Life Beyond! - Partners

Chris Brown's Victim Thinking

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:43:55 GMT

Chris Brown was charged yesterday and CNN managed to get their hands on his Probation Report which indicated he had a history of violent outbursts. Everyone wants to jump on the bandwagon that he is a bad guy that has been acting badly for a long time. Of course, no one can look at the photos of Rhianna and not feel badly about what happened to her. Certainly no one deserves to be "beaten up" as she was by Chris and I would never condone such behavior. But without looking at what was underneath the behavior we are not helping anyone. Chris was sent to "anger therapy" and forbidden to get close to his love, Rhiana, for the next five years. The Judge seriously asked to have him do "labor" for his public service rather than other forms, clearly wanting to "punish" his behavior. What is missing is any kind of awareness of the cyclic patterns that drive this kind of violence. When Chris was growing up he witnessed his mother being beaten and swore, through his child's view of the world, that he would "never" do that to a woman. Yet here he is, tried and convicted. Why? Why does someone who is determined not to act in such a violent way, become a perpetrator? Simply because he doesn't know how to manage it when he is stuck in Victim thinking. Victim thinking means that he feels so helpless and out of control that he honestly thinks and feels as if HE were the victim. In other words, he felt out of control, threatened, and powerless. Any of us, when we feel trapped like that will do whatever we can to regain a sense of control. But if we have, stuck in our unconscious, a mechanism that gives us immediate release from those feelings; we will act on it. In this case, Chris has a pattern locked in his brain that gives him an out. That of course was the violence he saw perpetrated on his mother. His young brain saw that violence as a way out of feeling trapped and out of control. Then,as an adult, when faced with those feelings his automatic reactions took over and Rhiana suffered. When we are stuck in our own righteous indignation at his violent outburst, we too, remain in the victim thinking. We are, like him, attempting to find resolution in control. We ask the police and the judicial system to act as the big man to regain control over this out of control person so that we can feel in control again. Punitive actions as a response to his punitive actions, are what we have been programmed to believe is the correct action. Now I'm not saying he or anyone else should be allowed to run amok. I am saying we need to rethink how we think about and respond to all such acts of violence and instead of reflexively lashing out in a self protective fashion; practice compassion. What do you think? Comment below if you agree, or if you think punitive reactions are appropriate in some cases. I'd love to hear your thoughts.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Partners have a different role than therapists

Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:11:15 GMT

Partner’s have an important role in reframing their partner’s past and changing the distortions a young brain used to survive. Partner’s are often there when a Survivor is overwhelmed by their reactions. Only partner’s can provide the new context necessary to change the old, distorted views. This may seem like a daunting, self less, and unforgiving chore. It may be daunting, but it should also be a bit selfish and forgiveness is the point! It is important that you NOT be perfect. This is good since most of us aren’t. Perfection, or at least the belief that doing something better would have changed the outcome, is the enemy. Young brains are constantly trying to see everything in the world as the result of their behavior. It is the only thing they can control. So, when the world hurts to much to bear, the only solution is to be better. It is most important that you are compassionate. You aren’t there to solve their problems for them! Compassion is caring about how they feel. I have this theory that it isn’t the pain of what happened that leaves the horrible scars and overwhelming reactions. It’s that no one seemed to care. You care and they need desperately to know it. I can’t tell you how to use your grown up, adult mind to help them. That’s for the professionals and their special training. Analyzing and dissecting their memories probably won’t help, either. The emotions and thoughts that swirl around traumatic events don’t seem to work right with our grown up brain. It’s like having to load Windows 3.0 to run software programs from the early 90’s. Have you noticed how you can put a laptop to “sleep” and it only takes a few seconds for it to wake up. It is much faster than restarting the computer. That’s because it saved all the memories to a big file on the hard drive. Everything is stored and ready to relaunch just by reading in the file. Traumatic memories, alters, or whatever name you want to use are kind of like that. They are a snapshot of the important parts of your system just before it overloaded and had (in more computer jargon) a core dump. Except that the incredible human brain is thousands of computers all running at once. Those old programs from way back when are still running and sending out alerts. To work with them, you need to work in their environment, in that old operating system from their youth. This is particularly true (warning, more computer jargon) when they go into a kernel panic. (That is the Unix technical term for when the core operating system can’t make sense of the inputs. It’s lost its context and just gives up.)

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

The Other Abuse of Power

Rebecca Lincoln — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 20:58:02 GMT

I was just reading Melody’s post about “Evidence Based” treatment, and it reminds me of the importance of exploring our beliefs around power. For many years, I had an underlying belief that I didn’t want to be like “those” people who abused power. I wanted to be seen as caring and saw power as the opposite of being caring. Clearly, I equated power with force, violence, and misuse. What I didn’t see was that by avoiding recognition of my power I was still misusing power. I underused my power, which is a less recognized abuse of power. Some us have survived years of obvious abuse of power and know the effects of dominate power. All of us have been impacted by decisions of power. From these experiences, you probably have some beliefs about what it means to feel powerful, and even beliefs about the word power. As I’ve been giving presentations around this topic, I am learning that exploring our beliefs about power can be anxiety producing. However, the cost of not exploring these beliefs can hurt us all. We all have times that we are in a position of power: as a parent, teacher, mentor, sibling, therapist, business owner, and the list continues. When we deny our role of power, we lose the ability to take responsibility for our impact and we lose the opportunity to allow our power to be directed by our heart. I look forward to being with you at the Life Beyond Trauma conference in October and joining with you in this journey of claiming our whole selves.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Soul Mate Distortions

Tue, 04 Aug 2009 15:32:38 GMT

I have this theory (Of course, it’s those theories formed in a crazy, misunderstood world by our, physically developing brains that support the distortions that …) that we are most comfortable with people that have distortions similar to the ones we cherish. Maybe that means we start out cherishing our partner’s distortions more than them!? It makes sense, doesn’t it? They are most likely to think and choose like we do. They will avoid the same stuff we want to avoid. We are most frightened when our partner does something we didn’t expect and it triggers those old distortions. They no longer feel like our soul mate. In fact, they can become the enemy in an instant. So we choose someone who thinks like we do, with the same distortions.

This is a gift and a curse.

My goal is to see through my distortions so I can make better choices and appreciate the world more. If my partner falls into the same distortion traps that deceive me, then we aren’t likely to change anything. On the other hand, when we discover a distortion in our partner, there’s a good chance we can find it in ourselves. That’s a win because we know where to take a closer look at ourselves. The other huge benefit is we have a special insight into understanding what drives our partner’s distortions. Sometimes we can even address the fears that drive the distortion and begin peeling back the facade that keeps it alive.

It can be life changing!

Of course, if we both fall into the distortion at the same time, there really isn’t anyone around to help us find the truth. That is a curse!

Has this happened to you?

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Hope for You and Your Partner

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 15:20:56 GMT

If you’ve read my earlier blogs, you know I believe most trauma happens when we are young, before our brains are powerful enough to process senseless cruelty. Every year from birth to puberty sees remarkable changes in the kinds of information we can handle and how we process it. Many people want to believe if their partner would just see their experiences rationally, they should be able to “get past” their past and behave “normally.” If you could somehow use your mental perspective from today to see the past differently that would probably help. I don’t think it works that way, though. It’s like trying to tighten a screw with a fork. I mean they just work so differently that you can’t expect it to work very well. Besides, that’s kind of like throwing the baby out with the bath water. All of that stuff IS YOUR PARTNER. It’s just packaged a little different, that’s all. Alright, if you accept relying on their powerful. grown up mind to fix things won’t work, what hope is there? Your partner’s therapists and doctors have all kinds of tools available to them to access the remote workings of the mind. All of them probably work at least some of the time. The professional’s challenge is to do it in the one hour segments of their appointment book. As their partner, you are there when the reactions surface on their own. This is huge. Unlike everyone else, you are there because you want to be with them. It’s not your job or your career. It’s about your partner. There is something about them that you need and want. Many of your partner’s reactive processes will find this attractive. All of them are likely to find it terrifying. That’s right. Somebody that wants them and thinks they are a good thing is so out of synch with how they see the world that they can’t let that in. You will find this maddening. At least at first. And probably later on, too. It’s not easy, but by being there with them during their reactivity, their experience starts to shift from the terror in their brain to the safety of your arms. Don’t get me wrong. You are not your partner’s therapist or doctor, but what you can provide, nobody else in the world can do. And what you get is something nobody else can ever have. Enjoy!

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Why your Trauma Survivor Partner's Grown Up Brain Doesn't Help

Fri, 31 Jul 2009 15:01:03 GMT

This is number two in my continuing blog for partners of trauma survivors. If our partners could see things clearly, their overwhelming, but unsubstantiated, fears would all just go away. We could live free of there reactivity. I don’t see that happening any time soon, do you? In my last post I talked about how I see the lasting impact of trauma in how it distorts our experience today. I think this is true for all creatures great and small. Painfully, there are many among us who have had senseless and inhumane experiences reinforced so strongly that it’s hard to see how our world view could ever change. Even so, we all know it can. We couldn’t function in our complex social world without assumptions. They help us know what will happen next. Our higher brain is constantly creating a picture of what to expect. It lets us drive cars and carry on fascinating conversations. I think it is what makes humor possible. It is also how our past experiences distort today. I’ve talked before about how our most traumatic experiences occur when we are young, long before our magnificent human brain has completed its nearly 30 year development process. Our brain makes amazing transformations in the kinds of information it can handle in the first 6 years. It evolves more slowly throughout adolescence and the process continues until about 27 years of age. So, your partner’s young, not fully capable minds tried to make sense of things that simply don’t make sense. Survival depended on understanding how to cope. Too often, the only solution was to ignore the craziness. That works. For a while. Even the brightest, most developed human brain could not make sense of that history. But it could add perspective so it knows the difference between that experience and today. Unfortunately I haven’t noticed our grown up brain playing much of a role once our quicker primitive brain has recognized the pattern and made the logical assumptions it learned a long time ago.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Trauma for Partners of Trauma Survivors

Thu, 30 Jul 2009 03:31:57 GMT

This is a series of blogs on what I think I understand about psychological trauma. It is based on my own experience and research. It is mostly intended to help partners of trauma survivors understand and discover the gifts that await them. I’d love to hear how these ideas sound to you. Trauma, or at least its long term impact, is all about distortions we store away in our brain. The primitive parts of our brain are so much faster than the parts that give us our higher reasoning skills. They often makes decisions for us before our grown up brains have a chance to sort things out. That’s great if you put your hand on a hot stove or a bee stings you. The problem is that primitive brain is, well primitive. It can’t keep up with the complexities handled by our mammalian brain. Our brains go through constant physiological modifications and upgrades from before birth until our late twenties. Most of our trauma happens when we are young and relying on that primitive brain to make sense of things that we know are wrong. So those distortions and our reactions to them are tailor made for our primitive brain to reuse again and again. So, then, it is really simple. All you have to do is tell your partner to fix those distortions and everything will be fine! Please don’t try that at home! In fact that word “fix” makes me pretty angry too (my primitive brain goes into panic mode). I’ve got a lot more to say about this over simplification! Until then, leave a comment and tell me what you think?

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.

Does the Economy Really Affect Our Sex Life?

Melody Brooke, MA, Conflict Coach, Motivational Speaker — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 17:58:55 GMT

The media is full of human interest pieces on the impact of the recession on our sex lives. It's good that this is being talked about and I'm sure it improves their ratings. I'm just not hearing any helpful suggestions. Telling everyone they need to make time for sex with our partners sounds good but if it was that simple there really wouldn't be a problem. In fact, it should be easier when we don't have a good job competing for our attention. The truth is that there is sex and then their is the great sex we all want. I guess we are all capable of having sex because we are told to, but I don't think that's the kind we want. And if we don't want it, it really shouldn't happen. Sex is intimate adult play time. It's hard to get into a playful mood when so much of what makes us feel good about ourselves is crumbling, or in danger of crumbling, all around us. Great sex is that marvelous time when we feel and act from our souls, from places we can't always respect in our modern lives. Best of all, we do it with someone who accepts and enjoys this part of us. We just can't go there if we aren't sure. It is particularly hard when our partner is an integral part of our lives. If they don't accept us the way we are, then, well, we just don't want to know. Humans are hard on ourselves. We've all been hurt in relationships and we want to avoid that pain more than we want to feel good.

So what can we do for our partner?

Make sure your partner knows you love and respect them even when things aren't looking so good. Understand their panic and balance it with the knowledge that you aren't going anywhere. It isn't just their problem, it's your problem too. Primary bread winners are likely to go into a self-protector role and push every one away. They can't rely on anyone else, particularly when they are so worthless. If your eyes and your actions don't tell them otherwise, you can say goodbye to great sex.

What can you do for yourself?

It is so much easier to be compassionate with someone we admire and want to be with. Particularly in a crisis, it is harder to extend that compassion to ourselves. Be fair with yourself. You know you have always done the best you could manage in each situation. That doesn't mean you always did what someone else might call the "right" thing. It just means you did your best to balance all of the demands placed on you with your own needs. Some choices work out great, some don't. Rarely does it work out the way we think. Accept that and appreciate yourself for doing the best you can. Especially if you have issues around sex because of trauma, or just bad sexual experiences. Recognizing and owning up to our partner that our problem with being sexual with them is about our history and not about them, can go a long way in reviving intimacy.

In Practice

Regardless of your situation, o out of your way to show respect and appreciation for each other. In this tumultuous world, we all need it. And studies have shown that great sex is impossible if you don't feel respected by our partner. We are pulled to it. When we find it, we can feel good about ourselves again. Maybe we can even start to play again.

This weblog is sponsored by Melody Brooke and Life Beyond Seminars.