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Maureen Cary

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Can Long-Term Isolation Lead to an Addiction?

We are living through some of the most stressful times in recent history. With the global pandemic raging on, many of us are still worried about our own health and the health of our loved ones, especially our older friends and family members.

Many of us have also been hit with financial burdens. Some have lost jobs and others have had to close their businesses. How will the mortgage and bills get paid?

To make an already bad situation worse, a lot of us are still experiencing lockdown and quarantine. Many are working from home for the first time and still, others are unable to travel and be with loved ones.

This has left a majority of people feeling alone and isolated when they are already feeling they are most vulnerable.

The Link between Isolation and Drug Use

During stressful circumstances, it is a natural tendency for people to turn to drugs and alcohol as a way of coping. A study reported in the American Journal of Epidemiology found there was a 25% increase in alcohol consumption in the weeks following 9/11.

The stress and isolation of the current pandemic are putting those people who are prone to addiction at great risk. Virtual cocktail hours are now officially a thing. But how many of those cocktail hours end when the computer is shut off?

Human beings are social creatures. When you take our ability to be social away, it can lead to depression and anxiety. Even people who have no history of addiction are at risk of developing a drinking or drug problem during the pandemic as a way of coping with social isolation.

When coping with stress, it can be hard to self-monitor our behaviors, but it is incredibly important for our overall health and well-being. If you suspect you have been drinking or using any drug more than you should at this time, it’s important to be honest about that.

Ask yourself a few questions:

  • Has cocktail hour started earlier or gone later than usual lately?
  • Does the bottle of wine that used to last 3 days barely last one night?
  • Do you ever feel like you SHOULD cut down on your drinking or other drug use?
  • Have you noticed you’re thinking about drinking or using drugs more and more?
  • Have loved ones commented on the amount you’ve been drinking?

It’s important that you are honest with yourself at this time. And if you answered yes to one or more of these questions, it’s important that you get some help.

Many treatment centers remain open during this time. You may also want to think about speaking with a mental health counselor. If in-person sessions are not available, find a provider who offers telehealth solutions. This means you can receive treatment online.

Times are tough for everyone right now. You are not alone. If you are turning to drugs and alcohol to deal with the stress and isolation, please get the help you need.

 

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Compartmentalization: How it Hurts Men’s Relationship with Women

You’ve no doubt heard the expression “men are from Mars, women from Venus.” And while we can all point out some major differences between the sexes, typically those differences all start in one major organ – the brain!

One of the biggest complaints women tend to have about men is that they sometimes seem emotionally unavailable or distant. This distance stems from what is called “compartmentalization.”

Men tend to compartmentalize their feelings and thoughts about, well, pretty much everything. If you were to look inside a woman’s brain, you might find a comfy quilt made from her thoughts and feelings, all stitched together. Women naturally process thoughts and feelings and integrate them into one cohesive “thing.”

Now if we were to take a look inside of a man’s brain, we’re apt to find a tool cabinet with almost infinite drawers. Men don’t integrate their thoughts and feelings. They tend to file everything away, each thought and emotion getting its own compartment where it sits until the man is ready to deal with it.

Compartmentalization Isn’t Necessarily a Bad Thing

Historically speaking, men and women have played different roles within the home and society. Women, traditionally, have been responsible for raising healthy and functioning members of society. For this important task, they need to be able to think and feel at the exact same time. They need to have the skills that allow them to process and integrate thoughts and feelings.

Men, on the other hand, have traditionally been tasked with keeping the family safe, fighting the wars, and building societies, literally. These are incredibly challenging tasks and ones where it isn’t necessarily feasible to think and feel at the same time. When a man is on the battlefield, fighting the enemy and trying to stay alive so he can return to his wife and children, he doesn’t have the time or luxury of processing how he feels about having to kill others so that he doesn’t die.

In other words, compartmentalization is a natural coping mechanism for men. It has served them very, very well throughout history. Compartmentalization does not make men “bad.” It’s simply an evolutionary mechanism that has allowed men to cope.

Modernizing the Male Brain

Compartmentalization is a bit like our natural “fight or flight” mechanism. It served our ancestors well and helped keep them alive. But modern people no longer face the same life or death situations. We’re not, generally speaking, chased by wild mastodons or saber tooth tigers. These days we have mortgage payments and lengthy commutes. But our bodies still kick into “fight or flight” mode and we end up dousing our organs with stress chemicals like adrenaline and cortisol. This wreaks havoc on our health, causing diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease.

Fight or flight served its purpose, but it now tends to cause more harm than good.

Compartmentalization is similar. It definitely has served a great purpose, and it still can in certain situations. But generally speaking, compartmentalization can also wreak havoc on men’s relationships with women.

Learning to Decompartmentalize

If you’ve ever tried to wrangle a bunch of baby chicks, you know how hard it is to get them to all move in unison and toward a common destination. This is what it will feel like to decompartmentalize your mind. No one ever said becoming a more well-rounded man was going to be easy.  

But in order to strengthen the relationship you have with the women in your life, you’ll need to be willing to feel awkward and uncomfortable for a little bit. You’ll need to begin to integrate your thoughts and feelings. Heck, you’ll need to even admit you have them!

Working with a therapist can be a great way for you to begin your journey. A trained therapist can give you the tools that will help you begin this important integration so you can feel a closer connection to women.

If you’d like to explore treatment, please reach out to me. I would be more than happy to discuss how I may be able to help.

 

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How to Face Food and Fitness Challenges During COVID-19

If anyone had told us a year ago that we would be facing a global pandemic – one that would cause the entire world to go on lockdown – no one would have believed it. But here we are.

While some states have begun to reopen, there are still many areas where children are not going to school and adults are still working remotely. Without question, this disruption in our day-to-day lives has caused many people to make poor food and fitness choices.

 

How to Make Better Food Choices

Eating healthy can be challenging on its own, but couple that will seclusion at home and the added stress we’ve all been feeling for months – stress that BEGS us to eat comfort foods – and you can see how many of our food choices have taken a nosedive.

Here are some ways you can begin to make better food choices during the pandemic:

Plan Your Groceries Carefully

You may have given yourself and your family some leeway these past months when buying groceries. Did you allow more processed garbage into your home because, after all, we’re dealing with a pandemic, and Doritos and cookies help you cope?

If so, it’s time to buckle down and start shopping better. If you don’t allow junk food into the house, you won’t be as tempted to eat it. Do your best to buy fewer processed foods and more wholesome, organic foods.

Try a Healthy Meal Delivery Service

Parents have been hit particularly hard during the pandemic. Many have had to work from home while at the same time teach their children. Not so easy. This has, no doubt, caused many people to order in pizza and other potentially not-so-healthy foods. Who has time to cook?!

If you do need some help preparing your meals, it is a much better idea to sign up for a HEALTHY meal delivery service. There are plenty of options out there to choose from, a simple Google search will turn up numerous companies who cater to those who don’t have time to cook but want to eat healthily!

Deal with Your Emotions

None of us had time to prepare for this pandemic. One day life was normal and the next, chaos and fear. All of this fear and stress caused us to make unhealthy choices.

While things are still a bit rough, now is the time to take stock in our feelings and process them. Ignoring emotions will only cause them to fester and keep that sugar-craving junkie monkey on our back.

 

How to Make Better Fitness Choices

Obviously, self-isolation means far fewer opportunities to be physically active. Gyms have been closed. Heck, even some beaches and public parks have been closed.

So what’s a person to do? I mean, science has shown exercise is important to keep our immune systems running optimally.

Well, there are actually numerous fitness opportunities for you right at home.

Stand While Working

Sitting is bad for us anyway, so why not stand while you work? There are standing desks you can purchase to help you with this, or you can create your own standing workstation (wire shelving units work well for this).

Got Stairs?

If you live in an apartment complex, avoid using the elevator and take the stairs instead. Live in a house with stairs? Walk up and down them quickly for 1 minute, rest, and repeat. Do this a few times a day.

Do Body Weight Exercises

Some of the absolute BEST exercises you can do require no equipment. Planks, push-ups, sit-ups, and squats require only your body weight and a willingness to commit to the routine.

The pandemic hasn’t been much fun for anyone. And it’s no doubt taken a toll on many of us regarding our health. Now is the time to get back into shape and make better food and fitness choices.

 

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How to Help Your Child Deal with Their Anger

Many parents believe in the same myth: if they do everything right, their children will be happy. But that’s not how childhood works. No matter how much you love your child or how much you give to them in the way of attention and material items, kids are still going to experience all kinds of emotions, including anger.

While childhood is filled with fun and wonder, it is also a time when children often feel a lack of independence, scared, and confused by the world around them. These feelings, combined with growing pains, an increase in hormones and the pressure of doing well in school and extra-curricular activities, quite naturally leads to frustration and anger.

Here are some ways to help your child deal with their anger:

Recognize it’s Normal and Healthy

You can’t help your child if you see them as Damien from “The Omen.” The feeling of anger is completely normal and natural for human beings of all ages to experience. Approach your child with this attitude. Your job is not to STOP them from feeling anger, it’s to help them process their anger in constructive, not destructive, ways.

Stay Calm

If only your child chose to be angry on the days you didn’t have a fight with a coworker and then were stuck in traffic on the way home for an hour and a half. It’s important to remain calm when your child is having an anger fit, even on those days you feel like blowing your own top. This will not only help keep the situation under control, it will also teach them through action how to control their own emotions as they grow and develop.

Validate Your Child’s Anger

Never tell your child they shouldn’t feel something they are feeling. If they are feeling frustrated and angry, chances are there is a very good reason for it. So validate their anger. This can be as simple as saying, “You seem very upset right now,” instead of saying, “Hey, calm down, there’s no reason to get so angry.” Validating their feelings will help them identify their emotions and not feel bad or ashamed of them.

Help Them Release Their Energy

Help your child deal with their anger in positive ways instead of negative ways. Very young children may want to draw their anger. Older children may want to run around in the back yard. Teenagers may want to lift weights to get that energy out. Squeezing stress balls and bubble wrap is a fun way to get the anger out and it often ends in everyone having a good laugh.

Feeling anger is a natural part of life. Don’t make your child feel bad for their anger and don’t feel like you’ve somehow failed as a parent because your child experiences anger. Anger just is and we all have to learn to process it in healthy ways.

Some kids have more anger than others. In the case of a divorce or sudden death of a parent, a child may be dealing with the kind of anger that requires professional counseling. If you or someone you know has a child with extreme anger issues and would like to explore treatment options, please be in touch. I would be more than happy to discuss how I may be able to help.

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