2010: My hopes and thoughts on the New Year

As we close 2009 it seems to me that the past 13 months has felt like 13 years. I still have hope.

Thirteen months ago we were thrown into a recession. We had just experienced what had seemed to be a near-crash of the financial system when the housing bubble popped. We talked about the great depression and made comparisons with it.

While I am not an economist, I would rather have called it the credit bubble. Too many people who would not have normally qualified for the regular 30-year conventional loan were getting these large adjustable rate mortgages (ARM's) with obscenely low rates that were attached to other economic indicators. They were living outside of their means, and when the interest rate went up on their mortgages, they were immediately in arrears.

The banks sold the bad loans and their buyers resold them and converted into securities and derivatives. They had been coined "toxic assets." In November 2008, the federal government bought with tax payer money much of the toxic assets from banks in essence bailing out the banks. The damage had been done to the economy.

We saw the pain slowly creep through the economy. Banks were laying off people. People were not buying cars and so General Motors and Chrysler both declared bankruptcy and reorganized. The pain trickled through the automotive sector and then into other economic sectors. We probably all knew someone who lost a job.

We probably all endured some of the pain passed on in some way. Restaurants were giving out smaller portions. Our employers did not give us raises. We did not get our holiday turkeys or any of the spiffs.

We were expected to draw within ourselves our own sense of intrinsic reward for having a job. Some of us (me especially) were expected to do more with less all the more. It was all the more difficult when you have abusive and neglect management not caring about morale. I sure felt exploited at times.

As different times bring different terms. The most poignant term to me for this recession was "under water." This referred to a mortgage holder who has or had a mortgage that was for more than the assessed value of their home.

There was one benefit to the recession. Gasoline/petroleum prices went down. This is my layman theory: there was less credit for speculators to compete for oil futures. When the credit dried up, the dollars dried up to inflate oil futures. The oil futures deflated and our gas prices practically dropped from around $4.67-$5.00 down to below $2.00 per gallon in late 2008.

When diesel and gas prices were high, we were getting a trickle-down effect of higher grocery and other consumer goods due to the dependence on trucking. When the fuel prices dropped, so did grocery prices, but then people without jobs and with lower pay still had an equal problem with buying power.

That aside, many of us have learned to be simple again in our expectations. Many of us have re-learned the difference between wants and needs. Many of us will do a better job in managing our personal affairs and in being sensible.

It sounds somewhat crazy but Nietzsche and the Bible were in half agreement about what trials do to you. Nietzsche said "That which does not kill us makes us stronger." The Epistle of James in the New Testament said
²Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds,
³because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.
⁴Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not
lacking anything. (New International Version)

Trials do make you stronger in some form or another. For those who seek to learn, they will be more mature and will not make the same mistake twice.

We will lick our wounds, get up and figure out what we will do. Then we will make effort to do it.

We will not always get where where we want to go, but we will put the past and the present behind us and be somewhere that is at least different if not better.

So, at this point, I have hope. I am trying to take inventory of the different life and professional lessons I have learned in the past year. I have hope that I can put what I have learned to use in 2010.

As with most years, the new year is full of most of the same from the past year. People will be people like people have always been people. Some of the same things will be happening:

• Politicians will sling mud
• Babies will be born
• Dogs will get run over in the road
• Bosses will act dumb
• Your crazy relatives will continue to be crazy
• Your brain-less in-laws will continue to be brain-less
• You will have moments of laughter
• You will have sad moments
• You will find yourself angry at times
• What you hoped for is not all going to come true.
  

So, the year is ahead of us. We will have choices and we will be stuck in some situations where we did not seem to have a choice. We will only get out of those stuck-situations when it is time that we get unstuck.

I will do my best. I hope that you do too. It is all that we can do in the end.

A Message of Christmas Hope. December 26 comes 24 hours later

I have have hated Christmas since 1977 when my mother said, "just bring the gifts in and we'll open them around the TV."

In my high school, college, and seminary years when I was home for Christmas, it was some of the most boring times. I could not wait to get into the next school term because a break from school was a trip into boredom.

For at least 32 years since my mom's thoughtless comment, Christmas has been a struggle. I have wanted fulfillment and meaning. There have been a few Christmases that were better than others, but Christmas for me is drudgery as the the holiday itself as the story of the Incarnation does not always move me emotionally.

It has been a little better with kids. They, in their child-like mindsets believe in the magic. Their happiness with the toys at least reminds me that there is more to the world than their problems.

The past few years when they have been able to read advertisements and comprehend TV commercials have been a little annoying: "Daddy, can I have that? Can I? Can I? Can I?" I am able to steel my annoyance with the memory that I did that to my parents at that age too. But it all feeds back into my cynicism.

Okay, while I have gotten little feedback about this blog and I am not sure if people really read this outside of one of the guys I go to church with, I seek to offer you an unique message of hope:

It is okay if you are having a depressing Christmas.

You do not have to have a merry Christmas if you are not feeling merry. There is nothing particularly wrong with you if you are depressed with Christmas as we know it. However,

You just need to survive it.

Commercialism and the music industry has been trying to sell us that we should buy . . . buy . . . buy. They and the news media have insinuated that it is our patriotic duty to go out and max out our credit cards because the retail sectors base their whole business plans on holiday sales. They pass on the not-so subtle message that jobs are on the line if stores do not make their sales projections.

Christmas has traditionally been a time where Christians remember the birth of Jesus Christ. The birth of Jesus is a magnificent story where God comes to earth in the form of a human baby to offer salvation to the world, but I wish to clarify. . .

Christmas as we know it is not in the Bible.

Christmas is an observance that was started by church leaders in the 4th Century AD as an alternative to a pagan celebration. There are certain pagan symbols that were mixed in over the years. For example . . . the Christmas Tree is not in the Bible, neither is the lamb talking to the shepherd boy in the apocryphal song "Do You Hear What I Hear?"

The problem with Families.

We long to have connection and intimacy with the people who get labeled family because we are genetically related to them. However, there are a number of humongous if not catastrophic problems with them.

Many of us out there have family members who do not return our phone calls. We and they have relationships where we are both control freaks and we can't really stand each other for more than two minutes at a time if even then.

Many of us have family members who are just evil perpetrators who have fooled other family members into thinking that they are just the greatest thing since sliced bread. We get around them and we feel sick and angry because we were abused and other family members are in total denial about it.

Many of us have family members who simply have their heads stuck up their own posteriors (I had to clean this one up). They do not listen, nor do they comprehend what we are saying or writing. Some of them are also addicted to substances, sex, work or gambling and they are not emotionally and mentally in gear.

I have no easy answers for your pain today. I have to admit that life is full of pain and coping means

tolerating the distress that we have.

We can only tolerate distress for so long. We must get away from it sooner than later. That is why some people attempt or commit suicide at the holidays--they are stuck in their emotions and days can feel like years.

Now that I mentioned the S-word, I am encouraging you NOT to consider it. It is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.

Don't get lost in your emotions.

When people get stuck in their negative emotions, they do not look at the facts. This is when people make mountains out of mole hills. So Let's look at these five (5) facts . . .

1. The Christmas holiday season lasts approximately 30 days each year.
2. December 25 lasts only 24 hours.
3. December 26 comes at the same time every year and marks the end to the regular Christmas season.
4. Being alive on December 26 means that you have survived another Christmas if you did not celebrate it.
5. Surviving Christmas is an acceptable option when you are not celebrating it.

I have my ideas of how to survive Christmas in a healthy way, but I am assuming that if you are reading this, you have a brain of your own to make your own decisions.

See you on December 26.

Thankful for simple things that I have

I was feeling sorry for myself given my current condition, especially given that it was another holiday.

(Mind you, I bet if I really told you my condition, you might be one of those who would tell me that I have nothing to complain about. I would likely then say: shut up mother.)

An Epiphany

But anyway, I was feeling sorry for myself about my humiliating situation that does not meet my expectations in this holiday season . . . and then I had an epiphany after listening to one of my senior citizen patients talk:

When they had Christmas as a child, they got one pair of socks and one other clothing item. Their family was dirt poor.

The epiphany was this: "You at least have the simple things that you need. You are better off than you consider" (yes consider--not realize).

Of course my life and my situation is not what I want. I have the simple things that I need.

Yes, there are some humiliating aspects to my situation, but if I choose to dwell on or consider feeling humiliated, I will feel humiliated.

We are not guaranteed everything

I am being theological here, but I conclude that God does not guarantee that you will have a Turkey or all the holiday trimmings that you want Thanksgiving. God will give people what they need--the feast is beyond need. Jesus said that God will take care of our needs (see Matthew 6--the first book of the new testament).

I also conclude that that God does not guarantee that your family will get together and play nice-nice. While the Bible wants you and me to live at peace with all people if at all possible--sometimes it just is not possible. The people we do not get along with in our families can truly be toxic, ugly, mean, vicious, dysfunctional, sick, mentally ill or psycho--we just have the problem of being related to them, and we cannot merely find new family members like we can find new friends.

Feeling ashamed

With the recession going on and on, and with 10 percent of the people unemployed and people on commission making fewer sales, many of us are doing with less and less. We want to be able to give to others the holiday gifts but many of us cannot, and we feel ashamed.

There is no two ways about it. Many of us have had the "shoulds" "musts" and "oughts" about getting things for other people for Christmas. There is the feeling that something is very much wrong with us if we do not have the money to get people things for the holiday.

Then there is the "shoulds" "musts" and "oughts" about other people. Our relatives should come behave and exercise good manners and self-control at our holiday gatherings. But the reality is that they don't no matter how much individual therapy you get.

Moving from feeling ashamed to feeling thankful

So, I have concluded at this moment in time that I can live in the ashamed feeling or the humiliated feeling or I can truly live in the thankful feeling.

How does one get to the thankful feeling? It starts with agreeing with yourself that you are surviving in this time. You tell yourself that . . .

this is a bad time, but it will pass.
When you are surviving the rules change.
The rules are that you cannot afford stuff so you don't get it.

One may have to say this hundreds of times of day.

I think that when it is an overall bad time you do not have much and are seeking to be thankful, you are thankful for simple things. When you are without, you appreciate what you have in addition to identifying what matters to you and what you want.

Yeah, my life is very much NOT what I want it to be. There is so much more that I feel that I should have and should be doing. But for me, I have had to make the gratitude list that many of us therapists tell clients and patients to make.

My beginning of a simple gratitude list:
1) I am in good health.
2) My wife is recovering from her surgery earlier this year.
3) We are managing to pay the bills on time.
4) The cars work
5) My kids are healthy and doing well in school
6) We have the food we need
7) I do have a job (even with a toxic boss) that pays the bills
8) We have the clothes we need
9) I live in a free country that is relatively safe and not torn up by war
10) My name is written in the lamb's book of life.

If you think this technique might work for you. Try it.

This is not perfect and will not make you feel all better, but if it can give you a few moments of peace, what is there to lose? Feel free to comment.

I wish you a tolerable Thanksgiving Day.

The Holiday Season: When you do not have money you have relationships

Today was a fruitful day for thinking along the lines of getting through difficult times.

The holiday season is coming. Or maybe it is here already.

What is likely going to make this holiday season worse this year is that money is tight for many people. Christmas is supposed to be a time for gift giving and extravagance.

There is such an intensity (especially in U.S. society) around the holidays. You are to have a cozy and warm Thanksgiving. You are to have a festive and merry Christmas. You are to have a happy new year.

There is all kinds of talk about what you are going to do, what you are going to buy, and where you are going? There are all kinds of decorations and clothing. There are special foods for Thanksgiving and Christmas. There are all kinds of special events.

The intensity is fueled by nonstop Christmas muzak in all kinds of stores starting after Halloween. The countless broadcast commercials and print advertisements seem to start earlier and earlier each year. A neighborhood store put out its Christmas displays three weeks ago before Halloween.

The intensity adds pressure to the expectation out there is that you should have a merry Christmas. The problem is that most people do not expect a merry Christmas for one reason or another.

The holiday season is a sad and depressing time where there are actually a lot of suicides. People feel abandoned and alone.

I have likened holidays to hurricanes. Everyone gets ready for weeks to run home, lock the door and wait for the storm to pass. They talk about it and get all kinds of survival gear to make sure they have what they need. Holidays have not exactly been joyful.

I have been analyzing the holiday season for some time. Why has it become the un-ignorable monster?

My first thought is a rather Marxian one: it has been exploited in the name of economics. Too much of the retail economy has become dependent on Christmas sales. Christmas is no longer holy or set apart as a sacred time.

However, my first thought is counter-acted by the second thought. Even if it is a sacred time, Christmas is not a magical time that is going to provide fulfillment to erase all of the pain we feel in this world. I have came to the conclusion that many people are nostalgic and looking for magic. Little children in their limited cognitive ability see the magic. Adults want that magic feeling, but the sad tragedy is that there is a bliss in the ignorance that little kids have.

Third, no matter how much nostalgia, the reality is that most of us have family members who are highly dysfunctional who will ruin holiday gatherings and any shot at nostalgia. We get tense and they get tense as we have ruminated over our fears that the other family member is going to just wreck things.

Anyway with all of those problems, to get a feeling of magic, people spend money. Maybe there is a sense of magic in the giving and getting of presents and feasting. We gain weight and usually pay credit card bills way off into April or May. We will buy the cans of diet shake power that are out there front and center in the stores in January where the Christmas candy used to be the month before.

Well, this year the money will not be there. If at best we will have the relationships. The relationships matter where you can have them.

I move that we all start a tradition that is cheap. It would be best that the tradition does not cost money.

The traditions that we have are not about themselves, but about the relationships in which we share the traditions. Good traditions exude love and laughter and meaning. Good traditions honor our relationships.

If your family is not going to be available for traditions this year, find someone to do something with to start a cheap tradition. When you do not have the money, you have the relationships--that is if you look for them.

More to come . . .

Of course it could always get worse

Things at work have been difficult to say the least. There are multiple aspects and layers and I could discuss it all in detail, but I just had a conversation with a schoolmate today that helped me get perspective.

My schoolmate was truly clinically depressed. His thoughts were depressing.

My former schoolmate was divorced and his ex-wife in his words is a master manipulator. He discussed feeling suicidal due to all of her maneuvering and games. He felt hopeless. He talked about hating that he had few alternatives.

He had a new job that fell through. Some of the problem was that his ex-wife created some legal stir that took him out of work for one week that was part of his getting terminated shortly after taking the job.

His house is getting foreclosed on. He cannot get enough money together to get payments caught up.

He talked about being sabotaged in parenting his three kids.

He talked about his considering a federal job in another country. He had applied for two different jobs. The problem is that he would be abandoning his children, but he needs to preserve himself.

I empathized with him.


My thought to him was that he was essentially engaging in harm reduction. There was going to be pain either way with or without him given his wife's behaviors. He was just choosing over how his kids were going to be mad.

I told him that I would support him in any way I could. I discussed my concern for his safety, but I tired hard to be the friend and not the therapist.

There were limits as to what I could do to help him. He had some pretty crappy choices to make and it was a matter of deciding between which smelled less offensive.

My message to myself is that yes, it could always get worse. You may indeed have the greener grass in the situation. It may just not be as green as you think it should be. Sometimes you are reminded of the fact.

Time has gone on but pain stays around--so much for time healing all wounds

It is difficult to come to grips with the reality that summer is already over. Well, it is not really over in terms of the calendar. (There are approximately three more weeks give or take a day until it is the first day of autumn.) Part of me is looking for my maturity and character in this time.

One of the difficulties in acting mature is that emotions still have a sense of childishness to them. You want to be able to put things behind you, but it can be just too difficult at times when you are thinking about your pain.

I spent most of the winter and spring waiting for summer. I was waiting for the days when all I had to wear was a t-shirt and shorts and no socks. (Yes, I like the beach bum look. I could wear it all year.

Why has the summer gone too fast? I have a number of thoughts amongst my feeling of pain. First, as you get older, you have had more experience of time and so it seems to go faster. Second, I have been been very busy with work. Third, my wife's medical condition has made my nights seem even more busy. Thus, I have been tired and I have had little time to do anything that I really wanted.

Regardless of the answer, I still lament the summer having gone so quickly. We did not go anywhere, nor could we go anywhere. I am still sad that the money went for hospital bills and not for a trip back to the Midwest or Disneyworld. I somewhat soothe myself that even if I had the extra money, my wife was not able to travel. However, for all my hard work as a social worker due to being understaffed, and do not feel any further ahead for a newly minted PhD. I honestly have had to deal with resentment in the mix. This is again difficult when trying to act mature.

I am still resentful of the University of Louisville administration short-changing my graduation in December 2008. They gave only 72 hours notice that we were not going to be recognized at commencement but would be graduated at the hooding ceremony. (well they gave advance knowledge for the spring commencement that it would be the same way for May 2009 Ph.D graduates, but at least they got to have a reception months in advance)

Furthermore, the hooding ceremony was not catered, not rehearsed, and undignified, with profanity used on stage by the faculty member in his opening comments. (Given the public circumstances at the time I felt that we were the expendable group and our achievement was cheapened to save the University any more P.R. expense for the Felner/Deasy catastrophe and its 'anonymous crap'). The president himself was not there, although it the story was that he had the flu.

There was no apology when I gave my feedback to the university's e-mail—they have not cared. I continue to feel short-changed for all of the work I put in and all the abuse I tolerated from a particular, dysfunctional faculty member who alone held my dissertation process up for two additional years—I deserved more recognition, like the 300 PhD graduates got in the when I graduated with my bachelors in May 1987 -- I sat through watching them walk across the stage over 90 minutes. (They got the privilege of public exhibition where we merely stood in our places).

Consensus of the Graduate School Senate that it should be this way? Yeah right.
Sometimes, at least writing or verbalizing it can at least help me get it out for now. Should someone of faith really have these resentments? I would say yes. People of faith have beliefs and practices, but they at least have a faith resource that can help them cope with the vicissitudes of life and give them more hope than they would either have. Also, they can eventually remember the perspective of their faith about depravity and the fall and how they themselves have hurt others and others hold resentments against them. Thus they can put it on the shelf.

I am still resentful of the vice president who I wrote about in the spring. Her management decisions lately have been quite bone-headed, which only remind me of her behavior that I have blogged about earlier this year. My cynicism has increased despite my other recent efforts to keep it in check.

So, part of me has times where I struggle with all three of these matters in my head. You would think that it should be easier to deal with these things. However, pain is pain and time does go by slowly when you are remembering the painful experiences.

Part of me says “Buck up soldier, this is life.” No one really cares about your pain except for you—and people will only think you are stupid for dwelling on it as they have their own lives to worry about. You are not going to get any kind of expected restitution from the University administration, nor from that poor excuse for a vice president. They are not going to believe they did anything wrong (especially the vice president).

Another part of me, says, “Yes, life is not fair and your expectations are not met, so cry, you're at least entitled to do that.

A third part of me says, find the balance. “Don't cry for long or nurse your resentments for long because you will only be dwelling on it to your own ruin.” Nursing grudges takes your energy. I am trying to forgive the University of Louisville administrators. I am trying to forgive the vice president. I am trying to pray and wait. Begin looking for another ship to come in that you can get on and move away.

Anyway, despite my emotions and attitude, the time has passed. My kids are back in school. The Halloween candy is already in the stores. I predict that in about six weeks from now, just before Halloween, the first Christmas candy will be out. On November 1, my local Walmart will have Halloween candy in carts up front and the Christmas stuff will be out in full-force.

By December 1, I will have been told by my kids 10 different things they want for Christmas because they have seen them on TV. The difficulty will be that 90 percent of those things will have been sold out due to black Friday and black Monday (that cyber-shopping day). The second difficulty will be evaluating what we can get because the hospital bills will still have balances.

There will be other things to occupy my mind. There will be other life business that must get done. People who dwell too much on their pain waste opportunities and the energy to look for those opportunities.

This is the difficulty of life in tough times when opportunity is sparse. The emotion is still tough in light of solutions that are simply stated or maybe just too simplistic. Life goes on even when your emotions continue to exist.

The intensity of your feelings makes you want to discount any kind of glib soothing comments from well-intended but (well okay stupid) individuals. The person who tells you to count your blessings (well, it is an achievement that you have your PhD) takes their life their hands.

Well, as I have bared my soul this labor day, my pain will have to be my responsibility. Just as your pain will be your responsibility. Time does not heal all wounds if the person holds onto the pain.

Yes, the pain will come back from time to time, and it will be each our our own jobs to deal with it and put it away when restitution never comes. Sometimes my resources will be better than others for dealing with pain. Sometimes I can tolerate the exhortations to count blessings than other times.

Coping is sometimes of varying quality. Getting by is till coping when the pain stays around.

Even bad times pass . . . while you're still going through them.

It has been over one month since I have written. I have been busy and have chosen to blog about political issues in my neighborhood. It has gotten some attention and I have been taking my own advice and doing that which I have enjoyed. If you have been following and looking to me for thoughts, I am sorry (but at this point, I have not noticed anyone commenting, so I have no idea if anyone is reading these posts).

Otherwise, the month of July 2009 has come and gone and we are now in August. While this is trite, the month has been good and it has been bad. But the good news is 1) we made it through the month, 2) the good times were enjoyed for the most part, and 3) we got through the bad moments.

I still feel somewhat cheated that I really did not get to enjoy the summer. I have only grilled out twice, whereas I usually grill out every weekend. We did not get to go on the summer trip I wanted to go on to show my family where I was raised. The kids go back to school next week.

My wife's illness has been the major issue we did not go on vacation. She is getting better, but at the beginning of July, things seemed like they were not improving at that time. Now she is back to more of her old self. I am hoping that this VP Shunt works this time. Our major problem is her energy level and she can barely get through the grocery store.

If we get to go anywhere, such as my grandmother's funeral (she turned 99 last week and seems in good health, but she at that age could still go), it will be me going alone as my wife is not going to be able to tolerate the road trip. Overall, we were stuck at home but we did get to use the new "Sprayground" at our neighborhood park.

I have also been extremely busy with work as I am short one person (whose position the organization will not fill due to "economic conditions"), and our patient load has picked back up. I had brought work home much of the month. There was no room to take any more time off for me and my family. Yeah, I have the vacation time, but there is no room for me to take it given being short on staffing. Furthermore, if I do take the time off, my wife is not physically capable of going anywhere for any long period of time. I am trying to use my self-talk that this is life and that I need to accept it.

One of our cars had the "service engine soon" light come on again this week and it is running rough. I need to get that serviced, and it will mean the credit card. More credit card debt for something that is not foolish or extravagant really stinks.

Of course thinking about the summer vacations I was supposed to have taken my family on by this time in life is also depressing me. My salary (while decent for most standards) pays the bills and there is little discretionary income left over. It got worse when my organization declared without telling me that my son's antihemophilia medication is now a "Class 4" medication subject to a $200 co-pay. My wife's hospital bills will mean me paying them into Christmas because the neurosurgeon, and the two hospitals all have a $500 co-pay. Yeah, I have my Ph.D., but when do I get to take my kids to Disneyworld and Yellowstone Park?

Okay, so I try to look outward beyond myself. I do have a job. I am keeping the bills paid and I make a little more than the minimums. I know a guy from church who is an accountant and he has been unemployed since January--I tell myself that it could be worse.

My parents came for 11 days. They brought their new dog, a seven-year-old Brittany Spaniel named Coco. He turned out to be like a third child to me whom I greatly enjoyed. It was kind of cool too as I walked through the neighborhood with him, people would ask me what kind of dog he is? Brittany Spaniels are not common in Louisville. Otherwise, I had some good conversations with my mother and they helped out around the house while my wife continued to recover.

Taking everything into account, we did get some meaningful help and not those casseroles that only I would be eating. The people from my office and from church gave us some gift cards and some other simple foods that my kids would eat. While there were many evenings in late June and early July where I felt pretty drained from working like a fiend all day in the frying pain and then jumping into the fire with my wife and kids, people did help us and that was good. It was not all bad.

I go back to thinking that the summer is almost over. It was not always comfortable, and I am clearly not where I want to be, but we made it through. We were not entirely alone. I have made decisions day by day and week by week. I kept my priorities in mind, prayed frequently in both need and in praise, and made reasonable decisions. We had our daily bread every day.

We kept it together. We are keeping it together now.

I have worked hard to avoid the "What if" catastrophic thinking that keeps many people up at night. Being prepared does not require one to constantly dwell on the worst case scenario. We will most likely keep it together in the future. I am keeping hope that the bad times pass even when you're still going through them--it happens one day at a time.

A melancholy mid-summer

When the times are hard, it is hard to enjoy the summer. I had looked forward to the summer where I could wear shorts when I am not at work or church and I could go without socks. Yeah, I can do those things, but I am not enjoying this summer. In thinking through it I have discovered how my perspective can get out of whack.
I felt a profound sense of melancholy as I was walking through a Target store yesterday with my son. The patio furniture section was practically cleared out with only one or two pieces on clearance. It was now full of 'back-to-school' merchandise (school supplies). The store also had school uniforms in several places. To me that was right up there with the Christmas merchandise being put out the third week of October before Halloween even happens.
As we were going through the store, My son and I were also talking about the plans I have had. We were going to go fishing. We were going to go camping. We still have not gone to Disneyworld as we have been talking about for years.
I thought that my life is wasting away. I need to get off my butt and get somewhere. We need to do something to live life.
I thought then that I have been just like my mother. I have been spending all my energy at work with nothing for me and the family on the weekends. I have spent my weekends recovering.
I asked myself: what have I been doing all this time? Why was I not where I wanted to be?
It took me until I was driving out of the parking lot to remember that my wife had been in the hospital and was still recovering from brain surgery. I then remembered that I have had to hold things together at home. I then remembered that I have spent the last seven years getting a Ph.D.
Yeah, I realized that I need to get somewhere during the evenings to figure out how to set up the fishing lines, but overall, sometimes you can get too stuck in the now and forget the rest of the story. We start to think "I always . . . or I never . . ." but it is not the real story. Many of us can forget everything that has happened. We as human beings can forget our humanity and that we can only take so much . . . we are not perfect.
I am about to figure how much I can take of my in-laws now who just walked through the door.

Birthdays suck even more when your wife is in the hospital.

I have tried to be mature about birthdays rarely meeting my expectations. Things are supposed be different after you get an earned doctorate . . . well they are not. But even today . . . the day after my birthday I still feel the depression that comes with my birthday.

I admit that I sound rather juvenile to myself today, and I may to you. But then this is my blog, and if I feel the same way, I figure that others also feel the same way.Yeah, it is supposed to be a day where you mark the passing of another year of life.

Okay, being 44 does not bother me—I have lived two years longer so far than Elvis. I have hated birthdays because I have rarely got what I wanted: parties. At age 44, I am way beyond toys; I just wanted the people around me where I am locally to show that they care--it is called sympathy and respect.

Like many people I blame my parents for the childhood stuff. Mom was always chasing the ghost of self-worth. Mom was working all the time, showing everyone what a hard worker she was. She spent all her energy on her self-worth versus putting it into us kids. She will still rationalize that it was for us kids to go to college, but it still doesn’t wash and there is no discussion with her. It also sucked that it was never my birthday during school. Dad had to move us out to the country where there were no other kids around to play with or come to parties. There were only two birthday parties I remember as a kid.

Part of me is saying at this point, “Is your head up your butt?” Your wife is in the hospital with a serious medical condition and you’re pouting over no one remembering your birthday?

Well, today marks one week of my wife being in the hospital. What was a stomach ache one week ago Thursday (6/4/09) kept going and proved to be a shunt failure Saturday morning in the E.R. and a shunt replacement (brain surgery) Sunday night with her head getting half-shaved.

My wife was stepped down to an acute rehab facility on Thursday. My 6-year-old reminded my 9-year-old that it was my birthday and my 9-year-old wished me a happy birthday. My mother called me early in the morning to wish me happy birthday. She regressed yesterday and did not remember it was my birthday yesterday until late yesterday.

My birthday gift was watching her suffer from further pressure on the brain and a fear that she was going to have to have the shunt replaced again or perhaps even dying on my birthday. When her condition improved later in the day she remembered it was my birthday from my kids prompting and apologized for not remembering it--her I gave some slack--she is truly out of it. But I did not want my wife dying on my birthday--then it would really suck for the rest of my life.

Yeah, I bought a birthday cake last night because my 6-year-old asked about it--it was the $18.99 triple chocolate one from the refrigerated case--it was fair but not very good. My son did not get a piece of it because of his tantrum at a church miniature golf outing.

My one gift to myself was a quick-pick powerball ticket, maybe I will become an instant millionaire and be able to pay the large hospital bills that are coming my way.

The check last week and the phone call yesterday morning from mother were cheap consolation. The stingy birthday card written my airhead aunt on behalf of her household was sadly insulting. The two, automatically generated e-mails and the one e-mail car from family where slightly pleasant but not at all soothing to my pain.

It was not a happy birthday and anyone telling me happy birthday would have been terribly obtuse.

What I would have liked.

I would have liked someone locally to say in person, Gee, I am sorry that your wife is in the hospital on your birthday. That must really suck.

The inner parent is trying tell my inner child that it is okay—you will make it. My inner parent is trying to tell my inner adolescent that this is life--your birthday is going to be another day sometimes. You are going to have days where there is not going to be the money and there are going to be more pressing events and issues.

I am not sure what else there is to say at this point. This is a day where I am making the best of it. I am basically seeing that my kids have what they need, I am otherwise subsisting today. The times are still hard. The times are particularly hard right now. I am trying to reframe that I should be glad that I still have my job, my boss understands my situation (which is rare) , I have the medical benefits to pay for most of the medical care, and I have what I need right now—even if it is awkward, lonely and painful.

Mind you I am trying to be thankful in my attitude. The reality is that even being thankful does not make everything feel perfect and happy. Pain is pain. God does not always relieve us of pain. He enables us to endure it.

Life sometimes is like being stranded in Palm Beach Florida. You would think that it should be nice, but it is one of the most driven, unfriendly places that has been ruined by being overbuilt by overly aggressive developers. There are lots of people but they are not paying attention to you. That is what most of us are experiencing anyway in this world.

Balance in the Midst of Drama.

It has been a few weeks since I last wrote about coping. I have had to do a bunch of it on my own. It has been drama at my office.
Being drug behind a 4x4 on a baja or off-road course
I have equated the experience of dealing with borderline personalities to be like being drug by an off-road 4x4 through an off-road or baja course.
I would like to be able to tell all of it, but the metaphor of the of baja course will have to suffice as there are too many bumps and curves to tell you the whole story. I will give just the highlights.
There was one moment where I almost got demoted. My boss was worried that I was spreading negativity about her because I was mad about her. She projected her behavior upon me—she is the one who spreads negativity. She called an immediate meeting with Human Resources and began interrogating me in from of the HR coordinator for the hospital. I talked better than my borderline personality boss and was able to distinguish myself from my boss. My boss was being immature, I was being mature and I held onto my position.
One of my departments has had two position cuts. One is an outright cut, and another position has been made contingent on patient population. It is difficult to tell whether my assistant vice president is making decisions to look good or whether she is taking orders to cut by a higher-level bean counter.
My narcissistic subordinate is being transferred to one of my old department. Someone quite and is moving on to a better job. He is moving because he believes he is saving his own job given the two cuts. He is only thinking about himself. On the one hand I think he is getting out of my hair, but he is also creating more work for me.
My hospital is going on probation again with the state. A psychiatric technician slapped a kid. As far as my information is accurate—people were fired. However, it was not enough to pacify the state. You heard it here fourth or fifth. It will probably get out into the local media in about one month.
My hospital has been cutting back since November. I figure someone high up is going to take the fall somewhere some how like they did back in September of last year. The hospital corporation wanted to cut back, and they cut back at the expense of the wrong things. Will they do right? We will see.
So what have I been doing to cope with it all?
1. Comfort eating and experimenting in the kitchen.
2. Talking to my friends
3. Praying a lot.
4. Being the adult.
5. Reading books.
6. Bike-riding
7. The Wii
8. Keeping my eyes open for other opportunities—avocational and career change
As you can tell I have been doing a multiple of things.
I have been reading the Four Agreements, Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, and Emotional Intelligence. I have been learning to be more adult and more real. The Four Agreements has some good stuff, but it is rather new age.
I have been experimenting with a pineapple pound cake recipe. It is just about there. I now have to perfect the glaze. I have gained some weight.
My faith has been very important here. I have prayed for God’s open door to happen but for him to take care of us while we wait and hang on. I believe that God was with me when was dealing with the immature rants and raves of my boss about one month ago. I do not care who you are, you need God. I admit that intelligence alone does not save you. Faith is what you lean on when the problem is outside of your ability to solve because you do not have the power or you are waiting for a day in the future.
Bike riding has been good to let off some steam. I have enjoyed the boxing on my Wii. Physical exercise has its place.
Talking to my friends has been good. My main support group has been the guys at church. The have been great. I reconnected with a school mate from my Ph.D. studies and we shared our travails. Sometimes getting things off your chest is good too.
The job search has been dormant. I got invited to apply for a job in Georgia that will likely pay $9000 less than I make. They really could not tell me what the salary was, but only estimate. I have been advised to apply for it to test out the waters to see what it is all about. It could been the open door I have been looking for.
Find your mix
The economy has been tight. My budget is getting even tighter. Many people I know are experiencing leaner, tighter times. Salaries are being cut or increases are being withheld. The mix of things we do to pass the time under stress is up to each one of us. I look back on the past month of drama and I can say that while it was not perfect, I made it. I did what I had to do and I kept things going.
For those who are unemployed, there is the concern about having what you will need, and perhaps some will need to take jobs that were formerly below them to pay the bills. Besides the worry of finances, getting through this time of recession and stress is a matter of successfully passing the time.
Passing the time
Passing time is something that people do not like in general. Passing time is what people do when they are waiting. We are supposed to be on the edge of the wave and moving ahead with our life. But I have decided that in life there will be times of waiting where you are not moving ahead. They will not make sense and they will not be pleasant. If you are reading this, you are likely waiting for something bad to pass.
Passing time is inevitable for everyone. Passing time successfully and meaningfully is the challenge. Whether you are waiting one minute, one month, one year or several years, it is possible to wait with yourself and your values intact. I think that you will need to choose your mix of activities that will help you pass time in the midst of difficult circumstances.
When finances are tight, what you do to pass your time may need to be creative. Maybe you may need to think of a business you can start. Maybe you can start to read those books you have always wanted to read. Maybe you go check out that video on Calculus at your library and finally understand the Integral and Derivative. How you pass your time is going to be up to you, I suppose a good standard for passing your time is doing things that do not make you feel guilty or which you can look back and be satisfied that you did what you could and that was that.

Setting Limits with your emotions

The past two weeks for me have been quite difficult. My boss has really stirred up some drama and I suffered, but then I learned. My plan is to set limits with my emotions.

I have made no bones that I work for a person with Borderline Personality. Borderlines act in terms of "Drama." They start it and keep it going.

With drama there is a triangle of interactions between three people. There is a perpetrator, a victim and a rescuer. The roles are interchangeable between the three people.

Within a triangle of drama there is emotion, childish anger, and indirect expression of feeling and an absence of direct problem-solving. To stop it, you must clearly state your emotion and act like an adult.

I have decided that there is no integrity in drama. I have decided one of the problems with borderline personalities is that they have no integrity and that they have no insight that they have a character defect that includes no integrity.

I have been noticing my boss make comments that put her in a victim role.

• "I felt like I was jumped in there. You need to be on my side."
• "Now I am being made to look like the bad guy."
• "Why is he doing this to me?"

I have also been noticing comments that put her in a rescuer role.

• "I am working hard to save this department."
• "This is causing me a lot of work to fix things."
• "This is the cutting edge."

Now, she will be in total denial when she is in the perpetrator role. She is the perpetrator role quite a bit when she yells and makes abusive comments to groups of people. When I confronted her about making fun of me--she went into total denial and did not apologize. In fact she never apologizes.

I think in the recessionary times, we are more likely to let things slide. We are afraid to confront all the more as we are afraid of losing our jobs.

Without going into all of the detail of the past two weeks, I have been drug through the mud with my boss's drama.

I have to meet with her tomorrow. A major change is being made in one of my departments and the staff under me have a number of questions. She is acting like a victim when she really is the perpetrator.

My boss has made this repeated victim claim of being "jumped" in meetings when the staff ask good but tough questions. I made an effort to get the questions in writing first and I emailed them late Friday.

She wrote an e-mail response fairly quickly that indicated she was most bothered and that "We need to talk." She still feels jumped--borderlines do not like challenging questions--they can dish it but they cannot take it--again, they have no integrity, and as a result they create drama.

I will talk to her first thing Monday. She is likely going to make statements that make the staff look like perpetrators with all their questions, and that I am not rescuing her enough.

MY PLAN: I plan to put her emotion back on her.

I have decided to use an approach similar to Motivational Interviewing. In that I am going to repeat back to her what she says. If she says "I felt jumped in there, you should have backed me up in there." I am going to say something like "They jumped you" with a different inflection.
Then I will likely say "What is it about their questions that made you feel jumped?"


I have previously not said anything. The time has changed.

If she says, now I am made out to be the bad guy. I plan to say nothing, or at best, say "you feel you are the bad guy?"

I have decided that borderlines try to make others responsible for their emotions. I have learned lately through my time in the mud, that my borderline boss has been stating things only in feelings as to whether she is rescuing or she is a victim.

I expect this to be a very subtle approach and that this is the first line of defense. It is at best a Soft skill. It will be a lot of work, but I am going to have to start here. I do not think that she will have a clue what I am doing at first.

I think that it is tough enough coping with the economy as it is. I think that in this day and time we have to work on only owning our own feelings, and not those of someone else.

While we would like to empathize, many borderlines are willing to throw themselves out there as victims, depicting whether they are a victim of you or someone else. Things are not always safe out there.

For my boss, she needs to be responsible for her emotion. She probably never will be, she probably would die first. My plan is that I do not take responsibility for what she will not. Previously, I had gotten stirred by her emotion--it is time to start setting a limit--her emotion does not have to be my emotion.

Trying to maintain a sense of integrity and emotional intelligence

The past few weeks have been one of survival and reflection.

There have been office games that I have been trying to avoid, but they have caught me anyway. The games are a product of working for a borderline. I have found myself asking myself many questions this weekend.

First, let me talk about the dynamic at work. I feel marginalized from management . . . period. I would really like another job now.

The assistant vice president has isolated herself into exec-u-land and I have only seen her through the glass door of the main conference room. I still have had no desire to talk to her due to her abuse and now my boss has now stepped back into borderline mode.

My boss told me on Friday at a meeting called under what are at best false-pretenses not to build my team at her expense. The meeting was supposed to be called “rounding.” The first question was a rounding question . . . the rest of the 50 minutes consisted of my boss's emotional immaturity.

For those who work at hospital organizations currently paying money to the Studer Group, “Rounding” is a management technique of communication where a manager asks subordinates what is going right, and ask what the subordinate would like? It is supposed to be a positive meeting where the boss is listening to the subordinate trying to make the workplace more pleasant.

After the first question, my boss talked about how she did not feel part of the team in one of my departments for the rest of the session. She talked about the one subordinate who has not been doing his work. She talked about the other subordinate who had been enabling the lax one. She told me that she did not want to build my team at her expense.

She repeated the part about “her expense.” From what I understood, she did not want me forming such a tight bond that I would get sucked into the team and turn against her. Can you say paranoid?

She wanted to know my opinion, and every time I gave it, she responded with criticism or some statement that she was hurt by it. This was not rounding.

She used what she called an “AA” term, “signing off on each other's sh*t.” I looked that up on Google. I found nothing. Her intent seemed to be calling that enabling. I asked an old soul at my church about his impression of it. He told me that it meant “not to take someone else's inventory.” Again, this was not rounding.

I called and left a message for my old boss, since she is big into AA and Alanon—surely she would know about the term. She has not returned my phone call, and her husband curtly dismissed me on the phone today when I called a second time. I wanted her to tell me her understanding of the phrase. I think that she is just too connected to my assistant-vice-president and my boss—but then I can only guess.

I think that I would have been better off just going to a local AA meeting and asking someone if they had heard the phrase and what it was supposed to mean?

Okay, well, so I have the boss trying to play expert here and she is greatly failing. I think now at this juncture, what the phrase means does not matter any more. This is now survival in a tyrannical situation.

Working for a borderline.

I have been reading some business management communication books lately and as I read them, I think that the authors are missing some things. From reading many of the case vignettes in those books, I have decided that many of the problem coworkers and tyrannical bosses are borderline personalities. I have stated elsewhere that I think that the occurrence rate for borderline personality disorder is much higher than research states.

The point is that many of the tyrannical bosses (males or females) are borderline personalities, especially in mental health agencies and hospitals.

Borderlines are not about order and process and principle. The borderline boss is problem-focused and controlling. They micromanage and their subordinates do not feel successful in their work as the boss only talks about the possible crises and what was wrong versus whether anything was right. Borderline bosses are never satisfied with things.

The borderline bosses are focused about themselves and their insecurities. The borderline will focus about things outside of their control. They are guarded, critical, moody, and emotionally tyrannical in their dealings with their subordinate. They will rage and say abusive things. They are on constant edge.

They do not say hi to people in the hallway unless they have an agenda,which is another form of emotional abuse. They will look angry, and subordinates who do not know the distance run and hide.

Well, that is what I am dealing with now. One more thing, my boss said in the meeting of false pretense that I have been caught in the middle of things. She was right about that. I have pretty much been able to stay in the middle successfully because I have done drama management, and it has worked so far, but I question how much more it will work?

Drama Management

Borderlines stir up drama. They cannot help themselves.

In drama, there are usually three people and at least two of them are angry. Someone is the victim. Someone is the perpetrator. Lastly, someone is the rescuer. The roles are interchangeable amongst the three. The perpetrator can all of a sudden become the victim if the rescuer goes to far. The victim can become the perpetrator. The rescuer becomes the perpetrator when the rescuer goes to far. The communication is usually indirect, highly charged and someone is hurt.

I have looked at the different events in light of that. I think drama management has at least nine principles

1. Choose very carefully what you repeat—you actually risk furthering the drama by saying something.
2. Be direct in communication when you have to talk.
3. Determine what the problem really is and work to resolve it if there really is a tangible problem.
4. Let stuff die if it really is not a tangible problem.
5. Be mature and adult in your words and tone of voice.
6. Educate people about drama management where appropriate.
7. Repeatedly tell yourself that you have power in the situation by what you do or not do.
8. Integrity in all matters.
9. Things are perfect neither are things total disasters.
   

My boss has repeatedly attempted to stir drama. My boss would make statements that someone said something inflammatory or cheap about me. I decided not to say anything. I let much stuff die. When it has come to dealing with my boss and the problem subordinate underneath me, I have sought to talk in a calm and mature tone. I have tried to impact the people around me with integrity and principle—I have repeated my philosophy of work to my subordinates and I have tried to walk it like I talk it. To the few that I judged appropriate, I explained my philosophy of drama management. It has worked for the most part and I have verbalized it as such.

What I think that has changed is that my boss is going to make drama happen regardless and I am not going to have a challenge as to how to manage it. As far as I can tell, she has tried to pit me against the other two subordinates. If I am not against them, I am against her. If she cannot pit me against anyone, she will transfer my problem-subordinate to another department and will create drama in the target department.

Integrity

I have decided the literature about borderline personalities has missed that they do not have integrity. They (in a Freudian sense) they lack the inner ego strength to have integrity. They do not have integrity within themselves and lack insight into their own contribution to their own problems. It is all about them, and if integrity does not work for them in the moment, they will distort, lie, back-stab, rage, cause a scene, withdraw, and abuse to control their fragile little realm.

My boss did not demonstrate integrity on Friday. In fact, she has demonstrated very little integrity for the two years she has been in the job. She especially did not call her meeting with me in the name of integrity. She had an agenda that was about her and her control. Was there a modicum of valid business concern in her meeting? Yes, but she was not straight forward and it is difficult to tell where the real matter lies.

I am not going to discuss what my plans are exactly tomorrow, but I have a plan where I am going to focus on maintaining integrity and principle. I am still at this time unsure whether or not is the right thing and whether I am going to follow that course of action because it is difficult.

Integrity in this day and time is difficult. When you are trying to survive and pay the bills, the temptation is there to do what seems to be needed. Sometimes that “need” is not moral or legal. But there is a generalized excuse in group-think that “everyone is doing it.”

Each of us is in charge of our own life. Sure we look to role models and mentors to guide us. But there are at least 10 tests we can ask whether something is going to help us maintain integrity. Any of them may cause pause to reconsider a planned course of action.

1. Is this going to get me fired?
2. Is it against corporate policy?
3. Is this illegal in the laws of the state or nation?
4. Does this violate any religious or moral code?
5. Is this good professional practice?
6. Is this of good principle that I can do again without getting burned?
7. Is this something I can look back on and say it seemed to be the right action at the time?
8. Is there going to be a consequence if I do not do it?
9. Am I crossing an interpersonal boundary and trying to do something that someone else really needs to be doing?
10. Does this actually feel right?

These are not perfect, but they are questions that we can ask to test whether I am maintaining integrity in matters. I am admit that I am feeling tenuous right now as nothing is perfect.

Working to Maintain Peace Inside and Out

The past three weeks have had their moments. The challenge is to sum up the lessons and the the points of light.

As we progress into 2009, things are looking worse economically. Yet, it does seem that there are flecks of good things.

Here in Louisville, the unemployment rate has reached 9.4 percent. I do not see that as a mystery when much of the manufacturing is automotive based. If Ford is not selling trucks, they do not need the supplies from the local suppliers and so on and more people get laid off.

The chilling externality effect

I have decided that with the continued downturn in the economy, there is a continued negative emotional (not economic) externality, especially in Louisville. In Economics, an externality is a secondary effect or benefit that others feel on account of an action or person.

At my organization this effect is an chilling effect. I think that this is exemplified through my CEO's boss, and then my CEO's in turn passing on a blog from a hospital CEO in Boston about cutbacks.

It is best that I do not tell you what the e-mail said, but it was from another blog here on "Blogger."

The CEO in turn passed it on to the vice presidents and directors, and my director passed it on to us. I determined that other social workers in the hospital did not get it. My supervisor said that she got clearance to pass it on to us from her boss, the micro-managing assistant vice president.

I did a bit of a survey among my subordinates. The message they seemed to get was "Don't whine, it could be worse."

What has it really meant?

Right now I think the aftermath of that distasteful distribution of the blog entry is that I have paranoid people above me and below me.

I have considered my boss and her boss to be paranoid. After all, they are borderline personalities. They do not have the interior structure to stay calm in times of stress. They are paranoid about abandonment issues. It has seemed to show more so lately in my boss again.

My boss especially seemed to be having a mood swing in the past week anyway since she has Bipolar Disorder. The chilling effect seems to be playing especially on her. Those with Bipolar Disorder run the risk of being extra sensitive to stress.

My subordinates in one department have become extra paranoid after the blog distribution. They have been trying to pump me for information. I had to set some limits with them. I then decided to throw a small "YIPPEE SKIPPY IT'S SPRING" celebration where I am going to bake some chocolate pies.

Part #2: dealing with the micro-managing vice president and the bad news about my daughter.

On another front in terms of maintaining peace, I have found myself dealing with my own personal challenges. On Monday of this past week, my wife was told by school officials that my daughter has Asperger's Syndrome.

Asperger's is a form of Autism. It has several different forms. My daughter has a fairly mild case of it given that she is in touch with reality most of the time, but that she has certain quirks and perception issues. She also has some immaturity.

Mind you, I still have my irritation at the assistant vice-president for the abuse that was supposed to be a job interview. I have been avoidant of her. The problem was that I could not avoid her on Tuesday morning as we were both going down the stairs at the same time. We both said good morning to each other and then she asked me how I was doing? I said "eh."

She then asked "Angry?"

I waited to the bottom of the stairway and then said in almost a whisper, "I was told yesterday that my daughter has Asperger's."

I heard her gulp and then she said "I'm sorry."

The reality is that I was indeed angry with her, but that one could not have played better in emotional warfare with a borderline in power. I basically "zinged" her with a one-up, that was blessedly true in this case.

Otherwise, I have decided that I have got to give the anger up towards the assistant vice president. That is my power. It will not be easy to forgive her. I have been abused by people like her in the past, and I have sworn I will not get walked on again by her type.

As a medium stance I will try to have self-pity on her at this time. I think that she will burn out soon in her job since she does not have the emotional intelligence to be in that job.

It helps that her office has been moved off my hallway. I will not see her as much.

Not seeing her as much is good since I have decided with my wife not to look for another job until we have completed my daughter's assessment and consultation processes. My daughter is going to be assessed by some specialists at a center ran by the University of Louisville Medical School.

I have my challenges to stay in the clear and maintain my employment until it is truly time to move on. I have decided that my most concrete work goals will be to work for excellence in my job and smile more at work.

Points of Light

Not all is that bad these days. A friend of mine that I had mentioned in an earlier entry, who had quit his job under fire in a southern state has landed another job on the East Coast. I am very happy for him. Good things do happen.

Tying things together

Okay, tying everything together is going to be tough, but I think I can say something that makes more sense than a bad Southern Baptist Sunday School curriculum book.

Yes, the days and times are numbing. We do not know always what to think for feel given that so much comes at us.

In this tough day and time, peace inside and out is possible. We have an effect on others around us. We can work for positive events and experiences in our workplaces. We can work for positive experiences in our lives. I am making some personal goals, and I am going to focus on what matters.

Furthermore, not all is that bad. It is not all disaster. Some is actually pleasant at times--my friend getting a new job, and the fact that the daffodils are blooming and the Bradford Pears are budding.

What matters to you? Take an inventory of what matters to you. It is as simple as making a list. None of us can address everything on the list, but we can address some of it.

When we are addressing what matters to us, we feel a sense of peace inside and we are not dependent on what is outside of us.

Yep, It's Job Lock, but I SHOULD Be Happy I Have a JOB

The past two weeks have been painful yet interesting. I have been the victim of emotional abuse and micro-management.

The assistant vice president that I have alluded to with the loud high heels has showed some true colors. I want out and I am not happy. It is job lock now but I should be happy that I at least still have a job in this time.

The Story.

There was another promotion available. I applied for it. I got a 12 minute interview with the now permanent assistant vice president. She played mind games.

She told me that if I was ever going to advance in management I was going to have to do something about my communication style. It was the words I used, the way I talked and the facial expressions.

She told me that the only way I was going to be able to make the changes was to get a mentor to watch and point out the problem. She said that this position was going to be in the schools promoting this program.

I tried to sell myself anyway about my style and my strengths. We did not go anywhere to my experience. It was not about my demonstration of management ability over the two work teams.

I just said, "Basically, if I understand what you are saying, you are not going to advance me in the process for this position." I then asked, "If my boss's position came open, would I be a candidate for that job."

The assistant vice president said, "You'll have to ask J---." I left.


I went back to my office and calmly told the narcissist that works under me that I wanted him to know that I was told I was not going to be considered for the job. He showed some empathy (false as he is a narcissist). I (probably too much) told him that I was told it was because of my communication style. He immediately decided to apply for the job.

I decided to write an e-mail to her about two hours thanking her for the interview and asking her for resources to address the concern.

She wrote back that night as her e-mail was time stamped at 9:30.

I would suggest that you reach out to other mentors to get their feedback and see what ideas you may have from there. Thanks,

Then she wrote again on Monday--a second response to the same e-mail.

That would really be a personal decision. I know that when I have been coached about things that I heard I could, and then I wanted, to increase my self awareness about, I have done some work in therapy, as well as worked ongoing with mentors who I felt like were safe and honest for me.

Hell-ohhhhhhh? You already responded. How dumb are you? What are you really hiding?


She did give the narcissist an 90 minute interview. He came back saying it was a waste of time. I had thought that he actually stood a good chance. He wrote an e-mail two days later saying that she called late at night and said "No Thanks."

I heard from someone else in that department with the opening that assistant vice president had already offered the job to a social worker in that department. The source (likely dependable) said that the assistant vice president had also talked money with the anointed. The particular anointed person only has had her clinical license three (3) months and communicates like a closed book.

I weighed whether or not to call the corporate complaint line about the ethics problem evident here. I cooled my jets enough to see that I did not have confirmation or any hard piece of evidence. If someone else came forward--particularly the anointed and bragged about it, I would definitely call the corporate compliance line.

My organization has a explicitly spelled out policy for how positions are to be filled. The assistant vice president essentially has executed two masquerades. She has put and is putting people who will not think but will do exactly what she says to do. They are what I would estimate to be not as smart as her. She is being a micro-manager.

Cult Leaders are Micro-Managers

Micro-managers are cult leaders such as Jim Jones was over the People's Temple and as the Reverend Moon is considered to be over the Unification Church. They are about mind control.
If your boss is a micro-manager, you are made to feel dumb. You are not trusted. They sit on your work.

If your micro-managing boss were a dictator of a country, you would likely be executed after a few years because they trust no one. It is all about them.

Insight from Previous Experience

Micro-managers are actually scared, immature people. They do not act like adults. They are not leaders of people. They usually have high turnover underneath them.

In a number of work situations in Social Work and Mental Health, I have experienced micro-management. The most notable of the micro-managers was at a mental health agency in eastern North Carolina. The Program Director had to know everything and sign off on everything. She would just spit out case material about the patients acting like she knew everything.

When you talked to her, she was anxious and fearful and extremely self-deprecating. Talking to her was like talking to a little girl. (Something like the current assistant VP).
I concluded that if I could get up into management, I would foster a better work environment. I was convinced that I could do better and that is why I went for my doctorate.

In fact I do do better. My subordinates are adults, and I treat them as such. They know what they are doing, and I let them do their jobs. I trust my people and my people trust me.



Furthermore, given the assistant VP's "concern" about my communication, is a red flag if not a red herring. If my communication were a problem, it would have showed up in all the Studer Group "rounding" they do at the hospital. All my subordinates would be complaining about it.

They haven't and it has not shown up in my job reviews in a number of years. Also, patients have not complained about my communication style. It was an excuse the assistant vice-president cooked up.

Furthermore, even if I went and found mentors, the assistant vice-president has established her as the existential judge of my communication style. Her criteria and her opinion are subjective--like all micro-managers. She would likely find something else.

The Current State of Affairs

The assistant vice president has now acted withdrawn and scared. Of course, I think that I am assuming what her thoughts are, and I am interpreting her behavior at therisk of being wrong.

I think that she is being assuming and reactive, but then so do a number of my colleagues. I think that she is projected much of her fear upon me, but then again, I am assuming what she is thinking, which no one can know unless she admits it. Micro-managers do not admit much of anything.


The Problem with Insight

Insight is knowledge that one uses to make decisions and cope. I think that I have insight into the situation--that is why I blog this stuff.

One of the things I have to admit is that insight only goes so far in making you feel better. I still have to live with the dynamic of the scared child that is the assistant vice president.

She is still in power and she walks by my department door in her loud heels. I have actually liked that she has been withdrawn, but it is a very unhealthy dynamic.

It is the oppressive dynamic present when there is a borderline personality is in control and I still have to experience it.

She is the one in power and she is going to have say something first. That is not going to happen given her demonstrated immaturity.

Job Lock

I am now motivated to get out of this place. I am confident that the assistant vice president is reinforcing her own fear. I see myself going nowhere else at this organization. If I could leave today, I would. I do not deserve the abuse. This is now about me.

However, there are no job openings except in Washington DC, where my wife said that she would not go. While I am working on her, I am in "job lock" and I should just be happy I have a job in the first place. "Job lock" was a buzz word of the late 1990's. It basically means that someone is hating their job, being abused in their job, in a lousy working environment or cannot move any further, but they need the money and benefits. That is my story right now.

However, I know some people who do not have jobs right now who probably would accept my situation right now for a paycheck, but then they do not have the necessary education and training.

There are employers that are exploiting their people right now in the name of the economy. It seems to be like the sweat shops of the late1800's and early 1900's where immigrant laborers were exploited by exploitative industrialists. Some things are cyclical--when the economy gets better, these exploitive employers will have high turnoverbecause people can leave.

What am I Doing Right Now?

There are several things I am doing to cope with the situation. None of them are perfect in taking away the pain, but they help.

I am doing the best that I can right now. It is not easy, but I am consoling myself with that idea.

I am reading some books on communication that are telling me to do basically what I am doing now. I am not finding any mentors nor do I have any mentors in mind.

I have got my wife looking for jobs online. She may yet be open to Washington DC.

I am praying hard and thinking about the Bible verses of God's assuances. God is bigger than the situation and the economy.

I am trying to keep my mouth shut at work. I read some of the Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz which gives some rather "New Age" but good advice. I like the part about doing your best all the time.

I am trying to work on all my projects at home and focus my energy. I am blogging stuff like this to vent.

I figure that many others are in the same situation as me. I would love to have comments back on this. Let's complain and comiserate together. We will get through this time. It hurts now, but we will be okay.

Feeling trapped in a shrinking room.

In talking to people this week, I have decided that the best metaphor for right now is "being trapped in a shrinking room." With the current world and national situation, things seem to be closing in on many of us.

We like our freedom. We like to have options.

At this time in our history it seems that we are feeling anything but our freedom and our options. The options that are available are few and we are feeling vulnerable.

In fact, it seems that many of us feel that the number of options available to us are diminishing in number as the economy contracts. We see this effect in both personal and global terms.

By this time it is very possible that you personally know someone who is a victim of the economy. You either know someone who has taken a bath in the stock market and lost a substantial part of their retirement or you know someone who has been laid off.

Furthermore, your workplace is probably flush with talk about options management is considering to reduce loss and survive--some seem reasonable, and some seem unethical. I have one friend who told me that he had quit his job because management told him that they were going to write him and others up and then fire him and them for cause the next week. (Naturally--firing for cause could mean no unemployment depending on what it is.)

In the media magnfied informational intensity we see frequent new stories about the poor performance of the markets and the rising unemployment rate. Congress just passed a stimulus package, but in the back-stepping language of the President and key congressional leaders, it will still take some time for the economy to recover. We are not exactly getting feel good stories out of Washington that make us feel any more assured that our pain is going to be alleviated tomorrow.

Of course, one particular friend has talked about his wife wanting to move back to near her parents. I can relate to this indirectly. While those of us who are married want to please our spouses in every sense of the word, we cannot deliver based on our limitations.

Houses are not exactly selling. Unless you paid outright for your house 15 years ago, it is very unlikely that you can sell your house for any meaningful gain. Furthermore, unless you paid the ton of money to be in one of those perennially hot neighborhoods in your city, your house is not going to sell quickly either. Many of us are trapped in mortgages which means good sense says we must stay where we are if at all possible.

Jobs are not exactly plentiful. While there are a few echelons of society that can move about because of the nature of their work, the 92 percent or so of us who have jobs are not going to be able to transfer or just move across the country.

Of course, then there is the situation (I am sure is existing) where someone lost their job and they can only get a job in another city and their house is not going to sell. This is the poor fortune of many in the formally hot real estate markets.

One personal story I can add comes from the recession of 1991-1992. (You can read previous posts to get other bits of it.) The guy I was renting a room from was being emotionally abusive out of the grief and loss of his mother. He was also beating the drum that he was going to sell the house in a few months and that I would have to find another place to live. His abuse increased so much that I called my parents and discussed my distress. My mom suggested that I look at the YMCA.

With the grace of God, I had a plan to be move out and to another city to pursue another life course before he sold the house. (He actually lived in the house another year before selling it.)
When I felt the world closing in around me, I did find that it did not close all the way. I felt claustrophobic in a sense, but I did not suffocate.

Of course I can look back on it now. But I remember that it was not pleasant in the least. It was still like being lost in a desert where I had miserable dry mouth and no water in sight.

How do we get through it?

The question is: how do we get through it? Of course, I have no easy answer. I can only suggest options. Options that I am willing to try myself.

1. Practice gratitude.

The vast majority of people have what they need: food, clothing, and shelter today and every day. Gratitude is practiced daily.

2 Practice mindfulness of your own situation and act accordingly.

Most of us do just fine managing our bills. So let's do what we do well. Make sure you stay up on your own bills and stay within your means.

3. Work on setting limits and boundaries.

When people cannot say "no" they get themselves into trouble. Of course the average kid whines because you are going to a restaurant today or this week. This is an opportunity to build character and inner strength. (No pain no gain).

On the other hand, when you are saying no to something, you are saying yes to something else. Homemade pizza may not be like going to Red Lobster, but kids are often happy to eat it.

We may have to apprise our loved ones of the truth, facts, and reality. Of course they are not going to like it. Sometimes they must wake up and appreciate the limits of life. There is less pain overall when we do it (mind you I said less pain--not no pain).

4. Stay in the moment.

Imagine yourself looking up at a mountain. The mountain looks large an impossible from a distance. However, each of us is only going to be able to take it one step at a time.

Staring at the big picture is unhealthy if that is all that we do. I think most of us already understand the big picture. It is going to be there . . . and be there . . . and be there.

You and I can only live today. We can only take care of the moment. We can negotiate with the world around us today.

Conclusion

You and I are going to feel like we are in a shrinking room for some time. I feel vulnerable at times.

If you are like me, you occasionally ask if you will have a job next week. This is when I find myself praying and thanking God for what I have today and that I trust him for the future.

This is when I focus on my list of personal goals to improve myself. This is when I create memories with my children that come out of my creativity as opposed to spending money.

Mind you I cannot get you over your own hump. It is okay to be hurting right now. That is what we do. But we will get over our humps and we will get through this time and we will get through the pain.

Character When the Pain is Real

I can finally write this stuff. I have been unable to write for about eight days the pain of it all has been too great to write it.

I thought that I had applied for an internal promotion at work. I applied on the in-house, web-based system and uploaded my new resume. I told my supervisor that I had applied for it. I told the people around me that I had applied for it.

My goal was to be open with everyone to cut down on the gossip in the office and I also told people that I did not think that I would get it because I figured that the chosen one was going to get it, and I was not the chosen one.

About 13 days later, I called a particular person in human resources about the process. I wanted to know where things were? Well, the next day I found out the truth.

The Bomb Drops.

Two weeks after I thought I had applied, they announced the "winner." For me, my boss announced it in a department meeting the day after they had announced it. I (in a rare impulse) blurted that I did not get an interview for it.

I ran down to human resources after the meeting. I got a blank look from the clerk. She did not have me as having applied for the job.

I went home depressed. I had plans for going to the neighborhood association meeting and face all those vigilantes who soundly defeated me from being the chair. I forced myself to move.

I went into the bank after dinner and the branch manager handled my transaction. He asked me how I was doing? I told him that I probably could probably have complain about stuff but that I was okay given what I had under the circumstances.

This wowed me. He shook my hand and told me that I seemed to be someone of character. He at least had me thinking about the operative word Character.

I managed my way through the neighborhood association meeting even though vigilante #1 (on my block) walked by me in her borderline personality way without saying a word to me and avoiding eye contact with me for the whole meeting. I was able to get to sleep without the need for medication.

The day after.

My boss talked to her boss. My boss had been a cheerleader for my getting a promotion since I was open with her. Both sent me me either e-mails or copies of e-mails to human resources. My boss told me that another promotion was coming open. One human resource recruiter responded back in a cold, bureaucratic way without apology that there were only so many people who had applied for the job (he got an "F" in internal customer service from me).

The two human resources people that I had talked to were quite confused and it took a second conversation to get the point across that the *&#$ website did not work for me. I finally got an apology for the organization moving from the paper to web-based system.

The phone call with Human Resources took place in front of "Fritz" and the nurse who I have cited as being guilty of awfulizing. The nurse complimented me about how I talked to the H.R. rep. Both Fritz and the nurse gave me rare sympathy.

It also turned out that there was something of a human drama where me, my boss, and my boss's boss all made assumptions. I assumed that my application had gone through. My boss, who had interviewed two of the individuals assumed her boss was interviewing me separately. My boss's boss had assumed I had changed my mind because she had not received my application.

The Emotional Fallout

I was very mad. I felt that I was cheated. I felt stupid. I felt awkward. I was numb. I thought my boss's boss had made some serious mistakes because she had moved the hiring process at warp speed as it was only 14 days from first internal listing to actually announcing the winner.

I did not hear my boss's boss's high heals clunking in the hallway the next day. I knew she was in the office given her two e-mails, but I got the sense that she was avoidant. I thought that was good because I needed the distance. Everything she had done to that point was at warp speed.

She has identified herself as a "high performer." I have identified her as "driven" and a "bull in a china shop" because of her string of rapid decisions with subsequent recinds. Driven is really not a good state to be in because there is really no inner peace and the judgment in terms of management decisions tends to be poor.

I tried to logically tell myself that I was receiving divine redirection. To be truthful, it still did not end the pain.

I did have one conversation on the day after the announcement with my boss. My boss (being a borderline personality) was coping probably worse that I was. She was calling me again and again with some pretty weird concerns. She then called me down to her office.

She immediately started to discuss the problem about working for her since I was applying for other jobs. I told her that since I have the Ph.D. I owed it to my family to move off the line (I should have said myself included). We talked about the boffo of my not getting the inteview for the promotion. I told her openly that it was awkward, but it at least helped that finally someone from human resources apologized for the web-based system. The conversation was of marginal help.

The weekend aftermath.

In the midst of the next several days I had felt pretty dark. I was sad and but I had spurts of energy with my anger. I was mad at myself and I was mad at my boss's boss.

I had hopes for a promotion with a salary increase. I had hopes for the next promotion that I could actually have the title "manager" or "director." I found myself grieving.

So, I have been feeling stuck, like I imagine others to be feeling.

During the next few days, the news about increasing unemployment rates also made me depressed. I thought back to my days in early 1992 when I was looking for a ministerial job after I had graduated from seminary and I had received two flush letters from churches that were cold--and my hopes for being in parish ministry as an associate were dashed in the midst of a recession.

I still hurt eight days later. This kind of crap hurts. It is supposed to hurt. It is human to hurt.

We try to pose as tough, mature human beings, but no matter how tough the exterior shell or mask we put on we still hurt on the tender inside. Being tough can be a private hell if it is taken to extremes.

Accepting our tender side makes us real, and free. Being real has been one of my pursuits.

While we need interpersonal boundaries and not give too much information to people, telling trusted people that we are hurting in and of itself is healing and relieving of sorts--it is much of the basis of what helps people in individual therapy.

This last week of January 2009 has not been one of the worst in the history of the United States, but it has been painful. The joy of Barack Obama becoming the first African-American president appears to have been forgotten with all the news stories of layoffs and unemployment.

The pain will go on for awhile. Right now the news media is not exactly offering us any hope. The president is not exactly offering us any hope either. (Of course, I think that he is using the current rhetoric of pending economic depression to push his stimulus package through.)

Many of us are screaming inside. Many of us are anxious and worried if our jobs will be safe or if we will ever get another job? The current news is not helping.

I had a lot of restless energy to deal with during the days both from the national news, and my personal stuff. I wore myself out in two ways: I took a hatchet and chopped up a lot of tile on the garage floor, and I concentrated on my next journal article submission. I also baked a lot of pizza for an office pizza party.

During the chopping of the floor, I wondered if my whole chances of advancement in the organization were shot? I pondered what I needed to do to make some kind of recovery?

I asked myself "What was important?" What did I need to do? I also was grateful to the bank manager for supplying the word "character."

I sensed that there was a triangle of drama that I needed to nip in the bud like I have done in my current job. I decided that I needed to make myself indispensible. I decided that I needed to show character. I decided that I needed to press on in the pain.

I decided that this was possibly the best type of job interview where I had was going to show that I was one of the greatest employees they could promote. I also decided that this was a great test of whether or not the boss's boss was going to be someone I could work for. As quirky as those thoughts were, I made my my plans.

I decided that I needed to make every effort to show what character I had so that they were on my team the next time I applied for a promotion (should that opportunity present itself). The harder things of showing character meant making an apology. I needed to make an apology to my boss and my boss's boss for assuming that my application had gone through.

I decided that I have gained some trust or stature with the more difficult work team. They have seen me handle personal adversity with character.

Well, I did make the apologies. I made the pizza.

I did not get to serve the pizza given that there has been ice and snow in Louisville that shut down the city for the better part of the week. But since I made the apologies, I have ruminated less than I thought I would.

I also completed the draft of my journal article (where I cut 59 pages down to 36). I think that I used the adrenaline generated from the anger.

I have been jamming to angry or hard songs like Gotta Be Someboy by Nickelback and Paralyzer by Finger Eleven. My wife thinks that I am blowing out my one good ear. Maybe I am.

I think that I have been doing the best that I can do. It is all I can do in the moment.

The best that we can do is rarely ever perfect, but it is where character is shown when the pain is real. It is one thing to take solace in.