Reality Check On...Dealing with Life’s Crap Cycle

A sure way to ignite the crap cycle: 

All is good in your world, everything is running smoothly and life, it seems, can only get better.

Career – check

Kids – check

Relationship – check

Friends – check

Money – check  

Clients - check

Nothing bothers you, you love everyone and everyone loves you back, you feel confident that no matter what tomorrow brings, you can handle it. 

And at that point, we have ignition, and

All hell breaks loose …

Most times its like a tidal wave and wipes you out in one shot. Occasionally it is a series of precision military-like strikes that cause your life to unravel chunk by chunk.

Life is kind of like the stock market - a constant cycle of ups and downs, and then a crash.

Then the cycle begins again…up, down, crash and again and again…

It does not seem random, but I also don’t accept the different schools of thought of why the crap cycle keeps happening over and over. 

Here are 3 of the more popular theories:

1. You need to learn some lesson (it is usually something from a past life so good luck trying to figure that one out) and until you get it then the same crap cycle will keep happening.

2. You have self-limiting beliefs that you are blocking you. Personally I don’t believe that experiences you have when you were under the age of  5 years old have the power to dictate your adult life.

3. You keep pissing off the Universe with negative thoughts and the Universe, as we all know, pays back in kind. This one cracks me up because the crap usually hits when things are going really well.

Or perhaps it's simply, as my grandfather was fond of saying “life is a bowl of shit with a single cherry on top” which is a rather depressing way of looking at life but probably has some truth to it.

The worst bit is that when your life is spiralling out of control, you are expected to stay calm, positive, give gratitude for what you have (left?) , understand that you will come out of this stronger than ever, oh and know that there are people who are worse off. 

And to help you stay calm, positive and grateful you will be assaulted with motivational quotes from all the social media platforms. You know the ones I mean – quotes like:

“Our difficulties are golden opportunities to reveal even more potential in this world”

“Let go and Let God”

“You have to be at your strongest, when you are feeling at your weakness’.

“You are the architect of your life”

And be prepared as they will keep coming…relentlessly! Along with the latest mantras, manifestation techniques, LOA teachings: everything you need to be doing in order to achieve that perfect life, which is ironic as you had a good life but just lost it because the crap cycle hit.

My mother believes (and she is dead serious when she tells me this) that we experience the bad shit (she uses another word) in our lives because we don’t pray to God anymore, we don’t go to church anymore and we have abandoned God.

This makes me think of a God with a huge scoreboard with everyone’s name on it and when we are not paying attention to him or visiting him, it pisses him off and he unleashes his wrath on us. Fascinating. 

It's obvious that there is no such thing as going though crap and once you are out on the other side, you get to live happily ever after…if only that were the case!

Because as we already know when you are succeeding in getting your life to a good place, the crap comes charging at you and you are back to ground zero or pretty close to the floor anyway.

The Do's to survive the crap cycle:

Do be horrified and panic.

How did I not see it coming?; Why? Not again? ; What the f**k did I do to deserve this?; Say F**k a lot; and then say it some more. It's very therapeutic. 

Do get sad.

Yes I know in 2014 no one gets sad anymore; we are either depressed or stressed, but being sad is good. It's actually quite liberating to feel sad, who knew? Plus, when I am at the sad stage, I have an awesome pity party – on the couch, complete with bottles of wine/tea/coffee, gallons of ice cream/junk food and watch hours of mindless tv and B list movies.

Do Get Angry

It's ok to get angry. Scream, yell, shout. The tendency today is to accept that everything happens for a reason and for our own good. But sometimes crap just happens and it's is only human to be angry when things don't go the way we want them to. 

Do ride the waves (figuratively,but you knew that). Just to be clear, many times I don’t catch the waves ( I am either not ready, don’t have the energy or just can't be bothered). Sometimes I try to ride the waves but I get hammered. But then that perfect wave comes along and it has enough momentum and speed to get me to the other side. 

Hang Ten, oh yeah! 

I know the crap cycle will always come back, that’s a given… but it still takes me by surprise every time it hits. Truth is, on the up rotation I forget all about the crap cycle. I get so excited that life is finally working out for me, because when life is good, it's awesome. I fall in love with my life all over again. Life is good and I have it all figured out, finally.

But of course that’s the cue for ignition…

Reality check on…The Horror, The Horror

I am seriously pissed off. And also very sad. 

A 17year old is beaten to within an inch of his life. By his friends. Why? Well, the fact that he is gay obviously bothered his ‘friends’ and so, they beat the shit out of him.

For being gay.  

As the mother of a gay son, I am horrified, saddened, angry and yes, pissed off by this news.

Not only because this could happen to my boy (and let's face it, this could happen to anyone else’s son/daughter/ brother/sister/ mother/father); 

But also because I really believed that my son was fortunate to be born in a time where tolerance and compassion were part of everyone’s consciousness; and his sexual identify would not define him as a person and he would not be labelled; where he could be and do what he chose since “”Everyone has the right to life and to live in freedom and safety” (Universal declaration of Human Rights). 

Am I delusional or what? Nothing has really changed, has it?

Is society still stuck in the mind-set of that sea of sameness as it has been since the beginning of time?...That same mind-set where anyone or anything, that is different, even a little bit, is automatically clocked and registered as abnormal and unacceptable.  

Granted that on the surface governments, corporations and businesses are seen to be working towards becoming more inclusive in the work place and they do make some effort to educate and inform people. 

But really? Do we need government mandates and training to accept gays, women and all diversity groups in the work place and in the community?

WTF? Are we that logically and consciousness deprived?

And what is normal and acceptable to this society? Here's what I think that list probably looks like and most likely, it has not changed much over the centuries:

1. A man can only be in a relationship with a woman. End of.
2. Its ok to eat animals that have been made to suffer needlessly and then brutally killed as long as you buy the meat at the supermarket.
3. Always worship that invisible god; the one who is vengeful, self-righteous and vindictive and who has a major issue with anyone who is NOT a straight, white, Christian male
4. If you have lots of money, you are automatically absolved of all wrongs
5. Making a bad choice makes you a bad person. Forever.
6. I am ok with everything as long as it does not affect me. In any way.
7. It’s not ok to judge but it is definitely ok and encouraged to criticise, publicly humiliate and ostracise anyone or anything that is unfamiliar or different.
8. Success is measured in the accumulation of the number of possessions you own
9. Be politically correct on the surface; as long as you are seen to be PC that’s all that matters. 
10. Everyone is considered my brother and sister as long as I am kept completely unaware of their existence.

What an incredibly close minded society we live in !

We have not evolved into decent human beings; we just got better at hiding how we really feel.

Social media makes it so easy for us to be universally seen as the intellectual, open minded, spiritual, accepting, non judgemental, free spirits we so obviously are not. 

We can visibly support same sex marriages, express outrage at the merciless treatment of battery chickens, sign petitions to stop child labour, domestic violence, child abuse… all the while we are smugly secure in the knowledge that we will never, ever be called upon to publicly defend any of the shit we are seen to be supporting.

Social media lets us tick off that box that says to the world…”yes I am a tolerant person who believes and supports everyone’s basic human right to live, regardless of their religious beliefs, sexual orientation, cultural background, gender or politics”. The sad reality is that there is no substance or conviction or belief behind that ticked box.

Back to the boy who was beaten for being gay… 
By the way, this is not an isolated incident; this senseless, aggressive, bullying is rampant the world over against gays, Jews, Romas, women, children, the list goes on and on. 

Here is a quick snapshot of recent UK hate crimes statistics:

Research by London LGBT hate crime charity Galop shows 98 homophobic and transphobic crimes are recorded each week by police across Britain 

Figures show hate crimes against Jewish people rose by 36% to 304 in first half of2014, followed by 130 in July alone 

How many more people need to be beaten, bullied, shamed and killed because of who they are or what they believe in? At what point do we draw the line in the sand and say enough is enough?

As you read the article about Dylan,many of you will probably shrug your shoulders, as in ‘it’s not my problem’ and move on; others may spare a couple of seconds lamenting the state of the world.  But for a significant number, it is a very real reminder that their world is not safe and that they live under the constant threat of violence and abuse.

This is not ok; I need the world to be a safe place for my son and for everyone else’s son and daughter. We all do!

Charter Harley Street - Why our Children are self harming

Self-harm can take many forms and can result from any number of emotional or personal situations.

For most it is a very secretive, concealed act.

The statistics

·        Self-harm statistics for the UK show one of the highest rates in Europe: 400 per 100,000 population. It is estimated that one in 12 young people in the UK are believed to have self-harmed at some point in their lives.

·        Many of them use self-harming as a way of communicating because they feel that no one is listening and they also believe that they have no one to turn to.

·        3 in 4 young people don’t know where to turn to talk about self-harm (Source:www.youngminds.org.uk)

·        A third of parents would not seek professional help if their child was self-harming (Source: www.youngminds.org.uk)

·        Almost half GPs feel that they don’t understand young people who self-harm and their motivations (Source: www.youngminds.org.uk)

·        2 in 3 teachers don’t know what to say to young people who self-harm (Source: www.youngminds.org.uk)

·        While studies show that some chronic self-injurers tend to get better without therapy, many people really need professional help to open themselves to new ways of being in the world and with stress.(Source: Cornell Research Program on Self-Injury and Recovery)

The Reasons for Self-Harming – Mind , the UK Mental Health Charity

 To express something that is hard to put into words

 To make experiences, thoughts or feelings that feel invisible into something visible

 To change emotional pain into physical pain

 To reduce overwhelming emotional feelings or thoughts

 To have a sense of being in control

 To escape traumatic memories

 To stop feeling numb, disconnected or dissociated (see dissociative disorders)

 To create a reason to physically care for yourself

 To express suicidal feelings and thoughts without taking your own life

                                    To communicate to other people that you are experiencing severe distress

A Parent’s Viewpoint

Ten years ago, when my son was 13 years old he started cutting himself. Looking back I did not handle the situation well at all. On hearing the term “self-harm” for the first time, I remember thinking “Isn’t that what the Opus Dei monks do?”, (as in those monks who engage in self-flagellation in order to punish themselves and because pain made them feel closer to God). Of course, there was nothing remotely connected to Opus Dei or religion about what my son was doing.  Mainly I was angry with him as I could not understand what could possibly make him want to hurt himself, over and over again.

I was also convinced that my son was the only child on the planet engaging in this (well apart from the monks) and so for the next four years he and I battled – covertly - for his survival. My son took self-harming to beyond cutting; he would stop eating for days on end, he hung out with “friends” who bullied him, he got into alcohol, drugs and as he got older, he engaged in a string of abusive relationships.

All of this served to perpetuate his idea that he needed to feel pain (physical and emotional) in order to feel something, to have control and to release the anger that silently raged within him.

A Child’s Viewpoint

“Cutting was a release, not of huge amounts of rage (although I’m still waiting for that to surface) but of less noticeable emotion – I did not know how I felt – I did not have the skills to verbalize my experiences and therefore felt very trapped in my body.  I often felt as if I was sitting in a wooden box, I could see out of little gaps in the wood work but people couldn’t see in.  At least when I cut myself I could see the evidence of my being alive….the rest of the time I really did not care if I lived or died.”

“The secrecy of being in a room of people and knowing that underneath your clothes there are burns from lighters, cigarettes and matches which are an aesthetic to the internal pain, trauma and shame I feel about myself.

I am like the junkie who shoots up down a dark side-alley but instead I am applying the 8th burn to my arm because I can feel the dark shadow of panic/shame overcoming me and I won't make it home if I don't get this hit.”

So what do you do if your child is self-harming?

Mandy Saligari, founder and director of Charter Harley Street, explains that “Self-harm is a pattern of behaviours that, like so many addictive patterns and dysfunctional coping mechanisms, can be hidden in plain view, even in those as young as 6 or 7 yrs. old. It is often the first sign of a problem which left unaddressed frequently develops into an eating disorder or drug and alcohol addiction”

Do not ignore the signs.  If you feel out of your depth and if find that you cannot deal with the way your child is behaving, Mandy Saligari strongly suggests that “you seek support from a child and adolescent psychotherapist or an EMDR therapist who specialises in working with children. Trying to deal with it yourself and failing can generate negative emotions, making the child feel even more hopeless and the parent feel useless.

Both will foster resentment, which in turn drives the urge to self-harm - a vicious circle”

Philip Andrews, (Psychotherapist – EMDR Europe Accredited Consultant) believes that, “Trauma often leaves people feeling numb and depressed. Self-harm can allow them to literally feel for a short time, so as a short term solution it becomes addictive”.

The light at the end of the tunnel…

It is important to remember that self-harm is not a phase someone is going through or a fad but rather a coping mechanism for depression, stress and anxiety.

There is no quick fix but over time with supportive care and attention, new ways of coping can replace the need to self-harm.  .  

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About Charter Harley Street: Discover the Power of Charter Harley Street

London’s leading private outpatient facility for Trauma, Addiction and Mental Health. – www.charterharley street.com

About Mandy Saligari: Founder and Clinical Director, Charter Harley Street

Mandy is a well-respected established expert in the field of addiction, parenting and relationships. Born from her passion for helping people overcome addictive behaviour, Mandy founded Charter Harley Street to address the market need for a common sense approach to recovery; one that delivers recovery for life and is underpinned by humility, gratitude and hope.