Not to be confused with Head in the Sand.
The Hand in the Sand is an intermediate quest revolving around the mysterious discovery of a severed hand in a sand pit. It is notable for having lots of puns and jokes in its dialogue.
Bert the sandman in Yanille is in a spot of bother. A mysterious severed hand has appeared in his sand box. Help find out whose hand it is and, more to the point, how it got in Bert's sand box.
An empty vial (bring two if you want to be teleported to Port Sarim to get the Truth serum).
It is also recommended not to bring anything that cannot be taken onto Entrana.
About 500 coins for boat trips (or less with activated Ring of charos).
Activated Karamja, Port Sarim and Yanille lodestones.
Teleport to House spell or teletabs to reach Brimhaven or Yanille.
Travel to Yanille (use fairy ring code CIQ or Home Teleport spell with active Yanille lodestone to get there quickly), and talk to Bert. He can be found at the house next to the sand pit, east of the house portal. He tells you that he found a hand buried in the sand. Ask him why he hasn't told the authorities. He says the captain is drunk most of the time and asks for help. Agree to give him a hand, and Bert gives you the sandy hand. He suggests that the smelly hand will get the guard captain's attention.
Go to the sandpit located northwest of his house to fill the bucket for later use. Dash over to the Dragon Inn to the south and talk to the drunk Guard Captain. Give him a beer, and he takes a gulp and then asks what you want. Tell him about the hand Bert found. Wade through a rambling conversation with the captain and then give him the hand. He drops it in his beer — turning it into a beer-soaked hand — gives it back, and suggests you go talk to the wizards.
Go to the Wizards' Guild (east of the inn), and ring the bell to have Zavistic Rarve come out. Talk to him about the hand, and ask if all his wizards are accounted for. After examining the hand, he tells you that this is the hand of Clarence, one of his apprentices. He asks you to help and find out why Bert's been working long hours.
Return to Bert's home, and talk to him again. He tells you he works for Sandy Sand Co., based in Brimhaven. He gives you a copy of his schedule and tells you that it hasn't changed recently—or so he thinks. Head to Sandy in Brimhaven. A quick way to get there is the Karamja lodestone and walk north. Sandy is located in the office just north-west of the Dead Man's Chest bar and south-east of ScarFace Pete's mansion.
Sandy's office is north-west of the of bar and south-east of the mansion.
Talk to him first if you want — he acts a bit brusque if you do — but you don't need to. Search Sandy's desk in the office to get Sandy's rota. Read it, and compare it to Bert's rota to see that Bert has indeed been working longer hours. While you're there, pickpocket Sandy. It may take multiple attempts before you find a small amount of sand in his pocket. Keep it, because it will become important later on in the quest.
Zavistic teleports you to Port Sarim.
Make your way back to Bert in Yanille, and talk to him. Tell him his hours did indeed change a week ago, but Bert has no memory of it. He wonders if the wizards at the guild might be responsible for his memory loss and mentions a scroll that appeared a week ago. You ask if you can take a look at the scroll. It appears normal, but do not throw it out. If you brought a bucket instead of a bucket of sand, fill it at the sand pit.
Head back to the Wizards Guild, talk to Zavistic Rarve, and show him the scroll. Rarve tells you the scroll is used in a mind-altering spell. He gives you a magical scrying orb, and tells you to get some truth serum from Betty found at the magic shop in north west Port Sarim. You will then be ready to ask Sandy a few questions.
Grab a vial, redberries, whiteberries, and a (bullseye) lantern lens. Either make your own way to Betty's Magic Emporium in Port Sarim or take the items plus a second empty vial back to Zavistic Rarve and he will teleport you directly to Betty's shop.
Talk to Betty and give her an empty vial. She gives you back a bottled water and instructs you how to make a rose-tinted lens. Add redberries to the water to make redberry juice, and then add white berries to make pink dye. Once made, use it on your lantern lens to craft a rose-tinted lens. Talk to Betty again. Then, stand in her open doorway and use your lens on her counter to make the truth serum.
Sandy's coffee mug, filled with the "finest Karamja Coffee."
Talk to Betty again, who says you need something personal from Sandy or else the serum won't work. You hand Betty the sand you found in Sandy's pocket, and she sprinkles it in the serum, which fizzes. She recommends you dilute the serum in something like tea or coffee or else bad things might happen, such as "bits might drop off." Betty can replace the truth serum if lost, but will require more sand to do so.
Sandy confesses to killing Clarence.
The cheapest way to reach Sandy would be to use the Karamja lodestone and walk north. Or talk to Captain Tobias or one of his young sailors on the Port Sarim docks to sail to Karamja for 30 coins, and then head west to Brimhaven. You can also charter directly to Brimhaven using the charter ship which is in the southernmost dock. This will cost 1600 coins or 800 with an activated ring of charos.
Use the serum on Sandy's Coffee Mug, and receive a message saying you need to distract him first. Talk to Sandy, and select one of the astonishing options. Use the serum on Sandy's Coffee Mug while he turns to look out the window. Activate your magical orb and talk to Sandy. He confesses that he changed Bert's schedule and bribed a wizard to put a spell on Bert so he would believe everything Sandy said. He then admits to killing the wizard so he wouldn't have to pay him and putting his body in a load of sand.
Return to Yanille, and talk again with Zavistic Rarve. You hand him the orb and watch as the recording is played back. Talk to him again, and tell him you've brought five earth runes and a bucket of sand. You see a short cutscene where he casts a spell on Bert's sandbox so that it will magically refill. He asks you to check the Entrana sandpit to see if you can find more bits of Clarence.
Head to Entrana. You can get to Entrana by teleporting to the Port Sarim lodestone, then talking to the monks at the Port Sarim docks.
Talk to Mazion by the sand pit (it's just west of the dock), and ask if he has any body parts. He tells you he does and hands you the wizard's head. Return to Yanille one last time, talk to Zavistic Rarve, and give him the decapitated head. He confirms it's Clarence and says he will be buried today. He also tells you guards are on their way to arrest Sandy.
Bert will ship 84 buckets of sand to your bank if you talk to him after the quest. This number is increased to 120 after completing the elite Ardougne Tasks. This can be done once per day. Clicking on the quest's name will give you the time left before you can ask him again.
Hard: "It Matches My Eyes"
Bert says "Idle hands'r Zamorak's tools." This is most likely a reference to the saying "Idle hands are the devil's tools", meaning that those who are idle are more likely to do evil.
If you talk to Bert before going to the Wizards' Guild, your character will say, "Thanks Bert, I'm off to see the wizards, the wonderful wizards of Yanille!" This is a reference to the song "We're Off to See the Wizard" from The Wizard of Oz.
Zavistic Rarve says 'Alas, poor Clarence, I knew him well', a reference to the Shakespeare play Hamlet ('Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him Horatio', sometimes misquoted as 'Alas, poor Yorick, I knew him well').


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Sonic Death. Official Sonic Youth Fan Club Zine/Fanzine. No. 1 (n.d., 1991) through No. 7 (September 1995) (all published).
A complete run in 7 issues of the official zine of the Sonic Youth fanclub, most issues 24 pp., featuring articles, reviews, information on guitar alteration, tour updates, sketches, grainy photographs, and more, all related to the band Sonic Youth. Illustrated profusely throughout from drawings and photographs. No. 3 with.....	More
Re Nudo. Mensile di Contracultura e Contrainformazione. Later subtitles: Mensile di Controcultura; and Mensile di cultura alternativa, nuova coscienza e musica. No. 0 (n.d., November 1970) through No. 92 (November 1980) (all published).
A rare complete run (issue no. 23 actually a double issue, 22/23) of the Italian counterculture journal, founded in 1970 by a group of intellectuals and artists, including Andrea Valcarenghi, edited at times by Valcarenghi, Guido Vivi, and Marina Valcarenghi, most issues approx. 16-24 pp., covering topics related to underground.....	More
Techne. A Projects and Process Paper. Vol. 1, No. 1 (14 April 1969) through Vol. 1, No. 2 (6 November 1970) (all published).
A complete run in two issues of the short-lived newspaper put out by E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), covering the intersection of art and technology, including a report on the "Some More Beginnings" exhibition, an interview with Max Neuhaus and Ted Wolff, an essay on the kinetic sculpture of.....	More
The Tall Tree Tattler. C.C.C. Co. 1905. Vol. 2, Nos. 1, 7, and 8.
Three rare issues of the sometimes humorous internal newsletter from by Company 1905 of the Civilian Conservation Corps of California, dated January 24, July 25, and August 31, 1936, put out by the Camp Hawkins Bar outpost, containing camp and company news regarding programming, promotions, and projects, anecdotes on camp.....	More
Semashko, N. (preface).
Katalog antialkogol'noi vystavki v pomeshchenii Gosudarstvennoi Tret'iakovskoi Gallerei [Catalog of the anti-alcohol exhibition held at the State Tretiakov Gallery].
Moscow: Glaviskusstvo N.K.P., 1929. Octavo (17.5 × 12.9 cm). Original staple-stitched printed wrappers; 19, [1] pp. Numerous illustrations, including three full-page reproductions. Very good. Scarce catalog issued by the Society for the Struggle Against Alcoholism, founded in February 1928 to deal with the alcoholism epidemic and to "assist Soviet power..... More
Salon 1931 des Artistes Independants Bordelais. Du 10 Octobre au 15 November 1931. A Bordeaux, Terrasse du Jardin Public (Orangerie).
Bordeau: Imprimerie Moderne, [1931]. Octavo (21.5 × 15.5 cm). Original pictorial wrappers signed "Fred Jo" ; 59, [4] pp. With seven full-page reproductions. Numerous ads throughout. Front wrapper gently creased; else about very good. Scarce catalog of the Salon of Independent Artists from Bordeaux, which was held at the Galerie..... More
Smirenskii, Boris.
V limonnoi gavani Iokogama: tret'ia kniga stikhov [In the Lemon harbor of Yokohama: third book of poems].
St. Petersburg: Izdanie "Kol'tso Poetov," 1922. 12mo (13.8 × 11 cm). Original staple-stitched printed wrappers; 31, [1] pp. About very good; private inventory stamp to front wrapper verso; small Soviet bookstore stamps to rear wrapper. Third volume of poems by Boris Viktorovich Smirenskii (1900-1970), who would go on to become..... More
Ronald Reagans Kriegsrevue. Deine Sterne, Deine Zukunft! Große Kassettenaktion am 9. Juni 20.00 Uhr zur Tagesschau [Ronald Reagan's War Revue. Your stars, your future! Big cassette tape action on June 9 at 8 p.m., to coincide with the daily news].
[Berlin]: June 1982. Homemade cassette tape, with xeroxed illustrated liner. Original broadside measuring 30 × 21 cm., printed to recto. Old folds, else very good. Hand-copied cassette tape containing "5.5 min. of protest against Reagan's visit, copy and pass on" and distributed on the occasion of Reagan's visit to Germany..... More
Zhitkov, Boris and M[ikhail] Tsekhanovskii, illustrator.
Herragir [The telegram]. Armenian translation of "Telegramma."
Erevan: OGIZ "Molodaia Gvardiia", 1934. Small octavo (16.5 × 12 cm). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers; 34, [1] pp. Nine illustrations, some full page. Good or better; light wear to spine; private ink inscription to title; a few pencil annotations. Originally published in 1927, this popular book offers a historical overview..... More
Powstanie w Warszawie: fakty i dokumenty [The Warsaw Uprising: facts and documents]. Biblioteczka Zolnierza [Little library for soldiers], no. 4 (series title).
[Warsaw]: Wydawnictwo Oddzialu Propagandy Gl. Zarzadu Polityczno-Wychowawczego Wojska Polskiego, 1945. Octavo. Original side-stapled photo-illustrated wrappers; 29, [3] pp. Very good or better. One of the earliest, if not the earliest, volume documenting the Warsaw Uprising (August 1–October 2, 1944), the largest armed resistance campaign carried out during WWII and a...... More
Partum, Andrzej.
Animal Manifesto/Manifest Zwierzecy.
Lublin, Poland: Labyrinth Gallery, 1980. Double-sided offset-printed broadside containing the text of Partum's Animal Manifesto, in both English and Polish, comprising 15 bullet points in which he derides the arguments that human beings are superior to animals due to the existence of rational thought, and that progress can be made.....	More
Galeria Dzia a Maniakalnych [Gallery of Manic Activities].
Small poster for a series of political happenings in ód , late 1988 and early 1989.
ód : Wolna drukarnia MSW, [1988]. Single sheet, xerox-printed to recto, measuring 36 × 25.5 cm. About very good; old creases. Apparently unrecorded poster for a series of "manic" political happenings slash performances held at the Galeria Dzia a Maniakalnych in ód , a branch of the Pomara czowa Alternatywa..... More
Russkii Zagranichnyi Arkhiv pri Ministerstve Inostrannykh Del Chekhoslovatskoi Respubliki v 1936 godu [Russian Historical Archive Abroad at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czechoslovak Republic].
Prague: F. Chudomela, 1936. Octavo (23.5 × 15.5). Original side-stapled pictorial wrappers; 47, [2]. Stamps of Galipoliiskoe zemliachestvo to front wrapper, title and last page. Very good. This bibliographical publication presents the holdings of the Russian Historical Archive, founded in the Czech Republic by the Russian émigré community in 1923..... More
Torzhestvennoe sobranie v pamiat' 75-let so dnia Osvobozhdeniia Krest'ian [A celebratory meeting. In honor of the 75th anniversary of the emancipation of the serfs].
Paris: Izdanie soiuza Russkikh dvorian, 1936. Octavo (24 × 16). Original staple-stitched printed wrappers; 47, [1]. Portraits of Czar Alexander II and six activists of the serfdom reform. Stamps of Gallipoli Veterans in Brno to front wrapper, title and last page. Some soiling and wear to wrappers; vertical crease to.....	More
Orekhov, V. V. and Evgenii Tarusskii, editors.
Armiia i flot: voennyi spravochnik [The army and the navy: a military directory]. .
Paris: izd. Chasovoi, 1931. Octavo (18.5 × 13.5). Original printed wrappers; 170, [6] pp. Illustrations throughout. Very good. In protective mylar. Intended for White émigré military personel, the directory offers an overview of Russian imperial military history, lists the Russian army and naval organisatons operating abroad, their history, locations, and..... More
[Subotin N.V. ed].
K khristianskoi monarkhii. Vremennik rossiiskago imperskago soiuza [Toward a Christian Monarchy. The Annals of the Russian Imperial Union].
Paris: Oliver de Serres, 1930. Octavo (24 × 16). Original staple-stitched printed wrappers; 36, [1] pp. Stamps of Union Des Jeunes Russes Bibliotheke to front wrapper and first page. Front wrapper detached; some light markings in pencil throughout, else about very good. The first publication (one of only two published..... More
Karnovskii, D.
Chernyi god dlia kommunizma [A black year for communism].
[Munich?]: self-published, 1957. Octavo (21 × 15). Original staple-stitched pictorial wrappers; 16 pp of mimeographed text to rectos and versos. Library of Congress "Surplus Duplicate" stamp to front wrapper. Very good. The violent anti-communist uprisings in Hungary and Poland as well as Tibet, Turkistan and Ukraine in 1956 are the..... More
Tolstov, V[ladimir] S[ergeevich].
Ot krasnykh lap v neizvestnuiu dal' (pokhod ural'tsev) [From the red paws into the unknown (the expedition of the Ural Cossacks)].
Constantinople: Tipografiia Izd. T-va "Pressa", 1921. Octavo (19 × 14). Modern quarter-cloth with paper over boards (original wrappers preserved?); 310, [2] pp, with foldout map, and illustrations by Aleksandr Cosmin. Light moisture stain and foxing to title and first few pages; first page beginning to detach; text toned due to.....	More
Rein, G[eorgii] E[rmolaevich].
Iz Perezhitogo, 1907-1918 [From my life, 1907-1918]. Vols. 1 and 2 (all published).
Berlin: Parabola, [1936]. Octavo (21.5 × 15.5). Modern red quarter-leather binding over five raised bands, with gilt title to spine, with original printed wrappers preserved; 311, [1] pp. Frontis portrait of the author. Signed and inscribed by the author to Vera Nikolaevna and Ivan Aleksandrovich (Alekseevich) Bunin, "In memory of.....	More
Mirovich, V. and M. Pashkevich, illustrator.
Shutki pribautki. Tekst Mirovich. Risunki Pashkevich [Humorous limericks. Text by Mirovich. Drawings by Pashkevich].
Leningrad: Raduga, 1929. Octavo (19.2 × 14.5 cm). Original pictorial wrappers; [10] pp. Light wear; soil to rear wrapper; spine splitting. Charmingly illustrated Soviet children's book of rhymed humorous poems about various animals and children playing games. As of November 2019, not in KVK or OCLC.	More
Argentinskii otdel Russkogo Obsche-voinskogo soiuza [Argentine section of the Russian All-Military Union].
1917-1957. Nachalo beloi bor'by i ee osnovopolozhnik [1917-1957. The beginnings of the white struggle and its founder].
Buenos Aires: Izd. Argentinskogo otdela Russkogo Obsche-voinskogo soiuza, 1957. Octavo (19 × 14). Modern quarter cloth over boards with original printed wrappers preserved; 117, [2] pp. Very good. This émigré commemorative volume is dedicated to General Mikhail Alekseev (1857-1918), founder of the White resistance movement. The volume celebrates Alekseev's centenary..... More
Vistas de Chile (title from spine).
Unpag. volume containing reproductions of early 19th-century photographs of landmarks and sites from around Chile, approximately 166 images total, views include buildings, monuments, cities, natural landscapes, harbors, and celebrations throughout the country, with a focus on Santiago, each photograph captioned below the image, specific sites within Santiago depicted include the.....	More
Schneemann, Carolee.
Water Light/Water Needle.
Two sheets, mimeographed to rectos only, comprising the original playbill for Carolee Schneemann's kinetic theater piece, as performed at St. Mark's Church from March 17 through 20, 1966, the sheets with handwritten typographic corrections, and listing everyone who participated in or helped to put on the performance, together with a......	More
Mirabella, Emanuele.
Il Tatuaggio dei Domiciliati Coatti in Favignana.
103 pp. report on the tattoos found amound the resident convicts at the penal colony of Favignana, off the coast of Sicily, with brief preface by Cesare Lombroso, highlighting various types of tattoos found within the population, including religious tattoos, revenge tattoos, political tattoos, erotic and obscene tattoos, tattoos dedicated.....	More
Williams, George A. & Ernest C. Stone.
Washington Horse Racing Commission Research.
Unpaginated (54 typed leaves printed recto only) original typed research report by Williams, a veterinarian, and Stone, a chemist, documenting their attempts to effectively perform saliva and urine tests on thoroughbred racing horses to detect the existence of performance-enhancing drugs and stimulants, including information on the collection of fluids, a......	More

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


TEXAS CITY - Palais Royal is leasing 23,000 sf in the building that formerly housed Macy's in the Mall of the Mainland, located at 10000 Emmett F. Lowry Expy. Palais Royal is moving from its current site in the mall where the department store has operated since 1991.
A November 6 grand opening is planned for the new store. It will join a 42,000-sf World Gym franchise — the largest World Gym in the state — at the Macy's building.
Developer Jerome Karam earlier this year acquired the 150,000-sf building from Macy's, which departed the mall in 2012 but still owned the building.
Earlier this year, Coastline Retail Center Inc., which gained control of Mall of the Mainland as a result of foreclosure action and related litigation, closed the interior common areas of the shopping center.


text:
Counseling4Less.com Therapy At Your Convenience
PTSD 101
Who Gets PTSD?
Women Trauma & PTSD
Jackie Kennedy's Struggle with PTSD
CPT for PTSD (a form of cognitive behavioral therapy)
PTSD Self-Test
Codependency Series Part 2
The Evolution of the Term "Codependence"
The phenomenal growth of AA and the success of the disease concept in the treatment of Alcoholism generated the founding of treatment centers in the late 1950s and early 1960s. These early treatment centers were based on what had been successful in early AA. They focused on getting the Alcoholic sober and paid very little attention to the families of Alcoholics.
As these treatment centers matured and evolved, they noticed that the families of Alcoholics seemed to have certain characteristics and patterns of behavior in common. So they started to pay some attention to the families. A term was coined to describe the significant others of Alcoholics. That term was "co-alcoholic" - literally "alcoholic with." The belief was that while the Alcoholic was addicted to alcohol, the co-alcoholic was addicted, in certain ways, to the Alcoholic. The belief was that the families of Alcoholics became sick because of the Alcoholic's drinking and behavior. With the drug
explosion of the sixties, Alcoholism treatment centers became chemical dependency treatment centers. Co-alcoholics became named co-dependents. The meaning was still a literal "dependent with," and the philosophy was much the same.
In the mid-to-late seventies, however, certain pioneers in the field began to look more closely at the behavior patterns of families affected by addiction. Some researchers focused primarily on Alcoholic families, and then graduated to studying adults who had grown up in Alcoholic families. Other researchers started looking more closely at the phenomenon of Family Systems Dynamics.
Out of these studies came the defining of the Adult Child Syndrome, at first primarily in terms of Adult Children of Alcoholics and then expanding to other types of dysfunctional families. Ironically this research was in a sense a rediscovery of the
insight which in many ways was the birth of modern psychology. Sigmund Freud made his early fame as a teenager with his insight into the importance of early childhood trauma.
What the researchers were beginning to understand was how profoundly the emotional trauma of early childhood affects a person as an adult. They realized that if not healed, these early childhood emotional wounds, and the subconscious attitudes adopted because of them, would dictate the adult's reaction to, and path throughout life. Thus, we walk around looking like and trying to act like adults, while reacting to life out of the emotional wounds and attitudes of childhood. We keep repeating the patterns of abandonment, abuse, and deprivation that we experienced in childhood.
Psychoanalysis addressed these issues only on the intellectual level - not on the emotional healing level. As a result, a person could go to psychoanalysis weekly for twenty years and still be repeating the same behavior patterns.
As the Adult Child movement, the Family Systems Dynamics research, and the newly emerging "inner child" healing movement expanded and developed in the eighties, the term "Codependent" expanded. It became a term used as a description of certain types of behavior patterns. These were basically identified as "people-pleasing" behaviors. By the middle to late eighties the term "Codependent" was associated with people-pleasers who set themselves up to be victims and rescuers. In other words, it was recognized that the Codependent was not sick because of the Alcoholic but rather was attracted to the Alcoholic because of his/her disease, because of her/his early childhood experience.
At that time, Codependence was basically defined as a passive behavioral defense system, and its opposite or aggressive counterpart was described as counter dependent. Then most Alcoholics and addicts were thought to be counter dependent.
The word changed and evolved further after the start of the modern Codependence movement in Arizona in the mid-eighties. Co-Dependents Anonymous had its first meeting in October of 1986, and books on Codependence as a disease in and of itself started appearing at about the same time. These Codependence books were the next generation and evolved from the books on the Adult Child Syndrome of the early eighties.
In 1991, codependency was addressed when a recovering alcoholic, John Baker, started Celebrate Recovery in California. Celebrate Recovery has spread throughout the U.S. and internationally. Utilizing the same 12 steps of AA, it provides help for codependence, and other issues, within the Christian church setting.
The expanded usage of the term "Codependent" now includes counter dependent behavior. We have come to understand that both the passive and the aggressive behavioral defense systems are reactions to the same kinds of childhood trauma, to the same kinds of emotional wounds. The Family Systems Dynamics research shows that within the family system, children adopt certain roles according to their family dynamics. Some of these roles are more passive, some are more aggressive, because in the competition for attention and validation within a family system, the children must adopt different types of behaviors in order to feel like an individual.
A large part of what we identify as our personality is in fact a distorted view of who we really are, due to the type of behavioral defenses we adopted to fit the role or roles we were forced to assume according to the dynamics of our family system. In Codependency Series Part 3, we will look more closely at those behavioral defenses.
You may recognize yourself there and other family members, as well.
Resources: "Codependence: The Dance of Wounded Souls"
Dysfunctional Family = Cultural Harvest
"Dysfunctional families are the product of an emotionally dishonest, shame based, patriarchal society based upon beliefs that do not support Loving self or Loving neighbor." - Robert Burney
"The point that I am making is that our understanding of Codependence has evolved to realizing that this is not just about some dysfunctional families, our very role models, our prototypes, are dysfunctional.
Our traditional cultural concepts of what a man is, of what a woman is, are twisted, distorted, almost comically bloated stereotypes of what masculine and feminine really are. . . . . . .
When the role model of what a man is does not allow a man to cry or express fear; when the role model for what a woman is does not allow a woman to be angry or aggressive - that is emotional dishonesty. When the standards of a society deny the full range of the emotional spectrum and label certain emotions as negative - that is not only emotionally dishonest, it creates emotional disease.
If a culture is based on emotional dishonesty, with role models that are dishonest emotionally, then that culture is also emotionally dysfunctional, because the people of that society are set up to be emotionally dishonest and dysfunctional in getting their emotional needs met.
What we traditionally have called normal parenting in this society is abusive because it is emotionally dishonest. Children learn who they are as emotional beings from the role modeling of their parents. "Do as I say - not as I do," does not work with children. Emotionally dishonest parents cannot be emotionally healthy role models, and cannot provide healthy parenting. Our model for what a family should be sets up abusive, emotionally dishonest dynamics."
Roles in Dysfunctional Families
"There are four basic roles that children adopt in order to survive growing up in emotionally dishonest, shame-based, dysfunctional family systems."
"As an adult the Family Hero is rigid, controlling, and extremely judgmental . . . . . of others and secretly of themselves. They achieve "success" on the outside and get lots of positive attention but are cut off from their inner emotional life, from their True Self."
"The scapegoat is the child that the family feels ashamed of - and the most emotionally honest child in the family. He/she acts out the tension and anger the family ignores.
This child provides distraction from the real issues in the family."
"A lot of actors and writers are 'lost children' who have found a way to express emotions while hiding behind their characters."
"We have come to understand that both the passive and the aggressive behavioral defense systems are reactions to the same kinds of childhood trauma, to the same kinds of emotional wounds. The Family Systems Dynamics research shows that within the family system, children adopt certain roles according to their family dynamics.
Some of these roles are more passive, some are more aggressive, because in the competition for attention and validation within a family system the children must adopt different types of behaviors in order to feel like an individual."
The emotional dynamics of dysfunctional families are basic - and like emotional dynamics for all human beings are pretty predictable. The outside details may look quite different due to a variety of factors, but the dynamics of the human emotional process are the same for all human beings everywhere.
The basic roles which I list below apply to American culture specifically, and Western Civilization generally - but with a few changes in details could be made to fit most any culture.
There are four basic roles that children adopt in order to survive growing up in emotionally dishonest, shame-based, dysfunctional family systems. Some children maintain one role into adulthood while others switch from one role to another as the
family dynamic changes (i.e. when the oldest leaves home, etc.) An only child may play all of the roles at one time or another.
"Responsible Child" - "Family Hero"
This is the child who is "9 going on 40." This child takes over the parent role at a very young age, becoming very responsible and self-sufficient. They give the family self-worth because they look good on the outside. They are the good students, the sports stars, the prom queens. The parents look to this child to prove that they are good parents and good people.
As an adult the Family Hero is rigid, controlling, and extremely judgmental (although perhaps very subtle about it) - of others and secretly of themselves. They achieve "success" on the outside and get lots of positive attention but are cut off from their
inner emotional life, from their True Self. They are compulsive and driven as adults because deep inside they feel inadequate and insecure.
The family hero, because of their "success" in conforming to dysfunctional cultural definitions of what constitutes doing life "right", is often the child in the family who as an adult has the hardest time even admitting that there is anything within them that needs to be healed.
"Acting out child" - "Scapegoat"
This is the child that the family feels ashamed of - and the most emotionally honest child in the family. He/she acts out the tension and anger the family ignores. This child provides distraction from the real issues in the family. The scapegoat usually has trouble in school because they get attention the only way they know how - which is negatively. They often become pregnant or addicted as teenagers.
These children are usually the most sensitive and caring which is why they feel such tremendous hurt. They are romantics who become very cynical and distrustful.
They have a lot of self-hatred and can be very self-destructive. This often results in this child becoming the first person in the family to get into some kind of recovery.
"Placater"- "Mascot" - "Caretaker"
This child takes responsibility for the emotional well-being of the family. They become the families 'social director' and/or clown, diverting the family's attention from the pain and anger.
This child becomes an adult who is valued for their kind heart, generosity, and ability to listen to others. Their whole self-definition is centered on others and they don't know how to get their own needs met. They become adults who cannot receive love, only give it. They often have caseloads rather than friendships - and get involved in
abusive relationships in an attempt to "save" the other person. They go into the helping professions and become nurses, and social workers, and therapists. They have very low self-worth and feel a lot of guilt that they work very hard to overcome by being really "nice" (i.e. people pleasing, classically codependent) people.
"Adjuster"- "Lost Child"
This child escapes by attempting to be invisible. They daydream, fantasize, read a lot of books or watch a lot of TV. They deal with reality by withdrawing from it.
They deny that they have any feelings and "don't bother getting upset."
These children grow up to be adults who find themselves unable to feel and suffer very low self-esteem. They are terrified of intimacy and often have relationship phobia. They are very withdrawn and shy and become socially isolated because that is the only way they know to be safe from being hurt. A lot of actors and writers are 'lost children' who have found a way to express emotions while hiding behind their characters.
It is important to note that we adapt the roles that are best suited to our personalities. We are, of course, born with a certain personality. What happens with the roles we adapt in our family dynamic is that we get a twisted, distorted view of who we are as a result of our personality melding with the roles. This is dysfunctional because it causes us to not be able to see ourselves clearly. As long as we are still reacting to our childhood wounding and old tapes then we cannot get in touch clearly with who we really are.
The false self that we develop to survive is never totally false - there is always some Truth in it. For example, people who go into the helping professions do truly care and
are not doing what they do simply out of Codependence. Nothing is black and white- everything in life involves various shades of gray. Recovery is about getting honest with ourselves and finding some balance in our life. Recovery is about seeing ourselves more clearly and honestly so that we can start being True to whom we really are instead of to whom our parents wanted us to be. (Reacting to the other extreme by rebelling against who they wanted us to be is still living life in reaction to our childhoods. It is still giving power over how we live our life to the past instead of seeing clearly so that we can own our choices today.) The clearer we can see our self the easier it becomes to find some balance in our life - to find some happiness, fulfillment, and serenity.
Resources: Codependency Recovery: Wounded Souls Dancing in the Light ; A Dysfunctional Relationship with Life
Codependency: How To Make It Stop!
If you wonder whether you may be codependent, you're not alone. Different types of people may behave in a codependent manner, and codependence manifests in varying degrees of severity. Not all codependents are unhappy, while others live in pain or quiet desperation. Codependency is not something you heal from and are forever done with, but you can enjoy yourself, your life, and your relationships. Should you choose to embark on recovery, you're beginning an exciting and empowering journey!
Determining If You are Codependent
If you're wondering if you're codependent, take a look at the following list of symptoms. You don't have to have all of them to be codependent, and there are degrees of severity of codependence. If untreated, codependency gets worse over time, but with help you can recover and be much more effective in your work and relationships. Here are some common traits:
•Low self-esteem
•Not liking or accepting yourself
•Feeling your inadequate in some way
•Thinking you're not quite enough
•Worrying you are or could be a failure
•Concerned with what other people think about you
•Perfectionism
•Pleasing others and giving up yourself
•Poor boundaries
•Boundaries that are too weak and there's not enough
separateness between you and your partner
•Boundaries that are too rigid and keep you from being close
•Boundaries that flip back and forth between too close and too rigid
•Reactivity
•Dysfunctional Communication
•Difficulty expressing thoughts and feelings
•Difficulty setting boundaries — saying "No" or stopping abuse
•Abusive language
•Lack of assertiveness about your needs
•Dependency
•Afraid of being alone or out of a relationship
•Feeling trapped in a bad relationship and unable to leave
•Relying too much on others opinions
•Intimacy problems
•Avoidance of closeness
•Losing yourself
•Trying to control or manipulate others
•Feeling trapped in a dysfunctional relationship
•Denial
•Denial of codependency
•Denial about a painful reality in your relationship
•Denial of your feelings
•Denial of your needs
•Caretaking
•Control
•Controlling your own feelings
•Managing and controlling people in your life; telling them what to do
•Manipulating others to feel or behave like you want (people pleasing is a manipulation)
•Obsessions
•Addiction to a substance or process
•Painful emotion
•Shame
•Anxiety
•Fear
•Guilt
•Hopelessness
•Despair
•Depression
Reducing Stress through Relaxation
The key to overcoming codependency is relaxing and building a loving relationship with yourself. At Harvard Medical School, Dr. Herbert Benson developed a type of
relaxation that doesn't require any spiritual beliefs, but was very effective to reduce stress, anxiety, depression and anger. It's called the Relaxation Response. Try it and if you like it do it every day.
1. Sit n a relaxed position, and close your eyes.
2. Starting at your toes and progressing to your face, relax each muscle, and keep them relaxed.
3. Breathe normally through your nose, and repeat "one" silently with each inhale and again with each exhale. Do not control your breath.
4. Do this daily for 10 to 20 minutes, and take a few minutes before returning to normal activities.
Turning the Focus onto Yourself
Focusing on someone else is a real problem for codependents! Letting go isn't easy. Turning that around so that your focus is on you doesn't make you selfish; in fact, it's showing respect for someone else's autonomy and boundaries and respect for yourself! Here are some practical things you can do:
•When you're together, remember not to watch the other person.
•Don't obsess or worry about him or her. Imagine putting the person in God's hands or surrounded by healing light. Send them love.
•Don't judge others, just as you don't want to be judged.
•Don't have expectations of others; instead, meet expectations of yourself.
•You didn't cause someone else's behavior. Others are responsible for their behavior, and you're only responsible for yours.
•Write about your feelings in a journal. Read it to someone close to you or a therapist.
•Practice mediation or spirituality.
•Pursue your own interests and have fun.
•Remember you cannot change or "fix" someone else. Only he or she has the power to do so.
•Take a time out. If you're starting to react to someone or are in an argument, it's a good idea to step away and take some time to think things over. A good idea is to write in your journal.
•Write positive things about yourself in your journal every day. Look for things you did well or like about yourself, and write them down.
•Take the labels off. Sometimes, you can have expectations and make assumptions about someone very close to you which you wouldn't of a friend. Ask yourself how you would treat the other person if he or she wasn't your partner or parent.
Getting Help for Your Codependency
If you think you may be codependent, you need help to change your behavior. Here are some sources of help for those suffering from codependency:
•Read all you can about codependency (but reading alone is insufficient to change).
•Go to a Twelve Step meeting for codependents, such as Codependents Anonymous, called CoDA, or Al-Anon for family members of alcoholics. There are other
Twelve Step groups for relatives of other addicts, such as for relatives of gamblers, narcotic addicts, and sex addicts. You can look on the Internet or in your phone book to find out where there's a meeting near you. Celebrate Recovery is a place to work the 12-Steps for Codependency and other issues in a Christian church setting.
•Get counseling from someone familiar with codependency. It's preferable that they are licensed in your state. They may be marriage and family counselors, social workers, addiction specialists, psychologists, or psychiatrists.
You will probably find it hard to focus on and discipline yourself to make changes without the support of a group or therapist. If you're practicing an addiction, stopping that should be your first priority before tackling codependency. Here's a list of things you can do on your own to get started:
•When you're tempted to think or worry about someone else, turn your attention back to you.
•Pay attention to how you talk to and treat yourself. Much of low self-esteem is self-inflicted. Train yourself to speak gently and encouraging rather than telling yourself what you should or shouldn't be doing or what's wrong with you.
•Have some fun and pursue hobbies and interests of your own.
•Start a spiritual practice where you spend time alone with yourself. Meditation is an ideal way to help you become more calm and self-aware.
•Start looking for the positive in your life and what you do. Make a grateful list each day and read it to someone.
•Stand-up for yourself if someone criticizes, undermines, or tries to control you.
•Don't worry! That's not easy, but most worries never come to pass. You lose precious
moments in the present. Mediation and talking things out with someone who knows about recovering from codependency can help you.
•Let go of control and the need to manage other people. Remember the saying, "Live and let live."
•Accept yourself, so you don't have to be perfect.
•Get in touch with your feelings. Don't judge them. Feelings just are. They're not logical or right or wrong.
•Express yourself honestly with everyone. Say what you think and what you feel. Ask for what you need.
•Reach out for help when you feel bad. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you're self-sufficient and can manage alone. That's a symptom of codependency, too.
The cycle of abuse is a social cycle theory developed in the 1970s by Lenore Walker to explain patterns of behavior in an abusive relationship. Walker's theory rests on the idea that abusive relationships, once established, are characterized by a predictable repetitious pattern of abuse, whether emotional, psychological or physical, with psychological abuse nearly always preceding and accompanying physical abuse. Additionally, Walker suggested that sustained periods of living in such a cycle may lead to learned helplessness and battered person syndrome. The cycle of abuse concept is widely used in domestic violence programs, particularly in the United States.
Phases of the cycle
The cycle usually goes in the following order, and will repeat until the conflict is stopped, usually by the survivor entirely abandoning the relationship. The cycle can occur hundreds of times in an abusive relationship, with the total cycle taking anywhere from a few hours, to a year or more to complete. However, the length of the cycle usually diminishes over time so that the "making-up" and "calm" stages may disappear.
1: Tension Building Phase
This phase occurs prior to an overtly abusive act, and is characterized by poor communication, passive aggression, rising interpersonal tension, and fear of causing outbursts in one's partner. During this stage the survivor may attempt to modify his or her behavior to avoid triggering their partner's outburst. (i.e. walking on egg shells)
2: Acting-Out Phase
This phase is characterized by outbursts of violent, abusive incidents. During this stage the abuser attempts to dominate his/her partner (survivor), with the use of domestic violence. (Controlling behaviors)
3: Reconciliation/Honeymoon Phase
This phase is characterized by affection, apology, or, alternatively, ignoring the incident. This phase marks an apparent end of violence, with assurances that it will never happen again, or that the abuser will do his or her best to change. During this stage the abuser feels overwhelming feelings of remorse and sadness, or at least pretends to. Some abusers walk away from the situation with little comment, but most will eventually shower the survivor with love and affection. The abuser may use self-harm or threats of suicide to gain sympathy and/or prevent the survivor from leaving the relationship. Abusers are frequently so convincing, and survivors so eager for the relationship to improve and are worn down/confused by longstanding abuse, they stay in the relationship.
Although it is easy to see the outbursts of the Acting-out Phase as abuse, even the more pleasant behaviors of the Honeymoon Phase perpetuate the abuse because the survivor, during this phase, sees that the relationship isn't all bad.
4: Calm Phase
During this phase (which is often considered an element of the honeymoon/reconciliation phase), the relationship is relatively calm and peaceful. However, interpersonal difficulties will inevitably arise, leading again to the tension building phase.
I believe that one of the most difficult tasks is to become free from the cycle of abuse. People get "stuck" in the victim role for a number of reasons. Usually fear is a prime motivator:
•fear of what the abuser will do,
•fear of being alone,
•fear of taking a proactive step.
Many people believe that they are bad, and this is what they deserve. They get this message from parents when they are children and observe their main role models in abusive situations. This is what they know, and it is difficult to change patterns.
If you are trapped in an abusive relationship and have trouble breaking the cycle of abuse, please seek professional help. Abuse is debilitating and can break down the strongest of people. If you are afraid, alone, don't know how to break the cycle, and if you can't afford to seek out private help, go to a shelter for help. One can receive counseling at a shelter, even if you are not ready to go there to live. Help is available! Needing help to break the cycle is more the norm rather than the exception. Seeking help is a sign of strength, not weakness.
Addicts Reaching Out for Help
Cecelia Johnson is a guest blogger.
Addicts in Recovery Share Stories About Reaching Out for Help
It is said that the hardest part of recovery is admitting you have a problem. Accepting that you need help and making the choice to change your life will put you on the path to freedom from addiction.
Is it worth it? Of course. You are worth it. 100 percent.
Recently I spoke with several graduates of addiction treatment about what prompted them to make a change. Here are some of their insights.
Admitting You Have a Problem
That crucial first step is not going to be easy. And it's more than likely that you already know you are struggling. For many people, it's hitting rock bottom or realizing that you are lost. For others it's a voice in your head that won't go away. When that voice keeps coming back to you saying that you need help, there's a reason. It's a clear signal that you are ready to take back your life.
Tracy, a recent graduate of A Forever Recovery's alcohol treatment program in Michigan, said, "I [could] no longer look at myself in the mirror. I couldn't go a day without a drink. I pretty much couldn't go an hour without a drink. I didn't see it right away, but now I do."
Equally low-spirited was recovering addict Curtis. "It came to a point where I had to do something about it because I was mixing the pain medication with the alcohol, which made it extremely dangerous."
Severely underweight and addicted to meth, Caitlin realized, "I'm going to die if I don't get help."
When you realize it's time to ask for help, do it. Don't wait. Reach out to friends, family, a treatment center. Make a connection with someone who can support you in getting the help you need.
"I had to make a decision and one of the decisions, thank God, was to call [a treatment center] and ask if they could help me," Curtis said.
After a brush with jail time, Ben realized he was ready for a change. "I just confided in my parents that I was ready to go to treatment."
And Tracy reached out to her husband. "I approached my husband and I just told him, "I've had it, I'm done."
Make A Commitment
Making this commitment to yourself will be one of the most difficult things you ever experience. It's a rocky road, and it's fraught with obstacles. But opening yourself up to learning how to live a sober life will pay off exponentially. And there is no time like the present.
"If [you feel] that they may have a serious problem and/or it's going to get serious, better to nip it in the bud, so to speak, now, rather than let it destroy your whole life in the end," Curtis shared.
And Sean takes it a step further, saying, "To my peers, when you're on your deathbed, the one thing you're not going to get back is time."
You will be glad you did this for yourself. To start over and regain control of your life is priceless.
"It turned out to be the best thing that I ever did. It saved my life. I owe a lot to [my] program," Joe shared.
These brave people committed themselves to learning how to take control of their addictions. They did the work and they came out whole on the other side. And you can do it too. What are you waiting for? Take back your life today.
Cecelia Johnson believes strongly in the power of good deeds and recognizing great work. That's why she created RecognitionWorks.org. The site is dedicated to connecting those who've been awarded for exemplary work in their communities to companies and organizations that can help them continue their admirable efforts through donations, sponsorships, and gifts. By making these connections, she hopes to build stronger, more altruistic communities and citizens.
Photo by Pixabay 1031111
How to do a Grief/Trauma Inventory
Write down a specific loss/trauma.
Write down what happened.
Write down what it was like for you?
What beliefs were created from the loss/trauma? Ie. God is mad at me…If only I had…
Are you at peace with the loss/trauma currently?
Did the loss cause trauma and how?
Does the loss/trauma still hurt?
How do you nurture yourself when you feel hurt?
What behaviors today need work? Ie. Areas you need to improve, boundaries you need to set, people you need to forgive, do you need to forgive yourself, feelings you need to feel, love that you need to give to others, to yourself?
Share the inventory with a counselor, clergy or someone experienced in trauma and loss.
Repeat as needed.
*NOTE- No two people experience loss and trauma the same. There is no time limit on grief. Each person should be allowed to experience and process their grief and loss in their own way and in their own time. Be easy on yourself and get help when needed. Help is available for free. Many hospices sponsor bereavement groups and support for anyone in the community who has experienced a death of a family member, a friend, or similar losses.
Transitioning to Peaceful Parenting
Shifting your parenting approach is a big transition, and you can expect some bumps as you and your children learn new patterns of relating. It doesn't mean that you're doing anything wrong. In fact, what's happening is that you're healing old hurt feelings so they stop driving new bad behavior. When your child acts out, he's showing you feelings from the past when you punished or yelled. It takes extra compassion from you, but your empathic response will heal those hurts so you can all move on.
So ditch that guilt -- you're paying the price, after all, and making amends now, by helping your child through all those old hurt feelings. Besides, feeling bad doesn't help you act "good," any more than it helps your child. Here's your plan. Take it step by step.
1. Start with yourself. The "peace" in peaceful parenting comes from you. Specifically, from your commitment to regulate your own emotions. That means when you feel upset, you stop, notice the sensations in your body, and breathe. You refuse to act on that urgent "fight or flight" feeling that makes your child look like the enemy. Whenever possible, you delay taking action until you feel calmer.
This takes practice -- both in the moment with your child, and in general, as you become more aware of your own thoughts and emotions. It is really, really, hard. Every time you do this, though, you're building gray matter in your brain, which develops impulse control. And you're excavating those triggers, so you don't get upset so often. The result? A happier, more empathetic, more peaceful parent. (And role model for your child.)
2. Focus on Connecting. Positive parenting doesn't work without connection, because you squander your only leverage and have to resort to threats (which destroy trust and start your child acting out again.) So before you change anything else with your child, start building up your bond. Otherwise, you'll drop your punishments, but your child still won't feel motivated to "do right" and you'll just see more testing behavior. Start spending at least 15 minutes connecting one-on-one with each child daily, just following his lead and pouring your love into him. You'll be amazed at the difference in the way he responds to your requests.
3. Explain what's happening. Once you see more connection and better behavior, initiate a discussion. "You know how I used to yell at you and send you to your room when you break the rules? Have you noticed that I've been yelling a lot less? I'm so sorry that I've gotten into a bad habit of yelling so much. I love you so much, and I know you try hard. When you're upset, I want to help you with those feelings and with whatever problem you're having. I think you'll learn more from cleaning up your messes than from being punished, don't you? Let's work together to solve the problems that come up, okay?"
4. Ask for cooperation. "We still have all the same rules. Our most important rule is that in this house we treat each other with kindness. I'm going to work very hard not to yell at you, and to really listen and be kind. Do you think you can work on this rule, too, and be kind to your sister?" (It's best to limit yourself to the most important requests, at the beginning. Once you see improvement, you can work on other areas.)
5. Offer Support and Model Win-Win Solutions. "I know your little sister gets on your nerves sometimes, and she always wants to play with your things. That's really annoying to you. You deserve to be able to keep your treasures safe. But it isn't okay to yell at your sister or hit her. Why don't we work together to find a safe place for your treasures where your sister can't get at them? And if you start getting annoyed at her, what can you do instead of yelling?"
6. Keep setting limits. You'll probably become more flexible as you see it from his point of view more often, and that's a good thing. But you'll still need to set plenty of limits. The key is to set the limit BEFORE you get angry, while you still have a sense of humor and can empathize with his perspective. "You wish you never had to stop playing and get ready for bed, don't you? I bet when you grow up, you'll play all night every night! And right now, it's time for your bath." Acknowledging their perspective is what helps kids WANT to cooperate with us.
7. Expect emotions. When children have been punished, they've learned that those big emotions that drove them to misbehave are BAD, and so they try to stuff those bad feelings down. That doesn't work, of course. The jealousy, frustration and need are still there in your child's emotional backpack, popping out at the slightest provocation. The only reason your child keeps them under wraps is because he's afraid. So once you stop punishing, those emotions are bound to bubble up to get healed.
Acting out is not a personal challenge to you. When your child "acts out" he is acting out feelings that he can't express in words. Like "All those times you yelled at me, and I was so scared, I acted like I didn't care, but I was terrified inside....That fear is still inside me and it eats away at me and feels awful....So I lash out to keep those feelings down." No child could tell you that, so he acts out. Train yourself to see misbehavior as a cry for help. Emotions are never the problem; humans will always have big emotions. And, of course, that doesn't give him license to hurt anyone else. The key is to help your child work through the hurts and fears that are driving his anger, so they no longer drive his behavior.
8. Create Safety. When your child shows you her upsets, stay calm. Don't take it personally. The more you stay compassionate and accepting, the more she'll feel safe enough to show you the woundedness behind her anger. (Anger is just the body's fight response to those threatening feelings.) Expressing those tears and fears is healing. Once she shares them with you -- and she doesn't even need to know what they're about, or to use words -- those feelings will evaporate, and she won't need that chip on her shoulder to protect herself.
If she's stuck in anger, create more safety by being as compassionate as you can about what's upsetting her. If that isn't enough to help her cry, and she stays angry, it's a sign that she needs more daily empathy, and more daily laughing with you. Both build trust.
9. Help your child make sense of his experience with a story. "When you were little, I was having a hard time...I yelled a lot...I didn't know what else to do...That frightened you....So you got very very mad sometimes...But now I work really hard to be kind, and not to yell....You don't get so frightened....And you are learning better ways to show me when you are scared or mad.....We work together to solve problems in our family.....Everyone gets upset sometimes....We try to listen to each other and be kind....Then we always make things better between us." All children benefit from using words and stories to understand their emotional life. Just be careful to empathize, not analyze -- so he feels understood, not invaded.
10. Teach reparations. If you've been punishing, you'll feel unfinished if your child breaks a rule and you don't punish him. Train yourself to think in terms of repair, instead. So after everyone has calmed down and is feeling reconnected, have a private discussion with your child about what happened. Listen to his perspective and empathize. "You were pretty mad when he did that...I hear you."
Once he's past that upset, point out the damage: "When you said that to your brother, it really hurt his feelings....and it made him not feel as close to you." Ask your child if there is anything he can do to repair the damage. "What could you do to repair that hurt with your brother?" Resist the urge to punish or force an apology. Instead, empower your child to see that he can repair his mistakes. "You know we always clean up our own messes, and this is just a different kind of mess, like spilled milk....I know you'll think of just the right thing to make things better with your brother....I can't wait to see what it is." Just as with spilled milk, the process of cleaning up his messes will teach him that he doesn't want to cause those hurts to begin with.
11. Model apologies. Don't force your child to apologize, because it leads to resentment. But if you model apology yourself, your child will follow your example. When something goes wrong, take as much responsibility as you can. "I see two upset kids...I'm so sorry I wasn't here to help you work this out before you both go so upset and started hitting...and then I got worried someone was getting hurt, so I started yelling, too...I'm so sorry....Let's all try a do-over.....I know you don't want to hit each other, hitting hurts...And I hear how mad you are....Let me help you so you can tell each other what you need without attacking each other." Over time, your modeling will help your children step up and take responsibility, too.
12. Expect setbacks. You're human, so you aren't perfect. Have compassion for yourself, just as you do for your child. Expect to make mistakes. Expect some days to be a huge struggle. Parenting is hard, and this kind of parenting is even harder when you start. But it gets easier. And even while it's hard, and you're healing your child's old wounds--and your own--you'll feel the difference. Quite simply, there's more love, more often.
You're on a path now that leads to a happier, more peaceful family. Two steps forward, one step back still gets you where you want to go. Soon you'll find yourself in a whole new landscape. Enjoy the journey.
Resource: parenting.com
5 Key Elements of Effective Drug Abuse Prevention Programs
Steve Johnson is a guest blogger. If you are interested in being a guest blogger, please feel free to contact me. Beth Watson, LCSW
They say that prevention is the best medicine, and that couldn't be more true in the area of substance abuse and addiction. Many parents live with fear that their children will fall in with the wrong crowd in school and other social settings, giving in to peer pressure and experimenting with drugs or alcohol.
That's why parents, schools, and communities should take an active role in engaging young people and adults alike in positive prevention efforts. Here's a look at what the most effective prevention programs do. You'll find that many of these focal areas are equally as important in prevention as they are in rehabilitation.
1. Acknowledge and Treat Potential Risk Factors
Certain groups of people are more at risk for substance abuse than others. Recognizing an at-risk individual and mitigating the trait or behavior that is putting them at risk is a mark of a good program. Risk factors can include mental illness, suicidal thoughts, history of trauma, or social rejection.
Treating these factors in addition to treating the addiction itself is also a key role of rehabilitation. These aspects are the root of the problem, while the addiction is the result, and long-term recovery involves treating the underlying issues as well as the disease.
2. Recognize and Meet Community Needs
A rehabilitation or prevention program in the inner city as opposed to a program in Beverly Hills is going to look very different. It is important that the program acknowledges the type of community it is in and uses that knowledge to its advantage.
Treating or educating a low-income teenage dropout should be approached differently than treating or educating a middle-aged mother, for instance. They are likely to have different stressors and triggers. Research insights into and attention to the unique needs of the community should be readily apparent in any effective substance abuse program.
For example, in low-income communities, children and teens may have few positive recreational opportunities and with parents working long hours and being left alone. Making after-school programming with access to mentors a viable prevention opportunity, combined with substance abuse education, would be the best solution. The same is true for teens recovering from addiction; mentorship and positive role models can make a tremendous difference in outcomes.
3. Offer Content and Delivery That Match the Demographic
Drug prevention in children versus teenagers should also have different approaches. A good program should understand and learn from its participants' reactions to different methodologies. For example, a cartoon video may be an effective delivery method for a child but could be perceived as too juvenile for older teens; they may disregard the message as a result. A good prevention program knows how to get through to each target audience and should never have a one-size-fits-all ideology.
4. Utilize Familial Bonds
With at-risk groups, support from friends and family can make all the difference. A suitable prevention program will use that built-in support system and incorporate and strengthen family bonds. Parents and role models still hold the most influence on a youth's choices regarding substance abuse. Even the best rehabilitation or prevention program may fail if there are bad examples at home that are not being addressed. Effective programs will educate both the individual and the family.
Furthermore, the program should also aid family members in confronting the at-risk individual. Many parents simply do not know how to approach the subject of addiction. With the importance of a parent's role in a child's life, good prevention programs will educate the parents on how to talk to their children and how to intervene when necessary.
5. Includes Interactive Sessions
Lecture-based programs have been proven to be less effective than programs that allow conversation and dialogue to occur between students and teachers. An engaged listener is a more eager learner who retains far more information than a passive listener who has no interaction with the speaker. Particularly with children, having a speaker come in and list off facts about drugs and addiction has little impact. Children who receive an active conversation in which they can ask questions and receive honest answers are more likely to remember what they have been told.
Effective drug prevention programs are the first step in safeguarding an at-risk individual. While numerous prevention programs exist, only some truly work to stop patterns of addiction. Doing the research and finding a suitable program is the best way to ensure that you or a loved one does not have to recover from addiction later in life.
Steve Johnson has always been dedicated to promoting health and wellness in all aspects of life. Studying in the medical field has shown him how important it is for reputable health-related facts, figures, tips, and other guidance to be readily available to the public. He created PublicHealthLibrary.org with a fellow student to act as a resource for people's overall health inquiries and as an accurate and extensive source of health information. When he isn't hard at work in his studies, Steve enjoys playing tennis and listening to his vintage record collection.
Image via Pixabay by 422737
HOW TO SET HEALTHY BOUNDARIES
Healthy boundaries create healthy relationships. Unhealthy boundaries create dysfunctional ones. By establishing clear boundaries, we define ourselves in relation to others. To do this, however, we must be able to identify and respect our needs, feelings, opinions, and rights. Otherwise our efforts would be like putting a fence around a yard without knowing the property lines.
Those of us raised in dysfunctional families have probably had little experience with healthy boundaries. Therefore, learning how to establish them must be an important goal in our personal growth. In order to achieve this, however, we must overcome low self-esteem and passivity; learn to identify and respect our rights and needs; and become skilled at assertively taking care of ourselves in relationships. This process allows our true selves to emerge, and healthy boundaries become the fences that keep us safe - something we may never have experienced in childhood.
Boundaries can be physical or emotional. Physical boundaries define who can touch us, how someone can touch us, and how physically close another may approach us. Emotional boundaries define where our feelings end and another's begins. For example, do we take responsibility for our feelings and needs, and allow others to do the same? Or do we feel overly responsible for the feelings and needs of others and neglect our own? Are we able to say "no"? Can we ask for what we need? Are we compulsive people pleasers? Do we become upset simply because others are upset around us? Do we mimic the opinions of whomever we are around? The answers to these questions help define the "property lines" of our emotional boundaries.
Together, our physical and emotional boundaries define how we interact with others, and how we allow others to interact with us. Without boundaries, others could touch us in any way they wanted, do whatever they wished with our possessions, and treat us in any way they desired. In addition, we would believe everyone else's bad behaviors are our fault, take on everyone's else's problems as our own, and feel like we have no right to any rights. In short, our lives would chaotic and out of our control.
Boundaries can be too rigid or too loose. Those whose boundaries are too rigid literally shut out everyone from their lives. They appear aloof and distant, and do not talk about feelings or show emotions. They exhibit extreme self-sufficiency, and do not ask for help. They do not allow anyone to get physically or emotionally close to them. It is as if they live in a house surrounded by an immense wall with no gates. No one is allowed in.
Those whose boundaries are too loose put their hands on strangers and let others touch them inappropriately. They may be sexually promiscuous, confuse sex and love, be driven to be in a sexual relationship, and get too close to others too fast. They may take on the feelings of others as their own, easily become emotionally overwhelmed, give too much, take too much, and be in constant need of reassurance. They may expect others to read their minds, think they can read the minds of others, say "yes" when they want to say "no," and feel responsible for the feelings of others. Those with loose boundaries often lead chaotic lives, full of drama, as if they lived in houses with no fences, gates, locks, or even doors.
Those with healthy boundaries are firm but flexible. They give support and accept it. They respect their feelings, needs, opinions, and rights, and those of others, but are clear about their separateness. They are responsible for their own happiness and allow others to be responsible for their happiness. They are assertive and respectful of the rights of others to be assertive. They are able to negotiate and compromise, have empathy for others, are able to make mistakes without damaging their self-esteem, and have an internal sense of personal identity. They respect diversity. Those with healthy boundaries are comfortable with themselves, and make others comfortable around them. They live in houses with fences and gates that allow access only to those who respect their boundaries.
Learning to set healthy boundaries can feel uncomfortable, even scary, because it may go against the grain of the survival skills we learned in childhood - particularly if our caretakers were physically, sexually, or emotionally abusive. For example, we may have learned to repress our anger or other painful emotions because we would have been attacked and blamed for expressing the very pain the abuse had caused. Thus, attempting to set healthy boundaries as an adult may initially be accompanied by anxiety, but we must learn to work through these conditioned fears, or we will never have healthy relationships. But this process of growth takes time, and our motto should always be, "Progress not perfection."
Here are some tips for setting healthy boundaries, modified from the book, Boundaries: Where You End and I Begin, by Anne Katherine
When you identify the need to set a boundary, do it clearly, preferably without anger, and in as few words as possible. Do not justify, apologize for, or rationalize the boundary you are setting. Do not argue! Just set the boundary calmly, firmly, clearly, and respectfully.
You can't set a boundary and take care of someone else's feelings at the same time. You are not responsible for the other person's reaction to the boundary you are setting. You are only responsible for communicating the boundary in a respectful manner. If others get upset with you, that is their problem. If they no longer want your friendship, then you are probably better off without them. You do not need "friends" who disrespect your boundaries.
At first, you will probably feel selfish, guilty, or embarrassed when you set a boundary. Do it anyway, and tell yourself you have a right to take care of yourself. Setting boundaries takes practice and determination. Don't let anxiety or low self-esteem prevent you from taking care of yourself.
When you feel anger or resentment, or find yourself whining or complaining, you probably need to set a boundary. Listen to yourself, then determine what you need to do or say. Then communicate your boundary assertively. When you are confident you can set healthy boundaries with others, you will have less need to put up walls.
When you set boundaries, you might be tested, especially by those accustomed to controlling you, abusing you, or manipulating you. Plan on it, expect it, but be firm. Remember, your behavior must match the boundaries you are setting. You can not establish a clear boundary successfully if you send a mixed message by apologizing for doing so. Be firm, clear, and respectful.
Most people are willing to respect your boundaries, but some are not. Be prepared to be firm about your boundaries when they are not being respected. If necessary, put up a wall by ending the relationship. In extreme cases, you might have to involve the police or judicial system by sending a no-contact letter or obtaining a restraining order.
Learning to set healthy boundaries takes time. It is a process. You will set boundaries when you are ready. It's your growth in your own time frame, not what someone else tells you. Let your counselor or support group help you with pace and process. Develop a support system of people who respect your right to set boundaries. Eliminate toxic persons from your life - those who want to manipulate you, abuse you, and control you. Setting healthy boundaries allows your true self to emerge – and what an exciting journey that is.
If you would like help in learning to establish healthy boundaries in your relationships, therapy might be right for you.
Ramifications of Narcissistic Personality Disorder
Narcissistic personality disorder is a mental disorder in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance and a deep need for admiration. They believe that they're superior to others and have little regard for other people's feelings. But behind this mask of ultra-confidence lies a fragile self-esteem, vulnerable to the slightest criticism.
Narcissistic personality disorder is one of several types of personality disorders. Personality disorders are conditions in which people have traits that cause them to feel and behave in socially distressing ways, limiting their ability to function in relationships and in other areas of their life, such as work or school. In particular, narcissistic personality disorder is characterized by dramatic, emotional behavior, in the same category as histrionic, antisocial and borderline personality disorders. Narcissistic personality disorder treatment is centered on psychotherapy.
Narcissistic personality disorder symptoms may include:
Believing that you're better than others
Fantasizing about power, success and attractiveness
Exaggerating your achievements or talents
Expecting constant praise and admiration
Believing that you're special and acting accordingly
Failing to recognize other people's emotions and feelings
Expecting others to go along with your ideas and plans
Taking advantage of others
Expressing disdain for those you feel are inferior
Being jealous of others
Believing that others are jealous of you
Setting unrealistic goals
Being easily hurt and rejected
Having a fragile self-esteem
Appearing as tough-minded or unemotional
Although some features of narcissistic personality disorder may seem like having confidence or strong self-esteem, it's not the same. Narcissistic personality disorder crosses the border of healthy confidence and self-esteem into thinking so highly of yourself that you put yourself on a pedestal. In contrast, people who have healthy confidence and self-esteem don't value themselves more than they
value others.
When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may come across as conceited, boastful or pretentious. You often monopolize conversations. You may belittle or look down on people you perceive as inferior. You may have a sense of entitlement. And when you don't receive the special treatment to which you feel entitled, you may become very impatient or angry. You may insist on having "the best" of everything — the best car, athletic club, medical care or social circles, for instance.
But underneath all this behavior often lies a fragile self-esteem. You have trouble handling anything that may be perceived as criticism. You may have a sense of secret shame and humiliation. And in order to make yourself feel better, you may react with rage or contempt and efforts to belittle the other person to make yourself appear better.
When you have narcissistic personality disorder, you may not want to think that anything could be wrong — doing so wouldn't fit with your self-image of power and perfection. But by definition, a narcissistic personality disorder causes problems in many areas of your life, such as relationships, work, school or your financial affairs. You may be generally unhappy and confused by a mix of seemingly contradictory emotions. Others may not enjoy being around you, and you may find your relationships unfulfilling.
If you notice any of these problems in your life, consider reaching out to a trusted doctor or mental health provider. Getting the right treatment can help make your life more rewarding and enjoyable.
Benefits Of Laughter
Birth Order & Relationships
Caregiver Syndrome
Childhood Abuse
Children Of Ptsd Parent
Child Self Esteem
Codependent
Codependent Series
Cognitive Processing Therapy
Combat Trauma
Delusional Disorders
Emotional Pain/Prayer
Enmeshment
Grief Affirmations
Grief/Trauma Inventory
Health Benefits Of Crying
Healthy Family Traits
Healthy Grieving
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Love Theory
Mental Illness 101
Natural Disaster Trauma
Parentification
Ptsd In Children
Self -mutilation
Setting Healthy Boundaries
Trauma Nightmares
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Trauma Triggers
Beth Watson, LCSW
I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with a strong spiritual foundation providing counseling in the Tallahassee, Florida area. My areas of interest include grief and loss, depression and anxiety, women's emotional health, trauma related issues such as PTSD, family substance abuse issues, domestic violence and family counseling including couples counseling, children and adolescent behavioral issues and parenting. Giving back is very rewarding with the growth and satisfaction of each client. It is my passion and my honor to serve others.
Please check out FREE counseling categories below and do drop me a note if your area of interest is not included. Thanks for dropping by!
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The holiday season is just around the corner, and Conrad Seoul is offering a special service to ensure everyone at your Thanksgiving and Christmas parties are well fed with the most traditional of treats.
Until December 31, 2015, Seoul's best rated hotel is preparing ready-to-serve meals complete with a succulent whole turkey; mashed potatoes; Brussels sprouts and roasted carrots; grilled bell peppers, mushrooms and pumpkin; cranberry compote and gravy.
Each meal serves 10 people and costs ₩240,000.
Availability is limited, so don't wait to place your order. Call the Conrad 02-6137-7120 (extension 7126).


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Anja Pietsch
Hotel Rossija
Precarious Creativity
Se Vende or Tomorrow has been Canceled
Hotel Rossija, Moscow 2005/2006
TUNISIA: THREE YEARS AFTER
Homesick for the Future
Tag / Beirut
27. March 2013 1. June 2013 by anjapietsch
Anja Pietsch, Beirut, demolition, Fotografie, old buildings, Old City, Photography, reconstruction, Save Beirut Heritage, speculation, urban space, urbanization
Demolition of old buildings is a daily occurrence in Beirut, where high-rise flats and car parks are taking over the city and dozens of skyscrapers emerge every year — towering over the city's ancient buildings.
Find out more about current developments in Beirut and its chaotic skyline: http://www.executive-magazine.com/cranes-over-beirut/
"During the 1990s, the Ministry of Culture put together a list of historical landmarks in the country. The Direction Générale des Antiquités (DGA) included approximately 1,600 buildings in Beirut, most of them from the Ottoman period or the French mandate. As of this year, 80 percent of the buildings on the list have been demolished, say representatives from both APLH and Save Beirut Heritage (SBH)." (Demolishing Lebanese identity / NOW, Lebanon 2013)
"Beirut's recent history – war and reconstruction – has much in common with several developing cities in the world: uncontrolled urbanization, environmental damages and the concentration of urban transportation along the main coastal corridor." (PLANS FOR AN UNPLANNED CITY: Beirut / by Eric Verdeil)
"Outside of the center, rampant speculation is radically changing the character of historic neighbourhoods, and gentrifying in the process these neighbourhoods. This is largely due to the failure of the political authorities to develop and implement a new urban plan that limits densities, safeguards historic landmarks, and creates much needed public spaces and green parks. The reconstruction was also controversial at the urban level, as some districts irreversibly lost their character." (BEIRUT: BETWEEN MEMORY AND DESIRE / by Elie Haddad)
Old buildings in Beirut, symbol of the history on the one side and speculative investments on the other, the demolition is an example for the dynamics of urban spaces caught between the inertia of the past and the historical transformations of the past.
27. February 2013 27. March 2013 by anjapietsch
ON A SUNDAY AFTERNOON
assassination, Beirut, Beyrouth, Copyright by Anja Pietsch, demonstration, Fotografie, Funeral, Future Movement, Internal Security Forces, Lebanon, Libanon, Movement of the Future, Photography, photos, Pictures, protesters, Saad al-Hariri, security chief, street photos, Wissam al-Hassan
Beirut, Oct 2012
Clashes erupted outside government offices in the Lebanese capital Beirut in October last year. Thousands attended the funeral of security chief Wissam al-Hassan who was killed by a car bomb. Hassan is a pivotal figure in Lebanon. He was heavily involved in the investigation of former information minister Michel Samaha, who is an al-Assad supporter. Hassan earlier led an investigation into the assassination of former prime minister Rafik al-Hariri. Opposition figures blamed neighbouring Syria and Hezbollah for the attack. The unrest began after the funeral, the mourners had protested against Syria and its Lebanese allies amid fears the Syrian conflict could spill over. But the confrontation outside the prime minister's office just lasted for a few minutes, the army shoot in the air to disperse the crowd and most of the protesters went home.
20. December 2012 20. March 2013 by anjapietsch
Memory for Forgetfulness
Beirut, Beyrouth, Copyright by Anja Pietsch, Fotografie, Lebanon, Liban, Libanon, Memory, photo diary, Photography, photos, Pictures, Street photography, street photos
"I've forgotten the alphabet. All I remember are these six letters: B-E-I-R-U-T."
(Mahmoud Darwish)
Photo Diary, Lebanon 2012


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Planting seeds to restore the planet, one tree at a time:
The Wilder Earth Movement
The Wilder Earth Movement makes it its mission to support and enrich natural eco systems on both a community and global scale. Our global pledge includes planting a tree for each and every sale associated with Wren and her music community (including merch, concert tickets, giveaways, etc.). On a local level, Wren holds monthly eco-friendly workshops in Los Angeles, California, in hopes of transforming a city plagued by annual wildfires and an exponential accumulation of waste in its landfills. Sign up today and become a part of the Wilder Earth community and its efforts to restore balance to our planet!
©2019 by Wren Wilder. Proudly created with Wix.com


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Home / News & Updates / Columbia College mourns the loss of Steven Marcus CC'48, GSAS'61
Columbia College mourns the loss of Steven Marcus CC'48, GSAS'61
Columbia College mourns the loss of Steven Marcus CC'48, GSAS'61, former dean and George Delacorte Professor Emeritus in the Humanities, who passed away on April 25.
"Steven Marcus was a towering figure in the history of our university and in American intellectual life," said Andrew Delbanco, Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies. "He was a brilliant teacher, loyal Columbian, and a man whose outward reserve concealed deep warmth and compassion. His death is a great loss."
The son of Nathan and Adeline, Marcus was born in New York City on December 13, 1928 and grew up in the Bronx. Marcus enrolled at the College, where he studied under Lionel Trilling. He graduated from the College in 1948.
Marcus then began teaching at Columbia in 1956, and after earning his doctorate was appointed the George Delacorte Professor in the Humanities in 1976. A Fellow of both the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Academy of Literary Studies, he received Fulbright, American Council of Learned Societies, Guggenheim, Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Rockefeller and Mellon grants.
A specialist in 19th-century literature and culture, Marcus authored works including Dickens from Pickwick to Dombey, The Other Victorians, Engels, Manchester and the Working Class, Doing Good, and Representations: Essays on Literature and Society. He was also co-editor, along with Trilling, of Ernest Jones's The Life and Work of Sigmund Freud.
He also served as director of planning and chairman of the executive committee of the Board of Trustees for the National Humanities Center, which wrote in its obituary: "Steven was instrumental in the conception and realization of the Center, and his intellectual leadership and continuous devotion helped nurture and guide the Center for most of the past 40+ years."
From 1993 to 1995, Marcus served as dean of Columbia College, where he was a staunch supporter of the Core as the basis for a comprehensive education. Marcus retired in 2004, becoming George Delacorte Professor Emeritus in the Humanities.
Read more in The New York Times.


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Fauci is a Pathological Liar & a Sociopath #WakeUP
January 8, 2022: There is no denying that Anthony Fauci is a pathological liar. This is a message must be repeated every day until the masses wake up to this fraud's career of deceit and corruption.
#WakeUp
Fauci's 'Noble Lies'
"It may be difficult to untangle the reason behind the lies Dr. Anthony Fauci has told, but there are several theories as to why Fauci believes he can determine what is true and what is not."
Story at-a-glance:
A noble lie is paternalistic, or those where the deceiver must make an assumption that lying serves the best interest. Fauci claims misinformation and lies he shared may have been to influence behavior.
Fauci's first comments were that masks are not effective in the community, after which he recommended people wear one or even two masks — he stated the spread of the virus was unlike anything he's seen before, but the varying severity of the illness he quotes are much like the flu virus.
In a video from a Senate committee, Jim Jordan, (D-Ohio), quickly illustrates the change in Fauci's position over gain-of-function research in the last 18 months, from "it never happened" to "it would have been negligent not to fund the lab."
Fauci has consistently been nudging up the percentage of people required to be vaccinated to achieve what he calls herd immunity. He started at 60% and currently believes it may need to reach 85%. "But I'm not going to say 90%" — right now, he says.
The past 18 months has provided Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to the president of the U.S., ample opportunity to truthfully share information about an ongoing health situation.
However, as his statements have been tracked, it appears he has not taken the higher path of truth that would have helped Americans make smart decisions.
Instead, he has engaged in what the daily online magazine Slate labeled "noble lies." The writer asks this question: "Do we want public health officials to report facts and uncertainties transparently? Or do we want them to shape information?"
Although this is a question only you can answer for yourself, Fauci's inaccurate representation of the truth likely has a deeper meaning than what philosophers define as a noble lie. It may be difficult to untangle the reason behind the lies, but there are several theories as to why Fauci believes he can determine what is true and what is not.
The lab leak theory was first publicly proposed by then-President Trump and vehemently denied by Fauci. Experts postulate the reason the media did not further explore the idea was the announcement politically polarized it, burying the possibility it might be fully and independently investigated.
Yet, objective accurate news reporting may only be an illusion since, as TechStartUps reports, six corporations control 90% of what is published in America as of September 2020. Vanguard and BlackRock are the top investors in each of those six corporations, namely Comcast, Disney, ViacomCBS, News Corp, and AT&T.
As you may note, there are only five corporations listed above. That's because TechStartUps listed Viacom and CBS separately as the merger between the companies had only recently closed. In other words, the five or six supposedly competitive corporations vying for 90% of the American public are really controlled by two investment firms, Vanguard and BlackRock. And, in an interesting twist of events, Vanguard is the top investor in BlackRock.
Whether Fauci is politicizing the truth, or the news media is picking and choosing the truth they tell you to serve their own financial needs, it is highly likely that what you read in mainstream news media is exactly what serves the purposes of an elite class that controls "what we read, watch or listen to."
What Is a noble lie?
The origin of a "noble lie" is from Plato's Republic, a book written in 380 B.C., which essentially is a discussion of the meaning and nature of justice. Without getting too embroiled in the philosophical argument over truth and lies, it's important to note that Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was a central figure in the development of modern philosophy.
His position was that lying was never morally acceptable, something few contemporary philosophers agree with. Philosophically, there are two lies that are generally believed to be acceptable. The first prevents catastrophic events and the second are "white lies," where the consequences are considered by the speaker to be insignificant.
A noble lie falls under the category of paternalistic lies. The American Psychological Association states this about lies with paternalistic motives: "Many lies that are intended to help others require the deceiver to make assumptions about whether lying serves others' best interest."
In other words, Fauci may be functioning under the delusion that he has the right and responsibility of making an assumption about whether the lies he tells are serving the best interest of those who have the full capacity and capability of understanding the science and making up their own mind.
One of the lies began with masking
Although Fauci's string of lies about the public health response and origins of COVID-19 are far-reaching, some of the first he told were about the effectiveness of wearing masks to reduce the spread of the virus.
In the short video below, Rep. Jim Jordan, (D-Ohio), gives a scathing account of Fauci's vacillating recommendations regarding masking in public. Fauci was appointed the director of the NIAID in 1984, which you would think would make him an expert by 2020 on infectious disease transmission. However, he hasn't been able to make up his mind during the entire pandemic what his "expert" advice is on mask wearing.
Fauci explained his first recommendation not to wear masks during a March 2020 "60 Minutes" interview, saying using a mask in the community was unnecessary, and specifically:
"The masks are important for someone who is infected to prevent them from infecting someone else. There's no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you're in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it's not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is.
"And often, there are unintended consequences. People keep fiddling with the mask and people keep touching their face."
In other words, based on his expert knowledge, wearing a mask in the community would not be effective. But just three months later in an interview on TheStreet, Fauci justified changing his expert advice as he talked about some of the characteristics of the illness:
"It is a very unusual infection. I've quite frankly never seen anything like it, where a single, well characterized virus in an individual is going to have a range of manifestations that go from being completely asymptomatic, no symptoms at all, to having a few symptoms that don't bother you much to having symptoms that are enough to keep you home, to have symptoms enough to keep you in bed really feeling poorly for a couple of weeks to having the symptoms and signs of having to go to a hospital to then possibly having to go to intensive care and then to dying."
The only thing is, as the director of NIAID who focuses on infectious diseases, Fauci has to have been aware of studies demonstrating the asymptomatic nature of other respiratory viral illnesses such as influenza and statements on the CDC website that flu "can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death."
In other words, while we know that a SARS-CoV-2 infection can trigger symptoms like flu, it seems odd that Fauci's characterization of COVID-19 spread is something "I've quite frankly never seen anything like."
Fauci claims we can crush COVID as vaccinated people get sick
During the same interview he said the reason he recommended not wearing masks in the beginning was to avoid mass panic that might lead to a shortage of masks for health care workers. Fauci's unique brand of justifying behavior, like his flip-flopping over mask wearing, has also slipped into his reasoning for the shot program. In an interview with MSNBC, he says:
"The delta variant is the totally dominant variant now in this country. More than 80 or 85%, and in some areas 95%, but even more importantly it is clear now that when there are breakthrough infections, namely people who are vaccinated but still get infected with the delta variant, which happens because no vaccine is 100% effective.
"We've learned clearly now, without a doubt, that people who are vaccinated get a breakthrough infection, actually have enough virus in their nasopharynx, that they can actually transmit it to other people and have documented transmission to other people."
From here he advises that all people who have been vaccinated to wear a mask indoors to prevent the spread of the infection. His explanation is that the delta variant has "changed the entire landscape." However, as we know from other viruses, the coronavirus will continue to mutate and change, which means, from Fauci's explanation, people will always be wearing masks to prevent the spread of a continually mutating virus.
The interviewer points out that as the virus continues to change, it means we won't be able to "turn the page on coronavirus, because there might be new variants …" to which Fauci responds, "It doesn't have to be if the overwhelming majority of the people in this country get vaccinated. We could nail this down by just crushing it."