My Brain Felt Sad and Then I Cried

Seven-year-old Eabha (Ava) came by my office. She would occasionally drop in to tell me one of her stories or to sing me a song, but she seemed preoccupied and wasn’t her usual bubbly self. She played with a fidget she found in the toy box and after a short while, without looking in my direction said, ‘my dad has moved out and my mum has been crying a lot.’ She continued to play with the fidget.

‘Things were not right!’

Eabha stopped playing and then she came and sat down opposite me, settled in her seat, and grabbed a teddy that was nearby. Her eyes betrayed how she was feeling, and I wondered how a seven-year-old processes such a traumatic episode unfolding before her and around her and within her.

I asked her how she was feeling, and she lowered her eyes and said, ‘When my mum told me that dad was leaving my brain felt sad and then I cried.’

I asked what she meant when she said that her brain felt sad. She said that she was thinking about why this happened and if her mum and dad loved her. She said, ‘I was thinking it was my fault.’ I asked her about how she felt when she said, ‘my brain felt sad.’ She said she felt sad and scared. ‘And because you felt sad and scared what did you do?’ I asked. ‘I began to shake, and I went to my room, and I cried,’ she said.

I reflected back to her what she said and asked her if I had her story right. She said I did, and we continued to chat.

‘She knew I was listening.’

I worked with Eabha in a one-to-one counselling situation on occasion and I also had done some work in her class. We talked about feelings and strength of feelings and that they were connected to our thinking and behaving. She understood that feeling, thinking, and behaving were connected to each other. We called unhealthy (irrational) thinking Brain Bully thinking which we agreed made Brain Bully feelings and actions. We called healthy (rational) thinking Brain Friend thinking which we agreed made feelings and behaviours that were helpful to us.

‘Brain Bully thinking makes Brain Bully feelings.’

That Eabha was familiar with these REBT (Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy) principles afforded us a common language with which we could talk about our strength of feelings, where they come from and how to work out ways to help Eabha help herself.

Eabha discovered that, for instance, ‘it’s all my fault’ thinking was Brain Bully nonsense. We also agreed that ‘it’s not fair’ thinking and ‘my dad or mum doesn’t love me’ thinking was Brain Bully trying to make her feel worse than she needed to be. We talked about different ways of thinking about things and we decided that what happened was a decision made by adults and that she had nothing to do with it. We also established that her mum and dad would still love her no matter what and that even though they would not be living together she could get used to the idea that she had two places to visit and have fun.

‘Flush stinking Brain Bully thinking down the dunny!’

We talked about bad things that could happen and we decided that there were other things that could be worse than the situation she found herself in. She said that ‘this is really bad, and I wish it didn’t happen but it’s not the worst thing that can happen (compared to other things we talked about).’ Eabha began to look at things differently, more from a Brain Friend perspective and she felt a lot better.

As a rational emotive behaviour counsellor/educator I find it useful to be able talk to children in ways that make sense to them. The idea that their emotions and behaviours are caused by someone or something apart from themselves reinforces the idea that someone or something makes their feelings and behaviours! Hence, they say things like, ‘it made me sad when my dad moved away, and I can only feel happy again if he comes back.’ In adult terms this irrational view could be framed as; ‘Things must be or remain the way they’ve always been. I can’t handle it and I can never be happy again if things aren’t how they must be.’

As it happened Eabha adopted a different view of the situation:

‘Change my thinking and the world changes.’

Did she still feel sad? Yes, she did on occasion, but it had a different intensity than before. She had changed the way she assessed a very difficult situation and in doing so modified how she felt and how she behaved in a self-helpful way.

PS Eabha bounded into my office the other day and said, ‘guess what?’ I said, ‘the sky is blue.’ ‘Mum and Dad are back together.’

PPS. This is a true happening and details have been changed to protect the subject’s identity.

 

Giulio is an ED.D. candidate at the University of South Australia. He is a student counsellor in the public school system and specialises in Rational Emotive Behaviour Education. He is also a consultant to schools in counselling-based behaviour education systems in school. He is the author of two self-published teacher/counsellor resources; People and Emotions and Have a Go Spaghettio! both endorsed by Dr. Albert Ellis, creator of Rational Emotive Behaviour Therapy. He is a member of the International Committee for The Advancement of Rational Emotive Education.

The Narcissist Boss

‘Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. . .. They justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.’ T.S. Elliott

The imagined side eyes and murmurings noticed in passing and the alleged corridor conversations fed the managers  paranoia that people were undermining his authority. ‘There’s a conspiracy afoot! They must not do this to me it’s just not fair,’ he thought.

He reflected on the demands he made of staff, seemingly all heaped upon them at once that he told himself had nothing to do with his lack of organisation or paucity of leadership skills, but more to do with the system. Yes, it was the system letting everyone down. How could it be his fault? And then there were his offsiders who were green around the gills and wasn’t he trying to get them up to speed, to develop their leadership capacities? ‘No, it’s not me he thought.’ He would not dare to even contemplate that he could be at fault, he always found it hard to look at himself in the proverbial mirror.’ ‘Staff must understand the importance of my role,’ he told himself, and that ‘any suggestion that I can’t handle it is nonsense and must be quashed.’

He would remind staff that the 'broken system' was letting them down and that good things lay ahead if they would just trust him and believe his intentions were always for the common good. ‘I am proud of you all and have the utmost respect for you,’ he declared (in private he held everyone in contempt). Yes Leadership, with a capital L, (The 'L' Team as he called it) strove to improve productivity outcomes, and to maintain the standards that the enterprise had become renowned for in the local network. He was the big cheese now and he was in his rightful place, and everyone should defer to him.

He couldn’t appreciate that there was a disconnect between what he said and what he did, and others could see what was happening. Whilst they grafted within the confines of their office walls, they would observe or others would tell them of the meetings behind closed doors where he and his lieutenants would be sitting talking, laughing, and socialising. Word filtered through also that the capital 'L' team, would order in take away when the other workers had returned to their workstations after lunch and dined together away from the office hubbub.

It wasn’t a good look either that all would attend meetings and workshops outside the office together whilst a designated stand-in would be left to manage things alone. The grapevine had it that they would drop in for takeaway on their return to work for good measure. The message was loud and clear that the 'L' team was a group of privileged and entitled others who set themselves apart from the main group. Whilst the manager would call for collegiality, trust, and cooperation he acted otherwise, and a clear schism had developed between the haves and the have nots.

But whatever problems presented, however things went awry it was the system letting everyone down! And of course, the last geezer who ran the place, whose legacy still lay heavily on his mind the burden of which he carried like Mother Theresa of Calcutta would have. It was ‘his fault and I’m left to clean up his mess,’ he reminded himself ‘and people should be grateful.’

Others came to regard the manager as inauthentic, disingenuous, and conniving. What he said to one’s face wasn’t what he said behind the backs of many who at one time would have thought of him in a different light. He was jealous of others’ achievements and wouldn’t give due credit to them unless they were part of his circle of acolyte, deferring sycophant friends. Indeed, the 'L' team was regarded more of a friendship group than an inspirational, talented, and visionary team. Whilst he implored others to walk his talk, he didn’t and that was a problem.

The manager, others observed, formed a dislike or hatred even of those who appeared to be more talented, younger, or who were more popular than he. There was conjecture amongst many that several people over the years who had moved onto other jobs fitted that description. No, he wouldn’t have had anything to do with such shenanigans whilst he served under the former manager. Or would he? Some hypothesised that it was indeed the case!

His tone of delivery in speech and in writing was of a passive-aggressive nature, a disconnect between what was said and the behaviour observed. His passive-aggressive demeanour was characterised by the ‘silent treatment’ to purposely cause discomfort or an intentional lack of communication, ‘I’ve been meaning to come by and chat,’ he would say, when in practice it had always been the case that he avoided those he regarded as a threat to his coveted position of power and authority (dad would be so proud of me he'd often say to himself). ‘Our job is a difficult one, and we are in it for our clients and their families, and it can be burdensome, but let’s hang together for the common good’ he would declare before retiring to his office to naval gaze over his trials and tribulations, and the burden he must bear for others.

The trouble with having a narcissist office leader is that colleagues with different perspectives, opinions and ideas are seen as recalcitrant and counterculture, who seek to undermine the managers authority. ‘They should know that I know what is best. They just want to see me fail,’ he would think, on a loop in his head.

Narcissists are excessively selfish and possess a sense of misplaced altruism believing that bearing imagined afflictions (‘you don’t know how much I am hurting, but I can’t burden you with my suffering’) makes them an exception amongst mortals who believe they are irreplaceable.

The question is how does one deal with such self-focussed, delusional, entitled, and mean-spirited individuals? Ignore them? Allow them to take the credit for what is not theirs and just accept the status quo? The narcissist leader won’t like that others don’t see him as he sees himself and will offer platitudes of understanding and empathy whilst planning at the same time, your demise sometime in the future (I’ll get you when you least expect it!).

Moving on to another job is often the easier option. Why hang around a person who will never have your interests at heart? Unfortunately, it seems to be that our system promotes ‘leaders’ of this ilk, and those who are the narcissists' quarry are dismissed and scapegoated. Interesting isn’t it?

Yes, life seems unfair but somewhere along the line our narcissist, bully boss will have his comeuppance!