Rachel Pens

Everything is Personal. Including this Blog

recent posts

  • Goodbye old friend

    Last week, Clare expressed her sadness about the loss of a friendship. She had wanted to text her friend about taking mayo in for her lunch (the sandwich would be dry) but realised that she could no longer do this as the relationship was over. I thought about that brief moment of contact, the imagined smile on the other’s face, and felt my sadness and my grief for a relationship lost.

    Fiona spends a lot of time in my head. ‘Do you think she tings about me as much as I think about her?’ I ask my husband. To which he promptly replies ‘no’. I try to disconnect, to push her away by thinking of all the ways I felt wronged by her – our different parenting styles, our differing political views, our impact on the planet. I try and reframe the relationship in ‘then and now’. How the dynamics were set up all those years ago, and perhaps the inevitability it would end this way if one of use changed, if one of us grew.

    But none of this works. Instead I grieve my lost relationship and my friend. Death would be easier – I could make sense, mourn, move one. But ghosted? Living with questions that can never be answered despite the person. being alive to answer them, that’s worse. Cruelty should be enough for me to walk away – but 39 years? That’s a lot of time. There is no solution to be had here.

    Friends, of which I have many others, would tell me not to allow ‘free rent’ in my head. As a therapist I might question my need to keep hurting myself in this way – this is my doing now. Perhaps there is something screwy in my head reminding me ‘Love Hurts’, despite the hours I spend telling clients this is not true.

    My own impasse.

    Clare’s joy had bounded through the screen before the meeting had properly connected. ‘I have good news!” she said, before she back-peddled as ‘good news’ didn’t really fit with what she was about to tell me. Yet, at the same time, it did. She told me with glee how she’d seen the relationship, friendship, for what it was; how she had realised in the moment how the story was going to play out, how she was no longer willing to play the game and how, in full awareness, she ended her relationship with someone she ‘loved’.

    As her joy flooded into my room, such sadness washed over me. Sadness for myself. My client had managed to do something I had not been able to – to let go and stop hurting herself, something I could not do. I am still grieving my loss. My client has had closure which I have been denied. I know all the reasons my relationship does not, did not, will not work, but to let go is to give up hope of reconnection with someone who has been with me for most of my life. I am not sure, despite my sadness, that I’m ready to let this go. Clare realised how she had chosen people to keep reaffirming her script beliefs and how that meant them treating her badly; how such relationships were repeats of her early relationship with mum and dad. In that final conversation with Cleo she could see how these would continue to be repeated and how she would continue to feel bad – and said ‘no’.

    Any loss brings sadness. And such loss needs to be grieved for the healing process to begin. I mourn my relationship almost daily. It’ been over 2 years since we ‘broke up’. Such poor communication, unmet expectations, hurt feelings. I am left with such confusion. I can’t even find the guilt because I’m so confused about what happened. She had made a decision, which perhaps I had made too – only she delivered hers with cut-throat accuracy and me – the holder of hope, I fell flat on my face.

    It’s true, we should only allow people who respect us, value us, care for us and who we equally respect, value and care for into our world. Those who consistently bring pain, we need to let them go as these relationships only serve to reinforce our negative self-narratives. Equally………. we must acknowledge our impact and meaning on the other, the connection, the intertwining of stories and the creation of a shared history and treat them with kindness as we walk away. Perhaps because I know I was denied this, I can finally let go.

  • Space

    Today I must write something. It is my plan. To pen. When I set up this blog at the beginning of the year I was going to write frequently – to flood the world with my thoughts. Ten months later…..I have space, a space that has not existed while I have ben studying, but one that I am aware of now, if only because of what fills it. What fills is are thoughts, feelings, feelings of anger. And sadness. Being able to lift my head now, finally, I feel distraught at what I see around me. And me, so usually full of hope, feel hopeless.

    I wondered today which is more painful – to have and experience a thought or to ‘see’ the thought on the internet. My conclusion as probably to have thought and to experience the feelings that come with it; to face reality. Once it’s in our heads we cannot swipe past. And herein lies the dilemma. When things feel tough, we want relief so turn to our phones. There is more horror and distress within these devices, more than we can contemplate. But we just look and swipe past. We do not have to stop and question what we are seeing, to really consider the impact of the images. And we have seen so many images, so much horror, we are now desensitised.

    Except, of course, to images of cats.

    I know for me, that when I pick up my phone and look at social media, my brain slows. I lose focus, I get lost. Minutes become hours. My brain has been hijacked. I have watch good things and bad things and come away, from all that invested time, with nothing. Just like buying game packs off the internet – I have nothing to show for it.

    Our brains have not evolved enough to manage the onslaught of information we subject them to. And while we are lost in one image or another, we become disconnected from what our brains do need – people and nature. Is it any surprise nature gets to take a back seat when we don’t connect with the very thing that we have relied for centuries, that we have evolved along side and are intrinsically connected to?

    As a mental health practitioner I am all bout dong the best I can for my brain and my body. And you should be too. If you want to feel good about you, it’s to on the internet, in the grocery store, or in the mall. It’s in a good diet, being out in nature, in movement, in good relationships and in rest. Everything else is just a placebo. A short-term fix. And here is the Dilma. When you pick up your phone you forget this, you become numb to it all. And when you put it down, you feel the isolation of being in the minority. As big business right roughshod across our plant, perhaps ask yourself how are they getting away with it? The answer may lie in our lethargy, disconnection or even I our own perceived powerlessness.

  • We don’t ask for much

    Raising kids can be hard to navigate. We are all always doing our best, but sometimes it can be hard. How do we know we are getting right?

    Dear Son,

    Today we had a big and unnecessary row and you left the house, slamming the door behind you.   You were clearly angry.  Angry that you hadn’t had your way, angry that we had put boundaries in your way, and held them and you didn’t like it.

    You pushed and pushed and pushed until eventually, your usually very mild-mannered father lost his temper (3rd time in 18 years).

    When we are shouting at each other we were no longer hearing each other.

    You seem to think that your way is the right way and OK for everyone around you.  You stood there in your full 16 years letting us know that this was true and that we were wrong.

    We were not wrong.  No school allows Coke to be bought in – no fizzy drinks at all.

    All schools have start and finish times.

    All parents expect their kids to respect them and do as they ask.  Parents do not expect to be shouted and sworn at by their newly 16 year old.

    For me, it started on Saturday when you refused to get me a drink even though you were going to the drinks fountain.  ANYONE else would have got the drink.  But not you.

    For your dad, it was when you were rude to me.

    I have decided to ‘ground’ you for the week and have removed all electronics and dropped your screen time. You won’t like this.  I am showing you that I too can stand up to you and say ‘no’, just like you did to us.

    These are the terms of you coming off your ‘grounding’ next Tuesday morning.

    1.  You will tidy your room, desk etc. – Your room is disgusting. We ask you not to eat in there, but you do.  There is food stuff all over your desk.     

    2.        You will bring down your towels each day. You produce a huge amount of laundry and leave us all short when you use a fresh towel each day and leave it on your floor.    

    3.        You will organise your room. This has not been done since we’ve moved in.  In our attempts to get you to sort it has been us doing it for you.  Your turn

    4.        You will get to school on time for catch up. Your teachers, who have been teaching for some time think you cannot get the grades you want and need.   It’s a school rule to attend on time 

    5.        You will do homework and revision each evening.

    a.        School sets homework for you to do it.  Revision is to help you do the best you can in your GCSE’s – if you don’t care, fine, but maybe just do the work in case you care come September

    6.        You will do your own dishes. You expect these to be done for you – and I expect you to listen and do as asked, including getting a drink.

    7.        You will do your own laundry. See (2)above.  You expect this to be done for you.  As I expect you to be helpful because you’ve been asked.  As you don’t see why, here’s some help.

    8.        You will be polite and thoughtful. Because you ask and we give.  We don’t ask much.

    If none of these are met, then the grounding will continue.

    It fills me with sadness that I am sure every parent must go through when their child exerts their power.  The trick is how we respond to it and clearly today we got it wrong. Tempers flared and we responded in ways our parents would have responded to us when we were young.  I could her myself as a teenager, ‘mouthing off’, only I didn’t decide to hit my son.   Instead, I wielded a different sort of power – control over the internet and the electronics.

    As parents we are squished beneath hopes, fears and expectations for the person we are raising.  We were in their shoes once and so we might respond as our parents did to us, not all of our parents got it right.

    However, as my son has grown he as often asked ‘why’ to my requests, and to be honest, apart from ‘because I told you to’ or ‘because I want you to’ or ‘because you’re supposed to’ there has been little merit behind my demands.  The demands I make on him are from my own fears and struggles, and how I might look to others around me if my son does not meet the familial, social and cultural expectations.  If he doesn’t get the best grades, go to a good college – there are many out there who might pass judgement both on him, and us as parents.   But my son is not me, and by placing my fears on him I discount his ability to figure it out on his own, I take away the room for him to make mistakes, and I give him a set of fears he didn’t know he had.  By placing my expectations on him, I am demanding him to be someone he is not and might not want to be and I am telling him he is ‘wrong’.  And who says I am right?

    Our children go through childhood adapting, becoming the person they think they are supposed to be, as we are often quick to let them know when we don’t approve.  We ourselves, have gone through life trying to be the person our parents want us to be, (or rejecting it and doing it anyway) and often losing all sense of ourselves what is right for us along the way.  I don’t wish that on my children. 

    It is hard as a parent to let your kids fail, struggle, get hurt but in each challenge that comes their way there is a lesson – there is growth in discomfort. 

     It’s hard knowing child development psychology, attachment theory, relational theory when your child no longer agrees.  It is hard letting go of being the parent you were taught to be and accepting the young adult in front of you as the person he thinks he is with his own set of ideals, plans, desires.  It is hard to trust, that like most of us, he really will figure it out as he gets older.  It’s hard to let go. But, like I say, there is growth in discomfort and this is ours.

  • Should Social Media Carry a Trigger Warning?

    Should Social Media Carry a Trigger Warning?

    Many TV shows now carry ‘trigger warnings’ at the beginning of an episode to warn viewers that they are potentially going to feel some sort of internal distress, or in fact, be triggered to re-experience a past trauma.  The trigger warning gives viewers a choice whether to watch or not.  

    Equally, the food we eat, here in the UK, also carries a ‘traffic light’ system that lets the consumer know the product they are going to eat is high in something that could have negative consequences on long term health.   

    But what about social media?  What about the information we ‘consume’ on platforms such Facebook, Instagram, TikTok etc.    Like food the we consume the digital content we are exposed to has an impact on us – even if we are unaware.   Like food, what we digitally consume affects us psychologically and physiologically.    Just as what you eat impacts your brain chemistry and therefore how you feel, so does what you view.   The content, driven by algorithms, affects our thinking, our belief systems and can, in regard to negative content, have a physiological impact such as stress.   I often encourage people to really pay attention to what goes on in their body when they are looking at their feed.

    What do we miss out on when we are lost in other people’s worlds?

    Social media, as most of us know, is not reality. But then neither are TV shows.  However, social medal consumption can lead to psychological distress, mainly in the form of comparison.  People often feel they are ‘not skinny enough’, ‘not rich enough’, ‘not successful enough’ or are ‘behind others my age’.    Comparing ourselves to others activates the part of us that believes we are not OK, and most of us have this belief.  When we are striving for the manufactured and manipulated perfect, we are setting ourselves up for a reinforcement of this belief about ourselves. Although clients don’t come to see me because of their social media use, often what they are viewing is adding to their distress, feeling worse about themselves because they cannot meet these ideals. 

    Internal distress is something that we try to avoid.  Our emotional pain centre and our physical pain centres both activate the anterior insula and the anterior cingulate cortex – it’s hard to tell one from the other and therefore we are likely to try and avoid either.  Interestingly, often when people begin to feel any sort of distress, they often pick up their phone rather than be curious about what might be going on for them.  

     We ‘consume’ digital media.  We take it in and digest it.  Food labels let us know that what we may be about to consume may not be good for us in the long term especially if we ‘over consume’.  All food, good and bad, has an impact on our body and our brains – (think of the soothing power of chocolate and the stimulating effect of caffeine).  We know the increase and excessive use of smart phones is associated with the increase in mental health problems (Depression, Anxiety, Stress, and Sleep Quality).     It’s not all social media’s fault, granted, but much time is spent consuming it in the way of ‘mindless scrolling’ instead of interacting with other humans or sleeping (lack of sleep plays a huge part in mental health issues).   We scroll when we are tired, when we feel uncomfortable, when we are bored. Our boredom threshold has decreased and our tolerance to our own feelings too.   We use our phones, and the content we consume to soothe, entertain and problem solve.  The problem with our feed is the echo-chamber it creates – there is no new or contradictory information getting in – fuelling fears which may then present as anger, indignation, intolerance.  People are separated by others opinions – polarized and deaf and we see this played out in riots and hate crimes.

     

    Our mental health is underpinned by what we believe about ourselves, other people and the world.  When our social media feeds are set to ‘be better’ (richer, skinner, happier) or when we are exposed to constant negativity (politics, war, environment), then our negative feelings about ourselves, the world and others increases and can leave us feeling powerless and helpless which is big part of depression and anxiety. 

     

    There is nothing really new in our world; anger, intolerance, hate, crime (as well as love, friendship, peace, humanity, care, compassion) have always existed but now we can communicate that message to a much wider group of people very quickly, and because we are so plugged in, there’s little room for much else.  Each video, tweet, picture, is a stimulus to which you will respond, potentially confirming how you feel about you and the world.   Next time you pick up your phone to scroll – check how you respond to that stimulus and ask yourself if this is really good for you, or should social media carry it’s own trigger warning?

  • The beginning….

    Day 2

    January second, 2025.  The sun is shining, birds are singing, and actually it’s cold.  We have returned early from a less than glamourous Airbnb where our dreams of bringing in the new year in a bubbly hot tub were hampered by the hot tub being tepid and mainly self-made bubbles.  But here we are.  Facebook has reminded me it’s diet season and I don’t have many ‘friends’ in the real sense of the word, and that reminded me that I have decided I am writing a blog.

    So, here I am.  Website not quite complete but mind and fingers raring to go regardless.

    Trigger word – diet.

    And do I really think I know it all?

     

    Having watched my mother go through countless diets yo-yo-ing between overweight and stick thin, I have taken the different approach of ‘don’t do that, you will only end up putting back on 20% of your previous weight, each time’.    ‘Don’t do that, you have to learn to eat normally’.  How has that helped me?  I have stayed a consistent 3 stone overweight for the past 13 years – but it’s been consistent.  The battle, however, which is mainly in my head and with the scales, has intensified since hitting menopause.   I am surprised I’m not now stick thin if only because I continuously run hot – surely that’s a calorie burner?

    However, after watching a BBC archive music show on New Years morning, just after Jools and Ruby had reminded me that I need enjoy myself while I’m still in the pink, and seeing all these slim pop-stars I wonder if the battle is now hopeless.  We didn’t all end up fluffy by mistake, and we can’t all blame the sedentary life-style either.   Are we now addicted to the food we eat which is designed to be addictive?  And what are the diet industries really offering now?  And how come, if they work so well, most of us aren’t skinny or the NHS hasn’t prescribed each and everyone one of us to join?  But equally, what if I have got it wrong after all this time?

    As a nation, we are obese.  Overweight parents raising overweight children, shortening our lives and increasing our risks to all sort of nasty diseases.  It’s the shortening our lives bit that’s the problem as we really won’t live forever.  As we get older, I’ve found, each decade, year, week, moment, becomes more and more precious.   As we get closer to the end, we begin counting roughly how much time we might have left – that this could be significantly shorter with the risks that carrying too much weight bring.  And what happens if, as you get closer to the end, you’re having too much of a good time?  That would suck wouldn’t it?!

    So, here are my pledges to myself for 2025 in regard to me and the scales.

    1.         I will exercise at least 5 days a week (but aim for 7)  – even if it’s just a walk.

    2.        I will watch my portion control.  A portion size is a lot less than we think.

    That’s it.

    I’ll let you know how I do!