Monthly Archives: August 2003

You’re Too Much!

The declaration that “You’re too much!” is a refrain heard by many creative, intense people who engage their interests in life. Anyone who has been on the receiving end of this can tell you how much doubt and shame is generated when these words are uttered. I know a woman who wondered if she was “too much” for any man to ever love her — only sometimes people also called it neediness, even though that’s a matter of perception. For those who might appreciate a different perspective, here is something written by SARK, author of Succulent Wild Woman:

Fear of Being “Too Much”
All my life, I’ve heard that I’m “too much.” Too wild, too loud, too outrageous, too emotional, too sensitive, too needy, too much.

My boyfriend and I have both been called “larger than life.” When I met him, I asked him if he felt “larger than life.” He put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes:

“Susan, this is the size Life is. Anyone who tries to make you smaller is just a Lilliputian.”

I knew then that I had found the right man for me. If we don’t fully use who we are, then who are we?

As I age, I see the temptation to laugh a bit less loudly, ask less, “tone down” for the benefit of “others.” Often I don’t even know who these “others” are, but they might be upset, so I comply.

I was actually warned in a restaurant one time for laughing too loudly! The manager came over and said crabbily, “Some of my customers are annoyed by your laughter — why don’t you keep it down?”

I asked who these customers were. He refused to say, so I stood up and said, “Could I see a show of hands of people that are upset by the sound of my laughter?”

I was not laughing very loudly. No one raised their hands, so I said to the manager, “Good. The matter is settled.”

So let’s risk wearing something that’s a bit “too much,” laughing “too much,” and loving “too much.”

Write and tell me if you’ve ever been told you’re too much, and we’ll start a society: we’ll have too much parades! Certainly, we’ll wear hats that are too much, and eat too much chocolate, and then we’ll take too many naps!

Go ahead. It’s okay to breathe, take up space, move, consume, and give. You have the right to be here.

Men Exhibit Depression Differently

An excerpt from Blues Busters: The Trouble with Men:

Even more men exhibit what he calls covert depression. ‘You don’t see the depression itself but the defensive maneuvers men use to evade or assuage it,’ says Real. Signs include:

  • Self-medication. First and foremost is drinking, but also abuse of other drugs.
  • Risk-taking, including compulsive gambling, womanizing, and acts of bravado that show up as high rates of accidental death. These are ‘desperate acts’ that both numb the pain and show the world ‘I’m a real man’ by denial of vulnerability. Says Dr. Pollack: ‘We see them as bad boys rather than sad boys.’
  • Radical isolation. Men withdraw from relationships, from their wives.
  • Lashing out. This can run the gamut from increased irritability to domestic violence, even homicide.

‘Women internalize depression and tend to blame themselves,’ says Real. ‘Men tend to externalize distress and blame others.’ They move into action–and distraction.

Such defenses may protect them from feeling depressed but not from being depressed. Real cites the example of author William Styron, who in Darkness Visible described how his depression revealed itself only when he stopped decades of heavy drinking. The depression was part of his character for a long time, managed with self-medication. When the self-medication stopped, the depression became visible.

The intoxicant defenses and lashing-out defenses, Real finds, represent men’s attempts to ward off the anguish of shame by inflating their own value. In short, he says, they transmute shame into grandiosity, what he calls ‘the central theme of masculinity.’ As he sees it, the inclination to bravado takes permanent hold at adolescence. Indeed, until then, boys and girls exhibit the same rates of depression.

The mental health establishment recognizes that grief and other forms of emotional pain in males may be expressed in acts as well as words throughout childhood. Drinking, substance abuse, and antisocial behavior are all cited in the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM IV), as signs of depression among teens. But not among men.

‘Somehow, when a boy turns 18 we split depression off from the behaviors that make it up,’ says Real. ‘We stop seeing the acting out as due to an underlying depression and instead call it a character disorder. That’s not science, it’s morality.’

Suicide rates in teens tell a truer story, observes Pollack, pointing out that adolescent boys kill themselves at four to six times the rate of adolescent girls. The conventional explanation is that girls try more often but boys use more lethal means.

‘But we have to ask why boys use more lethal means,’ he implores. ‘Girls’ actions are often not meant to end their lives. When boys pick up a gun or a rope they don’t want to come back from it. The shame and the pain are so intense but they are not allowed to talk about it.

‘We have to recognize that there are socialization and cultural dynamics at work here,’ adds University of Iowa psychologist Sam V. Cochran, Ph.D. He is pushing for the recognition that depression in men is usually a masked disorder, one hidden behind other behaviors.

Prohibiting males from expressing grief, sadness, and loss makes their depression look different, but only at a superficial level. ‘Where there’s anger, irritability, rejection followed by self-medication, or compulsive behaviors,’ he says, ‘there’s usually a mood disorder going on.’

Changes

You may notice that this blog is new. It was, in fact, born just recently. I want you to know that I’ll be working to improve the format and user-friendliness while also finding and creating good content. It may rev up slowly, but stop in occasionally to see what’s changed. I look forward to your visits!

Omega-3 and Mental Health

An article in the Washington Post considers the effect of Omega-3 and-6 fatty acids have on mood and behavior. Here’s an excerpt from The Omega Principle:

By 1999, soybean oil — a major ingredient in crackers, bread, salad dressings, baked goods and processed food of all sorts — accounted for 20 percent of total calories consumed in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Per capita consumption reached 25 pounds per year. ‘That means that there has been an 1,000-fold increase in [consumption of] omega-6 fatty acids’ over 100 years, Hibbeln says. ‘So we have literally changed the composition of people’s bodies and their brains. A very interesting question, which we don’t know the answer to yet, is to what degree the dietary change has changed overall behavior in our society.’
Continue reading →

TX MHMR Budgets Slashed

Our priorities are screwed up. It’s not just Texas, either, but this hits close to home.

Amid state cuts, rural areas fear worst
‘Intolerable’ losses may mean trouble for counties already short on social services

By Andrea Ball
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, July 28, 2003
Twenty years ago, Bastrop County’s battered women routinely showed up at Debbie Bresette’s door.

There was no women’s shelter back then, no crisis hot line or support for rape victims. Women literally ran for their lives, escaping with only the clothes on their back — and sometimes less.

“One woman ran four miles in her bare feet,” said Bresette, who in 1981 helped found the Family Crisis Center, a nonprofit agency that helps abused women. “She ran in the middle of the night through the woods to my house and got there at 3 a.m.”

Help is still hard to find in rural Texas, and not just for domestic violence victims.

All across the state, rural residents are struggling with a shortage of services that are plentiful in urban areas: psychological care, teen pregnancy prevention, anger management classes, domestic violence shelters and rape resources.

Thirty-six counties have no licensed social workers. Twenty-four have no primary care physician. Regional mental health centers cover vast geographical areas.

And legislative cuts are expected to make a dire situation worse.

Legislators have cut about $55 million from the state’s mental health centers. West Texas Centers for MHMR, the local mental health and mental retardation authority for 23 rural counties in West Texas, lost $1.6 million in state funding. The agency, based in Big Spring, will cut 44 positions.

Starting Sept. 1, Medicaid will no longer pay for services provided by psychologists, social workers or counselors.

“It was already bad,” Fayette County Attorney John Wied said. “Now it’s going to be intolerable.”

The Family Crisis Center, which helps victims of child abuse, sexual assault and domestic abuse, began when Bresette and a small group of volunteers began sheltering abuse victims in their homes.

“These women were being sent to us by all different agencies,” Bresette said. “Everyone was so supportive because they had nowhere to hide these women.”

Today the center is a $1.8 million agency with 43 full-time employees, a 30-bed shelter, rental apartments and a thrift store. It serves families in Bastrop, Lee, Fayette and Colorado counties.

But many rural communities suffer from a “marked scarcity of services” because they don’t have enough money or resources to develop them, said Michael Daley, a professor of social work at Stephen F. Austin State University in Nacogdoches.

It’s a national problem that has drawn national attention. A 2002 report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services states that “despite their importance, rural health care and social services struggle to remain viable because of inadequate service coordination and funding, workforce challenges, barriers and characteristics inherent to rural areas and residents they serve.”

There are 64 rural Texas counties without hospitals, 40 without dentists and 13 without pharmacists, according to the Texas Office of Rural Community Affairs.

Twenty of Texas’ 196 rural counties have family violence shelters, according to the Program for the Reduction of Rural Family Violence, a grant-funded effort based at Texas A&M University.

AIDS and homeless services are spotty. Doctors and nurses are in short supply. Only 4 percent of the state’s licensed social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists live or work in rural areas, said Sam Tessen, executive director of the Office of Rural Community Affairs.

That forces people to depend on their community mental health centers, where waiting lists are expected to grow longer because of budget cuts.

“It’s kind of a double whammy,” Tessen said.

The Family Crisis Center survived the budget ax intact, said Executive Director Sherry Murphy. But with fewer community services available, she expects more people to ask for the kind of help the center doesn’t provide.

“They see the sign `Family Crisis Center,’ and they call here for every issue,” she said.

Rural areas have attracted more attention in recent years as state and local agencies try to highlight their needs.

The Office of Rural Community Affairs was created by legislators in 2001 to help such communities with health care, economic development and community development programs. The Texas Department of Health has awarded grants for new programs in rural areas. The United Way/Capital Area is planning regional partnerships.

Wied said he would like to see that effort translate into more services for Fayette County’s youth. Children need more counselors, and runaways need a place to stay, he said.

“They’re sleeping under bridges,” he said.

Karen Maher was spared such a fate. The Bastrop County paralegal said she came to the Family Crisis Center in April after her boyfriend beat her.

Her face was bruised, her nose broken. Her uterus had ruptured. She is still recovering from the attack, living in the shelter that she says saved her life.

“If it hadn’t been for them,” she said, “I would have stayed.”