Marks Psychiatry

There’s a saying, “If you don’t have anything good to say, don’t say anything at all.” There’s merit to this statement and can work well in casual relationships. But with people who are close to you, if you often have little to say about their accomplishments, you can fall short of being a supportive friend.

People like being around people who make them feel good. I think if you frequently have trouble finding something positive to say, you need to examine yourself. Are you overly critical? Are your standards for acceptance too high? I’m not saying you should lie or be disingenuous. But is it really that hard to find something good to say?

For example, suppose your friend redecorates her home. You walk in and immediately notice you hate the loud purple color of the walls. This in addition to the mismatched furniture lead you to believe your friend doesn’t have good taste.How can you find something good to say? You could start by realizing that her “bad taste” is simply not your taste. Even though you wouldn’t have decorated your home that way, doesn’t mean there is not some since of style in it. You could comment on how much work she must have put into it. If she hired a decorator, you could compliment her on how much patience it must have taken to get to the finished product. You could comment how the boldness of the wall color accents the rug. Even though you don’t like the wall color, it still may be striking or rich-looking.

It takes more work to think of positive things to say in a situation, but with practice, it can come more naturally. In this example, if the friend asks openly “do you like it?” You should still be honest if you don’t. But honesty doesn’t have to be brutal or hurtful. You could say, “this isn’t my style”, or “I wouldn’t have picked this for me, but it does stand out and I can see how you put a lot of work into it.” Then in searching for something else positive to say, you could switch the attention to her family and ask “do they like it?” If the answer is yes, then focus on how that’s really what matters.

Why do this? Why not simply say what’s on your mind and be honest? You can if you don’t care how you make people close to you feel. And in some settings that’s the prudent approach. But if you want to build people up, take steps to think of positive things to say and be generous with the praise.

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The short answer is nothing, if you don’t want to have close relationships. There are people who really are content to live as an island. But most people aren’t built this way. The usual scenario I see is the person who spends their young adulthood (20’s and 30’s) charging forward with their career, with limited intimate relationships (usually because they don’t have time) and then at 45 or late thirties for women, decide they are tired of being alone now want to settle down.

There is nothing wrong with choosing to delay marriage or a serious relationship because of other priorities. In fact, it’s better to be honest up front about your focus rather than string someone along feigning interest just to keep them around. However, it can be very difficult to connect with someone quickly if you’ve spent 10 – 20 years being self-centered and avoiding closeness. Once you decide you want a companion, you have to learn how to be a companion who can meet other’s needs.

What does emotional unavailability look like? I think another term that could be used is psychological independence. They don’t need anyone. This person usually feels threatened and uncomfortable when people ask too many questions. Rather than see this positively as someone taking interest in them, they see it as prying or being nosey. They may be easily suspicious of other’s motives; having difficulty trusting others. They may feel smothered by their partner’s attention or desire to spend time together. This often comes from needing to feel in control. When they start to fall in love, they feel less in control and prefer to push the other person away to regain some control. Staying too busy is a passive way of avoiding closeness. In your mind, you have a legitimate excuse for not “wasting” time building relationships.

There are other ways a person can demonstrate emotional unavailability; these are just a few. As you can see these behaviors are not conducive to building intimacy and connectedness in a relationship. The person, who is emotionally unavailable and wants to have a serious relationship some day, should expect to need a running head start to learn how to be close to others. Don’t expect it to all come together just because you’ve met your financial or career goals. You’ll still have some work to do break old habits so you can be a better partner for the person you choose.

The other side of this coin is emotional neediness. I’ll discuss this in a future post.

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Dealing with a chronic illness is difficult on many levels. But how do you handle someone having a terminal illness that lingers on?

Let’s look at Judy

Judy’s mom has a medical illness that was diagnosed when Judy was a teenager. Her mom was in and out of the hospital for years then seemed to get better after she underwent a new procedure. Fast forward and Judy is 20; the affects of the procedure are wearing off. Mom is in and out of the hospital again, every visit seems it will be the last. Because of her illness, her mom missed key events like her college graduation, her bridal shower and almost missed her wedding. Mom always gets better, but it is still very stressful and sad to see her mom sick.

Another dimension to this is Mom demands a lot of attention when she is sick. So much so that Judy felt very little support from her mom during her pregnancy. Judy didn’t feel she could complain, because after all, Mom is sick. Judy gives birth and Mom is there, but takes a downturn shortly afterward.

Baby is 10 days old, Judy is exhausted and she gets the call that Dad is taking Mom to the hospital. Judy’s mother-in-law is helping with the baby, so Judy decides to take advantage of the help, get a good nights rest and go to the hospital in the morning. Judy knew the routine, she would spend a few days pampering her mom who would get better and be discharged. But this time Mom didn’t make it through the night.

Judy is racked with guilt and furious with herself for not being able to have the last loving goodbye conversation with her mom. But would Judy really have known this time was the last time and engaged in a goodbye talk? I don’t think Judy ever wanted to have a goodbye talk. How do you have that kind of talk?

No matter how much you anticipate someone’s death, you’re still not ready to concede that a person who is well enough to have a conversation with you is close enough to death to have a mutual goodbye discussion. You want to believe they can always get better until they don’t.

Judy had to let go of her focus on not saying goodbye. This was actually a diversion from the real issue which was the fact that Judy was angry and resentful toward her sick mother for not being there for her at milestone moments. Her Mom garnered so much attention over the years because of her illness, Judy felt lost in her shadow. Judy never discussed this with her mom and instead would put on a smile and give her mom all the attention she required, especially in the last months. Judy still has to deal with her resentment, but she realized her selfless attention to her mom was her goodbye that reaped much greater reward than a tearful goodbye speech.

Popularity: 36%

A survey out of the University of Chicago conducted by Dr. Stacy Lindau found that one third of individuals aged 64-75 are having sex at least once a week. This survey was administered to 3005 older people who were divided into 3 groups of roughly one thousand each. The three age groups were 57-64, 65-74 and 74-85.

In the younger group (57-65) 40% of the men and 34% of the men reported having sex once a week or more. But a very interesting finding was seen in the oldest group (75-85). In this group, 23% of the men and 24% of the women reported having sex at least once a week. This percentage was similar to what they saw in a different survey of 18-59 year olds. Imagine that. Some of the oldest seniors reported having sex as frequently as some 18 year olds! Go Seniors.

Of course sexual problems were common, usually related to physical problems. They discovered only 48% of the men and 34% of the women with sexual problems had ever discussed their sexual problem with their doctor.

I think the common perception is that the elderly are not at all sexually active so many physicians may not think to ask their elderly patients about their sex lives. If nothing else, this study shows that the elderly are not to be forgotten in this area. And as 50 becomes the new 30, sexual activity in older adults will continue to be real entity.

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Are you someone’s knight in shinning armor rescuing damsels in distress?  This can be an exhilarating feeling for some men who are attracted to women who need their help.  It feels good to be needed and in general there is nothing wrong with wanting to help others.  However, the kind of help delivered by the knight, is typically one that which requires personal sacrifice of some sort.  It’s difficult to sustain this type of “help” and what can happen is overtime the knight  becomes worn down and the armor starts to disappear.  A partner who was attracted to you for your ability to rescue, may not be as pleased when she sees what’s underneath the armor.  Then what?   The knight is left to deal with the needy, flailing damsel unshielded, and the true dynamics of the relationship is revealed.

The flip side of this is that the damsel is led to believe you will always be there to take care of things and can feel disappointed or even misled when you step away from your role.  She’s not completely to blame, after all, this is how you marketed yourself to her.

People can fall into this pattern for different reasons, however one way to explore your own reason is to ask yourself “what do I have to offer someone?”  Is the answer to that financial security or other resources versus just you?  What makes you valuable?  Some people believe they don’t have much to offer someone so they compensate by doing things or giving things.
 
When considering the connectedness between yourself and someone else, I think one good question to answer would be “If she and I were the last two people left on the earth, could we be content with just each other?”

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Our relationship with our parents, particularly the opposite sex parent, significantly influences how we choose our companions. It’s commonly said that women marry their fathers and men marry their mothers. There is a lot of truth to this.

When a person has a bad experience with their parent such as emotional absence or constant criticism, they can consciously say they do not want to be with someone who treats them the same way and set out to find the opposite person. However at an unconsciously level they can be attracted to those very same characteristics.

Why would this be? Why would someone purposely choose to be with someone whose behavior they loath?

Well, first of all it’s not purposeful; it’s beyond the person’s awareness. Let use an example. This person is fictitious, yet similar to many people I have seen.

Sam has been engaged to Sally for a year. They have put the wedding on hold because of continual problems, most recently the knowledge that Sam has been unfaithful. Sam has been seeing Rachel on the side for the past 9 months. Sam says he loves Sally and had no intention of getting involved with Rachel but “it just happened.” In fact, he said he was about to break it off with Rachel just before Sally found out.

Sam said he finds Rachel exciting, but describes her as a superficial “gold digger.” She also criticizes him and he frequently has to “put her in her place.” On the other hand, Sally is kind, self-reliant, attentive and frequently praises him.

Months pass and Sam is still involved with Rachel – despite his frustration with her and despite his not wanting to lose Sally.

As for family background, Sam describes his relationship with his father as somewhat distant as his father traveled frequently with his job. He describes his mother as controlling, critical and pretentious. He said “she uses people to get what she wants, even her own children.”

Can you see the similarities? Rachel is mom; however Sam would have never thought he’d want a woman like his mother. He recognized that Rachel behaved in similar ways, but couldn’t understand why he was so attracted to her despite the irritating things she did.

What was wrong with Sally? Nothing. Sam could never find a negative thing to say about Sally – except their relationship lacked the excitement that he had with Rachel.

This isn’t the answer for everyone, but for Sam, he was attracted to Rachel because despite her objectionable behavior, this is what he was used to. Rachel’s behavior was familiar to him. Sally’s was not. So although he hated her criticism and superficiality, it’s what he knows best as he experienced it from his first female love.

Sometimes we can repeat relationship dynamics, particularly ones that were injurious as an attempt to now conquer and overcome the injury as an adult. In Sam’s case, as a child he could not control how his mother treated him and was not able to stand up for himself. Instead, as children do, he endured the pain and continued to strive for mom’s love. In contrast, with Rachel he is able to fight back and “put her in her place.” There’s a certain gratification he gets from mastering this dynamic.

It turns out, Sam has had several Rachel’s in his past. Sally has been the first of her kind. It’s going to be difficult for Sam to get out of this cycle because his attraction to the familiar makes it hard for him to be attracted to women like Sally. Sam admits he finds Sally boring. With help, Sam learned to let go of his need to undo his earlier insults by repeating the relationships so he could focus his energy and attention on embracing the right person for him and enjoying the unfamiliar.

Popularity: 20%