The SelfWork Podcast

Episode Transcript

This is SelfWork. And I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. At SelfWork. We'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world and what to do about them. I'm Dr. Margaret and SelfWork is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own selfwork.

Hello and welcome or welcome back to SelfWork. I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford. I'm a clinical psychologist and I started SelfWork almost seven years ago in order to extend the walls of my practice to those of you who might already be very interested in psychological and emotional issues, maybe you're even in therapy, would would appreciate the comments from another therapist or thoughts or to those of you who might be looking for answers. Maybe you've just been diagnosed with a mental illness or you have a loved one that you're concerned about. But also to those of you who are bit skeptical about the whole mental health thing, this is for you and I so appreciate every one of you being here.

You know, I wouldn't wish borderline personality disorder on anyone. It's a truly difficult and chaotic way to live life, but it's just as difficult to be in relationship with someone who lives their life on this kind of emotional rollercoaster.

Today we're gonna focus on how you can set boundaries with people who have borderline traits. And I'll also go over the traits themselves. We'll focus specifically on having a parent with borderline personality, but these suggestions would also help if your loved one is a friend or a cousin or a sibling that suffers from the disorder. I'm pulling from some extremely well written articles as well as my own experience with patients and those links you'll be able to find in the show notes.

I discovered a wonderful article on the Mighty written by someone with borderline who offered what I thought were creative and very helpful tips on how the individual themselves can set boundaries with themselves that allow them to slow down, be less reactive, and thus create less chaos.

The listener voicemail is tough to listen to and involves murder. So please realize this may be a trigger for you. It's from a woman who's deeply grieving her daughter's actions as well as the deaths of grandchildren and blames herself or feels guilt for not knowing how to help. I'll do my best to answer. I wanna announce that for a few weeks now, self self-work has offered transcripts for episodes which we hope will offer the hearing impaired or anyone who might wanna read the actual transcript. What I hope is that those folks who wanna do their selfwork will now be able to read it.

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So let's answer the most obvious question first, what are borderline traits? Here's the Mayo Clinic's list of signs and symptoms, and I'm adding my own comments about what that might look like in real life.

So here's number one, an intense fear of abandonment, even going to extreme measures to avoid real or imagined separation or rejection. Now when they say extreme, it can be very extreme. I once worked with a man, happened to be a doctor who'd been so emotionally abused by a wife with borderline that he was divorcing her. He drove from another city to see me because she'd follow him, threaten him with bizarre threats and leave frightening troubled notes or dead animals to try to prevent the divorce from happening. This was very serious. Now obviously she had severe borderline and borderline is on a spectrum just like everything else in mental health, but this fear of abandonment is really, really strong.

Number two is a pattern of unstable, intense relationships, such as idealizing someone one moment and then suddenly believing the person doesn't care or is cruel. So you can go from the best friend ever, the best child ever, if it's your parent, the best therapist ever to the worst, just imagine what it might be like to truly feel that way, the way the borderline feels. And of course when you're on the receiving end, and if you are a child, it's highly confusing and can feel very manipulative.

Number three is rapid changes in self-identity and self-image. That includes shifting goals and values and seeing yourself as bad or as you don't exist at all. What I've found is that questions will be asked like, do I matter at all? For example, years ago I had a client who'd leave this message on my voicemail, "Call me back if you want to."

So if I called back, I obviously wanted to reflecting that it was soothing to her that it wasn't my job to call her back, but cause I cared about her. And of course the opposite of that would be if I didn't call her back, at least not immediately, it would mean to her I didn't care and the client could even feel that she didn't exist for me. And so they can set themselves up by this need for reassurance. And also when they don't get it in the way they want it, they can feel as if they don't exist. They're not important, they're bad, whatever.

Number four is periods of stress-related paranoia and loss of contact with reality lasting from a few minutes to a few hours. Now this is the case for truly severe cases of borderline. I'd say what happens more often is that the person with borderline personality disorder frequently disassociate likely due to previous abuse.And so it's become a way for them to de-stress.

Dissociating means that your minds sort of goes someplace else and you feel like you're not really in your body. Daydreaming is a mild form of dissociating. But people with a lot of abuse in their histories, their minds have dissociated from the abuse when the abuse was happening as a way to protect themselves.

Here's the next one, impulsive and risky behavior such as gambling, reckless driving, unsafe sex spending, sprees, binge eating or drug abuse or sabotaging success by suddenly quitting a good job or ending a positive relationship. Now this trait can be confused with bipolar disorder and does have quite a few similarities, but when the mania is over, someone with bipolar disorder will see the damage as damage. Someone with borderline personality disorder may not. Most of this is due of course, to the fact that they are governed by their emotions.

So if they wanna do it, if they feel like it's an impulse at the time that they wanna do or they'll spend the money or they'll drive recklessly it's sex they wanna have, then they'll do it no matter what the impact on them is or other people.

Actually. The next one is suicidal threats or behavior or self-injury, often in response to fear of separation or rejection. This is very, very common. Cutting is often a part of this or burning yourself. Another is hitting their heads against something repeatedly. And of course what someone with borderline personality disorder might tell you is that when they cut, they're actually trying to distract themselves from their deep emotional pain. It relieves the depth of their emotional pain by feeling physical pain. Other borderlines have told me that they don't feel anything when they cut. So it is truly a dissociative, like we were talking before, it's a dissociative behavior.

Here's the next. Wide mood swings lasting from a few hours to a few days, which can include intense happiness, irritability, shame, or anxiety. Again, this really mimics bipolar disorder.

Here's a very important one, ongoing feelings of emptiness. I had the same, "call me if you want to" client tell me her soul felt like it was a black hole. In my work with borderline personality, I often used the image of creating a safe sponge in your soul. So when something positive comes your way, you can absorb it instead of being lost in that black hole and you lose the existence of whatever positivity there was. But of course, someone with borderline may also or more often absorbed the negative. That's why the sponge idea has to be linked with positive feedback.

And then the last is inappropriate intense anger such as frequently losing your temper, being sarcastic or bitter or having physical fights.

So those are the major signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder. Now your next question could easily be how does someone develop B P D? The only answer is that its cause seems to have multiple levels, multiple facets because we don't know. It may be from early trauma, very poor attachment, never feeling safe. There are many in fact who feel that dissociative identity disorder or what used to be called multiple personality disorder is really a severe borderline disorder where in your past your safety was so compromised that you literally had to break into another sense of self or another persona to handle the stress of no safety. Think of it as something getting heavier and heavier to hold. So you have to use both hands. As the stress increases with the horror in this case, increases, your mind creates another self to help with the weight of that horror.

And so doing your mind stays more stable, although you are now "broken" into two personas. Much less severe is the person who may feel as if they morph into different aspects of themselves. Not two different names or identities, but again, those symptoms we discussed of changing values or identities is tied into dissociation so early trauma can cause it. Then there's genetic inheritance, although genetic factors are being ruled out in other areas. So I'm not sure on this one. Now these behaviors can also be learned if you had a parent with borderline, you can absorb and mimic those beliefs and behaviors. But what I really wanna say is that it's a miserable way to live. And obviously if you are a child of someone with borderline, it's very confusing and very complicated. But let's move on to trying to love and relate to someone with borderline personality disorder. We'll talk about that right after we hear from AG1.

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Okay, let's get down to setting those boundaries. Many of the authors and researchers who write about borderline personality say it's helpful to see the different kinds of people with borderline traits. If you've listened to SelfWork a lot, I did an episode a while back on the different categories of narcissism. So this is similar we should say here, and in fact I probably should have said it in the beginning. There do seem to be more females with borderline than males. The reason for that is unknown.

So let's talk about those types or categories of borderline. Christine Lawson, author of Understanding the Borderline Mother has a taxonomy of the troubled parent. There are four of them, the waif, the hermit, the queen and the witch. In a Psychology Today article, a man named Matthew Hudson writes, "The queen is controlling, the witch is sadistic, the hermit is fearful and the wave is helpless."

Why is this important? Because the way they may have of interacting with you is going to look and feel different from one another. And so each requires a different approach. Again, I'm still quoting Matthew Hudson. "Don't let the queen get the upper hand. Be wary even of accepting gifts because it engenders expectations. Don't internalize the hermit spheres or you'll become limited by them. Don't allow yourself to be alone with a witch. Maintain distance for your own emotional and physical safety. The witch is probably the most sadistic and even sociologically pathological kind of personality, and the wife don't get pulled into her crises and sense of victimization". Lawson says, "Pay attention to your own tendencies to want to rescue her, which just feeds the dynamic."

But all that said, what does loving someone with borderline personality feel like and what can you do? Often the chief of motion you have to deal with and learn how to confront is guilt.

Let's say your phone rings, you look down and her name appears on your screen. Sadly, you dread clicking over and then comes the guilt you history with her rushes into your mind as you wait for one more ring, you're reminded of all the times that you've rushed her aside, comforted her and told her you'd be there for her while realizing over time that your caring would never be enough to shore up her fragile self-worth. Or you think of how you've watched as she's made one impulsive choice after another, while blaming others, including you. For the chaos of her life, you've had to set boundaries against which she constantly pushes, ultimately accusing you of not caring when she senses your fatigue. Perhaps you've heard thinly veiled hints of self-harm followed by admonitions that she doesn't know how long she could continue like this. Maybe there are sudden unexplainable times when you felt that your love for her was reciprocated in an intense, almost intoxicating way, yet almost as quickly as it arrives, that warm glow that you feel disappears in a cloud of sudden anger or irrational disappointment that's coming at you.

Even more confusing is that others who know her in the community may adore her. They have a clue about how draining this relationship can be for you and would find your reality nearly unbelievable as she can often be quite popular and well loved by coworkers, neighbors, and even strangers. You see, structure offers her a scaffolding, a role to play, and if she's the teacher or the supervisor, she can shine, but she lacks the empathy needed for closer, more intimate relationships. What this means, again, is that with structure, someone with borderline personality disorder, when that structure is provided for her, when she knows what her role is, what her duties are, what her responsibilities are, she can follow those rules exactly and be beloved, be kind, be enthusiastic. But when she leaves that structure and has to build her own, that's where she can fall apart.

And so she's not a good mother or she's not a good friend. In fact, she could be an awful friend or an awful mother no matter who she is, whether she's your mom, your sister, your partner, your friend, you can become exhausted and your own guilt can be unrelenting. And guess what? She'll encourage that.

So what does guilt sound like inside your head? "She's my mother. She raised me the best way she could. I owe her and she's getting older and isn't able to care for herself." Or, "She's my daughter. I'll never forget the day I saw her for the first time. So tiny, so trusting, she deserves the same kind of relationship I have with the other kids", but she's not like your other kids. "Even though she's my ex, I don't know how she'd treat the kids if she felt like I wasn't there for her.She flipped out when we got divorced. I can't totally abandon her ever. It's wreaking havoc between me and my now wife who of course she detests" And one more. "She was my best friend when no one else would talk to me in the eighth grade. She was there always. So why do I shudder at the thought of simply talking with her?"

Now you can hear it. Guilt. Guilt and more guilt, In

I hate you. Don't leave me the classic book on borderline personality disorder. The author state, "The borderline shifts her personality like a rotating kaleidoscope, rearranging the fragmented glass of her being into different formations". That's what we were talking about before, right? Like a chameleon, she transforms herself into any shape that she imagines will please the viewer. That's why you can think you know her, but then when you try to develop an intimate or emotionally intimate relationship with her, all of these other traits that we talked about begin to come out.

In fact, it could actually be uncanny how well someone with borderline traits can assess your own internal struggles and use those very issues to manipulate you. For example, if you're someone who takes responsibility for your actions very seriously, she may subtly or not so subtly insinuate you're falling down on the job or question whether you know what you're doing. A lot of times if I had a borderline client, maybe I hadn't slept the night before and I was a little fatigued, and she would look at me and she'd say, "Oh, you know what? We don't have to meet today. You look kind of tired." You could hear that she's zoned in on my fatigue already and she's trying to see if I'm going to tell her, "You're right, you're not important to me. Let's call off this session". Or "Of course you're important to me even though my fatigue is showing." It's a setup, but they don't realize it's a setup.

That's what's important to know. As someone who's lived and tried to love someone with this struggle, you can only be responsible for that which you can control. I wanna say that sentence again. You may be someone who's lived and tried to love someone with this borderline struggle, but you must remember you can only be responsible for that which you can control. You've probably tried multiple times to get your loved one help. And what does she do? She stops taking her meds, she gets involved with another bad relationship, or she doesn't return your text after she's threatened suicide one more time. Perhaps she even denies that she has a problem at all pointing the finger at you and stating you're not, not trying hard enough at the relationship. So here are some steps to minimize that guilt and establish those boundaries we talked about in the title of this episode.

What you need to do is one, face the fear of your own helplessness in this relationship by predicting the most feared outcome, most likely suicide or some kind of highly dramatic action and decide how you would handle it. This sort of anticipatory grief or anticipation of the worst helps you develop some kind of armor to it. I know what's probably going to happen and I won't be as hurt by it. Number two, assess whether or not she's capable of physically hurting you. Is that a rational fear on your part? If it is, seek advice from a lawyer or in an emergency, the mental health emergency services in your area if you have any. Number three, try to objectively see the damage caused to you and to other family members because someone with borderline is not going to understand the impact of her actions. You need to journal about it and see how your acknowledgement of that may influence your future actions.

But you have to claim, yes, I've been hurt, my children have been hurt, whatever it is. Here's number four. Give her back the responsibility for her own life. For example, when she calls with another crisis, say, I know you'll find a way to cope with this and get off the phone. Again, that's giving her back the responsibility for her own life and likely she'll do okay. Now, she may call you back in 20 seconds or 20 minutes, but you just have to keep reassuring her, you know you've got what it takes to handle this. Knowing that she may respond by doing some dramatic action. That's what we talked about at the very beginning. Number five is you wanna provide empathy but not sympathy. You wanna set up strict boundaries for communication, especially around hot topic issues, and then be available. If she does indeed, follow those guidelines.

Give her feedback about the positives in the relationship and what you appreciate about her. You want to know and to remember that she's probably in many ways not realizing her impact again, but you don't wanna feel sorry for her, but you can have empathy for what that must feel like. Number six, you wanna grieve the relationship that could have been acknowledge and feel the pain of that loss. Again, journaling can be very helpful here. Number seven, realize she may never have the capacity of understanding the impact she's having on you. She's not withholding something from you, she's likely not capable of giving it. So if you stop expecting that from her, perhaps she won't get hurt. Number eight is get support from others who understand or have walked the same walk. Again, books like Understanding the borderline mother, stop walking on eggshells and I hate you Don't leave me provide great strategies.

And number nine, and perhaps the most important, have compassion for yourself.

But now quickly, I want to add in some advice from an author who has borderline personality disorder herself and offer some steps for the borderline to set their own boundaries. It's a woman named Megan Glosson, and I found this on The Mighty. So this is boundary setting for the borderline herself. You wanna maintain a two-sided conversation where you listen as well as talk. So focus on listening. You want to ask people if they have the emotional bandwidth to talk to you before you start divulging something serious or telling them how dysregulated you're coming, how upset you are. Don't answer phone calls and don't text messages during your work or sleep hours. You want to pause before you respond in conversations. When you feel yourself growing what she calls dysregulated again, upset, unstable, angry, whatever it is, you wanna take certain situations to your therapist for coaching before you simply react emotionally.

You get to practice with your therapist. I loved this idea. You wanna create a list with your family members of off limit topics or friends who don't agree with your perspective and you know you're just gonna argue about it. So there's a list of topics that you agree not to talk about. You can say no to requests that feel uncomfortable or may lead to poor decisions on your part. And then this last one I really liked. You could ask people to not use your diagnosis of borderline as a weapon or an excuse to treat you poorly. And that's exactly right. Now again, some of that may be things you're perceiving erroneously, but that's not fair for someone to say, you know, you've got borderline personality disorder, you're crazy. That's gonna go nowhere. So I thought this was wonderful advice. And from someone who knows how hard it is to live with borderline personality disorder, you can hear the pragmatism in her suggestions.

Stop, wait, think, then act. I'll end with this. When I have someone as a client with borderline personality, I'll suggest they ask themselves the question, will this likely create chaos? Now, the definition of chaos might need a little work, but overall, you want to help someone stop and wait and think through things, and that's vital to healing. And if you're trying to love someone with borderline personality disorder and if they have any sense of how their behavior is impacting you and their relationships, perhaps this is a list you want to share with them. And then perhaps you could apply the stop, wait, think, and then act to yourself.

Speak pipe message from dr margaret rutherford.com.

Let's hear from the listener voicemail for today. Again, a warning is about a murder of two children. Please don't listen if that will act as a trigger for you.

Good morning. I woke up feeling guilty this morning because I wasn't able to or didn't know how to help my daughter. At her darkest moments. She wanted to kill herself and I didn't know how to help. She ended up killing her two kids and she attempted to kill herself as well. Her relationship with the kids' father was terrible. She never asked for help. She really put up a front that everything was really good. I live in California, she lived in Las Vegas, but she never said anything and I feel really, really guilty about that. I'm very sad. So the past two years I had my two grandkids pass away, and this year my mother passed away.

I've worked with parents and even grandparents who've lost children to murder, but for the mom to kill these children, that's obviously a deep, deep illness or pathology. I could guess that maybe she was hearing voices that told her to kill. That's called psychosis and the proper term is auditory hallucinations. But there's another term for killing your children. It's called philide. The most common factors are depression, including postpartum depression, psychosis, prior mental health treatment, and suicidal thoughts. Sometimes it can happen because a mother believes death is in the child's best interest or she can have delusions. And again, she may be hearing these command hallucinations that tell her to kill. This can occur as a result of cumulative child abuse, neglect, or what's called Munchhausen syndrome by proxy. We won't go into that today. It's too long <laugh>. Maybe I'll do an episode on it.

And actually sometimes it's a very selfish mother who believes her kid as a hindrance. We've recently heard about a woman who killed children because they weren't following her particular religious views where she saw them as filled with the devil. And this is the rarest, a mother who kills as an act of revenge against the child's father. But whatever the reason or the pathology behind it, it's horrific for those who've loved all of them. And this mama also tried to kill herself or it looked like she did this kind of grief that's also accompanied by absolute horror.

To use that word again, is so very complicated. I'm certainly going to recommend that this listener gets someone to talk to about the guilt she carries since her daughter didn't look sick. Then it's likely that she kept secret whatever was really going on with her. It could have been postpartum depression or some kind of depression that she hid. Perhaps more will be discovered. But until then, the guilt that you didn't see, this is something that I've seen as a part of many types of grief that occur from sudden loss. The fact is, your daughter didn't want you to see it. She didn't want anyone, it sounds like to see it or to see her. I'm so sorry for your loss and sad for all involved, but please turn to a therapist who knows how to work through this kind of trauma with you.

Thank you all for being here today. I know there are many ways you can spend your time and having you here at self-work means so very much. Don't forget my Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/ selfwork, and please leave me a rating, a review wherever you listen. I cannot tell you how important that is and how absolutely grateful I feel when I see a new review. Thank you again for being here. Please take very good care of yourself, your family, and your community. I'm Dr. Margaret and this has been SelfWork.

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345 SelfWork: Making the Hard Job of Caregiving Easier: A Conversation with Cathy Sikorski 0

Jun 23, 2023

There are some people who can take the most difficult situations and find the humor in them. Cathy Sikorski is one of those people. I met her several years ago at a midlife bloggers association meeting and became an instant admirer. She's written a blog for years dedicated to examining the hard and hilarious life of caregiving, which she's done herself for the last twenty years.

In addition to that, she's a practicing dealing largely in Elder Law and in today's episode, has all kinds of personal and professional/legal advice to pass on to you. She’s the author of several books, the first being “Showering with Nana." Today we’re going to discuss two more that outline very eloquently how to talk to your loved ones about their end of life plans – or what needs to happen when dementia is in the picture: Who Moved My Teeth and Twelve Conversations: How to Talk to Almost Anyone about Long-Term Care Planning. Not the most “fun” conversation to have – but vital ones.

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My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available everywhere and you can order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life. And it's available in paperback, eBook or as an audiobook!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1:

Well, you and I have known each other, Kathy, gosh, for 10 years. Maybe a

Speaker 2:

Long, I, I know a long time. We've grown up a lot in the years that it's been, so I'm gonna go Yeah. A long time

Speaker 1:

<laugh>. Yeah. A long time. Well, I think I met you, uh, when we were all meeting at Midlife Boulevard and that kind of thing. Right? Right.

Speaker 2:

Yep. That's what I remember in that, in Nashville, I'm gonna say. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1:

That huge hotel ...Yeah. It was great. And I have loved your work since, um, tried to have you on as one of the first guests of self-work, and I had no idea what I was doing technically, and I botched it, and I practically was in tears and said, I'll have to have you back on. And six years later, here we are,

Speaker 2:

<laugh>, hey. But you know, a lot has happened in six years, and honestly Right. This is the universe because now is a really good time for us to talk. Yes, I have, and you have refocused our work many times. Right. And the refocus has helped us be better, um, Sherpa's for people in women especially, but people, uh, in what we're trying the message that we're trying to get out. Right. And so, I'm happy that it took six years. I, I, I, yeah. Really am, because I'm better focused about what I wanna say.

Speaker 1:

Well, you are incredibly kind. Your first book that I read was showering with Nana. Yeah. And I, it brought tears to my eyes, and I, I just loved that book.

Speaker 2:

Speaker 1:

Well, for those of you who don't know, Kathy Sikorski's work, basically, I mean, she's, she's gone. And I want you to tell your story, but you've gone from being someone who was caring for a lot as I understand it, gone from a family member, a friend who was caring for a lot of people who were getting older and having those kinds of problems to then you earned your elder law degree and, and really have changed your whole life. And so I greatly admire that because it's, it's something where you have said, let me take what life has given me and then be able to have the experience on a lot of different levels, both personal and professional, so that I can really help other people. And I wanted you on, because I think this is so important, um, that we talk about, um, elder care and, um, everything you talk about, you have two new books, uh, that you sent fairly New, who Moved My Teeth, which I, after I read this, I peppered my husband with questions <laugh> about, do we have that? Do we have this, do we have this? Um, and then I, I read until about 10 30 last night, uh, 12 conversations, how to talk to almost anyone about long-term planning. And so I have both of those books here with questions. Uh, so tell us a little bit about your story first.

Speaker 2:

So, so, yeah. I'm so happy that you brought up the fact that my life, what happened in my life, really informed and changed the way I decided to have a career. Yeah. Because I think, especially women, we get very feeling trampled down about what life is throwing at us and how we can't go do the thing we thought we wanted to do, or what we should be doing, or how we thought life should let us do this. That's right. Thing. Right. We feel very trampled by, by caregiving, by caring for our children, our parents, our, our, our spouses or whatever. And yet, it's an expectation that right or wrong, and a lot of times wrong, comes with just being a female, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative>.

Speaker 2:

And so, I, I, I became a caregiver for eight different family and friends over the last 30 years. And honestly, this is a job for me that happened out of certainly love and respect for people in my life. My grandmother, my aunts, my, you know, my very good friend who fell down a flight of stairs and had no one to care for her, and had a traumatic brain injury. My brother-in-law, my sister passed away, and he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, the worst possible kind. And so I became his primary caregiver. So my only point being about that, that you made, which was, there were times when I was mad about that. Like, this isn't what I wanna be doing. This isn't what I think my life is supposed to be about. Right. I have dreams, I have aspirations. And it turns out that that's exactly what <laugh> my dreams and aspirations were all about. It was taking my life experience and turning it into the person I wanted to be, which was this speaker, author, educator about something really important that I learned that I could share with people to help make their lives better.

Speaker 1:

Was that even close to anything that you had predicted or dreamed or wondered about that maybe that's the direction your life would go? Was it anywhere close?

Speaker 2:

No. Well, I didn't know it, but yes, because here's the thing. I wanted to be an actress. Okay? I was a theater major in college <laugh>, um, for a couple years. And then I realized two things. I had a boyfriend. I couldn't spend any time with him, and I didn't, wasn't sure I could make any money being an actress, right? It, it, it's the poor girl's way to, to go about it. Maybe, I don't know. Lots of people make money and lots of money, but, so then my other dream was to be a lawyer, which is exactly what I did. Um, but in my mind it was the, the Clarence Darrow, the, you know, the big trial lawyer who's gonna save and help people by, you know, making these great trial things where, like you see on television the big surprise ending, whatever, all of which, of course has an acting component to it. May I add, right?

Speaker 1:

<laugh>? Of course.

Speaker 2:

So what that means for me, really what that meant for me is two things. I really wanted to help people, and I wanted to be in front of audiences in some fashion, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and Margaret, that's exactly what I do. Wow. That's exactly what I do. Exactly.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Wow. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, it's giving me goosebumps.

Speaker 2:

Me too. <laugh>.

Speaker 1:

And that's, you know, how when you say you got angry about it, it, it's, I mean, that's a lot of people to be primary caregiver for.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. <laugh>.

Speaker 1:

So, I mean, can you tell us a little bit about, was there no one else? Did you just do it better than everyone? And you knew you did, did you, was it just everybody? That's the way your life turned out.

Speaker 2:

Everybody in your audience probably is a caregiver on some level, let's be honest. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> and, and, and the caregiving, you know, like I say, the joke is the train comes to my door and stops and everybody gets off. I mean, two things happened. Number one, like my grandmother in that book, my first book Showering with Dana, she came to live with me. And I had a two-year-old at the time. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, so had a 92 year old and a

Speaker 1:

Two year, which is a hilarious book, by the way.

Speaker 2:

Thank you. They were, they definitely wanted to, you know, gang up on me and see what they could do, get away with it,

Speaker 1:

<laugh>,

Speaker 2:

And it worked a lot. Um, but they, but that experience then led to, you know, other family members both on my side and my husband's side needing care. And as I'm doing this, as you remarked, I, I was a, I was a small town lawyer at the time mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And as I started to formulate my practice around elder law, which is really kind of a new area of law, it is not, it is not the ancient law of, you know, criminal law and trial law, and even a state law, which goes back hundreds of years. Elder law is new because it's, it's about Medicare and Medicaid and nursing homes and, you know, things that have been growing and growing and growing during our lifetime. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But I needed to know this stuff cuz the people I were take, I was taking care of were old people. And then I was taking care of not so old people, but who were also in a system of Medicare and Medicaid because of their illnesses, their dramatic illnesses or whatever. So I, I just had to learn it. Sure. And then I became an elder lawyer, you know, cause of that.

Speaker 1:

Is that an actual, uh, specific kind of law, specific law degree?

Speaker 2:

It isn't, it isn't a law degree. There are certifications that you, certifications take. Yes, absolutely. And there are classes now, I would say they're fairly new in law school. Law schools are now offering elder law classes. Um, and it is definitely a specialty in law for sure. Okay. It's ab and there's lots of lawyers. That's

Speaker 1:

So that's really what I do. I try to teach everyone out there why you need an elder lawyer. What is it that you need? And what is different about elder law as opposed to any other,

Speaker 1:

Well, you make that point very well. <laugh> again So, but the point being that I think some of us do go on autopilot, even if we're aware of these kinds of things.

Speaker 1:

And then other people just simply don't wanna think about it. You know, I grew up the daughter of funeral director and we, I mean, death was a part of life. I heard about people dying every day. And so I have a little bit of a different take on it, I think because of that. But certainly in my practice now for a long time, I, you know, mortality is something that, an illness and losing control, I mean, it's something that we all fear so much. Look at what's happening to Bruce Willis right now. I mean, he's taking the very brave step of letting some information out about it. Fronto, frontotemporal dementia or something like that. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

<affirmative> mm-hmm.

Speaker 1:

<affirmative>. Um, and so, you know, good for him, but it's also very frightening and, uh, very, I think probably how many people have said, I'd rather just be hit by a bus than develop Alzheimer's.

Speaker 2:

So here's the thing though, it doesn't work that way. Yes. That's the problem. It doesn't work that way. And by ignoring at your peril, not taking, getting your affairs in order mm-hmm. <affirmative>, you really make it hard for the people who love you. That's right. And that's not what you wanna do. You don't wanna make it hard for the people who love you. And so, especially in my world where I deal with people who are sick, I deal with people who are incapacitated. So, so Bruce Willis is a perfect example of being so generous of spirit, his family, to share this diagnosis with the world, which is quite frankly, a horrific diagnosis. Yes. It's, um, to say, we've been dealing with this, we now know what it is and we're going to continue to deal with it.

Speaker 2:

But you can absolutely pretty much ensure that they have their affairs in order. So in other words, during the journey when they were trying to figure out the problem, they made sure that their powers of attorney were in order. That they, that those powers of attorney let them do what they want them to do. Because it's like you said, sure. You sort of know about it, you hear about it, you have it. But did it really do what you wanted it to do? Which is why I talk about it more specifically in the book so people know what questions to ask. What kinds of questions am I supposed to be asking about this document that somebody has shoved under my nose to sign? Right.

Speaker 1:

Let's talk a little bit about, I mean, I did not read all of who Moved My Teeth, but the, the picture of the book that I got was certainly, there's a lot of information about exactly what you just said at the beginning of the book. And then the latter part of the book is more, um, well, practical, practical, pragmatic,

Speaker 2:

Practical advice for caregivers for really Yes. When you're stepping into it, how do I talk to my person who, you know, how do I spend a whole day with someone who's quite frankly making me insane with it? The same questions, or Sure. You know, what kinds of things can I do? What are they acting crazy? Maybe they have a urinary tract infection. And I never knew about

Speaker 1:

That. I was gonna ask you about UTIs, cuz that's really a big deal. You know, before we move on too much, there's a young man I worked with several years ago now, he lived on a farm kind of complex. All his family lived together and he adored, adored his grandmother. And she was diagnosed with, uh, a terminal illness and she refused to talk with him about her dying. And I'll never forget, he came, this young man was tough as a brick, you know, and a reared on a farm and used to, I mean, he didn't, I mean, the fact that he even came to therapy was a minor miracle. But he said, it's just like there's this, she's gone, she was dead by the time he came in. And she, he said, I never got to talk to her about how I was gonna miss her and what I loved about her. And I know that's a separate topic in many ways from some of the more legal things, but not really. I mean, it's intertwined, isn't it?

Speaker 2:

But I, yes, and I love that because these legal things are an act of love.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

This is an act of love both for you as the person who is doing it. And for you as a person who's saying, mom, dad, I wanna spend time with you. I just had this conversation with two three daughters who, who have a, a podcast as well, which, which we talked about doing that. But, but they, they said we had to step in so quickly as caregivers. We didn't get the end of times as daughters.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

And, and I have read this again and again, that people would so much more rather be grandsons and daughters and loving spouses rather than caregivers trying to deal with paperwork and, you know, and hospitals and doctors and anything you can do to make the hard road, the, the, the legal road, the people, anything that you can do to make that crisis part of the road smoother, gives you time to be a loved one.

Speaker 1:

Oh, that's a great point. It's such a significant one. Um, it, this the other book I talked about, 12 conversations really does pick out, you know, how do you talk to your dad? How do you talk to your mom? How do you talk to your siblings? How do you talk to your children? Um, and I I I loved a lot because you actually then have dialogue that we can read and go along with it. And you made jokes along the way. I love one of 'em called, I mean, I, I, I I dogeared it. What was it you said? Um, let see. Oh, it says, as you go through this chapter, you'll begin to understand that although this basic paperwork is crucial, it is the tip of the iceberg. And we are on the caregiving Titanic. <laugh> <laugh>.

Speaker 2:

Well, wow, that was good. Yeah,

Speaker 1:

That was good, wasn't it,

Speaker 2:

<laugh>?

Speaker 1:

And you're right, it's inevitable. You know what's gonna happen eventually, um, I've been on a hospice board for, or I was on it for many years and, you know, heard a lot of stories about how people handle palliative care and hospice and was thinking about that as I read your books. And, um, but I, I love the specificity of, of what you talk about in who Moved My Teeth, for example. You literally have a list of 60 ways to be more patient. You know, everything from count to 10 to drink a large glass of water, change what you're doing, take a bath, put gum in your mouth, <laugh>,

Speaker 1:

Tell a joke, take a picture, order food, put lotion on you or your loved one, clean out a drawer, go through family photos, dance, bake color, and a coloring book. Tell a story. I mean, it's just these, I love the specificity of this.

Speaker 2:

And that gives not only you control, but the, but your loved one. Right. Right. So whether they have dementia or they're just ill, or they're just homebound or, you know, everyone doesn't have dementia, Margaret or, you know, caregiving isn't isn't just for those people with dementia. Like, it, it, it extends itself to lots of different kinds of people and their, their challenges. But if you are, for instance, coloring with them, it just gives them some control. Here's your page, here's my page. You can pick your crayon, you can pick your colored pencil. And even that, that little tiny weird thing of the two of you sitting there, you know, adult coloring was a big deal. Okay. Several years ago. Right.

Speaker 1:

Especially during the pandemic. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

<affirmative>. Yes. And it's or puzzling. Right. Putting puzzles together, it's because two things. Number one, it's, it's kind of like, uh, what's that called? Parallel play. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Right? So, so you're both doing something, you're both feeling in control of the situation, and yet you're not necessarily having to engage, which sometimes disengaging is good, right?

Speaker 1:

Yeah, sure.

Speaker 2:

So, so any of those things is, is yes, certainly to, helpful to you as the caregiver, but it's probably also helpful to the person you're caring for as well. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And they have much less control over the situation than you do, let's be honest.

Speaker 1:

And, and them accepting that I, I recently had a, um, a benign tumor removed and my son, who's 28, came and stayed for three weeks to help take care of me cuz it was a more serious surgery and that kind of thing. And we sat down and had a talk about, okay, let's, let's talk about what's in our future and you know, you are our only child and you know, what, what comes to you now? And he looked at us and said, well, I think I'm probably gonna have to move to Fable, Arkansas, or y'all going to move where I am. One of the two eventually. And, and we talked about timing and, and I decided after reading your book that the next time he comes, I'm gonna ask him to stay another day and go over, go to our lawyers with us and talk about these documents that we've signed that he's named in. But he was, what he was 16 or 17 when we did them. Right.

Speaker 2:

Speaker 1:

He needs to hear about it and know what's going on. And, and I, I loved that taking, that was my own personal takeaway from your book. Excellent. And I, I think that that is so important for people. And, and again, doing it when you're 40, I mean, uh, waiting, you know, oh, I'll do that when I'm 85. Well, you don't know what you're gonna be like at 85

Speaker 2:

And what you do at 40 is not what you're gonna need to do at 60. Right. It's very different. So if you did it at 40, you and you're 60, you need to take a second look.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

You need to really, what

Speaker 1:

Do you think, what do you think is the, is the most common either error in thinking or behavior or both that people,

Speaker 2:

Well, the, the most common is not doing anything. Right. That's the most common. So, so if anybody who's listening to this now says, okay, I didn't do anything. I'm, I need to go do something, then yes, please go do that. Get your powers of attorney, get your wills, get your advanced directives. Just get them, get them. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, um, and talk to an attorney about what you need and what your desires are. Specifically, I'd say the second most, um, common error is people who have done them, did them 10, 20, 15, 30 years ago. Especially people who have little children, they panic. I want someone to take care of my kids. If anything happens to me, I wanna make sure they have money if anything happens to me. And that's wonderful. And then they, you know, I always say they take that and they shove it into their underwear drawer and then you never see it again. <laugh>. And you need to take it out of the underwear drawer, like

Speaker 1:

That old pair of underwear you used to be able to get into. But

Speaker 2:

Exactly. This is where I held up the granny panties and say, you need the granny panties of the wills. It's fresh, it's clean and it covers everything. <laugh>. That's what you need to do. So that's the second biggest problem is people don't update their documents and boy have things changed. There's a thing now, um, it's called rufi. I wish I could remember what it stands for without looking it up. But what it's about is giving someone access to your digital information if you are sick and incapacitated, which is really important. Or quite frankly, if you're dead. Right. Yeah. And that information, that acknowledgement that yes, I'm giving this person access, has to be in those documents. Not the password so much, but yes, this person has the authority to get into my digital assets. And then when your son comes Margaret, show him where you keep your passwords, which, you know, online

Speaker 1:

Is, I don't see him anywhere. I keep online my

Speaker 2:

Head <laugh>. Right. Online isn't great and in your head is even worse. <laugh>.

Speaker 1:

Well, so what I did, I I sort of, the night before the surgery I went, what, wait a minute, what if something happens? And so I gave him the major passwords I could think about and we both kind of cried. And, and then I said, you know, but I, I should have all those written down somewhere or can

Speaker 2:

Somewhere. I mean, everyone says don't write them down, but truthfully, if you can't get into your computer where your passwords are, not having them written down doesn't help you. Right. Right. So you at least have to have your basic passwords somewhere where your loved one can have access to it, but legally also give them access to it. I see. In your documents. And that's new. That's not even in, I don't, pretty sure that's not in my first book. It's probably in my sec, my second or third book. Um, but things keep changing and that's why you need to keep looking at these documents, say every five years or so. Cause life changes.

Speaker 1:

You know, I also, um, my dad was always really sad because after his dad died and his dad died when he was 15, there was such family uproar about the will mm-hmm. <affirmative> Right. But it ripped the family apart. And I think a lot of the suggestions that you make are trying to say, you know, you could be that family where siblings don't talk to each other anymore after someone is either you're, you're having to decide about caregiving or, or you're having to decide about, you know, death issues or what's gonna happen after death. It, it can rip families apart like nothing I've ever seen really before.

Speaker 2:

Um, and so you, your work in my work are the same in that regard because in the sense that communication mm-hmm. <affirmative> is always going to be the key. Right. Right. You have to, you have to tell your children and your, it's so funny that you're saying this cuz I just, my mother's 90 fours down the street from me, and she's a pip and a half, and your listeners can go see us on TikTok if you want. I do fun little videos with my mom all the time. <laugh> on TikTok. Um, and they're just, that's all I do is videos with my mom, who's 94. And she's so hilarious. Um, but I just said to myself self, I said, we need, although her will is very recent, I would say five years old, I wanna look at it again because I'm not sure it does what she wants it to do based on conversations that we've been having. So let's look at it. Right. Let's talk to my siblings and, you know, let's see what it, you gotta have, you have to, at least this is the other thing that you asked me that I sort of didn't mention is people just like you said, don't wanna talk about this. Yeah. It's scary, it's uncomfortable, but, you know, that's why we

Speaker 1:

Have, and also, uh, it, I mean, my brother died three year, three and a half years ago. It also, you, you can't talk about it without your own feelings about mortality or getting ill or losing control or, you know, these things that we fear that we just distract ourselves from and, you know, either have another beer or watch another baseball game mm-hmm. <affirmative> or go out and, you know, hunt something or fish something. Mm-hmm. So that we're in control or, or vape or whatever we do, um, to, to distract ourselves from the reality.

Speaker 1:

Right. You don't, you don't get outta dying. Right. So, um, it's, I I just think that these conversations are, they really can be trust builders. They can be things that, that offer clarity, that offer trust, that offer a sense. And as you point out a sense of control to the person who is older and realizes that they have a disease that is going to weaken them or, or cause their life to be something that frankly, you know, they wish did, hadn't happened to them, uh, like Bruce Willis. But at the same time it can, and we don't get to pick. So it, it's not like going to a, a restaurant and saying, oh, I'll have that. You know, it's just not like that. And,

Speaker 2:

But it's in the same vein, it's much harder to have a disease than it is to have a conversation about what happens if I have a disease.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

It's not that hard. My friends, which is why I wrote the 12 conversations book. Yeah. It's really not that hard. It's five or six simple questions you need to ask yourself about what you want, what you think you wanna do, um, and then get a lawyer to write it up for you. It don't make it harder than it needs to be.

Speaker 1:

Number one, there is nothing that is more mentally health challenging than being a caregiver. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. It is, it is so hard. And I I I encourage you desperately to, if you have, especially if you have mental health benefits at your work or you know, in your insurance or whatever to use them because caregiving is a mental health stress. Do not think that it's not because it is. That's

Speaker 1:

As many people found out during the pandemic when it was all of a sudden 24 7 kind of

Speaker 2:

In your face. Yes, exactly. And if you are not yet a caregiver, but you see it coming down the road and you just happen to be going to a therapist, talk to them about that mm-hmm. <affirmative>, talk to them about this piece of your life that you see coming for you. And maybe if you're having challenges having that conversation with that person, or you yourself don't wanna do it, but you know, it has to be done, maybe you can get some tactics, some tools, because this is also about Sure the legal tools are important. That's what I'm here to tell you about. Get those legal tools. But it's also the communication tools, you know, the stress tools. There's so many tools that you need as a caregiver, and there's lots of people out there who can help you with that.

Speaker 1:

I, I, I also, before we, before we stop, I wanna make the point, I I, you're right. Caregiving you, you think, oh, I'm just taking mom to get her hair done, or Oh, I'm just taking dad to the post office, or I'm just doing this, or I'm just doing that. But those things add up mm-hmm. <affirmative>, and you've got children of your own, or you've got a job of your own or you've got a home of your own or you, you live two hours away or whatever it happens to be. You're right. It's, we can minimize, oh, this is, this shouldn't be, uh, you know, I'm just doing that. But they're, when you're just doing four or five or 10 or 12 or 15 or 20 of those things a month, then that's a lot. And it changes your life. And it can definitely impact the relationship you're in with a spouse or a partner. Um, and actually they may be going through something similar with their parents.

Speaker 2:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>,

Speaker 1:

So, or aunts or uncles or whomever, grandparents. So it's just a conversation about it and, and to say, gosh, this is, you know, maybe people say, oh, I'm, I'm, I'm loyal, this is what I'm supposed to do. But that doesn't mean you have to, you know, you can't grieve it or feel different feelings about it other than, you know, I, I, I just, I just have to do this. It's, it's like, it's more complex than that.

Speaker 2:

Agreed. It is more complex than that. And you need to grant yourself the grace to understand that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah. Wow. What, how have you changed in, in, in taking care of these folks that you've loved or you've cared for being an elder law, um, specialist Now? What, what, I mean, how have you changed Kathy?

Speaker 2:

Um, I,

Speaker 1:

Being an author, a speaker.

Speaker 2:

<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, I've changed my career. That's for one. Um, honestly, this is, I don't know if this is terrible or not. Some part of me, it, my, my psychological part of me says it probably is, but I, I've actually become kind of a tough love caregiver in a lot of ways. Mm.

Speaker 1:

You mentioned that

Speaker 2:

The, the empathy is great, but the practicality is hard. And it's okay for you to recognize that and, and to have expectations of others. Not the person that you're caring for, the person who should be helping you, the person, you know, even your partner. Um, it's okay to have expectations of others. And I think I often when I'm teaching that, that often becomes a question. Um, you know, but my mom won't talk about this or I can't, she won't go to the doctor or whatever. And I'm like, you, you have two choices. You can take the tough love perspective that this is what we're going to do if I'm gonna be your helper, or you can tell them that they will have to suffer the consequences of that action. And you have to be okay with that. Yeah. So, wow, tough love caregiving is hard. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. But it might be harder to be super empathetic and not allow yourself to realize that sometimes the person you're caring for also has to take the consequences of their

Speaker 1:

Actions. And it's really, I what comes to mind is sort of the age old. You, you have to parent your parents kind of thing. Mm-hmm. <affirmative> that one of the points, for example you made in the book was if there's a paid caregiver and your parent is being demeaning to them or saying things that aren't appropriate, that you have to say, you know, it's better to say, mom, you can't talk to Jane like that. Right. Or you, you need to apologize for what you just said, or Yes, that's not appropriate. Jane will leave and we really like Jane, and Jane does a good idea. Yes. Jane does a good, uh, job with you and for you and, and we can talk out what you don't like about Jane, but you know, talk about it with me. And then maybe if we need to make another agreement with Jane, that's one thing, but don't play out your, whatever is going on with you and, and say things to Jane that, that aren't helpful.

Speaker 2:

The other thing, and that's so important. Yes. The, the other thing that I'd like to bring up that I have changed, not changed my viewpoint amount, but have, have really put into practice and want more women, especially to do this, is get paid for your caregiving. Yes. If your parents would pay Jane, they should pay you. Right. Especially if you don't have Jane coming, if you are doing all of it. And if you are taking a f, especially if you're taking a financial hit, if you have, you know, gone from full-time to part-time work, if you have quit your job to take care of them, if you moved into their house and got rid of your apartment or you're paying rent over there, but living with them, if you are taking a financial hit and they have assets, they should pay you. And you get a signed paid caregiver agreement to protect all the parties.

Speaker 2:

But that's really important. There are far too many unpaid family caregivers who can and should be paid. And we are recycling this, this, uh, women get to the point then in their lives where they have no retirement, they have no right savings. They have no, because they stepped out of the workforce to be a caregiver 1, 2, 3, 7, 9 times, right? Mm-hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <affirmative>. And there are even me ways to pay someone if your parents have no assets and Medicaid will pay, they will pay family caregivers. There are lots of organizations that have cropped up. Again, I said, do things change in the last two to five years that are now making sure you can get paid as a family caregiver. So, so that's the other thing that I, I have learned and I have changed my mind about that. Yes, this is great to be about love, but there's nothing wrong with getting paid.

Speaker 1:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Mm-hmm <affirmative> wonderful point and very important point. So, well, after six years, I'm really glad we finally had this conversation. It feels

Speaker 2:

Two more great.

Speaker 1:

Like it's a little bit different a conversation than we would've had six years ago. So

Speaker 2:

Very much yes.

Speaker 1:

That's, um, that's to everyone's benefit I think. So I thank you so much. How can people get in touch with you to speak or to teach or, um, just

Speaker 2:

To, so yeah, so if you're in a workplace, in a corporate workplace, that would be awesome to have me come in and help teach your, your team about not only caregiving, but what benefits you may have at work that you're not using to help caregivers. And that what you could bring into work. Uh, if you want to just, you know, look at my books Kathy Sikorski and see my name on the screen there. Just type that in. I come up for the first three pages on Google, but I'm on Amazon, so all my books are available on Amazon. And my website, which is being recreated as we speak, um, is kathy sikorsky.com. Um, and that's c a t h y s i k o r s k i kathy sikorsky.com. Um, and anytime you have a question, Kathy sikorski kathy dot sikorski gmail.com, you are free to email me. I love to interact with people who have questions and I will answer them as best I can and guide you to the resources that can really help you.

Speaker 1:

Kathy, I admire you so much. Thank you very, very much. And you are really funny. So, and

Speaker 2:

You told me about

Speaker 1:

That, that it's so important to keep your sense of humor.

Speaker 2:

Please. You guys, you gotta laugh about this cause it's, it's, first of all, it's a laugh worthy and second of all, if you're not laughing, you're doing something else. You don't wanna do

Speaker 1:

<laugh>. You know, my dad used to say, uh, cuz he just infirmity after infirmity after disease after problem. He looked at me one time when he was about 81 or two and he said, you know, Margaret, God's not supposed to give you more than you can bear, but I gotta talk to God because he's way overestimating my abilities. <laugh> <laugh>.

Speaker 2:

Yes. I'm on your dad's side. Yeah.

Speaker 1:

Speaker 2:

He, if he ever figured out how to do that conversation, you should put that out there,

Speaker 1:

<laugh>. Well, I'm not sure he did, but <laugh>, thank you so, so

Speaker 2:

Very much. So great to spend time with you. I really loved it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, me too. Bye. Bye.

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344 SelfWork: A Daughter's Determination To Save Lives After Her Mother's Suicide: A Conversation with Donna's Law Creator, Katrina Brees 0

Jun 16, 2023

This interview focuses on suicide prevention so please listen carefully. Here are the international suicide prevention crisis numbers (USA is not 988).

I want to read you the first part of the email I sent to our guest today for SelfWork.

"Katrina good morning. I’m the host of The SelfWork Podcast and I just saw the CBS Sunday Morning interview about your mom, the way she died, and your actions since it happened. Let me say I’m so sorry about the struggles your mom had all her life and how her bipolar disorder could take her in such destructive directions, ending in her suicide."

"I’d love to interview you for SelfWork. I very much admire what you’re doing and think it’s such a brilliant way of working through the complete mess that gun control conversations can create. It’s positive. Proactive. And I know many of my own clients would’ve signed up."

Who is Katrina Brees? She’s a grieving daughter turned activitist. And I think she’s come up with a brilliant way of bridging the debate over gun control versus the Second Amendment - as far as it pertains to suicide.

It’s called Donna’s Law. That was her mother’s name. And her mother, who hated guns and had often hospitalized herself because she was suicidal, killed herself with a gun.

This week you may notice a new sponsor of SelfWork! It’s the Jordan Harbinger show – and the ad is in a different format – what’s called an introcast - so that you can listen to that information in just a couple of minutes! I’ve found his show entertaining and intrigiuing and more than welcome his team to SW!

Vital Links!

We welcome back BiOptimizers and Magnesium Breakthrough as a returning sponsor to SelfWork and they have a new offer! Just click here! Make sure you use the code "selfwork10" to check out free product!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1: (00:10)
This is Self-Work, and I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford at Self-Work. We'll discuss psychological and emotional issues common in today's world and what to do about them. I'm Dr. Margaret and Self-Work is a podcast dedicated to you taking just a few minutes today for your own self-work.

Speaker 1: (00:29)
Hello and welcome or welcome back to Self-Work. I'm Dr. Margaret, and I'm so glad you're here. Before we get to the actual intro for this interview, I wanna make sure you know that it focuses on suicide prevention, so please listen carefully. We have a great interview today. Maybe a little controversial, but I certainly hope not. I want to read you the first part of the email I sent to our guest today for self-work. Her name is Katrina Breeze. Katrina, good morning. I'm the host of the Self-Work podcast, and I just saw the CBS Sunday morning interview about your mom, the way she died, and your actions since it happened. Let me say, I'm so sorry about the struggles your mom had all her life and how her bipolar disorder could take her in such destructive directions ending in her suicide. I've heard many stories and have my own concern and passion about how destructive perfectionism and suicide are linked, but that's not the point of this email.

Speaker 1: (01:28)
This morning, I'd sat down to write an episode on suicide, but I decided to switch on CBS's Sunday morning and saw your interview. That's all the synergy I needed to find out how to reach out to you. I'd love to interview you for self-work. I very much admire what you're doing and think it's such a brilliant way of working through the complete mess that gun control conversations can create. It's positive, proactive, and I know many of my own clients would've signed up. That was my email. Now, who is Katrina Breeze? She's a grieving daughter turned activist, and I think she's come up with a brilliant way of bridging the gun debate, as well as the debate about the Second Amendment as far as it pertains to suicide. Her mother was named Donna, and it's called Donna's Law. And her mother who hated guns and had often hospitalized herself because she was suicidal, killed herself with a gun.

Speaker 1: (02:25)
Here's some facts you may not know before you turn off. Hold on. Firearms are the most common means of suicide in 2020. Firearms were used in 53% of suicides with 24,292 gun suicide victims annually. This is a leading cause of death for Americans... That's more than 66 people each day. Many suicide attempts are impulsive, and the vast majority of survivors do not keep trying until they succeed. But people who choose firearms as their suicide method very rarely survive. About 85% of gun suicide attempts end in death. Donna's law, also known as the "voluntary do not sell list", gives a person the option to voluntarily and confidentially put their own names into the federal background check system to prevent impulsive gun purchases for a suicide attempt. Donna Nathan should have been able to have suspended her own ability to buy a gun, and that's what we're talking about today. I think it's an incredible solution to a very sticky problem. Before we hear from Katrina, here's a quick message from BiOptimizers Magnesium Breakthrough.

Speaker 1: (03:49)
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Speaker 1: (05:12)
Again, I wanna stress Katrina's not talking about limiting gun sales to anyone, but people who want to voluntarily say, I don't need to buy a gun. So I hope you'll listen to her story. She's passionate and she wants to save people like her mom. Katrina, can you tell SelfWork listeners about why you are, you know, of course about your mother and then how you're using her death as a momentum for this incredible project and incredible legislation?

Speaker 2: (05:55)
Sure. Um, I'll start with what the legislation is. Um, Donna's law is a voluntary tool that people can use to prevent themselves from purchasing a gun. Mm-hmm. . So it enables somebody to put themselves on a list that is confidential, reversible, and does not interfere with the second Amendment in order to prevent an impulsive gun purchase in an episode of suicidality or, or for whatever other reason they want to prohibit themselves from guns, um, from a gun sale. And, um, I lost my mom in 2018 to an impulsive gun suicide. She picked up her phone and she typed in how to hang herself and Google told her that the better idea would be to buy a handgun. Yeah. Um, then helped direct her to the closest gun store where she essentially pressed go on her phone and was dead. Very shortly after that, she took it to the park and she shot herself. I had no idea at that time that it was that easy to buy a gun where we live. I, it, it is still shocking to me and completely uncomfortable that I live in a place where it is that easy and that fast to buy a gun. Um, even for somebody that has absolutely no training, um, no license, no waiting period. Right. Um, she had been, uh, in psychiatric hospitalization three times before this that did not. And

Speaker 1: (07:41)
She had gone voluntarily for those. Correct. She, because she really wanted help and she knew she had bipolar disorder and she accepted that and she was working with her doctors, and there were times when she was really well, I mean, well mm-hmm. , she was doing great. She was managing bipolar disorder well mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: (07:59)
. Yeah. Uh, and our family really did everything and she did everything, and she was very knowledgeable. Our our family has many doctors in it. We were very supportive. Um, we were on top of it every day. . Yeah. Um, my mom's partner, even during this episode that she was having quit his job and stayed home all day long with her to supervise her, and it still wasn't enough. Mm-hmm. Um, because it was just minutes away from her being able to get a gun. And, um, so I mean, immediately after this happened to my family, I was like, how could this be like? Right. I talked to some lawyer friends that had guns, and I was like, do, "How could my mom be sold a gun after she was in the psychiatric hospital?" This, you know, I thought that was impossible. And, um, everything about the gun sale was legal. And, um, at that point I was just completely committed to, to changing that and, um, used the massive tidal wave of energy, that grief and trauma. That's right. And shock . And I surfed this, that wave of energy into Donna's law immediately. I mean, within, within 24 hours of knowing about her death, I was having conversations with, um, the gun policy maker for Amnesty International, and we were conceiving this legislation. Um, it was it very immediate that, that I chose to This

Speaker 1: (09:51)
Is how you were grieving. I mean, this is how

Speaker 2: (09:53)
You Yeah. And I was, I was scared too of, of, um, other ways that I could get into to, I don't know, process that trauma. Um, you know, I've, uh, I have a lot of friends that have experienced trauma, and I've watched them after that make their lives worse in a lot of ways. Yes,

Speaker 1: (10:18)
It

Speaker 2: (10:19)
Can. And having something like this happen, it was so obvious how I could make my life worse immediately to me, . Uh, and, uh, and, and

Speaker 1: (10:30)
That happens a lot in a family. That happens in with friends that happens, you know, in communities. Um, there's certainly, uh, a there can I say my words this morning? There's certainly an, an acknowledgement and a in a lot of research has gone into that, that people hear that someone died by suicide, and then they think, well, then I will, you know? Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It's, it's, it's, um, the person who dies by suicide doesn't mean for that to happen. It's not an intentional act to try to, uh, create that dynamic, but it does create that dynamic.

Speaker 2: (11:04)
Yes. Um, I was shocked by how loud the voice to shoot myself was immediately after that. And, um, thank you. And I, I knew the gun store, the gun dealer's business card was left on my mom's passenger seat. I had like, so many fantasies of going over there and buying a gun and shooting myself and, um, pushing myself into doing Donna's law brought into my life, many survivors of similar tragedies. Um, and, um, like with Mom's Demand Action, I mean, there I felt like all of a sudden I had a million moms that had wanted to .

Speaker 1: (11:58)
Well, you know, it, it also, for years we've had, um, we've had a policy in place where gambling people with gambling addictions can mm-hmm. can sign up at the, at the casinos, don't let me in the door, you know? Mm-hmm. , uh, they're literally barring themselves from gambling. And it's something that, uh, they do voluntarily and they do because they know it's a problem. And, and it's something about putting that hurdle in front of it. They can, again, renege on it and say, okay, I, I wanna take my name off, but it's completely voluntary. And that's exactly what you're saying. One of the reasons why I, you know, I, I live in a state where there are a lot of people. I, I live in Arkansas and there are a lot of people that have guns. There are a lot of people, you know, I have guns all over the United States, but this is not about challenging that.

Speaker 1: (12:45)
It's about challenging the idea that, um, so many firearms deaths are suicides, 60 to 65% of them, I think mm-hmm. Suicides. And we tend to think of it, the homicidal part of it, and we don't think of the suicidal part of it. So in, in essence, you're saying someone with major depression or someone who literally has just gone through some trauma themselves and realized that's beginning to crop up in their thinking. They don't have to have a diagnosis of a mental illness. It's simply that they know they are in a bad place, and it is a prohibition for them. Uh, it's like alcoholics not going in a, in a bar , you know? Mm-hmm. , uh, I know I can't, you know, I may not be able to resist that thought, and so I'm going to prohibit myself. I'm gonna stop myself before I even get started.

Speaker 2: (13:34)
Yeah. I wanted to, um, add two things I've learned about the things you're talking about is, uh, one in Pennsylvania right now, there is a bill to enable people to opt out of their ability to purchase alcohol from, uh, really I believe a state, a state liquor store. Um, so, uh, this type of, um, self contract is sometimes called a Ulysses Pact, um, from Homer, the Odyssey that, um, he ties himself to the boat to avoid the, the songs of the sirens and is able to like survive. I guess I haven't read the book . Um, and then the other thing I wanted to point out, uh, um, the gambling one is everyone who has talked to me about being on the list of the gambling prohibition is also someone who is bipolar. And, um, destroying one's finances is often something that can happen easily when someone is a, in an psychotic episode or in a mania. Um, so p people who know that, that there are times where they will make, um, better decisions and there will be times that they'll make worse decisions, um, I believe should be able to utilize these tools. Um, and I hope there becomes more of them. I love the idea of someone being able to, to stop their ability to buy alcohol. Yes. Um, I mean, what a beautiful tool that is.

Speaker 1: (15:08)
Now three states have passed Donna's law, correct?

Speaker 2: (15:12)
Yes. Virginia, Utah, and Washington.

Speaker 1: (15:15)
Tell me about your mom.

Speaker 2: (15:17)
She was very funny and she was very smart, educated, worldly. She loved music and dance. She was so generous to everybody. She had a huge heart for any animal, whether it was a lizard or a human. If it was suffering, she would be the first to intervene and try and protect that creature. Um, she was, uh, she had a lot of struggle with, um, mental illness throughout her life and worked incredibly hard to protect herself from suicide, um, which made Donna's life even more obvious because she really was an incredible advocate for her own mental health care, and so was I. And so was her partner. And, um, uh, there was a lot of strength in her, in her care circle. Mm-hmm. . Um, she had recently had a step grand baby that she was super excited about, and there was another one coming and, um,

Speaker 1: (16:38)
Oh, I can see that's a, that's a very tender spot. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (16:41)
Yeah. Like, it's like, I just know she didn't wanna miss that. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: (16:47)
Mm-hmm. And that's the thing, one of the, somebody listening who doesn't know a lot about bipolar disorder or mental illness in general is that when those, I'll call them voices or that energy or that impulsivity, when, when it is going on, you can completely lose sight of who you are at your most stable. It's almost as if there's a part of you that gets turned off. Um, mm-hmm. , did she have any psychotic episodes, or did she just have the bipolar disorder

Speaker 2: (17:21)
In the last year of her life? She had, um, very obvious psychotic episodes. Okay. And things like hearing voices. Right. And, um, extreme paranoia. Um,

Speaker 1: (17:37)
Mostly when she was manic,

Speaker 2: (17:41)
I, the, the end of her life, I guess it's like mixed state. Okay. Um, it, she was pretty much in like a panic attack for three months and she didn't sleep. And I would say insomnia played a big part in it. And, um, yeah, I mean, she wasn't, she wasn't really making any bad decisions. She was really just like in her house suffering. There

Speaker 1: (18:13)
Were a lot of Okay. She was fighting, fighting, fighting.

Speaker 2: (18:15)
Yeah. There was a lot of physical things happening to her also, um, with, uh, the medications that they were trying on her. And she had very intense tremors, and her hands shook so bad that, um, for the last several months of her life, she couldn't hold a fork because she would just stab her face and she had to eat all her food with like a, like her paw mm-hmm. , um, just bringing it to her mouth and, um, she couldn't write very well, um, because her hands were shaking, um, which made it even more offensive that a gun dealer would sell her a gun.

Speaker 1: (19:04)
Right, right. Uh, it is almost, it's impossible that she could have curbed all that and walked in and been looking much more normal. And obviously there were some things going on there that the gun dealer would've noticed. Mm-hmm. , what, what has establishing this, um, well, what, let me ask you this. What are y'all doing currently? Um, it's, the bill has been introduced to Congress, but they have not done anything. Is that, is that correct?

Speaker 2: (19:32)
Well, they've done a lot, but it hasn't progressed

Speaker 1: (19:36)
. Okay, okay.

Speaker 2: (19:37)
But they do invest a lot of resources that I appreciate, and there are offices there that are very busy working, so to say they've done nothing, um, wouldn't be fair to the, to the efforts.

Speaker 1: (19:50)
Did you get a lot of of feedback from your CBS um, interview? I bet you did.

Speaker 2: (19:55)
Oh, yeah. And so positive, I mean, I, I didn't get anything negative. I mean, I probably got like 200 emails that were so supportive and, um, lots more like interviews like with you and, uh, I love podcasting, so other podcasts and, um, other news sources and, um, it's also, it's made me realize like a lot of people were like, I wanna bring this to my state, which is amazing, but, um, I did not. Well,

Speaker 1: (20:31)
How do people do that? That's what I was gonna ask you next.

Speaker 2: (20:33)
Well, that was the next piece of work I had to do. So I created a Donna's Law Starter Pack the last couple weeks, and I've been creating all the templates and strategies for people to be able to do that in the most efficient, um, no cost way. Mm-hmm. . Um, and so essentially it just involves, um, choosing who the potential sponsors in your state could be, which will most likely be someone who has already sponsored a suicide prevention bill. Um, looking, also, another option of who it could be is, um, someone that's on the committee that will be determining whether this moves forward or not, um, because they have a stake in it and they have relationships with other people on that committee. Um, so it's, it, it's pretty fast to just identify a very small amount of people in a state and then just try to send them some of the letters that I've created templates for. And I feel like, um, excuse me, uh, I feel like I've created something that someone can hopefully just put a couple minutes into, a couple times a month and, um, perhaps if the climate's right in their state, bring it forward.

Speaker 1: (22:00)
How has, I mean, how have you grieved your mom?

Speaker 2: (22:04)
Um, I don't, I don't, I can't, I don't have like another dead mom to compare it to , so

Speaker 1: (22:10)
You're funny .

Speaker 2: (22:13)
So I'm not sure what it's like otherwise, but I do feel like it's been an incredible privilege and opportunity to have the support of the media at very difficult times and moments in my grief. And a lot of those people like you are in the mental health field, talk to me, um, and asking me specific questions that make me think and that lead my thinking into, um,

Speaker 1: (22:52)
Uh,

Speaker 2: (22:52)
How, how I was able to use this to help me, you know? And I think that one of the big things is not feeling shame. That's right. Not not feeling like zero shame. Like, I have zero shame that my mom shot herself. I mean, I have a stack of shames, and this is not on the list.

Speaker 1: (23:16)
, it's not even in the list. It's, it's not even the, what is that old fairy tale? The princess and the pea it's not even the pea . Right. .

Speaker 2: (23:26)
Um, so I, I assume that's beneficial. Um, it's been amazing to see my mom's picture like being waived at Congress by representatives. And, and there's this part of all this that feels like my mom is kind of like an organ donor. Like, like, because like she gets to donate her story and her photo, and that is so valuable to legislation.

Speaker 1: (24:06)
She is the person that, she's Donna, I mean, she mm-hmm. , she, her, her life and her death, the way she lived her life and, and then the way she killed herself is going to be honored. Uhhuh is honored by this law. There are... there's people's lives that she will save.

Speaker 2: (24:27)
Yeah. And, um,

Speaker 1: (24:28)
And you'll save by the way.

Speaker 2: (24:30)
Thank you. And you'll save as well. Um, I think that another aspect of it is like, when this first happened, um, I was dating this guy and he had this really great family, and one of my feelings like right away was like, "Oh my God, like his family is gonna think I'm, you know, unstable and Right. They're probably gonna think that I'm gonna do it, and now they know my mom is how she is." And I just felt like I can't, I can't let this be the end of my mom's story because that doesn't, that doesn't feel good to me for the end of her story to be that. Then she put a bullet in her head alone in a park. Um, but having the end of her story be that then she became a law that empowered people with a tool for self-defense

Speaker 1: (25:40)
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: (25:41)
Against one of the most common ways that people die in our country

Speaker 1: (25:50)
And the most lethal the most, yeah. Yeah. The most, the, the, the quote unquote best way to Yeah. As Google told your mom.

Speaker 2: (25:59)
And, um, another, another way that it's really helped me is, um, well meeting amazing people that really care about this and are willing to talk about it, because I can't really like be talking about gun suicide on like dates and stuff all the time. .

Speaker 1: (26:17)
Yeah. Now, you know, the world of a, a therapist, some people go, no, can't you talk about something else?

Speaker 2: (26:22)
. Right, right.

Speaker 1: (26:24)
Are you any fun?

Speaker 2: (26:25)
Right. But, and I'm like, but this is inspiring and innovative . Um, another way that it's really helped me is, um, meeting advocates of the bill that are bipolar people that have experienced suicidality and want to opt out of their ability to purchase a gun. Mm-hmm. . And through meeting them, it's really helped me understand what my mom was going through. And it's given me so much more respect for her. And I regret that in her life. I thought that she should work harder to hold it together. Yeah. Because now I realize that she was working as hard as she could

Speaker 1: (27:11)
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: (27:12)
And that she was holding a lot together.

Speaker 1: (27:16)
You know, I, I think with any, any kind of chronic mental illness, it's, that is a, that is a fight in and of itself because it is the chronicity of it and people watch you dealing with it and they don't know how hard you, you know, how hard it is to get outta bed or how hard it is to control those impulses or to deal with hearing voices. I mean, it's just, and that was her every day. Mm-hmm. . And I think it's difficult for other people to understand and so that you've gotten a firsthand account from these folks about Yeah. It is a, it is a huge job to, to control this kind of illness.

Speaker 2: (27:55)
Yeah. Um,

Speaker 1: (27:57)
Or try to control it.

Speaker 2: (27:59)
Yeah. And also, um, being able to say that my mom shot herself is something that was not allowed on, on the news four years ago. Really. And I have, yeah. I mean, even when I go on YouTube to watch my own interview on CBS Sunday morning, it gives me two content warnings and a recommendation for the suicide helpline. Just cuz I wanna watch my own interview mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: (28:27)
mm-hmm. .

Speaker 2: (28:29)
I mean that is, but I can, I mean, I can see some horrific scene from the Ukraine war and the media doesn't mind showing me that mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: (28:39)
.

Speaker 2: (28:40)
Um, so

Speaker 1: (28:41)
That's a great point.

Speaker 2: (28:42)
But my mom deserves some of the credit for how this conversation has really opened up and, um, given the country a way to talk about it that isn't so depressing and is kind of inspiring . Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: (28:55)
, it's more than kinda of inspiring. It's inspiring.

Speaker 2: (28:59)
Thank you very much. Um, so Donna's law isn't just gonna protect the, that 65% mm-hmm. , um, from suicide. It's also gonna protect people from accidentally, or not accidentally, but in an episode to shoot somebody that they love. Mm-hmm. , I mean, I was think, I was looking at data today about the percentage of men that shoot themselves after shooting their domestic partner. And it, it was, um, I can't remember the state, but it was 59%. And I thought about it and one of the things I do in my work is I don't fight for gun control. I'm not fighting and I'm definitely not fighting gun enthusiasts about it. No.

Speaker 1: (29:45)
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: (29:46)
, um, I compassion for, um, gun violence prevention and that compassion starts with me compassion for the other person if I expect them to compassion for me. And so I was looking at that data today about men who shoot their partner and I thought if I had just shot my partner, I would want to shoot myself

Speaker 1: (30:10)
Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: (30:10)
, you know, like, what a sad thing. I mean, what an awful, horrific thing to experience mm-hmm. to shoot your partner. And I wanna protect those people too.

Speaker 1: (30:25)
Well, you know, I'm thinking as you were talking about this, advocating for greater awareness and acceptance that this is what's happening. Uh, I have noticed, uh, and again, I, I live in a pretty conservative state, but I have noticed that when more and more people who are dying by suicide, their families are choosing to include that in the obituary. Mm-hmm. , their families are including, they, they, they want that to be known. So how is this changing you as a person, Katrina? How, how has

Speaker 2: (30:56)
Changed Oh, so much changed your

Speaker 1: (30:57)
Family? How's it

Speaker 2: (30:58)
It has changed my family. Um, when I first started doing this work, my family, except for one person, showed me zero support about it.

Speaker 1: (31:08)
Wow.

Speaker 2: (31:09)
And I, it's been, it was years before. I got real acknowledgement from my family of support on this work. And I was even told not to do this work by my family. I was told that what I was talking about was like nonsense.

Speaker 1: (31:34)
Wow.

Speaker 2: (31:35)
Um, I was, I think that there was a lot of fear because they

Speaker 1: (31:38)
Were, was that, did that come from their own humiliation or their own shame or?

Speaker 2: (31:42)
I think it came from their fear of me putting my life on the line to discuss gun control in America.

Speaker 1: (31:49)
I see. Right.

Speaker 2: (31:50)
Impulsive gun suicide is, did not begin in my family with my mom. There were four other suicides in our family before my mom that, um, having my mom's death be in the newspaper, having me ask questions cuz reporters were asking questions and learning about my own family history of suicide, um, has really opened up the conversation. Um, and I mean, our family for generations has been defined by suicide. And then, um, almost all parts of my family have experienced suicide on like, people say like, um, oh, was there bipolar on your mom's side? And it's like, no, but there's a ton of it on my dad's side.

Speaker 1: (32:42)
. Really? Wow.

Speaker 2: (32:45)
So like, it, um, it, it's like coming at me on both sides now and, um, it has really opened up the conversation from my family's elders that have experienced a lot of these losses and also, um, how does my generation in our family protect each other? Mm-hmm. . And, um, I mean, I still don't see a lot of my family like sharing my articles on social media or, or much like that, but they'll text me and, you know, tell me that they're proud of it. Um.

Speaker 1: (33:26)
Good. I'm glad. I'm glad.

Speaker 2: (33:28)
So it's, it's evolving and, um, I'm gonna keep going and I assume that they're gonna keep opening up about it and I hope at some point they're gonna be testifying in their states in front of their legislatures in support of this mm-hmm. . Um, because it's it's coming to their states soon. .

Speaker 1: (33:48)
. You're gonna make sure of that, it sounds like. Yeah.

Speaker 2: (33:52)
.

Speaker 1: (33:54)
Well, it has been an honor talking with you and I really appreciate this so much.

Speaker 2: (33:58)
Oh, thank you so much. I really appreciate being able to, um, share this knowledge with your, with your listeners and with you. It's been a beautiful conversation. Great.

Speaker 1: (34:19)
Thanks so much for listening in to self work today. It's an honor for you to be here and I so appreciate the fact that you are here and you give us your time. This week you may notice a new sponsor of Self-Work. It's the Jordan Harbinger Show and the ad is in a different format, what's called an intra cast, so that you can listen to that information in just a couple of minutes. It'll be listed as the second episode in your podcast app. I found his show to be entertaining and intriguing, and I more than welcome his team to self-work. Please take very good care, as I say, every episode of yourself, your family, the people you care about, and your community. I'm Dr. Margaret and this has been self-work.

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343 SelfWork: What's Emotional Regulation? It's Both Self-Control and Self-Protection 0

Jun 9, 2023

There are a lot of mental illnesses that are characterized by intense emotion which then governs behavior, such as in bipolar disorder, major depression, or several personality disorders. But even it it’s a pattern, and not an actual mental illness, it may mean that you don’t have the skill to regulate your emotions – to have control over them instead of them over you. What does this look like? You get angry at a friend and you text them impulsively about your feelings instead of taking a minute to cool down. You get dumped by someone you're dating and you immediately head to the nearest bar or pub to work on getting picked up.

That’s what we’re going to focus on today. How do you learn to more self-control emotionally or how to “self-regulate” those emotions? We’ll also talk about when intense control over emotions is highly self-protective.

The listener email follows this subject line as well, but is more about the listener’s recognition and identification with perfectly hidden depression. But they put a bit of a different spin on it – and are asking how I might suggest they “explain” PHD to a new therapist.

Vital Links:

Link to sign up for CE training on June 27^th at 9:00 – noon CT.

Psychology Today article on self-regulation

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342 SelfWork: Five Ways of Dealing with Defensiveness, Enmeshment Dynamics, and Roles Vs Relationships: Your Questions My Answers 0

Jun 2, 2023

Today is an episode filled with your questions and my answers – one of my favorite things to do here on SelfWork! So today the topics are enmeshment, the difference between playing a role in someone’s life and having a relationship, and five ways to deal with defensiveness when you’re trying to have a conversation with a parent about the past. Great topics and questions! And I’m sure many of you can more than relate!

Vital Links:

Click Here for the fabulous offer from Athletic Greens - now AG1 - with bonus product with your subscription!

SelfWork podcast on seven ways to move out of enmeshment

Post on seven ways out of enmeshment

My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression has been published and you can order here! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life. And it's available in paperback, eBook or as an audiobook!

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