Question: My wife and I are thinking of adopting but it seems so complicated. Is it better for kids to be from an open or closed adoption? While I think open sounds like the right thing I'm afraid the child would never feel like he or she was mine, just like they were on loan or something.
Answer: There is no right/wrong answer here so long as you are prepared to be a parent everyday for the rest of your life, love them unconditionally, and accept that there is a strong chance that your child will have emotional distress even if you are the perfect parent.
I have worked with just about every kind of adoption. Open, closed, grandparent adopting grandchild, kids from foreign lands from China to the Ukraine, there are as many different scenarios as there are children. What I have learned is no matter what kind of adoption or how loving the home, knowing that you have been given up for adoption leaves emotional scars and these kids are far more likely to need treatment for mental health issues than the population at large.
I think adoption is fantastic and if you want to adopt you should follow your impulse just don't drive yourself crazy trying to figure out how to parent this child. Showing up and doing the best you can consistently is all we can ask of you.
For those who do not know some of these terms closed adoption is the traditional form where the child has no knowledge of or contact with their biological parents. At the age of 18 if the child wants and the parent is willing they can try to find each other. Pro's: the child only has one set of parents and they are more likely to assimilate more fully into the adoptive home. Also less chance that the Mother will back out last minute before the adoption occurs. Con's: The child has so many unanswered questions about why their parent gave them up and may internalize feelings of rejection. There also may be important family history or developmental/prenatal information that you have no access to. Example) was the infant substance exposed.
Open adoption is a process where the biological family stays involved in the life of the child to some degree. The amount of involvement is up to the adoptive family and the willingness of the biological parent to stay a part of the child's life. Pro's: the child can more fully process the reasons for the adoption and know useful and interesting information about the family of origin. Con's: Conflicts can arise between the adoptive and biological families about the amount of involvement. The child can feel even more rejected or resentful if the bio family does not choose to engage with them very often. The child may feel torn between two families.
Foreign adoption is a process that is increasingly common as there can be less of a wait time and there are so many children around the world in need of homes. Pro's: often less of a wait and less red tape. Con's: accurate information about the biological family is often sorely lacking. Many of these children are impacted by poor pre-natal care or deprivation of care in third world orphanages. The raising of children from another culture can lead to identity issues beyond adoption as the child grows older.
When a family realizes how complicated raising an adopted child can be they may want to shy away from the process altogether. I have found that adoptive parents often overcompensate and over indulge their children because they are so afraid that they might "screw up". Ironically the result of not giving these children consistent boundaries and the laid back love that most biological parents give their own children ends up increasing the child's insecurities.
At the end of the day whatever home you can give to a child you adopt will be better than where they were coming from if you fill it with love. There are consultants at organizations like The Cradle, which will be happy to help you determine which path is right for you and your family.
Parenting any child is not going to be easy, a child who is adopted adds an extra wrinkle but it is nothing you can't handle. If you and your wife are concerned about the complications of an open adoption then follow your instincts and no matter what happens if you let a child into your heart you may be exhausted but you will not be sorry.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Saturday, October 10, 2009
relationship counseling for female friends?
(like the blog? Sign up to follow it on this website or on facebook. Have a question, send me an e-mail at Maigler@3rdcoastcoaching.org or daniel.maigler@live.com)
Question: My best friend and I have been each other's main support for over a decade. Recently I have been trying to make some healthy changes in my life and rather than support me she seems threatened. I have tried talking to her but it end up being a fight and the tension gets worse. I was crying to my fiance about it and he jokingly said she and I need relationship counseling. Do they have that for friends? I think we could really use it.
Answer: No, and Yes. You won't find friendship counseling in the yellow pages, but it would be my guess that 80% of therapists who see couples would agree to see female friends if they had a serious desire to work out issues and improve their relationship. I know I would.
There are two kinds of female friendships. There are the typical friends that you enjoy spending time with, look forward to seeing, that you can trust to talk to about some things. These are the kinds of friendships that men have. Then there is the other kind, the really deep friendship which is like a relationship without the sexual attraction. In these friendships two to three women really belong to one another, there is a bond and women are possessive of it and guard it as jealously as any romantic relationship.
We need a new word for these fryndships that have no parallel in the male world. It is to impress these frynds that women dress in a certain way (not for men), it is over these fryndships that 90% of the drama in the adolescent female world explodes. These are not the kind of relationships that are easily replaced.
If all this is true why don't we recognize the importance of fryndships and market things like relationship counsleing to maintain them? Our world and media (movies, television, even novels and "great literature") has been dominated by men who for the 10,000 years of civilized society have been genearlly uninterested and unaware of these relationshps. It is only very recently that the depth and intensity that female fryndships can achieve has been openly acknowledged (eg Sex in the City).
I have seen female frienships where the bond is stronger than marriage, stronger than family. I have seen the loss of these fryndships as major triggers to clinical depression. Your fiance joked about relationship counseling for you and your friend because male dominated society is ignorant of the true importance of such friendships, but you are not, and my guess is he was only half kidding.
Relationship counseling generally centers around trying to find out what the goals of each individual are, what the goals of the couple are, and see how the needs and desires of both can be met. It is not uncommon for people to discover in relationship counseling that they are better off apart than together, but at least they know they have made an honest effort to save what was a very important relationshp.
I would encourage you to not worry about what people think and instead do everything in your power to save a relationship that is so important to you. I suggest you write her a letter (or e-mail) telling her how important her friendship is and proposing that you find a therapist/mediator who can help you to get things back to where they were. Ideally a therapist will teach you how to communicate your needs and fears to one another openly and not let resentments build up.
Do not let pride and potential embarrasment prevent you from being the first girl on your block to try something new. At the end of the day you have only yourself, and hopefully your frynd, to answer to.
Question: My best friend and I have been each other's main support for over a decade. Recently I have been trying to make some healthy changes in my life and rather than support me she seems threatened. I have tried talking to her but it end up being a fight and the tension gets worse. I was crying to my fiance about it and he jokingly said she and I need relationship counseling. Do they have that for friends? I think we could really use it.
Answer: No, and Yes. You won't find friendship counseling in the yellow pages, but it would be my guess that 80% of therapists who see couples would agree to see female friends if they had a serious desire to work out issues and improve their relationship. I know I would.
There are two kinds of female friendships. There are the typical friends that you enjoy spending time with, look forward to seeing, that you can trust to talk to about some things. These are the kinds of friendships that men have. Then there is the other kind, the really deep friendship which is like a relationship without the sexual attraction. In these friendships two to three women really belong to one another, there is a bond and women are possessive of it and guard it as jealously as any romantic relationship.
We need a new word for these fryndships that have no parallel in the male world. It is to impress these frynds that women dress in a certain way (not for men), it is over these fryndships that 90% of the drama in the adolescent female world explodes. These are not the kind of relationships that are easily replaced.
If all this is true why don't we recognize the importance of fryndships and market things like relationship counsleing to maintain them? Our world and media (movies, television, even novels and "great literature") has been dominated by men who for the 10,000 years of civilized society have been genearlly uninterested and unaware of these relationshps. It is only very recently that the depth and intensity that female fryndships can achieve has been openly acknowledged (eg Sex in the City).
I have seen female frienships where the bond is stronger than marriage, stronger than family. I have seen the loss of these fryndships as major triggers to clinical depression. Your fiance joked about relationship counseling for you and your friend because male dominated society is ignorant of the true importance of such friendships, but you are not, and my guess is he was only half kidding.
Relationship counseling generally centers around trying to find out what the goals of each individual are, what the goals of the couple are, and see how the needs and desires of both can be met. It is not uncommon for people to discover in relationship counseling that they are better off apart than together, but at least they know they have made an honest effort to save what was a very important relationshp.
I would encourage you to not worry about what people think and instead do everything in your power to save a relationship that is so important to you. I suggest you write her a letter (or e-mail) telling her how important her friendship is and proposing that you find a therapist/mediator who can help you to get things back to where they were. Ideally a therapist will teach you how to communicate your needs and fears to one another openly and not let resentments build up.
Do not let pride and potential embarrasment prevent you from being the first girl on your block to try something new. At the end of the day you have only yourself, and hopefully your frynd, to answer to.
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Is telling the truth the right thing to do?
(like the blog? Sign up to follow it on this website or on facebook. Have a question, send me an e-mail at Maigler@3rdcoastcoaching.org or daniel.maigler@live.com)
Question: My husband is a good man and a good father, but we have never had the explosive passion which I knew with an old flame. Recently I reconnected with him over facebook. He too is in a less than satisfying marriage that he is unwilling to leave. Should I tell my husband what I'm feeling? He has noticed that I'm not happy and I don't know what to say.
Answer: Truth is like a knife, it is neither good nor bad, it is a tool and whether it leads to good or ill results depends mostly upon the intention of the user.
Before we communicate anything to anyone we must consider the audience and ask ourselves what message we want them to take from the conversation.
If you don't consider the audience, then you are speaking (writing, singing, etc..) for your own benefit. So many people seek to unburden their own conscience and try to use their need to be honest as their excuse. If that truth is not meant to truly benefit the hearer then it is no kindness.
This is not to say I encourage lying, or even withholding the truth. I tell the truth 99% of the time because it is the fastest and most effective way to communicate. Lies, or withholding the truth take a great deal of effort and lead to distance between people which is usually unnecessary.
I am only telling you that telling the truth for it's own sake is not an automatic good thing. Even the 10 commandments are misunderstood in this regard. Most people quote an abbreviated commandment when they say "thou shalt not lie" the real commandment (depending upon translation) is closer to "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"
There is a subtle but important difference. The commandment is saying we should not lie for our own benefit and to the detriment of another. I think it might as well go on to say "Thou shalt not speak to promote thine own gain if it should cause another to come to harm."
It sounds to me like you might be looking to sabotage your relationship. You want the passion you felt in the past, if you can't have it with your wife or your old flame you want to find it somewhere, you do not want to grow old and die with regret and wonder at the love you might have found. Yet you fear your husband and your children will hate you. For you to do something as cruel and seemingly foolish as to destroy a stable, if flavorless, marriage you need to arm yourself with some moral justification. So you look to honesty as the fall guy.
I am not telling you that you should stay in your marriage. I'm not telling you that you should hold your feelings back from your husband. I am saying that before you open your mouth you damn well better figure out what you are hoping will happen or else I would accuse you of being cruel and irresponsible.
If you need help figuring out what you want, find a therapist. That is what we do. Perhaps you need marriage counseling, but I suspect that the problem is internal. Very rarely do I see questions like this from people who are excited about the rest of their life. Usually these feelings toward self/relationship sabotage come from people who are feeling down and are looking for a reason. Fixing the lack of passion on the inside seems a lot harder than blaming the job, the husband, the parents or kids.
Find your passion and your purpose in the rest of your life and when you know what you want and how you want to get there then be honest with your husband. I would be shocked if you find deeper meaning in your life and you don't notice an imporvement in your relationship satisfaction. When you decide to talk openly with your husband do it to illuminate both of your paths, not in the hope that he will cast you out and you will not have to feel guilty about the end of your marriage.
Question: My husband is a good man and a good father, but we have never had the explosive passion which I knew with an old flame. Recently I reconnected with him over facebook. He too is in a less than satisfying marriage that he is unwilling to leave. Should I tell my husband what I'm feeling? He has noticed that I'm not happy and I don't know what to say.
Answer: Truth is like a knife, it is neither good nor bad, it is a tool and whether it leads to good or ill results depends mostly upon the intention of the user.
Before we communicate anything to anyone we must consider the audience and ask ourselves what message we want them to take from the conversation.
If you don't consider the audience, then you are speaking (writing, singing, etc..) for your own benefit. So many people seek to unburden their own conscience and try to use their need to be honest as their excuse. If that truth is not meant to truly benefit the hearer then it is no kindness.
This is not to say I encourage lying, or even withholding the truth. I tell the truth 99% of the time because it is the fastest and most effective way to communicate. Lies, or withholding the truth take a great deal of effort and lead to distance between people which is usually unnecessary.
I am only telling you that telling the truth for it's own sake is not an automatic good thing. Even the 10 commandments are misunderstood in this regard. Most people quote an abbreviated commandment when they say "thou shalt not lie" the real commandment (depending upon translation) is closer to "thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor"
There is a subtle but important difference. The commandment is saying we should not lie for our own benefit and to the detriment of another. I think it might as well go on to say "Thou shalt not speak to promote thine own gain if it should cause another to come to harm."
It sounds to me like you might be looking to sabotage your relationship. You want the passion you felt in the past, if you can't have it with your wife or your old flame you want to find it somewhere, you do not want to grow old and die with regret and wonder at the love you might have found. Yet you fear your husband and your children will hate you. For you to do something as cruel and seemingly foolish as to destroy a stable, if flavorless, marriage you need to arm yourself with some moral justification. So you look to honesty as the fall guy.
I am not telling you that you should stay in your marriage. I'm not telling you that you should hold your feelings back from your husband. I am saying that before you open your mouth you damn well better figure out what you are hoping will happen or else I would accuse you of being cruel and irresponsible.
If you need help figuring out what you want, find a therapist. That is what we do. Perhaps you need marriage counseling, but I suspect that the problem is internal. Very rarely do I see questions like this from people who are excited about the rest of their life. Usually these feelings toward self/relationship sabotage come from people who are feeling down and are looking for a reason. Fixing the lack of passion on the inside seems a lot harder than blaming the job, the husband, the parents or kids.
Find your passion and your purpose in the rest of your life and when you know what you want and how you want to get there then be honest with your husband. I would be shocked if you find deeper meaning in your life and you don't notice an imporvement in your relationship satisfaction. When you decide to talk openly with your husband do it to illuminate both of your paths, not in the hope that he will cast you out and you will not have to feel guilty about the end of your marriage.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
enabling the love addict
(like the blog? please spread the word and sign up to follow it here or on facebook. Have a question? Send an e-mail to maigler@3rdcoastcoaching.org)
Question: My friend broke up with her boyfriend for, I kid you not, the 14th time since January! Every time she is a mess and I skip dates, or things I want to do to go and console her, and then no more than a week later they are back together. I want to be a good friend but I'm starting to resent her. What should I do?
Answer: Your friend is an addict and you are participating in and enabling her addiction by putting your life on hold for her melt downs. True friendship does not feed into an addiction it insists that your friend get into some counseling and work on her issues.
The real question is what are you getting out of this? You stand as the outsider of her relationship with her on again off again boyfriend, and clearly you can see it isn't healthy and she needs a change. Let me guess, she tells you, "but when things are good they are soooo good." I'm sure you just shake your head.
Let me ask you this, would an outsider looking at your relationship with her say the same things? Is your friendship great when things are good, when she isn't putting her boyfriend and her relationship needs ahead of you?
At the end of the day you put up with her BS the same reason she puts up with his, because an unhealthy relationship is better than being alone. When looking at her you can see she deserves to be treated better. The same is true for you.
We train people on how to treat us. What you show her by dropping everything when ever her life is a mess is that you feel that her life is more important than yours. Your friendship makes her feel good about herself. What reason does she have to stop abusing this relationship. A true friendship has balance. Give your friend a chance to be a real friend by treating yourself as well as you treat her, she may surprise you by understanding.
We all get the relationships we believe we deserve and that includes friendships. Next time she and Mr. NotSoRight break up you do not have to ignore her, but you do have to go on with your life. You have to tell her how much it hurts you to see her continual suffering and that she owes it to your friendship to seek counseling. You have the right to stop putting yourself through the turmoil and working harder than she is to keep her from suffering.
I know that what I'm saying is simple, but not easy. These things rarely are, but every relationship worth having requires work and sacrifice and friendship is certainly no exception.
Question: My friend broke up with her boyfriend for, I kid you not, the 14th time since January! Every time she is a mess and I skip dates, or things I want to do to go and console her, and then no more than a week later they are back together. I want to be a good friend but I'm starting to resent her. What should I do?
Answer: Your friend is an addict and you are participating in and enabling her addiction by putting your life on hold for her melt downs. True friendship does not feed into an addiction it insists that your friend get into some counseling and work on her issues.
The real question is what are you getting out of this? You stand as the outsider of her relationship with her on again off again boyfriend, and clearly you can see it isn't healthy and she needs a change. Let me guess, she tells you, "but when things are good they are soooo good." I'm sure you just shake your head.
Let me ask you this, would an outsider looking at your relationship with her say the same things? Is your friendship great when things are good, when she isn't putting her boyfriend and her relationship needs ahead of you?
At the end of the day you put up with her BS the same reason she puts up with his, because an unhealthy relationship is better than being alone. When looking at her you can see she deserves to be treated better. The same is true for you.
We train people on how to treat us. What you show her by dropping everything when ever her life is a mess is that you feel that her life is more important than yours. Your friendship makes her feel good about herself. What reason does she have to stop abusing this relationship. A true friendship has balance. Give your friend a chance to be a real friend by treating yourself as well as you treat her, she may surprise you by understanding.
We all get the relationships we believe we deserve and that includes friendships. Next time she and Mr. NotSoRight break up you do not have to ignore her, but you do have to go on with your life. You have to tell her how much it hurts you to see her continual suffering and that she owes it to your friendship to seek counseling. You have the right to stop putting yourself through the turmoil and working harder than she is to keep her from suffering.
I know that what I'm saying is simple, but not easy. These things rarely are, but every relationship worth having requires work and sacrifice and friendship is certainly no exception.
Sunday, September 20, 2009
no time for therapy
(like the blog? please spread the word and sign up to follow it here or on facebook. Have a question? Send an e-mail to maigler@3rdcoastcoaching.org)
Question: My wife is anxious, sad, and irritable much more often lately and I finally got her to agree that counseling might be a good idea, but she keeps saying she has no time for it. She is very busy with work and the kids. How can I help her find time for this.
Answer: Any person who claims lack of time is their main reason for not doing something is holding back their real reason. Lack of time is just an excuse. We make time for the things that are really important. Do you think anyone feels they have time for chemotherapy? How about dialysis? These things do not fit well into our schedules either and yet if someone tried to claim they did not have time to do something that would keep them alive we would have them institutionalized.
I am a very busy person and often I do not have time to work out. BS! While I am busy I could always choose to drop on the floor and do a few push ups and sit ups. Allowing myself to believe I am too busy keeps me safe from the guilt I would feel if I admitted my real reason; I don't want to work out. Even if I did want to I would rather do something else more, like sleep, eat, watch TV.... We all have priorities we all make choices. So why isn't becoming emotionally healthy at the top of everyone's priority list?
One of the best quotes I ever heard was that offering someone therapy is like giving them an aluminum ladder out of hell. It is horrible where you are but to take and grab on to something that is going to burn you is hard to get yourself to do.
There are two major threats that therapy brings with it: What if it doesn't work, and perhaps scarier, What if it does work?
What if it doesn't work: People like to have a plan of last resort. Like a "do not break glass in case of emergency" plan and they are afraid if they use the worst case scenario plan and it does not work they will have nothing, no hope at all. Often they will tell themselves that they will go to therapy if it gets "bad enough." And in the meantime they wait and suffer, enduring more damage by the day, needlessly. If therapy doesn't work they might have spent time, money, and exposed themselves to some weirdo who might judge them, or tell them to change things in their life that they can't or don't want to change. Going to a therapist represents a much bigger risk than most people realize, until they think about going themselves.
What if it does work: People often grow to count on their negative coping skills. Many self injurers call their behavior "their best friend." Gamblers often enjoy gambling. If therapy works they may not be able to do this thing they have counted on anymore. Most people are successful in many areas of their lives and part of them may believe that if they lose their suffering they may lose the vital ingredient that made them successful in the first place. "If I wasn't anxious maybe I would become a fat lazy slob and let everything fall apart."
Another danger of counseling success is the fear of regret. If we have been suffering for a long time we convince ourselves there is no solution. If it turns out that there was a solution and we did not need to be suffering we feel like fools for having wasted so much time. Many people would honestly rather continue to suffer than feel the pain of regret.
The idea that anyone cannot find an hour a week to make their emotional health a priority is ridiculous. Even if you do not live near any therapist there are counselors and life coaches who will work with you over the phone or over the Internet.
If you can give counseling one work week, 40 hours, and you are working with a therapist who is a good fit for you, it will change your life for the better. 40 sessions may seem like a lot, (and you should know if the therapist is a good fit for you in 4 sessions) but ask yourself how many hours it took to get to feeling the way you are. 4000? 40,000? An investment of one work week is a small price to pay to potentially make a change that can transform your life and the lives of those who care about you.
You cannot force your wife to make time for counselling. But you can tell her that watching her continue to suffer is very painful for you, find a way to get all of her extra jobs covered for that hour window once a week, so that not having time can no longer be her excuse.
Question: My wife is anxious, sad, and irritable much more often lately and I finally got her to agree that counseling might be a good idea, but she keeps saying she has no time for it. She is very busy with work and the kids. How can I help her find time for this.
Answer: Any person who claims lack of time is their main reason for not doing something is holding back their real reason. Lack of time is just an excuse. We make time for the things that are really important. Do you think anyone feels they have time for chemotherapy? How about dialysis? These things do not fit well into our schedules either and yet if someone tried to claim they did not have time to do something that would keep them alive we would have them institutionalized.
I am a very busy person and often I do not have time to work out. BS! While I am busy I could always choose to drop on the floor and do a few push ups and sit ups. Allowing myself to believe I am too busy keeps me safe from the guilt I would feel if I admitted my real reason; I don't want to work out. Even if I did want to I would rather do something else more, like sleep, eat, watch TV.... We all have priorities we all make choices. So why isn't becoming emotionally healthy at the top of everyone's priority list?
One of the best quotes I ever heard was that offering someone therapy is like giving them an aluminum ladder out of hell. It is horrible where you are but to take and grab on to something that is going to burn you is hard to get yourself to do.
There are two major threats that therapy brings with it: What if it doesn't work, and perhaps scarier, What if it does work?
What if it doesn't work: People like to have a plan of last resort. Like a "do not break glass in case of emergency" plan and they are afraid if they use the worst case scenario plan and it does not work they will have nothing, no hope at all. Often they will tell themselves that they will go to therapy if it gets "bad enough." And in the meantime they wait and suffer, enduring more damage by the day, needlessly. If therapy doesn't work they might have spent time, money, and exposed themselves to some weirdo who might judge them, or tell them to change things in their life that they can't or don't want to change. Going to a therapist represents a much bigger risk than most people realize, until they think about going themselves.
What if it does work: People often grow to count on their negative coping skills. Many self injurers call their behavior "their best friend." Gamblers often enjoy gambling. If therapy works they may not be able to do this thing they have counted on anymore. Most people are successful in many areas of their lives and part of them may believe that if they lose their suffering they may lose the vital ingredient that made them successful in the first place. "If I wasn't anxious maybe I would become a fat lazy slob and let everything fall apart."
Another danger of counseling success is the fear of regret. If we have been suffering for a long time we convince ourselves there is no solution. If it turns out that there was a solution and we did not need to be suffering we feel like fools for having wasted so much time. Many people would honestly rather continue to suffer than feel the pain of regret.
The idea that anyone cannot find an hour a week to make their emotional health a priority is ridiculous. Even if you do not live near any therapist there are counselors and life coaches who will work with you over the phone or over the Internet.
If you can give counseling one work week, 40 hours, and you are working with a therapist who is a good fit for you, it will change your life for the better. 40 sessions may seem like a lot, (and you should know if the therapist is a good fit for you in 4 sessions) but ask yourself how many hours it took to get to feeling the way you are. 4000? 40,000? An investment of one work week is a small price to pay to potentially make a change that can transform your life and the lives of those who care about you.
You cannot force your wife to make time for counselling. But you can tell her that watching her continue to suffer is very painful for you, find a way to get all of her extra jobs covered for that hour window once a week, so that not having time can no longer be her excuse.
Sunday, September 13, 2009
pregnant and on meds?
(If you like the blog please spread the word and sign up to follow it on this site or on facebook. If you would like a question answered or to set up a counseling appointment send me an e-mail)
Question: I take medication to manage bi-polar disorder and I just found out I'm pregnant and I'm not sure yet what I want to do about it. I'm afraid to stop taking my meds because my hormones are making me a basket case and I'm afraid to keep taking my meds because of what it might be doing to the baby? What should I do?
Answer: You need to talk to a doctor ASAP!
When I was in graduate school I had a great professor who used to tell us, "when ever you are stuck between two choices and you are not sure what to do, what you need is more information, then one of the choices will become clear."
There are 4 places I would suggest you go for information. 1.) your psychiatrist. Who ever is prescribing you your medication for mental health symptom management hopefully knows you well and the two of you need to have a conversation about how to best balance your needs without creating a risk to your potential unborn child. Even if you decide to terminate the pregnancy it is important to communicate with anyone who helps support you because that will have a significant impact on your stress and hormone levels and consequently your emotions.
2.) Your OBGYN, hopefully you have one, if you don't you need to see one right away. I would like to tell you that all doctors are perfect and never make mistakes about drug interactions and potential impact on a fetus, but why risk it? Whatever your psychiatrist tells you, you also need to compare notes with a doctor who is an expert on fetal development. This decision is too important to just trust one source of information.
3.) The drug manufacturer. People think drug companies are all about making money and they will say anything to get people to buy their product. That is only half right, they like making money but they do not want to do anything to get themselves sued because that will cost them a lot more money. No one knows better than the drug company what the potential impact of a medication would be. E-mailing the drug company or going on their website and finding a phone number to call is a free way to get the most expert information on your medication.
4.) community agencies (ex planned parenthood) Many of my clients don't really know/trust their psychiatrist, don't have an OBGYN and would be too flustered to play around with a drug company website to try to find info. Community agencies will not have the drug information themselves but they will help you to find someone in your area that you can trust for a price you can afford.
BEWARE of Internet information! The Internet is fantastic, but there is generally no accountability for putting incorrect or out of date info up on a website. Using google or web MD is fine but do not let that be your only source. You need to talk to a real live person to help you review the options of your specific case and create the best plan for you.
Having a baby is an emotional roller coaster for any woman. A person dealing with schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, depression, anxiety, OCD, etc... can certainly find a way to go off their medication and manage their symptoms, if that is what they need to do for the health of their child. To do this successfully they need to find ways to reduce stress levels and increase their reliance on the supportive people in their life. If they are not in regular counseling they will probably need to start or increase the regularity of their visits. The key to symptom reduction is stress management and and with a good plan you and a baby can be stable and healthy until it is safe to begin taking medication again. Just don't try to do it on your own!
Question: I take medication to manage bi-polar disorder and I just found out I'm pregnant and I'm not sure yet what I want to do about it. I'm afraid to stop taking my meds because my hormones are making me a basket case and I'm afraid to keep taking my meds because of what it might be doing to the baby? What should I do?
Answer: You need to talk to a doctor ASAP!
When I was in graduate school I had a great professor who used to tell us, "when ever you are stuck between two choices and you are not sure what to do, what you need is more information, then one of the choices will become clear."
There are 4 places I would suggest you go for information. 1.) your psychiatrist. Who ever is prescribing you your medication for mental health symptom management hopefully knows you well and the two of you need to have a conversation about how to best balance your needs without creating a risk to your potential unborn child. Even if you decide to terminate the pregnancy it is important to communicate with anyone who helps support you because that will have a significant impact on your stress and hormone levels and consequently your emotions.
2.) Your OBGYN, hopefully you have one, if you don't you need to see one right away. I would like to tell you that all doctors are perfect and never make mistakes about drug interactions and potential impact on a fetus, but why risk it? Whatever your psychiatrist tells you, you also need to compare notes with a doctor who is an expert on fetal development. This decision is too important to just trust one source of information.
3.) The drug manufacturer. People think drug companies are all about making money and they will say anything to get people to buy their product. That is only half right, they like making money but they do not want to do anything to get themselves sued because that will cost them a lot more money. No one knows better than the drug company what the potential impact of a medication would be. E-mailing the drug company or going on their website and finding a phone number to call is a free way to get the most expert information on your medication.
4.) community agencies (ex planned parenthood) Many of my clients don't really know/trust their psychiatrist, don't have an OBGYN and would be too flustered to play around with a drug company website to try to find info. Community agencies will not have the drug information themselves but they will help you to find someone in your area that you can trust for a price you can afford.
BEWARE of Internet information! The Internet is fantastic, but there is generally no accountability for putting incorrect or out of date info up on a website. Using google or web MD is fine but do not let that be your only source. You need to talk to a real live person to help you review the options of your specific case and create the best plan for you.
Having a baby is an emotional roller coaster for any woman. A person dealing with schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder, depression, anxiety, OCD, etc... can certainly find a way to go off their medication and manage their symptoms, if that is what they need to do for the health of their child. To do this successfully they need to find ways to reduce stress levels and increase their reliance on the supportive people in their life. If they are not in regular counseling they will probably need to start or increase the regularity of their visits. The key to symptom reduction is stress management and and with a good plan you and a baby can be stable and healthy until it is safe to begin taking medication again. Just don't try to do it on your own!
Saturday, September 5, 2009
ambushed by emotions
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Question: I was hanging out with friends, everything was going great, suddenly I felt like crying. Sometimes I get ambushed by my emotions when there is no trigger. What the hell is going on with me.
Answer: Two possibilities, unfrozen computer or petrified of success:
Unfrozen Computer: When we go through an emotional trauma the chemical computer, which we call our brain, shuts down in order to save as many of it's circuits as possible. Like if your house got hit by lightening your computer would lose some stuff but it would try to shut down as many programs as possible to keep them from getting fried.
Over time we boot things back up and most of the programs are running fine but damage has been done. 6 months or a year later we are working on a spreadsheet and suddenly everything freezes. How could this be related to an Internet virus from the summer? Computers are weird things and the way one event connects to another is hard to explain. Sometimes after a nasty knock on the head a person might start smelling pears, why are they related? Ask a neurologist, I don't know, but I know it happens.
So if you are feeling nasty emotions with no external stimuli this could be part of your brain thawing from an older trauma. You are noticing now because your life has settled down enough that you can. This may also happen with positive emotions but we don't bother to complain when we are suddenly happy for no good reason.
Petrified of success. Have you ever known someone who freaked out when they were in a great relationship and sabotaged it because they were afraid they were going to get dumped. We don't just do this in relationships. If we have had more than our fair share of crappy things happen to us in our lives we might start to get real antsy when things are going too well.
When I tried to learn to snow board as soon as I started picking up speed I would purposefully fall down so that when I did crash it wouldn't hurt too much. Being clumsy by nature my past experiences led me to believe that I would fall and it would be painful. That attitude got me a lot of bruises and a fear of snowboarding, I never hung on long enough to simply enjoy the rush of the motion.
If you are ambushed by emotion the first step is to look for patterns. Is it truly random or is it every time you are having a wonderful day and... If there is a pattern we look for a fear that might be connected with it. If there is no pattern then it may be an emotional thaw going on and we look for a way to reverse our momentum and not let that bad feeling ruin the rest of our day.
Feelings don't always make sense, that is what keeps us from being robots and makes life so exciting. If, however you get ambushed by nasty emotions and you are sick of it, talk to a therapist and work it out together.
Question: I was hanging out with friends, everything was going great, suddenly I felt like crying. Sometimes I get ambushed by my emotions when there is no trigger. What the hell is going on with me.
Answer: Two possibilities, unfrozen computer or petrified of success:
Unfrozen Computer: When we go through an emotional trauma the chemical computer, which we call our brain, shuts down in order to save as many of it's circuits as possible. Like if your house got hit by lightening your computer would lose some stuff but it would try to shut down as many programs as possible to keep them from getting fried.
Over time we boot things back up and most of the programs are running fine but damage has been done. 6 months or a year later we are working on a spreadsheet and suddenly everything freezes. How could this be related to an Internet virus from the summer? Computers are weird things and the way one event connects to another is hard to explain. Sometimes after a nasty knock on the head a person might start smelling pears, why are they related? Ask a neurologist, I don't know, but I know it happens.
So if you are feeling nasty emotions with no external stimuli this could be part of your brain thawing from an older trauma. You are noticing now because your life has settled down enough that you can. This may also happen with positive emotions but we don't bother to complain when we are suddenly happy for no good reason.
Petrified of success. Have you ever known someone who freaked out when they were in a great relationship and sabotaged it because they were afraid they were going to get dumped. We don't just do this in relationships. If we have had more than our fair share of crappy things happen to us in our lives we might start to get real antsy when things are going too well.
When I tried to learn to snow board as soon as I started picking up speed I would purposefully fall down so that when I did crash it wouldn't hurt too much. Being clumsy by nature my past experiences led me to believe that I would fall and it would be painful. That attitude got me a lot of bruises and a fear of snowboarding, I never hung on long enough to simply enjoy the rush of the motion.
If you are ambushed by emotion the first step is to look for patterns. Is it truly random or is it every time you are having a wonderful day and... If there is a pattern we look for a fear that might be connected with it. If there is no pattern then it may be an emotional thaw going on and we look for a way to reverse our momentum and not let that bad feeling ruin the rest of our day.
Feelings don't always make sense, that is what keeps us from being robots and makes life so exciting. If, however you get ambushed by nasty emotions and you are sick of it, talk to a therapist and work it out together.
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