Healthy relationships
May 14, 2012
Healthy relationships seem to be hard to come by for many people. There are a few basic attitudes that are key to having one. Friendship to love or love to friendship. It can work either way. It needs to be maintained with tactful honesty, courtesy, kindness, and fairness. It is important to focus on the positive in the other and let the other person know your thinking and feelings. So often we think things but forget to say them. The other person needs to know your positive feelings about them. If a negative comes up for you about the other, you can share that in an “I statement” and with kindness, yet firmness. It is important not to let negatives pile up in you and then end up blasting the other out of the blue. Each person needs to know they can count on the consistency of the other in the way they are treated. There should be no blaming and the making of amends when wrong (or even by accident hurt the other) should be handled right away. There is no importance to being “right”. Look for similar values, morals, and basic integrity when choosing who to be with. This is all under the heading of “communication” which often isn’t explained so no one knows what that really means. It isn’t complicated. It is about letting the other person always keep face and feel respected. That means you need to really respect the other and let them know. It isn’t hard if you keep it simple. This is the beginning and a good counselor or coach can teach you more if she or he is living it. The joy you will receive from happy, healthy relationships makes life worthwhile and builds self-esteem and confidence.
Abusive behavior causes illness in those connected.
May 4, 2012
A client of mine went to her chiropractor every week for the last couple of years mainly to be have her internal organs tested for health and strength. She also got an adjustment which she needed nearly every time. Each time her organs would test out weak in most of them and often all of them. She also took supplements to help the strength of them. She and her doctor talked about her home situation often. About 2 years ago her husband started to change, suble at first and then more obvious. The wife didn’t know what to do or what was going on under the presenting behavior. She was increasingly being put down, sarcasm sent her way, blamed, called names, corrected, and generally being abused with guilt being the biggest tactic. As her husband was quite a bit older than her she didn’t want to leave him yet was getting more and more agitated as time went on. Since I had been in a similar situation I helped her put together a medical program which her doctor ok’d and prescribed for so when we did an intervention and her husband was put on the medication, given a specialized food, and taken to a program of positive thinking and spirituality daily, This helped his oncoming dementia and re-emergence of old alcoholic behavior which I thought was happening to him. After just a couple months he was like a new person with only a few “slips” in behavior very occasionally. What happened to her was short of amazing! She began to sleep better, function more easily, not be depressed and anxious, and when tested again, all her organs tested normal and strong. She no longer required treatment/adjustments. She is actually happy every day as she was given back the life she was meant to have. The power of the abusive person is so great and the person relating to him doesn’t realize it because she’s in it every day. Even the sick person/addict doesn’t truly see it for what it is because he is in denial. The wife sure does now and is she greatful for her own returning health plus getting her husband back. Please don’t wait until you are really sick to do something about your situation. If I can help in any way let me know. I send my love and prayers to you. website Drsusanricketson.com and Livefromyourheart.com
Counseling for the person abused by addict/alcoholic
April 25, 2012
Verbal abuse as well as physical abuse can be caused by an addict to those around him. Counseling provides help for the abused person, allowing her to gain control over her life in getting the help she needs to protect her from the abuse. The abuser wants to be enabled and will be angry if such action is withheld, and he is confronted. Codependency runs rampant in the addict’s family system and needs to be dealt with by intervention or by the one suffering abuse staying away if possible from the abuser. Getting counseling is a must for the person wanting to recover from codependency and from having to suffer abuse. It is a very serious process and needs to be taken seriously. Denial will not accomplish anything but cover over the problem and make it worse. This is dangerous to the person being abused. Denial is pretending it all isn’t happening or “isn’t that bad”.
Co-dependency brings on negativity
April 19, 2012
Co-dependency brings on negativity. People afflicted with this condition are usually chronically angry (although it may not “show” because it is covered up by extreme niceness), anxious or depressed. It is my take that those who are free of co-dependency are upbeat, optimistic, and grateful. A Harvard review brings out that people who with a better sense of well-being tend to have less heart attacks and better health all around. It also mentions that people who have some control over their lives and are invested in their care have better outcomes in life. Get help for co-dependency. I have and it is a fantastic life.
Inter-dependency and Co-dependency
April 15, 2012
Excerpt from the book “Dilemma of Love” by Dr. Susan Ricketson: If you can take care of yourself in a relationship, you can learn to be inter-dependent with your partner, rather than codependent. This means you can be intensely connected and bonded with your partner and yet maintain your unique, precious self. You can allow yourself to be vulnerable and loving and still feel your strength and your personal power. When you are clear about who you are, you can be fully yourself with another person. This is a sign of high self-differentiation and true spiritual health.
Why family enables addict/alcoholic #3
March 25, 2012
3) Family values. Many families take pride in being “fine” and perfect. They feel they can take care of “their own” and need no outside help. It would be embarrassing to have anyone know they have problems in their family. Family members can rationalize that no one is perfect and just learn to live around the addict as they would any sick person. This is destructive to other members of the family and will cause them to have physical and emotional problems. This type of family becomes good at ignoring the problem or praying it away without taking action to remedy the problem. Self image is important to the family members, and they feel it is blight on their image to have a problem they can’t handle. A counselor could intervene and help them see they can do something about their roles in the dysfunctional family. A counselor could help them see they should have no shame and guilt in a common problem that is so widespread throughout countries of the world, especially the United States. To effectively attack the problem, the family members have to be in enough pain and fear that they are willing to seek help and reach out to a counselor. Until then, the family members often feel they are stuck and can’t do anything about their situation, except live with it. Counselor could help them see they have choices
Enabling the Addict/Alcoholic #2
March 14, 2012
2) Maintain the self image of the person being abused by the addict. There is often a lot of shame connected to being abused and being with an addict. How would the abused “look” to others would if he/she admitted there was a problem? Would people blame her or look down on her for being in that position? She might feel guilty thinking she did something to cause the addict to be addicted. This is especially true for parents with children who are addicts. They might think they did or didn’t do something they should have done that caused the addiction. They might think if only they could be different, then the addict would stop the behavior. The fact is they didn’t cause it, they can’t control it, and they can’t cure it. There is a lot of information available, especially in Twelve Step Programs that can give them information about the disease and their part in it and how it is affecting them. A counselor can teach them knowledge about addiction of all kinds. They need to come out of isolation, so they can learn about the disease and learn it isn’t their fault. Enablers need to see they are codependent.
Enabling the Addict/Alcoholic #1
March 11, 2012
Since I have a client who has been enabling her spouse in addictive behavior and now finally sees how damaging that behavior is to her, I was curious what motivated her to continue to make excuses for the addict for so long. The next few days I will go into reasons why a person would block out the addict’s behavior or just go on praying for him as a way to avoid doing anything about it without taking action.
I will give five reasons over the next few days.
1) Depending on the severity of the addiction and the addict’s temperament, the enabler might be afraid of the addict’s violence and be anxious about the harm the addict might do to her. The enabler might even feel her life is in danger if she confronts the addict in any meaningful way, such as giving an ultimatum of treatment/meetings or else she will leave the person. This is generally more threatening to a woman than to a man, but woman as well as men are known to be violent if confronted with their addictions and become aware that corrective action is about to be taken. The enabler might also be afraid the addict will do something to hurt her. Therefore, it is best to do nothing without the backing of a counselor who is adept in matters of addiction and tough love.
Codependency is a matter of life and death
March 8, 2012
Codependency is a matter of life and death. This may be a harsh judgment, but it is not just something that is interfering in one’s life; it is taking one’s life away. The seriousness of it can be stressed by the addictions that come from it as well as the physical illnesses that are caused by it. High blood pressure, skin diseases, breathing issues, back pain, body pain and aches, headaches, gastrological problems, and other physical illness result from untreated codependency. Anxiety and depression, extreme sadness, guilt and remorse, and difficulty grieving in a normal way are all results of it. Anger and resentment become part of daily life and people find themselves unhappy with negative attitudes. Many people do not realize the seriousness of the disease of codependency and need to be reminded. It is essential to seek help from a qualified codependent counselor who can help the codependent sort out his or her part in the family system.
Coaching and Marriage Counseling
February 19, 2012
After going through unproductive and harmful marriage counseling of my own many years ago, in the beginning of my practice, I developed a kind of marriage counseling and coaching that has proven to produce 99% positive results. The one couple in which it failed was not meant to be together, in my view, because it was a chronically abusive relationship.
The way I work is to talk confidentially with each partner (spouse/parent/child) individually as many times as is necessary to get from that person what is really going on in the relationship and what issues he or she are putting on the other person. Then, in a controlled, safe environment (no abuse, no yelling, no walking out of the room or hanging up the phone) I lead the participants in a two plus hour session to share things with each other. I introduce structured ideas that I asked them to share, and then I have each share something that is really bothering them in the relationship while looking directly at one another. Each person may only reply “Thank you. I hear you”.
The process proceeds from there to some kind of resolution and goals for that particular session. Then we repeat the process of individual sessions until another joint meeting is indicated. This process may be repeated two or three times or many times depending on the severity of the problems and the willingness of each person to be fully clear about his or her needs, wants, and concerns.
I love doing this work, because I love to see people work out their difficulties so they can be happy together again and are able to feel the closeness of clearly resolved issues. At the end of this process, their codependency becomes interdependency.
