Author: Kathy Marshack

Bullies come in all shapes and sizes. You can’t always go by appearances. A bully might be a sweet-looking girl on the playground, a smiling tourist getting on your tour bus, or a lawyer entering city hall. Yes, children and adults alike are being bullied today.Bullying is aggressive behavior that is characterized by two basic hallmarks:
1. Repeated and deliberate abuse
2. Exploitation of a power imbalance – preying on those who are weaker

Bullying is divided into four basic types of abuse that often involves subtle methods of coercion, such as intimidation.

Verbal bullying includes:
Teasing, taunting, name-calling
Inappropriate sexual comments
Threatening to cause harm

Social (relational) bullying includes:
Leaving someone out on purpose
Telling other children not to be friends with someone
Spreading rumors about someone
Embarrassing someone in public

Physical bullying includes:
Hitting/kicking/pinching/tripping/pushing/spitting
Taking or breaking someone’s things
Making mean or rude hand gestures

Cyber bullying includes:
Posting hurtful or embarrassing comments, rumors, pictures, or videos about someone.
Threatening to hurt someone or telling them to kill themselves.
Creating a harmful webpage about someone.
Doxing – destroying their victim’s privacy by making all personal information public.

Now that bullying is so wide-spread, how are you and your family going to protect yourselves? Bullies don’t play by the rules of good conduct that we learned as children. They register EmD-0 on my Empathy Scale, which means they’ve lost their power of empathy. So we have to learn new rules of conduct to survive their threats. To address this urgent need, I’m writing a series of articles for the US~Observer. The first one is entitled: “Do You Have What it Takes to Survive a Bully?’ In it, I state:

The key to stopping a bully is to become more resilient. Throw out all your preconceived notions of how to stop bullies. Speaking your mind, offering a compromise, hiring attorneys to protect you, trusting that you’ll get your day in court — none of this works. In fact, these tactics make matters worse. Why? Because the psychopath who is after you is fearless. They won’t stop if you prove them wrong. They just double down. They love having you confront them with a “piece of your mind.” If they get you angry, you are off balance and easier to manipulate. Likewise, offers of compromise are viewed by the psychopath as weakness and something to exploit. Lastly, why on earth would you want your day in court? By then (usually two or more years later) the psychopath has totally ruined your life. All you’ll get in court is a stiff legal bill and maybe lose your case despite the truth.

By becoming fearless, pragmatic, doing your research, trusting yourself first, and a few other essentials you can become Resilient, with a capital R. If you’d like to learn more about how you can develop this protective quality, please feel free to download the first chapter of my book, “WHEN EMPATHY FAILS – How to stop those hellbent on destroying you.” Or you can purchase the book on Amazon.

Read a complimentary issue of the US~Observer here:
http://www.usobserver.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/usobserver-ed2-num49-vWEB.pdf

What happens when a child with ADD or ADHD grows up? Do they outgrow their ADD/ADHD, so their lives become smooth sailing? Far from it! They become adults with ADD/ADHD, which has its own set of problems. One of which is a lifetime’s accumulation of shame.“For many people with ADHD, shame arises from the repeated failure to meet expectations from parents, teachers, friends, bosses, and the world,” says Dr. William Dodson. Shame is so insidious, because it strikes at the core of who we are as people. It’s a much stronger emotion than guilt, because guilt is felt over something you’ve done. Shame attacks your worth as a person.

Shame is hard to deal with because we keep it hidden, so it doesn’t get resolved. With ADHD, you’re always being reminded that you’ve failed to measure up to what’s expected of you. You may even be stigmatized as lazy or willfully disruptive and disobedient. I’ve read one statistic that “children with ADHD receive 20,000 more negative messages by the age of 12.” What’s so harmful is that most of these critical messages are directed at the person, not at a specific deed or action.

Combine this negative feedback with feeling out of control and you have the recipe for a toxic mix of emotions – anger, rage, self-loathing, and shame. Some try to handle these feelings by striving for perfection, becoming a people pleaser, or blaming others. But those are not sustainable solutions for coping with ADD/ADHD.

What does work is having a good sense of humor. Laughing at yourself and your mistakes makes it easier to take responsibility and correct them. It takes practice, but self-acceptance and self-love are vital for healing and moving forward. It’s also important to find an ally or support group that can remind you of the goodness within you. When you become overly negative, your friends can help you adjust your attitude.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help. Breaking this cycle of failure and frustration is the primary goal of treatment for the ADD/ADHD adult. Clinical experience shows ADD/ADHD adults benefit from a multi-modal treatment – combining medications and psychosocial interventions. If your life feels out of control because of ADHD, and you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my Jantzen Beach office and schedule an appointment. I also offer online therapy if that works best for you.

Read more on my website: ADD/ADHD in Adults and Clear the Clutter.

When was the last time you participated in a hobby, just for the sake of having fun? You didn’t need to accomplish something…it didn’t matter how it turned out…you just wanted to have F.U.N.?In our culture, hobbies have been relegated to when you have free time, after your work is all done. But with today’s entrepreneurial lifestyle, more often than not, your hobby has become your work! So your work is never done and you no longer have a fun, creative outlet that lets you rest and refresh yourself. There’s always something begging for your time and attention. So who has time for a hobby anyway?

Well, according to research, you’ll be a lot healthier, happier and more productive, if you make the time for a hobby and just have fun! Hobbies can lower blood pressure, depression and stress. In the long run, they can also help you become more creative and a better problem solver.

Studies do show that having a hobby can make you more productive at work, but it’s important to remember that hobbies are meant to be time away from work and enjoyed for their own sake. After all, life is meant to be enjoyed, isn’t it?

You don’t need an extravagant amount of time or money to have a hobby. Just think about what interests you the most. What would you like to learn more about? Gardening? Painting? Quilting? Knitting? Photography? Cooking? Playing a musical instrument? By the way, watching TV is not a hobby.

Perfectionism often gets in the way of enjoying your chosen hobby. If so, it would be helpful to shift your thinking from achievement to just enjoying the process and seeing what you can learn about your activity and about yourself.

Don’t feel guilty about taking time for your hobby. A life well lived is all about enjoying the journey, not about accumulating money, possessions, position or living up to what others expect of you.

So what are you going to do that makes you feel more fully alive? I challenge you to start a new hobby this week. Or if you already have a hobby, take it to the next level. I’d love to hear about your chosen hobby. Come over to my Facebook page and let’s have fun sharing ideas.

Why can some people rise above tragedy, while others are swallowed up by it? We’re all human, so what do these overcomers have that sees them through difficult times with such grace and dignity?Psychologists have been grappling with this issue for years. While I don’t want to over simplify or minimize the suffering experienced, there’s a natural progression when tragedy strikes us personally – our emotions become highly engaged and then our dominant attitude takes over. Yes, attitude really is everything.

For example, if you’re prone to dwelling on the disappointment, you’ll sink into hopelessness and depression. If, on the other hand, you look for some meaning, you’ll bounce back more quickly. That forward-thinking, positive attitude is what fuels resilience.

Having a positive outlook in difficult circumstances is the most important predictor of how quickly you’ll recover from a tragedy. Resilience makes you better able to regulate your emotions, so you can maintain your optimism through anything.

I’ve found an interesting article in The Atlantic that collects together studies that show how a positive attitude, optimism and resilience are vital to coping with tragedy. This flies in the face of a popular strategy known as “venting.”

Ever since the time of Freud, psychologists have thought that people simply need to blow off steam to be happier. But venting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

Dwelling on your suffering for even a short length of time or venting through punching something or yelling at someone tends to make people feel worse, not better. It’s only when you seek the silver lining that you make some sort of sense out of tragedy. The ultimate key to facing adversity with resilience is to find meaning in it. Probe into the causes and consequences of the tragedy and become wiser because of it.

Through my years of work, I’ve observed that the highest form of empathy on the EmD Scale, the complex trait of Radiant Empathy, contributes to greater resilience. It makes it easier to transform negative feelings into positive ones, because you develop greater emotional flexibility. You can let go of the negative and shift to the positive more quickly.

This summer, I’m working on pulling together a new resource for you to learn more about Radiant Empathy. Be sure to sign up for my newsletter, then you’ll be one of the first to know when it’s available.

In the meantime, if you’d like to enlarge your empathic skills, read my new book, “WHEN EMPATHY FAILS,” which is a practical guidebook for developing this quality. Or if you prefer 1:1 counseling, and you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my Jantzen Beach office and schedule an appointment. I offer online therapy if that works better for you.

If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, July and August are beautiful summertime months! When you were a child, I bet you thought of summer as a time to rest, play and be free of the structure of school. But as an adult with responsibilities, it’s not so easy anymore, is it? Especially is this so, if you have Aspergers, a high functioning form of Autism, in your family.

The changes in routine make Aspies more anxious and more demanding. But we still need to find time for ourselves. What are you planning for this summer? Unless you purposefully carve out time for some R and R, it won’t happen. Here are some suggestions:

 

• sign up for a yoga retreat,
• go river rafting,
• take a painting class,
• go to the coast and walk on the beach,
• enjoy an outdoor concert,
• become a stargazer, or
• take some mornings off to read a book at your favorite coffee shop.

And if you’re a member of my Asperger Syndrome: Partners & Family of Adults with ASD group, please sign up for the low-cost video conference: “End of Summer Survival Skills,” on Tuesday, July 31st. This video call is all about nurturing yourself. Come to the call with ideas and questions about self-care. No doubt you used to take time for yourself. You need to do so again. It’s the key to taking back your life from our demanding Aspies.

Personally, I like to take off the month of August to regroup, reassess and relax. So this will be our last call of the season before September. Behind the scenes, I’ll be working on some exciting new things I hope to share with you soon.

Here’s a sneak peak…I’ve teamed up with AAPC (the largest publisher of books on autism) to bring you the most up-to-date resources on Asperger Syndrome (ASD). Pssst…I’m going to be doing a video blog for them! I’m excited and a bit nervous at the same time.

NOTE: If you didn’t catch my email to the Meetup group, I’m asking for your suggestions to make our membership site more user-friendly. Please come over to my Facebook page and share any suggestions you might have.

If you can’t relax because life’s stresses are too overwhelming, perhaps it’s time to reach out for some professional help. If you determine that you need assistance and live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my Jantzen Beach office and schedule an appointment. I also offer online therapy if that works best for your busy schedule.

Read more on my website: Managing Stress.

Everyday we see headlines that say, “Stress: The Killer Disease,” “Stress Is a Silent Killer,” or “Why Stress Is Deadly.” It’s no wonder people have adopted the opinion that all stress should be avoided. While I do agree that long-term, chronic, acute stress is harmful, some stress is beneficial and necessary for personal growth and development.The stress response can be an asset for raising levels of performance during critical events such as a sports activity, an important meeting, or in times of crisis. Appropriate and controllable stress also provides interest and motivation for greater achievement, while a lack of stress may lead to boredom and depression.

When we experience life’s challenges or adversities, our bodies secrete the hormones, cortisol and adrenaline. Cortisol stimulates the release of glucose for energy and activates the immune system, while adrenaline increases focus and attention. It also stimulates neural growth in the brain, which is critical for learning and memory.

The key to good parenting is not protecting kids from everyday adversity, but encouraging a positive attitude toward stress. Studies, like the ones at Stanford University, show that it’s possible to change our emotional and biological response to stress, just by adopting a healthy attitude toward stress.

As children overcome adversities, their self-confidence grows. They’ll feel more in control. And when people feel in control during adversity — whether they really are or not – they’re less impaired by stress. As parents, you can help your children adopt a confident, can-do attitude. Help them understand that perfection is not the goal. “Failing, learning from it, getting up and trying again until you succeed,” should be the message they receive.

It’s a difficult balancing act for parents, because we hate to see our children suffering. The temptation is to become an overly protective helicopter parent. However, parents who shield children from anxious-making experiences are preventing them from learning to be unafraid. Short-term stress promotes resilience.

The most helpful thing we can do as parents is to provide a supportive, loving environment that teaches them a healthy lifestyle – nutritious food, exercise, and plenty of sleep – and helpful coping skills. Paramount is teaching them to develop Radiant Empathy, so they can show compassion for others, while protecting themselves from the users and abusers in the world today. My new book, “WHEN EMPATHY FAILS,” is a practical guidebook for developing this quality.

Do you see room for improvement in your family’s stress management skills, but don’t know where to start? If you live near Portland, OR/Vancouver, WA please contact my Jantzen Beach office and schedule an appointment. I also offer online therapy if that works best for your busy schedule.