John Crowley, my audio engineer/editor extraordinaire, chose this episode this week as I'm getting back from vacation. My gratitude to him for many, many things! But he gives you some info on what this episode's message was for him and what I hoped it would be.
Today we’re focusing on the mind/body interaction – how your brain processes physical and emotional pain – as well as a brief touch on what are called somatic disorders. But what I want to focus on how your body might be expressing the pain or trauma you’ve experienced in your life. It's an intriguing topic and one I hope you'll enjoy.
The listener voicemail is from a daughter who believes her mom may have something to do with her being ill and not knowing how to leave or get other help. This could be something called “munchausen’s syndrome by proxy” which is a very complicated dynamic – but it might also be that this daughter’s mom has been part of her trauma. I’ll offer suggestions for both..
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!
Click HERE for the NEW fabulous offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your subscription!
A recent Forbes article… discussing how your brain processes physical and social pain.
Depression Isn't Simply A Chemical Imbalance Part One (SelfWork Podcast)
Depression Isn't Simply A Chemical Imbalance Part Two (SelfWork)
An article on somatic disorders found on VeryWellMind.
How To Become An Emotional Grownup I don’t have time sadly to discuss all of it...
A recent Psychology Today article about different techniques that you can try to "get at" your body's holding on to trauma. And encouraging it to let go.
Article on FDIA. Facticious Disorder imposed on another
You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available 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 there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
I have such a fantastic production team in Christine Mathias, my communications manager, and John Crowley, my audio engineer. And so I want to thank them for pulling the next two episodes off for me while I'm on vacation with my family!
This was Christine's choice as one of her favorites, and she introduces this week's episode in this "second time around" listen. The focus is on how to interview a potential therapist, a task which stop SO many people from even trying therapy. I agree with her about how important this info is. So I hope - actually we hope - it's great info for you.
The listener voicemail today is from a woman who’d read one of my blogpostarticles on challenging or working through the shame that you've carried around, quite without rational or reason, because you felt invisible to others, and thought whatever happened to cause your shame was somehow your 'fault.'
Click HERE for the NEW fabulous offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your subscription!
The podcast episode also talking about the problem of feeling invisible.
An Unquiet Mind written by Kay Redfield Jamison,
My first podcast episode on What Is Good Therapy?
An Open Counseling article explaining licensure and training differences between therapists
My podcast on whether to terminate therapy
The different family roles that you can adopt and play
You can hear more of many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then clickhere and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available 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 here's another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
Trigger Warning: We're talking about sibling sexual abuse in this episode. The links for sexual abuse hotlines are below.
I’ve had so many guest interviews on SelfWork – really wonderful researchers and authors, therapists and thinkers. But there’s something very special about someone coming forth to share their message when they’ve learned something the hard way – and they want to help others either through what they went through or to avoid it in the first place.
Jane Epstein is this kind of person. She tells her story in this episode about how her life was dramatically impacted by her brother sexually abusing her. It took her years to put the pieces of the puzzle together, making connections between past and present that were difficult and painful to make – but also were freeing.
Many of you who are listening may have experienced something similar – and have tried, as Jane did for many years – to sweep it under the rug. A stepsister or stepbrother, an older sibling – and you’ve blamed yourself. Or felt a shameful heaviness.
Please know, you are far, far from alone.
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!
Jane Epsteins TEDxBocaRaton Talk:
Great sexual abuse website for sibling abuse:
The 501-3-C non-profit 5WAVES.org - Jane's (and others) website for support
International Sexual Abuse Hotline thru RAINN
I want to thank Jane and all other survivors of abuse who’ve come forward. It takes tremendous courage.
You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, The Selfwork Podcast. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available 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!
And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
Speaker 1: Dr. Margaret
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.
Welcome or welcome back to SelfWork. I'm Dr. Margaret Rutherford, and we have a wonderful guest for you today. I wanna make sure you hear however, that this episode does discuss sexual abuse, sibling sexual abuse. So please heed a trigger warning and we'll have sexual abuse hotline suggestions in the show notes.
You know, I've had so many guest interviews here on Selfwork, really wonderful researchers and authors, therapists and thinkers. But there's something very special about someone coming forth to share their message when they've learned something the hard way, and they want to help others, either through what they went through or to avoid the experience in the first place.
Jane Epstein is this kind of person. She tells her story in this episode about how her life was dramatically impacted by her brother sexually abusing her for a six year period of time. It took her years to put the pieces of the puzzle together, making connections between past and present that were difficult and painful to make, but also were very freeing. And I want to quickly say, many of you who are listening may have experienced something similar and have tried, as Jane did for many years, to sweep the memories under the rug. Maybe it was a stepsister or stepbrother, an older sibling, and you've blamed yourself or felt a shameful heaviness. So that's what we're talking about today on SelfWork.
But before we continue, let's hear a brief message from Magnesium Breakthrough. You wanna give their product a try if you have too many sleepless nights, maybe from your own troubling memories.
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Speaker 1: Dr. Margaret
I should tell you before we begin, how I met Jane Epstein. She actually did a TEDx talk for Boca Ratone and I watched it and we had the same coach. That's sort of a neat bond for us to share, but we talk about our TEDx experience a little bit here too. So please listen to this episode. Please click the link to Jane's TEDx talk, which will be in the show notes, or go to my website, drmargaretrutherford.com, and you can find it there. Another website that Jane has told me about, which is really wonderful is www.siblingsexualtrauma.com.
But just know you are far, far from alone.
Speaker 1: Dr. Margaret
I couldn't be happier to have you on SelfWork Jane, because I have listened to your TEDx many, many times. And we shared a coach, which was kind of fun. And so I, I looked at yours as to say, well, what would it be like to to work with Brian Miller? But I personally today wanna hear more about your story. About one of my questions as I looked at it is, how did you talk to your family about it? Or, or did you say, "No, it's my story to tell." Just what and what made you, what brought you to TEDx in the first place?
Speaker 2: Jane Epstein
First of all, thank you for having me on your show. Of course, I, I have listened to a couple of your podcasts and I, I've listened to you and I've listened to your TEDx and you are very trauma informed, and you are very kind and compassionate and lots of wisdom. So I appreciate being on your puck. Thank you.
First thing, what brought me to TEDx and how did I tell my family? Me, I don't remember the exact timeline, but I started Googling sibling sexual abuse and trauma, and I couldn't find anything on it. And I, I had this feeling that I wasn't the only one. I thought, I can't be the only person. 'cause I found two outdated articles that stated that it's a silent epidemic, right? I was, okay, well, if it's an epidemic, I'm clearly not the only six year old little girl. My my sibling who was 12 at the time, is not the only 12 year old child who, who an abused a sibling. So I just was called to start talking about it, and I reached out to my sibling. It was very awkward. And I expressed to him, I said, "I feel called to start talking about this and sharing my story because no one's talking about it. And it's a silent epidemic." And he said he understood and that he would support me in whatever way he can.
Speaker 1:
I get chill bumps when I hear that.
Speaker 2:
Yes. He, I'm, I have a very unique situation. I've been able to forgive him. I can call him and ask him questions. I'll say, I had this memory, is this true? And he's very careful to not give me more information. Mm-hmm. , because he knows I have enough to work with. I don't need any more triggers. I don't need any more memories. Mm-hmm. . And I also think that because of what happened between us, that he's hypervigilant and that he's got his eyes on other families, and that he sees that there could potentially be problems and sexual abuse occurring. And because sibling sexual abuse is so prevalent and not talked about, I think we are seeing things and not always able to put our finger on it. In
Speaker 1:
Your talk, you quote in your talk, you quote statistics like it's three to five times - It happens three to five times more than father daughter abuse, which is incredible. It starts earlier. It lasts for years often. So you're right. And it, it is something I, I remember I wrote a post on sex, uh, sibling sexual abuse. I got all kinds of comments. So yes, you're exactly right.
Speaker 2:
Yes. I listened to your podcast on the sibling sexual abuse, and it was very well done. Thank you. You're, you're very informed, . Thank you.
So I started talking to my brother and I said, I need, we need to talk about this. We need to, we need to do this. Um, or I need to do this. And I had these great grand visions because there's so much work that needs to be done. Well, it's a marathon on its front . So I started pitching the media, it, my emails were either not opened or not responded to. One response was, "Well, we haven't ever talked about that, but if we do, we'll reach out". And I'm thinking, you're not gonna talk about it. So I come across a video with Brian Kenneth Miller, our joint TEDx coach. And he had gone through, what is a TEDx? What is a TEDx?
Speaker 2:
What is not a TEDx? Because I thought, "Well, I'll go on TEDx and I'll share my story and I'll raise the alarm bell." Well, TEDx is not sharing your story, but I thought, well, I'll book a call with him anyways. So I booked a call with him and he said, "A tough topic, but I think we could come up with something." So we started talking about it, and it is, it's a tough topic, it's a dark topic. And Brian was never told me this, but he was concerned, how am I gonna get on the TEDx stage? Mm-hmm. . So we started going down the path of how to support someone who's been through a traumatic event. And I was gonna slide sibling sexual abuse and trauma through the back door. Okay. Which would not have been a great talk because there's lots of how to support people who've gone through trauma. It would not have been
Speaker 1:
Not unique,
Speaker 2:
Impactful, not unique, not impactful. It might have gotten on stage, but not likely. So then I heard from TEDx Boca Raton, and I sat down with Eric and Eric said, look, you know, we like your idea, but we really wanna know more about the sibling sexual abuse and trauma. Can you talk just about that? And I said, yes, I can. And I pointed to all my research books and I started spouting off all these statistics. And he said, "Great, that's what we want you to talk about". And I said, excellent. And that's how it all started. And I didn't mean to be on the TEDx, it's just that's kind of where I landed. And I, you know, once I was approved and started practicing my TEDx talk, I started having all the anxieties of speaking in front of a large crowd, but practiced and practiced and practiced. And the day I got on that stage, I just, they basically, there's something magical about that red dot. Maybe it's true. I got on that red dot and all was okay. But I was shaking..
Speaker 1: Oh, I was perfectly calm. .
Speaker 2:
It's amazing what you can make, even though the camera, you know, the camera shows all, oh, it was done. Well, you did aYou did a really wonderful job.
Speaker 1: And, and one of the things that I thought was so powerful about it, again, you've already mentioned it, was that your, your brother had, he had apologized, but then he had, you had written to him years later and he said, "Oh gosh, I didn't know this was still a thing for you." So I'm sure this solidified for him, again, the seriousness of the trauma, the impact that that had had on you, uh, and that it had, it had, uh, impacted your choices as an adult. And when you left home and it was, it was a elegant story. Well, it's, call it elegant is missing the point of that. It was very painfully uh, impactful. So, um, yeah, I mean, you made, you made some career choices that were obviously you trying to get back in control, but it didn't work.
Speaker 2:
Right. Right. And I'm not sure he understands the full impact. We've never sat down and, and talked about it. It's, it's like, it's a, it's a strained relationship.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
Um, but it, it's friendly enough in that I can reach out to him. I haven't reached out to him for a while, but I would can reach out to him and say, "I had this memory, is this a false memory? Is this true? Is this what happened?" And he is very careful the way he answers it, because he does, doesn't wanna trigger me and give me more memories. 'cause I have plenty to work with. Sure. He understands why I'm so public. He's not exactly thrilled about it. But, you know, I was in the People magazine and I had to run that by him. And, and the pictures, I ran the pictures by him. And that, it's hard. Uh, it's hard because it's putting him in a, in a, in a tough situation. But in my situation, in my story, my sibling is not a monster. My sibling is not a pedophile. My sibling caused a lot of harm, caused a lot of damage, caused a lot of trauma. And I, I have forgiven him. Um, and I'm not telling every survivor, you have to forgive to heal. That is not my, that's not my thing. It's just that's what worked for me. And it started by forgiving the little girl first, my little girl myself. And then I was able to forgive him.
Speaker 1:
Well, an aspect of this that I wanted to talk to you about a little bit more was you opened the talk by saying that you were in marital work with your husband, and your therapist turned to you and said, "I, I just don't get where all this anger is coming from. It doesn't seem to fit the situation." And, and then ask the very astute question of, "Is there something that might be, is triggered by what's going on with your husband? And that's what's, that's what we're seeing". And you, did you, did you connect the dots right then? Or did it take you a while? It took a while. It was your sexual abuse that was getting somehow, maybe you can talk about that a little bit. What was getting triggered with your husband?
Speaker 2:
Right. Many years before, before we were in counseling, something happened in the bedroom that, that triggered a memory. And that memory would not go away. Usually memories would come and go and I could put them away. And I thought it was just two kids being curious. That's not my problem.
Speaker 1:
Okay.
Speaker 2:
I thought because I'd lost, I lost my first husband to cancer and I got remarried to my, my husband. Now I try not to use current husband 'cause he doesn't like to be the current husband. .
Speaker 1:
Well, my husband calls
Speaker 2:
Himself
Speaker 1: )
. We've been married 33 years, and he calls himself my current husband. So ,
Speaker 2:
He's a good sport then. Yeah. . Yeah. So I had thought, I knew we had two small children. He had a stressful job. I had, I was still dealing with grief. And I thought, that's why I'm angry. That's why I am upset. That's why I was not depressed in my brain. I was not depressed because no, I had survived burying my first husband, and I survived that. So there's no way I could be depressed.
Speaker 1:
I have a, I have a book for you to read, . I know
Speaker 2:
You do. I am in that category. So we eventually went to marriage counseling and I went into the marriage counseling thinking, okay, he's gonna fix my husband, gonna fix him. Well, I had work to do too, fix too, when it comes to that. So we were in counseling for five years and we really had made a lot of progress. But I was still very, very angry. And I had asked myself, I had dug down and I thought, maybe it's something inside of me. I've tried to turn over every stone that maybe there's something inside of me that needs work. Mm-hmm. . So when the marriage counselor asked that question, I thought, well, there is this. My brother sexually abused me. There's that. And I approached it as, it can't be that because I participated. Right. So who am I to be messed up over that?
Speaker 2:
And the counselor, I kind of describe it as the deer in the headlights look. He's kinda like trying to sit still and kind of leaning in and trying to be very calm, realizing, okay, this is a big deal. No, what happened is a big deal. Right. And that it went on and off for six years. And that No, that was a big deal. And he said, "You're gonna need to tell Steve". And I said, huh. Steve's my husband. Mm-hmm. Current husband mm-hmm. . I said, oh, no, because then he'll be able to blame all our marriage problems on me. And he said, you need to be able to tell him to protect yourself in order and to, to be able to heal. So that's how that all started. And then I started a whole new healing process.
Speaker 1:
It's amazing. I've told a story on, on SelfWork about a woman. Um, and I already put a cautionary warning before we started. So great. Uh, a woman came in to see me who, um, it was the local community center. I literally had just gotten to Arkansas where I live now. And, and she said, you know, she told me about sexually abu abuse that her father had, um, had done to her. And then she, and there was this huge sense of relief. And then she came in the next week and she said, I've got something worse to tell you. So I sat back and said, all right. And she said, my dad made me do things to my brother . And she, she was a tough cowboy kind of woman. She had boots and, you know, she was farm girl. I mean, she was tough as nails.
Speaker 1:
And she teared up and, and we talked about it. And then she, she canceled her next appointment. And I called her and said, I'm, you've, you've shared so much with me, I'm a little concerned that you're not coming back in. Yeah. She said, well, okay, I'll come back in one more time. And she looked at me, Jane, and she said, I thought I would, I knew the look that would be on your face when I told you that I had done something to my brother. Because from her perspective, she had participated rather than being coerced herself. You know, it was, it was her doing something to her brother. And I said, you know, so, and she said, but the look on your face was not condemnation. It was, well, of course you did what your dad told you to do. Right. Um, and then there are other instances I I, uh, I mentioned before when we were just talking about a, a little girl who wore a red nightgown for her brother. Um, because she, she said, I enjoyed the attention. I knew something was wrong, but I, I didn't get any attention from anybody except from him. And so it was very complex and very complicated. But that whole idea of participation is so, um, is, is so confounding for any victim of sexual abuse, but especially with sibling sexual abuse, I think.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. And I, I wanna share with you that I've actually had some people who, when I, when I speak about the child who caused harm, there are situations where the child causes a lot more than harm. And I try and, and, and lower it a little bit so that parents hear me. Mm-hmm. , because if I scream your child, the pedophile or your child, the monster, your child, the perpetrator, they're not going to hear me. Right. 'cause if I talk about it in a more gentle as your child who caused harm, they're more likely to hear me. So that's why I approach it that way. But I understand that there are survivors out there where it was a lot more than harm. Yes, I understand that. Yes. But I have heard from people who have caused harm and they are suicidal. You're right. And so that's why we talk about this, because we don't want our children to be on any side of it.
Speaker 2:
Or I feel like if we raise awareness, if we educate our children, maybe we can lessen the numbers. You know, if we talk to our teenagers when they're 10, 12 and explore with them, say, Hey, you're experiencing a lot of changes. You've got a lot of questions. And I understand you may not be able to come to me as your parent, but you are at risk of harming another child, either a younger sibling or a cousin. And so we need to talk about this. What do you know when you have these feelings? And, and we need to talk about pornography. So that's why I I I am, it's an all encompassing, it's a whole family trauma. And, and I work very closely with the women of Five Wave, I dunno if you know anything about the Five Ways, but there's three parents and two survivors.
Speaker 2:
We've come together. And so the parents have shared their stories when they discover sibling sexual abuse and trauma in their homes and what the parents go through. Yes. What the survivor goes through, what the person who cause harm goes through. If we just talk about it and raise awareness and, and educate people and quit shoving it under the rug, maybe we can lift the numbers. Maybe we can get people help. Because you are a very, you're an informed therapist. You, you are very informed. A lot of therapists I've heard from survivors, they'll, they'll tell a survivor, well, you know, kids are curious. You are very informed. We need more of you . We really do.
Speaker 1:
Let me ask you something. Are there statistics? 'cause I'm not aware of them. If there are, and I'd love to know, um, about how many of the siblings be they girls or boys, we might point out it's not necessarily, um, and of course, or, or any gender identification. Um, absolutely. And how, what are the statistics on whether they have been abused themselves and then turn around and abused?
Speaker 2:
Unfortunately, we don't really have those statistics. We need more research. And the women of five Waves, we've actually had people, researchers are reaching out to us, asking us to share their surveys. So there is progress. Again, it's the marathon, not the sprint. So we are trying to gain more, more insight into that. And that's another thing is that I, I hear from survivors a lot. They reach out to me and they say, well, you know, my sibling did this to me, or my cousin did this to me, and then I did it to another child. And that there's shame on top of shame. Yes, indeed. And that happens a lot. Happens a lot. Mm-hmm. . But we don't have those statistics. Again, we need more research and we need more awareness and we need to be talking about it. And that, that's why I'm very loud.
Speaker 1:
What, what is the name of the organization that you Women of five.
Speaker 2: (20:58)
Okay. So it's called Five Waves Worldwide Awareness
Speaker 1: (21:02)
Wave. W A V E Ss. Correct.
Speaker 2: (21:04)
Worldwide Awareness, Voice, Education and Support. Okay. The way we came together, I've just been out there being very loud. And I am a moderator of a Facebook group for all types of survivors. And we kept having parents keep trying to join. And we're like, well, this is for survivors. So I went to find a parent support group, and through that I found a parent who had started a Facebook group for parents experiencing sibling sexual abuse and trauma in their homes. In their homes. So I reached out to her and I tried to join her group and she politely declined . And then I had a person reach out to me, Brandy Black, which is a pen name, to protect her family. Mm-hmm. . She said, look, it's been during Covid this happened in my home. I couldn't find any research, I couldn't find any resources on it. So I developed a website. Will you look at it? I promised my children to have a survivor look at it. And I said, whoa, this is amazing. Great. That's something I don't have to do. Was on my list. And I started looking at her website, Brandy Black.
Speaker 1: (22:03)
Oh, black. Okay.
Speaker 2: (22:04)
Black. I said, I can't get through this. I'm writing my TEDx. So I pulled in another survivor that I knew who was public, Maria Awa. And then I reached out to the woman who ran the Facebook group. And we all came together as 5WAVES. Oh, see. And the parents shared their stories. We shared their stories. So what we have through this organization, it's now 5 0 1 C three, is we are becoming thought leaders in this arena, or it's all out of a matter of, of, of caring. But we all have unique perspectives and we just wanna raise awareness. We want families to have support. We want families to have resources. We, you know, obviously one day we'd love to have this go away, but we aren't, you know, we aren't that optimistic. It, it's been going on forever.
Speaker 1:
Two cases come to mind that are the opposite. Um, both of them were difficult. One case, um, a case, one woman's story, um, was, uh, I was seeing the mother actually in therapy, and her daughter told her that her brother had sexually abused her. Um, the mother went to another state and confronted the, the brother. And he said, yes, he had, it took them probably it would took them years. I'm not sure how many, because the mother had to do her own work. The, the daughter, um, started working on herself. Um, 'cause she was definitely making choices that were very, um, tied to that, uh, that kind of abuse. So was the perpetrator the, or you go the person who did harm? He got his therapy finally. They got together and did therapy. But it was a long time before this family got together for Thanksgiving or, you know, anything like that, because the, the, the pain was just too real.
Speaker 1:
And, and yet I, they gradually worked toward that. It was marvelous to see the kind of healing that could actually take place when everybody was, and the mother, you know, had to take some responsibility for saying was I checked out. I mean, you know, maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Um, and so they did great work. You know, I also have an example of a patient who I was seeing the daughter who was abused. The sister who was abused, uh, when she was a toddler, she had a twin. And she didn't remember it until the twin did. And then they confronted the family together. Actually, before she saw me. The family kind of nodded. It was an older brother. The older brother said, it wasn't me. I think it was a neighbor. Um, that wasn't true. And not a word was said about it again.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. It's very common.
Speaker 1:
And she was, she had the kind of family where they expected her to be there at every birthday, at every anniversary, at every holiday, at every religious event. I mean, and it was every time she was, she had anorexia still does. She would just not eat for days, um, after a home visit. So it, you know, those two situations are so contrasting and, and, and one of there can, there can be healing. Yes. It's hard, but there can be healing.
Speaker 2:
Yeah. And I, I think that the second scenario that you talked about, if you're a parent, I mean, parents experience a lot too when they discover this mm-hmm. . And if they go to Google and they can't find anything, if they aren't understanding, they may think, well, my, my child's the only person in the world who's harmed a sibling, or is my child gonna grow up to be a pedophile? And it's probably terrifying and probably easier to say, okay, let's just pretend status quo, and let's just, let's just go forward. Let's just shove it under the rug. That's what we're hoping to raise awareness. So if the parent, they, they got, I mean, wouldn't it be amazing if like, the Today Show covered this?
Speaker 1:
Sure. Wouldn't
Speaker 2:
It be, you know, sibling sexual abuse? Then a mom might think, oh, that's ho that's horrible. I can't believe that's happening. But then if, if she hears about it in her home or friend, she'll say, oh, but I heard this was a thing. You know, it's, it's at least in their subconscious, because if we don't get it out there, it's really hard for a parent to wrap their heads around. Of course. I mean, I can't imagine. I am a parent and I try to educate my children to the point where they run away from me. , . But, um, I, I can't, it's really hard for parents to wrap their head around. And that's, we're just trying to raise that awareness. But I hear from a lot of survivors that they're expected to just go on is normal, and, and you're asking a survivor to, to sit in the room with someone who abused them and possibly in the same home where they were abused. And that's very triggering. That's very difficult.
Speaker 1:
Yes, it is. And, and it doesn't get any easier. Another woman comes to mind who said, you know, that she sits by her brother every day or every Sunday at church, and she's always crying and people believe she's crying because she's moved by the service. And actually she's just, she's overwhelmed with feelings about the abuse that he has denied and continues to deny. So it's, it's, gosh, it's so painful. But there, there can be healing. Um, what, what did your mother, how did your mother handle it?
Speaker 2:
Well, I told her, I wanna say I was around age 24 when I was still pushing it off. It was just two kids. It just, it ha it happened. Uh, um, and I kind of said it in passing, and she cried. She said, I believe you, but where was I? Where was I? And then she started questioning. She said, but he's a good kid. He, he always knew right from wrong. There was a lot of confusion. And then I pushed it back. I put it back in its box, and we didn't talk about it for years. And then when it reared its ugly head in my current marriage mm-hmm. , um, she didn't understand. I said, I need to come forward. I need, I need to talk about this. I need to come forward. And she, she said, you need to forgive him. You need to forgive him.
Speaker 2:
And I said, I don't need to do anything. I will forgive him when I'm ready on my own terms. And she gave me the books on forgiveness, and I rolled my eyes. You can't, you can't force that. And she said, what about his family? And I screamed at her. I said, his family. Yeah, yeah. Because unfortunately, I took him, I was angry at him. I was angry at my husband. I was angry at my, my siblings wife. I was angry at my siblings children, and I pushed them all aside mm-hmm. . And they didn't understand why I was pushing them away. They didn't know mm-hmm. . So I did come to terms with it, and I did forgive my brother on my terms when I was ready. And then I reached out to my mom and I said, I forgave him. And there was relief in her voice mm-hmm.
Speaker 2:
. And then she realized, oh, now I've got my own journey of forgiveness. And she had to follow her own journey. And she was at the TEDx, she was in the audience. She didn't know what I was going to say. And, but by the time she was at the TEDx, I think she was in a good place. Um, she loves both of her children. It's, it's a very tough position to be in. And there were times when I said, I don't wanna be in the same room with him. And that was really hard for her. Mm-hmm. . So she seems to be on her own journey, and I think she's into the point where she's been able to accept it and, and sees why I'm being so public and understands why I am so public.
Speaker 1:
So what's been the changes in your life? I mentioned in the intro that you have over half a million views. What, how has your life changed since the TEDx and, and what are your plans for the future as this, as you, as you run this marathon?
Speaker 2:
Yes. It, it, I'm still running the marathon. Expect I, the finish line keeps moving. I, I actually heard from another survivor yesterday via email because it came across the TEDx. And so people are finding me through the TEDx and, and when they find me through the TEDx, I'm able to get them into Facebook support groups. I'm able to get them resources. So I know that they're in a community of people that's been, you know, I think when we can help others that help heal us mm-hmm. , um, I am, I'm still writing my memoir. It's so, so close. I have a children's book that I've, I've submitted. I'm waiting to hear back if they will publish it or not. That's what's on my radar right now. I am slowing down a little bit. I try and be supportive within the Facebook groups. I, I'm trying to, um, answer all my social media messages because I get a lot of social media messages. A lot of people on TikTok, unfortunately, a lot of my people are on TikTok. They're a younger age.
Speaker 2:
I'm slowing down a little bit. One, I'm tired. Two, I have two teenage boys who are in 10th grade, and they will be leaving me in three years. So I'm trying to be very, very present with them and enjoy them. Sure. And I just kind of show up wherever I'm needed and trying to, to support Five waves and, and keep that momentum going and, and just raising more awareness through five. Nobody's selling anything. We're not trying to, you know, obviously we're looking for donations, but, you know, we're not selling anything. We're not making any money. We're just trying to raise awareness and, and collaborate. We're having more and more people reach out wanting to volunteer with us, which is great. 'cause we're five people mm-hmm. . And yeah. I'm just looking forward to a day when there's more survivors who feel comfortable coming forward. And, and honestly, I I welcome hearing from those who caused harm too. Um, I feel we've received a couple emails. If,
Speaker 1:
If someone wanted to donate or volunteer or just, I mean, can you give the names of the Facebook groups or do they reach out to you? How, how is that, how do you want them to do that? Right.
Speaker 2: (32:14)
The 5WAVES.org website. Okay. You can email us there. You can contact us if you're, if you're, if you're a parent, if you're a survivor, if you're someone who's caused harm, you can email us there. And then also on that website, we have Facebook groups and, and we, we try and respond to every email that we can. Yeah. So that's where I'm headed right now. I kind of show up where I am needed .
Speaker 1:
And so I'm a great admirer of yours. And I, because I think you did this TEDx for a really good reason. Um, and I mean, and, and a very honorable reason. And so, uh, that I, I admire greatly.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you. And I admire you as much. I I think that we, I I was looking forward to this interview and I told my husband this morning, I said, this'll be a great interview because she, she's informed and she knows what she's talking about. She's done the research, she's done the homework. So I really appreciate it.
Speaker 1:
Oh, well, thank you. Take very good care. Thank you.
Speaker 1:
I know you could tell from Jane's interview just how sincere and how passionate she is about getting this message out. And we at SelfWork wanted to help her do just that. The organization Jane refers to in the interview is the worldwide awareness, voice, education, and support. Better known as 5WAVES.org. And the five is not spelled out, is a numeral. So 5WAVES.org give if you can. It's a 5 0 1 3 C. So it's a nonprofit. And I wanna thank Jane and all other survivors of abuse who come forward. It takes tremendous courage to do so. Thank you for being here at SelfWork today. Please take care of yourself, your loved ones, and your community. I'm Dr. Margaret, and this has been SelfWork.
Hello my friends!
This September (2023) we're giving away two(2) copies of a little book Christine Mathias and I worked on called Marriage Is Not For Chickens. A post by the same name, when it appeared in HuffPost, earned over 200,000 views and over 50,000 shares... Wow! (Of course, I didn't get a call to be on a morning talk show... lolol)
This book may take you two minutes to read because it's meant to be a gift for someone who's getting married or deciding to commit to a relationship - or maybe to someone who's having an anniversary. The photos that fit all 24 statements of "what marriage is" and "what marriage is not" were either taken by Christine or my old high school friend Deborah Strauss. The images are breath-taking, poignant, evocative, or simply "right." We're very proud of it - and hope it will give you and yours joy.
So, all you have to do is leave a written review on the SelfWork page on Apple Podcasts to be included in the drawing! But I realized, you might need to hear what it's all about. So that's what today's quick YGTG (You Get The Gist) is all about!
Listen in, smile, and I hope you enter the contest - so you can give it away, keep it, or have fun with it in some way or the other.
Dr. Margaret's TEDxBocaRaton Talk (now with 155,000 views!)
You can listen to Dr. Margaret's TEDxBocaRaton Talk on perfectly hidden depression and the Immediate need for greater transparency in talking about emotional pain and suicidal feelings.
You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, The Selfwork Podcast. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available 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!
And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
We certainly have had – and the world has had – our fair share of reasons to grieve. Wherever you live, you felt the fear and loss of the pandemic. Add on to that, the impact of hurricanes, tornados, drought, fires, floods, war, racism, political unrest, violence… we’ve got it all - some countries more than others. But these events are also a backdrop for whatever happens in our personal lives – people who we’ve loved dying, losing a job, having to move or even to escape from where you’ve lived, developing a severe mental or physical illness or one that’s chronically debilitating, being abused… The list goes on and on.
And we need to grieve.
Yet, one of the ironies is that the model we’ve been taught – in a very “this is how you should be grieving” kind of way – was created to help us understand what the person dying might feel and wasn't created to describe the grief of people who are alive and grieving loss.
What’s grief really like? How do the stages that Kübler-Ross help? How do they hurt? What are the effects of your culture or faith alter your experience of grief? How is the Internet changing the way we grieve?
The listener email for today is from a woman whose sense of emotional stability has decreased after the death of her father – and she has no relationship with her mom. She uses the term, “I feel orphaned.” So as always, we’ll talk about what you can do about it.
Before we go on, I’d like to invite you to listen and watch my TEDxBocaRaton talk.. Here’s one of the many reviews… "Dr. Rutherford, what a beautiful talk. I watched it several times. We can all learn to recognize the signs and be ready to support those who might be silently struggling. This TEDx talk is a powerful reminder to be more attentive to the people around us, listen beyond the surface, and offer support without judgment."
Click here to listen!
Have you been putting off getting help? BetterHelp, the #1 online therapy provider, has a special offer for you now!
Heidi Bastian's article in The Atlantic
Article: It's Time To Let The Five Stages of Grief Die
Dr. Franco's article on cultural differences in grief.
You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, The Selfwork Podcast. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available 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!
And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
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.
Welcome or welcome back to SelfWork. I'm Dr. Margaret Ruthford. I'm so glad you're here. I started this podcast almost seven years ago now to extend the walls of my practice to those of you who are already interested maybe in therapy or you were just interested in psychological stuff, to those of you who might have just been diagnosed or you're looking for some answers. And to those of you who might just be a little skeptical about the whole mental health horizon, so welcome, welcome to all of you.
We certainly have had, and the world has had their fair share of reasons to grieve recently. Wherever you live, you felt the fear and loss of the pandemic. Add onto that, the impact of hurricanes, tornadoes, drought, fires, floods, war, racism, political unrest, violence - we've got it all - some countries more than others, but these events are also a backdrop for whatever happens in our personal lives, people who we've loved dying, we lose a job, we have to move or even you, you have to escape where you've lived. You develop a severe mental or physical illness or or that's chronically debilitating or someone you love does or you're being abused.
The list goes on and on and we need to grieve.
And yet one of the ironies, and what I want to address in today's SelfWork is that the model we've had taught to us in a very "this is how you should be grieving" kind of way, was initially met or designed to describe the stages of grief for the person who is terminally ill or dying themselves. It's Elizabeth Kübler Ross's five stages of grief. It was never meant for the people who were alive in grieving a loss.
So that's what we're gonna talk about today. What's grief really like? How did the stages that Kübler Ross suggests help? How do they hurt? What are the effects of your culture or faith and how does that alter your experience of grief? How is the internet changing the way we grieve? That's an interesting kind of subject.
The listener mail for today is from a woman whose sense of emotional stability has decreased after the death of her father, and she has no relationship with her mom. She uses the term, "I feel orphaned." I've heard so many people say this, so we're gonna talk about it today on SelfWork.
Before we go on, I'd like to invite you to listen and watch my TEDxBocaRaton talk. Here's one of the many reviews, "Dr. Margaret Rutherford. What a beautiful talk. I watched it several times. We can all learn to recognize the signs and be ready to support those who might be silently struggling. This TEDx talk is a powerful reminder to be more attentive to the people around us. Listen beyond the surface and offer support without judgment. Together we can break mental health stigma and create a more compassionate and understanding society."
So I will have the link in the show notes or you can just put in Dr. Margaret Rutherford TEDx and it'll lead you right with my YouTube. And of course, if you like it, please say you do or check that off and even leave a review. I'm beginning to get asked to speak about perfectly in depression directly because of this TEDx talk. And so that's a wonderful and very helpful way you can help me spread what I believe is a very important message. Thanks, my gratitude to y'all.
Elizabeth Kübler-Ross, the psychiatrist who first developed and wrote about five stages of grief, gathered her ideas from conversations with dying patients. She talked to them and she watched the grief that they go through. And yet it was snapped up by others to describe what everyone who is grieving must go through. In fact, it doesn't make a lot of sense when you think of it and it's even becomes something you should be going through, which is really ridiculous. For one thing, the stages are interactive, but somehow people have felt bad that those stages weren't part of their experience.
In an article put out by McGill entitled, it's Time to Let the Five Stages of Grief Die. The author state and I quote while she was a psychiatry resident in New York, Kubler Ross realized how little attention was paid by hospital staff to terminally ill patients and how little medical knowledge there was regarding the psychological aspects besetting patients facing death.
She worked extensively with terminally ill patients throughout her medical school career and continued to study and teach about such topics. She was also criticized by academic researchers for not running a real study. Instead, she used conversations with a dying as her basis for putting the stages forth and wanting medical staff to be a better attuned to what was going on with these patients.
Now, what are those stages that she was describing? You may have thought I needed to know this way before now, but here we go. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. She asserted that these stages weren't rigid. You could feel or express them at any time. Denial that you were dying or that you had a serious illness might make you not seek treatment or refuse treatment. Keep how serious your illness was out of your consciousness. Anger is the second one, anger that it feels unfair that you're not ready to die, that you have more life to live.
The third one is bargaining. If I can just get better, I'll never do X, Y, or Z again, or I'll start doing X, Y, or Z. Then there's depression, sadness over past choices, sadness over not having control, sadness that you're leaving the people you love, the life you've been fulfilled by and thus acceptance, realizing there's truly no more you can do. Acceptance that you won't see your grandchild born or your kid graduating from high school. Of course, how you grieve is shaped so much by the culture you live in or in the rituals, the religion you follow or that you have faith in general. Dr. Marissa Franco, who we've had here as SelfWork as a guest, she's really cool, writes in Psychology Today that research suggests that when we're helping our loved ones cope with grief, we should consider what they find.
Most supportive people in the Asian and Asian American communities for example, may prefer spending time with close others without talking about their grief. While people in the European American community may want more explicit emotional support. So she's pointing out that we need to understand and be aware of how a certain person may be grieving, how their culture influences them, how their faith influences them, and what you may need or want to do to be respectful of that because that's what's important. Even with the best of intentions, you may make someone's experience of grief more difficult or if they really want that kind of support from you, they want to talk about their loved one who's gone. Then you hold back obvious emotional support and you don't wanna do that, or at least most of us don't. <laugh> actually to know what's truly helpful. You could of course ask and not assume, how would you like for me to support you?
So what role does a belief in life after death have on grief? I looked at several different studies but was drawn to one whose results showed that people reporting no spiritual belief had not resolved their grief. By 14 months after the death, participants with strong spiritual beliefs resolved their grief progressively over the same period. And then people with low levels of belief showed little change in the first nine months but thereafter resolved their grief. So basically a spiritual belief seemed to increase the likelihood that you'll resolve your grief earlier and even a small bit of relief helped to resolve grief more quickly. That's important.
But let me quickly say that's not necessarily been what I've seen in my own clients, and I've watched many people grieve. Because so much of what matters is the timing or the way someone died. Did you have a chance to do what's called anticipatory grieving? Allowing yourself to feel what it's going to feel like to lose someone you love, whether you got to say goodbye, whether you feel to blame or partially responsible for their death or you were told that you were responsible.
Grief can often challenge your belief in some of these instances. If there's a God, then how did this happen? Now for those of you listening who say, if you believe in heaven, if you believe in life after death or if your religion is Buddhist or Hindu or whatever it is, that may of course be very comforting. I'm not saying that, but here's an example. I worked with a man years ago whose alcoholic parents had told him he was to blame for a sibling's death when he had been only a child himself. When it occurred they were inside drinking and this 10 year old boy was tasked with watching his four younger siblings and one of them got hit by a car.
So obviously when you're blamed, when you have a terrible time processing your own grief, or maybe you lose contact with others who you might be grieving with, you've got to go back to college or you've got a new job or you've quickly moved to a new home. So those that you might be grieving with are no longer there. Of course, our modern technology helps with that, but still, but there's also the possibility that you are not even allowed to speak of your mom who died because your father has remarried.
So many factors affect your grief, how you are encouraged to express it or how you're not allowed to do so again, faith, a certain structure of what happens after death. If you believe, that can certainly be helpful, but from my perspective at in my experience, that suddenly you just don't grieve. That's far too simplistic. Let's stop for a moment for a brief message and offer from BetterHelp where you just might turn in this kind of grieving situation or time.
I recently heard a fascinating reframe for the idea of asking for help. Maybe you view asking for help as something someone does who's falling apart or who isn't strong. So consider this. What if asking for help means that you won't let anything get in your way of solving an issue, finding out an answer or discovering a better direction? Asking for help is much more about your determination to recognize what needs your attention or what is getting in your way of having the life you want better help. The number one online therapy provider makes reaching out about as easy as it can get. Within 48 hours, you'll have a professional licensed therapist with whom you can text, email, or talk with to guide you and you're not having to comb through therapist websites or drive to appointments. It's convenient, inexpensive, and readily available. Now you can find a therapist that fits your needs with better help and if you use the code or link betterhelp.com/selfwork, you get 10% off your first month of sessions. So just do it. You'll be glad you did that. Link again is betterhelp.com/selfwork to get 10% off your first month of surfaces.
Sometimes when I'm looking into a topic like I did today, I realize that someone has said something born from their their own experience and expertise that I just can't say better. So when I read this Atlantic article by a grieving mother who's also a researcher, Heidi Bastian, I knew I was having that experience again. She went looking after her 38 year old son's sudden death for help. She found everything from you'll never survive This grief to the idea that there is a time period when grief will be at its strongest but will abate. I want to share this with you because it's the wisest thing I've read on my journey to bring you this episode. So I'm going to be directly quoting from Heidi Bastian's Atlantic article, and if you want to read all of it, I will have it in the show notes.
So I quote, "For most people, after most deaths, grief starts to ease after a few weeks and continues to reduce. From there, there can still be tough times ahead, but in most circumstances, by the time you reach six months, you're unlikely to be in a constant state of severe grief. Although most people will experience grief when they lose someone close to them, they won't be overwhelmed by it. For roughly half the bereaved grief is mild or moderate and then subsides among those who experience high levels of grief at the outset, distress will usually begin to ease in a few weeks or months to, it's not a straight line where each day is better than the one before, but the overall level of suffering does go down over time"
"Some bereaved people thought about 10% according to the research will be in severe grief for six months or longer. The risk of remaining in deep grief for more than a year is higher for those under socioeconomic stress or who experience the loss of a spouse and it's even higher still after the loss of a child or a sudden death via accident, suicide or homicide."
That's kind of what I was saying before. So for example, I worked with someone last year who lost her older child in a plane wreck and her husband was also on that plane - and he survived. So where does grief get expressed in that family? Often grieve isn't a solo event others lived through. So again, is there a right way to grieve? No, no, no.
Also, to chime in with Ms. Bastian, I have found that grief sort of comes in waves and I've talked about this on the podcast. And you'll wonder and even be afraid what's happening when you get hit by what seems like a stronger wave than ever when your grief had been subsiding. "Oh my, I'm going all the way back to where I was in the first place." That's not my experience with grief. Grief comes in waves and some are stronger than others and then all of a sudden you can get hit by a rogue wave when you get triggered in some way. That's also grief.
But let's talk about when it becomes more severe in penetrating, and I'm gonna go back to Miss Bastian's article. "Adults who face this long-running, even severe distress are experiencing what many clinicians and researchers term prolonged or complicated grief. This increases their chances of having serious mental and physical health problems, including premature death and suicidal thoughts. Even if we don't personally know someone who died within a couple of years of a major loss, we've probably all heard stories of it".
So back to just me talking <laugh>, there is a new diagnosis called complicated grief and it's still very controversial 'cause it seems to be pathologizing really deep grief and they give it some sort of one year cutoff. If you're still grieving after one year, then you should be given a diagnosis of complicated grief. The Washington Post op-ed argued why set expectations on its pace or texture.
Why pathologize love? Now I'm back to Miss Bastian. Okay, so basically Adam was the name of her son, and I'm gonna go back to this part of her article. "When Adam died, I needed hope that a vibrant life was within my reach. The science showed me that it might be closer than I could even imagine. So I tried to look forward, forward as I did so I held onto a thought about my boy that helped me face a future without him."
And this is incredibly profound. So please listen closely. Ms. Baston: "He had loved me his whole life, that love is precious and it's for keeps. I will not waste it." So what she seems to be saying is she's reached a space or place in her heart and her mind where emotionally dying herself from the pain of losing her son would devalue his love for her.
I remember a woman I worked with many years ago or several years ago, lost her daughter in a tragic accident, completely shocking and a little more than a year after her death, she went to a wedding of one of her daughter's really good friends and they had a picture of her daughter there because she was supposed to have been in the wedding. And she came back into therapy and said something very similar to Ms. Bastian. She said, "I realized I was there because everyone there had loved my daughter and I loved my daughter, and I was there to honor her as hard as it was for her to go." Deciding you're not going to emotionally die along with your your son or your brother, or your mother or your friend is so important. I see this so much. It's a choice to continue living and in so doing, honoring the person who died.
I get a Christmas card every year, in fact, from a family I saw years ago, a couple who'd lost their second child days after his birth.One of them became very angry as his faith was temporarily shattered. The other focused on their living child while also grieving and they had a bit of struggle trying to understand and accept that their separate ways of grieving was okay, that neither had to give up or change their grieving pattern to appease the other.
I've seen this difference in grief often within a couple. It's not wrong, it's normal and natural in their card. I noticed immediately another child that had been born, I'm sure they still grieve the child that didn't live, but it doesn't seem to be stopping them from living and connecting to their life. Now, if you're struggling, then please do seek help. If you're stuck, you can get unstuck, but you may need someone who understands that there's no correct recipe for grief. You simply may need help through compassion and gathering hope.
Here's our listener email for today. Hi, Dr. Rutherford. I listened to your podcast many times and I love it. I'm 49. I escaped my mom physically to be leaving Israel 23 years ago. I've done extensive work on myself and now I'm in the process of writing a book. Since my dad passed away three years ago also in Israel, I've been re-experiencing feeling wise, returned anxiety, depression, and I'm not as grounded and solid in my place in life. It's all subjective. I have a great family, friends and a husband, but I feel orphaned and guilty for being a bad daughter to my mom, feeling sort of lonely. I'm in California and would love to connect on better help. She didn't realize I couldn't do that. The book writing is obviously triggering, but at the same time I have to do it. I love writing.
So again, this was another message that was sent to me on my email, askdrmargaret@drmargaretrutherford.com and I invite you to do so. But as I read this, the first analogy that came to mind as this listener was talking about how writing a book, I'm assuming about her struggles as a child in Israel is very triggering for her. Of course it is often when people tell me they don't want to journal, but I might be suggesting it. What they say is, "I don't know what it'll be like to actually see things in black and white." Or I also hear, "What if someone finds it?"
The first question I answer by saying they're absolutely correct. It's often difficult to see your feelings on paper to write down the painful experiences you had. It brings them much more to the surface. You bet it's hard. Here's the analogy I've used. So if your memories are held in a big iron soup pod on the stove and they've been simmering very, very slowly for years with the top on, so slowly they've barely even created any steam, but now you're opening the lid and you might get a huge cloud of steam that reflects those experiences and you have a sudden painful reaction, but you leave the lid off and the puddle settle down again, right?
It'll go back to a simmer. In fact, you might not be able to smell anything at all when you got a huge whiff when you first opened the pot. But what if you continue to stir the pot with every one of those stirs some of the smells of your past, the emotions and memories that belong to what happened will become stronger. Therapy's almost always about stirring the pot, talking with friends, however you communicated. However you begin to reveal yourself is stirring the pot and journaling, or certainly writing a book is also doing the same thing.
But there's one other factor. The death of her father and she doesn't describe their relationship, just says he was also in Israel. But that death may be very symbolically reminding her of the many losses she's experienced, maybe her dad's voice helped her feel that she'd done what she needed to do to protect herself from her mom. Maybe she's simply grieving that her dad is also gone. I'm not sure, but all of this sounds normal to me. Given the circumstance, estranging yourself from a parent or a sibling due to the damaging impact they had on you. When that estrangement is about self-protection, it's complicated. It can be a relief in many ways, but it's very sad as well. I hope this listener goes to better help or a local therapist to get some of the feedback that she seems to need.
Once again, thank you for being here. I wanna remind you we're doing a little giveaway. If you'll leave a review, an actual written review on Apple Podcasts, then I'm gonna choose two of those reviewers to get a book. Marriage is Not for Chickens, and what I'm gonna do, I realize that many of you probably don't even know what I'm talking about. So in a YGTG coming up in just a couple of days, I'll actually read the book to you. It takes about maybe two and a half minutes <laugh>, it's a little book meant to be a gift or a little anniversary, something special present or a getting married present. And I know we have a lot of following winter weddings coming up, or like I say, just anniversaries. It's a fun little gift. My communications manager, Christine Mathias, who's also this incredible photographer, she and I did it and she did a lot of the pictures and certainly did a lot of the framing of those.
And I had a friend from way long ago also contribute to the photography. But the post itself, actually when it was in the Huffington Post, it earned 200,000 views and 50,000 shares. And of course, I didn't get invited on Good Morning America or <laugh>, any of those. I guess if you're writing about something happy, that doesn't happen, but I'm gonna give away two copies to two people who leave written reviews for the month of September. So have at it.
Let me know what you think about SelfWork, whether that's to say, oh, I wish you didn't do this so much, or you know, whatever I really need and want your feedback. Thanks so much and subscribe. Get onto my new website at drmargaretruthford.com. Look around. It's a lot of fun and if you subscribe there, then you'll get my weekly newsletter. That's it, I promise. But it has some interesting things that I'm doing or ideas I have things that you could be a part of on my Facebook page, that's facebook.com/groups/ self-work. Sometimes we get together for discussions, that kind of thing. But all in all, thank you for being here today. Please take very good care of you, of that family you love, and friends that you love, and your community. I'm Dr. Margaret and this has been SelfWork.
I was shocked to see this past week that I'd never done an episode on the four most well-researched communication patterns that can predict a couple will divorce or end their relationship. And I talk about them in couples therapy all the time! These four have been written about extensively by the well-known pair of researchers John and Julie Gottman – and I think their work is right on target, given what I sadly see on a regular basis in my office. And I’ll offer the most recent ways these four distinct behaviors can appear in the modern partnership. Sadly, if you or your partner don’t see these things as problems, then that is a tremendous issue. But if you’re not aware of the danger of these, then you may not know the quicksand your relationship is in – and sinking fast.
The listener voicemail is from someone who was taught that everything in her life had to appear “perfect” – even saying that if someone comes over for dinner, there need to be five courses and the house has got to be spotless. That is truly a prison and she wants out! But… she lives in the same city as her mother – who taught her all this – and she fears moving away from those choices and what her mother’s reactions might be. I so love the questions y’all send in so keep them coming!
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Click HERE for the NEW fabulous offer from AG1 – with bonus product with your subscription!
Article describing the original Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse
You can hear more about this and many other topics by listening to my podcast, The Selfwork Podcast. Subscribe to my website and receive my weekly newsletter including a blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression is available 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!
And there’s another way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
Dr. Margaret: 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 so glad you're here. I hope you've enjoyed the last few interviews. I thought especially Dr. Priyanka Wali’s interview was really fascinating, a doctor and a comedian. She also just had some wonderful thoughts - that was last week. Hope you get a chance to listen to that if you haven't.
I was commenting on an Instagram post the other day about someone giving their partner this silent treatment, which is something we all hear about. And I was looking for podcast episodes I'd done on marriage. I thought surely there'd be a whole bunch of them. And to my shock. I found ONE on stonewalling, but not much else. I was really looking for talking about problems in marriages that cause maybe divorce or something like that. And there are actually very well researched bad habits. There are four of them that can predict divorce.
So that's the topic for today. These four have been written about extensively by the well-known pair of researchers, John and Julie Gottman, and I think their work is right on target, given what I sadly see on a regular basis in my office. We'll focus on the Gottman's four candidates and you can see what you and your partner may be guilty of. Sadly, if you or your partner don't see these things as problems, then that itself is a tremendous issue. But if you're not aware of the danger of these habits, then you may not know the quicksand your relationship actually could be in and you could be sinking fast.
Now, I'm not a researcher, but I'll also add a few more thoughts of my own about what these look like in the modern 2023 relationships.
The listener voicemail is from someone who was taught that everything in her life had to appear perfect.
Even saying that if someone comes over for dinner, there need to be five courses and the house has got to be spotless. That's truly a prison and she wants out, but she lives in the same city as her mother who taught her all this, and she fears moving away from those choices and what her mother's reactions might be. I love these questions that y'all send in. So please send a message over SpeakPipe, which is a voicemail, and I get to listen to your inflections and your voices and I love that. And the SpeakPipe option is in your show notes, but it's also on my website, drmargaretrutherford.com. It's right at the top. Let's hear first from SelfWorknsponsor Magnesium breakthrough.
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Body of Episode:
So let's talk about ways that you can really screw up your marriage,
Dr. Margaret – Speaker 2
Marital work or couples work. Any kind of couple really is something I love to do. It's very challenging to help both people feel heard and understood - not always agreed with of course, but as long as I don't have one or both people looking at me and saying, “Please help them see how wrong they are”. <Laugh>, I feel pretty hopeful - in most cases at least. But sometimes that's exactly what's on one or both people's agenda. They've come to therapy way after they should have, it's really, it's not too late, but gosh, they've come in after multiple fights and threats of divorce or “I'm taking the children”, after affairs or betrayals of some kind have happened, be they financial or emotional or whatever.
And they sit and argue in front of me at least for a while. I allow it to go on because I want to see the pattern that is as long as it doesn't get physically or verbally assaulted.
If it does, I have to cool things down and sometimes this is what I'll do. To cool them down. I'll ask them both, “What do you think are the four greatest predictors of divorce?” Usually I get answers like fighting or your in-laws or trust kinds of answers. And that's not wrong. But the best research out there, in fact, the most rigorous that has been done is by Julie and John Gottman and what they call the four horsemen of the apocalypse - in this case, meaning the end of the partnership or marriage, are well-regarded as true predictors in the field of psychology. So I look at the couple and by now they have kind of settled down, because remember, they probably wouldn't be in my office if they truly wanted a divorce.
So they're open to hear, “Well, okay, what are the predictors?” And I say very slowly in order of importance.
Stonewalling is number four. That's when one or both of you goes for hours or days refusing to communicate with the other. Usually someone looks kind of sheepish at that point. They may have even told me there are times, like even days, we barely say anything to each other because it's such a relief from the fighting. Or I've seen people kind of smirk like somehow stonewalling their partner is a really cool way to gain control works every time they'll say, which I would usually answer, “Well, if it worked really well, I don't think you'd be here.”
What's number three..Blaming. And not to be mean, but to make my point. I'll repeat a few phrases from what I've just listened to that I would call blaming. Or when you don't take your share or the responsibility for whatever problems there are, you're focused on the other one you think you're not or never to blame or you're quick to blame, you don't apologize.
You're quick to angrily yell, “Whose fault is this? Who did this? “ So, your focus is mostly on other people and what they're doing wrong and not taking responsibility for yourself.
Number two, let me let you think, if you can guess for a second, what could be number two, it's close to blaming…criticism - and now the room is getting even more quiet. What's the difference between blaming and criticizing? They usually are wrapped up together, but you can have one or the other that predominates like blaming is this is your fault. “This wouldn't have happened if you hadn't X, Y, or Z.” Where criticism isn't as much about fault, but about correcting them saying they're wrong. And you're right, you can hear shades of gaslighting here. “Why didn't you pay that bill?” Or, “ Why do you change the baby's diaper that way?” Lots of why questions, which puts everybody on the defense by the way, and why questions that infer criticism or there's downright criticism – “ The way you did that was just dumb” or labeling your partner, “You're so lazy “or bringing in the kids, “The children are on my side” here, or “All our friends agree with me.”
Making sure you establish yourself as more right than your partner. More put together. You're like a healthier, more likable human being. So that gives you the right to criticize your partner.
I think the worst thing, no, not the worst, maybe the funniest in many ways was one couple came in and they have one of those strings that come down in their garage so when they pull in, they know when to stop, you know, it kind of hits their windshield. And she was saying that thing would hit the windshield. He had a certain timing that if she didn't turn off the car like two seconds after that or a second after that, he told her, “You just don't know how to park.” It was really a little trivial <laugh>. She wasn't running into the wall. So what do you think the last one is? Guesses.
The last one is contempt. Now what does contempt sound like? And I either pull from what they've already said or I make up my own examples. Like , “I can't believe I married someone like you. No one would ever guess just how disgusting you can be.” “How could you be so stupid?” Or it can be nonverbal stuff l- ike eye-rolling. But it's you have a disdain, a contempt, a huge disrespect for the other person.
So this couple is sitting in front of me now looking maybe a little ashamed, maybe a little surprised, maybe a little shocked. And a few seconds later, one of them might say to me, “We do all of those.” And I say, “So we've got our work cut out for us, right?”
But guess what? Sometimes one of them will say, “Well, I never do any of those things”, or I” wouldn't do it if she didn't do it or he didn't do it or they didn't do it
Well guess what? That's blaming, right? <Laugh> or even contempt. And I point that out. Oh, so you just blamed her for all the problems or him.
Now before I go on, let me say that we probably all make these errors. We all have bad days. We say mean things. We may even know what criticisms to use that will really get our partner something like, you know, you're sounding just like your mother. Oh, I thought you told me you were gonna try to change that in Margaret's office. I don't really see it. That's contempt and we use it on purpose. But if a couple doesn't see these four things as problems or one of them doesn't or refuses to, that may likely reflect that there's true emotional abuse going on, which of course reflects another level of problem. It's not a bad habit that they've gotten into that's gotten out of hand.
It could be a choice to be in control and sabotage the worth and emotional stability of your partner and the absolute denial of blame or responsibility for any problem can be a destructive character trait that may not respond to therapeutic suggestion at all. Like in some of the personality disorders, borderline histrionic, narcissistic sociopathic, some of those problems if you are married to someone like that or partnered with them, it can take them some time to understand the impact they have on others if they can at all. But that's not the topic for today. We're talking about two pretty normal folks who've just gotten into some bad habits and may not recognize the horrible impact they can have.
One couple comes to mind immediately, but before I talk about them, let’s hear from AG1. Your support of these products helps us make and produce SelfWork. So remember that as you listen and if you think it might benefit you, then please go for it.
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Speaker 2:
Okay, so back to this couple. They came in only a few times together. She'd come to therapy to talk about feeling blamed for her husband's affairs that he'd had for years. “But he doesn't call them affairs,” she said, “They're all prostitutes. He says he only goes once a month. Sometimes they have sex, but most of the time he simply wants to be held. But he says it's my fault because I don't make love with him the right way, but I do love him and I'm willing to try.”
I'd asked her if he'd come in with her and much to my surprise, he said yes he would. When he came in, he looked and sounded extremely depressed and sure enough he'd had treatment after treatment for depression. He tried all kinds of medicines. He'd even tried E C T, which is electroconvulsive therapy, and he was still suicidal.
Frequently. I won't go into all of his story, but there was definite emotional abuse in his childhood by his mother and in therapy he stated that he hated himself for going to these prostitutes, hated his inability to stop, hated himself so much that that's what was behind the suicidality. This is an interesting fact. He'd never told any of the other treating doctors about this self-loathing or this behavior around going to prostitutes and how it was likely tied to continued suicidal thinking. Instead, he opted to keep going and keep hating himself and blaming his wife who he said he loved. He was so sad to hear and watch these two people in these patterns. I tried to give them both as much understanding and support as I could while also not justifying the hurt he was causing. What he couldn't see was how his present, very painful behavior was strongly linked or at least could be strongly linked to his anger, never expressed against his own mother.
Just look at it. He could express disdain and contempt for a woman, his wife, while still receiving comfort from both her and the prostitutes. He hinted that there were other painful secrets he was keeping. He could almost see it. I could see it in his eyes, but then he looked at me when I suggested treatment like I was out of my mind. I even found a one week intensive program that served professionals like him. No one would have to know or suspect anything, but he was on a vacation. His wife looked hopeful. He never came back. His wife came in one more time. She said, “This is my last session. I think coming to you was the worst thing I could have done. All you talked about were the painful things in our marriage and we have a really great marriage.” I listened and told her I understood that I regretted if she felt that it only focused on their pain and she left.
Speaker 2:
You could hear the problems, the four horsemen of the apocalypse. They would go a long time without talking to one another. He blamed her for a lot of his behavior, but he also hated himself. He was very critical of her. And of course there was some contempt as well as he didn't understand why she just couldn't accept his behavior. And I do remember looking at her and saying, that is an option for you to just accept that this is what is going on. And she said, I'll try, but I don't know. But obviously when she came in and was angry with me or that's where she focused, her anger was on me, which is okay, you know, that happens. She needed to feel like they had a really great marriage and you know, they're probably still married to one another now in the community. This couple is considered a great couple, but neither of them were at a place where they could see or chose to look for what was underneath their very painful patterns with each other.
I said earlier that I was gonna talk about some other more modern versions of these problems, so I'll do that now. Stonewalling, for example, it's basic withdrawal in order to feel in control. Non-communication. I think this can take the form interestingly enough of an intense focus on children where your child's life takes up so much of your time, you quote unquote, barely have any energy for your partner. Or it could be about work - you stonewall through work. Your attention to work could be so dominant in the relationship and you can justify it, right? Somebody's gotta make a living around here. But you can see perhaps that both could be related to stonewalling or they have a similar effect. You are not available for your partner, which you justify by saying that the children or your work or your major responsibility, but all the conflict you might have arguing, the criticism, the blaming, none of that ever gets worked out.
You don't sit down and have a talk with one another about what's going on between the two of you. Now, it could also be in the form of absorption and video games or Instagram or TikTok. These can also draw you completely away from the relationship as you spend hours isolating from your partner and attaching instead to this virtual reality, which can seem so much more interesting than what's happening or not happening at home. T
he other three, blaming, criticism and contempt are basic bad attitudes or habits that I imagine have been part of every generation and every era. Sadly, they have also been culturally acceptable historically, especially men treating women that way in relationships. And I'm sure there are examples of women treating men that way. In fact, I know that in certain families that consider the woman more powerful, that it is culturally acceptable for her to treat him badly.
And then of course you can look for support for these behaviors, the blaming, criticism and contempt by socializing with other people who blame and criticize and show immense contempt for reasons they justify. This sort of blaming and criticism and contempt is destructive in a culture and it's certainly destructive in a partnership. The four horsemen of the apocalypse, stonewalling, blaming, criticism and contempt, they herald or predict the end of what was once treasured. Please think about them in your own life, in your beliefs and in your relationships.
Voicemail announcement
Speak pipe message from drmargaretrutherford.com.
Dr. Margaret
Let's hear from a listener from Canada.
Voicemail from listener:
Hi Dr. Margaret. So I am 37 and a mother of three kids and my question to you is, I was told by a therapist a couple years ago that I am a perfectionist and that's why it's stopping me from applying from jobs, which I always think I'll never be good enough for. I rarely invite people over because I feel like the house should be super clean and it there should be a five course meal. This was something I've learned from my mother. She's very focused on how our family appears to the exterior, to other people. I've been trying to <laugh> rewire myself, so I don't feel that. But however, inside I don't feel good doing those things. I feel it's like the people pleasing part. I feel that I will be judged if I don't make everything appear great. It's hard for me because my mother is still like that. And when I visit her, we live in the same city. I feel an internal conflict and it, it's anxiety provoking for me. How do I deal with that of being myself and kind of not doing
Dr. Margaret
This voicemail made me feel a very poignant sorrow for this mother of three who is struggling to get out of her fears about not seeming or being good enough. It's interesting that she can see what the problem is. Her therapist called it perfectionism. I'd clear that up and call it a kind of destructive perfectionism because again, it's based on fear of being found out that she's human after all. Maybe there's a closet in her home that's messy or a glass that's smudged or that in her thinking about getting a job that she won't live up to expectations and it doesn't sound as if she's even risking finding out what those expectations might be. She knows she learned this fear from her mom who sounds as if she taught it or demonstrated herself maybe unintentionally or maybe very intentionally. Certainly when I grew up, my mother had the table set for a party at least a week in advance.
She checked and rechecked. She had what she was going to wear all laid out way before the party. I saw that and much like this listener believed that I needed to do the same. In fact, I became anorexic because thinness was another one of those expectations. Luckily for me, or I say luckily, I moved away from home and saw life differently. I met women whose lives seemed very different, whose goals and directions were far from rigid and perfectionistic. I attended a very liberal college and feminism was being born, and I saw a way out even though at the time I didn't realize what I was doing, but this kind of perfectionism is still very, very prevalent in our culture. But I know very personally this inner struggle that this listener is talking about. In fact, for all my rebellion, when I'd go home, I'd still try to seem perfect, even when my real life was in tatters, the strain of that led to panic disorder.
So I certainly hope this listener isn't experiencing those.
So what can she do? I hope she's listening because I'd love to send her a copy of my book. Perfectly Hidden Depression. So listener, if you are listening, you can email me at askdrmargaret@drmargaretrutherford.com and I'll send you a signed copy because it sounds as if you'd find yourself there.
Okay, let's talk about what you could do first. Your mother seems to be highly unlikely to support you changing the message cut off before I could hear what exactly the rest of your struggle was when you visited your mom, but I guess is that you still get messages from her about things you should be doing or being that be done better, and those messages hold power. So two things need to happen simultaneously. Less contact with your mom for a while at least, and then beginning to take very small risks to tolerate and cope with your fears of being judged by others negatively.
I realize that's a lot to do all at once. So start slowly. Start with one friend, have her over and purposefully serve something not perfect like crackers and cheese instead of homemade something. In fact, I have my perfection seeking clients purposefully do something in a mediocre fashion, <laugh>, or what they would consider mediocre. Not an important thing, but something that they're making important and truly isn't that they kind of laugh about and go, I know nobody really caress. If I've vacuumed the sofa <laugh>, that's what I do. So I promise you most people are thinking about themselves. They are not thinking about you. We're all very self-conscious. Look for the small thing that you could try and you could risk. That would be not up to your expectations, but really just fine. Slowly look around your life and do something that you feared in the past doing.
But start with the easiest thing, not the hardest. Remember, there are no small changes. Every change, every risk, no matter how small or seemingly small is important. Now let's get back to mom. This listener's mom may wonder or question why those visits aren't occurring as often. Since this listener's been in therapy, I'd suggest working either with a great friend who knows about her struggle and is emotionally savvy or with that therapist or both, and write down and practice what you're going to say to your mom, what you're going to choose to reveal. You could try something like, “Mom, I'm trying to not be so afraid of what others think of me. It's really making me unhappy, but I'm not sure where you stand on this as so much of what you do seems perfect.” Something like that. Maybe even that's too revealing. You could decide what's right for you.
You can write it down and send it to her. You can email it, you can text it, you can say it to her face, but maybe you need to sort of help her see that, that you need to be around her less. But I also think that it is, that's a hard conversation to have and your mother may or may not be capable of actually having it in a fair way, in a healthy way. So that part of it is something you and your therapist are gonna have to talk about. There's so much life ahead of you and there's so much freedom in being able to decide whether or not you're going to strive for perfect or near perfect. And that's fine. And if you do enjoy that process or whether this time you're going to do what's more normal and easy and enjoy that as well, it's more freeing because it's a choice and you're no longer wrecked by fear and shame. That is what my book is all about. So I hope you'll email me and you can follow and do, it's over 60 exercises of reflections and read other stories to realize you're so far from being alone.
Outro;
So we're gonna do something fun in September. I'm gonna give away two books. Now, not perfectly Hidden Depression, I'm actually gonna give away a little book that Christine Mathias and I put together called Marriage Is Not for Chickens. It's a great little book to give somebody for an anniversary or they're getting married and I'm sure in the fall we're going to have some fall weddings and some holiday weddings. So I'm going to pick two reviewers who review on Apple Podcast in September who review self-work. And then I'll pick two, not the first two, not the last two. I'll choose them randomly and thank you. I hope you have fun with this. And of course, I hope you love self-work as well. Also, I have a really, I'm so proud of our new website. It's really beautiful. It's drmargaretrutherford.com and you can subscribe there.
You'll get my weekly newsletter, which actually gives you a rundown of everything I do. For example, my blog post this week was on Fobbing. Do you know what Fobbing is? <Laugh>? Well, it's the newest way to really alienate someone that you may or may not be interested in, and it has to do with cell phone use or looking at your screen, et cetera. So you could go over to Dr. Margaret brother for.com and subscribe, and you'd be able to get that link to that Fobbing <laugh> article. I write about all kinds of things that are either near and dear to me or something that I'm very interested in learning more about myself. You can also, in fact, recently, a whole bunch of people have joined the Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/ self-work. Thank you so much for being here. Tell your friends, we'd love to have more of you. Take very good care of yourself, your loved ones in your community. I'm, and this has been.