Real Talk Therapy PDX

When I first came across this photo, I chuckled. Clearly it was meant with a spirit of levity. But then it got me thinking of some conversations I’ve had with clients who really struggle with fears of how others are supposedly judging them, or their bodies, or what their bodies say about them.

Sometimes these fears come from memories of truly hurtful words that have been said. Sometimes they’re mere assumptions fueled by popular culture. But regardless of their origin, these fears are almost always projections.

None of us can get inside another person’s head. Many of us try too hard to do so. But our assumptions are skewed by many cognitive distortions:

The Spotlight Bias is the name for our tendency to feel like all eyes are on us, and generally overestimate the extent to which others think of us at all.

The Negativity Bias and Disqualifying the Positive are mental habits that draw our attention toward cues that we could use to reinforce our negative existing beliefs, while dismissing or distorting evidence that something else could be true.

When we assume we know what others are thinking, we are Mind Reading. Very often, what we assume we know about others is actually something we ourselves believe and are Projecting onto them. And when we assume others know what we ourselves are thinking and feeling, that’s the Illusion of Transparency.

We’re also probably Catastrophizing - mentally blowing our fears out of proportion, obsessing, and allowing those fears to control our actions. Suppose your worst fears were true and so-and-so really did think such-and-such about you. So what? Who cares?

What I love about this cookie is that it reclaims the projection and decatastrophizes it. The fear loses its charge, and we can move on with our lives.

What projections are holding you back?

Efforts to de-stigmatize mental illness in recent years have helped remove barriers that once made people in need feel too ashamed to get appropriate help with their mental health. But have we gone too far?

Social incentives and disincentives play a huge role in shaping human behavior. It’s difficult to overstate this, but easy to lose sight of it.

We all need a sense of identity and a community to belong to. We want others to actively show us that they accept, support, and encourage us. We want to be seen as both special and ordinary. We’ve entered an era in which having a mental illness appears to offer a path toward exactly those things we long for most.

Or does it?

Read the rest of this article: https://stephaniewinn.medium.com/mental-illness-is-neither-a-mark-of-shame-nor-a-badge-of-honor-c2e61dd49261

When we hear the word “vulnerability,” we often think of unpleasant feelings such as shame, embarrassment, doubt, sadness, fear, and insecurity. By contrast, the concept of “joy” is often associated with resilient exuberance. And that may be true in certain moments. But usually the momentary bliss of spontaneous unselfconsciousness does not last long before it is replaced by a sudden awareness that others are watching and reality still abides by its usual principles.

We may have been taught that joy is silly. That there is no time for childlike wonder. That our enthusiasm is irksome, our openness is a liability, our hopes are foolish, our delight is naive, our interests are unpopular, and our desire to play is unreciprocated.

Joy may perhaps be the most vulnerable of all human experiences.

Wishing other people would change is an almost universal part of the human struggle. It often comes with a lot of pain and frustration. We release some of that fruitless struggle as we begin to accept life as it is, and people as they are. This maturation process brings lightness, serenity, and the freedom to move on with our own endeavors. It requires the humility to recognize we cannot fully know why things are as they are, or what purpose is being fulfilled by that which seems inane to us. It also asks that we maintain the dignity to validate our own way of being without needing the other to mirror us.

Let’s be clear: accepting reality as it is does not mean maintaining an uncomfortable position within that reality. If anything, taking off our rose-colored glasses enlightens and liberates us. We stop wasting our time and energy on argument, self-doubt, wishful thinking, and unfulfilling endeavors to cajole and coerce. We understand that, for all intents and purposes, “what you see is what you get.” We listen to behavior and take it at face value as an indicator of what we can and cannot reasonably expect from a given person. And then we plot our course accordingly.

Maybe this means someone is no longer in our life. Maybe it means we go “gray rock” to avoid further emotional entanglement with an otherwise unavoidable person. Maybe we mentally relocate “best friend” to “friend,” “friend” to “acquaintance,” “potential future spouse” to “not dating material after all,” “aunt I tell everything to” to “aunt I chat about weather and sports with,” “celebrity I admire” to “celebrity who’s done some great performances but isn’t a good role model.”

None of this requires the other’s knowledge or consent. It’s just a strategy to protect our own peace of mind. We form the right constellations around us as we choose the right proximity, angle, distance and clustering of our fellow stars in the galaxy.

Everyone is perfect just as they are, as long as you know how you want to position yourself in relation to them.

We’re accustomed to lying. Technology exponentially enables our preexisting proclivity to curate an image of who we are, what we believe, and how we act. Who we think we are is often disconnected from reality and the laws of nature. When we enter our bodies and step into the wildness of the world, our self-deception isn’t of much use. In the words of Andrew Bird, She - Mother Nature - is obliged to no one, and certainly not to the fickle whims of our human egos. The desire to avoid this rugged confrontation is understandable, but indulging it comes at a cost. Our bodies and minds are themselves part and parcel of nature, and subject to her laws. Ill fortune, disease and death come to all of us. The longer we ignore reality, the more harshly it will eventually hit us.