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Toxic Workplaces that Trigger Family of Origin Issues

I am often hear from clients about ongoing issues at the workplace. I hear reports of environments that are toxic and dysfunctional, unkind and unsupportive bosses or difficulties with peers at work. According to Lisa Ferentz (2012), we stay in these places of employment because it feels similar to our own family growing up. What we forget is that we are not little and scared anymore. We actually have the power to make a change.

The simple question to clients — “Where else have you felt this way in your life” – encourages to turning off the “autopilot” switch and to being more mindful of what is really happening in the present. I often use Ferentz’s exercise in teasing out these dynamics (Ferentz, 2012).

Her suggestion is quite simple. Take one sheet of paper and divide vertically – – labeling one side Family Dynamics and the other side Workplace. Under each side, she suggests thinking/writing about 4 different topics. Feelings growing up (validated/invalidate/understood/misunderstood etc.), home life expectations(reasonable/unreasonable, etc.), boundaries (appropriate/inappropriate), and lastly — what was the atmosphere of the environment (cooperative/competitive, calm/chaotic, etc.). Clients are expected to chose one of the descriptive words. For example:

  • invalidated, inappropriate boundaries, chaotic, etc…

After choosing the two descriptive words for each category and placing them under each title — Family Dynamics and Workplace, see if you can notice any similarities or differences. What has been duplicated from your family of origin and within the current place of employment. Has anything changed?

It is pretty amazing what is revealed in this exercise with clients. Most importantly, the emerging mindfulness of the past and the present, is powerful. This connection allows people to become unstuck, restores hopefulness, and provides energy to make a change if they chose.

 

Information taken from the book Treating Self Destructive Behaviors in Trauma Survivors by Lisa Ferentz (2012).

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Thought Stopping Strategies for Trauma Survivors

Lisa Ferentz talks about many successful ways to support trauma survivors. Two techniques that I utilize in my treatment of survivors are the “Not Now” and “Roller Paint Brush” Techniques.

The “Not Now” tip encourages clients to use their hands to push away intrusive negative thoughts, rather than fight them. Ferentz describes clients actually using their arms, with palms facing outward and pushing the unwanted, negative thoughts away. This sends a non verbal message to the brain that these thoughts are on hold (2012).

Ferentz’s second tip that I love is the paint brush strategy. The idea is to visualize rolling over the difficult thought — covering the thought over and over until you can’t see the words anymore. Clients are encouraged to follow with their eyes, going over and over the thoughts — even breathing through out, but not engaging in a power struggle over them.

These tips and more help trauma survivors stop the “loop of negativity” that often derails their recovery.

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Survival Tips for PPD moms who experienced a past sexual trauma

Here is a recent blog post by Postpartum Progress written by Karen Morelli, LPC. She shares tips for new mom’s surviving past sexual trauma. As a clinician that works with survivors of trauma everyday, I found this piece important and one that is often not shared. See below.

“Childhood sexual abuse and a woman’s subsequent reproductive years, including menstruation, pregnancy, birth and ongoing sexuality, occurs years or even decades apart. Yet, in my clinical practice, I have found these issues to be intertwined. Sexual themes resonate with… a woman on multiple levels: within her body, her emotions and her psychology. And distress from childhood sexual abuse can resurface during the emotionally and hormonally charged time of pregnancy and postpartum. What research exists, finds that women who suffered from childhood sexual abuse have an elevated risk of postpartum depression, besides other physical and emotional symptoms. Related triggers around reproductive health:

During Pregnancy Body-based feelings in pregnancy can be re-triggering to a woman who has deep, somatic memories of childhood sexual abuse. Simple things such as the position of your body during vaginal exams can bring back emotional memories of past abuse. The baby moving inside your body might cause intense joy, but might also create an underlying uneasiness.

During Birth Childbirth is an intense experience; a time of hormonal, physical and emotional exertion. Early trauma can be triggered by a particular scent for example, or a body position. If you feel powerless, not heard, or disregarded by your healthcare providers during childbirth, it can activate the symptoms of post-traumatic stress and flashbacks of your past trauma.

During Postpartum There are many physical, emotional and psychological factors feeding your emotional health during this time. And it’s true that a pre-existing personal depressive or anxiety disorder, or pre-existing PTSD, sets your body up for another episode postpartum. Intense physical and hormonal changes, plus adjusting to a new lifestyle caring for an infant is physically and emotionally challenging. Feelings of frustration emerge as you adjust your schedule to accommodate your baby. The endless touching may leave you feeling like your body isn’t your own anymore. Breastfeeding may feel triggering to some, as it too may cause confusing sexual feelings.

So what can you do to proactively manage your mental health during these phases of motherhood? First, I want you to know that your childhood sexual abusive does NOT define you. Your past does NOT have to be your destiny. With perseverance, you can move beyond being a survivor towards thriving and blooming beautifully. It’s not an easy task, but your self-esteem is worth the fight! Managing the effects of an abusive childhood is an on-going deeply personal experience. It’s honorable life work, and highly individualized. As you move along your healing path, you’ll choose what’s right for you.

Tips to help enhance your experience of pregnancy, birth and postpartum:

1.Recognize that post-traumatic stress is a real disorder, not some fake diagnosis.

2.Practice Self-Love. Self-love is not just an empty clich , it’s something worth fighting for. Allow yourself to rest and be gentle with yourself during all three stages of motherhood.

3.Try to make time to get help with a licensed mental health professional before pregnancy. It’s best to put in your emotional work before starting a family, but it can also be done if you are already pregnant or postpartum (see below.) It’s never too late to begin.

4.Face your fears and past, at your own pace, in a safe and professional environment.

5.Work with a gynecologist/obstetrics/midwifery provider with whom you feel comfortable enough to discuss your history of trauma. Investigate the hospital or birth center where your provider practices to make sure it’s the right fit for you. If your provider or institution don’t meet your needs, you are empowered to find another. It’s important to advocate for your own health care.

6.Find an experienced childbirth educator who is accepting of your personal choices. Birthing and breastfeeding classes really do help on an emotional level as well.

7.Remember that birth is an unpredictable experience. If your birth experience doesn’t follow your birth plan, you can still feel good about it. You are not less of a woman or mother, no matter how your birth happens.

8.Honor the achievement of childbirth and motherhood. You are growing a life! That is a huge accomplishment.

9.Understand that your hormonal balance takes at least three months after birth to come back to pre-pregnancy levels.

10.Honor and protect yourself during ”the fourth trimester” and beyond, as your body shift towards balance:

  • Rest; develop the mindset of being, not doing.
  • Practice good nutrition with whole foods and good supplements.
  • Get help. If you can afford it, set up some time with a postpartum doula or a baby nurse so you can rest. Enlist the help of family or friends. You don’t have to do this on your own.
  • Don’t underestimate the power of sleep. Work out a sleep plan. Even if you are breastfeeding, don’t be the only one getting up to feed the baby.
  • Practice mindfulness and relaxation to counteract the inevitable challenges of caring for a newborn and the emotional change of identity in motherhood
  • Nurture yourself with complementary care. Safe touch such as shiatsu and acupuncture can re-balance your body and mind.Expect some emotional ups and downs and realize these are normal.
  • Social support is important. Women who ”Tend and Befriend” in real life and online feel supported.
  • If you feel very sad or anxious, there is a lot of professional help available to you. You are not less of a mother if you see a doctor or therapist. Taking care of you makes you a better mother. A beautiful book about healing from child sexual abuse that I highly recommend is ”A River of Forgetting” by Jane Rowan.
  • If you had the experience of childhood sexual abuse, know that post-traumatic growth is possible. Don’t wait to honor yourself by doing the emotional work. You can ask for and get help. You and your family are worth it. And know that you are not alone.

-Karen Morelli,LPC

Reference: Perez-Fuentes, G., Olfson, M., Villegas, L., Morcillo, C., Wang, S. & Blanco, C., (2013). Prevalence and correlates of child sexual abuse: a national study. Comprehensive Psychiatry, 5(1), 16-27.

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PTSD Memories: The Body Always Remembers

Most of us have had feelings of nostalgia once in a while. We might see yellow school buses go by and think of our children long ago getting on the bus for the first time. Maybe it is when the weather changes, we remember our college days or hear an old song that reminds of times past. Sometimes we can’t remember exactly in detail the event, but our body and brain reminds us of that particular time in our lives.

When people experience a trauma, the body and brain also remember. People recovering from traumas can witness in themselves very intense feelings or ”memories” of the situation that occurred (Fisher, 2013). This onset is often triggered by any sensory experience: sight, smell, auditory, and so on.

What outsiders may not realize is that these emotions can be very scary and overwhelming. Everyone has heard that saying ”it is like riding a bike ’ you will remember what to do”. Well’this is the way the body is reminding the survivor — but it is the type of muscle memory one must learn to cope successfully with.

 

Some examples of experiences are: feelings of panic, apprehension, shame, depression, numbness, sense of abandonment, impulses to run or leave, self mutilation, shakiness, rapid heartbeat, and suicidal ideations. All of these reactions or feelings is the body’s way of remembering what happened. Very often, clients will say to me ’ ”I don’t really remember all the details”, ”there are lapses in my memory from growing up”. Yet, the body is recalling ’ communicating in feelings and behaviors.

Having this cognitive understanding, allows clients to begin strengthening their ability to tolerate this hyper or hypo arousal state that is so very uncomfortable (Fisher, 2013). They can then remind themselves they are in the present day. This helps build new muscle memory that the feelings – aka- the memories, can be tolerated with new coping skills. The goal is to change the default setting — to tolerance ’and hopefulness.

(Fisher, 2013)

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Sandwich Generation: My contribution to a recent article in PARENTING magazine: May 2013 issue

More commonly, moms and dads are caring for their kids and their parents. Read about what’s it like to live together as an extended family

By Janene Mascarella

”There was a day where I was nursing a baby during a conference call and simultaneously searching for ramp installers online,” says Mona Shand of Brighton, MI. She and her husband help care for her 81-year-old father, who is wheelchair-bound and suffers from Parkinson’s disease, and their three children, ages 5, 3, and 1, while balancing full-time jobs.

The Shands are members of the sandwich generation, a colloquial term for those caring for kids and aging family members simultaneously. It’s a demographic that’s becoming increasingly crowded. In a recent poll from A Place for Mom, Inc. (APFM), the nation’s largest senior-living referral information service, more than half of the respondents (95 percent of whom were parents) said an older family member is either already living in their home or expected to within the next five years. It’s a statistic I can relate to. While my 84-year-old father-in-law is active and self-sufficient, it’s understood that sometime in the not-so-distant future, he will move in with us. That would bring us to two kids, two Betta fish, a dog, a bearded dragon, and Grandpa.

Caring for an older relative is nothing new, but dual caregiving is a relatively recent phenomenon due to advances in medicine, longer life spans, and starting families later in life. The recession’and the shrinking retirement savings it created’served only to cement the trend.

In the end, multigenerational caregiving presents a complicated family landscape to navigate. It’s no wonder the sandwich generation finds itself, well, squeezed.

Stuck in the Middle

”I knew I was in the sandwich generation when in the course of one week, my elderly dad said to me, ”I hate you, I wish you weren’t my son,’ and my daughter said, ”I wish you weren’t my father,’” says Herb Lin, a father of one in Washington, DC. ”I responded to them both the same way: ”I’m sorry you feel that way, but I love you and you’re stuck with me.’” Lin says his father and 11-year-old daughter were not close, which he attributes to a cultural and generational divide. (Lin’s father was a Chinese man who came to the U.S. as an adult, and did not acclimate well to American culture.)

One of Lin’s biggest challenges was shaking the feeling that he was neglecting one while spending time with the other. ”My priority was my daughter, who I felt needed me more, but I had to respond to my dad’s emergencies quite often,” he says. ”I was able to reduce the stress only by compartmentalizing’dealing with each one separately rather than trying to integrate the relationships under one family umbrella.”

For those taking a cue from Lin, make sure some of that compartmentalizing qualifies as quality time, advises Meredith Gelman, a licensed clinical social worker and psychotherapist in Fairfax, VA. ”In these situations, it’s important for parents and kids to spend time alone,” explains Gelman. ”A simple, inexpensive afternoon together can remind them that they are still an intact family.”

Alot of sandwich generationers feel pressure to do everything for everyone in their nest. That’s a first-class ticket to a guilt trip, says Dana Dorfman, Ph.D., a psychotherapist and family counselor in New York City. ”Guilt is a normal response, but in order to help either generation,” says Dorfman, ”you have to meet your own needs.” Find an outlet: exercise, plan a regular girls’ night out, find private time with your spouse. ”Prioritize your own physical and mental health first.” To avoid burnout, suggests Gelman, don’t just ask friends and family for help; ask them to help with specific tasks.

Hand-Me-Down Life Lessons

While the challenges are great, there are benefits’for all generations. In the APFM survey, nearly 41 percent cited the opportunity to reciprocate the care they received growing up as a plus. ”A lot of people say it must be very hard taking care of my mother, my daughter, and my business,” says Monika Hengesbach, who owns a tax practice in Pleasant Hill, CA. ”But knowing that my mom doesn’t have to worry about being alone when she’s sick is the greatest gift I can give her.”

When the time comes for my family, my kids will witness empathy in action and caring come full circle, a lesson that’s not lost on Fitton’s children. ”My kids have a greater understanding of love and responsibility,” Fitton explains. ”They see that sometimes parents and grandparents need help, and because we love them, we do whatever we can to take care of them.”

It’s bonding on a whole new level, Gelman explains. ”These situations really expand a child’s mind-set and avail them to think a little less about themselves,” she says, ”if only for a moment.”

 

 

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Squashing the Worry Bug

Do you have a child that worries? Does the anxiety get in the way of having fun, participating in activities, with friendships? Does your child have the following traits?

  • DemonstrateS excessive distress with crying, physical symptoms, sadness, anger etc.
  • Easily agitated or angry in stressful situations accompanied by stomach aches or headaches.
  • Needs repetitive reassurance to ”what if” concerns

These are just a few symptoms of children who worry excessively. There are few ways to combat anxiety and, at the same time, give your child the confidence to manage it. Tamar Chansky, PhD, author of ”Freeing your Child from Anxiety” has identified 5 steps in creating this management plan.

Empathize with your child what you are feeling:

  • Acknowledge what is going on with her. Don’t tell her not to worry, but reflect her feelings by saying: ”this seems so hard, so unfair”, ”this is making you so upset”…
  • Relabel the problem ’ give it a name.
  • This allows the child to determine what thoughts are from her worry voice and what she really THINKS.
  • Give it a name like ”worry bug”, make a puppet to remind her, or even draw pictures of it.

Rewire and Resist

  • Help her find the truth and not let the powerful feelings get in the way
  • Teach her to say things like ”my parents would never let me be in danger — I am not listening to you worry bug!”

Get the body on board

  • Slow the body down by counting, deep breaths, thinking of something that makes her happy and calm.
  • Remind your child that anxiety always passes

Refocus on what you want to do

  • Ask your child what she would be doing if she was not worrying? Then get into the activity ’ or something like it — the brain will follow but not the worry bug!

Reinforce your child’s efforts at fighting her worries!

  • Reward any behavior that demonstrates any coping, effort at beating this worry bug!
  • Change the reward after a partial goal is met

You can use these steps with children and adults at all ages, just adapt to their age and maturity level. Chansky and others believe that it takes about 2-3 weeks for a new behavior to really be established, so practice and reward consistently! For more information regarding anxiety in adolescent girls and women visit the blog section of my website at www.mgelman.com

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Women and their Mothers

When in the first session I hear a client say she feels unlovable, empty, never really good enough, and is lacking in self-confidence, I begin to wonder about her relationship with her mother.

As a mother of three children myself, I know that it is unreasonable to believe that a mother must be perfect all the time. We just have to be good enough. We will make mistakes. Some women though grew up in homes where nothing was EVER good enough for their mothers.

  • Did you grow up with a mother who was overly concerned about what others thought of her?
  • Was she only invested in your triumphs when they reflected on her as a good mother?
  • Did your mother go from a depressed mood to being egoistical?
  • Is it difficult – even now- to tell her no?
  • Did you find yourself making decisions as a child and later as an adult, based on what SHE wanted and not you?
  • Did your mother compete with you?
  • Did you feel as though you needed to take care of her emotional needs growing up?
  • Do you find yourself having this same relationship with your own children?

I work with many women who are exploring and healing their past and present relationships with their mothers. The description above details some characteristics of what is called a Narcissistic Personality. I help such daughters with my extended training and being a paneled therapist with Dr. Karyl McBride, author of ”Will I Ever Be Good Enough? Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers”.

Dr.McBride describes in her book ways to heal the ”unmothered child.” This process allows you the choice to change your present day relationships and to stop the narcissism from continuing in you.

To recover, McBride believes, is to accept your mother’s limitations, reframe some of your mother’s negative messages, and begin having a relationship in a healthier way- on your terms, as your new self (McBride, 2008). It can be a difficult process, but with great possibilities.

Are you ready to begin?