Mind Gym

Mental Floss

Q. I'm back on the job seventeen weeks after the birth of my second son. My first will be five in August. When he was born I remained at home for a full eight months. This time I was eager to get back to my office, and my office was certainly not prepared to be without me much longer.

I told myself that the novelty of caring for a newborn was not quite the same the second time around, although the love is just as great, and that now I have live-in help, and that my career has worked out well - - so well that I really can't be away for eight months at a stretch. When I say this to people though, I feel guilty and ashamed. I mention that I'm a new mom again and people ask about my baby. When I say he's three months old I find people questioning my leaving him with a nanny all day. I think I should be able to handle these comments without feeling the way I do. The feelings are so uncomfortable that I'm starting to avoid telling people about my baby?

A. This is a dilemma you can immediately do something about. The solution is to take feelings that you have classified as "bad" or "unhealthy" or "unacceptable" and reclassify them as normal, understandable, and basically okay. Yes, I know this sounds like simplistic dribble, but it's not. In fact, doing what I have just suggested is quite complex and difficult. So much so that many people have paid me a lot of money over the years to help them learn how to do it.

To begin with, you are naming the feelings you are having now that you are back at work as "guilt and shame." The distinction between these two is quite important. Guilt is a feeling that results from doing, from an action. I am guilty about something I have done. I feel guilty because I lied to my partner. I feel guilty about leaving the dog locked in the car while I shopped for so long. Shame is a feeling attached to who one is, not what one does. I am not ashamed of what I did, I am ashamed of who I am. The most common expression of shame is, "I'm ashamed of myself." This dark stain of shame is one that goes right to my core and cannot be easily removed. Guilt, on the other hand, is more of a surface stain.

I believe you fit into the guilty category as you seem to be saying that you may not approve of what you are doing (leaving a 3 month old at home) rather than expressing disapproval for who you are as a person. Now we have to clarify what you are truly guilty about. You may not realize it but guilt, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder. I see a woman who has created a brother for her first son, who has striven to build a homelife complete with the extra set of hands needed, who has met the responsibility of meeting her own "work outside the home" needs along with the "in home" needs, and who is meeting the challenge of an everchanging world. I also see a woman who has a natural and meaningful ambivalence about her "dual career lifestyle" (it's probably more realistically at least a quadruple career lifestyle). Can you abandon your harsh self-perception and replace it with my view of you instead? All you have to do is click on the folder containing your view of yourself and drag it to the recycling bin. Now click on the folder holding my view of you and your situation and drag it to the Self-Perception Directory.

Simple? Of course not, but do it anyway. Do it again and again until it becomes second nature. You seem to be a woman who can do difficult things. The secret is to C O P E which, in this case, stands for Control Our Personal Experiences. We cannot control most of what life has in store for us . . . but we can interpret each experience for ourselves in words of understanding and compassion. Yes, I know this is corny stuff, but it works. Start telling yourself that, "Staying home with my two sons now, in the same precise manner as I did five years ago when I had only one child, would be a foolish mistake. I have changed or grown, as has my world and relationships." If you want you can substitute the word "Color" for "Control." It seems to work better for more visual people. Color your personal experiences with the colors of health, power, determination, empathy, etc. - - - whatever colors those happen to be in your mind's eye. As Renee Descartes said in 1637 (do you remember Renee?), "It's not enough to have a good mind. The main thing is to use it well." You are obviously using a good mind quite effectively much of the time. Don't let your life be guided by people who are obviously not doing the same. Perhaps they lack the internal equipment to do so. I have said a number of things that will be of help to you in my answers to others below.

I suggest you read the rest of this month's column, then read it again. While I'm on the subject, I asked a bunch of my colleagues to each write a short paragraph about "guilt." I'm hoping to get their responses within the next few weeks and feature it here as "And now a word about GUILT. The Experts Speak!"

Q. The word for me is stressed. I'm a nurse practitioner in a university based obstetric practice. My responsibilities are the same as any of the physicians and we are all busy all the time. I work more than full time, I am a mother more that full time, and I manage to have a little bit of a social life whenever I can.

My closest girlfriend is my age (37), a full time homemaker and mother of three children (6 -11 years old), and pretty happily married to a culinary institute graduate who opened his second restaurant about two years ago. He works about 14 hours a day, especially in the late evenings from the dinner rush to closing. Her mother (about 72) recently had a hip fracture and has not been doing well. Two weeks ago her mother was moved to a convalescent facility. She continues not doing well. My girlfriend is at the facililty all the time. Her husband is pissed off because she keeps asking him to be home for the kids during the day inbetween his serving lunch and dinner at the restaurant. I have become her emergency evening babysitter. I love the kids. I'm really more like an aunt than their mom's friend. But I can't keep doing this. I'm too guilty to tell her I can't continue watching the kids at night.

I'm too angry and tired not to tell her. I think I'm going to self-destruct instead!

A. For many people, self-destruction is a viable alternative. Have you thought about exactly how you will self-destruct?

In general, there are three usual ways: (1) physical breakdown, like bronchitis, or migraine headaches, or a herniated disk, or some exotic disease resulting from your immune system's loss of potency; (2) mental breakdown, like debilitating depression, or anxiety attacks, or possible out of body trips without the benefit of a return ticket; (3) a combination of both 1 and 2.

It doesn't matter whether you pick #1, #2, or #3. The result will be the same. That is, you will not be looking after your friend's kids, and you won't even be asked to look after those kids, because you will be heavily medicated and convalescing at home or some kind of health care facility. The extra bonus here is that your friend will be overwhelmed with guilt herself, believing that she pushed you into this state of failed health. If you decide, instead, to tell your friend that you are emotionally and physically depleted and unable to serve any further, the result will be somewhat similar as you will no longer be acting as your friend's backup sitter. The great difference, of course, is that both you and she will recover from this bump in the road of your friendship. If you continue with the "self-destruct" solution, which you brought up in your question, there is every possibility that no one will recover.

As a health practitioner, I suspect you realize that disease comes from dis - ease. Stay healthy.

Q. I have been working full time for about a year now. My youngest daughter is 4. And she is in pre school 3 days a week, and I am very lucky I have a wonderful Grandma that baby sits the rest of the days until 5:00 P.M. But I can't seem to get anything done. And I sincerely miss my daughters when I'm at work. I feel very torn apart. Because I really like my job. But I love my Girls. HELP.

A. The problem here is that you have a thought disorder. No, I doubt that you need medication. You just need to examine the language and content of your own thoughts. They need to be more precise, more accurate. You state in your question, "But I can't seem to get anything done." I didn't make that up - - - you said it! Are you delusional? I don't even know your name, let alone anything much about you, but I know this statement is absurd. You are raising two young children. They are fed, bathed, clothed, gotten up and out in the morning, put to bed at night, brought to the pediatrician, taken on play dates, etc. You have arranged for a "Grandma" to babysit while you are "working full time for about a year now." If you can't get anything done, who is making all of this happen? You also state that you "sincerely miss" your daughters when you are at work. I think you and they are lucky that you do.

I live with the nightmare of "visitation." When the court asked me what visitation schedule I wanted I said, "None." I then explained that I would never consider my time with my children a "visit." I share slices of life with them, we don't visit. I find that I begin to miss them while we are still together, before I even return them to their mother's home. It is sort of an "anticipatory missing" that, while painful, also helps us to treasure our moments together. Keep on missing your children, but do what you have to do anyway.

The way to not feel "torn apart" is to stop telling yourself that you are torn apart. Speak to yourself more precisely and more lovingly. Show yourself some compassion and appreciation for all you do and all you are. Tell yourself ,"It's hard juggling my time at work and my time with my girls, but I can do it, I am doing it. And while I'm doing it I'm teaching my girls how to balance their own needs and desires." It's easier to quickly say, "I feel very torn apart." Don't take the easy way out. One of the most incredible things about the human mind is that the mind believes what it tells itself. Tell yourself that your routine is "killing you" and your mind will take that thought, convert it into a feeling, and then flood your body with that feeling. Tell yourself "this is hard but I'll get by" and your mind will convert that thought into a feeling and flood the body with that feeling instead. At the end of your rope? Tell yourself you are tying a huge knot in the end of that rope and that you can hang on endlessly.

Are you aware of how you search for the right words, facial expressions, and tone of voice when you talk to your daughters? Do the same when talking to yourself (known as thinking)

*The "guilt parade" seems endless. This next question is presented exactly as written and touches upon one of the most crucial bits of misunderstanding that one can fall victim to.

Q.Please address the issue of single parenting . . . only you are the grandparent raising the child alone, so you've experienced not only divorce and loss from that, but also dealing with your own child's abandonment of their child, and, in essence, you too. How do you come to terms with that? How do you handle the child's questions and hurt? What do you tell them of the other parent who also left?

Is there any way to help that child deal with the anger, hurt, abandonment and enable that child to grow in such a way that he can trust others and become a stable parent himself. And what of the grandparents life? It is basically on hold. There is absolutely no support system. Friends are past child rearing. Your other children do not want to babysit. You are totally alone. You do not want to have this lovely child ever think of themselves as a burden because they are such a blessing, however you would like to get on with your life too. Meanwhile, you are getting older and . . . .

A. I' ve avoided composing an answer to your question because I find it so hard to do. The answer is easy. How to go about telling it to you is the hard part. Every client I work with speaks, in my view, their own language. I quickly master their language and thus, I make myself understood. But how should I answer you? The whole tone of your question irritates me. How much of my irritation should I reveal in my answer? What the hell, let's go for it.

The answer is No, No, No, No, No, No, No! Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong! You have not only missed the boat, but perhaps the entire ocean and surrounding continents as well! When I was going through my divorce I met a man at Parents Without Partners and we became great friends to this day. His situation with his wife and child was very similar to my own. We began to do what I have discovered to be a favorite pasttime of single parents. That is to compare notes and experiences as to whose abandonment, emotional and physical exhaustion, and resulting situation is worse. Ultimately, and this is an absolutely true story, my new friend and I came to a stalemate. Our situations seemed equally horrific. In order to break the tie we had to battle over who had the most difficult attorney to deal with, him or I? We fired stories from the divorce front at each other, our mouths blazing and belching flame. When the smoke cleared, we discovered we both had the same attorney. I did prove to be the greater of the two victims, however, as this attorney was charging me $75.00 an hour more than he was charging my friend!

All of us in the single parenting role have our own version of all of the concerns and fears you mention. How do I manage to see myself as a whole person and enable the children in my care to do the same? The answer is attitude - - - and I fear that yours is certainly damaging your grandchildren right now. As a result, I cannot and will not mince words. You state that your life as your grandchildren's primary caretaker "is basically on hold" and that you would "like to get on with your life too." Life cannot be put "on hold." Life moves forward on earth and then life, as we know it, ends. There's no time out or a "free parking" like in monopoly. If you are unlucky enough, and probably male, there is a "go directly to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200," but that's a story for another time.

Your life is "getting on" right now. THIS IS YOUR LIFE. It's not that some cosmic plan went awry and left you trapped in a body in the wrong time and place. This is your life. You were not cheated out of the life you were "supposed" to have. I am a great student of Zen but I don't believe that you are paying some great price due to bad karma. The distance between the life you are now living, and the life you THINK you should be living, is a large gap filled with disappointment and anguish. That disappointment and anguish, tinged with bitterness and anger, is HIGHLY CONTAGIOUS and apt to infect the people you love the most.If you truly want your grandchildren to become loving and stable adults, you will need to find a way to make that gap as narrow as possible.

In the final analysis, what our children get from us is our mood and attitude toward life. Start loving your life, Grandma. You may miss itwhen it's gone. I sincerely hope this answer will be helpful. Please write again and let me know.

Send your questions to Dr. Ted at: drtedsaid@fathersworld.com

Dr. Ted Horowitz is a psychotherapist who specilaizes in coaching divorced and widowed parents to manage their lives with optimum effectiveness. His practice is in Queens and Port Jefferson Station, NY. He is a single father of four.

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