Vulnerability: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Vulnerability.  It's a word I deal with all of the time in therapy, but also just by being the person that I am.  Anyone who knows me, knows that most of the time, vulnerability doesn't really feel like something I choose - it's just the main way that I know how to operate.  I feel things deeply and wear my heart on my sleeve - always have.  But there are other times when I make a conscious decision to be vulnerable and in those moments I'm reminded about just how difficult of a choice that can be.

This blog has prompted that choice point for me.  Initially, I was writing articles as a doctor - an expert; trying to teach people something they didn't previously know.  I thought it was important to have a specific skill or set of knowledge to communicate, have it backed by research and reveal very little of myself, because as a psychologist, self-disclosure is a no-no.  But the posts felt stale to me.  Academic.  Impersonal.  I wasn't passionate about what I was writing and it was coming through in the posts.  So I was left with a difficult decision: continue to be the "expert" and teach OR be a human being (who just happens to also be a psychologist), which meant disclosing my struggles, flaws and weaknesses.  That's always a difficult thing to do, but as a therapist, it felt even more challenging.  What if my colleagues thought that was a terrible decision?  What if my patients saw my posts and had negative reactions?  The anxiety I felt about potential judgment was pretty intense and I struggled with which direction to take.

If you've been following me though, you obviously know what I decided...and I'm glad that I did.  Because pretty much every time I can remember that I have chosen to be vulnerable - to reveal a part of myself that I don't like, to share something intensely private, to disclose something sensitive - I wind up feeling more connected than ever to others because something magical happens.  Other people start being honest too.  People suddenly feel like it's Ok to share their struggles, flaws and weaknesses.  The mask comes off, the walls come down and where there was distance and guards up, there is now openness.  Freedom.  Space.  People sharing not only the good, but the bad and the ugly too.

So many of us feel the need to keep up appearances in daily life and social media has made this worse to a significant degree.  We only talk about the happy times and show the parts of ourselves that we're proud of.  Checking the homepage on Facebook is picture after status update after picture of smiling faces, happy memories and good times.  I don't say that with judgment - I do it too.  And to a large extent that seems appropriate.  It would seem like a strange breech of boundaries to share our darkest thoughts and struggles with 500+ people on a regular basis.  And at the same time, it's a shame we don't use this enormous community to get support on a more regular basis.  What's worse is the fact that so many of us feel like we can't even confide in our closest friends or family because we fear burdening them with our problems and pain.  Since so many of us have this mentality, it means that we're all struggling silently and privately, putting on a happy face when we need to, but when it comes down to it, isolated with our struggles and feeling alone to boot.

What would it be like to take that risk and share your struggle with someone else?  To allow yourself to cry in the presence of someone you trust?  To give someone the privilege of seeing behind the curtain of your life in order to acknowledge that your career/marriage/children are not as wonderful as they may seem to be?  Can you imagine?  It sounds scary, I'm sure.  With good reason.  I was scared as hell to admit in a public forum the awful thoughts that went through my head about that thin, pregnant model.  But ya know what happened?  That post was read by more people and received more comments and positive feedback than anything else I've written.  There could be a hundred reasons for that, but I'm pretty sure a lot of it had to do with the fact that people tend to respond very kindly to other's humanity.  So maybe the next time you're struggling with something, instead of burying it or distracting yourself from it, talk to someone you love.  My guess is that you'll be amazed at what happens next :)

PS - If the concept of vulnerability intrigues you, you should definitely check out Brene Brown: http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability?language=en  She is incredible!!

Why Do We All Judge So Much?

Recently, I saw the following pictures that were trending on Facebook:

These are selfies of a model who is 8.5 months pregnant.  Gasp.  Shock.  Awe.  Right?  Pretty normal, human reactions to have, I think, considering how incredibly tiny she is for that stage in pregnancy.  That was certainly my initial reaction.  And then comes the judgment.  I myself am only a few weeks away from having a baby and while I haven't really worried about how I have looked during my pregnancy...well...let's just say that these pictures didn't help the ego, yaknowwhatI'msayin'...??  So as I said, here comes the judgment.  I heard my thoughts rattle off criticism after criticism at a furious pace: What the hell is wrong with her?  She clearly has an eating disorder.  Why is it that we are so hung up on physical appearance in America that this woman feels like she needs to stay stick thin even though she's carrying a child!  Dear God, what if she has a girl and passes this clearly disordered body image crap onto her kid?!  On and on and on.  And these thoughts, as not nice as they are, are MILD in comparison to the comments that were provoked in response to these pictures by others.  To be fair, there was some nice comments along with the nasty ones, along the lines of "good for her" and "I hope I look like that when I'm pregnant!", but for the most part it was a lot of hostility, which I am obviously not immune to either.

But here's the important part that no one seemed to mention or consider (including me initially): this woman's OBGYN was quoted in the article.  He indicated that her pregnancy has been normal and uncomplicated.  He said that she has gained an appropriate amount of weight and he is not concerned about her health or the health of her unborn child.  THIS IS HER DOCTOR.  And yet, despite this person with a medical background indicating that everything with this perfect stranger's pregnancy is A.Ok, so many of us responded in a critical, self-righteous (ahem) or hostile way.  What's up with that??  And it seems as though we, as women, as more susceptible to this kind of thing than men. Why the hell are we so inclined to being so mean to each other, even as adults?

I wish I had something profound to say about this.  Something that felt like a revelation or a solution to the problem...but I don't.  I think this is mostly due to sexism and women being pitted against each other from a very young age, but I'm sure there are a TON of reasons that could take up an entire book so I won't tackle that for now.  And as far as solutions go, my psychologist brain goes to a hundred different complicated, research backed programs that would start in elementary school, teaching children (and parents) about how to instill a good sense of self, etc, etc, etc.

But the bottom line is easy and difficult at the same time: BE NICE TO ONE ANOTHER. And when you're not, check yourself and re-adjust your attitude.  I say it's easy because it sounds easy and in theory, should be easy.  But then we have a bad day, or get jealous, or feel badly about ourselves, and before you know it, we're passing judgement on someone else because it eases our own pain/struggle/suffering in that particular moment.  I'm not immune to this.  No one is.  Judgement, which at it's core is simply categorizing, is how our brains work.  We couldn't function in the world if we weren't able to make snap judgments about things and keep moving; we would be paralyzed by the incredible, sheer volume of information our brains need to digest every second of every day.  Judging is the essence of being human.  But that doesn't let us off the hook.

Catch yourself when you're doing it.  We will judge ourselves and others every day for the rest of our lives.  That's just the reality of the situation.  That doesn't make us bad people, it simply means that we're human.  But we need to catch ourselves.  Don't spiral on and on until your mood is ruined, your day is ruined and you've ruined other people's days because of all the venom.  Catch yourself.  Consider the possibility that we don't have all of the information (which c'mon, we don't!).  That it doesn't affect your life so it really doesn't matter anyway.  That as much as it's difficult to admit, you've struggled with the same sort of thing you're condemning someone else for.  And if none of those things work, just think about something else because why spend your precious energy hating on someone else??  So to this beautiful stranger in the pictures above, I wish you and your baby health and happiness.  Is there really anything else to say...?

The Transformative Power of Shared Pain

I have been in several situations lately where even I, as a psychologist, feel at a loss about what to say to someone.  Because the pain they are experiencing is so intense.  Because there's nothing that will make it better.  Because the situation is just so awful.  It's a strange feeling for me really - to be listening to someone and in the back of my mind have this white noise of, "Say Something You Moron!!!".  It feels panicky and idiotic that after 5 years of doctoral training and more than a decade in practice, I could still feel this way.  But when I think about it, it's the most human thing on the planet.

Most of my friends and family don't often ask me for professional advice, which I'm grateful for, but when a request like that does come down the pipe, 90% of the time it's wanting to know what they should say to someone who's in pain.  The advice that I always give is to say very little actually - that it's far more important to just listen.  I recently have been reminded how difficult that can be.  When we see someone we love in agony, we want to help.  We want to fix it.  We want to advise.  We want to reassure.  All of those instincts are coming from a really great place, but often times they aren't what the other person needs.  So if our loved ones don't need us to tell them what to do, how to think or what to feel, then what DO they need??

Well if you asked the rational me in these moments recently where I was sitting with folks and the pain was so great it put me in a state of panic, I wouldn't have been able to answer this question.  My brain was not functioning properly in these moments - I felt completely overwhelmed by the intensity of their distress and couldn't come up with words.  So I did what came naturally and followed my gut instinct: I cried with them.  There was nothing to say...nothing to do...nothing to fix.  It was awful and to say anything other than that would've been disrespectful in the deepest sense because it would've minimized just how terrible their situations were and I clearly didn't want to do that.  So I allowed myself to experience their pain and to feel my own pain for them and cried.  We cried together.  And in that moment, the connection that I felt with these two women was incredible.  The connection had always been there - I care deeply for them both - but I had been inadvertently blocking that connection with all of the worry about "what to say".

We constantly underestimate the value of simply sitting with someone in their pain - of feeling their pain with them - and often times, it's one of the few ways to give someone the love and support they need during an incredibly difficult time.

The Fallacy of Perfection

If there’s anyone who knows what it feels like to try to be perfect constantly, it’s me.  Let me start at the beginning.  I’m a cancer survivor.  I beat Hodgkin’s Lymphoma when I was 15 years old.  I also lost one of my best friends to cancer less than a year after I entered into remission.  After these events, I started a not-for-profit organization called “The Meredith Carroll Foundation: Kids Against Cancer”.  By selling t-shirts with inspirational quotes on the back at high schools and grammar schools around Illinois, we raised over $100,000 for cancer research at Children’s Memorial Hospital in Chicago, where both Meredith and myself were treated. 

There’s obviously lots of good and bad stuff that came out of these experiences.  Chemo sucked and losing Meredith was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever experienced, but I got to talk about her constantly because of the foundation and grieve in a positive way, plus raise a ton of money in the hopes that other families would be spared from this awful situation.  All things you would expect.  What I did NOT expect is how people would look at me because of all this.  I was a normal 16 year old girl enjoying high school and suddenly I was thrust into the role of a martyr…a hero.  I became the key note speaker for Children’s Memorial Foundation for a year during which time I traveled all over the Midwest giving speeches, acting as the face of pediatric cancer survivorship.  I was given the “Citizen of the Year Award” by the city of Orland Park for my philanthropist efforts and was the youngest recipient in the history of the award.  The Chicago Woman Magazine listed me as one of the top 100 women in Chicago making a difference.  All of this happened when I was 16 years old.  Cool, you might be thinking.  And a lot of it was.  All of these honors absolutely humbled me…it still blows me away that the foundation had such a powerful effect on people.  But it had a less sunny side as well because these things encouraged people to think of me as perfect, which was more pressure than I’d ever felt in my life.  I went from a normal 16 year old girl to a pseudo-celebrity philanthropist who could do no wrong.  I felt restricted to this tiny little box of needing to be happy and grateful all of the time because I, unlike Meredith, was still alive.  Anytime that I felt sad or lost my tempter or “messed up” in some way (read: acted HUMAN), the guilt I felt was overwhelming.  And there were very real consequences when I wasn’t perfect as people expected me to be (I could tell you a funny story here about my first psychology teacher in high school who when I got a B instead of an A [it was my last quarter in high school…sue me], told me parents that this went into his, and I quote, “little bag of hurts”.  I’m serious.  But I digress….)

It took a lot of life experience (and therapy!) to figure out that I didn’t have to keep up the façade of perfection – that the important people in my life would love me, flaws and all.  I slowly started to realize that I didn’t have to feel so terrible every time I made a mistake and instead I could simply apologize for it and try to learn from it.  Seems simple, but it was insanely hard to do.  But the more I tried to cultivate this habit of screw-up-then-apologize, something magical happened – RELIEF.  Room to breathe.  Less relationship anxiety.  The courage to be imperfect (or rather the courage to acknowledge my imperfections because they’ve always been there), freed me up in ways that I cannot possibly fully articulate.  What I slowly began to realize is that the only time my weaknesses/flaws/quirks became true liabilities is when I refused to acknowledge that they were there.

So why do I tell you all of this?  Because it’s still a struggle!  And that’s important for me to remember and for you to know.  I don’t want anyone walking away from reading this thinking I’ve got it all figured out now and I live in a constant state of self-acceptance and forgiveness.  I don’t!  It’s still freakin’ hard!  Evidenced partly through this blog of all things.  When I first started to plan for having a blog again, I, of course, wanted it to be perfect….er, as great as possible.  I figured out topics/themes for every month and began to brainstorm posts that would fit each theme of the month.  But ya know what happened??  We’re now 18 days into March and I haven’t written a single post on Women’s Health (because it is International Women’s month).  And why haven’t it, despite the fact that every day I’m inspired to write about something?  Well some of it is being a busy working Mom, but the more complicated answer is because most of what I’ve been inspired about in the last week or two does not pertain to Women’s health and I decided that this is Women’s Health Month for my blog so goddammit I need to write about Women’s Health! 

Umm hello….!?!  That’s crazy…and unnecessary…and not even helpful!  Ok, maybe calling it crazy is taking things too far because I certainly understand my own logic, but it is in fact unnecessary and unhelpful.  So hence this post on perfection.  Little personal inventory of your own: how often do you catch yourself setting extremely high and/or un-realistic expectations for yourself and/or others?  How often do these standards cause you misery instead of the more desirable outcome you certainly hoped for?  It’s worth thinking about.