I wasn’t schooled in Psychology. So after retirement, and having time to socialize with more people, I was surprised at the number of people I considered crazy, or at least intellectually challenged. In these cases, I always asked myself, is it me or them? Could this many people be walking around without logical brain connections or is there something wrong with me and the way I relate to them? After reading many books on Psychology and watching popular TV shows on the subject, I began to distinguish between deep rooted psychological problems that needed professional help to fix, and relationship problems that could perhaps be worked out by negotiation. I think the stability of marriage and relationships is important enough to work on change and negotiation where at all possible. However, I’ve also seen lives ruined due to long term effort to change deep rooted psychological problems that were way beyond the lay person’s ability to fix. I think studying the different characteristics of psychological problems is helpful in recognizing what you might be able to change by negotiation, and what requires help outside of yourself in order to deal with deep rooted psychological problems that took root long before you ever appeared on the scene.
It's an interesting topic, because we're talking about human relationships and all the subjectivity attached thereto. We rarely act rationally, and few of us are aware of our motives (not in an underhanded sense, but at a subconscious decision-making level.) At best, we may become aware of why we behave the way we do so that we don't make real bad decisions, but that does not mean we can actually eliminate such inclinations...we merely stop "reacting" and start "thinking." And what do you do if 2 people are raised in dysfunctional/abusive households and have "found each other" in the same sense that water seeks its own level? We may not want what they have, but it may very well work for them (or it may not work, but they're still comfortable in it.) So many of us operate within a range of behaviours. You might be able to strip people of the "bad" stuff, but they may be incapable of fully adopting "good" stuff...or the "good" stuff may feel too emotionally sterile for them to find any satisfaction in it. Did you read any John Bradshaw? He was big in the pop psych circles when I quit drinking in 1990. He has some good analogies.
Whilst we do rely on good psychologists to treat those who have real mental inabilities and maladies, I have to opine that it is because of psychologists that many are unstable to begin with. As an example: For the past 30 or 40 years, children have been treated for ADD and ADHD among other supposed mental instabilities which has given rise to a generation of drug dependent adults or at the very least, adults who have an altered state of mental acuity and reason. At this very time, there’s roughly 6.1% of our children in the U.S. who are being treated for ADHD with a proposed 23% who have yet to be treated. We’re a “prescription drugs gone wild” nation with psychologists at the helm handing out scrips like candy because Johnny likes to look out the window more than listen to his teacher in a classroom. Now, so far as relationships go, our society is no longer geared for that and is quickly becoming a state in which a hard and steady relationship has some pretty faded lines. We’re a society of one with each person making up their mind about who they are and what they are and even what gender they are. For instance, what we used to view as promiscuity is now part of the prescription for being normal and the drugs we used to claim as mind altering are now mind illuminating and mind expanding. Take a pill to get up and take a pill to relax and don’t forget the grass because it’s “healthy”. Don’t forget to take your lithium Johnny, you don’t want that bi-polar condition you have to act up. Take your amphetamines Billy, your ADD has been showing lately and remember your counseling session with your psychologist. Relationships stopped when mom and dad quit sitting at the dining room table together with their kids and left a legacy of a whole generation of pill dependent, psychologist reared adults.
Does the difference in personalities have anything to do with this thread? After almost 22 years of being together, my wife totally understands my personality, even though hers is somewhat different. Not a lot different, but somewhat. OTOH, my SIL (wife's older sister) personality is much different than mine. Hers is extremely "Christian" based, which isn't bad, but definitely not like mine. Even though my step-parents were overly strict with me, and even my farmer friends knew that, I wouldn't call the situation "dysfunctional". My wife's family wasn't necessarily "dysfunctional", but they did have problems and the problems got somewhat worse with my wife's younger sister. She's been on a medication for years and now has to be fully taken care of. Our niece and nephew have a son who has autism and on meds for that. As it stands right now, he will have to be taken care of for the rest of his life. Whenever they want to go out, they have to ask my wife's older sister to watch the young man. Of which she always does. Don't know what the solution is to "dysfunction" or other mental problems, but, hopefully someday, there will be much more solutions.
Have we looked at this "psychologically challenged" phrase which is so widely used these days as being "one mans meat is another mans poison". To further expand on this, i agree in some respects that our lives have changed considerably due to altered family structure and behavioral outcomes. This being said, psychologist and methods of testing should be geared to modern day situations. Having studied the subject in a classroom eons ago and worked in an environment where kids are subjected to being grilled due to their adverse behaviors, i think the subject should be tackled with a different approach. And old school thinking should take a 360 degree spin. I could be wrong, but this is my take on the subject.
I won't argue most of what you say (because it's spot-on), but I will say that "parents" and "families" never really were what people fantasize they used to be. Moms & dads stayed together for lack of any options, but most families were far from functional. I truly believe that. The issue is that the only thing worse than sustaining the chaos is that divorce teaches kids that there is no permanence in the world...that if mom & dad can reject each other, then the kid can be rejected, too. A chaotic family (within reason) is better than a split family.
With education came knowledge with knowledge came independence. Not everyone is geared to taking crap from each other. Hence divorce. Its a death sentence in a way. However, on the other hand, living together for the sake of doing so, the outcome was not the best, most times. Though divorce is blamed for irrational, irresponsible individuals, i have seen them emerge from stable relationships too.
I've commented before that when the stigma of being single (for both sexes) was lifted, and the stigma of women having careers went away, people had choices. One could argue that we [society] are better off/worse off, but the way "we used to live" was coerced, with women generally being the trapped party, since they lacked the means of self-support and escape. Regarding comparing children and the families that produced them: nature/nurture. It's an interplay, not an either/or. And no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors...
I see a lot of truth in this for my younger brother and I. We've talked before, and when we were much younger, about what we thought about marriage and children, and neither of us wanted to have children (too cruel to bring kids into this, crap world) and we really were clueless about picking a life mate, and only married because we were in lust, not love. We didn't see it until it was late in life. I think our views on life came from our zero permanence in our life, and seeing new daddies come and go. Neither of us "planned" to go through life like that but we have. I blame no one, especially my mom who never failed to feed us and cloth us, but she had her own demons from her childhood, and my grandparents theirs, and so on and so on. Now I see friends from school still married to their highschool sweetheart, kids, and grandkids to boot, and wonder, how did I miss the boat so perfectly ;( Oh well, maybe I shouldn't have gotten into this, but that "no permanence" thing is exactly what I was taught, unintentionally, but nevertheless, I learned that.
there are children who grew up in horrible circumstances .......some were damaged permanently..never to recover.... some were able to get a hold onto their life circumstance.....what caused it.. and made a path to change life's direction .... my life was one of those. .before the drugs...before the therapist...psychiatrist...or any emotional or mental help.... only one person will ever know what i endured...and God....i am alive and well...still ...I never sought therapy or analysis ....talking about it...thinking about it...made it worse... there are children from wonderful homes and families...who turned out to be terrors...
As they say in my 12 Step Groups: "Don't compare your insides to other people's outsides." In other word, we know the reality of our existence, and can only suppose what we see in the lives of others. I know what I wish I had pursued, but it's only a concept.
My albatross was found in destructive relatives (5 siblings + parents) who refused to be shaken free. Everyone was taught to destroy, and never moved past it. "What if" is never a certainty, but not everyone gets a chance to find out. Only one brother was a decent human being, and he drank himself to death as everyone used him under the banner of "family." And I do blame my parents, because their actions were overt, intentional and openly destructive and antagonistic.
Yes, only God knows Teresa, my heart does go out to you and your post was very transparent. It's scarey sometimes to share online because anyone may take a pot-shot, but I'm really a better person, I think, for what I came through without therapy. I am betting some folks would this otherwise, LOL, but I really don't let it take up space in my brain, for long anyway
yes I know that saying, but sometimes, for me, it's good to just say what's on my mind without worrying about it. I don't mind you sharing that 12-step saying at all, I think it's a good one, and good to remember I know my life shouldn't be lived on "feelings" but I doubt the day will come when I don't go ahead and let it out if I get the chance. I used to, and still do, have a hard time distinguishing between a feeling and a thought too