The Four Horsemen & Antidotes

My professional role working with young adults for many years will speak here - but please understand that I also have great compassion wearing my mom-hat. I have two sons. One loves the remote learning and would frankly prefer it. My other was crushed by it early on.

School and college failure is a large part of my clinical/therapeutic practice as a licensed therapist. There are many reasons that our terrific kiddos do not thrive in their college/uni years: yes, even those who do exceptionally well in high school (academics/sports, extracurriculars). In fact, those super achievers sometimes have a harder time. Some common reasons...1) College is really, really hard. Graduating is not at all about IQ or potential 2) Party atmosphere 3) bad choices 3) Depression/anxiety 4) Unmotivated. That's absolutely not a parent's job to fix. The consequences for not completing school have to be clearly outlined as early as possible. 5) The unknowns. Some times we have NO IDEA what is really going on with our children. Finally, 6) College isn't the right path for many of us. Our goals are not always their goals. That has to be ok! Life is bigger than that degree. 

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The Lost Art of Bi-Phasic Sleep

Emotional Holiday Fitness aka Self Care

1. Memorize a short poem.
2. Maker muffins for the local fire dept.
3. Clean out a closet and donate.
4. Choose five books to read in 2022.
5. If travelling, choose close-by support meetings in advance. 
6. Go to the zoo.
7. Write a song.
8. Create new traditions
9. Don’t feel compelled to bring food or presents to gatherings. 
10. Create 10 minute escapes if we know we will be in a tense environ i.e., a phone call with a grounding friend at a designated time. 
11. Try to hit your 10,000 steps. 
12. Remove social media that makes you feel bad about yourself. 
13. Don’t feel restricted to dietary limitations. 
14. Take your own car if you feel you might want to arrive later or leave earlier for your own well-being. 
15. Anticipate that significant dates naturally invite us to feel sadness or grief (Embrace the Suck).
16. Write letters to people you love and tell them how important they are to us. The greatest gift of all.
17. Write a letter to a deceased loved-one. 
18. Start your holiday with early morning sunshine, proven to reset our sleep habits and create a better sense of well-being throughout the day.

 

 

 

Why It's Best Not to Say "Don't Be Shy"

A Photographer's Parents Wave Farwell

The Link to Humor and Happiness

 

Opiod Tapering and Risks Associated

"Life Is A Series of Dogs" - George Carlin

Fun Podcast Listen on Car Sales

Great Listen - A Cult Childhood in Synanon.

Humor and Happiness - They Are Connected!

Teens Around the World: Lonelier Than Ever

Einstein's Work Ethic

 July 24, 2021

In my continuing follow-up on the Larry Nassar crimes, I am updating with new disclosures. My interest in this tragic case (s), what I might suggest is the crime of the century, given the number of eyeballs and ears that were complicit, in the name of prestige and ego for the US Gymnastics team, continues because of its systemic - not failure, but - willingness to not stop the conveyor belt of child victims. I hope we can learn from it.

Listen to one victim's story and the FBI's negligent response.

Read Rachel's Washington Post Op Ed

Feb 2020

As I have been following the Nassar criminal story since its discovery, continuing with latest arrest. Keep those convictions coming, please.

LANSING, Mich. – A jury on Friday convicted a former Michigan State University gymnastics coach of lying to police when she denied that two teen athletes told her of sexual abuse by sports doctor Larry Nassar in 1997, nearly 20 years before he was charged.
https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-02-14/michigan-state-gymnastics-coach-convicted-larry-nassar-sexual-abuse


My prior 11/12/18 Post

In my on-going interest with the Larry Nassar serial sexual molestation case, I am posting a recent and thorough story here. (see below for link to prior blog post on this subject) 

Like others, I have been horrified to hear of the systemic failure, multiple agencies that facilitated Nassar a conveyor belt of young females. There are lessons to be learned here. 

Six takeaways: 1) Victims usually know their perpetrator 2) Victims usually love their perpetrator 3) Family members of the victim often defend the perpetrator 4) Persons in authority roles are often blindly trusted, even in the face of reason to distrust 5) Abuse usually takes place in plain sight 6)Victims usually feel guilty for reporting, often forever 

• ...In sports medicine the caliber of athlete one treats is taken to be correlated with curative power. Hospitals pay millions of dollars for the privilege of treating sports teams; UC–San Diego Health, for example, pays $1 million to treat the Padres.
• Nassar’s accumulation of more than 37,000 images suggests an unusual level of deviance even among pedophiles. According to a sentencing memorandum issued by federal prosecutors for the Western District of Michigan, these images form a particularly “graphic” and “hard-core” collection, including children as young as infants and images of children being raped by adults.
• It did not sound normal, for instance, that every week after practice, Jane had driven her daughter to a white three-bedroom house with green shutters, next to many identical houses in a development on a quiet street in Holt, Michigan, and taken her to see a man in the basement of that house. It didn’t seem normal that he never billed for these visits or that he always had hot chocolate waiting.
• It has by the fall of 2018 become commonplace to describe the 499 known victims of Larry Nassar as “breaking their silence,” though in fact they were never, as a group, particularly silent. Over the course of at least 20 years of consistent abuse, women and girls reported to every proximate authority. They told their parents. They told gymnastics coaches, running coaches, softball coaches. They told Michigan State University police and Meridian Township police. They told physicians and psychologists. They told university administrators. They told, repeatedly, USA Gymnastics. They told one another. Athletes were interviewed, reports were written up, charges recommended. The story of Larry Nassar is not a story of silence. The story of Larry Nassar is that of an edifice of trust so resilient, so impermeable to common sense, that it endured for decades against the allegations of so many women.
• If this is a story of institutional failure, it is also a story of astonishing individual ingenuity. Larry Nassar was good at this. His continued success depended on deceiving parents, fellow doctors, elite coaches, Olympic gatekeepers, athletes, and, with some regularity, law enforcement. 

And this on NPR, Gaslighting, November 12, 2018: 

"Instead of denying anything, he admits it; he says he did touch her breasts and vagina, but says it wasn't sexual. It was medical." This is Larry's playbook. He hammers his credentials and bombards the investigator with complicated medical terms about his techniques.

My Prior Blog Post on Larry Nassar, Jan 14, 2018