The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish path to romance. Download chapter one for free at Dr. Kenner.com.

Right before the break, I was talking about reading you a question that I received from a mother who actually is not a mother, but a relative who signs her name Helpless in Chicago. She’s helpless because her sister has a 10-year-old daughter who has started hearing voices. This is a middle child whose older sister is very hurtful to her or who just totally ignores her. So imagine being in that household. Maybe you experienced that firsthand, whose dad is home a lot. This 10-year-old kid who's hearing voices. Her dad is in the house a lot, but Dad doesn't know how to relate to his children, so forget him. Mom is out of the picture because she's too busy with the three-year-old son. So now this girl is hearing voices. How do we make any sense of this? They're on a fixed income. They don't have any insurance. So this is not a very productive family. I mean, these parents are not knowing how to parent, that they don't have a lot of skills, and this young 10-year-old feels invisible. She doesn't have her grounding; she doesn't have her bearings in this family.

So my guess is that she's gone through a range of emotions, and she's tried many things to reach out to her parents or her sister or her brother, and she's ended up just feeling trapped inside herself. Nobody sees her; nobody listens to her, or when they do, it's negative, like with her older sister. So she's got this profound hurt, this sadness, this anger; there's no clarity. She can't make sense of the world. It doesn't seem like a great place to live in, so she hears voices. Why does that happen?

Well, I've worked with many, many traumatized children and adults, and what I've seen is that they try to build an imaginary world for themselves. Some of them build an imaginary world that's positive. They speak to a stuffed animal, or they imagine themselves being a best friend who has better parents and has a happier situation. Or they connect with a teacher at school and pretend the teacher is their parent. They concoct new realities for themselves. They're not actual realities, but they concoct these images to make it bearable for them to get through the day.

Now, these are coping strategies that as a child may preserve a better sense for themselves, but they don't help you long-range. You need to be able to always focus on the facts to help you out and see that better people do exist—not just what's in your family. So I get the picture with this child that she's like she’s got a Band-Aid over her mouth. Nobody listens to her; nobody cares. And so sometimes, hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

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I get the picture with this child that she's like she’s got a Band-Aid over her mouth. Nobody listens to her; nobody cares. And so sometimes kids don't invent good fantasies, but they invent negative ones—that they're bad, that they should be punished, and that she's a bad girl. If she's a bad girl, bad girls do bad things, like hurt a classmate. You say that in your longer email, you said it was not physical but hurt herself, because if she's bad, she's got to be punished or at least it gets attention from her parents, and maybe some secondary gains there. Secondary gains— you act out to get the attention of somebody and then keep acting to get that attention.

So my suggestion is that as a relative, you could listen to her, ask her what it's like in her family. If they could afford sliding scale therapy, seeing a therapist, that would be great to get the whole family into therapy. But as you're asking as the relative, what can you do? And I would say that if you're a very good listener, maybe she'll open up to you, and she'll have less need to hurt herself. You can correct some wrong ideas that she's holding in her head, and obviously, help her deal with connecting better with classmates. She'll need some social skills there.

And I think the fundamental is to help Dad and Mom. Obviously, this would be the therapy work, to help Dad and Mom learn how to be better parents and attend to her and not let her suffer the middle child syndrome. One last comment on that email—much more serious. Sometimes a child will act this way or hear voices or withdraw into her own world because she's been abused. So you definitely want to look for signs of abuse—whether there are burn marks, cut marks, bite marks, any fear of adults, hostility, seductiveness. Maybe just physical abuse, or it may be sexual abuse. Any self-injury is a tip-off occasion to some abuse. Sexual abuse, secretiveness, fear of a particular person, maybe a very big change in her behavior—maybe bedwetting when she's not done that in the past. So you want to, hopefully, you'll be able to reach out and rule that one out. And if it's not the case, get her some help ASAP, as soon as possible.

Okay, I mentioned I would say some things about focus earlier in the show, and that's what I want to go to now. What happens when your mind wanders? You need to focus on your homework, or you need to get a project done, or you need to pay your bills, or you need to get directions and really focus well on what someone says, and your mind just wanders. Why is that the case?

Well, first of all, there are many different things that we can focus on in life. And so if you just go on autopilot, your mind could be attracted by Miss January walking by down the street, and you need to focus on driving rather than Miss January. So you need to be able to have the skills to be at the helm of your own mind, to be at the driver's wheel of your own mind. So how do you do that?

Well, partly, it's asking yourself some questions like, "What will I feel best having accomplished today?" Make a to-do list. But not only make a to-do list, prioritize so you've got some guided focus for your day. If you just go by the seat of your pants, who knows what you'll end up doing during the day? Usually, the easiest things are the things that are least emotional, or sometimes we're distracted by the most emotional things. We've got a problem with our kids, but we have to pay the bills, but we just keep focusing on the problem with the kids.

Well, make a note. Write down, you know, I will work on the problem with Jody later on in the day. Right now, I'm going to pay my bills, and now make a promise to yourself to come back to that. Also, notice, sometimes our focus is diverted because we’re doing a boring task like homework. It can be boring. You need to look at the bigger picture. Why am I doing this homework? Well, I'm doing it because, and then you'll see the value, because I want the career of being a designer when I'm older. So I need to focus on this math now, even though I don't enjoy it. Sometimes it’s tired. You’re very tired.

I used to study late into the night. In an article in Good Housekeeping by Janice Graham, she talks about windows of alertness. You want to take advantage of when your peak time is during the day and do your most important thing during your prime time. Also, you need to cut out distractions. Susie Orman, in a Time Magazine talk, says, "When I'm writing, I don't answer phones. I don't care what else is going on. You can't call me. I only call you." I think you have to stop thinking you're at everyone else's beck and call. You cannot complete your thoughts with everything ringing.

So that helps too. Just saying no—not allowing yourself to go to all the emails and the phone calls, all those distractors—also build in some breaks and have a standing order, something like "stay on task" or "focus," something like that. I'm Dr. Ellen Kenner. Coming up, we're going to talk about the difference between having just a job, a boring job, and you can't wait till the weekends, and a productive career—something that you can't wait to wake up in the morning and enjoy.

Dr. Ellen Kenner, on the rational basis of happiness.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. Okay, I mentioned I would say some things about focus earlier in the show, and that's what I want to go to now. What happens when your mind wanders? You need to focus on your homework, or you need to get a project done, or you need to pay your bills, or you need to get directions and really focus well on what someone says, and your mind just wanders. Why is that the case?

Well, first of all, there are many different things that we can focus on in life, and so if you just go on autopilot, your mind could be attracted by Miss January walking by down the street, and you need to focus on driving rather than Miss January. So you need to be able to have the skills to be at the helm of your own mind, to be at the driver's wheel of your own mind. So how do you do that?

Well, partly, it's asking yourself some questions like, "What will I feel best having accomplished today?" Make a to-do list. But not only make it to-do list, prioritize so you've got some guided focus for your day. If you just go by the seat of your pants, who knows what you'll end up doing during the day? Usually, the easiest things are the things that are least emotional, or sometimes we're distracted by the most emotional things. We've got a problem with our kids, but we have to pay the bills, but we just keep focusing on the problem with the kids.

Well, make a note. Write down, you know, I will work on the problem with Jody later on in the day. Right now, I'm going to pay my bills, and I’ll make a promise to yourself to come back to that. Also, notice, sometimes our focus is diverted because we're doing a boring task like homework. It can be boring. You need to look at the bigger picture. Why am I doing this homework? Well, I'm doing it because, and then you'll see the value, because I want the career of being a designer when I'm older, so I need to focus on this math now, even though I don't enjoy it.

Sometimes it’s tiring. You’re very tired. I used to study late into the night. In an article in Good Housekeeping by Janice Graham, she talks about windows of alertness. You want to take advantage of when your peak time is during the day and do your most important thing during your prime time. Also, you need to cut out distractions. Susie Orman, in a Time Magazine talk, says, "When I'm writing, I don't answer phones. I don't care what else is going on. You can't call me. I only call you." I think you have to stop thinking you're at everyone else's beck and call. You cannot complete your thoughts with everything ringing.

So that helps too. Just saying no—not allowing yourself to go to all the emails and the phone calls, all those distractors—also build in some breaks and have a standing order, something like "stay on task" or "focus," something like that.

And here's a little more from Dr. Kenner. It's very weird. I'm feeling that stupid panic thing inside me all the time. Today on the bus, there was this adorable couple. I found myself—oh, give it up, a dirty look. And that’s from As Good as It Gets.

And notice she said she's panicky, but she's tearful. She's crying through this. So she's not only uncertain; panic—the emotion of anxiety—tells you that I'll never get this value for myself. I'll never have a romantic partner. That's what she must be telling herself. And yet the sadness is there. If she, the anxiety is saying, "Will I ever have it?" There's a lot of uncertainty, and the sadness is answering it, "No, you'll never have that. You'll never have that happiness in your life."

And then she looks out at people who have this value that feels unreachable for her, and she feels jealous and envious and very sad. Very... She's made herself, unfortunately, into her victim. So you don't want to do that to yourself. If you're feeling the anxiety, take a look at it. What's uncertain? Where are your self-doubts? Or what's the uncertainty? Do you not know how to go about finding a romantic relationship and doing it well for yourself? If you feel sadness, don't give up on your losses that are still obtainable. Don't ever do that.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to Dr. Kenner.com and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

Communication is not only verbal. Observe how your partner acts in different situations. How one acts is a form of communication, inadvertent or not, and it can reveal valuable clues to your partner's values and deepest feelings. For example, does your partner withdraw in the face of conflict? Is your partner easily angered or depressed by criticism? Does your lover get excited when you dress or undress in certain ways? Do your partner's moods change in predictable or unpredictable ways in response to people or events? Such observations set the stage for ongoing communication.

You can download chapter one for free by going to Dr. Kenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance at Amazon.com.