High Achiever's Edge: abuse

Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts

Tuesday, January 31, 2017

I'm a Survivor of Abuse

READER QUESTION: I was abused as a child and I am paranoid that someone will do the same to my children. I have to rely on child care because I need to work. How can I manage my fear? –Signed, “Don’t Want to Live in the Past”

Jinnie’s Response to Don’t Want to Live in the Past:

Dear Don’t Want to Live in the Past,

You are a survivor of abuse and are not alone. I want to commend you for having the courage to ask for help and the insight to know that something needs to change in order for you to better care for your children. One of my areas of specialty is working with survivors of abuse and trauma. As a survivor myself, I can relate to your experience as can the majority of other survivors; it’s part of the process of healing.

The key to managing your fear is to become more grounded and emotionally calm; especially when it comes to ensuring the safety of your children. Here are four things to consider:

1. When you begin to feel paranoid, acknowledge the feeling. Take a few moments to breathe deeply and then ask yourself, “What about this situation is making me feel this way?” Try to be specific. When you begin to get clarity on what is stirring you up, then you can better determine if 1) you are responding to a real or perceived threat, or 2) the trauma of the abuse has been stirred up.

2. If you determine that something is afoul – a real threat, trust your instinct and do what is best for your children. Their safety comes first and in those cases it would be appropriate to find alternative care.

3. If you determine that there is not a real or perceived threat, then remind yourself that what you are experiencing is normal and that it take time to heal from any trauma or abuse. You will probably experience emotional tugs for a good portion of your life but they become less intense over time and easier to manage. The good news is, the more your heal from your abuse and trauma, your instinct will serve more as a gift, of sorts.

4. Now, for the hard part. If you find it difficult or are unable to determine if you are being stirred up or if there is a real threat, the trauma may be too overwhelming. In those cases, it is best to find someone to talk with so you can heal; and there are no shortcuts to healing. The more you heal, the better your ability to assess your situation and circumstances.

There are great therapists all over the country and I suggest survivors work with someone who specializes in abuse and trauma. A great resource is www.PsychologyToday.com or obtain a referral from someone you trust.

With Love and Light, I wish you pleasant journeys …

Dr. Jinnie Cristerna is a psychotherapist, RoHun Doctor, author, and national mental health expert located in Chicago, IL. Dr. Cristerna works with talented and ambitious individuals, families, and corporations to help them break through and heal psychological roadblocks limiting their success. To learn more about Dr. Cristerna, go to www.HighAchiever.net

Read more on JetMag.com: http://www.jetmag.com/life/moment-of-clarity-life/moment-of-clarity-im-a-survivor-of-abuse/#ixzz4UGSFZs6F Follow us: @getjetmag on Twitter | GetJetMag on Facebook

Monday, January 2, 2017

5 Signs that You Are Defensive

Have you ever been defensive? Even if you don’t think you have, chances are you have been. Everyone has a set of defenses – and we should. Being defensive occurs when you experience stress and simply means that you are psychologically on guard and ready to protect yourself from mental or emotional harm. While there are many reasons why your defenses were created, their ultimate job is to protect you.

Your defenses are typically created out of necessity at various points in our life-usually childhood. Defenses kick in to tell you when it is safe and unsafe to be who you truly are – and that can be a good thing. However, when you get older and your experiences become diverse, your defenses can become outdated and cause trouble in your personal and professional life.

In order for you to function adequately as you grow, your defenses must “evolve” to reflect your current circumstances. If you don’t evolve your defenses, then you risk understanding and responding to current situations the way you did when the defenses were created and that can be 20 years ago or more – YIKES! That is a huge mistake.

Let’s use this oversimplified example: A 7-year-old sees her brother being spanked for telling mom that he accidentally broke the vase. The 7-year-old is afraid of the same thing happening to her, so she avoids telling the truth. Now, this does not mean that she begins to lie, although it could result in such behavior. As she gets older, when faced with being honest she tries and learns how to effectively change the subject, point out other issues that do not involve her, or becomes nervous when confronted. These are all types of “defenses” that can hurt instead of protect her as an adult because she is responding to similar situations as if she were still 7 years old.

So how can you tell if you are being defensive? Here are five signs that may help. Ask yourself, “Do I …”:

1) Keep threatening ideas, feelings, memories, wishes, or fears out of my awareness by doing things like displacing, disconnecting from, intellectualizing, and repressing them.

2) Distort who I am, my body, or other people so I can regulate and/or maintain my self-esteem in minor ways. This is seen when people devalue or idealize others, for example.

3) Keep unpleasant or unacceptable stress, impulses, ideas or responsibility out of my awareness by denial, projection, or rationalizing.

4) Grossly distort who I am, my body, or other people by substituting real relationships with a fantasy in order to avoid conflict or by making others feel the way I really feel.

5) Act out, withdraw or become passive-aggressive when I feel stressed.

If you answered yes to at least one of these statements, then you can be defensive. Again, being defensive is quite normal and functions in an effort to keep you safe; however, if it begins to impact your relationships and career, then you want to seek help to get you to a better space.

Evolving your defenses is actually easy. With my clients, it usually takes three to four sessions with my clients doing hypnotherapy, RoHun, Yhandi and maintaining their progress on their own using their customized guided meditations. If you are unfamiliar with guided meditations and would like to learn how to relax, you can download a free meditation here.

HEALTHY DEFENSES:

When your defenses are healthy, the following behaviors are what will present themselves more than the ones listed above: anticipation, affiliation, altruism, humor, self-assertion, self-observation, sublimation, and suppression.

With love and light …

Jinnie

Read more on JetMag.com: http://www.jetmag.com/life/moment-of-clarity-life/5-signs-defensive/#ixzz4UIVZ7iBd

Affluenza is Not a Disorder

How to deal with entitlement

As a mother, I was devastated at the verdict in the case of Ethan Couch, a Texas teen, who killed four people while driving drunk. As a clinical psychotherapist, I was appalled that Affluenza (which is NOT recognized by the American Psychiatric Association) was even humorously considered as a legitimate defense. I work with a significant number of ‘affluent’ individuals and families and this is ridiculous.

Affluenza is not a disorder. In sum, my re-framed definition of affluenza is the pressure to be socially accepted, which should have ended shortly after college. These are people who are empty/lack self-esteem and try to feel better by buying things that make them feel alive, special, wanted, or loved. Their sense of entitlement is eerily high and the feeling of empathy and remorse is practically bankrupt. In fact, anything that doesn’t go well for them is typically – wait for it – someone else’s fault.

Lack of self-esteem is hardly a disease; it’s a developmental phenomena that indicates one does not know, has not identified or believe in their own ability or self-worth. These things can be learned and are often taught by our caregivers when we are children through appropriate mirroring, conversation, encouragement, and setting limits (aka discipline).

Now, can one be so damaged that they will never develop self-esteem or the ability to empathize with others? Sure. We call those people psychopaths. With this said, if this kid is indeed suffering from ‘Affluenza’ there are a few sentences that the judge could have chosen to enact justice. Here are a few that comes to mind:

1) Place him with his peers – I believe they can be found in juvenile hall and then later transferred to prison. He will have an opportunity to connect with other like-minded individuals who also felt empty inside and lacked direction. For many of them, part of their emptiness also came from not receiving enough attention, structure, and consequence.

2) Put the parents in jail. I mean – the defense’s case was, ‘It’s the parent's fault,’ no? With all of that money, I’m sure they could have afforded therapy for themselves or their kid once there were problems, right? The unwillingness or inability to do so means they are just as liable for the deaths of the people their minor child killed.

3) “You work it out or you sit there until you do.” I believe that’s called a time out. Let them all share the smallest cell is the darkest corner on the cell block so they can work out their problems the good old fashioned way. Why should four people die because of your normal family “I HATE YOU!” problems? What family in America doesn’t hate each other?

4) Take away their money until they learn how to handle the pressure that comes with it. It is long noted that once a stressor is removed, healing can occur. Once the healing takes place, the stressor may be reintroduced slowly so there is a healthy response to it. This is called behavior modification. This may seem a bit extreme to some people but I redirect your attention to the four dead people that are unable to speak for themselves.

Anyway, this is my take on one of THE most unreal cases, defenses, and verdicts only topped by the Zimmerman outcome this year.

I hope that we all learned how important it is to parent our children and help those parents who are struggling take responsibility for stepping up. Last but not least, I hope we begin having deeper conversations around the importance of mental health – for everyone.

What do you think about Affluenza and this case? Do share in comments below.

Jinnie