The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

Transcript

In The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com. Here's a question I received from Megan, and I think all of us can relate to part of it, but the intensity of it is pretty severe here.

What would you do in Megan's situation?

Dr. Kenner, my name is Megan, and I'm 22 years old. I'm going to school for psychology, but I'm stumped by my husband's problem. Joe is 25 years old, and any time he starts a new job, he has, for lack of better words, a mental breakdown.

Now that's what I meant. All of us can feel anxious starting a new job. There are lots of unanswered questions. Will I succeed? What will they demand? Will I like the person? Will it be a good fit? Will they treat me right? You have lots of unanswered questions that you can't have answered before you start the job.

So anyway, Joe is 25 years old, married to Megan, and having mental breakdowns before he starts a new job. Megan continues:

He physically shakes, has uncontrollable crying and nausea, and he has nothing but negative thoughts. He has been dealing with this for years, but it's steadily getting worse.

He also has this as a sidebar ? trichotillomania. Guess what that is? I'll tell you at the end. Trichotillomania, this has been diagnosed by our normal physician.

I have tried explaining that this problem is all in his head and that he has control over his anxiety. I have tried helping him work out the issues that he makes up about the job. He'll worry over things like whether or not he can do the job, how fast-paced it's going to be. It's like he gears himself up to fail when he starts the job.

However, he will freak out before he goes in, but usually halfway through the day he's fine. It's just the murderous two to three days or so before he starts the job that's a problem.

I'm 22 weeks pregnant and really can't afford to be stressed over him doing this again. Is there anything that you can suggest that I can do or that he does to help him? He does not have health insurance. Would you have any idea what this could be? I think if he knew what was wrong, maybe that would help him.

Thanks for any advice you can give!
Exclamation point, Megan.

Megan, it sounds like you diagnosed it. It sounds like the thoughts that he's having are producing enormous anxiety. If he's got all of these, ?Oh, my God. What if? What if I don't do a good job? What if it's fast-paced?? If he has all these thoughts that are gearing himself up to fail, then he is generating the emotion of anxiety.

But it's not that easy to just tell someone it's all in your head and to expect them to be able to know how to change it. Because to him, it feels very real, and he's going to feel somewhat powerless. These are very strong emotions that feel terribly convincing, that there's this doom hanging over him.

I would recommend, if he doesn't have a therapist, I would recommend getting some cognitive therapy books. And you could get ? there are anxiety books by Dr. David Burns, B-U-R-N-S. You can get the Anxiety and Phobia Workbook by Edmund Bourne, B-O-U-R-N-E. I think that one's on my website, DrKenner.com.

But he needs to recognize that it is his thinking that is triggering his autonomic nervous system, which gives you ? guess what? ? the shaking, the nausea. If he's sending himself some depressing thoughts, like: ?What if I fail as a father? What if I fail as a provider? What if you leave me?? You know, catastrophic thoughts.

We all can have stinking thinking, and we can get ourselves from a decent place to a pretty crummy place in almost a blink of an eye. So he needs to know how to identify these thoughts. How to look at: is there a reality base to these thoughts or not? And that's exactly what cognitive therapy will give him.

You can go to the website ? or he can ? AcademyofCT.org. That's also at my website, and you can look at the literature that they have, the information that they have on that website.

However, for you?

Hey, I gotta interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. Thirty seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Ellen will be back.

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?you can look at the literature that they have, the information that they have on that website. However, for you?

Oh, first, let me tell you what trichotillomania is. It's just a tic. It's a habit of pulling out your hair. And so ? you know something? I used to have a nervous habit of twirling my hair that drove my parents crazy. This one is a nervous habit of just picking out your hair. Whoever gave it the name of trichotillomania, I don't know, but it's not a big deal.

The main focus is you. You're pregnant, you're carrying a baby, and you want to protect yourself. So you need to have a conversation with him. You need to be able to say something to the order of:

?I want to be supportive of you, honey, and I want to also be good to myself, especially since I'm carrying the baby. I think the good news for you is that it is your thoughts that are triggering the anxiety. So you can get a book ? or another book is Mind Over Mood. You can get some books to help you out. Mind Over Mood is a terrific book that also is at my website, DrKenner.com.

And I don't think I can be your therapist, because when you talk to me, I get very stressed out, and it makes it worse for both of us, and it puts you in a one-down position. I think you'll feel better when you realize that it is within your control to change this with knowledge, and you can give yourself that knowledge.

Maybe we can even go to couples therapy. For example, if you have therapy, maybe you can get some individual counseling for yourself to deal with the stress of the marriage and the baby, and also some couples counseling.

So even though he doesn't have insurance, there's an enormous amount of information out there that he can even get for free if he takes the books out of the library.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this ad.

Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner.

What you are looking for in a romantic soulmate is someone who will treasure you for what you value most in yourself, who has most of the qualities you cherish and enjoy on a daily basis, someone with whom you share fundamental values and who makes you feel visible. Your soulmate is a person you are strongly attracted to, intellectually, emotionally and sexually.

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You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy the book at Amazon.com.