Are you neurotic, narcissist or neurotypical?

Regardless of how hurtful people can be, if we are in a relationship with them, we tend to assume that they share our similar values. But this isn’t always true. And this common assumption can get us in a lot of trouble, especially with narcissists.

While there are others that think like us (to some degree), these days, we regularly encounter people who shock us.  We find ourselves saying, “How could they say (or do) such a thing?”  “Doesn’t he/she care about my feelings?” And if we love the person, we might find ourselves making excuses for a person who has hurt us because we want so desperately to hold onto our original view of the person we fell in love with in the first place.

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How to dissolve hate into love

In the book “The War for Kindness” Jamil Zaki, Ph.D. shares the story of Toni McAleer, a former neo-Nazi organizer and skin-head in Vancouver, BC. The music culture, which fostered bigotry, drew him in. McAleer felt accepted in this culture, and thus embraced it and eventually became a leader recruiting others. He even built communities online and set up racist hotlines. They were designed to promote racism. In the process of organizing far-right Aryan existence activities, he lost compassion for people outside his own racial group.

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The Key to Resiliency

Doctor Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, survived 4 Nazi concentration camps and was a neurologist and psychiatrist. He had an early interest in psychotherapy, and by the time he was in medical school, he organized special youth counselling centers to address suicides, which were happening in large numbers after receiving report cards. Frankl was able to recruit many notable psychologists at the time, and in 2 years,

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Three Root Causes of Addiction

In The Realm of the Hungry Ghost, Dr. Gabor Mate, brilliantly and compassionately describes the plight of Vancouver’s hardcore drug addicts.

Drug addicts are society’s outcasts.  With their difficult behaviors, and their tendency to lie or steal things to keep their addiction going, it’s tough to love and feel compassion for an addict.

But Dr. Mate eloquently reminds us, that far more of us are addicts than we realize.  We might not want to identify with a drug addict, but if we reflect on our own habits, we might realize how hard it is to fight addictions.  We can be addicted to a huge variety of things, including work, success, shopping, sex, screen time, coffee or a favorite food.   An addiction is anything we have a compulsion to do, that we don’t feel like we have the ability to stop.   How many of us are truly in control of our behaviors all the time?

Regardless of whether the addiction is considered acceptable or unacceptable by society, it often interferes with our relationships.  Our significant other’s needs are often dismissed when we are in the middle of an addiction frenzy.

Why do so many of us struggle with addictions?

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Opioids vs. natural pain relief

How to become an opioid addict

Sally was a college student who was prescribed Nicodin (an opioid) by her doctor after a surgery to repair her foot.  At first, she just took it to relieve the pain.  But then she noticed the buzz she got and the confidence that came with it.  She started taking it simply because she liked how it made her feel.  It wasn’t long before she found she needed a higher dose to get the same effect.  So she ran out before she was due for a refill.   She went to another doctor to get more, but as she had to keep increasing her dose to get the same effect, she had to keep finding new doctors to keep up with her growing demand.

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Taming the Sugar Monster

The Sugar monster

I had a client who had a sugar addiction, and found it impossible to resist sweets.   People were regularly bringing in baked goods and candy to work.  And it wasn’t usual for him to eat an entire serving tray of cookies!

He often said his sugar addiction was so bad that it was even easier to give up alcohol!   He had been eating this way for his entire life, and so had others in his family of origin!

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