Jake contemplating his first step

I have a new friend named Jacob and we recently celebrated his first birthday.  Of course he had no idea what was going on but he did taste cake for the first time.  He loved it. Apparently he's read all of the books on developmental psychology because he's doing everything he supposed to do at the right time:  crawling, babbling, fingers in everything.

 Jake is adorable and happy, and he is now standing on his own.  And once he realizes he is standing on his own he gets scared and sits down. Perhaps you’ve observed what comes next. Perhaps you’ve experienced it yourself. As an adult.

Last week my little friend was at my house with his babysitter when he pulled himself up on her leg.  When he let go, she took a step back.  And there he stood, wobbling a bit with eyes as wide as saucers.  That's when he reached his hand out for her to secure him, but she didn't take it.  Instead, she held her hand just beyond his grasp.  And there he stood;  unsteady and looking for security from someone he trusted.   He slowly began to sit on the floor, but before his diaper made contact, he righted himself and again reached out to the babysitter.  But she merely encouraged Jake to take the step necessary to reach her hand.  I watched as his eyes and his little chest seemed to be moving rapidly.  I wanted desperately save him from his distress. And then it happened, just like we knew it would.  He took his step. We all applauded. My eyes welled up with tears.

In the Hebrew Bible, God says to Abraham: "Leave your father's house."  In effect, leave what is familiar -- leave what you have known to be "home" in order to begin the journey of your life.  Neurologically speaking, that's what Jake did.  He chose not to sit down and crawl. He embarked instead on the unfamiliar, having no idea what would happen.  In the process, he literally took the first step in his journey of life.

To grow, we must loosen our grasp on what seems familiar. There is no easier way.  Abraham had to leave his father’s house. The rest of us must leave the narrative we’ve spun for ourselves – the story of who we are, how we behave and what we need in order to feel better or happy or secure. 

"She" says she has been in a marriage without love and can't live that way anymore. She says he is not capable of love.  She says she has tried for many years to live up to his expectations.  She says she was insecure from the beginning of the marriage because her father never loved her properly.  She says she is entitled to have her needs met. Once her needs are met, she says, she will be happy or secure. That's her narrative.  Every word may be true, but not very helpful.  And the more she suffers, the more deeply she believes that narrative to be true, the worse she feels. 

Think about your narrative and how it defines who you are.  Are you a leader or a victim or a workaholic? Perhaps you are a chronic caretaker or depressive or disabled or insecure or disordered in some other way.  Is your unhappiness because of the person you are living with, working with or is it caused by your upbringing or your genetics?  Will happiness come when you have enough money, love, when your children are grown and secure or do you believe it will never come?  The answers to these questions are part of your narrative.

What if  what you think you need is not really what you need, and all of those explanations for your unhappiness are not accurate?  What if the things you think will make you happy won't make you happy?

When we release our grasp on our narrative, we find ourselves  in exactly the same place Jake was as he stood on the floor, alone, reaching out, not knowing what would happen the very next moment. In other words, very, very scared – and then, with one small step, able to take a giant leap into your new future.

Tuesday's chat will be an open discussion about what it takes to make changes in our lives and how we can begin letting go of the assumptions we have been making for years.

With the divorce rate just under 50 percent, most who get divorced remarry, creating a stepfamily. And anyone who has ever been in a stepfamily knows that they are complicated to say the least! This chat will be about many of the issues stepfamilies face and how they can be resolved. Dan is joined today by Dr. Wednesday Martin, author of 'Stepmonster: A New Look at Why Real Stepmothers Think, Feel and Act the Way We Do.'

With the divorce rate just under 50% most who get divorced remarry creating a stepfamily.  And anyone who has ever been in a stepfamily knows that they are complicated to say the least!  Tuesday's web chat will be about many of the issues stepfamilies face and how they can be resolved.  The next letter illustrates a classic problem in stepfamilies:

Dear  Dan,

I think I am having some stepfamily problems.  My husband and I are in a relatively new second marriage.    He has one son and I have a daughter. 
 
Last night my son  had 2 friends over, it was late when my husband returned home from a long day and he was tired and hungry. Nevertheless, not only did he not say hello to the girls, he didn't even acknowledge their presence.  The next morning when he left for work, the girls were still there and he still didn't acknowledge them.

 I am put off by this, as I feel an acknowledgement is priority for everyone all the time.  Later I told him it was important to me that he acknowledge the children.  He said he did not feel like it was necessary or that my daughter would have really cared last night, they were doing their thing.   I thought my husbands lack of consideration to my feelings and my request was hurtful, however I have decided to let it go or he will become angry  and think I am a nag.

Lastly, if his daughter was at our house and his friends were over, he would have greeted him.  He will from time to time greet my kids, on his terms though, he decides when to greet and not to .

So is this a case of "I have made my bed and now sleep in it" or is there a way to reason?

Struggling in a stepfamily                                 

Dear struggling,

Shortly before I received your e-mail, I received one from a fellow in Haverford who was considering marrying for the second time and asked my advice.  I told them his timing was perfect because this is the time to begin talking about what it means to be a family.

When people get married for the first time, they bring in a set of expectations and experiences from their family of origin and rarely do partners see the world through the same lens as both have a different vision of what it means to be family.  But when they get married a second time, those expectations have been modified by everyone's battle experience which is usually negative.  So everyone usually comes to these families with some anxiety and apprehension and many carry baggage from the previous marriage.

So the questions about what does it mean to be in family, be married, be a man/woman, be a parent should be discussed way back in the beginning of the process.  And the children should also be brought in to the discussion.

Every stepfamily I've treated has struggled with issues of loyalty.  Biological parents feel loyal to their children who have already suffered.  Meanwhile, this loyalty can do great harm to the fragile new marriage.  This is a complicated and difficult issue as children really do suffer when there is divorce and do need to support of their parents.  But when a child of divorce has lived alone with a parent for a while, they are not going to be happy about sharing time and space.  All of these things need to be talked out with everyone in the family.  It's very important that stepfamilies do not divide by biology.  And although this is may be difficult for the first few years as everyone tries to get to know one another, it's very important not to have secret alliances.

So, struggling, even though you may have not had these discussions, it's never too late.  You see, there are always stories behind the story.  When you say how important it is to be acknowledged, that sounds like a high stakes issue from childhood and may have nothing to do with your daughter.  I don't know why your husband won't acknowledge the children, but there is a story about that also.

And the most important issue is the fact that you are hurt.  If something is happening in your marriage that is hurting you, that's never okay.  That doesn't necessarily mean that your husband should change his behavior to address your pain, but it does mean that the two of you have to talk about this.

And please keep in mind blended families are difficult and so are second marriages.  As far as I am concerned, what makes the prognosis better is devotion.  If the two of you are devoted to this relationship and this family, you might still need counseling, but you should do pretty well.

In my last entry I talked about my daughters experience when the wheelchair charger arrived on time at our hotel in Haifa. Once she realized everyone in our group had been worried about me and was thrilled that the problem was resolved, she told me she felt less alone with these problems for the first time in her life.
So all of this leads me to the people:

 It is said that when you put two Israelis together and you have at least three opinions, probably more.  These are people who are not afraid to express their opinions and not afraid to argue about them.  But there is a quality of family in this nation state.  I guess living with existential threat every day certainly helps people feel as one.  In America, we experienced it for about 48 hours after 9/11.  In Israel, they experience it every day since 1946, if not thousands of years before.
When we experienced trauma as individuals, the effects are different than when we experience trauma as community.  When we experience abuse or disability or any other form of trauma, we experience nice ourselves as different from the larger culture.  But when it is a cultural trauma like 9/11 or even World War II, we share something important.  This was the case at that little hotel in Haifa when Debbie and I both felt less alone.  That feeling would only be reinforced throughout the following week.
 
Although I cherish the beauty and the history of Israel, what made this trip special was watching my family.  There was much I couldn't see because of wheelchair access, intense heat, but because I sat back, I was able to see things the others were not.  For example, we visited an ancient synagogue in what looked like a working-class Arab neighborhood.  I sat on the bus with Sam and Pat as they quickly got bored with the synagogue and returned.  In a few minutes a young boy about 10 years old came up to the bus and asked Sam his name.  He said his name was Sultan (pronounced Sool tan) and said to Sam "play football" which is soccer in most of the world? Sam said no, but he would try.  Sultan hollered something I couldn't understand to a friend or relative in an apartment building, but one of the words was football.  In a few minutes and older boy and a few girls appeared and there was my grandson playing soccer in the parking lot with a few Arab kids. I was moved to tears as I was reminded how much our children have to teach us.
 
Sam at the wall:
as many of you know, Sam is on the autism spectrum and has his own way of looking at the world.  Some of his observations are pristine and remarkable, some are just damn cute and some are a combination of both.
  The next day we visited the old city in Jerusalem.  This is the most precious and holy site of the three Abrahamic religions and at the same time, a bustling small metropolis that looks as though it's been unchanged in 2000 years. Debbie was careful to explain to Sam the meaning of the Western Wall as one of the holiest places in the world.  When the time came, I was unable to go as the cobblestones made it almost impossible for me to pass.  Our rabbi, Barry Schwartz already had been building a relationship with Sam so he volunteered to take him to the wall where both of them prayed.
When Sam got back, he gave his mother the full report: "mommy, I know I prayered the right way because I was with the Rabbi.  But when I got done prayering, the Rabbi wasn't so I need shadow puppets on the wall.  And you know what, the sun was perfect for shadow puppets.  And I think I know why, because that is a very special place.  Anyway, when I was done that I touched the wall and one of the notes fell out and I didn't know what to do.  So I quickly picked it up and put it back in the wall and I think it will be okay now because, you know, the five second rule."
And that was Sam's experience praying with my Rabbi at a sacred place.
 
As our time in Israel wound down, we visited the Dead Sea.  This is the lowest place on earth and a body of water that is evaporating rapidly.  It's also a body of water with a salt content of nearly 40%, which makes it impossible to sustain life.  It also makes it impossible to sink!  One of my not so hidden agendas in going to Israel was to float in the Dead Sea with Sam.  It was over 100° that day, but I was determined.  So I slowly navigated my wheelchair over about 200 yards of cobblestones resting under the occasional tree.  By the time I arrived at the city, Sam had already been in there and wasn't very happy about it as he had a rash on his back and the high salt content was painful.
When I got near the shore, three or four of my fellow travelers helped me out of my wheelchair and into a plastic lawn chair and carried me into the water.  The rest of my group slowly circled around as my nurse slid me off the chair and allowed me to float. Many were taking pictures and some were crying as Sam got back in the water just to be with his pop and then both his parents joined us.  As the four of us floated together for the first time in our lives, our group surrounded us and quite spontaneously sang a Hebrew song of joy.  There I was feeling self-conscious, grateful, loved and in love all at the same time.
It everything I dreamed and more.  I fell in love with the land, my fellow travelers, my religion and my family al l over again.
 

There is just so much to say and so many stories about this experience that I will do it in pieces.  Overall, the trip was magical, difficult, fun, deeply spiritual, difficult, intimate, wonderful, difficult and worth every minute.

The first three days:
  We just never know what the next moment holds for us, we assume we do and that gives us the illusion of security. But on a trip to a place like Israel, we can even pretend to know what will be happening around the corner.  This was the case last week on the first day of our adventure to the holy land.  I sat overlooking the beauty of the Galilei in northern Israel with my precious grandson Sam, my daughter, son-in-law and 25 soon to be dear friends from my synagogue in South Jersey.  I had been to this beautiful and interesting land twice before, but this trip was about living out a personal dream.  I wanted to introduce Debbie the land of our ancestors and tell her about my deepest wish to have Sam come back here for his bar mitzvah. So there we were sitting on the grounds of a kibbutz, watching the body of water that Jesus is said to have walked on, just trying to absorb the meaning of the moment. Bedtime was early that night as we had arrived that morning after a 12 hour flight.  So shortly after my nurse put me into bed, she plugged in my wheelchair as we routinely do, but this time was different.  The battery charger blew out all of the circuits and in turn blew out the charger.  All of a sudden being in a remote part of an exotic land on the Sabbath went from a deep spiritual experience to: "holy s**t, what now?"I could add a little more drama to the story like how the wheelchair almost ran out of charge before we got a new charger, but everything was resolved in 36 hours.Just like a dead charger was unexpected, so was the group's response to seeing the new one.  We had been promised that it would be in the lobby of a hotel in Haifa when we arrived the next day but all 25 of us were nervous about it.  And when we saw the brown box in the lobby there was an air of anticipation but when we plugged it in and found success, there was applause.  Debbie later told me that when she heard that applause, she felt like she was part of a large caring support network for the first time in her life.

Q: I am a single adoptive parent of 8. My children range in age from 3-29. They were all born addicted to cocaine or alcohol; because of this there are educational and behavioral difficulties. Have had 2 in house adoption therapists, but end up questioning myself and nothing changes at home. My children are wonderful, but I don't know how to deal with all the issues. We attend church and have a fairly decent support system, however, some days I feel insane, I also work full time during the school year.
Pitman, NJ

Frustrated family member

Dear frustrated,

Some people may be beyond hope.  There are some people who actually find pleasure in harming people even murdering them, so they may be beyond hope.  But they are in a tiny minority.

  There are others who, despite treatment, keep repeating destructive behaviors like substance abuse, criminal activity or even child abuse.  It sounds like your cousin is one of them.  So we could look at his behavior, awful as it is, and say this is just a bad guy.  Family and society has done everything they could for him so now let's just put him away in some institution and protect both him and us.  And that would not be an irrational argument.  Of course, the mechanics of implementing this might be a problem in a democracy, but the position has some validity.

But there might be some other ways of looking at your cousin.  We could look at failed institutions and failed mental health treatment.  And that would certainly also be a valid argument and one that I would endorse.  Our understanding of the human mind/brain has come a long way in the last hundred years and we have moved at warp speed over the last couple of decades.  But still we are very far from knowing how to effectively treat many relapsing forms of mental illness.

Of course, none of this takes your cousin off the hook for his behavior and I strongly believe that, with very few exceptions, people should be responsible for what they've done.

So is your cousin hopeless?  He might be, but we can only answer that in hindsight.  But, we do know this -- in addition to his behavior, we know that he sought treatment several times.  So I would make this assumption that he is a tortured soul who does not wish to suffer but has no idea how to diminish his suffering.  Most people who abuse drugs do so in a misguided effort to diminish suffering, same thing when they illegally try to get money -- all misguided efforts to diminish suffering.

But the real issue here that may underlie your question about whether he is beyond hope may be about whether you can help him.  And perhaps the more important question is whether you want to help him. 

If your answer is that you don't want to help him, I don't think anyone would fault you for that.  And if that was your decision, I would hope that you could find some peace with it. But keep in mind if you do this out of anger, you might carry resentment.  So if you decide to give up, please just let go and hope for the best for this man.

But if you decide you're not ready to give up and would like to try again, you and your aunts have to do something other than what you have been doing because you know that doesn't work.  So here is a rule of thumb when dealing with substance abusers or other chronic relapsing psychological disorders: do what you can to help them get better but don't do anything to help keep them sick.  Giving them money, making excuses for them even bailing them out of jail are ways of enabling them to continue with the same behavior.

It is important that your cousin know that the only thing you and your aunts are willing to do is support is getting help.  Perhaps you are willing to help him find a facility or even drive him there but that's all.  As much as I think dialogue helps resolve conflict, this man's conflict is within himself and long discussions would be fruitless.

Now, like it or not, this terrible disease of substance abuse affects friends and families and loved ones of the abuser and it has affected you.  So whatever decision you make, it will be difficult as it involves saying no to someone in your family.  There are structured programs like Al-Anon for families and friends of substance abusers that can often be helpful.  But whether you choose a program like this or not, you and your aunts will benefit from the support of people who understand.

In Al-Anon they often say "detach with love."  Of course, that's easy to say and difficult to do.  Your cousin is a troubled person who may or may not survive his illness.  But if you are able to set these firm boundaries, you might feel safe enough to find some compassion for him.

Sometimes the extent of your power is your fervent wish for someone to suffer less.  And right now, I wish that for you, your aunts and your cousin.

Dan will be joined by two guests today, both are mental health professionals. The chat will be about the mental health of people who are deaf or hard of hearing. Larry Brick  is hard of hearing and Louise Montoya grew up with two parents who were deaf. Post your questions now!

 

A new question is in your Philly.com Q&A Forum:

forgiving myself
Q: My daughter died three years ago of mesothelioma at age 38. She had suffered from depression, panic and anxiety from a very young age.

When she was two, I had a depression and didnt respond to her for months. I was not a hugging, loving mother similar to my own mother. And, like my own mother, I did all that I could to be a good mother. But, now I know, I could have done so much more for my daughter;s self esteem and confidence. I did everything I could to help her through her hard times. It is just now that I know all that I could have done. I cannot forgive myself.
Warwick, NY

Like everyone reading this post, I wish I had the power of forgiveness.  I wish somehow I could take away your almost unfathomable pain.  I wish neither you, your mother or daughter had this horrible disorder known as depression which saps life and closes hearts.  I wish that gene had died out in your family many generations ago. 

And most of all, I wish you had more time with your daughter.

 You conclude your letter by saying you cannot forgive yourself, but I would ask you if you are willing to forgive yourself. It's a difficult question and a painful one, but requires a thoughtful honest answer.  Many people who have lost loved ones tell me they are not willing to let go of the resentment they feel towards themselves.  But it's not the resentment they are clutching; it is the memories of their loved one.  They tell me they are afraid that if their pain and guilt diminishes, so might their memories.

If you are willing to forgive yourself, what do you think it would take?  Answer that question carefully, decide what you need to do and please do it.

Several years after my sister died, I wanted to know what different religious perspectives thought about where she is now.  Frankly, I don't recall most of them as they didn't seem to make much sense to me.  But I do remember what one Buddhist said.  He told me that he lost his brother several years earlier.  He said that when his brother was alive: "he was alive for me in 50 different ways.  And now, he is alive for me in 49 ways ". 

The pain of losing a child never goes away.  There are always sad memories and an ache inside your heart for where your child once was.  I am sure your love for your daughter endures.  When the day comes that you begin to release your grasp on your guilt, what can you do with all of that love you have for your daughter?  How can you honor her memory?

If someone calls you tomorrow and said they lost a child and felt consumed with regret about things they have done or didn't do with a child, how would you feel?  I don't know what kind of person you were before this terrible tragedy, but I would guess that given your history of depression you are a pretty sensitive person.  And I would also guess that you would feel great compassion and understanding for this person who called you.  You would encourage them forgive to themselves, you might remind them that they loved their child very much and did everything in their power to be good parents.  You might cry for them and with them and for yourself.

Gerda Weissman Klein survived the Nazi death camps and, along with her husband, created a foundation that teaches tolerance to children.  She once said that no pain should be wasted; that we can use our pain to help others.

When you lose a child, the grief can be crippling. And sometimes that grief turns into a clinical depression that needs to be treated.  But somehow, no matter what, the spirit emerges.  We might be battered and bruised and carry scars of our suffering, but for most life resumes.  And when you are ready, please know that the world is open to you and could benefit from your compassion.