B-Sort Relationship Advice Blog

On Thursday, I was watching television as I ate my breakfast.

There was a clip about a boy aged about 10 or 11 years old. He was standing by the side of the road holding a yellow placard. On the placard in large letters were the words, “I can’t stop lying. I think my mother is stupid but I keep getting caught.”. (Not the exact words but that was the message.)

The boy was interviewed. He said his mother was trying to teach him a lesson. The mother was interviewed. She wanted to embarrass him into telling the truth.

I felt really sad to see this negative relationship pattern between parents and children. I find parents try to teach their children not to lie by focusing on ‘lying’ behavior. They catch their children in lies and then punish them. However, if the child admits to doing something wrong, that is, tell the truth, then they also get punished. It’s a no-win situation for the child.

When parents focus on lying rather than truth-telling they tend to get into power struggles with their children that create a vicious cycle in which everyone is a loser. The parents catch their children in lies and punish them. The children are frightened of being punished so they lie. Frightened children tend to lie or go mute. The more children lie, the more their parents catch them in lies, and punish them. Children become afraid of their parents. The parents become suspicious of the children.  Both become angry with each other.  It’s a bad outcome for everyone involved.

Punishment and humiliation can easily backfire damaging any relationship. The relief children experience when they are not caught is reinforcing -tempting them to lie again.  From this cycle, what children actually learn from their parents is “It’s OK to lie, just don’t get CAUGHT lying”.

Parents would do better to focus on their children’s truth-telling behavior. How to do that? See the handout for parents in our Articles section.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay

The following is Part 1 of a previously published article that I wrote.

I see and hear more and more people criticizing themselves when they forget a name, a word, or forget what they were going to say or do. Criticism is unnecessary and counterproductive to both feeling good about yourself, and remembering your intent. I’d like to help people of all ages minimize these common mental ‘lapses in life’.

Young people have moments. They lose their train of thought, forget where they put things, or can’t remember names or common words. They walk into a room or open a cupboard and forget what they were going to do or get. Because it does not happen too often, they dismiss them.

I was 22 when I got married. I put my marriage license in a ‘safe’ place. I have never found it to this day. I never thought that I was losing my mind or that I was stupid. I was just frustrated that I could not find it when I needed it.

These moments happen more often as we age. We’ve accumulated so much information through our lifetime of experiences. When we forget, we get anxious and think we are ‘losing it’. We scare ourselves into thinking we might be going senile. We doubt our own mental functioning. And, with a focus on youth, we are afraid other people are judging our mental capabilities.

For most of my adult life I’ve put items on the stairs to take up (or down) to another level. Then, for some reason when I need to go upstairs, I grab the things on the stairs and put them away. Distracted, I forget the reason I was originally went upstairs.

How we handle these moments can determine how long they last, how often they happen and how we feel about ourselves. More importantly, we can influence whether we remember or forget.

1 Be kind to yourself. Judging and criticizing yourself for forgetting is the worst thing you can do. People are often self-effacing, making remarks such as “I’m must have Alzheimer’s”. Beating yourself up short-circuits the remembering process. It creates anxiety. It makes you feel badly about yourself. You are now focusing on forgetting instead remembering. It’s counter productive. What you need and want to do is remember.

2 Take deep breath. Anxiety is the biggest culprit when it comes to forgetting. A little anxiousness can be helpful but when anxiety gets too high it interferes with thinking. Taking a deep breath reduces your anxiety so that you are more likely to remember what you want to say or do.

3 Stop. Look. Wait. Taking a moment to pause allows the mind to remember. People are often thinking and doing several things at one time. The key is not to think while you’re waiting. If you open a cupboard and can’t remember what you wanted: Stop. Gaze at the items in the cupboard. Wait. Most of the time what you were looking for will pop back into your mind. If you are in the middle of a conversation and you lose your train of thought - Stop. Be quiet. Wait. It may take from 5-30 seconds. If no one talks for these moments you are more likely to recall what you were going to say.

4 Mentally retrace your thoughts. If you are in a conversation and forget your train of thought, take a few moments to think back to what you were saying just before you lost your train of thought. If possible, get the person or people to help you with this process. As you do that, often you will suddenly remember what you were saying. When my clients (of all ages) forget what they were going to tell me I remind them of what we were talking about just before they lost their train of thought. Most of the time this process triggers their memory.

5 Retrace your behaviors, mentally and literally. If you go to do something and then forget what you were about to do, pause and stand still. Mentally review what you were doing just before. Back up in your mind to an earlier point. Then imagine all the actions you did up until this moment. This usually works. If this still does not trigger your memory, then actually go back to an earlier point and retrace your steps. As you retrace your steps often what you were about to do will suddenly come to you.

6 Cue word. If you remember what you are going to say or do but cannot say it or do it immediately because of circumstances, conger up a cue word that will remind you. If possible - SAY IT OUT LOUD or write it down.

7 Let it come later. You can try too hard to remember. Let go. Go on to something else. Let it bubble up. The word or name will probably come to you when you are in the middle of something else.

8 Reassure. Everyone forgets. Helping others remember helps them to relax and be less anxious. Share that you frequently forget too. This is called normalizing. When people know that they are not the only ones who have this problem they feel normal. Then they relax and are more likely to remember. You will feel good about helping them. When you help others in this way you will more likely be able to reassure and be kind to yourself when you forget.

9 Be patient. When someone is talking to you and they forget a word or a name tell them to take their time. Then wait. This helps the person relax and be less anxious. They are more likely to remember because they are less likely to feel judged or criticized. They are able to focus more on remembering than worrying about what you think of them. If you are uncomfortable with the silence, your anxiety will affect them and it will be more difficult for them to recall. When you are patient with others in this way you will more likely to be patient with yourself when you forget.

10 Laugh in fun. Good-natured laughter helps people relax. There is warm reassuring laughter that stems from a kind heart and good intent. Then there is teasing that makes fun of someone else. Avoid teasing others as they more likely to take the negative side to a joke than the fun side. People who feel secure within themselves usually are able to laugh things off and not take it seriously. People who are insecure often feel mocked or put down.

You can change how you treat yourself and how you respond to others. Treat yourself well and you will feel better about yourself. You will feel less anxious. You will be happier. These lapses will be shorter, less frequent, and less threatening. Then they will remain what they should be - only minor nuisances in life.

© Bea Mackay, Ph.D. 2004

Remembering the Past in More Detail

An example of over remembering the past in more detail comes from my own experience. In my thirties I did some major work on myself in therapy. One day, during a session, I recalled a memory from my early childhood. I don’t remember what we had been talking about at the time, I just remember my experience.

The Memory: I was three years old. I remember that because we still lived in the house on the farm. We moved from that house before I turned four. My mother, brother and I were standing in front of the wood stove popping popcorn. We were all crying.

That was all there was to the memory. It was not a new memory. Any time I had thought about it I was puzzled. I could not make sense out of it. Why were we crying? We were making popcorn. Popcorn was a special treat in those days. This was not like making popcorn today. Back then, my mother would scrape the small black kernels off the cob, put them into the frying pan and they would noisily POP into fluffy white yummy pieces of popcorn. It was magical, especially to a three year old. So why were we all crying?

By the end of this session nothing more had come from my recalling this memory. I left the therapist’s office and went about my day. But I could not stop thinking about it. I knew - I just knew - that there was something very important in this memory. For the rest of the day I was in my own little bubble.

That evening I made dinner as usual, put the kids to bed as usual and then went to bed at 8:00 pm, earlier than usual. I just wanted to be by myself so I could continue to think about this memory. I lay there in the dark, visualizing the scene over and over. Later my husband came to bed and I pretended to be asleep. I just did not want to be interrupted. I continued to lie there for hours thinking. Finally! At 4:00 am I got the answer.

I had always thought that we were all crying about the same thing. But as the memory became clearer I realized that my brother and I were crying because our mother had just strapped us. I don’t remember what for. (This was the late 40s and spankings were considered part of good parenting. People often quoted the Bible: “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”) My mother was crying because she felt badly about what she had done to us. She was making the popcorn to make up to us for what she’d done.

Then the memory all made sense to me. I always thought when my mother strapped us kids that she wanted to do it. What I got from the memory was that she had ‘lost it’ and she could not help herself. I may have been only three but I was there.

I felt a flood of forgiveness for her. I felt relief. I felt a release. I fell into a sound peaceful sleep.

This changed my relationship with my mother in a positive way. I was different with her and she responded to my change with change of her own.

The change in the present did not stop there. Before I had this revelation I was the type of person who was warm and affectionate with family and friends but not with acquaintances or strangers. I did not like people I did not know well to touch me and I did not touch them. In the next days after I experienced this huge shift I found myself spontaneously reaching out and touching others. Also, I found myself liking it when people were physically warm with me. I didn’t think about it; it just happened. I’m not sure why this change occurred, but I liked it. The change has lasted to this day.

It is not always possible to remember more about a past event but it can sometimes happen when people reminisce about the past. In therapy people often do remember more about a past event, especially if they deliberately focus on the past. It also happens that new memories of other events come to mind that shed more light on the original memory.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay

Reframing

Reframing is taking an same event (or circumstance) and giving it a new and different meaning. That is, looking at old stuff in a new way.

I worked with a man in his 30’s who had come for help with work issues. During the work it became clear that he did not feel good about himself. He recalled a vivid memory of an event that happened when he was 19. He was sitting in a diner with friends enjoying a hamburger and fries when his distressed father came into the restaurant and told him that one of his younger sisters had been hit by a bus and killed. He said he did not feel bad when he heard the news. All he thought about was how good the fries and ketchup tasted.

Soon after he felt very guilty about thinking about the taste of food when something so tragic had happened. He concluded that he must not care about his sister. He judged himself harshly - that he was a bad brother and a bad person. I told him that if that were true, he would not be bothered about his reaction to this event and probably would not even have remembered it. But this statement had no impact on him.

Then reframed the situation and circumstances. I told him I saw it in a different way. How I saw it was that he was shocked by the terrible news and went numb. Then he focused on the taste of the fries because the moment before he heard the terrible news, life was very good. A part of him went into denial and just wanted life to be as it had been just moments before he heard the news. He focused on the taste because he did not want the news to be true.

The client resonated with my reframing of the circumstances. Immediately, he felt tremendous relief. The meaning I gave for his behavior matched his experience. (If it had not matched his experience he would not have had this response.)

He could now let go of the guilt he’d felt for years. His old conclusion dissolved because it was now obvious to him how deeply he cared about his sister. He came to a new conclusion that made him feel good about himself, increasing his self-esteem. The increase in his self-esteem translated into the work issues that he had originally come to counseling for.

Taking the same event from the past and looking at it with new eyes is another way to change the present.

With care and concern,

Dr. Bea Mackay