Anxiety and Depression are Disorders that When Exacerbated By Guilt, Shame, and Isolation, Can Result in Self-Harm or Suicide
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Caring For a Caregiver
When I was 9 years old, my grandfather suffered a debilitating stroke from which he would never recover. As is often the case in families, my mother, the oldest of three children, assumed responsibility for his care while he lay in an infantile state two floors above mine. Everyday before dawn, she bathed, fed, and medicated him while my grandmother watched her daughter assume a role she never should have played. After the early morning shift, she resumed her role as married mother of three before tending to my grandfather’s nightly needs before finally sleeping for a few hours before the cycle repeated. My mother was no longer afforded a…
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How Antisocial Media Happens
Ellen Page's Accusation Against Chris Pratt Creates a Divisive Antisocial Media
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How Twitter Became a Responsibility
As I type this sentence, I’m thinking about a Canadian woman named Jody, whose Twitter handle is @onelastkick71. Because I have not seen a “tweet” from her in 24 hours, I am wondering if she is still alive, and fearing she is not. Through my social media connection with Jody, I’ve sensed anguish in her tweets, the most recent of which read, “pray for me not to wake up tomorrow.” I hate that she’s in this pain. I hate my feelings of helplessness, and I hate that I have no idea if she’s taking a social media break, or if she is gone. At some point, Twitter got serious, and I…
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How Infidelity Transforms Death Anxiety Into Death Denial
Many of us are in a life stage characterized more by “lasts” than “firsts.” We are working at our last jobs before retirement, occupy the last homes in which we will ever live, and might be in the last romantic relationships of our lives. It’s not so much that there are no remaining “firsts”, but there is little thrill in first social security check, or first colonoscopy. When we sense Winter is coming, and Spring has passed, awareness of mortality triggers anxiety we didn’t experience in our youth. As we age, awareness of death increases in many ways, most powerful being the death of our parents who we once perceived as immortal. Aging also…
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Dear Parents, Stop Scapegoating Your Kids
When Children Are Scapegoated as Identfied Problems, Their Self-Esteem Takes a Hit
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The Problem With “Color Blindness”
Rejecting Racism Through Color Blindness Does Nothing to Eradicate Racism. In Fact, It Perpetuates It.
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What the “Temperature” of Children’s Aggression Suggests
All Children Will Exhibit Aggression at Some Point, but Certain Contexts of Aggression Indicate Possible Childhood Behavioral Disorders...
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Relationship Triangles and Defining A Self: Thanksgiving Through the Bowen Theory Lens
Family dynamics change when one member of a family decides to change
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A Realistic Look At Couples Therapy
Accountability For Our Own Behavior in Relationships is Hard, but Creates Long-Term Benefits
