The Couples Tool Kit
Working together as a team of three — by Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W., Specialist in Couples TherapyArchive for couples toolkit
Two Ladies About Town: 2-20-12
A Pekingese Named Malachy: Our daughter and I had a grand time in New York City last Monday and Tuesday. The Westminster Dog Show was a “hoot” including the “best in show” Pekingese” Malachy, who we were lucky to view in the toy group Monday evening. Our daughter compared him to a “walking mop” and to me he resembled a mop on wheels or a very short Cousin It (from The Adams Family). Cute little duster.
Amazing Growth: Our daughter and I are great city walkers and talkers – being able to multi-task the chatter and the matter along Fifth Avenue and Central Park. Though I never for a moment lose sight of her or relax about crosswalks or crowded sidewalks, there is a kind of repartee that touches on the sophisticated as we stroll along. She was in great spirits and the day after the show we visited her brother in his office near Park Avenue and, at her suggestion, toured Central Park on foot. Twice a man holding a clipboard asked us if we lived in the city, obviously looking for signatures in support of one cause or another. And twice our daughter answered, “I wish I did.” She mused aloud, “When I am single I want to live in the city.” Really? Single? But you are single. I love how she absorbs the pop culture. This sounded like something extrapolated from an episode of “Sex in the City.” Single here means something other than “not married” to her. I am not sure what it might be and she couldn’t explain it; perhaps “all grown up.”
Sharing So Much: Our drive back was spent listening to Tony Bennett’s new duet album and sharing views on the voices of Josh Groban (mutual admiration for his vocals) and Lady Ga Ga, Amy Winehouse, Carrie Underwood, Andrea Bocelli: she knows them all. We share so many interests, some I inspired, others she inspired. In a safe and secure environment, we are great friends. When that environment shifts and I become “the mothering one” the ease and friendship takes a back seat. Normal, I know.
The Moments I Regret: Something of that nature had occurred upon our return to my niece’s apartment after the dog show. It was very late at night and we were both spent. Yet our daughter, who apparently got some toothpaste on her pajamas, decided to wash them in the clothes washer. I only learned of this plan after she had placed the PJ’s in the machine and started it up. She learned how to do her laundry at boarding school and often does it in our home when she visits, as well as in her apartment. I know that she takes pride in having achieved this skill. But this was a different machine and it was almost midnight. So I reacted impatiently, which upset and agitated her, when I opened up the machine where sat the clothes and some liquid soap minus the water. I was not eager to work a strange machine in a NYC apartment with many floors below that could suffer from leakage, though I did try at first to do so. But rather than push it, I gave up. We had some words but ultimately she slept in my PJ’s and I managed in a tee shirt, with the plan for her to wash the toothpaste-spattered top when she returned to her apartment.
I Believe In Apologies: Most of the time I apologize for my tone and impatience. I was so tired that night that I can’t recall if I did so. By the morning, we were fine together and had that great day walking in the park, talking Tony Bennett, visiting her brother, and lunching at the former Rumplemeyer’s on Central Park South, a tender childhood memory of sundaes and stuffed animals with my mom, which is now, sadly, a sports bar and restaurant. But I believe in apologies. And forgiveness. We all do in our little family. Our daughter often apologizes for moody moments and is forgiving though she will forgive only when she is ready. Her often-used refrain is, “I am not ready to forgive him/her yet.” But she gets there. We are a family that tends to own our mistakes without paralyzing shame or blame. That is the upside of the downside of being imperfect: knowing how to take responsibility for it.
The Advantage of Distance: I don’t like being the impatient, irritable mother who forgets to use problem solving skills or empathy. These types of encounters, where our daughter’s cognitive issues clearly play a significant role, and I react badly (I don’t even recall now what I said but it was obvious I was annoyed), make me feel guilty and disappointed in myself. I need my own red flag to signal, “Take a deep breath before you speak.” Living together full-time, until our daughter was almost seventeen, constantly set up such challenges for years and years, causing a lot of self-recrimination and puncturing big holes in my self-esteem as a person and a parent, along with ample bucketfuls of guilt. Which says that for me, the hardest part of parenting special needs was feeling that something I was failing at was causing our daughter harm, to her self-image and her self-esteem. When she went off to boarding school, and now living one town over, we are still close but with some distance, I can monitor my frustrations better and am less challenged as a parent.
Responsibility Is In The Details: Is there any difference in what I have described between a special needs parenting situation and a typical one? Well, if there is, it rests in the details and the level of responsibility. A special needs young adult is a more dependent individual. Why else the designation? Therefore the parent or guardian has more levels of responsibility. When I walk down the streets of Manhattan with our twenty-five year old son, I do not need to monitor him at the crosswalks. When he comes home and does his laundry, I am not double-checking anything. When he makes a new friend on Facebook, I don’t have to be concerned as to who this friend is. There are so many differences. Therein lies the rub. More responsibility, more concern, more likely to feel anxious, more potential “moments.” It is just that way.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Nailing Down The Perfect Match
Hocus Pocus: Two articles appeared in the New York Times in the last week on couple compatibility. The M.R.S. and the Ph.D. article tracks the changing attitudes towards women’s educational achievements and marriageability over the decades. The early 1900’s through the 1950’s warned that “educated women” were less likely to attract husbands and were cautioned that if they revealed their intelligence in the presence of men, they were doomed. According to recent studies, this is no longer true. In fact, women with advanced degrees today are more likely to marry men who are less educated than themselves, less likely to divorce than their less educated sisters, and receive greater aid from their spouses in the home.
“The Dubious Science of Online Dating” appeared in the Times’ Sunday Review section and focused on research soon to be published in the journal Psychological Science in the Public Interest which questions the accuracy of online dating sites who rely on “matching algorithms” to locate suitable mates for their customers. The authors suggest that mathematical formulations based on such variables as similar personality type, ethnic and religious background, and likes and dislikes leave out at least two critical ingredients for compatibility: the quality of the interaction of the individuals which is not predictable from the profiles, and environmental factors including external stressors on the couple such as job loss, infertility and illness. Communication patterns, problem solving tendencies and sexual compatibility, which are significant in predicting successful relationships, emerge only after two people meet. The conclusion the authors’ reach from their research about predictors for successful partnering leaves little doubt that the Hocus Pocus of crunched numbers and cyber pairing just doesn’t cut it. Nothing replaces experience.
Our Cultural Obsession With Couple Compatibility: We are a culture that believes that a good relationship is at the heart of happiness and health. The fact that talk shows, websites and endless news articles attempt to define or map out paths to achieve success in this realm is no surprise. But nailing down the perfect match (we know nothing is perfect, don’t we?) in reality needs to rely more on self-knowledge and an astute tracking of personal reactions to another, along with sound assessments of the quality of the individual sitting across the table from you. The foundation for making a sound choice rests with listening to yourself, knowing your pitfalls, defenses and patterns, and not minimizing the signals inside you that say, watch out while simultaneously looking for signs that the other is capable of self-examination as well.
Time: All of us have heard these words, “I knew I should not have married him/her but…” and then the reasons pour forth. Deposits were made on wedding halls, invitations went out, biological clocks were ticking and loneliness sucked. But how did they get this far along in the process before they allowed themselves to question their decision? I often say to patients, “It is not that you got into an unsatisfactory relationship that is significant. It’s how long you stayed there.” which means simply that somehow denial or avoidance of the importance of their feelings or difficulties prevented aborting the mission sooner than later. What compels folks to choose partners who are not good for them? There are multiple roots but one of the deepest is “fear” that no one else will want them. If the onset of the marriage is going well but problems rear up over time, which they do, fear may foster denial and avoidance again which will delay addressing issues that might be easily fixed in the early years, but will only get more complicated and intractable with time and neglect.
Knowledge: Observing the quality of your interactions with your potential or current mate is the best tool to use in figuring out whether teaming up makes sense. The attribute most promising in a partner is their willingness to look at the nature of the interactions between the two of you with an eye towards improvement as well. If they are not inclined to do that from the onset, this doesn’t bode well for the future when the relationship naturally expands in complications of the shared life. There is useful research available on couple compatibility coming out of The Gottman Relationship Institute and also easily accessible in Tara Parker-Pope’s book, For Better: The Science of a Good Marriage, which offers useful perspectives on relationship dynamics.
The Informed Consumer: The late CEO of the Syms clothing chain use to end his radio commercials with the slogan, “An educated consumer is our best customer”, though some research suggests this may not be the case for buying suits as “the more informed a consumer or buyer is the more difficult it is to sell them.” But for choosing a life mate, this is clearly the way to go.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Heading To The Dog Show: 2-13-12
Westminster Here We Come, Woof Woof: Today our daughter and I head to Madison Square Garden in New York City to see the 136th annual Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, a long awaited second visit to this country’s pre-eminent canine competition. And we are psyched. Our daughter has already previewed the Monday night line up and shared with me that among several new breeds introduced this year at the show is the American English Coonhound, descendant of English Foxhounds bred in Virginia, and the Cesky Terrier, from the Czech Republic with the personality of a “shy terrier” and a resemblance to a Miniature Schnauzer. As always our daughter’s swift access to Internet information awes me. No sooner had she popped up the screen on our home laptop computer than she had the breeds and their origins at the tip of her tongue.
Making Life Richer: Our daughter has enriched our lives greatly as a result of her omnivorous curiosity. After exposure to horses at age three while watching her six-year-old brother ride, she fell in love with the giant creatures and through the years poured over books filled with photos of horse breeds. I recall the moment that I recognized the developmental leap in her spatial awareness when she first noticed just how big these animals are, refusing to get on one for the first time ever. Despite this she never lost interest in watching them and continued to visit the local riding school with me several times a week. Eventually she overcame that initial shock and fear, and asked to ride again (which, thanks to the Pegasus Therapeutic Riding Program, she does to this day). She was a middle-schooler. I remember the poster we tacked to her bedroom wall filled with illustrations of the most common horse breeds, Appaloosa, Andalusian, Quarter Horse, Morgan, Paint and so on. Dogs were another four-legged passion which brought her to libraries covering five nearby towns where she would settle herself between the stacks and flip page after page of dog photos closely studying the characteristics of individual breeds (this was prior to easy access to sites on the computer), learning the class designations: working dogs, sporting, hounds, the terrier group.
Ain’t Nothing Like The Real Thing: As she acquired greater reading skill, and computer skill, thanks to the services provided by her school district, her knowledge base expanded exponentially. Yet not satisfied with the paper or online version of animal types, she sought out the real thing, in parks and at stables where she interacted with both dog owners and members of the equestrian world, chatting them up with questions and impressing them with her knowledge. Therefore her curious mind facilitated her social development mightily. And of course, as her companion, chauffeur and escort, I learned a ton too. Having a keen visual acuity and memory for physical characteristics, a talent she shares both with her father and her brother, our daughter has the ability to distinguish members within a particular grouping or breed based on shape, coloration and more subtle factors such as ear shape, markings, snout, that I find illusive. Her attention to detail when stimulated is awesome. I do not share this talent for visual awareness and so am in constant awe and grateful enrichment for being able to view these worlds through my daughter’s far keener eye.
Far-Reaching Appetite: Our daughter’s hunger for knowledge reaches beyond canines and equines to rodents, amphibians, snakes and celebrities, impressionist artists, cooking shows and comedy series, Seinfeld, Big Bang, Family Guy, CSI, World War movies, romantic drama and medical and nutritional videos, musical theater and film. Wherever we are, if there is a flyer or pamphlet available, she picks it up and peruses it. In fact, there is very little that doesn’t hold some interest for our daughter, few areas of life in which she has no knowledge. Ah yes, team sports might qualify as one area of little appeal. But that could have changed if she were raised in a different family, or if she begins to hang out with some Giants fans now.
To facilitate these cravings for knowledge we owned many of the objects of her interest: at ten she got a dog; for almost seven years we housed a rat named Doris, and later one named Jenny who lived in the dashboard of the car for two weeks until she escaped on the pier of the Port Jefferson ferry; a white mouse; a hamster; guinea pigs who birthed more guinea pigs; fish and frogs and turtles in our own self-sustaining tiny ecosystem of a pond. We visited, and still do, museums, the theater, nature centers, horse shows and stables. She had an able body of people, a team, also known as a family, to make for a hands on learning experience, as much as possible.
A Fine Mind: What kind of mind is this that craves learning and stimulation and utilizes that learning socially, appropriately and impressively? A very fine mind and one that reminds us all that “special needs” or disabled, as a designation or description of a human being reveals nothing about the assets or abilities of that individual. Society needs such designations and they serve a useful purpose for allocations of services, support, patience and funding for research. But one must not use them to dumb us down to thinking, “This person has little to offer me or the world.” Quite the contrary. This petite person has enriched their worlds for many, especially those closest to her, and continues daily to do so.
A Multi-Dimensional Gift: I view children as a gift. They make us so much more than we would be otherwise. That loop of love at its deepest level enriches the human experience unlike any other. And this daughter is the gift that keeps on giving. It is doubtful that I would have attended a dog show or a horse show in my life were it not for this “gift.” Nor would I have appreciated the humor of endless slapstick moments, or men dressed as women, or dogs dressed as men and so much more. And now we are off to the dog show, six years since we last attended as guests of my sister. Six big years during which time our daughter moved mountains, leaped tall buildings, lived at a boarding school, graduated, aged out and returned to her home state to set up adult life one town west of her childhood home. We are back to Westminster, accompanied by friends, and so much has changed, so many fears for the future have waned. This will be a great show indeed to share with our daughter and to celebrate the outstanding young woman she has become.
Follow-Up: At my request, our daughter’s team sent me the medical documentation from her ophthalmologist visit last week. I have yet to see the glasses. When I picked our daughter up at her apartment Friday to bring her home for a birthday dinner with her brother, she did not bring her glasses. Today she stopped by to drop off her overnight bag on the way to DSO (Day Services Option.) We saw no glasses. Perhaps she has them in her purse. If so, I am interested to learn if she notices a difference and eager to see how they look on her face. Maybe they will enhance her viewing tonight. Her double vision is related to muscle fatigue so if her eyes get worn out by ogling the pooches at the show, she can pop them on for better “viewing.”
I will keep you posted.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Double Vision Wake Up Call: 2-6-12
Remain Watchful, Assume Nothing: I did get lazy, feeling too comfortable letting others care for our daughter. Reliable and wonderful persons but not perfect. Our daughter had an appointment to see her ophthalmologist who has been following her since childhood. I had scheduled a psychotherapy patient at the same time thinking staff would take her to what was to be a simple check-up. Alas a couple of days prior to the appointment, our daughter mentioned having some double vision in one eye, a condition known as diplopia which is a muscle weakness she had been diagnosed with previously. She had been prescribed glasses off and on over the years for the condition, which waxes and wanes, but had not needed them in well over five years.
Oh, Lazy Me: Here is the lazy part. My patient was traveling so I was uncomfortable tracking her down to change her time, as she was new to my practice. Instead I wrote numerous emails to the ABD (Ability Beyond Disability) staff telling them to call me when our daughter was with the doctor, also informing them of her “double vision” issue (which our daughter also planned to tell staff and the doctor). I reiterated that several times and sat through my session with cell phone nearby, having first informed the patient of the impending call. No call ever came in. Earlier that morning the staff person in charge emailed to ask again (!) if she should call me when with the doctor. Wasn’t I clear enough? I emailed back yes and never heard further from her. (Later I find out that she doesn’t have access to her email when on the road, though I emailed back to her within fifteen minutes.)
Again, Who Was The Decider Here? My only conclusion was that nothing much occurred so after the session I called the staff. Oh yes, all went well. The doctor (“He is so nice and funny”) gave our daughter a choice, glasses or an eye patch. She chose the glasses and skipped across the hall and ordered a pair. OH. Then I spoke to our daughter and got the real story. The choice was glasses or surgery (and probably the patch thrown in for a gal whose heart belongs to that great pirate Johnny Depp). And who made this decision? Our daughter and a young staff woman, without me.
Fit To Be Tied: Don’t you just love that expression, if you really think about the visuals here? But I wasn’t tied, I had both arms free and put in a call to the doc. The doctor returned my call and reiterated the choices: surgery or glasses. And again who made that choice? What was the doctor thinking? Honestly. I am our daughter’s guardian yet even the doctor did not seem to notice that a decision was being made by a staffer and a special needs adult. Hardly kosher and certainly not legal.
Notices Went Out: I actually felt scared, the kind of scared that goes along with “loss of control.” Now I knew all about this surgery for Diplopia. We had discussed it years ago. The doctor remains skeptical that our daughter will be able to sit through the snipping of a small muscle in her eye with just a local anesthetic. “She will giggle.” Yes, no harm in trying the glasses again. But never again will anyone make those decisions for our daughter except her guardians, unless there is an emergency. What did we sign all those papers for if no one is trained to understand their purpose? My question to the higher-level staff was how did this fundamental procedural issue get missed? Was the staff out that day or oops, forgot?
Oh That Slippery Slope: Here is that timeworn parental dilemma. We don’t want to ball out the staff (which for all parents at one time or another include teachers, camp counselors, principals and coaches) because they can grow to hate us and take their hatred out on our child. It is a very slippery slope to register a significant concern without raising your voice, without threatening anyone’s job, without using four letter words, without worrying that staff will take revenge on you through your child, yet making absolutely certain that this kind of thing is never, ever going to happen again. Also, I really don’t want to humiliate or maim anyone. These are good people but that is hardly the point.
Stupid Stuff: The senior administrative staffer knew just what to do with me. She got it and said all the right things when I tracked her down on the phone. The junior staffer defended her even more junior staffer with some gobbledy gook about being sure there is a “reasonable explanation.” First get the facts, don’t just stand by your staff by saying “I’m sure there is a reasonable explanation,” when you actually have no idea. Honestly, can’t people who are in a bureaucracy still retain the ability to have normal human intercourse without platitudes, jargon and BS?
My point was basic…putting aside for the moment my five ignored emails and misunderstood messages, someone didn’t understand basic protocol. Medical decisions are made by guardians unless there is an emergency, not staffers. This was to be a check-up and for a staffer to escort a client makes total sense. However, decisions regarding procedures that can be delayed should be passed along by staff to guardians.
Our Nightmare: This is what parents of special needs children fear most. That someday we will not be around and our adult children will be dependent on “providers” who are misguided, indifferent, distracted or destructive and no one will be there to stop that. That is why I became so frightened because this incident gave off a whiff of incompetence that unsettled me. Even now as I am writing this, I think how I need to emphasize to family who will oversee our daughter’s care after I am gone or going how much monitoring and checking in is necessary. This little excursion was relatively harmless, though I will have to revisit it all again after the glasses are worn for a while. But it was a wake-up call. Double vision indeed. Clear vision at all times, that’s what mom needs. And another wake-up call. When it is important, verbal confirmation is still best, despite all the emails and texts in the world. So I can say “Repeat what I have just told you so I can be sure we are both clear-sighted and on the same page.”
Choking Potential: But these people are really good too. For several years now I have worried about our daughter’s eating habits. Specifically that she puts too much food into her mouth at one time and adds more before she has thoroughly chewed and swallowed the previous intake. I don’t know if this habit developed during boarding school, feeling pressured to eat fast to get to classes and chores or what, but recently her rapid devouring of big forks full of food became really scary. My attempts to provide verbal cues were treated like so much mother vapor and blew away just as fast as they were emitted into the air. But lo and behold, the residential coordinator and staff noticed the dangers as well and contacted me to discuss the matter. Wow, I thought, they really are on the ball.
A Plan: Together we came up with a plan of action. Knowing what a visual learner our daughter is, I suggested the use of films that they found and viewed with her, mostly on choking and the Heimlich maneuver. The team then rapidly put in place a series of cues to enable our daughter to stagger her eating pace, taking sips of water, breathing between bites, chewing and swallowing thoroughly, putting less on her fork, and all coordinated with her apartment-mate who had developed similar habits. They are all working on this as a team, and our daughter, who loves to learn about the body, is soaking up the information including the hazards of ingesting too much food with the resultant consequences of indigestion, heart burn, and of course, choking.
Lessons Learned?: Too many to mention. But one is very clear. It has always taken a village or a team to teach our daughter many critical things and though I have to keep my watchful gaze on all, it is still very reassuring that I am not doing this alone.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Valentines With Heart and Humor: A Developmental Approach
A Different Perspective: This will be my third post on the “lovers” holiday and I am stretching my brain to think what I might add to the topic that would be useful here. In the post Valentine’s Day Gifts Take Some Knowing I tackled the topic of gift giving. Valentine’s Day and The Coupledom: Is This A Test? provides a perspective on how to prevent the spiral downward that this holiday can trigger for couples.
Try A Little Humor With The Heart: Now I am thinking, how you approach Valentine’s Day each year can mirror where your Coupledom is developmentally. Looking through articles on phases of marriage has produced little inspiration here. So I have decided to create my own developmental phases for the purpose of this Valentine post:
Phase 1: The Valentine Date For Two: Once you have established that you are a “couple” that first Valentine should be the easiest and perhaps the most traditional: candy, jewelry, a massage or a romantic dinner for two. Sounds simple but if this first Valentine is fraught with angst or disappointment, turn it around by talking about how to make it better this year or next year. Don’t use it to tarnish the new bond; rather to polish it up for the future. Without removing all the sparkle, see if you can unearth your expectations and double-check if they make sense. If not, create something more satisfying and realistic together, based on who each of you is and how the Coupledom you create together can reflect both your styles.
The Yin Yang: It is typical that the yin yang characteristic of mate selection (opposites attract) usually translates into one as the romantic, the other the pragmatist. The romantic will paint the red, pink and perfect picture of lovers’ bliss but the pragmatist might speak of budget, time allotment and location. Rather than fight or feel insulted, recognize that you are looking at a sliver of the shared life as it really is: a mixture of two potions shaken together to create an original blend of both. Drink up.
Phase 2: Valentine With Responsibilities: Now you are no longer a blend of two but a melange of at least three or more. And that doesn’t mean just children. Could be a mortgage, rent, demanding boss, a dog, two cats, academic deadlines, children or all of the above. Now Valentine’s Day means sitters, perhaps an exchange of cards before bedtime or left at the breakfast table on the way out to catch the train. Maybe a promise of a weekend away when the baby is weaned or the bonus comes through. How does this Valentine sound now? BORING! Yes, but here is the moment for a developmental leap. Squeezing the “we are lovers, right?” between the sheets of this phase of married life is more complicated but it is also not forever. Keeping a perspective on the transient nature of these passages can place a more accepting expectation of this lovers’ celebration. Figure it out together, don’t set up your spouse to disappoint you. Look at his or her day and say, hey let’s make a moment that works for both of us.
Shared Humor Is Sexy: Opportunities for humor are everywhere, just check out popular sitcoms or chick flicks, The New Yorker Magazine cartoons or YouTube. The usual dirty diaper joke or the coitus interruptus youngster who is having a nightmare moment in the other room is always available for a few yuks. Rather than personalize the obstacles or realities that interfere with your Valentine dream, recognize the great bonding opportunities of shared humor, as sexy an exchange as anything can be, and the “let’s be real together” rather than the very corrosive “let’s test each other’s love or sexual desire.” No testing! Pleasing yes, but with a useful dose of what is possible, likely and mutually acceptable.
Phase 3: Valentine With Trust and Wisdom: Okay, so now you have survived the early years of marriage and the kids are big enough to let you guys go out by yourselves. Money is still tight and time remains limited but out of the house is doable. Is there trust that you are both on board to care for and love each other? If so, Valentine’s Day should be more of a mutual “let’s have an adventure” rather than try to resurrect the sparks of a decade or more ago. Those sparks ignite naturally. But you have so much more now, too. You have the wisdom of knowing what works best for shared enjoyment. And if you don’t know yet because you have been sacrificing “personal” wants for family unity then dig around together to figure that out. “What would be fun for you?” “What attracts you?” This is an opportunity for each of you to fantasize your Valentine with the other and try to put together a mix of both visions. Is it a day, a weekend perhaps or a long awaited vacation? Budgets, time constraints and inclinations are all equally significant. But don’t fight. If your ideas clash initially, leave the conversation for another day. Or surf the web together. Use your wisdom and trust to make the matured mixture of a shared life into a fun outing to celebrate a love of some duration. And watch out for the sparks that might be ignited by kindness and respect. They can be mighty powerful.
Phase 4: To Infinity & Beyond: How do senior couples mark Valentine’s Day? No, this is not a setup for a joke (but I do like a good joke so please post some on the blog as comments). Senior couples who have seen many Valentine’s Days together might go for novelty. Or perhaps nostalgia. For new couples who are seniors, see Phase 1 and have fun. For this post, I would love their wisdom on what keeps love alive over the decades. My beliefs are evident from these concepts: value your Coupledom (that third entity that you create together in which your relationship resides), think outside of the box, be flexible, try something new and keep a healthy perspective on it all.
Happy Valentine’s Day.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.S.C.W. 2012
Leap Year: 1-30-12
Six Month Review: How symbolic that the Connecticut Department of Developmental Services (DDS) has scheduled our daughter’s six month review on February 29, 2012, Leap Year! It will be six months since the August 1, 2011 move to her apartment in Ridgefield that has become her adult home. Leap indeed. What has transpired in these six months seemed like “The Impossible Dream” a year ago, a dream that only a Don Quixote of a mother could believe would come true.
What Does That Dream Look Like Today? How do you paint a picture of a dream? How do you match the paint colors with the images of the mind? Maybe Salvador Dali could answer that question but as a non-painter yet a committed dreamer, I can vouch for the fact that a dream can be transferred from the mind to the canvas of a life. Even when it is not your life. And that, so far, is what has occurred for this mother of a special needs child. My dream for our daughter has been realized in her world today. Imagine that!
A Typical Week: Our daughter’s “work week” begins at nine Monday mornings at her DSO (Day Services Option) program where a group of recently “aged-out” young adults attend six hours of social programming at Ability Beyond Disability’s Bethel, Ct. headquarters. At three o’clock our daughter then returns to her apartment and either exercises at the Ridgefield Park and Recreation Center with her apartment-mate and staff or attends another activity. (For a while she was attending a yoga class.) Tuesday she returns to the DSO where they might go bowling, attend a music class, help with volunteer activities or some other pursuit. Tuesday evening she and her apartment-mate participate in Angelfish Aquatic Therapy. Wednesday is errands and an apartment meeting with the behaviorist and other staff and a physical activity. Wednesday evening includes a special outing. Thursday is a vocational day where our daughter helps set up “chair yoga” at the senior residence Ridgefield Crossings with her vocational life skills staff. Thursday evening she participates in SPHERE, a theater program. Friday she goes to two jobs: ROAR, the animal shelter where she helps clean out litter boxes and receives training in how to care for the animals, and The Complete Cat Clinic, where she helps to groom the cats and socialize the kittens. Throughout the week our daughter does her chores, shops and cooks with staff who work with her to increase skills for independent living.
Weekends: Friday night is usually veg-out time at the apartment. Saturday she has her Pegasus Therapeutic Riding Program, though during the winter she attends their un-mounted program and has just acquired the skill of taking a horse out on a lead. Saturday and Sunday afternoons are replete in a variety of stimulating activities: going to a museum, a nature center, a flea market, theater, a fair or a movie. And interspersed throughout is quality time spent with her family, who both drop in to take to her lunch, or on an errand, or for longer outings to extended family functions, theater, whatever moves us. The ease with which she can be a part of our lives and we a part of her life delights us all in a profoundly meaningful way.
What A Leap: Does our daughter like her new life, and her new home, and her apartment-mate and staff? Totally. Have there been glitches? You bet. But what a leap from twelve months ago when all was a dream. I am aware that the perfection of this moment is not forever. Nothing ever is. But I can dream that the worst is over, that the formless canvas of her adulthood that rippled through our lives for two decades has filled in beautifully and will never be as frightening again. Fingers crossed.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Recognizing The Co-Narcissism In Your Coupledom
Watch Your Step: Couples relationships incorporate a complex interplay of behaviors and emotions that are products of the unspoken but powerful contract that provides a substructure of the shared life. There can be many substructures that compose the foundation of the attachment, some healthy and sustaining, such as common values and passions, others harmful and erosive to the bond. And one of the most harmful is the dance of co-narcissism…the “watch your step” or you may step on a crack that will break your partner’s trust and shatter, in a nanosecond, the fragile links holding the bond together. This is also described by many as the quality of “walking on egg shells” or “tip toeing around someone.”
The Beast Of Narcissistic Vulnerability In All Of Us: For some couples, the role of co-narcissist is fixed and rigid. The co-narcissistic partner is valued by the other as long as they satisfy their partner’s spoken and unspoken needs at the expense of their own individuality and emotional reality. The co-narcissist has been trained in childhood to subsume their identity into the folds of a parent’s needs, their day-to-day security in the “loving” parental bosom is only as good as their ability to mirror that parent’s greatness, goodness, talent, beauty, genius, or perfection in all things including parenting. By the time these youngsters reach adulthood, integrated into their psychological DNA is a finely attuned vigilance to another’s needs, along the lines of a lady’s maid or his lordship’s obedient servant, whose survival rests on anticipating and gratifying the lord’s or lady’s every whim. If they fail at their task, the beast dwelling within the seemingly normal human facade breaks out and roars, whines, whimpers, accuses, withholds or withdraws, with the taint of unworthiness, incompetence or cruelty smeared all over their partner’s character and self-image. In some Coupledoms, these roles are fixed. But in most Coupledoms, individuals take turns playing the parts, depending on a lot of variables including context, trauma, age, illness, loss and failure.
Owning The Narcissist Within: A surefire method to protect your Coupledom from Invasive Narcissistic Couples’ Disorder (my term), a virulent destroyer of mutual love and respect, is to own the narcissistic inclinations and attitudes within you. Most of us are replete in narcissistic habits of thinking, behaving and feeling. And a closer scrutiny of our tenaciously held belief systems in relationships will reveal some of the most toxic/self-absorbed, narcissistic ones. With an open mind and honest examination of self, matched by a willingness to hear how your partner experiences you, owning your narcissist within can save a whole marriage. Wow!
The Defensive You: What makes us all so defensive in exchanges with our partners about our “imperfections” is that we think any correction, suggestion or complaint, means we are all bad, all defective, failures at being lovable. So we bark, and balk about any single “criticism” or attack the other, feeling righteous and victimized. Oops, normal but not good and too much of it is creates long-term damage. Defensive responses, such as “I don’t do that but you do” (“turning the tables on the other” or “blame the victim”, familiar maneuvers to us all) or “I am never good enough.” Or “there is always something, I can never please you” can often be the narcissist in us speaking. Catch your defensiveness and you will find fearfulness, the threat that lurks beneath it and is based on very young notions that “I have to be perfect or I am unlovable, shameful or bad.” Change that nine-year old thinking and voila you have graduated middle school, skipped high school and now are an adult! At last.
Owning The Co-Narcissist Within: Alternatively, even as you are narcissistic at times, you may also be the one tiptoeing around on some issues or during particular stages of your relationship with your partner. Areas of discussion that are taboo are often indicative of co-narcissistic moments. A partner who won’t bring up a critical topic with their spouse ever, for fear that they will be perceived as having broken an unspoken vow, or being seen as an enemy, may often throw someone else under the bus as a consequence. Perhaps it concerns a child or parents, or the partner themselves, yet the threat of being perceived as hurtful or untrustworthy impairs judgment and impacts unfairly another, maybe you or your child. This could be around a spouse’s job loss, an illness, an addiction, or a sexual disappointment. If you notice that you are hyper-vigilant and micromanaging others, children particularly, around your spouse at certain times, you need to uncover the belief system behind these feelings, haul it out and question what you are doing, the ramifications for all, and make different choices, perhaps with help. This can be crucial to you, your marriage and your family.
Narcissistic Personality Disorder: Then there are those folks who suffer from and suffer others with their “Narcissistic Personality Disorder” which is vividly described in an article by Gudrun Zomerland, MFT, who is adept at capturing both how co-narcissists and narcissists come into being, and their impact on the Coupledom. The disorder, in its most severe form, is very hard to treat. Someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) often finds individual or couples therapy terribly threatening due to a mostly unconscious fear that others may see their “imperfections or flaws.” This possibility threatens to reveal their big secret, that they are in fact worthless, unlovable and shameful souls. Do they know that? Are these feelings so camouflaged by their opposite – self-love, self-importance, self-absorption and an inability to have empathy or interest in anyone who isn’t serving their needs – that even they don’t know what lies within their hearts? I don’t have the answer. Some may suspect and others may even give life to those feelings, but often that is just a fleeting moment before they fall back on their defensive, narcissistic posture.
The “N” Word: Villainizing Your Partner Or Your Ex: Writing this piece is a bit worrisome to me for fear folks may use it destructively. I have observed a trend in recent years where angry partners slam each other with the “N” word, making it more a weapon than a description of behavior or attitude. And ultimately weakening its usefulness. This piece is an attempt to elevate a conversation between two parties who share a relationship where each can own their “N” or “Co-N” piece without shame and ultimately mature together in the process. I work with couples that come into therapy convinced in their belief that the other wants to demean them or put them down, only to find out that in fact, this is not the case. This “narcissistic vulnerability” makes them view a partner’s initial attempts to describe the other’s impact on them, or some minor correction, as something personally threatening and ultimately so mangled and distorted in their personal viewfinder that instead of understanding, suspicion and distrust ensue. Particular subjects, such as parenting for women, and earning power for men, sexual appeal or ability for both, are sensitive spots and therefore are viewed as a personal attack, insult or assault. Finding out that this is not the case, that there are two people in the relationship which introduces multiple possibilities, reactions, beliefs and styles, liberates everyone to be able to trust again, grow up and become a much healthier, satisfied and happy Coupledom.
Help: This is work, wonderful work. For the therapist and for the couple who strip themselves of archaic belief systems which cripple trust and begin to embark on a real bonding based on honest self-reflection and empathy for another. Get an expert to help you do this very important work. Everyone benefits, the individual, the couple and the family.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Who Defines Disability? The DSM V and Autism: 1-23-12
Who Defines Disability: The New York Times last week published two articles back to back regarding the controversy in the medical and special needs communities over the revamping of the Autism Spectrum diagnoses including Asperger’s Syndrome and Pervasive Developmental Disorder NOS (“not otherwise specified”) for the 2013 publication of the DSM V also known as the Diagnostic And Statistical Manuel Of Mental Disorders. This is a large volume produced by the American Psychiatric Association and is the bible that guides the medical and mental health community in establishing parameters for the diagnostic categories that determine insurance coverage, treatment protocols and special education categories. The concern is that by refining Autism diagnoses, those with the milder forms such as Asperger’s and PDD-NOS will no longer qualify for treatments that have been deemed essential for their development. The fear is that services such as speech and occupational therapy, neuropsychological assessments and social skills training covered by insurance companies or provided by public school special education departments would no longer be available to children who now qualify under the current DSM IV designations. This is scary business for many families and touches upon issues that make raising a special needs child riddled with fear and feelings of powerlessness.
Spared For Now: Our daughter is not one of those with an Autism Spectrum diagnosis. She falls into the amorphous category of cognitive disability, neurological impairment or the stigmatizing and hateful Mild Mental Retardation, yes that word, (DSM V may use the diagnostic category Intellectual Disability in its place) because her I.Q. meets those requirements, though I prefer Dr. Michael Powers’ description that she is in fact an Artichoke. That is why years ago when her scores came in, it was clear that when she aged out of our school district at twenty-one, she would qualify for life-long adult services, as long as we lined up all our ducks before her eighteen birthday. Ironic indeed. “You never know what to wish for.” Nope.
Mon Dieu: Over the decades as we fumbled along the special needs highway toe-to-toe, heel-to-heel with families whose kids were each unique in strengths and weaknesses, I began to recognize how arbitrary these designations can be. The New York Times provided yet another article that underscores the mercurial nature of this process. A documentary on the treatment of Autism in France revealed that some mental health clinicians, specifically in the French psychoanalytic circle, treat Autism as a psychological trauma brought on by a cold and frigid mother. Mon Dieu! This notion, once sadly popular in the United States and similar in its horrific accusatory nature to the notion of the “schizophrenogenic mother” that reigned as recently as the 1970’s, apparently still has adherents in France. Rather than viewing Autism as a medical disorder that benefits from behavioral treatments and training, there are French children who have ended up as psychoanalytic patients to the point of being placed in an “asylum” for six years to undergo psychoanalysis. Frankly, as an American trained psychoanalyst, I find this fact particularly mortifying.
In other words, how a “condition” is viewed by the medical and mental health community determines the fate of the individual and history has shown how mercurial, judgmental and destructive that view can be.
Our Friends: Our daughter has many friends from her years at her special education boarding school Riverview whose diagnoses are on the Autism continuum, yet with I.Q.’s too high to qualify them for adult services. With the impending revision of the diagnostic categories that allowed these children services, fear is spiking that the current crop of children will not meet the newly revised DSM V qualifications for developmental services. Without these services, how will these children grow up to become successful adults in a social world?
Revision Sample: I have reviewed the DSM V revision sample online. Take a look. It seems pretty comprehensive and inclusive to me so please let me know if I am missing something.
Short Term Solutions Become Long Term Drains: There must be no doubt that providing the tools for successful adulthood, in childhood, is a benefit to all society. While still supported by their parents with shelter, food, clothing, transportation, medical services and love, children in public schools can be taught to socialize and communicate with their peers in their communities at far less cost to the government, the tax payer and society in general. If those same training tools were withheld, that would render the adult versions of these youngsters more likely to become burdens to the medical and legal institutions and places enormous stress on their families. And stress of that nature, research has shown, introduces additional costs to the medical and mental health arena as well as taking a big bite out of worker productivity. Short term cost cutting solutions, where human beings are involved, evolve into long-term drains for all.
Fingers Crossed: By the way, our intellectually disabled daughter just completed reading forty pages of “My Sister’s Keeper” in two days (“I like the movie better)…the Jodi Picoult novel for high schoolers and adults and will probably finish it off pretty soon. (Ms.Picoult is popular with women’s book clubs.) Does our daughter comprehend it? You bet, enough to know that the hot guy in the movie has not appeared in the book, so far. But can she pay a bill, safely cross the street, travel on her own or make critical decisions in an emergency? No. But she sure can read, thanks to years of special education services! Fingers crossed these precious special education resources will remain intact for the severe, the so-called mild, and all those in between whose success in adulthood depends on them. Fingers Crossed.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
Illness and Loss In The Coupledom: Reality Shifts
Loss: I had loss on my mind this week. In fact, I always do but this week a family member shared her profound sadness upon learning of the tragic death of a very dear friend in the “prime of life.” She asked if I had written on loss and grief specific to The Coupledom and I thought: there are so many losses, in so many ways. And so I began to compose this post. Coincidentally, Sunday’s New York Times had two articles on loss as well, which gave language to a new form of secular communal grieving in one piece and the concept of “ambiguous loss” in the other. Both speak to the variety of loss, its power and the need for comfort in a never ending human struggle that marks our Coupledoms, as well as our persons, as mortal.
Chronic: Loss of a spouse or partner from a degenerative disorder is perhaps one of the most debilitating for the Coupledom, as subtle changes in the climate of the relationship may be felt long before a diagnosis is rendered. A kind of tension has tinged the emotional airways. Someone who formerly enjoyed socializing seems disinclined to attend parties or movies, traveling to foreign ports or sharing the T.V. remote. “Set in his/her ways” may not truly reveal the whole picture. A hint of moodiness is sniffed in the air, or a spark of anger more intense than previously seen, is easily triggered. Inflexible positions are taken on how to spend money, or when to visit the relatives. A sharp powerful mind seems a bit clouded. The changes are subtle at first and irritating. Then mobility issues or marked forgetfulness are noticed, initially attributed to over-exercising or mild senioritis. But with time and visits to the internist and finally a neurologist, a diagnosis emerges, and The Coupledom shifts with a powerful jolt. Someone is becoming a caretaker, and someone else is losing their edge. This is a slow crawl with pockets of loss all along the way. And grief.
No Shame: Many today know this kind of loss where the person is still with you but their character is changing along with their body; an ambiguous loss, not a death but a dying off of the familiar attributes of the beloved and the consequent shift in the role of the partner. Can the couple talk about these changes, these losses, locate something new that can replace what is being lost? Yes, but typically the healthy spouse doesn’t want to burden their partner with their pain, sadness or weariness. Extended families are important and friends who need to validate the grieving process with reality, not with false hope, denial or disapproval when faced with the anger, annoyance or frustration of the caregiver. The caregiver needs support and is at high risk for developing their own illnesses due to the stresses of carrying the banner of the relationship, filling two pair of shoes to maintain the shared life. For the caregiver, there should be no shame in wishing that they were free to live their former lives, no shame in leaving their partner in the hands of someone else so that they can touch base with essential pieces of their personal reality. This is necessary and if not gratified, depression and illness might ensue, complicating an already challenging time.
Grief Is A Shared Reality: A Coupledom faced with a slow and steady loss can grieve some of this together. Though memories are fading for one, the steady reflections of the other offer up opportunities to shed some tears or share some laughs together. Why not? Pretending that all is the same protects no one and stresses everyone. Loss is normal, human and provides moments where the depth of the bond can be acknowledged by the shared pain of its changes and losses for both partners. There is no ambiguity in grieving together what is lost.
Acute: The sudden onset of a terminal illness by one member of The Coupledom freezes time like nothing else. There was pre-diagnosis life and post-diagnosis life and they have little in common. Time and energy spent on treatments dominate daily life and interpersonal transactions for the couple. Other family members, children and parents, need care and protection from overwhelming fears and distractions so they can get on with their lives while the fight for health unfolds. But as the illness progresses, or the treatments take their toll, losses are already occurring. Mom and wife, father and husband, daughter or son, look different, act different and can’t quite muster their characteristic oomph or interest in the lives of their loved ones. Patients of mine, whose parents became ill while they were still in the throes of their childhood, poignantly describe these losses but often with the caveat that the adults around them never acknowledged the reality of what was being lost. Grieving was put aside as if to protect the “innocent.” Sadly. For both spouse and children, sadness and loss need language even as hope is still in the picture. However long the journey, the button of emotional expression should not be on mute, in The Coupledom or with other family. Again, the depth of the bond is revealed and nourished in the moments of shared grieving. These moments remembered when the loved one is gone can ease the pain because of what was shared with them along the way: something real, mutual and honest.
Unexpected Loss: Tragic unexpected death is the ultimate “blind-sided” experience. Rips open the heart and leaves speechless the surviving partner. The staggering impossibility. Shock and groping. What makes this experience so bafflingly cruel is the absence of preparation, no file in the emotional cabinet for this loss. Blankness and blindness, and the person who might provide the light to find the way is the one who is gone. Here is where the community of family and friends need to wrap themselves around the naked survivor who has no map for this experience. No map at all. Each day, in ways that match the needs of the widowed, a path of small steps is sketched in, a new reality slowly traced out alongside the grieving process. The personal identity that the partnership formerly provided is overthrown in a moment and something new that identifies “me” has to be born, over time, with the support and love of others. This will take time. Yesterday I was a wife, a husband, a lover. Today I am a widow, a widower, alone.
Small steps: Each day, baby steps mark the way towards a tolerable reality. Unexpected loss strips the survivor of their confidence in the predictability of life and this can be quite debilitating. Rebuilding a trust in the everyday world might take some professional help as well as the passage of time. Time is a paradox in loss. It is time whose excruciating tred moves so slowly along in the grieving process and yet it is time whose gentle hand can be so healing.
Our Coupledom Life: When we sign on for the shared life, written in invisible ink along the margins of the contract to love another is the profound truth: one of our twosome will depart first. Does that keep us from love? Hardly. Loss is life’s most consistent theme. If you need a hand to guide you when you are faced with the unfathomable, seek out family, friends or experts. Don’t totter alone. This deepest of all human emotions needs company.
©Jill Edelman, M.S.W., L.C.S.W. 2012
