Feelings

The Last Half of Life

Ron Johnson appreciation, Development, Discovery, Feelings, grief, happiness, men's issues, mindfulness, Opportunity, Self-Awareness, social esteem, Spiritual

I’m in the last half of life. Perhaps, I should put quotes around that statement because I am not speaking concretely and practically but abstractly and metaphorically. I just flew by my 77th birthday a bit ago and now I’m well into my 78th year of life. Who knows how long I will live: a day, a year, 10 years, or 30 years? Yes, I suppose I could live to 107 but that seems quite likely. I am actually at the average age where Americans people die, and actually a couple years beyond the average lifespan of men, which is 75, so it behooves me to examine such things. Let me get to the point of this “last half of life” business.

The last half of life

I have come to use the phrase, the last half of life, metaphorically, not as a chronological measure. Half of the typical life of an American is about 38 years. But many people never see their 38th birthday and many see years well beyond 76. I am using the last half of life to mean the period in a person’s life that s/he might make a lasting contribution to life, perhaps something substantially different from the “first half of life,” whatever that period of time might be. I am presently seeing many men who are in “the last half” of their lives, but their ages range from 35 to 78. I will be gathering some of these men together for a day of reflection, encounter, and forward-looking even though the challenges and dilemmas of these men are substantially different. What remains the same for them is finding meaning in the rest of their lives. These men are quite seriously looking at what the past, the present, and the future in order to go forward with self-confidence:

  • They are looking at what they have done right, what they have done wrong, what they could have done, what they should have done, and what they shouldn’t have done. These men are looking at the past with what we might call “the wisdom of age” or “the 20-20 vision of hindsight.”
  • They are looking at the present with a certain perspective, namely what they are now doing including what they should be doing, what they shouldn’t be doing, and what they want to be doing.
  • They are looking at the future as to what they could do, what they should do, and even what they feel they have to

Who is looking at the last half of life?

Let me tell you about some of these men. (And permit me to use the masculine pronoun from here on because I am just talking about men. There may be some great similarities with women or perhaps some profound differences, but that is another piece of literature that I am not qualified to write.). Of course, all the names are fictional as are some of the professions and situations in life so as to protect the privacy of these men. Nevertheless, the thoughts, feelings, and actions of these men are wholly factual.

  • Jack is the 78-year old, and my only patient who is actually older than I am. He has been a very successful person in his trade, which has been social work. He has continued to work until just recently when outlived his usefulness at the agency he worked for. Previous to that work he has had some very responsible and successful people and is a person deeply committed to his work, and also to his faith. Unfortunately, over the years, including the 50-some year of marriage, he has not managed his money very well and is in an almost dire financial situation. He is looking to the “last half” of his life free of this financial burden but also have a life with genuine meaning.
  • Sam is a 35-year old very successful businessman who owns a trade-based company. He has been quite disturbed by the recent election and the many changes in the culture and politics and wants to “make a difference” in the world in some way. He has considered selling his business and moving on but has no idea where, when, and how he would “move on.”
  • Peter has been successful in human resources for many years. He has made a significant amount of money, but now has been “downsized” as many companies now do. But he has taken the huge step of working on a master’s degree in psychology and hopes to enter the field. By the way, he is in a very unsatisfying marriage, has three adolescent kids one of whom is going to college this fall. So not only is he changing professions, he is also changing his parental role and possibly his marriage situation.
  • Tom of 63 but you wouldn’t know it because he so spy and active. He has had a couple of professions over the years, including a good stint in ministry, but he has been quite successful in sales. He, too, like Peter (and another man as well) is looking into the field of psychology or counseling. By the way, his marriage is also on the rocks to his great dismay because his wife left him having discovered that 33 years ago she shouldn’t have married him.
  • A man who may soon be inheriting a very successful professional business from his father, a business for which he is trained but not interested. His interests seem to lie more in teaching and coaching.
  • There are several others in situations not unlike these, where men have been making tons of money but not happy, have been in difficult marriages, and other challenges.

Perhaps one of the reasons this “last half” of life has interested me is the fact that I have seen many deaths over the past year, including many deaths of young people, who might not have found a way to truly engage the “last half” of their lives. These people include the children of several friends, my own daughter, the children of several men that are current patients, three cousins, three in-laws, and one patient who wrote three blogs about his life with me as his amanuensis. This man, 75 when he died, often said to me, “I don’t know what I’m going to do when I grow up.” Now he doesn’t have to worry, but I think he really wanted to find some meaning to the “last half” of his life but never did. These many deaths have only been aggravated by the “war” that I spoke of in a previous blog (biological, political, and cultural war) in the world together with the 550,000 people who have died of Covid and the millions who have been damaged in some way by the war. All of this has given me the opportunity to look at the “last half” of the lives of these men as well as the last half of my own life.  Truly looking at this last half takes an honest look at what has happened, what is happening, and what might happen in life.

Honestly looking at the future

The theme with all these men is this: what can I do in the future that will be meaningful? Perhaps, what can I do that will be of lasting value? Perhaps also, what can I do that will be of value to the world? Unfortunately, but understandably, these men want to bring all the past into the future. They want to bring along all the good of the past, leave all the bad, and have more good in the future. You can’t have all three, and this fact is difficult for every one of these men. Simply put, you can’t bring all the past into the future.

Examples:

  • One man wants to stay married even though his wife says that she doesn’t like him, never has, and she is seemingly very happy without him
  • One man wants to continue to make $100,000 but in a new profession that will barely give him half of that amount
  • One man wants to find a way to continue to love his former wife in the same way he always has even though his current female relationship is far superior to his former marriage
  • One man wants to stay living with his wife primarily so he can have an “intact family” even though he doesn’t love her, and possibly never has
  • One man wants to have some kind of magic that will eliminate the debt that he has acquired over many years
  • One man wants to get back with the woman who just might have the most important woman in his life even though she says that is impossible
  • One man wants to continue to engage in ideational figuring out new ways of looking at life although he never seems to be able to put anything to real practice.
  • One man wants to be able to drink as much as he always had even though his drinking has certainly damaged his marriage and possibly his life
  • Another man wants to continue to smoke pot as a primary means of coping with life
  • Many men want the people in their lives to understand the psychological principles that they have learned without these people going through the rigors of years of therapy that they have gone through

Slowly and painfully, men often have to learn to let go of much of the past, many sad and challenging things like mistakes of relationships, school, and work. Just as often men have to let go of the good things that were a part of the “first half of their lives” because these good things are no longer available. The poem Desiderata said it this way: take kindly the counsel of years gracefully surrendering the things of youth.” But what do we need to surrender? And what can I expect positively out of a good perspective of the second half of life?

Surrendering and expecting

If I am to truly face the future and seek to find meaning and make meaning in life, I have to give up so much of what “the first half” of life has been. Then I need to focus on what I can do, how I do it, and why I do it.

Primarily, what has to be surrendered is fear, namely:

  • Fear of mistakes
  • Fear of failure
  • Fear of rejection
  • Fear of correction
  • Fear of being alone
  • Fear of being ill or dying
  • Any other fear

Secondly, you have to surrender some expectations:

  • Of visible success
  • Of appreciation
  • Of recognition
  • Of money

But you can expect

  • An increasing realization that you are doing something for you, for other people, and for the world all at the same time
  • Being more truthful, first to yourself, and then to others
  • Continuing to get better at thinking, feeling, and doing
  • Finding people who share your interest in doing something meaningful
  • The freedom that a fear-free life gives you
  • Success in doing something meaningful
  • A lasting purpose in the days, years, or decades you have to live
  • Recognition of your work by some people

There are many people, at least so it seems, that do not need to look at the “last half” of life.

A good life in the past leading to a good life in the future

I know of several men who are quite pleased to be retired. One of them spends a good deal of time golfing, another a good deal of time water-skiing, with both of these activities being spent with other people. I can only surmise that there are many people who are snow birds in order to live their remaining lives in parts south, at least one in Costa Rica and many in Florida. I see Facebook posts by some of these men who are very content to philosophize, share pictures, tell stories, tell jokes, remind me of things in the 50’s, enjoy the spring flowers, and spend time with their grandchildren. I am happy for these men. Most of them have lived honorable, productive, and honest lives and now are using the fruits of their labor. While I appreciate their pleasant retirement, such is not my lot in life, so it seems. I look favorably at the past but look even more favorably at the present and the future.

Personal

So, what, you may ask, is my second half of life? The answer, quite simply, is teaching, namely teaching people what I have learned over these 77 years of life, and more specifically what I have learned over the 55 years of my professional career. The forms that this “teaching” seem to be taking is in writing, conducting seminars, and doing meaningful therapy. I have finished with several elements of therapy that constituted as much as half of my working years, namely psychotherapy with children, seeing people who are chronically ill, whether with mental illness or physical illness, doing evaluations to determine if someone is “disabled,” and very possibly severely limiting evaluations in general. My focus now, aside from reading, writing, and teaching, is to work with people in therapy who are truly ready to enter the second half of their lives. There are many people who think about such things, feel about such things, and dream about such things, but I think I can be of more value to the world helping people who are willing to step out of the past, into the present, and towards the future. This is somewhat of a painful change that I have been making in my own “second half” of life, but it yet seems right to do.

The Only Mental Health Diagnosis

Ron Johnson Children, Development, Feelings, grief, Mental, Self-Awareness

I am amazed how frequently people talk about various mental health diagnoses. It is common to hear people talking about their “anxiety,” “panic disorder,” “ADHD” or other things, so much so that I hear such conversations while waiting in a cashier’s line. Of course, it is even more common in my business. I regularly do “ADHD neuropsychological evaluations” for people, both children and adults, who come to my office seeking some kind of answer to what ails them. Often, adults want to be “tested for ADHD” because they have some kind of trouble with memory or focus in their daily lives. I met with the parents of a teenager recently who has been diagnosed and treated with medication for his alleged ADHD condition for nearly 10 years. I found it interesting that the father noted that he most certainly suffered from ADHD as a child and adolescent but somehow got through childhood without medication. I told them that I was the same as a kid as I remember my maternal grandmother telling my mother that “you’re never going to raise that kid” because I was so active and unpredictable, like running down the block stark naked when I was three with my aunt chasing me all the way.

ADHD is certainly one of the more common “diagnoses” that people like to have. I use the phraseology “like to have” because it is my belief that ADHD and other diagnoses give people a sense of what is going on with their lives when things aren’t working out well for them. A diagnosis, namely a mental health diagnosis, helps people make sense of what is wrong in their lives. It is as if a person can have some kind of diagnosis, then they have some hope of recovery from the mental health “disorder” or “disease” that they have. Rarely, is that the case. Rather, people get this diagnosis and are not really better for it. Importantly, it is not only the mental health diagnoses that keep people busy figuring out what is wrong in their lives. There is even a larger number of physical anomalies that people suffer that lead to a similarly large number of physical/medical diagnoses. I see a couple whom I have seen off and on for 20 years as they have struggled with a variety of challenges in their marriage, interestingly, not the typical arguments and dissention that usually brings couples to see me. In this case, the original “presenting problem” (which I prefer to call the “presenting situation”) was the man’s impotence, but over the years we have dealt with a number of other (seemingly) external matters including finances and vocational adjustment. It is interesting to me that when I see this couple, the first thing the woman talks about is the great variety of physical/medical problems that she has, talk that could last for 30 minutes of our 2-hour time together if I allowed her to tell me all that ails her. This occurs while her husband sits patiently by until he can then tell me of his physical ailments. True, these people are in their 70’s where such things do occur more frequently, but it is continually interesting to me that they can talk about what ails them physically more fluently then they can talk about how they feel or what they think, this despite the fact that they are both well educated. When we finally get around to talking about how they feel or what they think, they then talk about the various mental health diagnoses that they both have.

The dependency on physical and mental health diagnoses has increased so much over the recent years that it is not uncommon for people to allege to have several diagnoses. I recall a woman I saw for an evaluation who initially said that she suffered from “bipolar disorder, ADHD, PTSD, anxiety, panic disorder, borderline personality disorder, and depression in addition to a similarly long list of physical disorders. I was amazed at her willingness to have all this wrong with her.

The popular mental health diagnoses

Consider how often you have heard about someone’s “bipolar disorder” over the recent years. Note that you never heard the term 10 years ago, much less 20 or 30 years ago. As you probably know, bipolar disorder was previously manic-depressive disorder. Despite the fact that you probably hear about someone having bipolar disorder, this is a very rare disorder that, like so many other diagnoses, is way over diagnosed. In fact, true bipolar disorder is a psychotic disorder where someone has a kind of delusion, often “manicky,” like s/he is going to be the next benign dictator of the world, or will most certainly suicide tomorrow. Bipolar disorder is not the ups and downs that all people have. It is not the grandiosity that we sometimes see with people or the hopelessness that we see with others, much less the changing of mood from one day to another.

The other “popular” diagnoses are as follows along with the symptoms of these disorders:

  • ADHD: impulsivity, distractibility, hyperactivity
  • Panic disorder: accelerated heart rate, feeling of dread, fear of a heart attack
  • Depression: disturbances of three elements in life: low, high, or inconsistent:
    • Appetite (too much, not enough, not hungry)
    • Sleep (too much, not enough, erratic)
    • Energy (too much, not enough, erratic)
  • Anxiety: fear of the unknown future; usually together with increased heart rate
  • PTSD: symptoms of depression and anxiety related to past traumatic events
  • Borderline personality disorder: feeling of a “deep hole” in oneself
  • Addictive disorders (chemical or behavioral): compensations for traumata

There are many other mental health diagnoses that are less frequently self-diagnosed, like schizophrenia and personality disorders, but the foregoing are the most commonly rendered, often by the individual and frequently by a therapist or physician. It is notable that one of my psychology journals reported that fully 40% of Americans were on some kind of psychotropic medication; possibly more now. Medications are antidepressants, anxiolytics (sedatives; anti-anxiety agents), stimulants (usually for ADHD), and anticonvulsives (given to treat bipolar disorder). So, does have the country suffer from one or more mental health disorders? I don’t think so.

What do people suffer from, and what can be done about it?

  • First, there is only one real mental health diagnosis.
  • Secondly, there is only one cause.
  • Thirdly, there is only one effective treatment.
  • Fourthly, there is only one real “cure” because there is nothing “wrong.”

The one real mental health diagnoses: PTSD

PTSD stands for post-traumatic stress disorder. This is the correct diagnosis for 95% of mental distress, as I call them rather than “mental health issues” or “mental disorders.” In fact, I think it would be better “diagnose” this condition as PTD: post-traumatic distress, which would be more accurate. Better yet, when I deal with people who are really seeking psychotherapy for improving their self-understanding and their lives, I simply call it “distress” rather than PTSD, much less depression, anxiety, and the like. It is the distress that people find so disruptive in their lives, and it is the distress that I work diligently to help them to end.

I should make a comment about the so-called biological or inherited tendency people have towards various mental health disorders. There is no clear science in this matter but there is a good deal of theorizing in the matter. We do find that certain families have proclivities towards something, perhaps anxiety or depression. But the science is not yet clear as to whether this finding has to do with the environment (usually the biological family) or the heritability factor. We do know that if identical twins are separated at birth, and then they have some sort of mental illness, there is a 50% chance that they will have the same illness. Interesting. But what about the other 50% that don’t share the diagnosis? We come to the mixture of nature and nurture in this situation, with the suggestion that we may, indeed, have an inclination towards some kind of mental distress that surfaces because of the family environment. In my own family there is a plethora of people who have suffered from some kind of anxiety. I have found it necessary to attend to the phenomenon in my own life as well. But was I “taught” anxiety or is there a propensity in my genes towards anxiety? The answer is probably both are true. The larger question, however, is what shall a person do when s/he has some kind of mental distress, a question we shall tackle shortly. Certainly, in my own life, I suffered traumata in childhood, which may have caused or quickened anxiety in me. Read on.

The one real cause of mental distress: trauma

What is “trauma”? Trauma is an unexpected event that causes some kind of damage, be it physical, mental, or relational. We might even suggest that are other kinds of traumata (I use the German plural of the word, but “traumas” is just as good), like financial trauma, property trauma (some kind of loss), or even vicarious trauma. I think I was vicariously traumatized by watching a war-based movie last night that adversely affected my sleep. But PTSD is not just trauma. It is the emotional element in the trauma that causes the distress.

PTSD (or my “PTD”) is a condition in which an individual has not resolved the emotion attached to the trauma. The most obvious kinds of PTSD are sexual trauma and war trauma. I was thinking about the poor soldiers facing a myriad of traumata in the movie from which they might later suffer PTSD. A veteran of war or a victim of sexual abuse suffers PTSD because at the time of the trauma the individual is not able to feel the emotions associated with the trauma. The emotions associated with war are anger, fear, and sadness, but if you’re in a foxhole and need to shoot the bad guy, you don’t have time to feel these emotions. Likewise, if you’re being molested, you aren’t in the position to feel the emotions of fear, which is predominant, much less anger at your perpetrator, much less the pleasure that might actually be associated with the abuse. So, such people suffer from not having felt the feelings that naturally occur in these circumstances. But traumata are not just related to sexual abuse and war trauma.

Developmental traumata are situations where a child fails to receive one or more of the basic ingredients of childhood, which can be summarized as the following:

  • Security and safety
  • Sustenance (food)
  • Physical affection
  • Emotional affection
  • Freedom
  • Limitation
  • Encouragement
  • Challenge

In all of these circumstances, there are three possibilities for traumata:

  • Too much
  • Too little
  • Inconsistent

Allow me to explain. Many children live in circumstances that are, indeed, dangerous, hence lacking in security and safety. But there are children who have too much security. Ideally, a child needs 100% security through much of her first year of life, but if she receives infantile security after that year, she will then feel unduly afraid of the world, perhaps for the rest of her life. Or, she might receive inconsistent security, which means safe and unsafe, which is actually even worse than no safety at all. Research psychologists call this “intermittent reward” (or punishment). Likewise, all the other aforementioned causes of possible trauma could be the “not enough, too much, or inconsistent” categories. Some children have too much limitation and are not allowed to explore the world with trials and errors, while other children have so much freedom that they fail to understand the value of laws and natural limitations. All of these circumstances contribute to PTSD to some degree or other.

Some children suffer from more than one of the lack of one of ingredients of an ideal childhood. For instance, some children are not loved right (lack physical affection), so they put up a real fuss in life. Then, to quiet them down, they are indulged with something. Then, they become even more demanding, and are then shamed. This combination of neglect, indulgence, and shame causes the condition known as borderline personality disorder. The other so-called mental disorders might be seen as having been caused by various traumata:

  • Anxiety: almost certainly caused by some kind of neglect during early life
  • Depression: most likely caused by losses in early life
  • Bipolar disorder: both neglect and losses
  • Schizophrenia: inconsistent love and limitation and some kind of chaos in general
  • Personality disorders (narcissism): lack of encouragement, challenge, and limitation
  • ADHD: too much limitation or too much freedom
  • Additions: a coping mechanism that replaces what was lost in childhood

So what can be done to successfully treat these conditions?

The one real treatment for mental distress: grief

As you may know, Deb and I wrote a book on sadness entitled The Positive Power of Sadness, subtitled How Good Grief Prevents and Cures Anger, Sadness, and Depression. In this book we discuss how the mental disorders of anxiety and depression are prevented by honest sadness in addition to the phenomenon of undue anger. Let me summarize:

  • You love something
  • You are assaulted
  • You lose this something
  • You feel hurt
  • You feel afraid of losing more
  • You get angry to protect yourself from future loss
  • You compensate with some kind of addiction (chemical or behavioral)
  • You then develop “symptoms” like anxiety or depression

Our suggestion in the Good Grief book (as we all it) is to stop the process at the hurt level and then back up from there. If I feel hurt, I will simply and profoundly feel sad. Just sad. Not angry, not afraid. Not compensating. Just sad. The beauty of sadness is that it ends. It really ends. There is nothing that we cannot finish feeling sad about if I allow myself the privilege of feeling sad. Way too much so-called therapy focuses on fixing sadness or making up for it instead of just feeling sad and allowing sadness to run its course.

This having been said, it is important to note that feeling sad is painful. Hence we avoid sadness by feeling fear or anger or having some kind of compensation. But the problem is that people are generally not good at simply feeling sad. They would much rather feel angry at what happened to them, which always leads to depression, or feel afraid of what they might lose in the future. Both are delusional: we can’t change the past and we can’t change the future. We can reflect on the past and finish the feelings of sadness, or we can consider possible losses in the future and feel anticipatory sadness. But we can’t change the past or future. So, the “treatment” for all trauma is to feel the sadness that comes with all loss, e.g.:

  • Loss of freedom as a child
  • Loss of limitation as a child
  • Inconsistent freedom and limitation
  • Loss of security
  • Loss of physical or emotional love

All of these losses can be felt and finished, but this is no easy task. Simple, but not easy.

The one real “cure” for PTSD

We have already suggested that the treatment for PTSD, or for any other mental distress is grief. Honest grief. But how is this done? Grief is simple, but it is hard, as I just said. It is simple because it is natural. It is natural to cry when I lose something, and it is just as natural to feel the sadness associated with crying. But it is not easy. It is not easy because of several matters, not the least of which is the cultural resistance to sadness and crying, particularly in America. Yet, there are ways to deal with the resistance we all have to grief:

  • Find a competent therapist. There aren’t many, sad to say.
  • Find a true friend…one who does not try to fix you and says very little but stays with you
  • Find a time when you can be alone…and grieve the loss(es) you have suffered in life
  • Write these losses down. You will see some “large” losses are no longer grievous, while smaller ones are still unfinished.
  • When you are angry or afraid “back up” your feelings until you find the hurt that always precedes anger and fear. Then back it up further, and you will find the love that you have for something

If you do this process of finding the core “problem” in PTSD, or any of its derivatives, you see that they are all about love, principally the love of yourself, which has been lost along the way. Love of self is natural, and it is not the same as liking oneself, liking what you said or did. But this is another subject.

Crazy is Contagious

Ron Johnson communication, emotional maturity, Feelings, mindfulness, political, relationships, Self-Awareness

I heard the statement, “crazy is contagious” from a colleague of mine when I told him about an experience I had recently had with a patient. It got me thinking. “Crazy” is not by any means a part of my vocabulary, nor are other typical terms when we think of the challenges that people have like, “issues,” “problems,” and even “diagnoses.” If you have followed me in my blogging, you have noticed that I do the very best I can to avoid diagnosing someone and finding the diagnosis of much benefit. People use the terms depressed, nervous, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and PTSD way too easily and very often without much knowledge of these conditions. There are, for instance very few people, who suffer from a true bipolar disorder, perhaps one in 1000, maybe less. Bipolar disorder, by the way, is a delusional disorder when someone truly experiences such a severe depression as to truly not want to live for one more day, and that followed by times when the person feels like s/he could fly off a building successfully with arms as wings. I was bemused by a person reported that her husband was “very bipolar.” She actually meant that he swung from happy to sad. But this is not bipolar disorder. Nor is being sad depression, being worried anxiety, being distracted ADHD, or having bad memories PTSD. PTSD and the like are all real disorders, but they are not as common as people think. Enough of my grandstanding on the theme that psychiatric terms are used excessively. Let me get to the point.

The point is this: some kind of “crazy” is contagious. This means that if you around a person who feels delusional, speaks her delusions with firm conviction, and is fully convinced of these delusions, you will absorb some of the “crazy” thinking. This happened to me the other day with a patient who, indeed, espoused a series of delusional-like statements. This was a young man, a man of good integrity as well as high intelligence, but someone who has been suffering from some time with a significant amount of anxiety. I have written about anxiety before noting that it is clearly the most difficult phenomenon to overcome because it is caused by the brain (not the mind, mind you) believes that there is lethal danger just around the corner and keeps you in a state of perpetual hypervigilance in preparation for the danger that the brain believes to exist. I will not restate what I have previously written about this mind-brain interaction except to say that you mind knows everything but your brain knows only safety and pleasure, or lack thereof. You brain doesn’t know that when you are “worried” about passing an exam tomorrow that this is, actually tomorrow, because the brain (not the mind) does not have a sense of time. For the brain everything is in the present. So when your mind thinks about the danger of failing an exam, you brain goes into action to protect you. Unfortunately, you brain does not distinguish some future danger from a present danger. Furthermore, you brain does not distinguish serious danger from minor danger. Hence, anxiety is very difficult to conquer. It is only conquered by sadness. But that is another discussion unless you want to read our books. So, let me tell you about how I “caught” the delusion I heard the other day.

Delusions

I must alter the words and circumstances to protect my patient’s identify but the phenomenon is the same: delusion spoken. Jack (I’ll call him Jack) suggested there was a conspiracy operating in Washington having to do with a certain political figure. He expressed how he had concluded that there was some immediate danger to him, to his family, and to America at large due to this individual and his colleagues. At first, he told me that an important senator had been “kidnapped” and another one “arrested” for unknown offenses and by unknown individuals. He told me more and more about what he was quite certain was about to happen in America and advised me that I should prepare myself for some kind of political, cultural, or military storm that was about to happen. When I first heard about the “arrest” of a senator, I was quite distressed because I had not heard about it, but then as Jack continued his story and beliefs in what I should call a conspiracy theory, I became increasingly concerned that I was listening to a person who was either truly delusional or “feeling” delusional for some reason. Jack finalized his statements of concern with a suggestion that there was a true danger of the water in Madison being contaminated with some kind of mind-altering drug. I was advised to keep from drinking tap water.

Now, I know that the water is not contaminated in Madison and I most certainly know that there is no conspiracy to take over the world, but after listening to this long story of conspiracy, I was affected emotionally, and then I was affected cognitively. I actually thought that maybe…just maybe…the water had somehow been contaminated. I knew better, but I found myself actually thinking this “crazy” notion. Why would I do that? I know better. Part of the reason I actually considered that there might be some truth in these stories was because I value Jack, namely his intelligence and his integrity. This is an important factor when you consider what you hear, from whom you hear it, and the content of what you hear. But this is not enough. You have to attend to how you feel because “crazy is contagious.”

Crazy is contagious

There are a lot of things that are contagious. These days, of course, we are all thinking of how Covid is contagious. We hear this all the time with suggestions of social distancing, masking, and all the rest. Then we also hear that social distancing and masking is not enough from some people and that it is harmful from other people. It is hard to know what to believe, but what most people do is trust their feelings: wear a mask, don’t wear a mask, social distance or don’t social distance, have parties or don’t have parties. Watching out for a viral contagion is difficult but you can find your way and do your best. Not so with emotional contagion and intellectual contagion.

Conspiratorial ideas, whether truly delusional or not, create a strong emotion. Witness the recent events in the Capital where people truly believed that it was possible to storm the Capital building and somehow change the course of democracy as it has operated for 250 years. These were not crazy people. They were, in my estimation, “true believers,” namely people who believe so heartily in President Trump, that they could take his words, his suggestion, and then broaden it into action. It is debatable whether Trump really wanted the crows to invade the Capital as it happened, something like the French revolution when outraged Frenchmen stormed to gates of the aristocracy. I doubt that these people were delusional although it is possible that some of them might have been. What happened, at least in my mind, was that there was a crowd effect, largely driven by powerful emotion and belief. The same crowd effect occurred during some Black Lives Matter marches when a few people, obviously overcome with emotion, did physical damage to property, and in some circumstances damage to people. Crazy, if we call it that, is contagious because it is profoundly emotional, which then filters into one’s cognition to justify the emotionally-based delusion. There is actually a formal diagnosis, rarely used, but quite real, called “shared psychotic experience.” I have encountered it only a couple times in my career.

It is not only “crazy” that is contagious. All things are contagious. Specifically, both depression and anxiety are contagious. This means that if you are around someone who suffers from depression or anxiety, you will most certainly feel the symptoms of these disorders. We therapists need to be quite aware of the contagion effect as we deal with people who might, indeed, be profoundly depressed or anxious. But this awareness is not limited to therapists. I suggest you be aware of the people around you who are, for instance, depressed, anxious, moody, or even delusional because too much exposure to such things will rub off on you.

Interestingly, you can also “catch” good feeling, like hope, faith, trust, love, and joy. Note how you feel when you are around someone who has one or more of these feelings in their nature or their presentation. Sadly, there are not many people who feel these things with our current deluge of politically motivated statements from all quarters. It behooves us to find people who feel good about life if we are to feel good about life. This can be a challenge especially if you are in some difficult situation, or your family or friend is in some difficult situation, because you would normally want to talk about the situation. Indeed, you need to talk but not with joining in with delusional, depressing, or anxiety-driven conversation, nor with conversation with false hope and simple answers. It is no small task.

Avoid the crazy

You can deal with delusional thoughts by noting how you feel emotionally. You will feel afraid. If you are around depression, you will feel depressed, and when you’re around anxiety, you will feel anxious. Not so bad to feel these things for a few moments, maybe minutes, but not more. Note when you start to absorb the “crazy” and quickly find a way out of the conversation. This may not always be easy. I needed to stay with my patient for a half hour as he talked to me about his delusions. I am not even sure that he really believes these conspiracy theories. Perhaps, he just absorbed them from a good friend. It doesn’t matter where he came to believe such things, nor does it matter how deeply he believes them. It doesn’t even matter whether some of what he says is actually true. What matters is that crazy incites crazy. Likewise, depression incites depression, anxiety incites anxiety, anger incites anger, and so on. You don’t need someone else’s crazy. You have enough of your own. You need to keep your distance.

Keeping you distance means trusting your feelings, namely when you begin to feel things that are not good for you, like anger or fear. If you are with someone and hearing their stories but begin to feel such things, you need to first be aware of your feelings, realize that you have “caught” someone else’s feeling, and then get away as soon as you can. This might take some socially delicate maneuver, but you need not feel what someone else feels if it is bad for you.

Feeling what someone else feels, whether joyful or sad, is not always a bad thing. It can be very good to feel sad with someone who has had a loss or feel truly joyful with someone when they tell you about their success in life. My concern is not to keep your social distance from any and all emotion but to be aware of the emotion that people bring to you because all emotion is contagious. Emotion is wonderful, and there are rare times when it is valuable to be afraid and to be angry. Rare times. There are more times when it is valuable to be joyful or sad because these emotions have to do with love, not defense