Never, Never Hug a Porcupine...No Matter How Cute They Look

Janice wanted so badly to love her brother. They were 5 years apart in age and, to listen to them talk, they grew up in not only different homes, but different neighborhoods that were in different counties on different planets. Her brother was in kindergarten before she was born (living the family's extremely high expectations!). He never saw any of their mother's manic highs and days of endless crying. He never heard the arguments that ensued when their father came home to find the endless bags from her shopping binges or no dinner on the table because she had not gotten out of bed. Her brother only knew that she was the little princess and got whatever she wanted. He accused her of lying when she spoke of a steady flow of men through the house, some of them fondling her while waiting to be "next" with "Suzy," their mother in the bedroom.
As Janice and Jerry tried to talk about their younger years, they argued as though they were both experts on different foreign lands. In reality, they had very few confluent memories of their childhood. They could remember the same house and the same family contexts, but never the same events. When they tried to describe a specific event or holiday or gathering, they would end up arguing bitterly about obvious facts, as though neither one was actually there and both were fabricating the entire history.

They did, however, agree on one major event -- their mother's precipitous death. She was a very vain woman and would not allow herself to be seen as ill, weak or frail. Therefore, real treatment for her lymphoma was out of the question. She was at church one Sunday, took to the bed on Tuesday and was buried on Saturday. Not a word was spoken. While the two children argued bitterly over whether or not their mother was a "screamer," or not, they agreed that the house after her death was deafeningly silent.
While Jerry espoused that their father was a quiet man and great father who was a ball coach, ever ready to teach and to play, a supportive teacher and a great confidant, Janice swore he was a silent, feelingless shell of a man who did what their mother said, regardless of the cost as long as it shut her up.
Though he vehemently and nearly violently denied it, as he matured, Jerry began to reveal more and more of his mother's characteristics. He could sweetly smile through a tense purchase or menu selection, while leaving no doubt that actually speaking to the sales or food service person was obviously beneath his dignity. He would interrupt anybody, friend, foe or stranger to let them know that they were obviously ill-informed and had no idea what they really thought, felt, wanted or needed. After all, it was Jerry's job to inform them of what was really best for them and what they really felt.
Janice had tried. My how she had tried to have a relationship with Jerry. She wanted a brother. She wanted a family. Over the years, she had traveled to his home. She had traveled with her brother. All had become disasters. She would end up either going away angry or feeling battered and bruised by his constant verbal barrage. Either he was correcting her, telling her what she was REALLY thinking or feeling, or outright criticizing her and describing the next impending catastrophe she was obviously going to create.
This last trip was the final blow. Janice had worked hard in therapy to face her attachment to her mother's depression as a driving force for her own depression. She had been years without hospitalization and was responding to minimal medication. She was living her life on her own terms, financially stable, surrounded by friends with whom she was comfortable, enjoying a seasonal garden every year, riding horses in the spring, hiking in the fall and dancing whenever she wanted. She CHOSE to share her trip to a family gathering with her brother. She was resolve to let his verbal diarrhea just land in the trash and pass her by. She was going to imagine a black hole between the two of them into which anything she did not elect to hold would be drawn immediately and irretrievably.
The trip was four days. She made it three before his criticism, arrogance and innuendos of incompetence cut through her armor. When a natural break in their time together came, she simply left a message with the hotel desk that she would get her own cab to the airport and leave early the next morning, rather than riding with him in the rental car. She elected not to answer his phone call as she waited in the airport.
As Janice and I discussed this event, she wanted to find some formal way of "Filing for Divorce" from her brother to gain some form or just or fair closure to their relationship. She did not want to treat him like she had been treated when she had acted like their mother had taught them to act in the past. She knew how much it hurt to have people just disappear from her life. She wanted to let him know how intolerable and unbearable he was and that she was going to sever their connection. By the time I saw her, she had obsessed about this endlessly for over four days. As we volleyed this issue back and forth, I became clear about the BS Moment aat hand.

"Never, Never Hug a Porcupine...No Matter How Cuddly They Look"

For Janice, Life had been a six decade effort to try to cuddle with a series of porcupines while trying to live comfortably on the Tundra! She had survived some of the most difficult losses in childhood, more in adulthood, and was facing more as she continued her journey. Her family, like many, wanted to deny that she was abused as a child and pretend that they lived behind the white picket fence between Ozzie and Harriet Nelson and the Brady Bunch! Nobody "saw" what happened and, therefore, it didn't happen! Nobody chose to grieve their mother's death. Rather, they chose to act as if it just was another day in their lives. Somewhere within her psyche was this screaming child that wanted someone to notice that she was hurting. However, these crazy people called her family were far too wounded to hear her.

As Janice and I talked, I was reminded of how innocent it is for all of us to want to see our families as capable and able to give us what we need (a.k.a. "Eckerds"!!). However, we are all born into frail collections of people who are, by and large, wounded throughout their own lives and struggle just to survive their own woundedness. In the fog and turmoil of all this, innocent children try to dance their innocent dances and live their innocent lives, not having a clue that they are unable to change the pain all around them.

As little children, we do some pretty magical things. If we are hungry, the world stops and food appears. If we are tired, we fall asleep and, magically, awaken in our beds. If we are frightened, we bury our faces in a grown-up's body and the scary thing goes away. All of this is the natural child-like thinking of innocence. As grown-ups, we are forced to learn that things do not go away simply because we do not look at them. Pain does not stop simply because we wish it to. People do not love simply because we need it from them.

On top of that, our families dress up well. We could all show up all dressed, smiling, laughing, saying nice things about each other, and looking just great at Christmas, Bar Mitzvah's, family reunions and other events, even funerals. However, the ruse rarely made it past the exit driveway before some fight broke out, some tacky comment erupted, or somebody got hurt. Somebody returned to the lie.

Many times, in the healing process, we want to go back to these educated, talented and apparently capable people and "teach" them. It seems so very logical. They can maintain such a good act an pull off such good shows, they must be brilliant! Certainly, they can still learn! Right? WRONG! Learning these lessons requires introspection and growth. Growth requires honesty and integrity, which requires a painful look at ourselves. Life for many family systems is primarily about the AVOIDANCE of pain. Hence, very talented, brilliant, capable people, turn into bumbling fools when it comes to healing processes.

My description to Janice and others to whom I've applied this Bumper Sticker is that her family is "just a bunch of porcupines." That's all, just a bunch of porcupines. I can't explain how a capable, competent human being was raised by a group of porcupines, but it happened. Her journey has been one of trying to figure out how to get cuddling, nurturing and warmth from them. News Bulletin: It ain't gonna happen! They're porcupines.

Over the years, Janice had tried to wrestle them to the ground and file each quill down to a nice round point. Not cuddly. She had cornered Jerry and tried to pluck every single quill from his body. Suffice it to say that his attack was only reasonable -- he would have ended up with no defenses in the wild! On many occasion, especially in her youth, she had taken a deep breath, closed her eyes and just cuddled up next to them, taking her pin-cushion treatment and trying to understand why she didn't get the warm fuzzy she thought would result.

Part of her healing would be for Janice to grieve the loss of a "Human" family and face the grief of dealing with the family she had. (Can anyone say, "Have you seen the movie, "Shrek"?) Then, she can decide if she wants to seek out training in handling Porcupines. Zoo handlers probably have special gloves and clothes and face guards just for this. There's probably all sorts of things you need to know about porcupines in general before you ever go in the cage with them , much less approach them in the wild! Then, you need to know what porcupines mean when they do this and that, since they really don't talk human! Go figure! All these years, Janice thought SHE had a problem -- She did. She was trying to do something that required precise training, exact equipment and much practice. No wonder it hurt.

Maybe, if she could see her family as simply being porcupines and grieve the losses that come with that, Janice could seek out a "family-of-choice" to help her grieve her childhood losses, figure out what those needs are in this adult world and begin to actually enjoy getting them met. She'll just have to remember:

No Matter How cuddly they look, Never, Never, Never Hug a Porcupine!

Let the Cabbage Fly

Murphy seemed to like to struggle, even though he got so upset with each round of struggle in which he found himself entwined. Today, it was conflict with me in group; yesterday, it was with a therapist over something similar, but different. Murphy's issue was one with which we are all familiar: He didn't like being blamed for anything, even if he did it. Almost any confrontation led to an argument, usually rooted in the fine art of getting the precise wording that reflected a implication of his innocence in the midst of obvious accountability. Here's sort of how the conversation went:
"Murphy, you told us you would be back from your leave by 10:00 and you weren't back untill after 11:15. What's up with that?"
"I signed in at 11:12 and there was a lot of traffic."
"Did you have your cell phone?"
"I was rushing to get back."
"But you were late anyway."
"I was doing the best I could." (This was accompanied with a sharpening of his tone of voice and reddening of his face.)
"So, why did you need to yell at the people in the Nurses Station when they asked you for an explanation?"
"She was shaming me."
" I think she was trying to get information to record in the log."
"That's gonna get me in trouble and it'll all start over again."
"What's that?"
" She talked to me just like my mother. It was like she was pointing her finger at me and telling me how disappointed she was and all that. Just trying to make me feel bad."

We were off and running after that. In reality, I wasn't talking to Murphy as he sat before me. I was talking to a little boy, lost in the woods in the rural West. At the same time, he was not arguing with me, but with his rigid, shaming mother. Regardless of what I said, he heard accusations, blame and punishment. If I said, "You're not hearing." He heard, "You're not listening to me and you're bad."
Before it was all over, we were almost at the point families get when one of the people in the argument storms out of the room. I thought of a BS moment"

"Just Let the Cabbage fly."

Here's what I told Murphy:

You know, when someone throws a big old cabbage at you, you can do what you're doing, which is to do what it takes to catch that cabbage, then chase them down and shove it back down their throats. your other choice is to stand there, let the cabbage smash into you, then either smear it all over yourself or run home, make cole slaw and eat it up -- making it a part of you. OR, you could do what we all have to learn to do. Watch the cabbage get hurled, see where it is going, duck and just let it lie there, commenting, "That's a big cabbage and quite a throw."

I don't think he really appreciated my little story, but the way he slumped into his chair implied that he got it.

When Murphy felt that a point of criticism was thrown at him, he felt like he had to do something with it. Usually, he argued it back down the thrower's throat to prove them wrong. If he didn't do that, he would hear it as shaming and a reflection of his self worth. He would ruminate on it and it would eat at him, much like the indigestion of a bad meal. However, one of his least useful responses was to let the cabbage hit him with its full force, sit there silently and never address the emotional bruises that were left behind.

My Bumper Sticker story was an invitation to look at what he was doing. None of us like to feel criticized (which often feels like rejection and abandonment). We want to be loved and accepted. Often, in growing up we ended up feeling as though, no matter what we did, our parents and caregivers were either unable or unwilling to give us the unconditional acceptance for which we longed. We would run to them, excited about our day, our coloring, or whatever, in hopes of seeing our excitement and joy reflected in their eyes. For whatever reason, we are, as parents, unable to be that kind of mirror. The result is a reflection of parental inadequacies and fears in messages that imply that the "prize" is not good enough. An innocent child walks away smeared with rotten cabbage.
For Murphy, the impact of those moments over years of experience was very deep and clouded his ability to hear any confrontation or feedback that was not wholly accepting. He would hear only negative, hurtful messages and add to them, his own negative thrust and input. It hurt, regardless of how helpful it might be. This had been played out in his relationships to the point that his spouse would not confront him or challenge him,. Instead, the result was sneaking behind him and hurling divorce papers, complete with restraining orders at him. His experience was that these came out of the blue, as did most direct confrontation.

One of the most difficult aspects of "Growing UP" is to learn to hear confrontation and criticism, filter out our own resistances and distortions, then take what is true and accurate into consideration. Many times, the criticism has nothing to offer us and is just part of an argument. We can choose to let the cabbage just lie there. Sometimes, when we let the feedback land, it opens up into a useful and beneficial gift. We can pick it up, take what fits and leave the rest as the fallout. In reality, we are not getting out of the way of "the Cabbage." We are removing our own filters and our own fears and judgments to be able to see what is there. When we rush to "catch the Cabbage" and quickly do something with it, we are wearing the gloves of our distortion and, usually, responding to old historical battles that we carry around, unresolved.

Our goal needs to be to learn to ground ourselves precisely where we need to be in order to get out of the way and just let the "Cabbage" fly by us. When people take the time to give us feedback or criticism, it is rarely because they are completely wrong. Most of the time, they give a care and believe they are trying to help. (Not always a useful thing, but something we humans seem driven to do. So, when all that negative feeling stuff is hurled your way,


"Just Let the Cabbage Fly"

Enough IS Enough

Ronald is a very talented man. He has had a line-up of careers that many would envy (and from which some would run like the wind). He first came to see me at a turning point in his career -- he had no reason not to be successful, but seemed to be perched on the brink of doom at any moment in time. Being rather bright, the "therapy" part of his treatment become quick work. Over the months and years, despite seeming to continue to stumble and "splat" over success, he managed to nurture his romance into one most would admire and even express jealousy over. He joined a company that was hurting and helped it heal and become successful. His free time was filled with travel and writing and all sorts of fun things. After that, his visits were rapid updates that led to the "issue" or "problem" for which an "answer" was sought. It always seemed as if he handed me some phrase or concept that I could "tweak" just a tiny bit and hand back to him and which would become "THE ANSWER."

So what was so wrong this time? When Ronald came in for his "15,000 mile checkup" as he called our 3 or 4 times a year sessions, he told me he was looking to see if anything was really wrong. As he described the the wonderful trip to another continent which he had taken with family (complete with pictures that were perfect), he beamed with glee. As he talked about the time he spent roaming the streets of a foreign land meeting new-found old friends, he became more and more ebullient. Almost out of the blue, his lilting joy came to an abrupt halt as he said, "I'm scratching things off the list as fast as I can."

I paused to let the moment settle into the quiet, half out of not quite knowing what to say and one-quarter out of fearing he was feeling some sort of terminal sense. I finally broke the silence by asking him if that was such a bad thing. He seemed truly puzzled as though he had no idea. We continued to discuss his experiences and he felt as though he was filling with a sense of peace. Each of the things he had wiped from his list were things he swore he would do one day. He had done each of them and had done some for more than one day. Between what he had done and what he had on order to learn, he would have very full hobby time for many months to come. This, for Ronald, was not a bad thing. In fact, it was a source of ecstasy! Out of the blue, came the BS for the moment:

"Enough IS Enough!"

For Ronald, at that moment, not only was HE enough, but each item on his list was Enough. For many of us and for so much of our lives, we save our time, our money, our energy, our "stuff" and everything else for those special things on our "Bucket List" (The things we want to do before we "kick the bucket.") Far too many times, we either do them in a rush, unprepared emotionally or mentally and lament how we need to do them again and do them right. Or, even worse, we put them off until either they are no longer an option (How many of us never stood on the observation decks of the Twin Towers in New York City?) or WE are no longer an option. (My knees won't ever climb Mt. Everest!) Ronald had stared a journey from a very stagnant place in his life where nothing was ever good enough because he found himself to never be good enough. As he wrestled with those demons, he learned to accept himself and to accept his strengths and his flaws. When he last sat across from me, he seemed to really see that HE WAS ENOUGH.

As a result, he ate healthy meals -- which were enough, but not excessive. He traveled and saw sights he dreamed of seeing and soaked up every morsel of every sense of every stop he made. When he moved on, despite wanting to return, his trip was Enough. While he dreamed of going back to these places, what he dreamed was another, new trip, not the one he had already taken-- THAT one was Enough. His time with his closest ones was (most of the time) just enough, leaving room for finding time for more, yet always being a satiating experience. If he was still learning a new musical instrument and needed more practice, the rough tune he could squeeze out was, in itself, Enough. As this realization permeated his being, I had to ask the obvious: "Can you add more to the list?"

The wide-eyed answer joyfully erupted, "YES!" His hopes, his future and his joy seemed to soar.

Enough IS enough!

This is just for fun!

Never Teach A Pig to Sing

Dan and Mary have been married for 32 years. They married young and innocent...and from the rural culture. She came from a home where the man was the master of the castle and he came from a home where father knew best...even when he was wrong. I met them when they had been in retirement for several years and lived in the country. Dan retired from his industrial management job where he was the boss. Unfortunately, it was the bipolar disorder that followed his head injury caused by an accident at work that led to his early retirement. He planned to work another ten years and retire in his "old age." Not only did the head injury leave him with a mood disorder and limited physical function, it also magnified his "dominant" personality. What Mary found herself dealing with by the time I met them was the haughty, demanding "Archie Bunker" type man she had learned both to tolerate and manipulate with almost no inhibition, poor memory, and stumbling coordination. The farm they had bought when their son graduated from high school was supposed to be a place to relax, raise some fun livestock and "piddle around." No such luck. Dan was a terror on the small tractor they had and Mary often had to sneak behind him to re-do many tasks. On top of that, Dan's spotty memory made for arguments that went on and on because he would either forget what he said or did or rewrite history. Mary had become fed up and just wouldn't give in any more. She would continue to argue...and argue...and argue. After spending much of a session trying to redirect from rehashing the argument, I had no choice, it was time for some BS Therapy

Moral: "Never Teach a Pig to Sing. It doesn't work and it Annoys the Pig."

Dan had always been the South end of a North-bound horse and Mary knew that. His Head injury and the resulting mental illness and personality changes had only made that more entrenched and difficult. Mary, too, had a hard head. She had raised kids and made it through 32 years with a man others might call difficult. She had been through the early years of his illness and the grief that came with retirement and manifest mostly as anger and irritability. She knew he could be tough to deal with. Yet, she would engage in these power struggles that would go on for hours and hours and hours. Many times, she would end them by threatening not to drive him to town or hiding the keys to the four-wheeler as punishment. She seemed to have no clue that not only was she NOT winning the arguments, but she was wasting a huge amount of energy to do so. In the process, she was also giving Dan more fodder to throw back at her at the next conflict. He would come in with more to irritate her and make her look silly. She would come in more frustrated. He was such a PIG! (and he just wouldn't sing!) Never, never teach a Pig to sing. It doesn't work and it annoys the pig!

You Can’t Get Grapes at Eckerd’s

Raymond had finally managed to establish boundaries with his family. In fact, he had not spoken to any of them in over six months. He had refused to send money to siblings when they made their quarterly pleas for cash. He simply did not answer the phone for the weeks it took for them to actually hear his message: “I’ll call you when I’m ready. Until then, I’m asking you to just give me some space.”

Raymond had been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for just over five years, a monumental feat. They continued to offer him drinks and question his “diagnosis.” He had to sneak out of family gatherings to go to Twelve Step meetings, which were the foundation of his sobriety. Since he left home after high school, he had struggled with either depression or anxiety. At one point, he was on an average of seven psychiatric medications to be able to function and get through a day. They told him he just needed a hobby and to get outside more. When he was released from the hospital with medical complications of his last overdose, they invited him to visit with them “to rest.” He was greeted with one day of rest and being served like a king. This was followed by a “family meeting” aimed at getting him to see that his psychiatrist (me) was the problem and he needed to quit therapy, stop blaming his childhood trauma, and get off those medications. Over and over, they had performed the emotional “bait and switch” maneuver of offering love and giving him demands and betrayal.

This time looked different. Raymond needed time and space to focus on his family and primary relationship. He also had to face surgery and recuperation, something in which he wanted his blood relatives to have no knowledge, input, or participation. The six months had been exquisite. His therapy moved forward in ways that had not happened before. His sleep improved after surgery corrected a painful orthopedic condition. He grieved the fact that his family could not be supportive and was ready to think about how to handle the holidays. He could envision maintaining emotional boundaries.

Then, it happened. The phone rang. Caller ID indicated that it was the “safest” of his siblings. The only one who understood half way alcoholism and had not completely canonized his parents and denied the dysfunctional childhood they shared. He answered the phone. The conversation was very nice. They talked about the season and gardens. Only when the question of Raymond’s health arose, did he slip and mention his surgery. The loving tone on the other end of the phone vanished. A deluge of questions, challenges, “How could you’s” and, finally, shaming insults followed. When the phone line finally went silent, Raymond was devastated.

This was a Bumper Sticker Session. (I just realized that the abbreviation of this would be a “BS Session.” What a hoot!) Raymond had spent his life, like many, trying to be “good” enough to be able to get the unconditional positive regard we all crave from our families of origin.

MORAL: “You can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s.” (If you never lived in the South, Eckerd’s was a chain pharmacy like CVS or Walgreen’s.)

If you go to the drug store and demand fresh, plump seedless grapes, you will go away empty handed. On a good day, you can get raisins (shriveled, dried grapes), chocolate covered raisins, grape juice, and artificial grape drink. You can complain, picket the store, beat up the manager and even spray graffiti on the walls. However, you can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s. Even if you buy the chain and put in grapes, it will have to be licensed as a grocery or produce store and will no longer be the thing from which you sought what would have satisfied that deep, painful longing. In the end, you have to leave the pharmacy as it is, go down the street to the grocery store to get the grapes you need. That may be a violation of “all the rules.” However, it’s the only way to get grapes.

So many times, we end up frustrated, hurt, and even battered when we try to make those we love and are bound to by genetics or marriage, or some other life-long commitment to give us something we need. The grief that goes with seeing them as incapable (not bad or wrong) of doing so taps into the inborn drive a child has to cling to “his or her adults” in order to be able to stay alive. To violate that relationship is life threatening. To lose the relationship, regardless of the rationale is excruciating. However, in the end,

You just can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s.