My years of therapy (depression, probably ADD (under protest) and moderate autism spectrum issues) have equipped me to help my children navigate some of their challenges. I am sure I am not alone in this. It has taught me different ways to listen, to ask questions rather than assuming I understand the situation or the origin of the question fully.
No doubt there are dangers to amateur therapy when it goes beyond active listening, such as the impulse to put behaviors and people in boxes. Perhaps parenting guides should include major sections on learning to recognize biases in one's perception of one's children.
I think smaller families have warped our understanding of the range "normal" can cover when it comes to behavior and personality. Perceived genetic tendencies derived from two people begetting three or more children are likely to be significantly different from those derived by people who have one or two.
All that being said, life is such that there are children who have a need for objective assistance.
I have just finished the book Jay recommended, Against Empathy. Paul Bloom makes the argument that putting one's self in another's shoes, feeling the other's pain, is not necessarily a good or productive thing and can be quite the opposite. He does distinguish between empathy (Counselor Troy- type feelings) and cognitive empathy ("This person is in pain - I must try to ease that pain"). If plain empathy is as highly regarded as he states, I can see it being an obstacle to helpful therapy, particularly for children.
The thing is, becoming a content and moral human is not something one does on one's own.
I've read three of the Thursday Next novels. They are filled with clevernesses and also sharply plotted, but I still find their affect very dark. Maybe it's because so many people and BookPeople die.
Interesting. I'm so sorry they hit you that way, as I generally recommend them as a source of intellectually satisfying fun and hope.
They have never hit me that way. The fact that Thursday is rooted in her family and that her family is undramatically loving - traditional in the best possible sense - in the face of all sorts of local, national and global existential craziness has been reassuring to me. I think it is Thursday's father that says something like "Things are weirder than we can ever imagine" and I have always heard that as a shot across the bow of atheists and hopeless corporate pragmatists.
It seems to me that, in our cynical world, all the deaths and the very real pain are dramatically necessary to counterbalance Thursday's too-good-to-be-true, hardcore commitment to Doing the Right Thing. Jasper Fforde does interject a few snarky remarks in this vein in the later books. As well, he did work in the film industry in the 1990s, including a James Bond movie.
After the fourth book the charm does start to wear off. However, Thursday's adventures do begin to take a toll on her body and she begins to use a cane at a relatively young age. There is a comic element but it also came across to me as an indication that JF takes life and humanity very seriously.
It is funny how one story can strike such different chords in people. I am sorry for introducing darkness instead of light.
It's okay. It's a nice thought, although I don't usually have fragile moods, and when I do, they're super-specifically related to things immediately going on in life.
Marked "safe" from the midwest storms. Whoa, the wind was scary strong. I only see part of a tree down in the golf club from my house. I am going out to walk the 'hood with my dogs to see if there's any more damage. We have huge white pines next to our house and we were getting pummeled with branches and pine cones. Constant banging noises on the roof. My daughter and 8 week old grandson were home alone as her husband was in Chicago for work. They lost power along with 42,000 other customers. She was a little freaked out. She's heading here until power is restored. YAY for me!
I told her when she was a baby her grandparents visited us in OK for a week (they were from IA) because there was horrible flooding in their town and they were without water.
I've been to a lot of therapists with my son when he was a minor, sometimes participating, sometimes not. I (and he) found it to be pretty worthless. He was 'fired' by his psychiatrist because he told her he smoked weed and apparently that was outside her pay grade. HUH?! Maddening. She mentioned one time he had ADHD and since that was in her notes, a primary care doc prescribed him legal amphetamines and she only monitored him via phone appointments. It took letters to the primary care doc from my daughter and myself telling her he was not doing well on them that she finally stopped prescribing. Honestly, the stories I could tell. I have come to the conclusion a mentally ill person is much like an addict, they must WANT to get better. My son does have severe OCD and I've begged him to go to inpatient (it's that bad) but he refuses. I think that is the only way he will ever improve is with intensive inpatient treatment. I initially wrote "get better" but I think one has to learn how to live with the intrusive thoughts. It's REALLY hard to find someone whose good and if you do, once a month isn't going to cut it.
At this point, I probably sound like a crank preacher, walking up and down the sidewalk barefoot, grimy, unkempt, and wearing a sandwich board that says: “Repent! Eat Nothing But Beef For Six Months!” But I wonder if a strict dietary change would help here, too. Psychiatrist Chris Palmer wrote the book “Brain Energy” showing how all sorts of mental illness seems to come attached to the high-carb, low-fat diet—and how sometimes the mental health issues resolve with a change in diet. But his book is more cautious in its recommendations than the way this ultra-short description makes it sound.
Good morning. Cloudy warm day here. the new, improved mothership is reporting on the continuing phenomenon of “Nikki Haley voters” long after Haley withdrew and Trump clinched the nomination, and what efforts the Trump and Biden campaigns are making to reach then (spoiler alert: very little).
I read Nick C's piece on Haley as VP pick and the comments that followed. I confess to feeling a little zing of hope - if Nick C finds hope then there must be something to it (I am not generally a fan - he wears me out.)
I also have mixed feelings about the possibility, related to her ability to retain a fair amount of her integrity.
Such as: IF Trump was desperate enough to need Haley voters to win, would that not give her some negotiating power?
I think Haley's position is distinctly different from that of others actively under consideration. She has or has maintained the appearance of retaining at least a shred of integrity. "Is there a way to accept the nomination while retaining my self-respect?" is one question she would face.
But another is "Do I have an opportunity to mitigate the damage Trump and a minion VP could cause? If so, is the opportunity significant enough to create an obligation to take the position?"
Point being: purity is not an option here. How can we make the best of what we actually have?
On Dispatch Live last night, I asked if Haley as Trump's running mate was real. The best response I got back from the panel was that other VP candidates would help Trump as much or better than Nikki Haley. And I already know Trump prizes loyalty over all else.
So unless Haley really, really abases herself (like Tim Scott has already done and as JD Vance is eager to do), it will not be her.
Ah. That makes sense. I can see him trading winning for loyalty - then again I can see him preferring to wallow in unfairness and stolen election conspiracies.
I was assuming he needed her, not that she wanted to be VP so badly she'd sell her soul.
More warmth today to match yesterday here. The humidity is still humane, so I can get stuff done outside without feeling heat exhaustion coming on.
It probably isn’t worth the effort. Haley voters are Haley voters because they’ve looked at and rejected Trump and Biden, at least. I’d imagine Haley voters are well informed, but that might just be self-flattering psychology at work. “I and everyone like me are just too damned smart!”
In my opinion, there's no point even in trying. Neither major party dotard gets my vote, and none of the minor party kookydoodles, all of whom are 70 or older, too.
There's still a chance the Libertarians will cough up a not-old-not-crazy candidate, but I'm not holding my breath.
I recall my grandmother telling me about the first time she listened to a radio. It was a crystal set in the backwoods of the Ouachita Mountains that a wealthy tourist staying nearby was entertaining the kids local with while he was there on a fishing trip. She put on the headphones to hear President Coolidge's voice, but could hear nothing but static.
A century later, the technology has improved. But the political message is about the same.
You are not wrong. Still, Presidential campaigns in close elections usually try to get votes from wherever they can. But Trump cares only about his base, and Biden is under attack from his anti-Israel Left flank.
To be fair to the Judenhass left, I don't think Biden ever had any interest in appealing to those awful people who didn't already want to vote for him because he is Himself.
Good morning. Not much on the schedule today. I told the Knights of Columbus that I'd take two cases of frozen fish filets off their hands, so I need to go over to the church kitchen, pick them up, and leave a check.
Related is the increasing commercialization of add-ons to medications. I'm thinking particularly of those associated with the Ozempic/Wegovy/Mounjaro class of diabetes/weight loss drugs. I saw yesterday that there is a start-up pre-packaged meat company (think Hello Fresh or Blue Apron) aimed specifically at the decreased appetites of the users of those meds. I can't remember if it had a name, but I'm thinking Only Two Peas or Thin Slice of Protein or You Gonna Eat ALL of That?.
I listened to a podcast from Bari Weiss a couple weeks ago about the new weight-loss drug craze. And just about all the benefits she and her guest described match the ones I get from the very-low-carb carnivore diet, but costing me $1000 less per month and with a much safer tested long-range viability free of unknown side effects.
Without trying to offend anyone, I think the weight loss drugs will always be very popular as they seem to be a shortcut that doesn’t require the discipline of most diets, or lifestyle changes.
The very low carb diet does take some discipline to get on and stay on—that’s my experience. But the people who tend to follow medical advice to a T and otherwise take care of themselves are more likely to stay on a diet where possible. It’s just that that family of diets has been decried by the medical establishment for decades, since the proposed treatment is the inverse of the received wisdom in the field.
But in my experience, once you change the diet, the weight comes off on its own, and you find you have extra sources of physical energy with which to exercise.
I think this is true. However, there are people for whom the discipline and lifestyle changes only get them so far. There are some for whom lifestyle changes are not entirely possible - working nightshift, family responsibilities, ongoing family trauma. In these cases, these medications are truly medicinal, contributing to improvements in heart health, among other things.
I read a discussion on this aspect recently - can't remember who or where - but it swayed my opinion. As well, we have a family friend dealing with these issues and it has helped a lot, although not without less than pleasant side effects.
The fundamental initial argument that Gary Taubes presented from the science research was this: A significant portion of the populace suffer from a deranged metabolism. When we eat carbs, our insulin spikes. Insulin is a hormone that (among other things) tells our bodies to store fat and prevent us from burning our fat stores when we need energy.
Thus, you hear very real stories—always doubted by established medicine—of people who try to eat a low-fat diet (meaning: lots of “heart-healthy” carbs) and try to count their calories, AND try to exercise by making themselves run or swim or whatever they can—all while seeing their weight and girth continue to rise.
Due to the insulin response, their bodies will literally let their organs starve for caloric energy while converting their food into fat and storing it in their fat cells.
The Atkins/low-carb/keto/carnivore diets all work be severely restricting carbs. The restriction reduces the insulin in the body. The reduction in insulin allows the fat from the body’s fat cells to be burned for fuel, whether or not a person chooses to exercise or not. Many people on low carb initially discover they have energy for the first time in a long time, maybe forever.
I read a little bit of the discussion. I wonder how they keep from losing consciousness if they're not eating. I get dizzy and fall over if I go any length of time without eating. It's super annoying, actually.
I'm taking one now (Zepbound), and I believe that's true. I'm experiencing a lot of dizziness. But I'm also getting older. And I've lost a lot some weight. And my blood pressure has dropped, so the BP meds I was on may be over-doing it.
Who knows? But I do feel better. At least when I don't get up too quickly.
Interesting concept. Regarding quantities, I keep reminding my husband that we have, at most, six people at dinner these days - usually it's fewer - and the leftovers pile up very rapidly when a new meal for 12 is prepared several times a week.
WSJ tells me that UK PM Rishi Sunak has called an election. Gonna be an interesting few weeks in Britain.
My years of therapy (depression, probably ADD (under protest) and moderate autism spectrum issues) have equipped me to help my children navigate some of their challenges. I am sure I am not alone in this. It has taught me different ways to listen, to ask questions rather than assuming I understand the situation or the origin of the question fully.
No doubt there are dangers to amateur therapy when it goes beyond active listening, such as the impulse to put behaviors and people in boxes. Perhaps parenting guides should include major sections on learning to recognize biases in one's perception of one's children.
I think smaller families have warped our understanding of the range "normal" can cover when it comes to behavior and personality. Perceived genetic tendencies derived from two people begetting three or more children are likely to be significantly different from those derived by people who have one or two.
All that being said, life is such that there are children who have a need for objective assistance.
I have just finished the book Jay recommended, Against Empathy. Paul Bloom makes the argument that putting one's self in another's shoes, feeling the other's pain, is not necessarily a good or productive thing and can be quite the opposite. He does distinguish between empathy (Counselor Troy- type feelings) and cognitive empathy ("This person is in pain - I must try to ease that pain"). If plain empathy is as highly regarded as he states, I can see it being an obstacle to helpful therapy, particularly for children.
The thing is, becoming a content and moral human is not something one does on one's own.
I've read three of the Thursday Next novels. They are filled with clevernesses and also sharply plotted, but I still find their affect very dark. Maybe it's because so many people and BookPeople die.
Interesting. I'm so sorry they hit you that way, as I generally recommend them as a source of intellectually satisfying fun and hope.
They have never hit me that way. The fact that Thursday is rooted in her family and that her family is undramatically loving - traditional in the best possible sense - in the face of all sorts of local, national and global existential craziness has been reassuring to me. I think it is Thursday's father that says something like "Things are weirder than we can ever imagine" and I have always heard that as a shot across the bow of atheists and hopeless corporate pragmatists.
It seems to me that, in our cynical world, all the deaths and the very real pain are dramatically necessary to counterbalance Thursday's too-good-to-be-true, hardcore commitment to Doing the Right Thing. Jasper Fforde does interject a few snarky remarks in this vein in the later books. As well, he did work in the film industry in the 1990s, including a James Bond movie.
After the fourth book the charm does start to wear off. However, Thursday's adventures do begin to take a toll on her body and she begins to use a cane at a relatively young age. There is a comic element but it also came across to me as an indication that JF takes life and humanity very seriously.
It is funny how one story can strike such different chords in people. I am sorry for introducing darkness instead of light.
Don't be sorry: I wouldn't keep reading them if I didn't think the tradeoffs were worth it!
And yes, it's always interesting how people interpret or experience the same material in very different ways.
That was a bit silly of me. Sometimes I worry too much about fragile moods.
It's okay. It's a nice thought, although I don't usually have fragile moods, and when I do, they're super-specifically related to things immediately going on in life.
Marked "safe" from the midwest storms. Whoa, the wind was scary strong. I only see part of a tree down in the golf club from my house. I am going out to walk the 'hood with my dogs to see if there's any more damage. We have huge white pines next to our house and we were getting pummeled with branches and pine cones. Constant banging noises on the roof. My daughter and 8 week old grandson were home alone as her husband was in Chicago for work. They lost power along with 42,000 other customers. She was a little freaked out. She's heading here until power is restored. YAY for me!
I'm glad you all are safe! Enjoy your time with your daughter and grandson. Storms do create out of the ordinary times that turn into Family Lore.
I told her when she was a baby her grandparents visited us in OK for a week (they were from IA) because there was horrible flooding in their town and they were without water.
I've been to a lot of therapists with my son when he was a minor, sometimes participating, sometimes not. I (and he) found it to be pretty worthless. He was 'fired' by his psychiatrist because he told her he smoked weed and apparently that was outside her pay grade. HUH?! Maddening. She mentioned one time he had ADHD and since that was in her notes, a primary care doc prescribed him legal amphetamines and she only monitored him via phone appointments. It took letters to the primary care doc from my daughter and myself telling her he was not doing well on them that she finally stopped prescribing. Honestly, the stories I could tell. I have come to the conclusion a mentally ill person is much like an addict, they must WANT to get better. My son does have severe OCD and I've begged him to go to inpatient (it's that bad) but he refuses. I think that is the only way he will ever improve is with intensive inpatient treatment. I initially wrote "get better" but I think one has to learn how to live with the intrusive thoughts. It's REALLY hard to find someone whose good and if you do, once a month isn't going to cut it.
At this point, I probably sound like a crank preacher, walking up and down the sidewalk barefoot, grimy, unkempt, and wearing a sandwich board that says: “Repent! Eat Nothing But Beef For Six Months!” But I wonder if a strict dietary change would help here, too. Psychiatrist Chris Palmer wrote the book “Brain Energy” showing how all sorts of mental illness seems to come attached to the high-carb, low-fat diet—and how sometimes the mental health issues resolve with a change in diet. But his book is more cautious in its recommendations than the way this ultra-short description makes it sound.
He's gluten and dairy free and eats very little meat. One thing he has going for him is his healthy eating!
Good morning. Cloudy warm day here. the new, improved mothership is reporting on the continuing phenomenon of “Nikki Haley voters” long after Haley withdrew and Trump clinched the nomination, and what efforts the Trump and Biden campaigns are making to reach then (spoiler alert: very little).
I read Nick C's piece on Haley as VP pick and the comments that followed. I confess to feeling a little zing of hope - if Nick C finds hope then there must be something to it (I am not generally a fan - he wears me out.)
I also have mixed feelings about the possibility, related to her ability to retain a fair amount of her integrity.
Such as: IF Trump was desperate enough to need Haley voters to win, would that not give her some negotiating power?
I think Haley's position is distinctly different from that of others actively under consideration. She has or has maintained the appearance of retaining at least a shred of integrity. "Is there a way to accept the nomination while retaining my self-respect?" is one question she would face.
But another is "Do I have an opportunity to mitigate the damage Trump and a minion VP could cause? If so, is the opportunity significant enough to create an obligation to take the position?"
Point being: purity is not an option here. How can we make the best of what we actually have?
On Dispatch Live last night, I asked if Haley as Trump's running mate was real. The best response I got back from the panel was that other VP candidates would help Trump as much or better than Nikki Haley. And I already know Trump prizes loyalty over all else.
So unless Haley really, really abases herself (like Tim Scott has already done and as JD Vance is eager to do), it will not be her.
Ah. That makes sense. I can see him trading winning for loyalty - then again I can see him preferring to wallow in unfairness and stolen election conspiracies.
I was assuming he needed her, not that she wanted to be VP so badly she'd sell her soul.
Trump doesn't "need" anybody who doesn't "need" him.
Running for VP with Trump would destroy her political future. If she's dumb enough to do that, she deserves to have her political future destroyed.
Exactly. And I don't think she's dumb.
I don't think she's dumb, either.
However . . .
BREAKING: Nikki Haley has publicly stated she plans to vote for Trump.
Not a full-throated endorsement, but too close to that, for comfort.
More warmth today to match yesterday here. The humidity is still humane, so I can get stuff done outside without feeling heat exhaustion coming on.
It probably isn’t worth the effort. Haley voters are Haley voters because they’ve looked at and rejected Trump and Biden, at least. I’d imagine Haley voters are well informed, but that might just be self-flattering psychology at work. “I and everyone like me are just too damned smart!”
In my opinion, there's no point even in trying. Neither major party dotard gets my vote, and none of the minor party kookydoodles, all of whom are 70 or older, too.
There's still a chance the Libertarians will cough up a not-old-not-crazy candidate, but I'm not holding my breath.
I recall my grandmother telling me about the first time she listened to a radio. It was a crystal set in the backwoods of the Ouachita Mountains that a wealthy tourist staying nearby was entertaining the kids local with while he was there on a fishing trip. She put on the headphones to hear President Coolidge's voice, but could hear nothing but static.
A century later, the technology has improved. But the political message is about the same.
Coolidge was not about static. He was a man of few but well-chosen words.
I think the reception was just bad on the crystal radio set. Or maybe he was between well-chosen words.
You are not wrong. Still, Presidential campaigns in close elections usually try to get votes from wherever they can. But Trump cares only about his base, and Biden is under attack from his anti-Israel Left flank.
To be fair to the Judenhass left, I don't think Biden ever had any interest in appealing to those awful people who didn't already want to vote for him because he is Himself.
I think Biden listens to his advisors too much, and they pay more attention to the Left.
Maybe, but he's been calling people who don't support him bigots and all that for decades.
Good morning. Not much on the schedule today. I told the Knights of Columbus that I'd take two cases of frozen fish filets off their hands, so I need to go over to the church kitchen, pick them up, and leave a check.
Related is the increasing commercialization of add-ons to medications. I'm thinking particularly of those associated with the Ozempic/Wegovy/Mounjaro class of diabetes/weight loss drugs. I saw yesterday that there is a start-up pre-packaged meat company (think Hello Fresh or Blue Apron) aimed specifically at the decreased appetites of the users of those meds. I can't remember if it had a name, but I'm thinking Only Two Peas or Thin Slice of Protein or You Gonna Eat ALL of That?.
I listened to a podcast from Bari Weiss a couple weeks ago about the new weight-loss drug craze. And just about all the benefits she and her guest described match the ones I get from the very-low-carb carnivore diet, but costing me $1000 less per month and with a much safer tested long-range viability free of unknown side effects.
And you look FABULOUS!
Not to mention what it did for my personalities!
They do say that two heads are better than one!
Multiple? Nice.
Without trying to offend anyone, I think the weight loss drugs will always be very popular as they seem to be a shortcut that doesn’t require the discipline of most diets, or lifestyle changes.
The very low carb diet does take some discipline to get on and stay on—that’s my experience. But the people who tend to follow medical advice to a T and otherwise take care of themselves are more likely to stay on a diet where possible. It’s just that that family of diets has been decried by the medical establishment for decades, since the proposed treatment is the inverse of the received wisdom in the field.
But in my experience, once you change the diet, the weight comes off on its own, and you find you have extra sources of physical energy with which to exercise.
I feel "blessed" that carbs agree with me. I don't think they agree with a lot of people. I can't imagine a life without carbs.
I think this is true. However, there are people for whom the discipline and lifestyle changes only get them so far. There are some for whom lifestyle changes are not entirely possible - working nightshift, family responsibilities, ongoing family trauma. In these cases, these medications are truly medicinal, contributing to improvements in heart health, among other things.
I read a discussion on this aspect recently - can't remember who or where - but it swayed my opinion. As well, we have a family friend dealing with these issues and it has helped a lot, although not without less than pleasant side effects.
The fundamental initial argument that Gary Taubes presented from the science research was this: A significant portion of the populace suffer from a deranged metabolism. When we eat carbs, our insulin spikes. Insulin is a hormone that (among other things) tells our bodies to store fat and prevent us from burning our fat stores when we need energy.
Thus, you hear very real stories—always doubted by established medicine—of people who try to eat a low-fat diet (meaning: lots of “heart-healthy” carbs) and try to count their calories, AND try to exercise by making themselves run or swim or whatever they can—all while seeing their weight and girth continue to rise.
Due to the insulin response, their bodies will literally let their organs starve for caloric energy while converting their food into fat and storing it in their fat cells.
The Atkins/low-carb/keto/carnivore diets all work be severely restricting carbs. The restriction reduces the insulin in the body. The reduction in insulin allows the fat from the body’s fat cells to be burned for fuel, whether or not a person chooses to exercise or not. Many people on low carb initially discover they have energy for the first time in a long time, maybe forever.
Yes, my comment could easily sound like generalizing or oversimplifying. I really feel for the people for whom this is a lifelong battle.
I didn't hear it that way. We humans are not known for our self-discipline.
I read a little bit of the discussion. I wonder how they keep from losing consciousness if they're not eating. I get dizzy and fall over if I go any length of time without eating. It's super annoying, actually.
Sounded to me like the appetite suppressing effects could lead to dizziness and malnourishment.
Thus far they apparently don’t, but rather lead to more healthful eating
I'm taking one now (Zepbound), and I believe that's true. I'm experiencing a lot of dizziness. But I'm also getting older. And I've lost a lot some weight. And my blood pressure has dropped, so the BP meds I was on may be over-doing it.
Who knows? But I do feel better. At least when I don't get up too quickly.
I have the get-up-quickly problem. My GP said to try eating more salt.
My wife's GP told her the exact same thing two days ago. She has always had low BP.
I've got an appointment with the doc next week. I suspect they'll revise my meds somewhat.
Interesting concept. Regarding quantities, I keep reminding my husband that we have, at most, six people at dinner these days - usually it's fewer - and the leftovers pile up very rapidly when a new meal for 12 is prepared several times a week.
With your batch cooking skills, you (and the mister) should be able to run a profitable food truck, I would think.
I don't think there's a big market for "What's with this casserole again?"
I think that should be the NAME of your food truck. Sell it with yeast rolls. You'll do fine.