If you don’t find the humor in this, my sincere apologies. But we need as many laughs this holiday season as is possible.

CHRISTMAS DISORDERS and CAROLS

1. Schizophrenia — Do You Hear What I Hear?

2. Multiple Personality Disorder — We Three Kings Disoriented Are

3. Dementia — I Think I’ll be Home for Christmas

4. Narcissistic — Hark the Herald Angels Sing About Me

5. Manic — Deck the Halls and Walls and House and Lawn and Streets and Stores and Office and Town and Cars and Buses and Trucks and Trees and…..

6. Paranoid — Santa Claus is Coming to Town to Get Me

7. Borderline Personality Disorder — Thoughts of Roasting on an Open Fire

8. Personality Disorder — You Better Watch Out, I’m Gonna Cry, I’m Gonna Pout, Maybe I’ll Tell You Why

9. Attention Deficit Disorder — Silent night, Holy oooh look at the Froggy – can I have a chocolate, why is France so far away?

10. Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells….

11. Oppositional Defiant Disorder– You better not cry – Oh yes I will
You better not Shout – I can if i want to
You better not pout – Can if i want to
I’m telling you why – Not listening
Santa Claus is coming to town – No he’s not!!

8 Ways to Keep Your Sanity During the Holidays

The holidays have the potential to be stressful, whether it’s extra activities and responsibilities, family feuds or squabbles, cash concerns or shakeups to your daily routine.

But you can absolutely enjoy yourself and have a great holiday season. Here are eight tips from experts on making the most of the holidays.

1. Set an intention for the season.

Set an intention for the holidays, which includes both what you want to do and how you want to be. For instance, you might want to host a party or take a vacation. And you might want to be calmer, a better listener or more present with your families.

When acting on your intention, try to find simple, less stressful solutions. If you really want to host a party, but feel drained just thinking about it, have a potluck instead. You get what you want, minus the stress.

2. Have realistic expectations.

Come holiday season we tend to assume that our bratty kids will transform into little angels and our always-fighting families will become the Brady Bunch. “But if [your relatives] haven’t gotten along for the other 11 months of the year, why should you think December will be any different?” .We also put a lot of pressure on ourselves to pull off the perfect holiday, with just the right gifts, food, decorations and so on. But setting sky-high and unrealistic expectations only leads to disappointment and distress and leaves you missing out.

“It’s the discrepancy between what you expect and what you get that creates disappointment and unhappiness during the holidays,” Readers should take a hard look at the reality of their expectations. If they’re idealistic, “…rethink how you’ll approach this season so you can close the gap between your fantasy and your reality.”

And look at it this way: “Relaxed and happy is so much more enjoyable than perfect and pressured,”

When things go wrong, that’s when funny memories are made, anyway. “Frankly, it’s a fabulous memory when the cat runs off with the turkey,” focuses on simplicity and love, not perfection.

3. Have a plan for potentially tense situations.

With some relatives we know exactly how a get-together will play out, because it’s happened year after year…after year. What can help in minimizing conflict is to create a plan about how you’ll react. “Anticipate stressful situations you might encounter and be prepared with a few words to help maintain a sense of calm,”

If your mother-in-law — you know, the one who tends to push your buttons — is staying with you for several days, figure out how you’ll approach her when she inevitably hits a nerve. Let’s say she criticizes your parenting. When she makes a comment, you might reply: “I love how much you care about the kids,” and “recognize her intention, which really is about caring for the kids.” Or you might say: “Thank you for respecting my parenting style. I know sometimes that’s hard to do.”

If she continues criticizing and your intention for the season is to be calm and non-reactive, consider what would be the best action to take in this situation. “If calm inhabited your body, how would calm respond to her? Calm may leave the room and go for a walk alone to cool off,”

4. Maintain some of your routines.

Many people tend to get stressed when their routines are broken, which happens often during the holidays. “Keep some of your grounding rituals in the mix, such as daily fitness [and] getting enough sleep,” These activities give you more energy and are key stress relievers.

5. Take care of your mind, body and behaviour.

I suggest readers pay attention to their body, emotions, thoughts and actions.

• Body: We experience the physical sensations of stress and anxiety thanks to the sympathetic nervous system, our ancient fight-or-flight system. The antidote, Hanson said, is to activate the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS). “Easy ways to light up the PNS include l-o-n-g exhalations, relaxing the tongue, warming the hands (or imagining that they are warm, like holding a cup of cocoa), and relaxing the body as a whole.”
• Emotions: Encourage positive emotions by focusing on and savouring all the positive experiences associated with the holidays. Spending a minute or so relishing these experiences helps them enter our long-term emotional memory and sink in, Hanson said.
• Thoughts: This time of year our heads are swirling with shoulds and musts. We know how detrimental these thoughts can be. Hanson encourages readers to return to “the simple truth that in this moment, each moment, you are actually basically alright; the simple fullness of being in the present, not regretting the past or worrying about or planning the future.”
• Actions: “Slow down and do less,” Hanson said. “Keep coming back to your breathing as you look for gifts, do dishes, wrap presents, or visit friends.” Remember that others may be struggling during the holidays, too, so be kind and compassionate. Also, consider “giving the gift of your full attention to others, rather than being distracted by your to do list; or the gifts of forgiveness, gratitude, and wholeheartedness.”

6. Create reminders of your intention.

It’s easy to get carried away, let stress consume you and forget the purpose and meaning of the holidays. A visual reminder helps bring you back and put things in perspective, suggest taping quotes to your fridge or putting them in frames in other areas of the house. Some of her favourite quotes:

• “The more tranquil a man becomes, the greater is his success, his influence, his power for good.” – James Allen.
• “In the midst of movement and chaos, keep stillness inside of you” – Deepak Chopra.
• “Peace doesn’t require two people; it requires only one. It has to be you. The problem begins and ends there.” - Byron Katie.
• “Peace. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart.” - Author unknown.

7. Create an environment of calm.

Creating a sense of calm in your different environments. For instance, “play calm music at home, in your car or at work.” Have objects that relax you, too, such as scented candles.

8. Have fun activities planned for get-togethers.

“Since holiday guests can be a source of stress for people, plan very simple and pleasurable activities with your more ‘challenging’ relatives and you may find the relationship flows much easier in that moment since you’re both having fun,”.

“Rather than just fume, waiting for Uncle Jeff to act out, have some DVDs of old comedies. Abbott and Costello doing ‘Who’s on First?’ works for any generation,” Medea added. She also suggested taking out your oldest photo albums and sharing the stories behind them.

And in general, don’t forget that all families are complicated. “A simple family is like asking for a simple universe,” Medea said. “Families are wonderfully complex, layered, with generations of baggage.” And don’t forget, too, that the holiday season “also brings the possibility of building bridges back to people we love, even if they drive us crazy.”

8 Ways to Keep Your Sanity During the Holidays

8 Ways to Keep Your Sanity During the Holidays

The weather outside might be frightful but inside it’s definitely worse. According to New York psychologist Jay Seitz, 25 percent of people experience some kind of holiday anxiety or depression. That is, one in four people sipping eggnog feel like that stale, bland, unpopular fruitcake that was re-gifted five times before it was fed to the neighbour’s cat on Christmas Eve. Yes, the holidays do bring a magic and excitement to the month of December, but the stress, loneliness, and blues pre-packaged with the festivities can be enough to drag a quarter of us across the tenuous line from sanity to insanity.

Here are eight tips intended to keep you from hurling the mistletoe at Uncle Fred because he asked for the butter in the wrong tone of voice.

1. Find your kind of people

The good/bad news of holiday depression is that so many people suffer from it that it’s easy to find a person with whom to relate. It’s unfortunate that one-fourth of the population would prefer to skip the month on December. However, this means that people who hide from carollers are certainly not alone—and, if they join up with the folks chucking holiday letters in the trash unopened, they will feel a companionship that can definitely lift their moods. The trick is identifying this 25 percent.

Here’s a hint. They are typically the ones who don’t say much after the question, “How are you?” Or, if they do, their response is something like, “Okay… How are you?,” which is code for “How the hell do you think I am?” Stick with them.

2. Embrace your inner slacker

Stress is usually the biggest culprit behind the holiday blues. Stress does bad, bad, bad things to your body, places toxins into your bloodstream, whacks out your heart and other organs. It produces hormones that can change your personality from that of June Cleaver to Sybil.

So your biggest chance at combating holiday anxiety and depression is to eliminate as much stress as you can. And at that statement you just rolled your eyes, like I do every time my mom or my husband says that to me. I look at my to-do list and each item whispers, “You can’t cut me. You need me, remember?”

That’s when I take the red pen and start marking up the page. Christmas cards. Do I REALLY need to send 250 of them? No. Do I even need to send 50? Not really. Let’s put that on the “Would be nice if I have time” list. In other words, you need to embrace your inner slacker, and tell her that you need her help this holiday season.

3. Slow your breath

Slowing down your breath is one of those easy, simple strategies to boost your mood that seems too easy and simple to work. But it does. Because the first thing we do, as a sort of knee-jerk reaction, when we are stressed is speed up our breathing, and start breathing from the chest instead of the diaphragm, which supplies more oxygen to our brain cells. I use the most basic of breathing exercises called the “Four Step” method. You don’t have to do anything but count to four as you breathe in, count to four holding your breath, count to four breathing out, and count to four while resting. Then do it again. If you were unable to follow that, you might want to make an appointment with a professional. If that doesn’t, you know, stress you out.

4. Watch the Inner Critic

You know the little Elf on the Shelf that comes out every holiday season and moves about the house before breakfast each morning? He is supposed to overhear conversations of holiday gift lists, etc. so that he can report back to Santa. Yeah, well, during the holidays, another little guy comes out, too, and he is called the Inner Critic. However, unlike the Little Elf, this twerp is invisible and resides somewhere in the grey matter of your brain. He likes to convince you that you are lazy, weak, stupid, unlovable, ugly, unsuccessful, and basically every other insult you have called yourself over the years. There is no rationale behind his statements. He just likes to make you feel insecure. And he does a great job of it during the holidays. This is his season! But if you watch out for him, and identify his voice before you go one believing his lies, you will save a bit of the self-esteem and confidence you will need to get through your holiday get-togethers.

5. Prepare for idiots

Just as there exists an Inner Critic inside all of us, there also exists idiots outside of us. I’m poking fun a little, but this is a universal truth, and the truth shall ultimately set you free, or at least help you defend yourself this holiday season. If you can identify the idiots, you can brace yourself for their unintentional (or intentional) attacks and interactions with folks lacking the open-mindedness, intelligence, or empathy needed for a healthy conversation. I like to envision myself in a bubble, protected from any toxin trying to penetrate my being. I also allow time for recovery after seeing an idiot, because chances are good that I will need to do something that reminds me that her assessment of me isn’t accurate.

6. Be sure to laugh

Laughing is as important as eating lots of salmon and spinach (rich in Omega-3 fatty acids that my brain needs) and regular exercise. Humour is a powerful healing element for me (and I surmise for everyone) because it allows me to see a situation from the right perspective. Let’s face it: If you are not laughing at a holiday letter that discusses at length the successful potty training of triplets or a best-selling memoir composed at the top of Mount Everest, then you are losing out on some great holiday fun.

7. Spot holiday thinking

So we have now identified the Inner Critic and the idiot, losers that can make you grit your teeth every time you hear a Christmas carol. There is a third enemy that is part of the Holiday Axis of Evil: stinking holiday thinking. Related to the other two bad boys, this kind of thinking surfaces during the month of December to sabotage your holiday spirit. However, knowing how to untwist the distorted thinking will release you from its negative energy.

My favourites are black and white thinking, jumping to conclusions, mindreading, overgeneralization, and saying “should” WAY too much. (“I SHOULD bake Christmas cookies for the whole neighbourhood like Mrs. Johnson does every year.”)

15 techniques to untwist the distortions. The most helpful for me is to “record the evidence,” an exercise in documenting how things really are, not how they seem to be in one of your insecure moments.

8. Acknowledge the loneliness

For some reason, it seems like most deaths or break-ups happen around the holidays. So the memories of losing a loved one also fall around December. The sense of loss and loneliness can be overwhelming at this time because every few feet you run into a holiday advertisement gracing a couple wrapped in each other’s arms — wide, Colgate smiles — with an angelic baby, adorable puppy, or exquisite diamond necklace in the picture. For anyone estranged in anyway from a significant other or loved ones, this can pour salt in very fresh wounds.

I don’t have any quick tips for this one. But I do take some solace in knowing that everyone — well, except for the idiots — suffer, in some way, from loneliness or loss around the holidays. Just as it is a season of celebrating the many gifts in our lives, it also can be a time that calls to mind what pains us. And just knowing that I’m not alone in that cycle… well, it gives me peace.

The End of The Happy Meal or Government Intervention in Kid's Eating

The End of The Happy Meal?

San Francisco bans toys in Happy Meals

Published on December 27, 2010 by Edward Abramson, Ph.D. in It's Not Just Baby Fat!

Should the Happy Meal be illegal? The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed an ordinance that prevents fast-food restaurants from giving away toys with meals designed for kids. The typical Happy Meal consisting of a cheeseburger, fries, and a soda packs 640 calories which is more than half the recommended daily allowance for 4- to 8-year-olds. The new law, passed following an override of Mayor Gavin Newsom's veto, goes into effect in December 2011. It would allow toys if the meals have reduced calories, salt, fat, and sugar and also include vegetables (French fries and ketchup don't count).

The Happy Meal is also being attacked in the courts. A Sacramento mother, supported by the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, filed a class action lawsuit to prevent McDonald's from using "...the bait of toys to exploit children's developmental immaturity and subvert parental authority..."

McDonald's argues that it offers Apple Dippers (apples with low-fat caramel) as a healthy alternative to the fries, although they're rarely chosen. The company decries the "food police" and is strongly supported by the California Restaurant Association. They will oppose any attempts to restrict their offerings to kids. Mayor Newsom suggests that the ordinance, although well intentioned, goes too far since parents, not the government, should be responsible for their kids' diets. So who's right? How far should government go in intervening in children's food choices?

Top of Form

Bottom of Form

On one hand we accept governments' interference in personal decisions affecting health. Most of us agree with policies intended to make smoking more expensive and difficult. We're willing to accept this intrusion so that fewer kids will start to smoke, suffer the health consequences, and possibly die of lung cancer. Likewise, I haven't heard of any organized protests or legal challenges to state laws that require us to buckle our seat belts or put toddlers in special protective seats. Using a seat belt could be viewed as a personal choice. You could argue, "If I'm in an accident I can be injured if I want to; it doesn't affect anyone else so the government should butt out!" If we accept governmental intrusion in other personal health-related decisions, why is taking the toys out of Happy Meals so controversial?

Perhaps we are especially sensitive to any implication that we are less than adequate parents. Feeding our child is an essential part of our responsibility as a loving parent. The idea that a government needs to intervene may imply that we are not good parents. Even if you hate seat belts or love cigarettes, the laws limiting these behaviours may be frustrating or annoying but they don't threaten our view of ourselves.

It might help parents to recognize that the proposed ordinance is not interfering with their right to buy their child a Happy Meal. When the law takes effect the only change is that there won't be a toy in the box. In some ways this could actually increase a parent's ability to choose food for their child. Without the toy there's less likelihood that the child will ask, whine, or demand the Happy Meal so Mom or Dad can decide without the emotional complication of an upset child.

The frequency of childhood obesity has tripled since the 1970's. Currently one out of three kids is overweight or obese yet research shows that many parents do not recognize that their children are too heavy. Currently it costs about $150 billion per year to treat obesity-related medical conditions and it will only get worse unless the juvenile obesity epidemic can be reversed. Taking the toys out of Happy Meal boxes should make it a little easier for parents to encourage healthy eating habits for their children.

Playing Hard to Get? It's For Losers

Playing Hard to Get? It's For Losers

It's tough for nice girls to show real emotions.

In "The Telephone Call" Dorothy Parker transcribed the lament passionate women still make when they feel rejected by men: "They don't like you to tell them they've made you cry.  They don't like you to tell them you're unhappy because of them.  If you do, they think you're possessive and exacting.  And then they hate you.  They hate you whenever you say anything you really think.  You always have to keep playing little games.  Oh, I thought we didn't have to; I thought this was so big I could say whatever I meant.  I guess you can't, ever.  I guess there isn't ever anything big enough for that."

My girlfriends and I would read that story to each other out loud--in high school, in college, in grad school, until we found our life-partners (and--occasionally--even after) because Parker put it all in perspective. The narrator WANTS to play hard to get, but she can't.

She wants to be an ice-queen. She wants to be aloof and cool and distant and casual, but she can't pull it off because....

because....

BECAUSE SHE IS AN ACTUAL HUMAN BEING AND NOT A FACSIMILE.

Real human beings have real emotions. Emotions--deep, authentic, unedited, and awesome-- aren't very pretty. They aren't cute.

They aren't tame; they are wild; they are feral; they are untamed; they are trouble to themselves and others.

Nice girls aren't supposed to be any of those things, remember. So it's tough for nice girls to show real emotions.

And when emotions turn painful, they aren't the stuff of greeting cards (unless your greeting cards are designed by Lady Macbeth and Lucretia Borgia, with Lizzie Borden doing the graphics).

When emotions are strong--as they should be during courtship--even when they're GOOD, they aren't easy to contain.

And yet--hard as it is to believe--you shouldn't waste your time trying to pretend not to care when you do.

Listen to me: I'm serious here. Stop pretending not to care. If you're fairly stable, then work hard on learning to overcome the culture's training and do the hardest thing in the world: trust yourself.

As good girls, we're taught never to trust our own reactions.  We can't tell if we're hungry; we only know what we shouldn't eat.  We don't know if we're tired; we only know we're not getting enough sleep.  We aren't sure that we're fit, we only know we're not sleek.  We don't know what our hair color is because we've been dying it since we were fourteen.  Half of us don't know what our weight is because we don't get on a scale. The other half know what our weight is every half-hour because we can't get off one.

Life is too short to put up with this rigmarole. If you can't tell somebody you love him or her without inciting fear and loathing, get out of that relationship-and fast. If you spend all your time crying, get into therapy-and fast. If you fear you're "too much" because you're passionate, energetic, generous, and gregarious, then start figuring out why you're in a place where the world has "too little" for you.

For me, playing "hard to get" has always been hard to comprehend and impossible to justify.

Adult Children of Narcissists, Socio/Psychopaths & Borderline Parents

Take it from me, I've had close quarters personal experience..Nothing is sadder or more destructive than not getting your needs met as a child because your parents were pathologically disordered. Narcissism, socio/psychopathic, antisocial or borderline are just four ways that your parents could have been pathologically disordered. There are a number of other ways and diagnosis as well.
But the fact remains that so many children raised by pathological parents (whom are often also addicts) grow up seeing the world through the eyes of the pathological. We call that 'the pathological world view.' No matter how you cut it, children are influenced, for the good or the bad, by the parents who raise them. That's because we largely come to see the world, ourselves and others through their eyes. If they are healthy and normal people--that view of others and ourselves is a good thing. If they are dangerous and pathological, the view of others and ourselves could be a bad thing.
There are a number of aftermath effects of pathological parenting that you may have recognized in your own life--choices, patterns, feelings, behaviors that have negatively influenced your life.

• You may be plagued with self-doubt
• Low self-esteem
• Chronic caregiving of others
• A total disregard for your own needs or self care
• You could battle depression or chronic anxiety
• Or fight nagging pessimism about your future or the world around you
• You might be dangerously naive never trusting your own instincts and being constantly taken advantage of
• You could have eating disorders, sexual addictions/other sexual disorders
• Or obsessive compulsive behaviors
• You could medicate your feelings with drugs or alcohol
• Or find abusive religious affiliations to take up where your pathological parents fell away
• You may have emotional intimacy problems or jump from relationship to relationship fearing abandonment or being alone
• Or you may engage in what they now call 'sexual anorexia' -- the forbidding of yourself to ever be intimate or loving with someone else

While you may 'understand why' your parents behaved like they did or you are engulfed in compassion and pity for their illness, the rubber meets the road at the point where your needs went so chronically unmet that you now have your own emotional problems because of what you didn't get at those crucial developmental points of your life. Compassion, pity, forgiveness and understanding about their disorder only goes so far as it doesn't help you get what you never got from the most important people in your life.
Today, your choices in relationships can be largely influenced from pathological parenting. Picking dangerous and/or pathological men for relationships is often a devastating side effect of pathological parenting. Growing up learning how to normalize abnormal behavior is a set up for accepting pathology into all areas of your life---your boss, your friends, your partners. Becoming aware of your relationship choices is a good first start but may NOT be the only intervention you need in order to grieve your childhood losses and stop trying to fix pathologicals by having intimate or parenting-type relationships with them. You can't fix your own pathological parenting deficits through a relationship with someone else. That can only be done one-on-one with yourself.
If you are sick of self sabotaging your own life, relationships, career, success and future because of what you might not have gotten in your childhood, there is help and hope. You don't have to be a slave forever to your past...there is freedom and after many years and many bad relationships that I thought were good, I know what 'good for me' now is.

Are you a Narcissist?