Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships

Stressed About Having Second Child

Getting the news that she was finally pregnant, should have been immensely relieving to 25-year-old Kerri, but she was as stressed if not more than before. Previously she had been stressed about having her second child before she was 35 years old, but now she was stressed about not having enough energy for her lively first born, 4 year-old Eric. She fretted over giving him less attention and potentially creating a long term problem

 Family Relationship Issues Began the Negative Chronic Stress Cycle for Kerri

Recalling her own childhood Kerri remembered being the oldest in her family, and with each new baby that came along, she was pushed further and further into the background, being forced to take on parenting tasks. Her father worked long hours and was also in competition for the scant energy his wife may have for him when he was home. Kerri had vowed to herself that her children weren’t going to suffer like that, and she was going to make sure her husband Ari would never feel he had to battle to get quality adult time with her.

As a teen ager, Kerri tried to feel wanted and cared for by her school friends but it just wasn’t the same as being wanted by her mother. The only time her parents seemed to show any interest in her was when she was needed as a babysitter. She focused on her school work determined to be an independently wealthy professional, tamping down her anger, and the part of her that ached for the love and attention her parents never gave.

Stress made her want to eat – but she tried to gain control over her bingeing and purging

 Lonely, angry, stressed and depressed, Kerri started to binge and purge. Those activities filled in the gaps between her school and then college schedules.  When she saw clumps of hair falling out in the shower she had a wakeup call and stopped the binging and purging.  The stress of not being in control anymore gave her eczema. Her immune system had been compromised by stress.  Kerri did her best to deal with each new symptom as I came up.  Until she met Ari at a smoothie bar on her way from class.

He seemed entranced by her and she fell head over heels in love with his attentive and thoughtful nature. They were married within the year. Both decided to finish college and put off having children until their careers were well established. Ari became a hot-shot-celebrity lawyer, traveling all over the place to be on all the prime time talk shows. Kerri fulfilled her dream of becoming a business owner at the age of 30 with a profitable nanny and babysitting agency.   

Stress Effected Kerri's Health

Ari’s absences triggered her stress and she began to feel that same old sense of overwhelm, lack of control and a need to get even more busy to blot out the feelings.  She was angry but once again never allowed herself to process it or express it. That added to her stress. Shadowed with fatigue and insomnia, Kerri did what she knew best – distract herself with another goal. She decided to expand her business into a daycare facility. The bureaucracy involved did the job of using up the excess adrenalin from the stress, but the stress hormones like cytokines depleted her energy. She never talked to Ari about her stress, or her wish that he wouldn’t travel. She didn’t want to upset him or his career, and plus she was used to taking the burden in the household. It was a job she grew up doing, and doing it well. Aware of her previous response to stress, Kerri made sure she ate properly because she wanted to conceive her first child. She was careful to look out for skin problems and made sure she was well hydrated, used nourishing skin lotions and had regular appointments with her dermatologist. So far so good. Then one morning she awoke with stomach cramps and nausea. The cramps intensified after eating and she felt as if she needed to have a bowel movement at least 3 times per hour. Kerri was diagnosed with Irritable Bowel Syndrome a week later. No organic causes were found, and stress was the named culprit.

Kerri deliberaetely blinded herself to her stress and it's harmful effects on her  future children

The recommendation to reduce stress didn’t strike Kerri as helpful. She had a new business plan and discovered that she was pregnant. She plowed on thinking that things would just get better and for a time the joy of pregnancy countered the stress. She had no idea that she had chronic stress and that it could affect her unborn child.

Research Evidence Predicted Problems for Kerri's First Child Directly Related to his Mother's Chronic Stress

Eric was diagnosed with Asthma at the age of two and a half. He had always been a colicky baby but now he needed an inhaler. The thought of him not being able to breathe at night unless she was watching like a hawk spiked her stress levels to acute proportions. Kerri was devastated, but did her duty and made sure Eric had his inhaler at hand at all times. What Kerri didn’t know was that in 2010 the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine reported on a study with high and low stressed pregnant women. They found that in the high stress group, women like Kerri passed on their lowered immune response to their child as they passed through the birth canal, making them more likely to have allergic diseases such as asthma.

The journal Endocrinology published an article in June 2015 demonstrating that stress during pregnancy altered the healthy eco system of the gut microbiota in the maternal vagina, passing on that changed and less healthy bacterial system to the offspring on its way out.  Stress hormones passed onto the baby effected the gut and brain development, making the infant’s ability to manage stress much weaker than otherwise, especially for boys.

How can Kerri make sure her second child doesn't inherit her stress and be disadvantaged for the rest of its life?

Kerri didn’t want her second child of whatever gender to inherit her weakened immune response and be prone to all the stress related diseases that she had faced and more. Was it too late for her to manage her stress and give her second baby a strong immune system from the get go? No, but she must be willing to learn to de-stress and maintain that as a new way of life, because her stress is chronic and unrelenting.

Since she never learned how to recognize and attend to her stress before it became acute,

1. She has to begin to become aware of the earliest signs of stress like

Irritability, going from excess energy to depletion, exhaustion after rest, inability to concentrate

Tuning into signs of stress is the first step in managing it

2. She has to watch for her usual coping mechanisms and change them:

• For example, instead of bingeing and purging – write down her feelings regarding loss of control.
• Instead of getting busy with interminable lists of things to do – draw, paint, collage, make art in other forms which calms the brain and reduces stress hormones.
• Go to therapy and work on her stressed childhood. Above all this is the most useful long term way of letting the stress go, making sure she doesn’t pass on an compromised immune system to her next child, BUT that she doesn’t model stress behaviors for either child.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

AUTHOR OF:' Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

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Disclaimer: this article is for educational and informational purposes only. There is no liability on the part of Dr. Raymond for any reactions you may have when reading the material or following the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Raymond.

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships

After a relaxing weekend, thirty-three year old Daniel hated when he felt that feeling in the pit of his stomach, reminding him that a new week was about to begin. He enjoyed his two-days-a-week off so much that the transition was painful and anxiety provoking. The thought of leaving his ‘treasure island’ and re-entering the world of reality made him nauseous as he prepared to tear himself away from his personal paradise of ‘do-nothing-and relax’ time.

He had to up date his financial records; getting the flyers and ads out for new listings he had procured for his real estate business and keep appointments with his ten-year-old son Drew’s school meetings. He had to go back to being a robot to get through this week, just like every other.

The only way he could get himself ready for the job was to whip himself into a state of frenzy and panic – imagining the urgency with which he had to attend to the tasks as hand, for if he didn’t – he was a lazy, useless, unproductive, undeserving layabout!

That self-critical voice raised its volume and began pounding Daniel with guilt.

He was bad for doing nothing and enjoying it! He should be ashamed of himself letting so many important jobs stay undone. He needed to make up for it in a hurry because he had wasted to much precious time already.

Daniel got himself out of his reverie like a donkey gets up after being lashed unmercifully to do the bidding of its master. This master wanted to punish him for retreating into his care-free bubble and forgetting his duties. This unforgiving, over-active slave driver insisted that Daniel wasn’t going to enjoy any part of his working week as atonement for the two days of rest-and-recreation he had stolen.

He was filled with shame, comparing himself to his hard working parents who rarely took time to rest or play with him and his brother. Their lives were filled with jobs that seemed caring and that Daniel thought he should be grateful for. But he never was! All he wanted was for his parents to spend time with him, enjoying his company and he theirs.

He felt weak and helpless as that self-critical task-master inside him went on and on, louder and louder until Daniel gave in and shut himself out of his paradise. He began to tackle the jobs on his list like a demon, to erase the guilt evoked by his self-critical voice. As he got into the rhythm of his tasks, he detached himself completely from the haven he had just left. While he was on ‘duty,’ being a ‘good boy,’ he wasn’t allowed to have any contact, even in his imagination with his ‘off-time’ paradise. Masochism was the only way to manage his overwhelming anger.

But at the end of his robotic week, when he had paid for his crime of having time off, he melted right back into his precious island where that inner-critic was quiet until just before the next week began. What peace, what joy – heaven!

Until the whole cycle started again!

How Can Daniel Silence His Inner Self-Critic?

1. Identify the source of that voice from childhood – is it his dad’s voice making him feel ashamed of playing and having fun? Or is it his mom’s admonishments to be a ‘man’ and do more jobs around the house? May be it’s a grandparent who snubs him for not being a ‘good boy,’ and deprives him of treats.

Whatever the combination of voices, Daniel has taken ownership and beating himself up with it. So he has to disown that voice and give it back to those it really belonged to.

2. Develop his own voice so that the harsh self-critical one doesn’t come back and fill the empty space. He needs to make his voice represent his own beliefs, not those of his childhood carers. He doesn’t need to compare himself to his parents, and he no longer needs their approval in order to feel loved.

Doing that involves deciding what his beliefs are about working and playing. Is it okay with him to rest, play, unwind, and switch off? If so, when, how, and in what circumstances?

3. Remove the stark split between work and play.

Allowing himself time each day to rest and switch off will alter that punitive swing of the pendulum threatening him into action with shame and guilt. Having something to enjoy each day makes the working week bearable and balanced.

4. Create a more organic rhythm for work, play, rest, peace and relationships.

Focusing on what he is doing and has done at a time of recreation quietens the self-critical voice until it disappears. Getting in touch with your own natural rhythms liberates Daniel from shame and guilt.

Now Daniel can face any day with energy and positive anticipation. He doesn’t have to browbeat himself through his self-critical voice, because it has been quietened. In time, that voice becomes more validating, giving him permission to be himself and approve of it.

copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2014

AUTHOR OF: Now You Want Me, Now You Don't! Fear of Intimacy: Ten ways to recognize it and ten ways to manage it in your relationship.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Unable to sleep for the third night in a row, thirty-six-year-old Orrin, an investment analyst, got up and took his prescribed pain killers for his lower back pain and sciatica. The relief was temporary and he awoke from a drowsy state with intense throbbing pain down his right buttock, thigh and leg. His lower back pain made it difficult for him to get out of bed, so he used the cane he kept near him to push himself up. He was angry that the pain medications weren’t working, and even angrier that all the physical therapy and meditative exercises he performed regularly had little to no effect.

At work, using his ergonomic chair and work station, the pain persisted, and the stress gave him a nagging headache. When he missed the perfect moment to make a trade for one of his customers, he wasn’t aware of being angry and he just kept going, trying to compensate by working harder. As the journal Anesthesia & Analgesia, 2007 indicated, chronic pain not only makes you uncomfortable, but impairs memory and concentration

He hated the carefree attitude of many of his colleagues, believing that they were shortchanging their customers, and ultimately tarring him with the same brush. He nipped his rising anger in the bud and tried to outdo the performance he had achieved yesterday. But the stress of being mocked by the team elevated the pain in his lower back, and gave him stomach cramps. He was in agony, and took more pain medication that gave him little or no relief. He tried walking around to relieve the pressure on his sciatic nerve but he was so tense that it was a washout.

His thirty-eight-year-old wife Amy offered to massage his back. It felt both relieving and anxiety provoking. He recalled the times when he’d longed for his mother to soothe his headaches and stomach aches, his cuts and bruises and his fears and doubts – but she usually palmed him off with candy and/or video games. He remembered how angry he used to get, but he never showed it, terrified that if he did, she would retaliate with her rage. His mother’s rage was unpredictable and fierce. She would throw food around, hurt he dog and yell at Orrin just for being around! He had prided himself for not losing his cool as he grew up. But was it worth it?

Orrin grew to be afraid of his back pain and stomach cramps returning when the medications wore off, or when he went back to his stressful work environment. It was the same fear he had as a kid when he anticipated the pain that would come with his mother’s smacks and verbal abuse. Negative emotions interfere with the brain processing of actual pain, increasing the anticipating of pain, which in many cases makes it worse, as reported by Gastroenterology, 2011.

Later in the week as Orrin’s throbbing lower back pain prevented him from sitting in his office chair, he found himself welling up in tears.  Sadness enveloped him, making his pain feel even worse, as outlined in an article published in Biological Psychiatry, 2010 – which found that sadness disrupts some neurocircuit pathways in the brain that process pain.  Sadness and depression drive the pain, making it feel much more intolerable.

Despite the sadness, Orrin was very aware of his anger and didn’t ignore or re-label it as ‘just frustration.’  He was furious that the one thing that usually distracted him from the pain – his high pressured and fast paced work – was not possible. He swore and cussed under his breath, threw down his briefcase and went outside. Walking along a nearby nature trail he let out his anger. Sometimes it was by kicking a twig and other times by repetitively banging one rock on another, while swearing and cussing to the squawking crows around.

A couple of minutes later his pain had substantially subsided. He couldn’t understand it, but the relief was palpable. The Annals of Behavioral  Medicine 2013  published an article demonstrating that only Anger Awareness and Expression Training (AAET) was effective in promoting emotional processing and expression leading to less pain, particularly in headaches. The authors indicated that the paid reduction comes when swearing triggers the fight-or-flight response of stress, obliterating the link between fear of pain and the pain itself.

Having put his emotional pain into words by expressing his hurt and anger that he harbored over so many years, released his physical pain. The journal Emotion reported in 2007, that attempts to suppress anger amplifies all the irritating and uncomfortable aspects of pain perception. So by taking the muzzle off his anger reduced the sensitivity of the pain receptors and brought some respite.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

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Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Do you believe your loved ones when they tell you that they love and want to be with you?  OR are you suspicious of their intentions when they invite you to hang out with them?

Are you constantly testing them out? Then you may have a deep sense of insecurity just like forty-year-old Mackenzie, a stock broker, who blew up into a rage whenever he thought that his long-time girlfriend Pauline was lying about her wish to marry him.

Out at a restaurant with thirty-nine-year-old beautician Pauline and their friends, he was upset that she seemed engrossed in a conversation with Mark about a basketball game. Feeling excluded and uninteresting to her, he got scared that she would soon leave him. The vision of Pauline abandoning him brought up intense anger. He goaded her all way home about her disinterest in him during the meal. No matter what reassurances Pauline offered, he was determined to make her admit that she didn’t care for him because he was so insecure in their relationship.

By the time they got inside their apartment Mackenzie was trembling with anger and fear.

“Why don’t you admit it?” he yelled, “You think I bring your mood down!”

No longer able to hold her tongue against these false accusations, Pauline snapped.

“You know what! You’re right, when you poke and prod me into not liking you, then yes, I don’t like being out with you because you have habit of destroying the nice time we had,” she yelled as she walked out, refusing to be baited anymore.

Mackenzie’s rage at being rejected and victimized made him feel even more insecure – alone, uncertain as to what would happen between him and Pauline and scared as to whether he would ever be wanted or loved again. He started texting her furiously to try to reconnect but Pauline didn’t respond. Each of his frantic texts got more desperate and insulting hoping to spark a response but all he got was a blank screen.

In several studies conducted with chronically insecure people, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, (2009) found that the tendency to get angry and enraged got higher when the feelings of powerlessness and insecurity were at their strongest.

In addition, insecure people believe that their loved ones see them as insecure and likely to leave even when their loved ones do not judge them that way. The insecure individuals then became suspicious of their partner’s authenticity and damage the relationship.

Mackenzie fits the profile that the researchers described and lost out on a warm and nurturing relationship with Pauline. The anger that stemmed from his insecurity had previously ended a gentle and affectionate relationship with Mandy some three years ago. Two years before that his insecurity based anger had killed the friendship he had with a co-worker just as it was starting to move into a romantic phase.

Angry at himself for losing control and not being able to test Pauline out anymore, Mackenzie tried to meditate and calm himself down. He hoped it would prove to Pauline that he wasn’t a monster and that he could learn to be more secure. But she didn’t want to be put through his insecure tests again and left his life for good. His anger was still there as large as life despite his meditation exercises. So he gave it up.

Disgusted with himself for being so insecure and destructive, Mackenzie had a series of hypnotherapy sessions, hoping that his insecurity and anger could be eliminated from his being, washing him clean. It worked for three months; until Mackenzie got attached to a girl he met at a friend’s party. Within a month he started to feel those familiar pangs of insecurity when she wanted time to herself or was busy with something else. At their next meeting he was irritable, angry with her for not wanting to be with him, and the taunting and testing of her commitment started.

Shocked that he was still feeling angry and insecure so soon after the hypnotherapy, he decided to try psychotherapy. He hated having to do it with every bone in his body. He just wanted to get this annoying part of him out of the way and then everything would be fine. But what he discovered was that wishing it away just made it worse and then he was filled with self-loathing.

He started and stopped therapy over and over again for the first year, until he surrendered to the fact that he couldn’t change without understanding the roots and reasons for his insecurity – and he certainly couldn’t control his anger until he understood where it was coming from.

Reluctantly Mackenzie talked about his fears growing up when he saw his parents split and come together and split again. He was never secure in his mother’s love because she beat him when she was upset with his dad. Punished as a young boy Mackenzie dismissed the scars it left trying to be strong. But now the scars were throbbing and his rage at both his parents for creating so much insecurity in his life couldn’t be contained. As his therapy progressed and he felt more compassion for himself, letting out his anger at his parents, he was freed to build a relationship with a woman. He no longer had to sabotage his romantic relationships with his insecurity and anger.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

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Disclaimer: this article is for educational and informational purposes only. There is no liability on the part of Dr. Raymond for any reactions you may have when reading the material or following the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Raymond.

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

It was eleven o’clock on a Tuesday morning, and Raul, a thirty-six-year-old property developer was struggling to keep his mind focused on the high powered meeting he had organized. He felt sluggish, his mind wandered and he could barely keep track of the agenda items he was supposed to bring to the table.

For the last six months he had felt lethargic and uninterested in things that he usually enjoyed. He stopped playing squash with his best mate, and he rarely went out on Friday nights with his interior designer wife Pat to their favorite restaurant as they used to do. His day-to-day routine felt awkward, as if he were undertaking something foreign. His autopilot stopped working and he had to force himself to think hard about the simplest of things over and over again.

Raul was depressed but he didn’t want to admit it.

It couldn’t be happening to him. After all he was the whiz kid who started his own company at age 18 and rocketed to becoming the biggest and most famous property developer in the State of Utah. From fancy upmarket shopping malls to exclusive residential gated communities his name was on all the signs. But just when he was about to expand to China and India, his body slowed him down. At first it was just the odd headache that stopped him from ‘Skyping’ all night with people on the other side of the world. Then he developed a pain in the back of his right shoulder that made him feel he was carrying an enormous weight. A week later he noticed that he was clenching his jaws and gritting his teeth – unable to relax his facial muscles. Then the pain all the way down his right leg throbbed and kept him awake night after night.

Medications didn’t help like they used to, and Pat’s home remedies and massages felt loving but did nothing to ease his symptoms. Slowly Raul’s various aches and pains turned into a sort of panic. When he got in the car every morning, he felt his heart race for at least 30 seconds and he often wondered whether he was having a heart attack. Yes, he knew that he should slow down and smell the roses, but that was crap! He needed to prove that he could do what his father talked of but never did. Raul wasn’t a dreamer, he was a doer! Yet no matter how much he achieved it wasn’t sufficient proof that he was not like his dad.

The stress of trying to be as different to his father as possible had been with Raul since he was fifteen – when he saw his dead beat dad take to the bottle after losing his job as an auto-mechanic –  giving up on life, and his responsibility towards his family. Raul’s anger was murderous, but he channeled it into making something of himself as an entrepreneur and had succeeded beyond his wildest dreams.  Yet the anger still rankled him. He had never expressed his fear of having to take care of his family after his father gave up, and he continued to be bitter about the way he was forced to grow up and support his drunkard father.

Years of bitter anger added to the stress of being robbed of his teenage years before his time. But Raul’s discomfort with expressing it made the stress a chronic condition, ultimately leading to depression at the pinnacle of his career.

This time it was serious. It had lasted much longer than his previous dips into down states which he had always been able to get himself out of.  Now his whole life seemed like a nightmare that made him not want to do anything. The more he tried to force himself the less productive he was.

As reported in The Proceedings of The National Association of Science in May 2013, chronic stress makes depression last longer. It prevents regeneration of nerve cells in the brain that would normally counter the chemical imbalance linked with depression. So without the necessary neurotransmitters to change and rebalance his mood, Raul was suffering a longer spell of depression than usual. And this time it was seriously threatening his entire way of life.

Until one day he couldn’t express his words clearly to his colleagues and partners around the world. He snapped at his wife and couldn’t bear her to touch him or want to have sex with him. That’s when he made the call to me and decided to come into psychotherapy, something he had thought weak and stupid for most of his adult life.

As we worked on the raw hurt of his early life Raul’s physical pain eased considerably. At first he felt the pain less intensely and later it was less frequent – we could always trace a flare up to emotions that he had not dealt with, that were adding to his stress load. But most important of all, Raul was able to decide what kind of man he wanted to be irrespective of his parentage and the hell he had been put through. He no longer needed to be the high powered executive since there was no one he had to prove himself to any longer. Instead, Raul and Pat took on exclusive clients and built their dream homes – inside and out – just as Raul had done for himself.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

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Disclaimer: this article is for informational and educative purposes only. Dr. Raymond is not responsible for any reactions you may have when reading the content or using the suggestions therein. Interacting with this material does not constitute a therapeutic relationship with Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Anger and Stress Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

Do you panic when you can't control your anger despite going to anger management classes?

Do you hate yourself when you fly off the handle and act like someone from your past that you have tried so hard to avoid?

Is your explosive anger destroying your important relationships and items of expensive equipment that you value?

Is the anxiety about failing now bigger than the anger itself?

Are you ready to really deal with the anger rather than just bury it, whip it into shape or squish it?

Then watch this video and learn how I helped someone do just that after he had tried and failed at using the cognitive strategies taught at anger management classes which ignored his emotional traumas of the past.

Learn how to notice the hair line triggers that spark your intense anger and express it in a safe way that honors its origins, because if you don't it will simple grow into a bigger monster.

Take the stress out of trying to control your anger by using the successful techniques I taught my client that helped him link his past and present together to make his future calmer so that he could believe in himself again.

Copyright © Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. All rights reserved.

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Anger Management Tips for Satisfying Relationships by Dr. Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

suppressed anger causes stress related skin breakouts

Office politics make Maggie stressed out and sick

Maggie wanted a quiet life. The cliques and gossip in the office made her nervous. She wanted to stay on the right side of management and not make any waves. She liked the manager at the Spa, who supported her efforts to bring in new clients. He was appreciative of her willingness to stay late and take new customers at short notice. But some of the other estheticians complained. They wanted overtime, they wanted more time in-between clients and they wanted a larger cut of the fees.

Maggie wants to stay neutral, but the stressful pressure is on!

Maggie was fond of her colleagues. She enjoyed talking to them one on one, and felt good about the confidences they shared. But when they all got together in the staff lounge and started bitching about the manager, Maggie hated it. She was uncomfortable hearing grievances from the others. She didn't share their sense of being underpaid or over used. She tended to keep quiet during these get- togethers, hoping no one would notice her neutrality.

Maggie feels wound up by her colleague

No such luck. Suzie tackled her one evening as they were closing the spa together. "What do you think about us all getting more rest breaks in-between clients? You never say anything. I never know whether you are with us or against us."

" I can see why you want more time in-between sessions, but it's not that bad" replied Maggie trying to duck out of answering the question. She felt Suzie withdraw and give her the silent treatment. The stress made her stomach churn and her temples throb.

She felt rejected because she had been disloyal to her colleague. She felt punished and wished she didn't have to put up with this pulling and pushing between management and staff. It reminded her of her having to choose which parent she wanted to live with during her parents divorce proceedings. Memories of having to hurt her mother when she picked a weekend with her dad, or vice versa flooded her mind. Breaking out in skin rashes got her out of having to take sides. When she was old enough she moved far away from them, hoping never to have to make such impossible choices again.

Pushed away by colleagues, but pulled in by management adds to the stress

Jeff the Spa manager asked to speak to Maggie the next day as she started her shift. He wanted to get the skinny on what was brewing among the staff. He trusted Maggie and let her know that her cooperation would be remembered and rewarded. Maggie wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She didn't want to snitch, nor did she want to keep Jeff in the dark. He was good to her, and he was paying her salary. She tried to change the subject and talk about new ideas to improve the services of the spa. The phone rang just in time. She escaped, but her face, neck and arms broke out in a raw, red itchy rash.  

The anger and stress showed itself vividly with the ugly embarrassing skin breakout.

Maggie is an outcast unable to manage her fear and stress

Maggie went through the day feeling like a pariah. Her colleagues wouldn't look at her or smile at her. They ignored her at their break times, and didn't include her when they ordered lunch from the local deli. Maggie was mortified. She found it hard to concentrate on her clients. She imagined the other estheticians talking about her behind her back, viewing her as the enemy. Maggie felt alone and fearful of her position at the Spa. The only one who spoke to her was Jeff, and each time he did, the others raised their eyebrows in disdain. She was given an ultimatum at the end of this interminable day. "Either be one of us, or go with management" said Suzie.

Photograph copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D.

The day of reckoning looms

Maggie didn't want to be out of favor with her colleagues. She wanted to belong to a cohesive group of work mates. How could she stomach being ostracized while still working in the same environment? She couldn't run away from them as she had done from her parents.

Maggie's facial skin erupted in huge welts just as it was time to go into the Spa next morning. There was no way she could go in looking like that, and she certainly couldn't work with clients in this condition. She was off the hook. The rash bought her some much needed time. Focusing on the urgent needs of her body took her mind off the intolerable conflict she was facing.

After all dermatological treatments proved ineffective, Maggie reluctantly came to my office. She discovered that her adult choices didn't have the power to hurt and destroy relationships as they appeared to do in her childhood. Maggie became more confident with voicing her truth. Her skin responded with gratitude. Maggie is no longer stuck on the fence. She is way out over it!

Koren is furious that her son is being unfairly picked on

As she drove to pick up nine year old Hector from school, Koren seethed with rage. She was confronted with a complaint that Hector was suspended from after school playground access for hitting another boy. Koren was mad at the playground supervisor for believing the other child rather than her son. She was furious that the supervisor allowed the incident to occur. She was angry that her son wasn’t allowed to defend himself.

Koren zooms into a tiny part of the picture and blinds her with rage

As she talked with her son about the incident later that night Koren learned that he had been provoked by name calling. In an effort to stop the taunting Hector had elbowed the other boy who then complained to the supervisor. It was outrageous that her son was suspended while the boy who started it all got off scott free. She comforted her son by showing solidarity, loyalty and her absolute determination to take a stand. She made sure he knew that she didn’t blame him. She told him that she was going to make to right this wrong on his behalf.

At an arranged meeting with the Principal of the school Koren heard once again that her son was at fault and that he needed help to learn how to play with other kids. It inflamed her like a red rag to a bull.

Koren feels personally attacked and fights to defend herself

“ My son was defending himself against a bully who was calling him names. Where was the supervisor? Why didn’t he see what was going on? If you people had been doing your job properly this would never have happened!” Koren said indignantly, laying the responsibility firmly in the school’s court.

“ This isn’t the first time Hector’s playground behavior has come to my attention. He has no idea how to socialize and I can’t take the risk of him hurting other students. You need to teach him how to behave or get him professional help,” the principal said, passing the ball right back to Koren.

“You’ve never liked my son. You’ve been complaining about him since he was in first grade. You’re always picking on him because he’s from a single parent family. I’ve taken it for long enough. I’m not going to sit by any longer and take your word for it. I insist that you bring in the other boy and get to the bottom of this!” Koren demanded.

Koren's childhood and adult rage unite to fight against injustice

Can you guess what the Principal and the Playground supervisor thought of Koren? They had ample evidence that she was irrational, a bit unstable and unable to have a reasonable discussion. They probably thought she was a weak single parent who couldn’t manage her son. By reacting with such righteous indignation Koren had created the exact impression she was most fearful of and wanted to avoid.

Koren began to have flash backs about her own school experiences. She relived the incident when she had been wrongly blamed for throwing a paper dart in English class. Her mother had been told she was insolent and defiant. Her mother never asked Koren to tell her side of the story. Her mother believed the teacher and Koren was shamed for letting the family down.

The same feelings of shame, humiliation and rage that Koren had felt at that time were washing over her now as she felt marginalized by Hector’s school Principal. As a child Koren couldn’t show or talk about her bitter disappointment and rage at not being championed. Koren was left unprotected, scapegoated and gagged.

Koren’s anger piled up. It grew and bubbled waiting for a chance to justifiably explode. As an adult she could speak her mind. As a parent she had even more right to defend her son. Now her anger burst out in full force. Once again her protestations were dismissed. Koren’s fierce insistence on being proved right fizzled into a sad and hopeless feeling. She became morose and sullen, wanting to keep her son from school rather than put herself through this ordeal again.

Koren was blind to the crucial differences between herself and her son

The problem was that Koren confused her own experiences as a child with that of her son’s. Hector had a mother who listened. He got heard, comforted and understood by his parent. He was able to process his feelings in a way that was validating and educational. Koren was blind to that crucial difference between herself and her son. When she attacked the Principal she was doing so from her personal place of being unprotected and silenced. Her son didn’t need her to defend him in that manner. Koren was defending her own undigested childhood anger via her son’s school experience.

The key to Koren's emotional health is to deal with her own stuff separately from her so Koren attacked the wrong person, at the wrong time for someone else's crime. She didn’t help herself as a parent, nor did she make life easier for her son at his school. But she has a chance to minimize the fall out. Here are some steps that Koren can take to begin to separate her stuff from her son’s stuff.

Give herself permission to air her bitter disappointment and rage on her own behalf.

• Write about it, talk to her son about her school experiences, share in parent support groups.
• Start a dialogue with her parents about her unfinished business with them.
• Ask herself what is the true stuff of her rage when her buttons are pushed.
• Getting the help and support of a psychotherapist to help her bridge the gap between her childhood feelings and those of a mother would be especially beneficial.

Copyright, Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. 2010.

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