THEGAYUK

Category: Mental Wealth

  • DRAMA TRIANGLE: Hero, Villain or maybe you’re neither?

    DRAMA TRIANGLE: Hero, Villain or maybe you’re neither?

    One thing you may all of noticed in your lives is that when someone wrongs you (in whatever way) they aren’t shunned by their friends or family, they often carry on with their lives and, depending on the scenario, will continue to have people give testimony to what a ‘good person’ they are.

    This, often but not always, seems to only add fuel to the fire and riles us up further as to how there is no justice in the world. I mean, how can this be so?

    How can someone that has done something so despicable in your eyes that the world can see them still as the ‘good guy’?

    Well, in short, that’s because the world varies rarely deals in absolutes, contrary to what many people today would have you believe. The world is various shades of grey and there isn’t a ‘universally agreed’ rule book on behaviour everyday behaviour. What you see as something despicable others may well not see as that bad. They may even see you as the villain and this other person the ‘hero’.

    Anxiety, depression and general mental health struggles are a big problem in our modern-day society, therefore while this article can’t cure those things, I wanted to share with you a couple of survival tips I have learnt over the years through my experiences and my struggles with Depression.

    Drama Triangle:

    One of the most powerful things I learned was about the drama triangle. It is a model that most soaps and dramas are based on and is pretty much everywhere in social life – especially amongst the gay community!

    The way it works is that in any given scenario there are always at least 3 ‘roles’. Person 1, from their point of view, may be claiming to be the ‘victim’. “This person is giving me a hard time at work” or something like that. Something is happening to them or has happened to them that they feel is ‘wrong’. To validate that belief, they will seek a witness (person 3). Someone who will be told their tale of woe and will be expected to give them sympathy and by doing so, validate their position as the victim and this other person (person 2) as the perpetrator.

    At the very same time, the person being accused of being the perpetrator or ‘attacker’ of the victim (person 2) may also be feeling attacked by the person claiming to be victim, which may be why they have been defensive or stand-offish to the person 1. In their mind, the roles are very different from how person 1 sees it. To them, they are the victim, person 1 is perpetrator and person 3 is the witness given sympathy and validation (someone who could very well be the same exact person that was the witness to person 1).

    This triangle is always chopping and changing as events and the ‘drama’ unfolds. And unfortunately, once you are in it, it is very difficult to get out of it.

    This is why I have found, albeit extremely painful at times, it is best to always be on the lookout for this triangle in effect and to try and put yourself into the ‘adult’ or ‘observer’ category outside of the triangle and able to see each angle and element to draw your own conclusions (or not). It means you are also able to see that what someone may need is not a sympathy validation of being the victim, but instead an opportunity to break the cycle and take control of their own self-awareness and mental state.

    Communication:

    One of the biggest things I have found in all aspects of life is that communication is paramount and can be a tricky thing to master. I’ve witnessed relationships (any relationships not just romantic ones) completely fall apart because of too little communication, too much communication or over-engineered communication.

    Too little communication is one of the biggest causes of issues. Things like “I assumed they wouldn’t mind”, or “I thought they might react badly, so I kept quiet” are just 2 views that you hear every time something goes wrong.

    I’ve seen romantic relationships where they have mutually ‘agreed’ to be open, but that mutual agreement might exist in one person’s head, but not the other. One has one view of what that means and another view. Both come with their own sets of rules and are often worlds apart from each other. Whereas all it takes is a little courage to speak your mind on what the rules could be and mutually agree them have actually talked about them. We make such large decisions on the basis on assumption, are we really surprised when it then comes tumbling down? Assuming really does make an ‘Ass’ out of ‘U’ and ‘Me’.

    On the flip side, of course, too much communication can be just as harmful. One example would be that we all look at the world around us and make unconscious judgments on what we see. We filter as to what is relevant to us at that moment and what isn’t. And seeing a beautiful face while walking and proceeding to spend 5 minutes talking about how that face made you feel may not be what your romantic partner wants to hear. You’ve assumed they would want to hear about it because you would want to and that could be how you communicate or did communicate with friends and previous lovers.

    Cracking the communication nut is difficult but you can’t crack communication if you communicate nothing. So, talk to your loved one, friend, family member etc and see where it takes you. Even talk to someone you consider an enemy; you might find you learn something, and communication is restored (I refer you back to the drama triangle).

    Self-awareness:

    Self-awareness is a great and useful thing, but it is also extremely dangerous and is not to be confused with things like body dysmorphia or a form of anxiety that makes you overly aware and critical of your actions.

    Self-awareness, from my experience, is about being able to not only be aware of yourself but also to be aware of what is going on around you and your influence and impact over it.

    I’ve learnt to ask why someone does what they do. What have you ‘come for me’ or ‘betrayed me’ or whatever it might be? Is it something I have done? could it be something I didn’t do? Is my action or lack of action right now having a positive or negative effect?

    If someone has walked a path I wouldn’t dream of walking, then there is something going on that I don’t know about. Genuinely ‘evil’ people are rare, and certainly not a common as the press and social media would like you to believe. People, instead, do the best they can with what they have around them at the time. The decisions they make, although questionable to outsiders, at that moment and given the choices they had, may have been the most logical or ‘best’ to them, their values and their view of the world.

    That’s something I have struggled to come to terms with and it has taken me a few years to accept it. It is a challenging thing to accept but once you start living it and making part of how you think, you learn to see the world from a far bigger picture.

    I don’t claim to be an expert on social interaction, far from it, I’ve had my fair share of mistakes, attacks and ‘dramas’ and some of that will never change. But what has changed in recent years is how I respond to them. How I chose to take part in the drama triangle or how I chose not to, let the emotion go and try, instead, to do the right thing for me. Which is what any of us can do.

    If you want to learn more about how to communicate and increase your self-awareness, I am a firm believer in Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP). You can find details from the Association
    of NLP     including any local practitioners and local groups that can help you.

    Find UK-Based gay and LGBTQ+ Therapists here

  • On International Mens Day, suicide is the silent killer we should be focused on

    On International Mens Day, suicide is the silent killer we should be focused on

    We are all aware of reports in the media regarding suicide rates. So much so that sometimes we’d really rather not think about it. Understandably the repetitive nature of some of the stories means we may have become desensitised to what is, in all honesty, a truly tragic event.

    You are not alone. There are many organisations you can reach out to.

    The contagious nature of suicide is well documented. As seen in our universities, often multiple suicides will follow each other. In France the press refrain from reporting death from suicide on the underground as it’s been proven to trigger spates of similar acts. Recommended reading: Stay

    What is less understood, however, is the positive effects of rejecting suicide as an option – positive contagion. With increased understanding the hope is we can have a positive impact.

    As a therapist I’m often incensed when someone mentions how selfish the act of suicide is.

    Just to be clear… if you can’t imagine how anyone could get to that point, then please consider yourself very fortunate.

    Many of us may not have got to the planning stage but can certainty identify with the feeling or sentiment. Try to think of a time when you really felt life was too much and you weren’t sure how you were going to get through the next day. I f you can do that you might have a sniff of how it feels to be in the grip of despair. I say grip because that’s as close a description I can give as to how the people I sit with communicate this phenomenon to me. Have you ever been driven to achieve or wanted something so badly that all you can think about is how achieving or having this thing will make feel better, then you will also have an idea of how it feels to contemplate suicide.

    When this feeling drives us to succeed it is seen by society as a positive attribute, when not then it’s seen as a negative. When we have tipped into depression these thoughts can, in fact, almost take on a life of their own – over which some people may have little or no control. A driver is a driver – if we have the ability to push ourselves, this attribute can work for us as it can against us.

    At this point I feel it’s only fair to say that some believe suicide is not necessarily a bad thing. Assisted dying would be a case in point. In Ancient Greece the idea of a good death was highly valued.

    For the purposes of this article we are going to focus on what we perceive to be the tragic lives cut short when there might have been an intervention that could have helped.

    One of the most tragic of forms of death is when a person takes their own life. We could say that not only they have fallen victim to this tragedy, but the knock on effect to their family and friends, who are often victims as well, is extreme

    Correctly identifying the causes of suicide within the gay community is difficult as there are a myriad of reasons why one would end their life, and it is hard to pin point the degree to which our sexuality plays a role. But it is probably safe to say that the suicide rate within the UK gay community is increasing.

    “Research shows that more than 40 per cent of LGBTQ+ people will experience a significant mental health problem in their lives, compared to around 25 per cent of the whole population, and people from the LGBTQ+ community are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide. More than four in five (84 per cent) of transgender people have considered suicide and 50 per cent have actually attempted suicide, compared to an average of less than 6 per cent in the wider population.” (https://www.mind.org.uk/news-campaigns/news/celebrities-stephen-fry-and-juno-dawson-support-mind-s-lgbtqplus-mental-health-event) In my opinion this speaks to the lack of understanding we have of the complex nature of this phenomenon. We do know that if are male you are 75% more likely to succeed than if you were a female.

    Unhelpful Beliefs Only Add to the Confusion and Pain

    In 400 BC Aquinas elevated suicide to a mortal sin. Some religions believe your soul will be damned if you take your own life. Others believe you will be rewarded. Our evolved society now understands the dogma various religions was used to influence its members. However now these methods have become outdated. According to Jung society has a collective unconscious. From literature to television the script we have been fed and possibly internalised would suggest the suicidal act is depraved, wrong or sinful. Feelings many in the gay community can identify with.

    Death divorce life and death can all trigger to feelings of depression. Add to that living in a society that still struggles to respect and accept homosexuality and it’s not hard to see how people within the gay community are more prone to feelings of worthlessness, shame and unacceptance thus may make it more likely to experience suicidal thoughts: understanding yourself and what you are feeling is key.

    What to Do to Help Yourself or Loved One

    MabelAmber / Pixabay

    Try to engage with your future self. Remember that the loudest voice in your head might not be the best one to listen to. Speak to a trusted friend or therapist to try and help you understand what those voices are saying.

    If your tendency is for extreme highs and lows anyway, add to that a traumatic event or a bereavement and those lows can seem very low indeed. A well-recognised symptom of depression is frightening thoughts. Try to remember that thoughts are just thoughts and feelings are just feelings – neither should be in the driving seat. We often miss assign our thoughts, especially when we are feeling down.

    Some past misdemeanour slip shame or guilt can push us to places we wouldn’t have believed possible when we are feeling low. Many within the gay community will be able to identify with this. But you may not be aware the destructive nature these thoughts can have. Don’t suffer in silence – talk to someone – friend, counsellor, Samaritans.

    We can often feel trapped in the world. Some people believe that suicide is the ultimate choice. Try to remember there are many ways out of our current situations that we often may not see. When we are low, suicide can seem like a luminous exit sight in the doorway of our lives. If you can recognise any of these symptoms try and seek help.

    Prevention is Better Than Cure.

    CREDIT: © curaphotography |Depositphotos

    Recent monies promised by the government are earmarked for emergency care rather than long term prevention policies. Compare the resources dedicated to fighting terrorism which kills a fraction of our society with the amount of time and money spent on suicide prevention and it is not hard to see why we aren’t making any serious impact in fighting the increasing suicide rate. Less than 40 people were killed in 2017 in the UK in terrorist related incidents (https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/many-people-killed-terrorist-attacks-uk) compared with more than 6,213 self-inflicted deaths (https://www.samaritans.org/sites/default/files/suicide_statistics_report_2018.pdf ). According to the UK government website they spent/will spend over £730 million on fighting terrorism in 2017/18. (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/multi-million-pound-boost-for-counter-terrorism-policing)

    However, we are slowly starting to see a welcome change in our government’s psyche with the Prime Minister’s appointment of Jackie Doyle-Price, the UK’s first minister for suicide prevention. May has also pledged £1.8 million to help ensure the charity can continue providing its free helpline for the next four years. The Government “has also promised more support in schools, bringing in new mental health support teams and offering help in measuring students’ health, including their mental well-being.” It is imperative that we educate and increase our understanding of the complex social issues that affect those in the gay community. We need to highlight the isolation gay men can feel and offer them a safe caring environment to discuss their feelings.

    We all suffer – it’s the human condition. In knowing that, we know we are not alone. Help is out there. Whatever the wrongs and rights in the words of Shakespeare, remember we all have the choice to be or not to be. In the words of Rudyard Kipling’s poem If

    If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
    To serve your turn long after they are gone,
    And so hold on when there is nothing in you
    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

    In this article, I am reaching out to tell you are not alone and to ask you to PLEASE find the courage to be.

    Psycotherapist Jane Barnfield Jukes is Founder of Online Therapy Service The Practice (www.thepractice.co.uk).  To book a free telephone consultation for online therapy please call 0333 0096 321. 

    Jane is also Founder of Eudeamon natural supplements. Their supplements are natural way to overcome emotional and psychological difficulties and are available from Amazon.co.uk

  • COMMENT | I came off Twitter for a week and I was happier for it

    Last week I decided that I would delete some social apps.

    Ranty tweets do nothing for the health – so why not come off it for a while.

    I was done with social media. Twitter had become the second thing I opened in the morning, second only to my eyes and within seconds I could feel my blood angry up.

    Twitter’s “Moments” were the catalyst for my angst. The platform, which claims not to be a publisher, hires a team of people to select stories (never actually on newsworthiness) and create an incredibly biased narrative and shoves them into my timeline.

    Have you ever noticed that there’s so much anger on Twitter?

    It’s faux anger, fueled by hashtags that will be long forgotten when the next travesty is ‘momentised’.

    But where is the anger about the mountains of plastic we consume each day? Where is the angst about the bleach we pour down millions of loos, water which eventually ends up in our oceans? Where is the outrage for the millions of acres of forest we destroy for paper products or products which contain palm oil?

    Problems that actually matter, problems are extinction level events for humankind.

    No, instead let’s argue about whether Ben Affleck’s back tattoo is “too much”, whether Germaine Geer is a feminist or not or whether the 30-year-old lyrics of “Do They Know It’s Christmas” are “problematic”. It’s just all so tiresome and what does all this negativity really achieve?

    If you “can’t deal” Ben’s tattoo, don’t look at it. If you don’t think Germaine is woke, don’t listen to her, if the lyrics offend you, just search for how much money that song has raised for good causes. Stop shitting on everything because you have a problem with it. Today.

    Enough is Enough

    As I clicked the “X” above Twitter and the TWO Facebook apps, I had a pang of, actually what was that feeling? Was it desperation? Or was it relief?

    Twitter is part of my work, so I knew I wasn’t going to be able to rid myself fully of the little blue bird, but I’d have to log in via a browser, which I found to be a much better experience for my mental wealth.

    For the first three days, when I had a spare moment, I found myself, opening up my phone and looking for something. As I flipped through my apps, I had forgotten what I was looking for, but habit is so ingrained in our fibres, we still reach to do the thing that we always do. I guess this is withdrawal. The visual element of the Twitter / Facebook app logo had gone, but I was still looking for my connection fix.

    After the fourth day, I had rediscovered the Apple news app – and started reading actual news. News that is sourced, written, analysed and curated by real-life journalists. Yes, of course, there is bias in news, but if you choose a number of outlets, one from each side of the political divide and one in the middle (or indeed a specialist or niche site, like THEGAYUK.com – plug plug) you can get variety. Like your food diet, your news diet needs variety. Consuming only one type will ultimately leave your wanting, no, needing more.

    By the fifth day, I had totally forgotten about the apps and an added boon, my phone’s battery life went to last an entire day. Almost.

    By the seventh day, I actually felt calmer. I felt happier. I feel less stressed.

    I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep this up, but my mental wealth has boomed.

    As I travelled into London on the train, I looked around the carriage and was aware that everyone, regardless of their age was hunched over their phone. Tapping away. They were all obvious to the world around them. When did we become so disconnected from the real world?

    I looked out of the windows, the sun filtered through the glass. London looked beautiful. I felt happy to be alive. I felt happy to be disconnected in that moment.

    So if you find yourself getting angry over nothing, put down the phone, look out your window and take a deep breath.

     

     

  • COMMENT | What do we mean when we say Mental Health?

    I was taught there are 2 main groups of conditions that affect mental health and that they are:

    Mental Ill Health
    These are the types of conditions which occur as a result of trauma or tragedy, the workplace, home, relationships, the environment in which we live and our physical health.

    Many of us will visit our GP and accept medication and/or a referral to a mental health practitioner at some time. These types of short-term (up to 6 months) interventions help us to adapt and adjust to change

    Mental Illness
    These are acute conditions that are considered as being severe and enduring.

    Mental illness in this group is of the nature that requires long-term medication, monitoring of the person and at times periods of hospitalisation. Hospital admission is a last resort when someone deteriorates and becomes a danger of harm to themselves or others.

    General

    The reasons for a change in someone’s condition can be many and varied from something as simple as neglect. From not eating regularly or taking their medication as prescribed they may experience an acute episode.

    I always reflect on us being a melting pot of chemistry and chemical reactions. By adding or taking something away or some change in routines and sleep patterns adverse effects can be experienced.

    Mental Health is indiscriminate and does not take into account, your ethnicity, age, gender, sexuality or any other character of diversity.

    In the same way, as we are all unique and individual, times of recovery and the severity of symptoms we each experience will be different. A diagnosis requires expert knowledge, training and experience.

    Opinions expressed in this article may not reflect those of THEGAYUK, its management or editorial teams. If you’d like to comment or write a comment, opinion or blog piece, please click here.

  • COMMENT | Know your gay acronyms: When CBT doesn’t mean CBT

    CBT but not that CBT!

    When working in social housing the company which employed me, diversified and began to take on service users with severe and enduring mental illness.

    The brother of a colleague was a mental health practitioner. He came in to do some training and talk us through the manifestation of conditions so we would know what to expect.

    I don’t think he was prepared for us knowing absolutely nothing. I had to keep interjecting and explaining some of the jargon he used and asking him to define other terms that were also unknown to me.

    It had been a very tense session as many of my colleagues were unsure if they wanted to remain as support workers to the new user group. This demystifying and understanding of terms, explaining common diagnosis and interventions was invaluable to us.

    Then he started to talk about CBT, and in the corner, his gay brother collapsed into raptures of hysterical laughter. The sort of laughter that is contagious. The others did not know why they were laughing, or what the trigger for it had been. Our trainer was looking completely puzzled by it all.

    I too was guilty of sharing in the laughing, mostly because I was the only one in the room that knew what was funny. Finally, I regained some composure and explained the term CBT had been used as a reference to Cognitive Behaviour Therapy and not Cock and Ball Torture, which is why the gay brother had fallen about laughing.

    In a world of acronyms, it is inevitable there will be a duplication of some. CBT is unfortunate as it stands for 3 that are known to me Compulsory Basic Training to ride a motorbike being the third.