#AnsweredByMM

[missmentelle]

How do you think we can make the foster care system better?

Honestly, by making sure as few kids end up in it as possible.

Contrary to popular belief, physical abuse is not the most common reason that kids end up in foster care. Only 13% of kids taken into foster care are there because their parents physically abused them. The biggest reason that kids end up in foster care is actually neglect - neglect is the primary cause of 62% of foster care referrals.

When you look at those numbers, though, it's important to remember that "neglect" doesn't necessarily mean that parents withheld food and necessities from their children because they were careless or lazy or cruel - it often includes parents who desperately want to provide the necessities to their children, but can't afford to do so. Many jurisdictions don’t really make a distinction between kids whose parents purposely starved them and kids whose working parent left them home alone because she couldn’t afford daycare - that makes it hard to really know what we’re dealing with here. 

And you might be surprised to learn what child protective services considers to be "necessary" for children. In most parts of Canada, for instance, children over the age of 5 are not supposed to share a bedroom with opposite-sex siblings. Having six-year-old fraternal twins share a bedroom can be categorized as neglect; technically, the parent is failing to provide the children with adequate housing. But of course, the genders of your children don't influence how much money you get from your employer or from public assistance. In my area, a mother with a boy and a girl is required to rent a larger apartment for her family than a mother with two boys - but it's up to her to find the money to afford that. Partitioning one room or co-sleeping with the children is not allowed, and is also considered neglect. It might sound ridiculous, but I have worked with multiple families that have ended up on CPS radar because of this, even if family co-sleeping is the norm in their culture.

1 in 10 children in the US foster care system are there at least partially because their parents don’t have adequate housing. Keep in mind, there are 424,000 children in the US foster care system on an average day - that means that housing was a major factor for more than 42,000 of them. Before we can truly reform the system, we need to understand what it is, exactly, that we’ve created - and what we’ve created is an incredibly expensive, inefficient and culturally insensitive system that is stretched so thin by the task of “solving child poverty” that it can’t do what it was actually designed to do, which is protecting abused children. Instead of a child protective system, we have an intergenerational meat grinder that effectively turns traumatized children into traumatized adults who create more traumatized children to go back into the system. Around and around we go. 

The question of how to “fix” foster care could be a doctoral thesis, and it’s a far bigger problem than any one person can solve. But my few cents as someone who has worked with at-risk and homeless youth for nearly a decade now would be:

Dramatically increase affordable housing. Trying to fix child homelessness with foster care is like trying to put out a grease fire with a sledgehammer - it’s not solving the problem, and it’s only causing more damage. Truly affordable housing would keep many families off CPS radar - if affordable housing was available, many victims of family violence would be better able to flee their violent partner with their children. Calls to CPS because families are living in cars or shelters would cease to exist. “Fixing housing” is easier said than done, but I don’t think we’ll ever solve foster care without also addressing this.

Decolonize child welfare standards. In most parts of the US and Canada, child welfare standards adhere closely to Western European parenting practices. Things that other cultures have been doing for generations - like co-sleeping - can land non-white families in trouble with CPS. And there are huge discrepancies in how child welfare standards are applied - wealthy white families can homeschool, deny their children medical treatment and co-sleep without CPS knocking on their doors, but Indigenous families cannot say the same. 

Create universal affordable childcare. Many families needlessly end up on CPS’s radar because their parents cannot afford childcare. Single working moms of colour have found themselves losing their children - or even facing prison time - after leaving their children unsupervised to work or attend job interviews. Compounding the issue is the fact that many working-class parents have shiftwork jobs, making it even harder to secure childcare.

Improve access to free and confidential family planning education and services. People who find themselves with unplanned pregnancies that they are not financially or emotionally ready for are at greater risk of ending up on CPS’s radar. When people are given access to family planning resources, they are better able to delay pregnancy until they feel more prepared. 

Improve wraparound supports and early intervention. Removing a child from a home is - and should always be - a last resort. CPS are often alerted to at-risk families before they reach the point where removal is required. To truly do their job of protecting children, CPS needs more resources to offer these families in order to help them stay together in a healthier way. Culturally sensitive in-home and community-based supports, including mental health supports, addictions supports, and material supports, should be immediately available to all families who are potentially at risk. 

Offer greater support for placements within families or communities of origin. Sometimes parents unfortunately just aren’t a healthy or safe option for their children. There are always going to be cases where that’s simply the reality of the situation. Many of these children, though, may have a family member who would be willing to take them in with the proper supports - which they can’t afford on their own. Offering more resources to family placements could help a lot of children stay within their families of origin instead of being sent to live with strangers. Likewise, many children from small communities - particularly Indigenous communities - end up being sent hundreds of miles away for foster care placements because the resources for them simply don’t exist in their communities. Ending this practice and committing to caring for children in their own community would help children grow up more connected to their roots and culture.

Decrease CPS worker caseloads. Many of the systemic issues with the foster care system stem, at least in part, from how abysmally and unbelievably overburdened the system is. There are too few workers and placements for far too many kids. In the US, the average CPS caseworker has 67 children on their caseload - in six states, the average is over 100. Nobody can provide adequate care to a caseload of 67 children, many of whom may have complicated cases. It’s just not possible. The workload contributes to the immense amounts of burnout and high turnover within child services - the average turnover rate (how many staff quit every year) for most agencies is 23-60%, with some agencies actually exceeding 90% annual turnover. We have a system of new, inexperienced workers burning out and passing on their enormous caseloads to newer, even less experienced workers and everyone is worse for it.

Provide more training, resources and support for foster parents. Many of the children entering foster care have complex trauma, as well as complex mental or physical health needs. Some areas do a better job of preparing foster parents for this reality than others - and everyone suffers when foster parents don’t have the resources and education that they need to meet children’s needs. 

Extend aftercare supports well into adulthood. Many youth make an abrupt exit from foster care - at some point between age 18-21 they suddenly “age out” of supports, at which point they are effectively on their own. Some areas do offer supports that extend into a youth’s early 20s, but many of these areas require youth to be full-time post-secondary students to continue receiving support - youth who aren’t able to take that step often have no support, despite perhaps needing it the most. Outcomes for former foster children are bleak; only around 55% finish high school (compared to 87% of their peers), and in Canada, as many as 90% are on welfare within 6 months of aging out of care. Realistically, as it becomes more difficult for young people to achieve financial independence, many of these kids may need support that extends well into their late 20s and beyond. 

This is just barely skimming the surface of what needs to change - there is so much that’s wrong, and I’ve barely touched on how to fix it. But when it comes to foster care, I really believe that an ounce of prevention is worth 100lbs of cure.

MM

[missmentelle]

Howdy! I read your list on abusive behavior, and my partner exhibits some of these behaviors but not all, does that still mean I'm in an abusive relationship? This might be a dumb question to some, but I think I might be in denial.

You might be.

It's hard for me to give a distinct yes/no answer without having any of the details - there isn't always a hard and fast line between "imperfect but non-abusive relationships" and "abusive relationships". But I can definitely try to help you find the answer yourself.

I can tell you right off the bat that a relationship absolutely does not need to check off every box on a list of abusive traits to be considered an abusive relationship. The vast, vast majority of abusers do not tick all of the boxes. Some will tick very few of the boxes. There are many different ways to be abusive, and two equally abusive people can have almost nothing in common with one another. The partner who screams and throws things and punches holes in the wall when they're angry is abusive - but so is the gentle, soft-spoken partner who never raises their voice when they tell you that you're ugly and crazy and no one else will ever love you.

If your partner is physically or sexually abusive toward you, your relationship is almost certainly abusive, even if these behaviours are rare. This would include behaviours like:

slapping, kicking, punching, hitting or choking you

punching or kicking holes in walls or otherwise damaging property

throwing things

breaking your possessions

physically intimidating you (getting in your face during arguments, cornering you, posturing that they may get violent with you, etc)

making threats of violence

threatening you with a weapon, whether directly or indirectly (reminding you that they have a weapon, displaying it during conflicts, etc)

threatening your pets

coercing you into unwanted sexual activity

Emotional and psychological abuse can be harder to pin down. A partner who ignores you for hours after a fight might be intentionally giving you the cold shoulder, or they might legitimately need to take some time to themselves to calm down. A partner who doesn't want you spending time with your friends might be trying to control and isolate you, or they might have noticed that your friends treat you like garbage. In general though, there's a very good chance that your relationship is abusive if:

You always seem to be the one in the wrong. You always seem to be the one who ends up apologizing or trying to explain yourself, even if you went into the conversation feeling very confident that your partner was in the wrong. You're consistently made to feel that the problems in the relationship are your fault; it seems like no matter what the issue is, your partner is able to twist things so that you end up feeling like you are the problem.

You find yourself making excuses for your partner. When you're talking to friends and family, you often downplay and minimize your partner's negative behaviours toward you. You might avoid telling your loved ones about the worst of it and try to avoid discussing your partner altogether. If your friends and family witness your partner treating you badly, you find yourself trying to make excuses for them and explain away their mistreatment of you.

You "walk on eggshells" around your partner. There are times where you feel like you have to tiptoe around your partner to avoid setting them off. You might feel like there are different "versions" of your partner, and that you have to use extreme caution whenever the abusive version of your partner shows up.

Your relationship feels like a cycle. You walk on eggshells around your partner for a while, until eventually there's some sort of blowup. This doesn't have to be physical - it could be your partner yelling at you, or calling you some particularly vicious insults, or going through your phone and demanding that you answer for everything they find on there. Afterwards, they are extremely loving and apologetic and everything is great for a while. Then the sensation of walking on eggshells comes back and you do it all over again.

You don't feel like you get to make your own choices anymore. Your partner might directly tell you that you are not allowed to do certain things - like wear certain clothing or speak to certain people - without their consent. Or they might simply give you such a hard time for doing certain things that you eventually decide it's not worth the fuss. They might closely monitor you by tracking your social media or your phone's location, or demand regular access to your social media accounts and messages, and they may regularly require you to "prove" that you aren't cheating.

Your partner threatens suicide or self-harm if you leave. Making threats of suicide is abusive; it's an emotionally manipulative thing to do to a person. If your partner has hinted or directly stated that they will hurt themselves if you leave them or do something they don't like, that's a very unhealthy situation.

You don't feel like yourself anymore. Being in an abusive relationship can erode your entire sense of self over time. You might come to find that you no longer pursue your dreams or hobbies, never see friends, and no longer have the self-confidence that you used to have.

At the end of the day, a relationship doesn't need to meet any kind of "official" criteria for abuse to be a bad relationship for you. If you're in a relationship where you feel unsafe or unheard, that's probably not a relationship you need to be in. Think about how you would want your best friends or loved ones to be treated in a relationship - is that how your partner treats you? If not, you may have some soul-searching to do.

If you are looking for more information or resources to figure out whether or not your relationship is abusive, you can always reach out to domestic violence services in your local area, or go online to some of these resources to learn more:

Healthline

Heartwise Counselling Quiz

Women's Health Mag

WebMD

Best of luck to you. Stay safe. MM

[missmentelle]

Hi. I am wondering how someone like you or people in similar professions cope with so much pain from other people? I imagine most people who choose these kinds of professions are people with high empathy and people who want to help other people. But the fact that you just can’t help everyone, when you see how much pain and suffering so many people are in, isn’t it hard to bear? Or actually, you can’t really help anyone, you can only try to be there and be a sort of guide in what they themselves decides they want to heal/change. You can’t MAKE anyone heal, in the end it’s all up to them, no matter how much you want to and try to. How do you detach yourself from their pain and the outcome, when at the same time you need to be empathetic and invested in their life and emotions? What do you tell yourself? How does one manage that balance of not either becoming indifferent and shutting off empathy or become consumed by their emotions and worrying sick for them and wanting to interfere? I find it really difficult to cope with. (I’m not in this profession but I have considered it, this is just a big problem for me) It pains me a lot when people around me are hurting, even watching/reading/hearing news is so difficult for me that I avoid it, because I just want to make it better and help somehow but I can’t, not enough at least. Because I’m the end I need to leave it up to themselves.

To be honest, after nearly a decade in this field, the thing I struggle the most with is not the people who don't want to be helped - people have the right to make their own decisions, and I can make peace with that. What I really struggle with is seeing the many, many people who desperately want help, but have no opportunity to receive it.

I have worked with homeless and insecurely-housed youth for most of my career. I have watched many, many youth that I have cared about cause a lot of harm to themselves and others, despite doing my best to give them support and connect them to the right resources. You are absolutely right - you cannot make someone heal, and sometimes people are simply not in a place where they are ready to start the healing process, or even to start thinking more critically about their actions and experiences. Sometimes, people never get to that point - I have known a lot of people who did not get to live to see 25. That's an enormously painful and heavy thing. I remember the name and face of every youth I have ever lost, and there are countless more that I worry about all the time, even if I am no longer part of their lives.

It's not easy to cope with that kind of pain, but I find (I think) healthy ways to manage it. I do have to remind myself that it is not my role to save people; it is my role to do the best I can to provide the best support I can for whatever amount of time I have with a person, and I think I do that for all the folks that I work with. The support that I can give to a young person is not nothing, even if their stories do not have happy endings - if I can give a young person even a single day where they felt listened to and heard, even if I could not solve the problems, that is a worthwhile thing. My goal is not to steer people toward "good" decisions - my goal is to offer accurate information and a space for people to think critically about their decisions, and make informed choices about the decisions and risks that they feel are best for them. I am at peace with the work that I personally do with the clients I work with.

What I am not at peace with is the system I work within. For every client I work with who simply doesn't want help, I have dozens who are screaming out for it and are unable to get it. At the moment, I manage a short-term residential program for youth in crisis. The youth we work with have so many needs - they need housing. They need stability. They need a mental health appointment that isn't eight months away. They need reliable access to their prescriptions. They need educational and employment opportunities that are meaningful to them, with the supports they need to succeed. And for most of them, those basic supports are simply... not available. It doesn't matter how ready and eager the youth is; waitlists for basic services are months or even years long, and there's just nothing that any one individual worker can do to fix that overnight. It is not realistic to expect a person to make huge progress with their mental heath while they are living on a cot at an emergency housing program, cared for by a constantly-revolving cast of strangers, and yet that is what our system requires of its most vulnerable young people. Our system is pointlessly cruel, and benefits almost nobody. That part, I struggle with a lot.

As far as working in the field goes, I now supervise a large team of other professionals, and these are feelings that I help my staff work through in their own practice. The best advice I can give to people in the helping professions - or people potentially interested in a career there - to maintain your own mental health in the face of so much suffering is:

Take breaks. Use single every minute of your paid time off. Sometimes you need to take a break from a particular setting or even from the field entirely; if you feel burnout or despair or nihilism starting to creep up on you, start looking for an exit route. There will always be more jobs in social work/healthcare/emergency response, etc, but there is only one you.

Have a life outside of helping. I can't work full-time in this field and also spend every spare minute of my free time on activism and volunteering in this field. Perhaps some people can manage that, but if I tried it, my rage would simply consume me. I need other hobbies and interests if I'm going to be a functional person - whether it's painting, Netflix, novels, working out, cooking, time with friends, sports, camping or cars, everyone needs something they just enjoy.

Have a good supervisor. Obviously this is easier said than done, but if you are working in a field where you are constantly exposed to others' suffering and trauma, you should expect to have a supervisor who is available to debrief, discuss, vent and provide helpful feedback on the work you're doing. Supervision needs to be a safe space where you can speak openly about your struggles. If you do not have a supervisor who is doing that for you, it might be time to start the hunt for a new, more supportive job.

Remember your role. If I task myself with personally saving the whole world and fixing all of the problems I will lose my goddamn mind. I think it's important to remind ourselves "This is my role, this is the support I can provide, this is how I will know that I am doing a good job". "Saving people" can never be the goal I assign myself; if my role is to have supportive conversations and make connections to resources, I need to remind myself that those are the things I need to evaluate myself on and that I am doing a great job by doing that well, even if I am not "fixing" the client's entire life.

Remember your clients' autonomy. I think it's actually incredibly harmful for people in the helping professions to entertain the idea that they can "save" people, or that the outcome of someone's life is all dependent on how they do their jobs - I think that harms the professional as well as the client. We need to remember that we are not there to make people's choices for them. If a client continues to engage in "high-risk" behaviour, but they are well informed of the risk and know where they can find information and resources on managing that risk, that is a successful outcome, even if it doesn't instinctively "feel" like one.

Compartmentalize. Going home after work and staying up all night worrying about my clients might seem like an empathetic thing to do, but it benefits no one - it doesn't change their circumstances and just burns me out faster, leaving them with less support. Obviously we are all human and it can be hard to "switch off" concern and thoughts about clients after leaving work, but I think it's a skill that is important to develop over time. It might feel cold to think "okay, it's 5:05, no more thinking about clients until 9am tomorrow", but doing this allows me to be more effective in the hours that I am actually available to provide support.

I would honestly encourage anyone in the helping professions who is struggling to seek mental health support for themselves. Many therapists have their own therapist. It is, truthfully, not easy to process the sheer amount of pain and suffering we see on a daily basis, and I think it's actually very important for all of us to seek the appropriate professional help with it, and not simply "suck it up" and push away our own pain because our clients are suffering more. And, ultimately, this profession is just not for everyone. Some people are able to do this work and still enjoy their own lives, but some people simply are not, and there is absolutely no shame in admitting that to yourself. It is okay to realize that being exposed to that level of pain every day will harm you, and that that's not something you're able to take on - there are ways to help that don't involve such constant direct exposure to human misery, and we all need to keep ourselves healthy before we are able to help others. Hope this answers your question! MM

[missmentelle]

Is it weird that I google my therapist almost every week?

I don’t think it’s weird - it’s natural to feel curious about the person you spill some of your darkest secrets to - but I also don’t think that this is a particularly healthy habit to get into, either. 

I’m curious to know what your motivations are for googling your therapist. Are you trying to learn more about their personal life? Are you browsing their social media? Looking at their professional page? Do you miss them in between sessions? Are you just bored? Is this a coping mechanism you do when you’re stressed out or struggling? 

Although it’s natural to be curious about your therapist, I do think that this is a habit you should try to break. Boundaries between mental health professionals and clients exist for very good reasons. A therapist relationship is not like any other relationship in your life - it tends to work best when you don’t know everything about your therapist. 

You need to feel comfortable being completely open and honest with your therapist, and sometimes learning personal information about your therapist might unconsciously make you more hesitant to share with them. This can be perfectly innocent - if you find out, for instance, that your therapist’s husband cheated on her, you might not want to share your own struggles with being cheated on, for fear that you might trigger painful memories for her. If you find out that your therapist experienced something traumatic, you might not want to share your own traumas because you feel they aren’t as serious as hers.

Your therapy sessions work best when they are all about you and your emotions - when you know too much personal information about your therapist, you will have an unconscious tendency to try to manage their emotions alongside your own, which could impact what you are comfortable sharing with your therapist.  Sometimes therapists will choose to share information about themselves with you (this is called “self-disclosure”), but this is always supposed to be done strategically, and with the intent of benefitting you in some way. 

If, for instance, I’m working with a domestic violence survivor who is reluctant to share her story because she is convinced that I won’t believe her, I may self-disclose that I am also a survivor (although I will never go into detail) - the point of that disclosure is to show her that I get where she’s coming from, and to further reassure her that I will believe her. More disclosure than that would be inappropriate - if she knew more about my specific story, she might decide that her experiences don’t “count” if they weren’t as severe as mine, or she might feel like she has to stop and comfort me, which is the opposite of what is supposed to be happening. If I’m sharing something about myself, there has to be a purpose for it, and it has to benefit the client - NOT me. 

Professional boundaries are also important because in some cases, getting too “close” to your therapist can actually make you less likely to share with them, for fear that you are personally disappointing them. Instead of thinking “wow I am not doing well, I definitely need to let my mental health professional know about this”, people can get into a place where they think “wow I am not doing well, I’m letting Sarah down so much by relapsing like this after all the hard work she did, and she’s going to be so upset”. Your relationship with your therapist is the one relationship in your life that is truly about you, and it’s best to keep it that way.  On top of that, I would recommend not googling your therapist outside of work because there is just not much you can gain from that. Your therapist probably has her social media profiles on “private”, and even if she doesn’t, she isn’t allowed to add her clients. She has a life outside of being a therapist that her clients are not part of, and she also deserves to be able to maintain that boundary. 

I know it’s hard to break the habit of googling someone you are curious about, but it’s important to try. Find other things to occupy your time - google other subjects you’re curious about, chat with friends, explore new hobbies. If you feel comfortable, talk to your therapist about this behaviour and how you can work on changing it. In the long run, your professional relationship with your therapist will be better for it.  Hope this helps! MM

[missmentelle]

Can being a fan/avid follower of someone with mental health issues cause problems with your own.

I'm asking because I am a huge fan of this musician with pretty severe mental health issues (depression, anxiety, dark thoughts and so on) the longer I ve been following them the more i've noticed I feel anxious,sad and sometimes suicidal

Is it possible they have made me like this or have I probably always been like it and they have made me aware.

I don't think that being a fan of someone with mental health issues can cause you to have your own - rather, I think there are two things at play here.

For starters, I think people who have underlying issues with mental health are more likely to seek out public figures who struggle with the same thing and include a lot of those things in their work. It's possible that people who have these sorts of feelings only start being able to identify and express these feelings for themselves after seeking out media that helps them explore their own experiences. That's not to say that everyone who consumes "dark" or mental-health-themed media has underlying mental health issues - some people might just be really into the music - but I do think that for a lot of people, the personal connection they feel to the artist's experiences are a big part of the draw.

I also think that a person's "media diet" - basically, the media that you consume all day - has an impact on your mental health. "Dark" media can be wonderful, and I don't believe it can cause mental health issues to just appear out of nowhere - but I do think that when you are in a vulnerable place mentally, sometimes bombarding yourself with it can make your pre-existing issues worse. When our brains are in a place where they want to believe that the whole world is garbage, consuming a whole bunch of media that constantly says "the world is garbage" can make it more difficult to get out of that mindset.

Again, that's not to say that following people who make very dark kinds of art is bad, or that you shouldn't consume this kind of media - it can be great, and many people find it very meaningful to follow artists who understand what they're going through. But it can also be very valuable to think critically about how often you're consuming this kind of media, and when taking breaks is the healthiest option for your mental health.

Hope this helps! MM

[missmentelle]

What makes a codependent relationship? Is it healthy for someone to rely on you as a constant source for support, talking all the time? Getting seperation anxiety and experiencing extreme stress when they are without you? Is it selfish to not necessarily reciprocate that stress?

Let's start by defining what a codependent relationship is.

In a codependent relationship, one person (the codependent) consistently enables the dysfunction of another person, often assuming a "caretaker" or "protector" role. The dysfunctional person usually struggles with a serious issue that may make it difficult for them to function on their own - often addiction, mental illness, or serious underachievement/irresponsibility - and the codependent partner will make extreme personal sacrifices to take care of this person and shield them from the consequences of their actions.

Codependent relationships aren't always romantic relationships - they can be found between friends, parents/children, coworkers, other family members, or any other type of relationship. Wherever they exist, are very unhealthy for both of the people involved in them. The codependent person focuses so heavily on the dependent person's needs that they entirely neglect their own, while the dysfunctional person is enabled to continue being dysfunctional and is often prevented from making any kind of progress toward recovery.

Common traits of codependent people include:

a fear of being alone. They often seek out relationships with people who will depend on them and encourage that dependency to ensure that the other person will not leave them.

extreme fixation on the feelings and needs of others. They often view their own needs as unimportant or secondary and prioritize the needs of others, even when this has not been asked of them.

a compulsive need to "fix" the problems of others. when they see a person who is struggling, they feel the overwhelming need to step in and start "fixing" the situation, even if doing so is not their responsibility.

low self-esteem. They often have chronic issues with self-esteem, and don't feel that they "deserve" to have their own needs prioritized. Their self-esteem is often tied to their ability to maintain their caretaking role at all costs, even when it is incredibly harmful to them.

controlling and perfectionist tendencies. Codependent people often struggle to cope when they don't have high amounts of control in their relationships, or when things aren't done "just so". They gravitate towards caretaking roles where they have high amounts of control, and struggle to let go.

external locus of control. They often feel powerless in their lives, and feel that they simply have to accept their circumstances and the way that others treat them.

high capacity for denial. They often cannot or will not see problems that are right in front of them, and refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of a situation - the house will be burning down around them and they'll refuse to even admit that it's getting a little warm.

a history of interpersonal trauma or abuse. Codependency is often a learned behaviour - many people who fall into these patterns experienced codependency from their parents, or witnessed their parents' codependent relationship at a young age. Many have also experienced extreme emotional abuse, from their parents or a past partner.

a strong need for approval. Codependents need to be liked. They need approval. Doing things for others and letting others walk on them is the best way they know how to gain that.

boundary issues. They often cannot and do not set personal boundaries - they take a "Giving Tree" approach to helping others, endlessly giving even when it seriously hurts them. At the same time, they may overstep boundaries to try to fix others' issues, even when it is not their responsibility to get involved.

a lack of personal identity. The codependent relationship often becomes the focus of their whole life. They invest so much time and energy into it that without it, they wouldn't know what to do with themselves.

a tendency to be drawn to close relationships with substance addicts, alcoholics, people with personality disorders, or other codependents. Codependent relationships are usually not a one-off thing - they tend to be a recurring pattern in a person's life. In particular, people with untreated BPD often seek out relationships with codependent people, as they tend to prefer relationships with people who don't set personal boundaries and are willing to provide the extreme amounts of reassurance and caretaking that they need. People with BPD also tend to be codependent themselves, further complicating things.

an appearance of being "addicted to chaos". Codependent people often appear to gravitate toward drama, dysfunction and chaos. Having relationships with people who have healthy boundaries, autonomy and stable personal lives often holds little interest for them - they prefer relationships where they feel needed and depended upon.

Codependent people often have a "martyr" or "victim" complex - they often feel that it is their lot in life to suffer for others, that self-sacrifice is a key part of their identity, or that suffering is simply a part of loving someone. The idea that they should set expectations in a relationship, leave a relationship where they aren't treated well or have an identity of their own outside a relationship is something they struggle with. They often hop from codependent relationship to codependent relationship, becoming steadily more beaten down and burnt out in the process - breaking free from codependent tendencies can be a long process, and often requires professional help.

There is a lot of variety in what codependent relationships look like. Some examples of codependency in action would include:

A mother allows her chronically unemployed and irresponsible 38-year-old son to live with her, and does everything for him. She never confronts her son about the fact that he doesn't contribute financially or help out around the house, even though it's placing a great financial and personal strain on her. When other family members ask why her adult son isn't taking steps to get his life together, the mother becomes highly defensive, and may make up lies about the progress he's made, or insist that he's still young and that this is normal for his age.

A woman assumes the role of "caregiver" for her unstable and very mentally ill partner. She bends over backwards to keep her partner happy, and doesn't seem to notice or mind that her partner never does the same thing in return. Her partner constantly burns bridges with their own family or friends with their explosive anger, and she rushes in to make excuses and try to fix the situation. When friends raise concerns about the relationship, she brushes them off, insisting that she's happy and everything is fine.

The parent of an autistic teenager infantilizes their autistic child, and insists that the child needs much more care than they actually do. Being an "autism parent" is a huge part of their identity. The child has never been allowed to attend an overnight camp, go for sleepovers or stay at home with a babysitter, as the parent is highly fearful and believes that other people will not look after their child properly. The parent strongly resists all of their child's attempts to gain more independence, insisting that it's too dangerous or that the child cannot handle it.

The US version of the television show Shameless is almost entirely centered around codependent relationships. The main characters are all in codependent relationships with their alcoholic and dysfunctional father, Frank. Although the main characters are often angry with their father, they constantly allow him back into their lives no matter how horribly he treats them - at times, they give him money, provide him with alcohol, let him move back into their house, visit him in the hospital and cover him with a blanket when he passes out on the floor. The boundaries they set with him never last long, and they always resume having a relationship with him, even after he does things that most people would find unforgivable.

So with that said: is it healthy for someone to rely on you as a constant source of support?

It sort of depends.

Relationships are supposed to be a reliable source of support for both of the people in them. That's sort of what they're for. I worry sometimes that the internet is making us too transactional in our relationships, and too quick to think that someone is taking advantage of us if they constantly turn to us for support. It's normal to find comfort in your relationships, and to turn to your loved ones whenever you need someone to talk to. I talk to my partner, my parents and my closest friends every day - that often means mentioning things that we’re stressed or anxious about, or venting about problems in our lives. Sometimes people are going through something and need extra support for a while - that’s just a normal part of close relationships. 

With that said, there are times when someone leans on you too hard. If helping someone is starting to take a serious toll on your own life, that’s a problem. Every relationship needs boundaries; if your boundaries are consistently pushed or broken in the name of supporting that person, it may be time for a serious talk. Staying up until 4am to talk someone through a crisis is fine if this is a rare occurrence. Staying up until 4am to talk someone through a crisis multiple times per week, every single week, is an issue - that’s you sacrificing your own need for sleep, and something needs to change. Are you willing to set boundaries and balance your own needs with your friends’ needs? Is the other person willing to respect boundaries, or do they lash out with anger, guilt-trips, accusations of not caring for them or threats to harm themselves? 

If you and a friend are both willing to communicate and work on establishing boundaries, I think it’s fine for one person to need a lot of support. If the relationship is damaging for you and one or both of you just isn’t able or willing to discuss boundaries, that’s a sign there could be some codependence going on. 

A person experiencing separation anxiety and extreme stress when you aren’t around could be an issue - but again, it depends on how it’s being handled. Is your friend able to cope with this anxiety on their own, or are they constantly putting this anxiety on you? Are they blowing up your phone and getting anxious if you’re 10 minutes late answering a text? Do they ever try to guilt-trip you or blame you for triggering their separation anxiety? Do they accuse you of not caring about them if you try to take time for yourself? Are they jealous of your other relationships? Is their extreme stress taking a toll on your life and preventing you from having other relationships or having personal boundaries and space? If your friend is willing to work on boundaries and find healthy coping mechanisms for their stress, this might be something you can overcome. If your friend is burning you out and one or both of you is unable to set boundaries, this might be a very unhealthy situation. 

Not feeling the same stress and anxiety, however, is definitely not selfish. It’s not healthy for someone to feel that level of extreme stress and separation anxiety - it’s not your friend’s fault that they experience that, but it’s still very unhealthy. The fact that someone feels an unhealthy attachment to you does not mean that you should feel an unhealthy attachment right back. No one benefits from that. In any healthy relationship, both people have a life and identity outside the relationship. This is, fundamentally, the issue at the core of many different unhealthy relationships - whether they are codependent, enmeshed, or abusive.

 Being so attached to someone that you can’t handle them needing friends, hobbies, space and independence isn’t a compliment or something to aspire to - it’s just unhealthy.

Hope this answers your question! MM

[missmentelle]

is self diagnosis valid?

I mean, it sort of depends on what you mean by "valid".

Are many people good at recognizing for themselves that their brain works differently than the people around them, or that their brain is actively getting in the way of them completing daily tasks? Absolutely. Do people face systemic barriers that make self-diagnosis their only real option? Absolutely. For people who don't have access to a professional diagnosis, or who come from demographics that are frequently under-diagnosed (like women and girls of colour with ADHD) sometimes a self-diagnosis is all you've got. People who want to join online support groups or other disability communities should absolutely be allowed to do so on the basis of self-diagnosis.

Is self-diagnosis a substitute for a professional diagnosis? No, it's usually not.

The thing that most people are missing when they read a symptom list is context. Meeting the criteria for a diagnosis is more than just deciding that a particular symptom does or doesn’t apply to you - human traits and characteristics are on a spectrum, and things need to be at a certain level of severity before they cross over the threshold from “regular quirk” to “diagnosable symptom”. The point of diagnosis is to identify conditions that are having a measurable, serious, negative impact on your ability to function in your daily life, and not just to see which sets of characteristics sounds like you. 

Let’s take a look at some of the official symptoms of ADHD, for instance:

restlessness

difficulty focusing on a task

poor time management 

difficulty multitasking

difficulty prioritizing tasks

struggling to follow through and finish tasks

issues coping with stress

disorganization

Many of the symptoms of ADHD will be relatable to a person who doesn’t actually meet criteria for a diagnosis, because these are very common traits in the general population. In our productivity-obsessed culture, many people are extraordinarily hard on themselves and don’t have a realistic sense of what a “normal” human attention span actually looks like - a lot of younger people especially are inclined to believe that something is wrong with them because they can’t force themselves to work non-stop while also maintaining a spotless home and strict workout regimen. In reality, most people procrastinate on tasks that are difficult or not interesting. Many people struggle with multitasking. Many people are somewhat disorganized and misplace their belongings from time to time. The vast majority of the population could skim the list of ADHD symptoms and find a few that they relate to at least some of the time. 

What actually makes a person meet the criteria for ADHD is the severity of these symptoms, the impacts they have, and whether they appear in all contexts of a person’s life. Non-professionals often don’t have a good sense of where that “quirk/symptom” cutoff lies. I have seen people self-diagnose with ADHD because their apartment is messy sometimes and they can’t work 8 straight hours without getting distracted - but that’s a pretty regular human experience.  A person who struggles to remember to water their plants and often ends up rushing to finish assignments at the last minute doesn’t necessarily have ADHD - those are pretty typical struggles that have a fairly manageable impact on the person’s life. People with ADHD generally face pretty severe disruptions to their lives because of their symptoms - they are likely to struggle with poor grades, regardless of their intelligence, and are disproportionately likely to fail out of school, be fired from jobs, get into traffic accidents, run into financial issues and struggle to maintain relationships as a direct result of their symptoms. 

Of course, for the most part, there isn’t a ton of harm in accidentally mis-diagnosing yourself. If self-diagnosis works for you and helps you connect to supportive people or just not be so hard on yourself, I think that’s great. The only caution I would give would be to avoid boxing yourself in too much. I’ve worked with folks who have self-diagnosed conditions they didn’t meet criteria for - things with symptom lists that are easy to relate to out-of-context, like ADHD or BPD - and then turned that into a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell yourself “I’m incapable of having healthy relationships because I have BPD”, that can turn into you putting less effort into your relationships because you believe they are already doomed, which leads your relationships to fail, confirming your belief that you are incapable of healthy relationships... and so on, and so on. 

It’s also very easy to accidentally self-diagnose the wrong condition. Do you have a hard time maintaining relationships, experience sudden mood swings and tend to fly off the handle easily when you’re frustrated? Many people might self-diagnose with BPD, but those symptoms can very easily be untreated ADHD. 

Long story short, if self-diagnosis is the option you have before you, go for it. Many people face systemic barriers to professional diagnosis, and sometimes trying to self-diagnose so you can find a community where you feel you belong is the best option you’ve got. But it’s important to remember the practical limitations of self-diagnosis - which may include being open to the possibility that you may have misdiagnosed yourself.  Hope this helps!

MM

[missmentelle]

I always am told or recommended that I need to learn to sit with difficult emotions or feelings. What on earth does that mean and how does one go about doing that?

Good question!

Our culture has a habit of trying to push away or smooth over all negative emotions as quickly as possible. We’re uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. When we’re in emotional pain - or when someone we love is in pain - our instinct is usually to just bombard that pain with positivity and distractions so we can stop dealing with it. Most of us aren’t really raised to be comfortable witnessing or experiencing emotional pain, and as soon as we encounter it, we either want to bury it or run away. 

There are two big problems with this. 

The first is that constantly trying to escape from difficult emotions can lead people down some dangerous paths. If I don’t know how to face my difficult emotions and I just want to run away from them, there are a lot of destructive things I can turn to - things like drinking, spending money I don’t have, using drugs, binge-eating or getting into destructive short-term relationships. Even less extreme options can have a huge negative toll on my life; if I try to avoid thinking about painful emotions by blasting the TV or sleeping all day, that’s eventually going to start to really impact my quality of life. 

Secondly, when we never really get comfortable sitting with negative emotions, we never actually learn how to deal with those negative emotions. If I get dumped by someone I really loved, for instance, and spend a full year avoiding that pain by seeking out every distraction I can find, there’s a good chance that at the end of that year, I still won’t really have come to terms with the breakup - it might still be a really painful subject for me, and I might find myself struggling to cope if I don’t have any distractions available when I’m reminded of it. This can be especially damaging for relationships - if I don’t know how to sit with a friend’s pain, then I’m likely to simply drift away from them when they’re going through a hard time to escape from the discomfort of their negative emotions. 

“Sitting with difficult emotions” can look different for different people, but simply put, it means you allow yourself to experience pain without trying to distract from it, minimize it, deny it, or run away from it. You don’t disguise it or downplay it for someone else’s sake. You let yourself say “This is what I’m feeling right now, and it hurts. I am struggling right now, and that’s alright. I don’t need to pretend to be okay.”

Some ways to sit with negative emotions include:

Label the emotion. What is it that you’re feeling? It can be a complicated mix of things, and that’s okay. What do those emotions feel like for you? Can you feel them in your body? 

Allow yourself some quiet reflection time. Think about what you’re going through. When did it start? What circumstances led up to this? Have you felt this way before? 

Express your emotions. Document what you’re feeling and experiencing through art or journaling. Draw, paint, write a poem. Express your emotions in a way that works for you. 

Remember that emotions are temporary. Remind yourself that emotions - even very overwhelming and powerful emotions - don’t last forever. The things you’re experiencing right now might last for a little while, but they will eventually fade and you will experience other emotions again. 

Accept your emotions. This is what you’re experiencing right now, and that’s okay. You are allowed to make space for this emotion. Don’t pressure yourself to control this emotion or diminish it, and don’t put pressure on yourself to “be okay” for the sake of other people. Accept that this is what you’re feeling right now, and try to be okay with that. 

Sitting with negative emotions without trying to banish them can feel very unnatural or counter-intuitive for a lot of people. It’s not what most of us were raised to do. When someone comes to you in pain and you don’t immediately start jumping through hoops to try to cheer them up, it can feel like you’re not trying hard enough and that you’re letting them down somehow. It’s not true. Sometimes the best thing you can do is just sit beside someone as they sit in their difficult emotions. 

Don’t get me wrong - distractions are not always a bad thing, and there are definitely times when you just need a break from what you’re experiencing. Likewise, it’s not good to spend too much time in negative emotions - if you’re struggling to experience anything but negative emotions regardless of what is happening in your life, you should definitely talk to a professional about that. But sometimes in life, bad things happen to us and it’s okay to just feel bad that about for a little bit. We need to let go of this expectation that people perform happiness, even when they’re going though something terrible. Sitting with negative emotions means accepting that negative emotions happen sometimes, and that that’s okay. 

Best of luck to you! MM

[missmentelle]

Hey, I was wondering it you have any advice/guidance/tips for how to figure out your emotional own needs? I've recently realised I was raised in a codepedent family and I'm kinda stuck with where to start figuring out how to take care of myself beyond the physical stuff like heathly eating and sleeping enough

Honestly, taking care of your own physical needs is a good start - many people in codependent situations struggle to make their physical needs a priority. If prioritizing your own need for food and sleep is something that you've struggled with in the past, working on that is a pretty healthy place to start.

As far as your emotional needs go, that's something you may need to figure out through some trial and error. Everyone's emotional needs are different - discovering what your needs are can be a bit of a process, especially when you were raised in a codependent situation where you were never encouraged to prioritize your own needs or develop your own identity outside of the family struggles.

But even though I can't tell you what your emotional needs are, I can certainly give you some suggestions for things that you can start thinking about, like:

Time to yourself. This is one of the most important emotional needs that most people have, and it's one of the hardest things to get in a codependent situation. Even very extroverted people need occasional down time by themselves to reflect, recharge, and just figure out who they are when they aren’t trying to meet the needs of other people. 

Creative expression. Everyone needs to express themselves. This can look different for different people - it could mean journaling, writing poetry or painting, or it could mean creating playlists of songs that are very meaningful to you. Figure out what helps you get your feelings out of your brain and into the world.

Dreams and goals. When you are codependent, you don’t typically have goals of your own - you have goals for your codependent relationships and the people you’re in them with, but your own goals and dreams are an afterthought. Figuring out what you want is a huge step in reclaiming yourself as an individual person - even if the only thing you can come up with right now is a list of what you don’t want, that’s a big step. 

Social needs. People need people. We all need people in our lives who make us feel loved and supported and give us a safe space to open up when we’re dealing with something difficult. The key is to form relationships that don’t have the same codependent tendencies as the old. Be intentional with your relationships - reflect on what codependency looks like for you, and seek relationships that don’t have those same patterns. 

Personal meaning and fulfillment. We all want to sit back at the end of our day or week and think “yes, I’m doing things that are worth doing”. For some people, this comes from their career. For others, it’s raising a family or pets. Some people find meaning in travel, or creative ventures, or time spent in nature. Codependency often means making your codependent relationships the centre of your world, but it’s time to look beyond those. Take some time to figure out what sorts of things give you personal satisfaction and make you feel like your time was well-spent - and then carve out space in your life for those things.

Best of luck to you! MM

[missmentelle]

What is c-ptsd? How is it different than ptsd?

Excellent question! 

In a “classic” case of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a person begins experiencing distressing symptoms after surviving a traumatic experience. This event is usually a short-term or one-time thing - the most common examples would be sexual assault, combat, miscarriage, the sudden death of a loved one, or a serious car accident. Usually symptoms start to develop within three months of the traumatic event, and include things like:

flashbacks or intrusive memories

nightmares

hyperarousal (constantly feeling jittery, or “on high alert”)

a desire to avoid reminders of the trauma or similar situations

feelings of hopelessness

feelings of detachment from family and friends

emotional numbness

self-destructive behaviour

difficulty sleeping

emotional outbursts

difficulty concentrating

overwhelming feelings of guilt or shame 

After the diagnosis of PTSD was finalized in 1980 (largely because of the huge influx of soldiers traumatized by the Vietnam war), clinicians started noticing that this disorder fit for people who had experienced one-time events, but it wasn’t as good a fit for people who had experienced prolonged interpersonal trauma, like years of constant child abuse. So the diagnosis of complex-PTSD (or c-ptsd) was created to better describe those cases. 

C-PTSD differs from PTSD in a couple of key ways:

It has different origins. Sufferers of c-ptsd were not abused one or two times - most people with c-ptsd were abused over the course of several years; in most cases, they were physically and/or sexually abused by a caretaker when they were children. 

Sufferers often struggle with relationships - they have a hard time identifying and responding to the emotions of others, they struggle with boundaries, and they often have enormous difficulties with trust. 

It comes with a host of cognitive issues - people with c-ptsd often struggle with processing new information, completing tasks, self-monitoring, planning, processing visual information, and linking cause and effect. 

C-PTSD is heavily associated with language delays. People with the disorder often struggle a great deal with all aspects of language - in particular, they tend to struggle with expressive language (putting their thoughts and feelings into words). 

People with C-PTSD often struggle with memory and consciousness - it is very common for them to have selective amnesia surrounding their trauma, and to experience long periods of depersonalization or dissociation. 

C-PTSD is associated with difficulties regulating emotion, to a greater degree than what we see in “regular” PTSD - sufferers may experience extreme mood swings, which include very serious episodes of suicidality or anger. 

Some people with C-PTSD (although not all) may experience sexual extremes - they may display hypersexuality, or extremely inhibited sexuality that may come with deep feelings of guilt or shame. 

C-PTSD often involves extreme struggles with personal identity - it’s common for people with this disorder to feel so “separate” from other people that they have a hard time even recognizing themselves as human. 

C-PTSD often carries extreme feelings of helplessness, where sufferers feel completely powerless over their own lives and have a difficult time initiating things. 

People who have C-PTSD are at great risk of being re-traumatized; they tend to gravitate towards abusive relationships like the ones that they experienced in childhood. People with PTSD do not display this tendency. 

Treatment for C-PTSD differs from treatment for “regular” PTSD - successful treatment requires addressing the issues they have with relationships and personal identity. 

It is important to keep in mind, though, that c-PTSD is not an officially recognized diagnosis; it has not been added to the DSM yet, as there is still a lot of debate about whether c-PTSD is a distinct disorder. There is some evidence to suggest that it might be, but it also bears some serious similarities to PTSD and borderline personality disorder; researchers are still untangling the complicated effects of child abuse and figuring out the best way to classify, diagnose and treat it. Some clinicians don’t use the term c-PTSD at all, and prefer to use the diagnosis of Disorder of Extreme Stress Not Otherwise Specified (DES-NOS), or Developmental Trauma Disorder (DTD). Other clinicians stick to the DSM and only use the diagnosis of PTSD. People rarely fit neatly into psychological categories, and it can be hard to tell sometimes when a person has a combination of several disorders or a separate disorder entirely. 

The good news is that if you have been diagnosed with PTSD when you feel you should be diagnosed with c-PTSD, you are not at a huge disadvantage - studies show that being diagnosed with a specific trauma disorder instead of generic PTSD doesn’t actually change your treatment outcomes. PTSD is such an incredibly variable disorder that no two cases of it look exactly alike; anyone who struggles with trauma should be receiving a customized treatment plan that addresses their specific symptoms, whether they have a diagosis of c-PTSD or PTSD. The specific terms that your clinician uses often have more to do with what your insurance company wants than with the treatment they plan to give you - so long as you feel comfortable with your clinician and the treatment is helping you, the specific diagnosis is a secondary concern. If you ever have questions about your diagnosis, be sure to talk to your mental health professional and ask them to clarify anything that you are wondering about.  Hope this answers your question! MM

[missmentelle]

What is reactive abuse?

“Reactive abuse” occurs when the victim of abuse lashes out at their abuser - by striking back at them, screaming, swearing at them, insulting them or even throwing something at them - in response to the abuse that they are experiencing. This is actually an extremely common behaviour in domestic violence victims, and it’s one of the most important tools an abuser has for convincing other people that the victim is the real abuser in the relationship, and that the abuser is actually the one being abused. 

Consider these scenarios:

Scenario 1: Sam is abusive to his partner, Erin. He constantly criticizes and belittles her, although he never raises his voice and always does so in a calm, matter-of-fact way. He tells her that her clothes are too revealing for her, and that she should go put on some baggy clothes until she’s lost some weight. He comments on everything she eats and asks if she “really needs” to be eating it. He compares her to his friends’ wives and asks why she can’t look like them. He talks down to her like she’s stupid, and criticizes her cooking, her cleaning, her spending, and her appearance. After weeks of relentless criticism, Erin snaps - she screams at Sam to fuck off and leave her alone, and locks herself in her room. 

Scenario 2: John is abusive to his partner, Raj. John likes to physically intimidate Raj by looming over him, backing him into corners, standing in doorways to prevent him from leaving, and punching holes in walls and smashing things when he gets angry. One day, during an argument, John grabs Raj by the arm and starts screaming in his face. Raj tells John to let go of him, but John ignores him and instructs Raj to “look at me when I’m talking to you”. Desperate to get away, Raj shoves John in the chest as hard as he can, and John falls backwards. 

In these scenarios, Erin and Raj are the ones lashing out... but they are also the victims in these situations, and not the perpetrators. These are examples of reactive abuse; they are lashing out because they are under extreme stress from being constantly abused, not because they are abusive themselves. If they were in a non-abusive relationship, they wouldn’t scream or shove their partners - it’s the abuse itself that is driving them to behave that way. 

Once a victim begins to display reactive abuse, the abuser will almost always use it against them. The abuser will constantly bring up the reactive abuse, presenting it as evidence that the victim is unstable and irrational, and that they themselves are actually the victim of their partner’s totally unpredictable behaviours and moods. Sam, for instance, can use Erin’s outburst as “proof” that she’s the abusive one in the relationship - when he talks about the incident, he can say “I was just trying to have a calm, rational conversation with her and she started screaming at me out of the blue. I tried to calm her down but she just wouldn’t listen - she told me to fuck off and then locked me out of our bedroom for hours. I feel like I’m walking on eggshells around her, anything can set her off”. 

Bringing up reactive abuse is a way for the abuser to win the sympathy of friends and family, turn people against the victim, and leave the victim even more isolated. They can even convince professionals that the victim is the abusive one, and use that as a weapon against the victim - if Sam goes to a therapist and gives a biased account of Erin’s “totally irrational” screaming fit, it’s very likely that the therapist will take his side and tell him what he wants to hear. Then he can truthfully come home and tell Erin that his therapist thinks she’s toxic and abusive, and that Sam shouldn’t have to put up with her. 

Eventually, constantly being told that you’re the abusive one - with several real-life examples listed as evidence - will probably start to convince you that you really are the abusive one in the relationship, even if you are genuinely the victim. Raj, for instance, has now actually hit his partner - that’s a line that John has never crossed, even through John is the physically abusive partner and Raj is the victim. It’s going to be very easy for John to use that against Raj, and convince Raj that he’s the real abuser, especially since Raj’s self-esteem is probably already poor from being in an abusive relationship. Once Raj starts to believe that maybe he really is the abusive one after all, it’s going to be much easier for John to control him, and it’ll be much harder for him to escape the relationship - he’ll no longer feel like he “deserves” or qualifies for help from domestic violence agencies, he’ll be inclined to blame himself for the issues in the relationship, and he may even start to feel like he should be grateful to John for staying with him and “trying to help him”. 

Some other important things to know about reactive abuse:

Reactive abuse is NOT mutual abuse. “Mutual abuse” is the term for a relationship where both people are abusers going into it, and both people abuse each other equally and are equally to blame for the abuse in the relationship. That’s not what this is. For one thing, mutual abuse is extremely rare, to the point that experts aren’t totally convinced that it exists - abuse requires a power dynamic where one person tries to assume control over the other, and that power dynamic just doesn’t work both ways. A person who commits reactive abuse is not an abuser - they are a person under extreme stress, and they stop reacting that way as soon as they are out of the abusive relationship. A genuine abuser shows the same pattern of abusive behaviour in all of their relationships, over and over again. 

Almost everyone will commit reactive abuse in certain circumstances. If you kick a dog enough times, the dog will eventually bite you. Some will bite you quicker, some will take longer to bite you, but they will all bite you at some point. Being under extreme stress changes a person - when you live with that kind of abuse day in and day out, the strain of it will eventually start to affect you in profound ways, and cause you to lash out and doing things you would never do otherwise. There’s nothing you can really do to cope with that kind of abuse in a healthy way while it’s still happening- the only way to recover is to leave. Many survivors of domestic abuse say that they barely recognized themselves near the end of the relationship, and did not know the person that they became after years of enduring abuse. 

People who have committed reactive abuse are not abusers. A person who has committed reactive abuse under extreme circumstances is not a danger to their future partners. Again, pretty much everyone will commit reactive abuse if they are pushed to the brink by months or years of relentless abuse - when someone is no longer being subjected to that abuse, they no longer have a reason to lash out. The fact that you’ll throw a punch while you’re being attacked by a coyote does not mean that you are likely to go home and punch your pets; the fact that you will commit violence in one very extreme and dangerous circumstance does not mean that you will commit violence in normal circumstances. 

Reactive abuse is one of the reasons why regular therapy is not recommended for abusers. When abusers learn more about abuse and boundaries in regular therapy, they don’t recognize their own abusive tendencies - they just get better at accusing their victims of being the real abusers. They are uniquely skilled at weaponizing therapy and therapy language to convince the people around them that their partner is irrational and that they, the abuser, are actually the long-suffering victim. An abuser who is actually serious about getting help needs to do so from a specialized abuser program - they need a professional who is knowledgeable about reactive abuse and will say “hmmmm, but what were you saying to Erin BEFORE she yelled at you? I don’t think you’re the victim here.”

As always, if you suspect that you may be in an abusive relationship, it’s important to seek help - there is help available to you, even in the midst of a pandemic. Call your local domestic violence hotline, contact a local domestic violence agency, or call 211 in Canada or the USA to learn about local options in your area.  Hope this answers your question! MM

[missmentelle]

My friend is absolutely obsessed with my twin brother and has basically been emotionally punishing me for me a long time because she can't have him. No matter how many times I ask her to stop she continues the behavior, and when I confront her she breaks down and cries about how she's sorry and she just can't help it because "it's her mother talking." I used to confide in her, but that was greatest mistake of my life, because she has twisted everything I told her into ways to insult and shit on my family. She's had a very traumatic upbringing and is bipolar and we've had a lot of good times together, so I've tried so hard to be kind to her (I even invited her over to my house for the holidays a couple years ago) but she's burned that bridge because she constantly makes them uncomfortable by all the weird things she says (she has zero filter and gets angry at people for "censoring" her and being uptight when they tell her to stop). She refuses to take medication for her severe mental illness. I'm completely exhausted and so hurt because it hurts ME to hear someone say bad things about my twin, and she projects all of her self-hatred onto him but somehow still thinks they'd have a happy relationship if I didn't stand her in way, even though he knows she likes him and doesn't reciprocate her feelings, in fact she creeps him out. I've also noticed that since she's realized that my other friends don't like it when she treats me this way, she waits until we're alone to say these things, it's very sneaky. I feel chained to her and I'm so tired, I'd ditch her but she's part of my larger friend group and she's known them all longer, plus she's really good at making people feel bad for her to the point where I doubt my own pain and frustration a lot. I'm to the point where I fantasize about running away and not telling anyone just so I don't have to deal with her anymore. My heart is breaking because we once had a beautiful friendship and were like sisters, but I feel torn apart. She's yelled at me and made me cry multiple times and once almost got me into a car accident because she forcibly hit the brakes to show off how angry I'd made her. I don't know what to do anymore and I guess I just want a little advice from someone removed from the situation.

So in summary, this is a "friend" who:

treats you poorly

treats the people you care about poorly

does not respect boundaries

does not accept feedback about the negative impact she has on others

shows no interest in taking accountability for her actions or changing her ways

openly makes you miserable

Respectfully - what are you currently getting out of this friendship? Do the positives of this friendship still outweigh the many negatives? Because based on what you’ve told me here, I’m guessing that they probably don’t. 

It can be extremely hard to distance yourself from someone you’ve been friends with for a long time, especially if that friend really seems to be struggling, but sometimes it’s necessary. There’s a firm line between “having a hard time” and “actively harming the people around you no matter how many times they ask you to stop”, and it sounds like your friend sprinted over that line a long time ago. As difficult as it might be to start extracting yourself from the relationship, it sounds like it’s a necessary step you need to take - at this point, being her friend is putting both your emotional and physical safety at risk. 

Ending a relationship with someone who treats you and your family badly is not an act of unkindness toward her; it is an act of kindness toward yourself. 

Be prepared for the fact that distancing yourself from her might be a long process. From the sounds of things, she’s pretty entwined in your life, and a big confrontation about her behaviour isn’t likely to be helpful; it sounds like you’ve already had several conversations where you've discussed boundaries and her poor behaviour with her, and nothing changed. 

Moving forward, you’ll likely have to be very firm and consistent with enforcing your boundaries - this can mean ending conversations or interactions on the spot when she starts badmouthing your family, or refusing to get into cars with her anymore because she has behaved in an unsafe way while you were driving with her in the past. Don’t give her opportunities to argue or push back; if she is not respecting your boundaries, get up and leave, end the phone call or stop answering her text messages. Anything less gives her more opportunities to try to manipulate you or continue the harmful behaviour. Start putting yourself and your family first. 

Above all, know that you aren’t crazy and you aren’t overreacting. She is mistreating you, and you do not deserve to be treated this way. From the sounds of things, you have been more than fair to her, and you have given her endless opportunities to change her behaviour and salvage her relationship with your - although she’s dealing with a lot of difficult things in her life, she ultimately decided for herself that she was going to keep mistreating you. The fact that she changes her treatment of you depending on who is around shows that she knows her behaviour is wrong, but she’s choosing to continue it anyway. 

At the end of the day, you deserve friends who support you and make your life better - not friends who make you want to run away. Remember that. 

Best of luck to you.

MM

[missmentelle]

Hey, I'm in a tough situation right now, and I'm wondering if you could give me any advice. A couple months ago, when I was 14, I met this 23 year old guy during a family roadtrip, and he was really kind and funny. I was on bad terms with my sister, and he made be feel validated, so we started communicating over text and meeting up at night. I knew it was wrong, but it felt thrilling to keep a secret, and he was charming. We started dating, but as time went on, he became more and more demanding, soon wanting me to shoplift medicine for his friend (my dad works at a pharmacy), but I always refused, and he always got more aggressive. One day he threatened to hurt my sister if I didn't listen, and I had no choice other than to get him the medicine, but I cut ties with him shortly after. Lately, he's been really flirty with me, trying to get back together, but I don't know how to process my feelings towards him.

I still love him, but I can't get over what happened, and I'm worried he might actually harm my family if I don't get back together with him. Any advice?

Get away from this man. Block him, delete his number, and get him out of your life.

This man is grooming you.

No 23-year-old has any business romantically pursuing a 14-year-old. When someone his age goes after someone your age, what they’re most attracted to is your vulnerability, and the fact that it’s easy for them to manipulate you. That’s not a slight against you - all 14-year-olds are vulnerable, even if they are mature for their age and at the top of their class. You simply haven’t had the life experiences that a 23-year-old has. This guy knows that a woman his own age will tell him to go pound sand the first time he asks her to shoplift, so he has to go after high school students to get the amount of control he demands. 

No person who truly loves and cares about you will threaten your family to get you to obey them. Period. End of story. People who genuinely love and respect someone will never even fathom doing such a thing. Threatening you to try to force you to break the law and steal things for him is outright abuse. This guy is bad news, and he’s only going to get more extreme as time goes on. You need to get far away from him. 

I really think you need to talk to a trusted adult, if you can, and tell them what has been going on. This guy is dangerous, and it sounds like the situation is well beyond what a 14-year-old should have to deal with on her own. Getting the adults in your life involved is probably the best way to keep yourself and your family safe, and get this guy to back off - this is something your parents or guardians need to be helping you deal with at this point. 

Stay safe.

MM

[missmentelle]

Why there aren't a lot of studies about twins and twins sho lost their twin?

There actually are a lot of studies on twins. Scientists and philosophers have been fascinated by twins for thousands of years. Much of what we know today about the impact of genetics and environment on individual psychology comes from studying twins; before DNA technology was widespread and reasonably cheap, "twin studies" were the easiest way to learn about human development.

The reason that there are so many studies on twins is that comparing identical twins to fraternal twins tells us a lot about whether certain traits are primarily genetic or environmental. Identical twins share 100% of their DNA, while fraternal twins share 50% of their DNA, just like any other siblings. If identical twins are much more likely to share a certain trait than fraternal twins, then we know that that trait is highly influenced by genetics, rather than environment. But if identical twins don't always share the trait, then we know there must be an environmental factor to that trait, or both twins would always have it.

One example of this in action is schizophrenia. Around 1.2% of the American population has schizophrenia. But if you're an identical twin and your twin develops schizophrenia, you have a 40-50% chance of also developing schizophrenia. If you have a fraternal twin who develops schizophrenia, however, your odds of developing schizophrenia drop to around 15%, which is the same odds for people who have a non-twin sibling with schizophrenia. This tells us that schizophrenia is highly heritable - the more DNA you share with someone who has it, the greater your risk of also developing it. This also tells us that schizophrenia isn't entirely genetic; if DNA was the only thing that caused schizophrenia, then identical twins would have a 100% chance of developing it if their twin did.

There have also been a lot of studies done on twins who were raised together vs. twins who were raised apart. Again, this is a way to study the effects of "nature vs. nurture" - if identical twins who were separated at birth are just as similar on certain traits as identical twins who were raised together, that tells us that those traits are mostly impacted by genes, rather than environment. If traits are more environmental than genetic, we would expect twins raised apart to be very different on those traits compared to twins raised together.

An example of this in action is IQ. The Minnesota Twin Family Study - one of the largest-ever studies on twins raised both together and separately - found that identical twins raised apart had IQs that were about as similar as the IQs of identical twins raised together. Other traits like religiosity and certain personality traits were far more different in twins raised apart, showing that those traits likely have a huge environmental factor. Studies of twins raised together and apart have also shown that, in males, sexual orientation is also largely not impacted by a child's environment.

Similarly, there are actually a lot of studies out there on the impact of twin loss on surviving twins.

Here's a study from 2020 showing that surviving twins have a higher risk of developing a psychiatric disorder after the loss of a twin than non-twins do after the loss of a sibling.

Here's another study on the intensity of grief following the loss of a twin.

Here's a study on the best techniques for providing grief counselling to people who have lost a twin.

Here's a study on the grief parents experience after losing one of their twins vs losing a single-born child.

Here's another study on the loss of an identical twin vs a fraternal twin, and the factors that contribute to severe grief.

All in all, twins are probably one of the most well-studied populations in the world, especially when you consider how rare twins are. Identical twins occur in around 1 in 250 births. The odds of having fraternal twins is more complicated, as fraternal twins run in families, and your odds of having fraternal twins are impacted by your age, ethnicity, weight and use of fertility drugs - on the whole, though, fraternal twins account for roughly 1 in 85 births in the USA. But despite being so rare, we have a wealth of studies on twins that we don't have for many other relatively small populations. Hope this answers your question! MM

[missmentelle]

Could you talk about neglect? I've seen people say that neglect isn't abuse, specifically in regards to justifying it.

Neglect is a form of abuse.

If you have agreed to be responsible for someone who can't take care of themselves - like a small child, or a vulnerable senior - you have a moral (and, usually, a legal) obligation to make sure that that person is taken care of. You have to look after their health and safety, and make sure that they have everything they need.

When you fail to do that for somebody who is dependent on you, you are neglecting that person. You had a duty to care for that person, and your inability to fulfill that duty has put them in harm's way. The person isn’t able to remove themselves from the situation or preserve their own safety. That is abusive. 

There are five basic types of neglect:

Physical Neglect - this is perhaps the most obvious, and what most people think of when they think of neglect. Physically neglecting someone is when you neglect to meet their physical needs - this means you are not consistently providing them with things like proper nutrition, shelter, clothing, water or hygiene supplies. Allowing a vulnerable person to live in a dirty, unsanitary or dangerous environment is also a form of physical neglect.

Emotional Neglect - failing to meet a person's emotional needs or provide them with the nurturing, warmth and companionship they need. If you meet all of a person's physical needs but ignore them and make them sit in front of a TV all day with no human interaction, that is emotional neglect.

Supervisory Neglect - failing to provide adequate supervision for a vulnerable person. Leaving a young child home alone for hours on end or leaving a child unsupervised with an unsecured firearm would both be examples of supervisory neglect.

Medical Neglect - failing to provide the person with adequate medical care. Small children cannot drive themselves to the hospital, and they don't know when their symptoms are bad enough to warrant a doctor's appointment. It is their guardian or caretaker's responsibility to monitor their health and get them help from qualified professionals if something is wrong.

Educational Neglect - failing to ensure that a child receives an appropriate education. In most countries, children must receive at least a basic education, and it is their guardian's responsibility to make sure they get it. If you don't send your child to school or provide them with a proper homeschool program, that is educational neglect.

Neglect is a very serious form of abuse. Not being provided with basic needs, medical care or proper supervision can be extremely dangerous, and can quickly become life-threatening. Neglect is actually the most fatal form of child abuse there is - 73% of child maltreatment fatalities were caused partially or entirely by neglect. Neglect is also a common killer among the elderly, particularly those who need round-the-clock care (warning - graphic descriptions of medical issues in the article, but no pictures).

But even when people survive neglect, there are often long-term effects. Some of these can be physical - being subjected to malnutrition at a young age can cause permanent issues with brain function and physical development. Children left unsupervised for long periods of time can get into serious accidents; they often burn or cut themselves trying to prepare food, which can lead to permanent nerve damage and scarring. Medical neglect means that treatable health problems may progress into more permanent and debilitating conditions. Many seriously neglected children end up with lifelong dental issues due to poor diet and a lack of early dental care. The list of possible health complications is a long one.

There are also long-term emotional impacts that come with neglect. Being left home alone for long periods of time while mom and dad go on a days-long bender is traumatic for a young child; survivors of severe neglect often go on to develop PTSD. Being emotionally neglected can also lead to very serious issues with relationships, social skills, and attachment disorders - perhaps unsurprisingly, children who were frequently ignored or abandoned by their parents often struggle to form healthy connections with others as adults. Neglect survivors also tend to struggle with depression and low self-esteem. When your earliest childhood experiences all suggest that you were deeply unwanted by the people in your life, it's hard not to internalize that.

Neglect often occurs alongside other forms of abuse - after all, if a child is living in a household where they aren't being properly fed, clothed and supervised, it's likely that there are some serious issues in the household that might be contributing to other forms of abuse. Even when it occurs on its own, however, neglect is dangerous and highly damaging.

If you ever suspect that a child or vulnerable adult is being neglected by their caretakers, it's important that you report it to the proper child or adult protection authorities immediately. Common signs of neglect include:

poor hygiene

not having appropriate clothing for the weather

not having food or money for food

serious dental issues that aren't being addressed

medical issues that don't seem to be addressed

poor school attendance

frequent injuries

untreated injuries

clingy behaviour

aggressive behaviour

reports of poor living conditions 

reports of being left alone

being withdrawn and anxious

difficulty contacting guardians 

frequent missed appointments 

disordered eating habits 

One thing that is important to understand about neglect, however, is that one person must be dependent on the other for abusive neglect to occur. We often use the word “neglect” in casual conversation to say that someone is ignoring the other person ( ie “I haven’t texted Sam back yet, I’ve totally been neglecting them”), but we really only “count” neglect as abuse when the victim is dependent on a caretaker and isn’t able to care for themselves. Parents who don’t feed their 5-year-old child are neglectful and abusive. Parents who don’t feed their independent 35-year-old child are neither - the child can now meet their own needs, and the parents no longer have any obligation to look after them. 

This means that neglect isn’t a form of abuse we see in romantic relationships between adults. If your partner doesn’t provide you with any emotional support or reassurance, that certainly makes them a bad partner, but they are not technically neglecting you - they are not your caretaker, and you are not dependent on them in the same way that a small child is dependent on their parents. You are capable of recognizing that an important need of yours is not being met in the relationship, and you are capable of ending the relationship and/or looking elsewhere for emotional support. If your partner is withholding affection to punish you or preventing you from seeking emotional support from others, that would be emotional abuse, but we still wouldn’t really call it neglect - your partner is not your guardian or caretaker, and doesn’t have the same duty to nurture you that a parent has to nurture their child.

I think it’s also important to note that neglect does not have to be malicious for it to count as child abuse. If you aren’t providing the necessities of life to your child or dependent adult, it doesn’t really matter why you’re failing to do that - the dependent person is still being neglected. A child sitting hungry in day-old diapers because mom is passed out drunk on the floor is being neglected. A child sitting hungry in day-old diapers because mom is working a double and has no childcare is being neglected. A child sitting hungry in day-old diapers because mom is 16 years old and has no idea what she’s doing is still being neglected. 

This can get tricky, because a lot of neglect is directly connected to poverty - a lot of parents simply aren’t able to provide their child with a nutritious diet, appropriate housing and adequate clothing, no matter how badly they want to. Not every parent can afford adequate childcare while they work to pay the bills. This doesn’t mean that neglect isn’t abuse, or that children don’t suffer from it - it means we need to be nuanced in thinking about how we address the issue of child neglect, and when it might be more appropriate to provide supports instead of removing the child. 

Hope this answers your question! MM

[missmentelle]

I was just wondering: is there legal reason to criminalise someone based on thought alone (zero action being taken), like when a person admits to immense shame surrounding a darker paraphilia (like zoophilia or erotophonophillia)?

iirc you’re located in Canada, and I know laws are different everywhere, but I’m wondering how confidentiality works in this case and what rights a person would have here

I really can't give accurate legal advice, as I am not a lawyer. The only way to know the exact laws in your area would be to find a lawyer who practices in the jurisdiction you live in.

I can tell you from a mental health practitioner standpoint that I am legally mandated to report any information that suggests a child under the age of 19 (the legal age of majority in my part of Canada) or a vulnerable adult (a senior with dementia, a person with profound developmental disabilities, etc) is being abused. This has to be actual harm to a real person, and not simply a "dark thought" that a client is having. If a client tells me "my dad beats my 12-year-old sister when he's drunk", I have to report that information. If a client tells me "I have obsessive thoughts about hurting children", I do not have a duty to report that information to child protection authorities - there's nothing for them to investigate, as I have no information about an actual child being harmed.

I also have a "duty to warn" (called a "Tarasoff warning" in the United States) - this means that if my client is making direct threats to commit physical violence against somebody or telling me that they have a plan to physically harm somebody, I have a duty to break confidentiality and make sure that that person is warned (generally by informing the local police, who would then deliver the warning). Again, though, this has to be a threat against a specific person. If a client tells me "I have obsessive thoughts about killing people", I do not have a duty to report that to anyone. If a client tells me "I have obsessive thoughts about killing my ex-girlfriend, Suzy Jones", I have a duty to make sure that Suzy Jones is warned.

Interestingly enough, I do not have any duty to report past crimes that a person confesses to me (unless there is some reason to suspect that a vulnerable child/adult is still in danger. A client could confess to me that they committed a murder and I would not have any duty to report that information; I would actually get into quite a bit of trouble if I did report it, as it would be considered a breach of confidentiality and professional ethics.

I have no duty to report paraphilias unless a client tells me that they have actually acted on the paraphilia and harmed a child or vulnerable person in the process. Even if a client confesses to having paraphilias that most people might consider very "dark" or "serious", like a sexual attraction to animals or murdering people, I have absolutely no duty to report that to authorities - again, I would actually get in a great deal of trouble if I did.

People confessing to extreme paraphilias, sexual fetishes, urges or obsessive thoughts is more common than you might think. Some people genuinely have these kinds of desires. Some people simply have a ton of anxiety that they might have these kinds of desires and convince themselves that they're bad people because of it. Either way, that isn't information that I have to report to anyone. I don't know if authorities would actually do anything with that information if I did report it (I suspect they would not) but you'd need to ask a lawyer from your jurisdiction to know for sure.

MM