Clyde Dee's Blog, page 8

In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part Three– The Psychopharmacology Craze

Although it may seem like binging and purging down a sink in a roach infested apartment is a likely a low point for a Where’s Waldo person born to such mainstream, Caucizoidal privilege, it wasn’t really that dire. Indeed, it would take me seven years for a catastrophic incident to happened. Then, I would find myself buried me in a state hospital as I suppose the psychometric testing predicted. So, the question remains: did the psychotherapy help, or was psychotherapy part of the problem?

Though I had some hard times, psychiatric medications and life-term psychodynamic therapy worked for seven years. Psychopharmacology was a booming industry and there was a big push to get people on medications. My goal was to fit into the mainstream and be like everybody else. It was as if I could take medications and wear name brands and maybe some people would tolerate me. I worked and worked at it. I guess the premise of this therapy was the same as it was in phase one and two, fir a square peg into a round hole.

Discharged from the state hospital to the streets with a month worth of medication, I learned that professional work was out of the question for a homeless, drifting, targeted individual. When I finally managed to arrange a life sustaining situation for myself fear of failure and chronic homelessness prompted me to reconnect with family. In order to receive financial support that could make a low-wage job sustainable, I was forced into a dehumanizing rendition of narrative therapy for three or four years.

There are many things I learned during this decade of treatment for binging and purging and schizophrenia. Was it really wise to trust psychotherapy during these twists and turns? I highlight eight things that particularly hurt me during this time.

Lesson Number Eight—Don’t Use Treatment to Attack a Political Ideology:

In my senior year in college, I went voluntary to the hospital at the urging of my new therapist because I just could re-calibrate myself into my school routine. In the hospital I was able to contain my raging eating disorder, so I avoided that diagnosis. Instead, I was diagnosed with Schizotypal personality disorder and started on three medications.

In another sense was a trusting and genuine fellow. I took the Rorschach and expressed Marxian concepts. I continued to say “yo” and dress in casual inner-city garb. One might argue these just aren’t wise things to do in an American Psychiatric Hospital.

But the worst thing I did was challenge the AMA for banning Thomas Szasz. This really concerned my doctor and he started me on medications before the results of my tests were up.

The doctor said I was impulsive! I had never heard myself being referenced in that way. It is true my emotions go from one to one-hundred, but I usually don’t act on them unless I am in life or death circumstances.

Upon my release, my therapist told my parents that I really wasn’t college material and encouraged me to go on SSI. She put me into a very repressive day program with extremely oppressed and mistreated people from a state hospital. Instead I took on a couple of seasonal jobs and got back into the next semester. I ignored the quality of her advice. I felt like I owed her for putting me in the hospital.

Lesson Number Nine–Don’t Let the Basis of Your Trust Be Credentials:

In my gut, I never trusted my therapist of seven years even though I made strides in my professional and social life under her care. I stayed with her because she had a Ph.D. from Cornel University and because I was afraid to hurt her by cutting her loose. I was dependent on her as a sounding board while I waited for the next medication cocktail to kick in.

Perhaps if I had known what she told my parents about me when I gave her permission to talk to them, I would have fired her. However, my parents and I had poor communication that even if they told me, I don’t even know if I would have believed them.

I recall repeatedly talking back to myself about my care during this time and deciding to use my mind to trust the credentials. My intuition told me I shouldn’t trust her from the start.

Case in point: I didn’t trust the entitled way she treated the security guards at the site where she first worked. I’d worked in the inner-city and seen that kind of arrogance lead to beloved cars getting keyed. I felt going up the chain and getting all dysregulated about the lack of response it in front of me was treating the security officers like slaves. I knew she’d be more successful if she talked to them like human beings. But she was the Ph.D. And she eventually found an office where she didn’t have to fight that losing battle.

Lesson Number Ten–Don’t Make Decisions for the Client:

Over the seven years, therapy never went into my past. This was my choice, but maybe it could have been contested. Instead, therapy was only about my current depression which was always getting worse and worse. As I stated before, we were constantly waiting for her latest psychopharmacology professional to fix me.

I would need therapy and medication the rest of my life. “The only way to manage a personality disorder is through an intensive psychodynamic relationship,” she would say. She lowered her price, so I could afford the sessions myself. I saved all my decisions for her to make.

Meanwhile I excelled in my profession of a mental health counselor and put myself through graduate school with accommodations for diagnosed ADD and Dyslexia. Persistent hard work always kept me out of trouble. Even though my GPA dropped from 3.9 in undergraduate to a 3.7, things were different because I also put energy into creating a social life.

Still, it was very hard to wake up through the medication fog in the morning and get into work. I would gulp 32 ounces of Coke, so I wouldn’t fall asleep at the wheel. But I was a good worker once I woke up. Also, I really worked hard on my social life and making relationships with people who rejected me. It was like the old Morrisey song: the more they ignored me, the closer I got.

Lesson Number Eleven–Don’t Presume Everything in a Paranoid Person’s Life is Paranoia:

When I graduated, I wanted to get into the Peace Corps and many other alternatives, but every program rejected me after consulting with my therapist. I didn’t want to be paranoid, so I maintained faith in her. She taught me a lot about my paranoia. I stopped trusting my intuition.

Finally, I settled for moving to Seattle and continued my treatment via phone. Within six months I took a risky job in a high-profile section 8 housing authority job. I kept making legal and ethical decisions that guided my conduct amid extreme social violence toward going against the grain.

I would tell myself that I would be paranoid if I thought that what I was doing would be frowned upon. I told myself that drugs and violence were illegal and not sanctioned by the government! People like me were not bribed to look the other way!

Indeed, maintaining these delusions in this setting was very dangerous. However, I blamed my fear of retribution and defiant behavior on my paranoia and tipped off the press on several occasions.

Still, I became very popular among the residents. My boss who I lost respect for when she started showing up to work high, threatened to fire me. The management company spied on me. There were many veiled threats that I pretended not to understand. Case in point, they tried to bribe me with free concert tickets and I didn’t get it. I hosted a community event instead in which I invited the clients out to the concert.

Lesson Twelve–Don’t Predict Permanent Warehousing for a Person in an Emergency:

I finally started to question the reality of this hold my therapist had on me and went of my medication. The violence I encountered was real and was never resolved. When coincidences started to seem suspicious to me, and my best friend from college made a direct and credible threat on my life, my therapist contacted my parents and got them to put out a missing-persons report out on me. I fled towards Canada.

“Tim will be in and out of the hospital the rest of his life,” my therapist told my parents.

With that advice my father begged me to stay on the chronic ward in the state hospital for another nine months. He promised me that if I returned to the community, I would keep on getting followed.

After a three-month incarceration in Montana State Hospital, I took a Greyhound bus to Fresno California with four thousand and five hundred dollars of assets. My Mom refused to give me access to the ten thousand dollars I inherited from my Grandfather.

Still, I stayed in touch with my mother, but not my father. I wanted to be sure the following did not return as he had predicted. Indeed, I interpreted his words as a threat.

I managed to get a job and get housing until I ran out of medication. Then, I tried everywhere for any kind of legal income. I’d resisted many outlaw recruitment efforts in the state hospital. I was sticking to legal work!

I finally got a professional job when I was down to one thousand, five hundred dollars, but even I had to admit that I was not able to work in a professional capacity with what I’d been through.

Lesson Number Thirteen—Don’t Collaborate with Imposed Treatment:

To reconnect with family, I had to move to the bay area, get a job at an Italian Deli, and see a therapist. I had come to believe that my best friend from college was not only bipolar and an ex-addict, but also an Italian mafia boss. He worked as a longshoreman as a gang leader in the ports of Philadelphia. His stories of corrupt cops who paid his way through college for under-cover surveillance took on new meaning as did the coincidences that had followed me throughout.

Nevertheless, I was the delusional person working at an Italian Deli with a two-hour bike and BART commute. I concluded that my family was a mob family. I begrudged having to fit two hours of therapy into my busy schedule. But to eat I was forced to go to therapy. I sought work that would enable me to move away and start over again free.

I begrudged the small amount of financial support I received and led an impoverished lifestyle of twelve hour work days. At work my seventeen-year-old bosses would mock me. Many came from wealthy districts. And this therapist was part of Italian family practice. “I too shop at A.G. Ferrari’s she would tell me.

Lesson Number Fourteen—Don’t Expect Psychosis to be Suppressed:

I didn’t trust or like the therapist I was forced to see in the least because she was not interested in my experiences of being followed. I did everything I could to conceal them from her because I was afraid if she knew about them, she would hospitalize me.

I was extremely angry about the $225 weekly cost of therapy when I was making nine dollar’s an hour. My therapist would sense this and get defensive. This would force me not to share any experiences of being targeted with her in a genuine way. I had some very disturbing things happen that I was forced to conceal from her.

In fact, when I finally admitted to her eight months in that I believed I was being followed and called the FBI, she became fiercely angry and threatened me. She looked like she was considering the hospital. Oops!

Lesson Number Fifteen—Don’t Impose Your Economic Reality on Your Patient:

Fundamentally, this therapist had no empathy for how hard my twelve-hour days were and how my paycheck barely covered rent. She insisted on the two-hour amount of time she felt I needed. I told her that the sessions were of no use to me. Yet they continued.

My therapist did not encourage me to find a professional job even though I sprayed resumes and had many interviews. She said, “I believe you are working hard in your head, but believe me working at a Deli for nine dollars and hour is not so hard,” “What is really happening is you are letting teenage kids bully you, you shouldn’t give away your power.”

Can I get a witness? I had a right to be angry.

This therapist didn’t believe in medication and expected me to fix things on my own. Then, she judged me a failure when progress went at a snail’s pace. She seemed to feel bad for herself and the poor kids who had to work with me. The harassment and abuse was intense because I was intense. Some of it was so bad that it would probably make anyone wonder.

When my year of support was getting close, she finally referred me to a psychiatrist and my work performance vastly improved. Then, she criticized my success, “I think you’ve lost your creativity.”

After ten months, I started to use my medications to more effectively snow her. Additionally, I needed her for rational support as I tried to get back into the professional world. Acting with professional entitlement didn’t come easy to me with rules that didn’t match the defenseless abuse I received in my state hospital training.

“Your parents are paying for these sessions because they love you, why sweat the small stuff,” she argued. “I am not being a greedy capitalist,” she said, “I have an ethical responsibility here.” “Don’t be a wounded healer,” she said.

Luckily, she wasn’t around for future family financial discussions. It wouldn’t matter. I would be financially stable by then, just hurt and angry.

The post In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part Three– The Psychopharmacology Craze appeared first on TIM DREBY, MFT.

In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part Two– Anorexia:

I went through five years of treatment for the treatment of anorexia that added to the negative transference I have for psychotherapy. This included three therapeutic relationships, three hospitalizations, and three therapeutic trends that were utilized back in the early nineties. I participated in mandatory family therapy, behavioral inpatient eating disorder therapy, and addressing the problem through a twelve step tradition.

As a result of these relationships I learned four additional lessons:

lesson four, it is important to set reasonable expectations;
lesson five, it is not helpful to make negative predictions;
lesson six, it is important not to ignore signs of abuse in relationships; and
lesson seven, it is important not to attack a spiritual tradition.

Again, although I am glad that this treatment helped me survive a life-threatening condition, reflecting on these experiences has always led me down a path of madness. I am left wondering if I am safe in therapy.

“Of course, you are safe in therapy,” I can hear the choir sing!

“Stay on the streets of this town, and they’ll be carving you up alright . . .” I hear Bruce Springsteen retort.

Oh, how I hate choir music, but what do you think?

Structural Family Therapy:

I instantly liked my second therapist just like I liked my first therapist. He was affiliated with Salvador Minuchin’s reputable Child Guidance Clinic. It would be intensive Structural Family Therapy for me.

My parents tried to drop me off with my suitcase and he said, “Wow, that suitcase is very heavy!” Then, he ordered my family to have daily sessions to save my life.

There were a lot of tense family sessions in which my father bullied me to eat and I hated myself for acquiescing. In fact, this made it harder to swallow my pride and eat even though part of me was hungry and wanted to do better. Instead, I learned to throw-up in trash cans to object to my father and the family drama that unfurled.

I was expected to gain a half pound a day or we were failures. I researched an article in academic journals in the hospital library that suggested that this was not a good plan for the long-term needs of eating disorder patients. My therapist did not respond to my effort to self-advocate.

Indeed, when I would fail treatment at this facility and get transferred, I would learn that six thousand calories a day would not enable me to gain so rapidly.

It was true this therapist that I had for one month was good at calling my parents on their shit. At the same time, he also would punish me for not gaining enough weight by not letting me speak in the session. He really liked my sister, he said.

It may not be fair to blame the next ten years of family cutoff on the distress caused in those intense sessions. The therapist told my parents that I would run from home. This was often thrown in my direction. My mother sounded good in therapy and clearly felt my struggles were my fault and let me know it a great deal over the years. My sister always made it onto the folklore of the family Christmas cards, but not me. My room would be converted into a study and I moved in with a high school friend.

There was ongoing contact, but I did what I could to divorce myself from my family. Particularly when I reconnected with them ten years later, they chose to listen to the negative prognosis of the psychology tests, called the police, supported, and in one case openly prayed for longer-term hospitalization. Up until then, my psychotherapists functioned as my parents.

Inpatient Behavioral Treatment:

It took me a while to get my next therapist because the hospital assigned someone who was incompetent. He was not an eating disorder specialist and didn’t get it, even though he wanted to work with me. The new hospital made me fire this man to get the specialist that all the women on the unit loved and recommended. If it were not for some assertive anorexic females who were appalled that my family was paying out of pocket and I wasn’t working with a specialist, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure.

I could tell this man was curious to work with a male and that felt good. However, his strategy seemed familiar: he encouraged me to be corrupt by talking about how bad his sons were. I tried to be influenced by this gender manipulation technique. “Be a man, be bad,” he seemed to say. “And continue eating through the night.” These quotes seemed to be his mantras.

I did manage to gain weight and cheat at my diet. I was clearly addicted to starving but locking me up and forcing me to eat by changing my environment worked. Oh, I suffered. I kicked and screamed more than most. But I changed. One day I objected to eating Brussel sprouts and pulled out the blue chair and the tube that was to go up my nose and I listened. Fucking Brussel sprouts, how stupid! When I gained privileges I cheated frequently, but I was prescribed so many calories I still made gains.

Starting to hook up with all the women on the unit took a second hospitalization because I was extremely sexually repressed. I guess having a girlfriend or two wasn’t so bad, really.

While I experienced an influx of polyamorous flirtations on the unit during my second hospitalization, I also met a twenty-five-year-old newspaper reporter on the outside who didn’t mind robbing the cradle. I think she liked me because she hated her father who was an alcoholic. I was basically discharged to her care. “Loose the raincoat,” was the professional advice to me with my inability to copulate.

Right before I was discharged, I had a female social worker acknowledge my situation and warn me not to fall for any women when I was in such a vulnerable position. I was stunned. My parents and my MD didn’t care to warn me in such a manner!

According to the MD, the treatment worked! He would discharge me a year and a half later as a success. However, in the process, the MD stopped validating me and supporting me. He didn’t seem to care about what I was going through with the solution to my problems, the relation with my girlfriend.

You see, my girlfriend got extremely controlling. I was not allowed to have external friends. He just didn’t seem to acknowledge the pain her silence treatment and abuse caused. My first family had failed me, but certainly this new solution had to work. He was proud of me for gaining weight, but he knew nothing of the world I entered living in Camden, New Jersey at a commuter campus.

Through it all, real disassociated trauma went unexplored. When I finally after two years got so fed up that I had to cut ties with the older woman, I started violently binging and purging in the roach infested apartment I managed to afford on my own.

The Twelve Step Traditions:

My mother saw my fourth therapist for a while and said she was, “really good.” She was like my first therapist in that she was less credentialed and saw paying middle-class clients. My Mom paid for the sessions.

This therapist liked John Bradshaw who was a lot like me in terms of rage and shame. I saw him speak in a video clip and saw he also had been through eating problems. Still, I just thought he was fat and sloppy looking. Still, when I was told that families were like water torture dripping on your forehead, it did make sense. As such, she seemed to understand and care about my suffering.

Once a week, I took the train from the inner-city to the wealthy town of Haddenfield, New Jersey. I’d buy a weeks-worth of groceries most of which would only get vomited down the sturdy old sink pipes back amid the roaches.

Additionally, this therapist would occasionally challenge my spiritual beliefs in ways that seemed inappropriate. “Some things are worth dying for . . .” she would say with sudden rageful intensity. She once told me that she was attacked by a psychotic woman when she worked in community mental health and her primal response was violence, and that was okay.

She also clearly didn’t trust my mother and often asked me if I was sure my mother didn’t sexually abuse me. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I really don’t trust your mother,” she would say.

To her credit, she did see me outside my eating disorder. She encouraged me to pursue one of my interests outside the confines of the blocks on which I was immersed in work and school.

I was smart enough to make friends with the good people from the crack house, the ones who did not call me “Where’s Waldo.” I learned there are many respectful people who get caught up in that lifestyle. I also made friends with many of the local youth. I even made a friend with a fellow student who was in recovery from drugs and alcohol. Who else on the working-class campus would befriend a anorexic dude who had an attitude, who outlined everything he read, who was the only person willing of able to answer professors questions, and who tried to act like his weight and food didn’t matter?

It was the summer of my junior year and I quit my job and hiked six hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail. Even though I barely had enough weight on me, I binge ate a lot that summer and burned it hiking mountains. I was proud of myself for making the trek though it was a lot of alone time.

When I got back and started binging and purging again, I made the mistake of feeling the therapist had written me off. I guess I blamed her for the new-found fury in my binging behavior.

I found a new therapist with better credentials. I chose not to accept this therapists’ line of inquiry and views of the impact of sexual abuse. In fact, it became toxic to me. It would take twenty years and writing a memoir to recapture memories that helped me start to understand myself.

If it wasn’t for the fact she attacked my culture, she might have really helped me understand myself better. Instead, I sought refuge in the the medication craze . . .

The post In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part Two– Anorexia: appeared first on TIM DREBY, MFT.

Sixteen Lesson Learned from Bad Psychotherapy: Part Two: Surviving Anorexia Treatments

I went through five years of treatment for the treatment of anorexia that added to the negative transference I have for psychotherapy. This included three therapeutic relationships, three hospitalizations, and three therapeutic trends that were utilized back in the early nineties. I participated in mandatory family therapy, behavioral inpatient eating disorder therapy, and addressing the problem through a twelve step tradition.

As a result of these relationships I learned four additional lessons:

lesson four, it is important to set reasonable expectations;
lesson five, it is not helpful to make negative predictions;
lesson six, it is important not to ignore signs of abuse in relationships; and
lesson seven, it is important not to attack a spiritual tradition.

Again, although I am glad that this treatment helped me survive a life-threatening condition, reflecting on these experiences has always led me down a path of madness. I am left wondering if I am safe in therapy.

“Of course, you are safe in therapy,” I can hear the choir sing!

“Stay on the streets of this town, and they’ll be carving you up alright . . .” I hear Bruce Springsteen retort.

Oh, how I hate choir music, but what do you think?

Structural Family Therapy:

I instantly liked my second therapist just like I liked my first therapist. He was affiliated with Salvador Minuchin’s reputable Child Guidance Clinic. It would be intensive Structural Family Therapy for me.

My parents tried to drop me off with my suitcase and he said, “Wow, that suitcase is very heavy!” Then, he ordered my family to have daily sessions to save my life.

There were a lot of tense family sessions in which my father bullied me to eat and I hated myself for acquiescing. In fact, this made it harder to swallow my pride and eat even though part of me was hungry and wanted to do better. Instead, I learned to throw-up in trash cans to object to my father and the family drama that unfurled.

I was expected to gain a half pound a day or we were failures. I researched an article in academic journals in the hospital library that suggested that this was not a good plan for the long-term needs of eating disorder patients. My therapist did not respond to my effort to self-advocate.

Indeed, when I would fail treatment at this facility and get transferred, I would learn that six thousand calories a day would not enable me to gain so rapidly.

It was true this therapist that I had for one month was good at calling my parents on their shit. At the same time, he also would punish me for not gaining enough weight by not letting me speak in the session. He really liked my sister, he said.

It may not be fair to blame the next ten years of family cutoff on the distress caused in those intense sessions. The therapist told my parents that I would run from home. This was often thrown in my direction. My mother sounded good in therapy and clearly felt my struggles were my fault and let me know it a great deal over the years. My sister always made it onto the folklore of the family Christmas cards, but not me. My room would be converted into a study and I moved in with a high school friend.

There was ongoing contact, but I did what I could to divorce myself from my family. Particularly when I reconnected with them ten years later, they chose to listen to the negative prognosis of the psychology tests, called the police, supported, and in one case openly prayed for longer-term hospitalization. Up until then, my psychotherapists functioned as my parents.

Inpatient Behavioral Treatment:

It took me a while to get my next therapist because the hospital assigned someone who was incompetent. He was not an eating disorder specialist and didn’t get it, even though he wanted to work with me. The new hospital made me fire this man to get the specialist that all the women on the unit loved and recommended. If it were not for some assertive anorexic females who were appalled that my family was paying out of pocket and I wasn’t working with a specialist, I wouldn’t have had the pleasure.

I could tell this man was curious to work with a male and that felt good. However, his strategy seemed familiar: he encouraged me to be corrupt by talking about how bad his sons were. I tried to be influenced by this gender manipulation technique. “Be a man, be bad,” he seemed to say. “And continue eating through the night.” These quotes seemed to be his mantras.

I did manage to gain weight and cheat at my diet. I was clearly addicted to starving but locking me up and forcing me to eat by changing my environment worked. Oh, I suffered. I kicked and screamed more than most. But I changed. One day I objected to eating Brussel sprouts and pulled out the blue chair and the tube that was to go up my nose and I listened. Fucking Brussel sprouts, how stupid! When I gained privileges I cheated frequently, but I was prescribed so many calories I still made gains.

Starting to hook up with all the women on the unit took a second hospitalization because I was extremely sexually repressed. I guess having a girlfriend or two wasn’t so bad, really.

While I experienced an influx of polyamorous flirtations on the unit during my second hospitalization, I also met a twenty-five-year-old newspaper reporter on the outside who didn’t mind robbing the cradle. I think she liked me because she hated her father who was an alcoholic. I was basically discharged to her care. “Loose the raincoat,” was the professional advice to me with my inability to copulate.

Right before I was discharged, I had a female social worker acknowledge my situation and warn me not to fall for any women when I was in such a vulnerable position. I was stunned. My parents and my MD didn’t care to warn me in such a manner!

According to the MD, the treatment worked! He would discharge me a year and a half later as a success. However, in the process, the MD stopped validating me and supporting me. He didn’t seem to care about what I was going through with the solution to my problems, the relation with my girlfriend.

You see, my girlfriend got extremely controlling. I was not allowed to have external friends. He just didn’t seem to acknowledge the pain her silence treatment and abuse caused. My first family had failed me, but certainly this new solution had to work. He was proud of me for gaining weight, but he knew nothing of the world I entered living in Camden, New Jersey at a commuter campus.

Through it all, real disassociated trauma went unexplored. When I finally after two years got so fed up that I had to cut ties with the older woman, I started violently binging and purging in the roach infested apartment I managed to afford on my own.

The Twelve Step Traditions:

My mother saw my fourth therapist for a while and said she was, “really good.” She was like my first therapist in that she was less credentialed and saw paying middle-class clients. My Mom paid for the sessions.

This therapist liked John Bradshaw who was a lot like me in terms of rage and shame. I saw him speak in a video clip and saw he also had been through eating problems. Still, I just thought he was fat and sloppy looking. Still, when I was told that families were like water torture dripping on your forehead, it did make sense. As such, she seemed to understand and care about my suffering.

Once a week, I took the train from the inner-city to the wealthy town of Haddenfield, New Jersey. I’d buy a weeks-worth of groceries most of which would only get vomited down the sturdy old sink pipes back amid the roaches.

Additionally, this therapist would occasionally challenge my spiritual beliefs in ways that seemed inappropriate. “Some things are worth dying for . . .” she would say with sudden rageful intensity. She once told me that she was attacked by a psychotic woman when she worked in community mental health and her primal response was violence, and that was okay.

She also clearly didn’t trust my mother and often asked me if I was sure my mother didn’t sexually abuse me. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but I really don’t trust your mother,” she would say.

To her credit, she did see me outside my eating disorder. She encouraged me to pursue one of my interests outside the confines of the blocks on which I was immersed in work and school.

I was smart enough to make friends with the good people from the crack house, the ones who did not call me “Where’s Waldo.” I learned there are many respectful people who get caught up in that lifestyle. I also made friends with many of the local youth. I even made a friend with a fellow student who was in recovery from drugs and alcohol. Who else on the working-class campus would befriend a anorexic dude who had an attitude, who outlined everything he read, who was the only person willing of able to answer professors questions, and who tried to act like his weight and food didn’t matter?

It was the summer of my junior year and I quit my job and hiked six hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail. Even though I barely had enough weight on me, I binge ate a lot that summer and burned it hiking mountains. I was proud of myself for making the trek though it was a lot of alone time.

When I got back and started binging and purging again, I made the mistake of feeling the therapist had written me off. I guess I blamed her for the new-found fury in my binging behavior.

I found a new therapist with better credentials. I chose not to accept this therapists’ line of inquiry and views of the impact of sexual abuse. In fact, it became toxic to me. It would take twenty years and writing a memoir to recapture memories that helped me start to understand myself.

If it wasn’t for the fact she attacked my culture, she might have really helped me understand myself better. Instead, I sought refuge in the the medication craze . . .

The post Sixteen Lesson Learned from Bad Psychotherapy: Part Two: Surviving Anorexia Treatments appeared first on TIM DREBY, MFT.

In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part One– Decline

Some might point out that my experiences in therapy couldn’t have been so bad if I chose to go into therapy as a profession. Others might say it was my own damn fault I got hooked on the practice! Still others might point out that I have been privileged with the best help that money could buy and have been able to use it to avoid disability.

Despite what others might say, I am not sure whether to be grateful for the therapy I got. In my therapeutic journey, therapy makes me mad. I don’t think I have experienced a warranted sense of safety with the relationships in which I have been.

This and the next thee posts will span this journey through psychotherapy over the past thirty years. I will evaluate my experience with seven therapeutic relationships. There have been several generations of theoretical trends and changes to consider. There is also an assortment of distinctive conditions to treat even though I am still just a person.

Many argue that without having a therapist who really believes in you, it is hard to have a sense of safety! Ultimately, I share these experiences so that the reader can learn to navigate and advocate for the care they need. I will stop short of drawing conclusions. I am not here to turn off anyone’s light bulb! Just remember, the light bulb has to be ready to change.

Still, I think the conduct of modern-day healers need to be re-evaluated repeatedly regardless of degrees, the quality of training, or the amount of money they make. I persist with therapy because I am still unhappy and because I want to offer quality experiences to the people I serve. I persist because I believe other people who have experienced catastrophic trauma can learn to be healers. Stay tuned and learn more about the reason I have come to promote peer support as a legitimate form of therapy.

Early Intervention:  

I saw my first therapist starting at age thirteen. The first memorable thing we did together was write down what a popular kid looked like and what a nerd looked like. Then he asked me which one I was?

When I explained that my parents wouldn’t buy me popular clothing, he said, “that doesn’t sound right!”

He was right, they were paying him top dollar for these sessions.

When mom lied and said that my claims were inaccurate, I did get to go shopping as a result. Still, I didn’t take advantage of my Mom and wear designer clothing. That was not my style. But I did dress better, and it helped. I started to try to fit in and the bullying decreased.

I was also referred for psychometric testing. I did not have any idea why this was necessary. Indeed, at times in my journey, it has been a significant source of concern as to why this was suggested. I was simply coaxed into it saying that it might be helpful.

I came out of it with one or two pieces of feedback: that I was particularly good at describing and defining things; and I was smart.

I have learned over the years that psychometric testing does not get shared with the recipient accept to highlight a strength or two. I wouldn’t really know if it affected my treatment. In treatment, I was always encouraged to drink and break the rules. I never listened. My father and my shrink shared the theory that my problem was that my superego was too big.

Lesson Number One–Don’t Side with Society Over the Sufferer:

While it’s arguable that these early tactics helped me stop fighting back against the herd in a self-defeating manner, it’s also arguable that I also stopped celebrating myself. The story just wasn’t over with this intervention. I learned to blame myself for getting teased endlessly. My rage was turned inwards. Blaming myself has become quite a thing over the years.

Now with my master’s degree and twenty-five years of experience, I understand neurodevelopmental disorders enough to understand why this tactic was not advisable. I could recite all the disorders back in college, but it took me till age thirty to realize that neurodiversity needs to be celebrated, not punished.

I’d always played with kids who were older or younger. I’d been left back a year in kindergarten and nearly didn’t even get in because I cut paper in a unique manner. It is hard for me to understand why the info from the psychometric testing didn’t pick up the very clear signs of neurodevelopmental disorders. I would later confirm ADD, Dyslexia. Beyond that, I have surmised that I am on the spectrum. Against-the-grain behavior is not simply a choice. However, the road to ending the blaming the victim mentality would be a long one.

Lesson Number Two–Don’t Ignore Problems:

A year later I stopped sleeping for a year. The best I could do was maybe three hours a night. I’d sleep on the floor or in the closet because I had more success sprawled out in strange positions. I was unhappy about a move to a new house and wanted to paint my room black. I could not explain why this mattered to me so direly. The new house was a significant shift in values for my Mom who was coming out of her depression and starting to challenge the way Dad did things.

Why had I had to suffer all those experiences of ascetic deprivations only to end up living in a new house like everyone else? Money was never talked about and I couldn’t understand that my mother had just come into some. Plus, we were evicting the welfare family, my summertime friends, out of our summer home, “The Lodge” and selling it. Plus, our dog died. Plus, my Dad Quit his job. Oddly, the horrific fighting had halted. But I did not trust the move.

Because I was unlike other teens who were lazy and slept in, my therapist did not consider this to be a depression. My struggle went unacknowledged except by my mother who I woke up every night in tears. I fixed this at the end of my ninth grade year during an Outward Bound course during which we hiked late into each night. This got me back to sleeping after a tough year.

Lesson Number Three–Don’t Engage in Dual Relationships that May Interpreted as Exploitative:

When my parents divorced the next year, the advice my therapist had given them after years of working with them was to “Shit or get of the pot.”

When I finally found these things out, I felt as though I had intuitively predicted the fallout.

Now, as a professional, I have learned that working with three members of the same family individually and adding on couples, group, and family counseling is a bit of a set up. This may make you money, but it may cause conflict and fallout for the trusting relationships.

Unfortunately, this was only one aspect of the way dual relationships didn’t work on my behalf. Meanwhile I had a yard business. One might say the business was impaired by my fear of asking for payment. My father had always gone into rages when I asked to be paid for work that I did. He approved of me working hard for him all summer in return for a modest donation into my bank account at the end.

Meanwhile, my father convinced me to buy a used three-cycle lawnmower engine that didn’t work. Perhaps he wanted to teach me a lesson about business. Or maybe he just didn’t want the wear and tear afflicting his own cheap-ass lawn mower. It was totally his idea. I didn’t understand why a three-cycle motor was important. But I was dutiful and invested in a used three-cycle mower.

When the therapist heard of my angst about the lawn mower that kept breaking down, he said he had a lawnmower for me. He sold it to me for about eighty dollars, almost the same price I paid for the used three-cycle lawnmower. I of course was afraid to tell him no.

Not only couldn’t I get my customers to pay me, I didn’t invest wisely in a good lawnmower. I tired of not getting paid. My therapist’s lawnmower was not much to my liking. I told myself another hundred dollars I could have bought a brand new three cycle engine. I threw in the towel and got a job at McDonald’s my junior year. It was a year I was exceptionally busy, starving, and working on homework into the wee hours of the night.

Then, I had to pay out of pocket for many missed appointments with the therapist that year. My Mom insisted that I make my appointment whether they helped or not. Perhaps it seems like I should have respected this, but she was out late partying every night. I was working hard and had lost all respect for her over this.

When I was put in a hospital, my therapist called and had the staff wish me well from him. Staff were all impressed with his follow through. “He seems to really care about you,” they said. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I still didn’t consider all the ways I felt exploited in the relationship.

 

The post In Psychotherapy We Trust: Part One– Decline appeared first on TIM DREBY, MFT.

Sixteen Lessons Learned from Bad Psychotherapy, Part One: Therapy and Decline

Some might point out that my experiences in therapy couldn’t have been so bad if I chose to go into therapy as a profession. Others might say it was my own damn fault I got hooked on the practice! Still others might point out that I have been privileged with the best help that money could buy and have been able to use it to avoid disability.

 

Despite what others might say, I am not sure whether to be grateful for the therapy I got. Therapy makes me mad. I don’t think I have experienced a warranted sense of safety with the relationships in which I have been.

 

This and the next thee posts will span my journey through psychotherapy over the past thirty years. I will evaluate my experience with seven therapeutic relationships. There have been several generations of theoretical trends and changes to consider. There is also an assortment of distinctive conditions to treat even though I am still just a person.

 

Many argue that without having a therapist who really believes in you, it is hard to have a sense of safety! Ultimately, it will be up to the reader to decide for themselves. Maybe I am a difficult person. I will argue simply that I have learned sixteen lessons about what not to do.

 

I think the conduct of modern-day healers need to be re-evaluated repeatedly regardless of degrees, the quality of their training, or the amount of money they make. I persist with therapy because I am still unhappy and because I want to offer quality experiences to the people I serve. I persist because I believe other people who have experienced catastrophic trauma can learn to be healers. Stay tuned and learn more about the reason I have come to promote peer support.

 

 

Early Intervention:  

 

I saw my first therapist starting at age thirteen. The first memorable thing we did together was write down what a popular kid looked like and what a nerd looked like. Then he asked me which one I was?

 

When I explained that my parents wouldn’t buy me popular clothing, he said, “that doesn’t sound right!”

 

He was right, they were paying him top dollar for these sessions.

 

When mom lied and said that my claims were inaccurate, I did get to go shopping as a result. Still, I didn’t take advantage of my Mom and wear designer clothing. That was not my style. But I did dress better, and it helped. I started to try to fit in and the bullying decreased.

 

I was also referred for psychometric testing. I did not have any idea why this was necessary. Indeed, at times in my journey, it has been a significant source of concern as to why this was suggested. I was simply coaxed into it saying that it might be helpful.

 

I came out of it with one or two pieces of feedback: that I was particularly good at describing and defining things; and I was smart.

 

I have learned over the years that psychometric testing does not get shared with the recipient accept to highlight a strength or two. I wouldn’t really know if it affected my treatment. In treatment, I was always encouraged to drink and break the rules. I never listened. My father and my shrink shared the theory that my problem was that my superego was too big.

 

 

Lesson Number One–Don’t Side with Society Over the Sufferer:

 

While it’s arguable that these early tactics helped me stop fighting back against the herd in a self-defeating manner, it’s also arguable that I also stopped celebrating myself. The story just wasn’t over with this intervention. I learned to blame myself for getting teased endlessly. My rage was turned inwards. Blaming myself has become quite a thing over the years.

 

Now with my master’s degree and twenty-five years of experience, I understand neurodevelopmental disorders enough to understand why this tactic was not advisable. I could recite all the disorders back in college, but it took me till age thirty to realize that neurodiversity needs to be celebrated, not punished.

 

I’d always played with kids who were older or younger. I’d been left back a year in kindergarten and nearly didn’t even get in because I cut paper in a unique manner. It is hard for me to understand why the info from the psychometric testing didn’t pick up the very clear signs of neurodevelopmental disorders. I would later confirm ADD, Dyslexia. Beyond that, I have surmised that I am on the spectrum. Against-the-grain behavior is not simply a choice. However, the road to ending the blaming the victim mentality would be a long one.

 

 

Lesson Number Two–Don’t Ignore Problems:

 

A year later I stopped sleeping for a year. The best I could do was maybe three hours a night. I’d sleep on the floor or in the closet because I had more success sprawled out in strange positions. I was unhappy about a move to a new house and wanted to paint my room black. I could not explain why this mattered to me so direly. The new house was a significant shift in values for my Mom who was coming out of her depression and starting to challenge the way Dad did things.

 

Why had I had to suffer all those experiences of ascetic deprivations only to end up living in a new house like everyone else? Money was never talked about and I couldn’t understand that my mother had just come into some. Plus, we were evicting the welfare family, my summertime friends, out of our summer home, “The Lodge” and selling it. Plus, our dog died. Plus, my Dad Quit his job. Oddly, the horrific fighting had halted. But I did not trust the move.

 

Because I was unlike other teens who were lazy and slept in, my therapist did not consider this to be a depression. My struggle went unacknowledged except by my mother who I woke up every night in tears. I fixed this at the end of my ninth grade year during an Outward Bound course during which we hiked late into each night. This got me back to sleeping after a tough year.

 

 

Lesson Number Three–Don’t Engage in Dual Relationships that May Interpreted as Exploitative:

 

When my parents divorced the next year, the advice my therapist had given them after years of working with them was to “Shit or get of the pot.”

 

When I finally found these things out, I felt as though I had intuitively predicted the fallout.

 

Now, as a professional, I have learned that working with three members of the same family individually and adding on couples, group, and family counseling is a bit of a set up. This may make you money, but it may cause conflict and fallout for the trusting relationships.

 

Unfortunately, this was only one aspect of the way dual relationships didn’t work on my behalf. Meanwhile I had a yard business. One might say the business was impaired by my fear of asking for payment. My father had always gone into rages when I asked to be paid for work that I did. He approved of me working hard for him all summer in return for a modest donation into my bank account at the end.

 

Meanwhile, my father convinced me to buy a used three-cycle lawnmower engine that didn’t work. Perhaps he wanted to teach me a lesson about business. Or maybe he just didn’t want the wear and tear afflicting his own cheap-ass lawn mower. It was totally his idea. I didn’t understand why a three-cycle motor was important. But I was dutiful and invested in a used three-cycle mower.

 

When the therapist heard of my angst about the lawn mower that kept breaking down, he said he had a lawnmower for me. He sold it to me for about eighty dollars, almost the same price I paid for the used three-cycle lawnmower. I of course was afraid to tell him no.

 

Not only couldn’t I get my customers to pay me, I didn’t invest wisely in a good lawnmower. I tired of not getting paid. My therapist’s lawnmower was not much to my liking. I told myself another hundred dollars I could have bought a brand new three cycle engine. I threw in the towel and got a job at McDonald’s my junior year. It was a year I was exceptionally busy, starving, and working on homework into the wee hours of the night.

 

Then, I had to pay out of pocket for many missed appointments with the therapist that year. My Mom insisted that I make my appointment whether they helped or not. Perhaps it seems like I should have respected this, but she was out late partying every night. I was working hard and had lost all respect for her over this.

 

When I was put in a hospital, my therapist called and had the staff wish me well from him. Staff were all impressed with his follow through. “He seems to really care about you,” they said. I didn’t know how to feel about that. I still didn’t consider all the ways I felt exploited in the relationship.

 

The post Sixteen Lessons Learned from Bad Psychotherapy, Part One: Therapy and Decline appeared first on TIM DREBY, MFT.

Speaking Event, May 1

I will be presenting a workshop at the annual California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies. This will be the first part of my six hour training that can be downloaded here: Training Powerpoint. CASRA is an important local resource that has supported me over the years.

 Click to view  2019 Flyer

The post Speaking Event, May 1 appeared first on TIM DERBY MFT .

Turning Schizophrenia into a Brand:

I’ve never thought much about it, but maybe the fact that I attract few friends and develop mostly adversaries is a disadvantage in my life as a writer. Historically, I have used this kind of rejection and disinterest to increase my focus on the craft. At a certain point, I stopped trying to get others to like me. That’s right, I am not afraid to tell the readers or the people I counsel the truth.

 

Perhaps, the reason I have taken to writing in the first place is because I find the world, I inhabit to be full of blood-sucking vampires. In writing, I opt to craft a world in which I can convey, my bloodletting experiences in a likeable manner. I always edited and edited to get the words right, but then found there was no one around to read my work.

 

Before I started learning how to market my writing, I developed a strategy to get noticed. I figured I would write a memoir that would be good enough to grab peoples’ attention. Then all those poetry years might get increased visibility. Then, I could use my status to write a book to change the way treatment providers work with psychosis.

 

 

Starting Out with A Memoir

 

I wrote the memoir about a two-year period when I believe I was a targeted individual. I went through this time without having much emotional support. I was labeled as psychotic and the people who were forced to help me out did so in a begrudging manner. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful to avoid homeless shelters, but supporters did not want to know about what I was going through and were mostly controlling and negative while I worked tirelessly.

 

I wrote the memoir to let them and the world know what it is like to have America’s secret-society-security-force taunting you. I wrote and rewrote for eight years. I got the thing good enough to earn a contract and got a lot of help with editing. Maybe editing is a privilege I don’t always have, but I like to think I used it to repeatedly improve my craft. I broke the contract because they wanted to misrepresent my political views. I got five-star reviews and several awards.

 

But alas, I didn’t have the friends, the know-how or the community to get the feedback I needed. Many friends accepted free books and did not read or review them. Some just started to be hostile and used my vulnerability and further marginalized me politically. Sales never took off. I have continued to feel just the way most people treat me, like I am obsolete.

 

 

What it is Like to Survive Without Friends:

 

So, I am forty-seven years old and have learned a great deal about how to survive without friends. I have come to accept this reality quite well. I am not ashamed to say it. But to survive and maintain my career despite a security force being against me, I had to learn how to overcome what I have come to term the “trickster” phenomenon.

 

When someone has power over me like a parent in a family, a boss in an administration, a teacher in a department, or a nurse on a treatment team, I may sense that they have a bone to pick with me. Then in informal or formal secret society meetings, I get this sense that they may spread negative words about me or my writing. I may sense this kind of gossip and even see it in the behavior of secret society members. If I see this happen and believe that the whole team has turned against me because of the one or two people who clearly have a bone to pick with me, it is possible that I might act to increase this phenomenon exponentially. Hurt and hostility can be sensed interpersonally. Control and humiliating abuse can be enhanced.

 

 

Defining Systemic Abuse as a Spiritual Trickster:

 

Thus, if I sense and disapprove of this kind of systemic abuse, I put out hostile energy that will ensure that the team will turn against me and amp up their efforts to control me. In the past, I have done things like move to the inner-city where no one knows me, move across the country to start over again, or lose touch with people who seem to tolerate me from these past lives. Running and starting over again is something I have done repeatedly in my life. That is the main reason I have no friends. Like Tom Waites says in a song, “You build it up; you break it down; And then you burn your mansions to the ground.” I have done this repeatedly throughout the various stages of my life. One doesn’t have to be a substance user or a musician to experience this phenomenon.

 

Carl Jung talked about the spiritual reality of the trickster archetype. A trickster is a spiritual figure in mythology that will lie and cheat to gain material advantage. Hence, I have learned to address all signs of control and systemic abuse as though they are spiritual tricksters. Instead of getting angry and running, I stay and focus on ignoring the trickster. Instead, I put out positive spiritual energy that will pray and hope that the sign of control is just a trickster.

 

In order to have a career and make a livable wage, I did have to get the security force off my back. I may still see signs of it; but doing so does little to interrupt me now. In other words, I did have to learn to disrupt this powerful trickster system that secret societies reinforce. When I see signs that people are holding me in a negative light and I believe that one or two people is misrepresenting me in a negative way, I face this negativity with positive prayerful energy instead of hostility. Then, those one or two people who are gossiping about me in their secret society won’t have success. The key is to see the persecution picture and prayerfully and spiritually disrupt that reality. Let them think you have been neutralized. Play the part! Punch with words!

 

 

Feeling Like I Keep Coming Out on the Losing End:

 

I must confess, that I have been losing this battle on several fronts in my life as of late. Last month, in my monthly report to my email followers, I admitted that I believed this was going on and I was upset about it. Admitting that people are against me is rarely a good idea when it comes putting out contrasting energy and prayers that people will not be against me. However, even in my highly scrutinized writing, I have done this.

 

As an author I often feel unsuccessful. I never feel like I have enough followers and likes. If the reader checks out my Facebook page, they may indeed see why I feel this way. And complaining about this even here probably doesn’t help.

 

 

Investing Money in a Prayer

 

However last month I paid for a consult regarding building my writing platform with a Canadian named Kimberly Grabas at: www.yourwriterplatform.com. This was my Christmas present to myself and Kimberly was quite generous with her time and advice. Turns out the hard work I was doing on my DIY website was just not up to industry standards. Nor was my brand,

 

Thus, I have had a less productive month in terms of output on my blog and spent a lot of time drafting my brand, breaking it down and turning it around. And I have hired a tech person in India named Partap to build me a wordpress.org website.

 

Starting over means admitting that I burned a great deal of time and money trying to do it myself. But I work and save money and over time this means I can invest in marketing over time. Even though having nice visual representation and a concise display of things like my values and mission feels counter to my belief in the value of my writing craft, I am putting my hopes and dreams in it. Maybe playing the game to get more followers will help my writing get the attention I feel it deserves. Really, it is about getting out from under the people who I believe are holding me down.

 

I chose to see it this way: in trying to get my brand right, I am prayerfully putting out the energy into the universe to counter the fact that I am surrounded by people who want to foil my efforts. I am putting out energy into the universe that the people with power over me who are gossiping in their contrived secret societies and trying to minimize and kill my work before it gets off the ground, will be disrupted.

 

In fact, I have been giving my power over to all the people who want to keep me down too much lately. My email list can become my community of support. I have built one up even with a DIY website. I am going to improve my newsletter efforts. Plus, I believe in my work and feel it is getting better, not worse. With a wider following I can get around the people who are holding me down, diminishing my work behind my back, and winning.

 

 

Writing for Freedom:

 

And the greatest part about it is that I still don’t need to have friends. I can be free to me my own free, cantankerous-ass self. Stay tuned, I will be releasing my new website branding schizophrenia into solvable components soon.

The post Turning Schizophrenia into a Brand: appeared first on TIM DREBY, MFT.

My Reason for Investing in the Concept of a Brand

I’ve never thought much about it, but maybe the fact that I attract few friends and develop mostly adversaries is a disadvantage in my life as a writer. Historically, I have used this kind of rejection and disinterest to increase my focus on the craft. At a certain point, I stopped trying to get others to like me. That’s right, I am not afraid to tell the readers or the people I counsel the truth.

Perhaps, the reason I have taken to writing in the first place is because I find the world, I inhabit to be full of blood-sucking vampires. In writing, I opt to craft a world in which I can convey, my bloodletting experiences in a likable manner. I always edited and edited to get the words right, but then found there was no one around to read my work.

Before I started learning how to market my writing, I developed a strategy to get noticed. I figured I would write a memoir that would be good enough to grab peoples’ attention. Then all those poetry years might get increased visibility. Then, I could use my status to write a book to change the way treatment providers work with psychosis.

I wrote the memoir about a two-year period when I believe I was a targeted individual. I went through this time without having much emotional support. I was labeled as psychotic and the people who were forced to help me out did so in a begrudging manner. Don’t get me wrong, I was grateful to avoid homeless shelters, but supporters did not want to know about what I was going through and were mostly controlling and negative while I worked tirelessly.

I wrote the memoir to let them and the world know what it is like to have America’s secret-society-security-force taunting you. I wrote and rewrote for eight years. I got the thing good enough to earn a contract and got a lot of help with editing. Maybe editing is a privilege I don’t always have, but I like to think I used it to repeatedly improve my craft. I broke the contract because they wanted to misrepresent my political views. I got five-star reviews and several awards.

But alas, I didn’t have the friends, the know-how or the community to get the feedback I needed. Many friends accepted free books and did not read or review them. Some just started to be hostile and used my vulnerability and further marginalized me politically. Sales never took off. I have continued to feel just the way most people treat me, like I am obsolete.

***

So, I am forty-seven years old and have learned a great deal about how to survive without friends. I have come to accept this reality quite well. I am not ashamed to say it. But to survive and maintain my career despite a security force being against me, I had to learn how to overcome what I have come to term the “trickster” phenomenon.

When someone has power over me like a parent in a family, a boss in an administration, a teacher in a department, or a nurse on a treatment team, I may notice that they have a bone to pick with me. Then in informal or formal secret society meetings, I get this sense that they may spread negative words about me or my writing. I may sense this kind of gossip and even see it in the behavior of secret society members. If I see this happen and believe that the whole team has turned against me because of the one or two people who clearly have a bone to pick with me, it is possible that I might act to increase this phenomenon exponentially. Hurt and hostility can be sensed inter-personally. Control and humiliating abuse can be enhanced.

Thus, if I sense and disapprove of this kind of systemic abuse, I put out hostile energy that will ensure that the team will turn against me and amp up their efforts to control me. In the past, I have done things like move to the inner-city where no one knows me, move across the country to start over again, or lose touch with people who seem to tolerate me from these past lives. Running and starting over again is something I have done repeatedly in my life. That is the main reason I have no friends. Like Tom Waites says in a song, “You build it up; you wreck it down; And then you burn your mansions to the ground.” I have done this repeatedly throughout the various stages of my life. One doesn’t have to be a substance user or a musician to experience this phenomenon.

Carl Jung talked about the spiritual reality of the trickster archetype. A trickster is a spiritual figure in mythology that will lie and cheat to gain material advantage. Hence, I have learned to address all signs of control and systemic abuse as though they are spiritual tricksters. Instead of getting angry and running, I stay and focus on ignoring the trickster. Instead, I put out positive spiritual energy that will pray and hope that the sign of control is just a trickster.

In order to have a career and make a livable wage, I did have to get the security force off my back. I may still see signs of it; but doing so does little to interrupt me now. In other words, I did have to learn to disrupt this powerful trickster system that secret societies reinforce. When I see signs that people are holding me in a negative light and I believe that one or two people is misrepresenting me in a negative way, I face this negativity with positive prayerful energy instead of hostility. Then, those one or two people who are gossiping about me in their secret society won’t have success. The key is to see the persecution picture and prayerfully and spiritually disrupt that reality. Let them think you have been neutralized. Play the part! Punch with words!

***

I must confess, that I have been losing this battle on several fronts in my life as of late. Last month, in my monthly report to my email followers, I admitted that I believed this was going on and I was upset about it. Admitting that people are against me is rarely a good idea when it comes putting out contrasting energy and prayers that people will not be against me. However, even in my highly scrutinized writing, I have done this.

As an author I often feel unsuccessful. I never feel like I have enough followers and likes. If the reader checks out my Facebook page, they may indeed see why I feel this way. And complaining about this even here probably doesn’t help.

However last month I paid for a consult regarding building my writing platform with a Canadian named Kimberly Grabas at: www.yourwritingplatform.com. This was my Christmas present to myself and Kimberly was quite generous with her time and advice. Turns out the hard work I was doing on my DIY website was just not up to industry standards. Nor was my brand,

Thus, I have had a less productive month in terms of output on my blog and spent a lot of time drafting my brand, breaking it down and turning it around. And I have hired a tech person in India named Partap to build me a wordpress.org website.

Starting over means admitting that I burned a great deal of time and money trying to do it myself. But I work and save money and over time this means I can invest in marketing over time. Even though having nice visual representation and a concise display of things like my values and mission feels counter to my belief in the value of my writing craft, I am putting my hopes and dreams in it. Maybe playing the game to get more followers will help my writing get the attention I feel it deserves. Really, it is about getting out from under the people who I believe are holding me down.

I chose to see it this way: in trying to get my brand right, I am prayerfully putting out the energy into the universe to counter the fact that I am surrounded by people who want to foil my efforts. I am putting out energy into the universe that the people with power over me who are gossiping in their contrived secret societies and trying to minimize and kill my work before it gets off the ground, will be disrupted.

In fact, I have been giving my power over to all the people who want to keep me down too much lately. My email list can become my community of support. I have built one up even with a DIY website. I am going to improve my newsletter efforts. Plus, I believe in my work and feel it is getting better, not worse. With a wider following I can get around the people who are holding me down, diminishing my work behind my back, and winning.

And the greatest part about it is that I still don’t need to have friends. I can be free to me my own free, cantankerous-ass self.

***

I will be providing a workshop May 1, at California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies in Concord, CA. At the workshop I will be providing a rationale and outlining skills that will help providers and family members join with the person who is suffering and understand how to support them. This is part-one of a four-part training that I have developed. This is a training I hope one day to use to provide CEUs to providers to help them know how to work with sufferers.

Next month I also will publish a four-part series examining my own experience in psychotherapy. This is a series of essays that I wrote to better understand my own relationship with psychotherapy so that I could get permission to try EMDR treatment from my therapist. It should all be published on the new website that I hope will artfully display my style and brand.

The post My Reason for Investing in the Concept of a Brand appeared first on TIM DERBY MFT .

My Reason for Investing in the Concept of a Brand

I’ve never thought much about it, but maybe the fact that I attract few friends and develop mostly adversaries is a disadvantage in my life as a writer. Historically, I have used this kind of rejection and disinterest to increase my focus on the craft. At a certain point, I stopped trying to get others … Continue reading My Reason for Investing in the Concept of a Brand

The post My Reason for Investing in the Concept of a Brand appeared first on Tim Dreby MFT .

Speaking Event, May 1

I will be presenting a workshop at the annual California Association of Social Rehabilitation Agencies. This will be the first part of my six hour training that can be downloaded here: Training Powerpoint. CASRA is an important local resource that has supported me over the years.  Click to view  2019 Flyer

The post Speaking Event, May 1 appeared first on Tim Dreby MFT .