The Mental Emotional Health Blog

I find it funny how some people personalize their vehicle or their home. I don’t know how it is around the world with this, but here in the Midwest and other parts of the United States are known to do this.

Example: if two or more people are walking back to their vehicles after some event they just left, the first person to reach their vehicle might identify the vehicle this way, “This is me.” The person could have said, “This is my car”, but I have heard the personalization many times. It’s just like if someone is being dropped off at home and tells the driver “This is me”, instead of “Here’s my home.” It’s not a big deal, I know. I have just always wondered how that originated.

Just be careful how you respond and don’t be too literal if someone uses the personalization . If you are dropping off your date at home and your date says, “Okay, this is me”, don’t respond with “Wow, you look old. Were you built in the 1920s?”

My first job when I was a teenager was as a summer custodian for my town’s middle school. That is where I first learned about asbestos, and the health risks associated with the substance. Today I have a guest post from Richard Moyle from the Mesothelioma Cancer Center.

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Dealing With Losing a Loved One to Mesothelioma

Losing a loved one to cancer (or any other disease) is incredibly difficult for anyone. You occasionally wonder, “Why them? Why did this have to happen to that person?” It’s even more difficult when there’s reason to believe the cancer or illness could have been prevented.

This is the case with a rare cancer known as mesothelioma. The only recognized origin for this type of cancer is exposure to a naturally occurring mineral known as asbestos. Asbestos was valued because of its sturdiness and resistance to fire and it was widely used for the majority of the 20^th century in a number of military and industrial applications. The most widespread uses were insulation, flooring, piping and brake lining.

The greater part of diagnosed cases can be traced back to job-related asbestos exposure. Regardless of the fact that many of the producers of asbestos products were aware of the health risks associated with the material, they kept on mass producing it to maximize their earnings. Countless people who were exposed were not alerted to situation and were never shown the correct ways to avoid exposure.

Other causative aspects to the difficult process of mourning the loss of someone to mesothelioma are the abruptness of the start of noticeable symptoms, diagnosis and the normally poor prognosis. Symptoms of this type of cancer characteristically take 25 to 50 years after primary exposure to begin showing. By this time the cancer is in its later stages and treatment options are usually inadequate. The average life expectancy after diagnosis is about one year.

Clearly when you combine all the factors and circumstances surrounding malignant mesothelioma and other asbestos related diseases, it causes quite a few different emotions for both the sufferer and the ones close to them. They may experience anger towards the people who permitted asbestos to be used so extensively with no warning of its undesirable health effects. They may feel aggravated by the typically futile situation mesothelioma presents or shock because of the unexpectedness or rapidity with which the disease progresses.

Persons left behind may deal with these feelings in a number of diverse ways. The anger people feel sometimes inspires them to take legal action against whoever was ultimately responsible for their loved one’s death. The sadness or grief they feel may motivate them to do all they can to raise awareness about this disease to avert further exposure and save the lives of others. Either one of these actions could be seen by the bereaved as a way of “righting the wrong” so to speak.

In general, everyone deals with the same emotions when they lose a loved one, no matter what the situation. But diseases like mesothelioma that can be traced back to the withholding of information for the purpose of making money tend to highlight some of those emotions a little bit more. Always remember that anyone who lets these emotions impede their daily lives may need assistance seeking help from a professional.

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If you visit asbestos.com an entire section on the website is dedicated to the grieving process. The site also has patient advocates on staff that can help families through these tough times.

Conduct Disorder is an interesting diagnosis for those of us that work with children and adolescents. Within the field of mental health, I have heard Conduct Disorder referred to as “the toughest diagnosis to work with for kids”, and “it’s just a catch-all diagnosis for misbehaving teens”. That’s quite a range. I am glad to be able to say the majority of colleagues I work with and worked with in the past emphasize the person over the diagnosis.

Destruction, aggressive speech and actions, frequent dishonesty, indifference to discipline, and breaking rules or laws are typical characteristics. As a clinician, I think the defining characteristic is lack of empathy and remorse. Most kids and teens get into a little trouble, or are defiant at some point. Those with Conduct Disorder go beyond isolated incidents and do these things often, and often ignore or minimize the emotional (or physical) pain caused to others.

When I work with kids and teens who have been diagnosed with Conduct Disorder, I try to speak in a matter-of-fact manner. I do that in order to remove my emotions from the conversation, since those that meet criteria of Conduct Disorder often tend to feed off of others’ feelings despite seeming to not care about them.

WebMD has a good summary of this difficult condition. Here is a link to info on Conduct Disorder at WebMD .

Enjoy and ponder these quotes from John Gray, Ph.D, who is the author of 16 best-selling books including Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus:

• We mistakenly assume that if our partners love us they will react and behave in certain ways - the ways we react and behave when we love someone.
  
• When men and women are able to respect and accept their differences then love has a chance to blossom.
  
• To grow in our ability to love ourselves we need to receive love as well.
  
• A man’s sense of self is defined through his ability to achieve results.
  
• A woman’s sense of self is defined through her feelings and the quality of her relationships.
  
• Just as a man is fulfilled through working out the intricate details of solving a problem, a woman is fulfilled through talking about the details of her problems.
  
• When a man loves a woman, periodically he needs to pull away before he can get closer.
  

I thought of this idea for a blog entry a while ago. I’m not sure if it would even be interesting to any of you, but here it is.

It may be obvious, but a therapist experiences several emotions during each client session. Some therapists might deny that or not be aware of it, but it is definitely true for me. So I made some mental notes during a session with one of my regular clients, focusing on the different emotions I was experiencing during the conversation. After the session, I completed the list and it surprised me. These are all from one 50-minute session:

• pleased
• thankful
• curious
• confused
• confident
• tentative
• apprehensive
• anxious
• concerned
• content

With some of these feelings, I was mirroring the emotions I sensed from the client. Other times, they were just my emotional reactions to what was being discussed. In any case, it shows that therapists go through a range of emotions just like clients do.

An important perspective I learned in graduate school that I still hold to today is this: if showing your emotions will help the client then let them out; if not, keep them to yourself. (At least until later, when you do need to deal with your emotions wherever they came from.)  As a therapist, it is crucial to realize that the point of therapy is to experience and use emotions productively. The point is not to get to a “level of maturity” that is emotion-less.

By the way, the client felt better at the end of the session that day than when we started. I felt better later after I processed my own feelings.