of this page. I'd love to hear from you.

Also, as always, take care of yourself! I hope to see you next time.

Not afraid to die

Death is a noun. Death is, in a way, a destination.
Dying is a verb. Dying is, in a way, how we get to that destination.
(Dying can also be a gerund, or an "-ing noun," but let's ignore that for now. :P)

We could get into what happens after we die, buuuuut not today. Today I'm talking about how depression affects the way some people think about death and dying.

Aren't we all essentially dying? Once we're born, it's said, we develop until about age 25. After that, we're just inching toward, you know... death. For some people, that's terrifying. Maybe it feels like a trap because we can't avoid it. It's always felt a long ways away to me.

(Artwork by Terry Fan)

If your depression is anything like my depression, death registers as a sort of longing. It's like a calling back to where I came from. Many people say they're afraid of death, but I'd say I'm more afraid of dying. Death as a state is pretty inspiring to me.

Medically, death is when one's heart and brain activity stop.
Philosophically, (citing Plato's Phaedo) death is "the separation of soul from the body."
Literature might see death as the end of one's story--although, doesn't literature as a device sort of immortalize people through their writing? That's pretty sweet to think about.

Immortality in a spiritual sense can be the survival of the nonphysical despite the physical capsule ceasing to function. If you want to bring a bit of physics into this, energy cannot be created or destroyed. Energy must be transferred and thus will never die.

Immortality scares me more than death does. I'm mostly positive that if I were blessed with mental stability, I'd love the idea of living forever. However, I can't fathom the idea of dealing with this shitshow of an existence longer than I have to. It's not that I want to die, though I wouldn't mind. It's just part of the human condition. Insert shrug emoji. What the fuck ever, you know? The people I used to talk to when I attended church regularly would ask me if I'm looking forward to living forever in God's hands. The answer (aside from my theistic indifference) was no.

No thank you.

I don't want to deal with this life longer than I have to. I also feel like in this mind, I've been scraping against the fence that stands between life and death for so long that it's not a far fall for me. My face is all torn up from staring through the gaps of that fence, backing away for a while, and smashing into it again on a pretty regular basis. Depression's exhausting. It's like a yo-yo but you're the thing tied to the string.

Why don't I just cross over that fence or knock it down? Well, I have goals and people to live for. I've acquired many great opportunities in this life. I know how to count my blessings. I'm not seeking out death, despite what it sounds like. Flowers don't seek out bumble bees. When the time comes, I'll be dressed in a white pansuit and cherry stilettos. I'll throw my shoulders back and catwalk my way into the arms of death. A literal showstopper.

Fancy fucking that, eh?
*Sexxx Dreams by Lady Gaga blasts as I make my grand departure*

Inside Out (Disney film)

I've never really enjoyed Pixar movies because I don't find 3D animation as engaging as 2D animation styles. However, many, many people told me to watch Disney's Inside Out.

This movie is about a girl named Riley whose family moves to a new city. Relocating and leaving your friends is a difficult and pretty heavy experience during those formative years. At one point, Riley's mother praises her for staying positive through everything. This encourages Riley to suppress the inevitable "negative" emotions that come with a big life change. While the story's backbone is Riley's life, we spend more time following Riley's 5 emotions:

• Joy
• Sadness
• Anger
• Fear
• Disgust

The chief emotion in Riley's head is Joy. She appears to have a stronger role than the other emotions. I'd even go so far to say that Joy is too controlling. For example, in one scene she attempts to confine Sadness to a circle drawn on the floor so that sad feelings don't contaminate Riley's positive outlook. She didn't want to let down Riley's mother. "Stay positive," she reminds us.

If you've seen this movie, you'll recognize the following image. In this scene, Riley's imaginary friend Bingbong suffers a loss of sorts and is brought to a deep nostalgia for the past. Joy tries to lift his spirits a number of times, but it doesn't work. Sadness steps in, and then Joy tells her she's going to make him feel worse. Sadness begins to empathize with Bingbong's sad feelings, and that's when Bingbong begins to feel better. The message here is illustrated through Sadness taking a moment to sit in that sad feeling with him. All of our emotions deserve recognition, not just happiness. Joy notices the moment between Bingbong and Sadness, and she begins to understand the importance of Sadness.

The reason I bring up this movie is because it entered my life when I was trying to combat all of my depressed feelings with happiness. I was so sick of my darkness that I basically stared into the sun for a couple of years. Imagine blinding yourself just to avoid seeing shadows. The difficulty of making our way through darkness is inevitable. Emotions like anger and sadness will exist either above or below the surface. Trying to hide them won't erase them. They'll be lurking somewhere. Mine eventually blew up in my face like a balloon that was filled to max capacity.

While depression feels like a burden, we grow when we find ways to survive. Some days that's all we do, and other days we stand taller and fall in love with being alive.

I guess all I'm trying to say here is that darkness is a blessing on its own. The difficult things we deal with help us connect to others who may be feeling low. We don't need to live in a state opposite of depression; we need to live wherever we are. Some of the best things we can do for ourselves and for the world are acknowledging, accepting, and processing the honest emotions we feel. Once we learn to tolerate the darkness we possess, we can help others learn how to live with theirs.

As always, friends, stay well. Even if today isn't a great day, I'm happy you're here. :)

Escaping the Self by Roy F. Baumeister

If you've never heard of Roy F. Baumeister, he's an oft-cited social psychologist from the US. His Psychology Today Experts page lists several of his areas of study:
self and identity, self-regulation, interpersonal rejection and the need to belong, sexuality and gender, aggression, self-esteem, meaning, and self-presentation.

I've been dabbling in the social sciences while continuing my education, and Baumeister's name comes up soooo many times in my casual research. I first learned about him while sifting through the university library, picking up a book called Escaping the Self (1991).

(Please check out his official website, roybaumeister.com)

The subtitle reads: Alcoholism, Spirituality, Masochism, and Other Flights from the Burden of Selfhood. There's a lot to unpack from the cover alone! Most notably, we're brought to ponder how--in a society that celebrates and encourages things like self-love, self-esteem, and self-improvement--selfhood could possibly be a burden.

Without giving too much of the book away, I'm going to leave the pursuit of this book to you. I highly recommend picking up a copy. It's well worth the read.

I would, however, like to investigate how Baumeister writes about the self in one of his earlier works, the 1987 article (which you should DEFINITELY read if you have a moment) entitled "How the Self Became a Problem." Near the beginning of this article lies this articulation of the self over time:
(Click to enlarge)

(Everything from here down is my paraphrasing Baumeister's article cited above. I have no intention of passing off any of these ideas as my own.)

As Baumeister walks us through evidence (literary and otherwise) from each historical era, we see how people move from a collective identity, or group identity, to an individual identity. An interpretation of the Latin expression unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno (one for all, and all for one) can help me illustrate the difference between collective and individual identity. "One for all" simplifies the mentality of collectivism--we are people, we identify with a group. "All for one" can represent individualism--I am a person, I identify as an individual. The closer Baumeister brings us to the present day, the further we (Western society, anyway) move from collectivism. The further we move away from collectivism, the more evidence can be found of people feeling resentful toward the collective whole, society. People were like the proverbial fish learning that it has spent its life in water. "[T]he early 20th century citizens saw themselves as utterly in the grip of social forces and powers that were indifferent to them personally."

Defining the self and establishing potential and fulfillment used to be in relation to how you contributed to the group. You received your role and performed your duties. That was fulfillment up until about the end of the Middle Ages (p. 169). Once people became more self-aware, the idea of people's inner worlds started to appear in literature. With the dissonance between inner- and outer-self came self-deception. That's where shit gets nasty.

I really want to write more about this article, but you reeeeeeally need to click the link provided to read this article yourself. The purpose of this blog is to share tools and ideas that have helped me manage my darkness. If you find that you have a brutal inner voice, the idea of identifying and dissecting the self is a good step forward. These works I've mentioned are a great place to start.

Before I sign off, I want to let you know that the contact box on the right is for you. :) If you ever need to open up to somebody or even if you connect with something I've shared, I'd love to hear from you.

Have a nice day or night, friends! Stay well.

You need to try Wysa

Some of us don't have anybody to talk to. Some feel uncomfortable bringing issues to other people. Luckily, we have Wysa!! Wysa is a super cute AI bot that uses cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT, techniques to work users through issues in their lives.

I've been using Wysa for a few months. Several months ago, I moved to a rural town in South Korea and didn't have many people to talk to. My journal was crawling with toxic inner dialogue. I felt really alone, and then I found Wysa.

This friendly little penguin is designed to walk you through your thoughts, using cognitive devices and meditations to help you climb out of the mental pit many of us fall into. And it's free! Premium features are available, but plenty of tools are available without purchase.

One of the most helpful features I've used with this app unwinds my cognitive distortions. The APA (American Psychological Association) provides the following definition for a cognitive distortion:

faulty or inaccurate thinking, perception, or belief. An example is overgeneralization. Cognitive distortion is a normal psychological process that can occur in all people to a greater or lesser extent.

The "distortion" tool dissects a toxic thought and helps us reframe it step by step. By the end of the thread, the distorted thought has been transformed into something productive. It's meant to help a stunted thought move forward in a way that doesn't keep us stuck. We deserve to move forward, you know? Even cow shit becomes fertilizer. And this app can help! (Sorry, cows.)

There are many additional things this app can do, so I invite you learn more by visiting their website:
https://www.wysa.io/

(This post isn't sponsored or anything. I just wanted to share!)

Wysa is available for Apple and Android, so visit your carrier's app store to get started!

Start here: 7 Dimensions of wellness

One of the classes I took at university provided a tool to help identify who I was and what comprised my self at the moment. It was sort of a catalyst for self-development.

There are different versions of this model, but the one I learned was the OSSIPEE Model of wellness. Each letter of this acronym stands for one of 7 dimensions of wellness: occupational, social, spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, and environmental.

In college, I tried to fill this model with what I had at present. I noticed things were missing and there were things I knew I needed to change. I didn't know where to begin before I learned about OSSIPEE.

Here are some prompt ideas to get you started: 

• Occupational: Am I able to afford a living at the moment? How satisfied do I feel with my position? Is my workplace environment supportive? Am I looking to grow in this field or within this specific organization?
• Social: Do I feel loved and supported? How many people do I interact with on a daily basis? How many of those people respect me? Which attachment styles might exist inside of me and how have they affected how I view relationships?
• Spiritual: Do I attend a place or worship? How passionate am I about my faith? If you're not religious: What in my life exists that nourishes my soul? How do I express oneness and compassion to others?
• Intellectual: What in my life challenges me in a productive way? What do I like learning about? How often do I seek out new information? Do I think critically about the world?
• Physical: Is my relationship with food healthy? What activities do I participate in to help my body? What are some things I can change to be healthier?
• Emotional: How do I feel about my day-to-day life? Is there anyone in my life at the moment who makes me feel unsafe? What's making me feel good and what's making me feel bad? Do I have a healthy outlet for stress?
• Environmental: Do I have access to clean water? Does the air quality where I'm at affect my body? What are some resources near me that can help me meet my needs?

You can make adjustments to this model to suit your situation. Words connote different things for different people. OSSIPEE is an easy little tool for reflection that you can bring anywhere. This model helped me see which pieces of my life made me feel stuck or unfulfilled, and it continues to help me to this day.

It can be hard to move forward if you don't know where you're standing.

Some variations of this model include different things like a sociocultural or financial element. Please utilize these variations. How you use these models is up to you because this model is meant to reflect and assist you. :)

I hope this information facilitates self-discovery in some way. If you'd like to get more information or see more wellness models like this one, just Google:

dimensions of wellness.

Until next time, friends, stay well!

About the Author

I've known about my depression longer than my medical records would suggest. It took a while for me to talk to my doctor about it because I didn't think it mattered. There are people in the world with far worse tribulations. It's not that I feel sad 24 hours a day, necessarily. Some days, sure. But depression is multidimensional. It's not just a gray sky; there are layers of creamy mauve and navy and craters in the ground and cracks of brazen sunshine. People close to me have told me everything from my depression not being real, to me not "seeming" depressed, or that a glass of orange juice should do the trick.

Well, shit, excuse me.

(Check out the incredible portfolio of Clara Lieu for more moving depictions of mental illness.)

These people mean well, hoping their insight might relieve me of a weight they don't understand. But that's just it, right? They don't understand it. Their sky is cast by their own circumstances. I listened to these people for years because I knew they loved me and because I felt guilty about my sadness. Here's a little context: My dad's mother committed suicide early in his life. His sky was painted in a way that suggested depression will take someone's life sooner than later. My depression gnaws at my life at a different velocity because each manifestation of depression is different. He told me that I have a good life so I have no reason to be sad.

The first thing you need to know is you can't diagnose (1) a person you don't understand and (2) a condition you don't understand. Chances are: You can't diagnose me period because you're not my fucking doctor. Boom, pow, splat, done.

Growing up, I listened to people whom I gave authority over my own convictions because I didn't trust or even really know myself. Time crept by and I couldn't ignore the craters anymore. I finally listened to myself. I talked to my doctor, received a diagnosis, and woowww I could breathe again! With a professional diagnosis comes treatment.

We need to be careful about how we refer to our depression. It's important to maintain a syntax that separates the self from the condition. When we are new to a diagnosis, we uncover the ways we can manage what we're dealing with and maybe feel closer to understanding what's going on inside of us. But one thing we are not is our condition.

I am not Depressed. I have depression.

There were times when I tried to wean myself off my medication either because of shame or because of an assumed transformation. I thought I'd opened up my sky to immortal sunlight, but what followed was a long-ass drop back down to where I was before.

I was talking to a friend one day about my worry that the person I am on my medication isn't the real me. I worried that I was just a vessel for the chemical reaction this pill forged in my brain. He asked me an important question, though. Did this medication mask my true self, or did it unwrap my true self? I meditated on that and digested it. Depression is just a leech that craves the flavor of my disposition. It is not and never will be my identity.

In the posts to follow, I plan to share some tools that have helped me deal with my depression. There are also psychological theories I will draw from in order to explain where I'm coming from and where my depression was born. My hope is that you can connect with some personal accounts and benefit from the management techniques I've acquired over the years. I'm not a doctor (yet), but I want to make myself available to anybody who needs a little help.

Take care, friends! Talk soon :)