Category: Client Creations

The Power of Pants

Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about pants. I’ve been thinking about what they mean, what they represent and what they can do.

Often when clients are dealing with a crisis, loss, or just feel weighed down by their emotions, they will tell me they don’t know how they will get through it. This is understandable and common. When our negative emotions are so strong and raw, it’s hard to remember that we can feel differently in the future, or that we have felt differently in the past. When a client tells me they don’t think they can get through something, I often respond, “You already are getting through it. You’re breathing, you’re sitting, you’re here, and you’re wearing pants.” That last part usually brings some humor into the room, and while that is some of my intention, I’m not saying it just to be funny. Putting on pants, or a dress or a skirt for that matter, is important.

Asking about Activities of Daily Living, or ADLs, as they are often referred to in the mental health field, is an important part of the assessment process. Do you shower? Get your laundry done? Can you cook, keep your room or home reasonably clean, and get yourself dressed every day? It sounds basic, and some clients initially laugh when I ask these questions. However, for anyone whose symptoms have been so overwhelming and intense that they are not able to keep up with ADLs, it is no longer possible to take them for granted.

On top of ADLs, many people go to work, take care of children, hand in research papers on time, and remember to call their mother for her birthday, even when depressed, during crisis, or while managing intense anxiety. Despite the intensity of these emotions, things get done. These people, who would be classified as “highly functioning” by a therapist, doctor, or society, usually do not give themselves enough credit. I’m often reminding clients that despite how bad they might feel, every morning they get up, put on pants, and start the day. There is a power in this, The Power of Pants.

Anxiety, depression, grief, loneliness, an unhealthy relationship or a bad job can all have a way of waking you up early, yet make you feel like you cannot get out of bed and face the day. Stepping out of bed, getting out of the pajamas or sweatpants, and putting on pants is a powerful step.  Even if the step feels very small, even if all you do is get into pants and sit on the couch to read, or go for a walk around the block to get coffee, you have taken that first step, which is the hardest one. The Power of Pants takes some of the power away from your symptoms, reminds you that symptoms do not have to define you, and shifts the narrative towards hope. Even if the shift it subtle, it is profound.

If nothing else, put on pants and see what happens.

Just Because You Can, Doesn’t Mean You Should

In a recent session a client expressed both concern and frustration with her social life. With a history of depression, she was worried that her lack of motivation to go out on weekends, her decreased interest in partying, and resulting social isolation might be warning signs that another depressive episode was starting. After going over details of her day-to-day functioning, trying to find recent changes, or identify any red flags, she reminded me that she is working 30 hours week and taking a full-time student course load of four classes. She is spending twelve or more hours a day out of the house, schlepping from home, to work, to class, to the library and back home, to wake up and do it again the next morning. Rinse and repeat.

By the time the weekend arrives she is exhausted, looking forward to lounging around in sweat pants, catching up on chores, and sleeping in. However, she expressed concern that she isn’t living the vibrant social life expected of an early twenty something. When I remarked that her schedule didn’t sound sustainable or healthy, let alone enjoyable, and that I thought the lack of motivation to socialize could simply be because she is tired, not depressed, she was skeptical. Initially she hadn’t even thought of mentioning her schedule because it was nothing new, and since it was something she was used to, she didn’t think it should be a problem. “I have been doing this for the past two years. It’s not like I can’t do it.”

Fair enough. She has been getting good grades and positive feedback from her work supervisors. Nothing is falling through the cracks officially, but she’s cranky, tired and doesn’t feel like her life is any fun. Surviving is not the same as thriving. Which is why my response was, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.”

I think we all do this at some point – we put ourselves on a treadmill that we don’t know how to get off of, or push ourselves past a healthy limit because we don’t know how to say “no”. Sometimes we don’t know something will be bad for us until we are knee deep in it, and then it’s hard to get out without a “real” reason. Don’t get me wrong, at times it is good to test our limits, to push ourselves to see what he can accomplish. It’s not always a bad thing to see what you can do, rather than stick with a terrible status quo simply because the unknown is too scary.

The important thing when deciding between a can or a should is to ask yourself why. Are you trying to prove something to yourself? Trying to get someone to like you? Do you have an unhealthy need for a thrill? Did your parents teach you that it’s important to see something through to the finish and that’s a value you won’t abandon, no matter what? Are you afraid that if you change something, you’ll feel like a failure? Trying to keep your schedule so busy so that you don’t have time to notice you’re unhappy in your relationship? I could go on all night.

Getting to the why is the important part, where the therapy truly begins. Getting insight into behaviors, decisions, and emotions is what the work is all about. It makes the difference between surviving and thriving, and answering that one word question completely and  honestly can help you decide if something is a can do or a should do.

Don’t Feed the Beast

Sometimes a client and I come up with an expression or phrase in session that we then refer to for the rest of our time together. It becomes part of our therapeutic language, a memento of our work together. If it is something I think will be helpful to other clients, I’ll repeat it, but in my mind it will always be connected to the client and session where it was created.

This happened recently with a client who is dealing with a very difficult break-up that has left her feeling not only devastated, but lonely, unwanted and totally undesirable. While in this state, she agreed to join a friend for drinks with a guy who expressed interest in my client’s friend. The friend wasn’t sure how she felt about the guy, so she wanted back up. That’s right, my client knowingly agreed to be the third wheel, at a time when the last thing she wanted or needed to see was to see a budding romance up close. When I asked her why she agreed to this, she wasn’t sure, but she knew before even going that it would make her feel bad. We decided to name this behavior “Feeding the Beast.”

Feeding the Beast is doing things that support or reinforce your self-deprecating thoughts. It’s a set-up, with no way for you to get out of the situation without feeling worse. It’s acting against your best interests, creating a situation that everyone else can see is a bad idea. Although it’s the last thing you would ever want, you wind up deepening your pain. Feeding the Beast is:

-Spending an hour on your ex’s facebook page, combing through her photos of her vacation in Tuscany with her new boyfriend who happens to be a Brazilian underwear model

-Weighing yourself when you are feeling badly about how much you ate at yesterday’s office potluck

-Working as a bartender when you are trying to stay sober

-Attending every baby shower you get invited to while you are struggling with infertility

-Taking your mom to an all-you-can-eat buffet for Mother’s Day brunch when you are struggling with bulimia

Sometimes the Beast is hungry, it needs to be fed, and it feels like we are helpless to resist. Depression is like wearing dirty glasses, it makes it hard for us to believe we deserve to feel any differently. Having an eating disorder can feel like living with a demon, tricking you into weighing yourself fifteen times a day, feeding the obsession and shame. Don’t misunderstand me; eating disorders, infertility, and depression are real problems, brought on by various medical, neurological, psychological, environmental, and social causes. We don’t ask to feel this badly and we didn’t bring them on ourselves. However we sure can make things a hell of a lot worse for ourselves. If at all possible Don’t Feed the Beast.