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 world is neither for you nor against you. It doesn’t give a shit!"​

When I think about this Albert Ellis quote I think of how I have at times been ‘shackled’ to the belief that somehow the Universe is looking out for me and that it should give me what I want; what I believe I need. Such an arrogant position assumes that I’m so important that the universe should always meet my wants and needs; to take care of me and always give me what I must have. I can hear Dr. Ellis say:

‘Well good luck with that horseshit. Let me know how it works out!’

Eleanor Roosevelt said:

‘You probably wouldn’t worry about what people think of you if you could know how seldom they do.’

Again why should other people regard us as we believe we should be regarded; that they meet our need to be noticed and acknowledged, liked or loved?

Dr. Ellis said that we can elect to healthily prefer that significant others esteem us and look upon us favourably, which is a rational perspective according to REBT. In doing so, we acknowledge that there will be those who won’t and we can choose to learn to accept this reality unconditionally. This sensible, self-helpful view, reminds us that the universe will not always deliver to us what we absolutely demand it should, but if we accept that, we will feel better about things, especially when they don’t go our way.

Conversely, to over rely on the approval of significant others to believe we are worthwhile, is taking us into the realms of irrationality or as Dr. Ellis would say, ‘love slobbism!’  This is where our attitude of preferences, transform into ‘must’ thinking; we must get what we believe we must have! Dr. Ellis determined that one who has forged such habits of thinking and believing has developed the debilitating condition of ‘musturbation;’ the tendency to elevate our preferences, wants and desires to ‘must, ought and should’ status!’ What did Karen Horney say?

'Beware the 'tyranny of the should'!

Dr. Ellis also reminds us that whenever we begin to think that someone or something is ‘making’ us angry or sad we are thinking irrationally, as it is our own unrealistic ‘musturbatory’ expectations of life and others that are driving our emotional unease. Do we prefer things to be as we would like them to be or must we get what we must have and is it a catastrophe when we don’t?!

'When people change their irrational beliefs to undogmatic flexible preferences, they become less disturbed.' Albert Ellis

Christopher Hitchens the late renowned author, essayist and sceptic, debated many an opponent, who claimed that his views were offensive and that their feelings were somehow hurt by the points he made in argument against them. His adversaries, in making such a claim, would be met by the classic Hitchens retort:

‘What’s your point? So your feelings are hurt, so what! How does this constitute an argument!’

He would have agreed with Dr. Ellis that people make the intensity of the emotions they feel by the way they might perceive or assess a situation. They hurt their own feelings! As Epictetus said all those years ago:

'People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them.'

What might have Mr. Hitchens’ ‘musturbating’ rivals been thinking? Ellis would say:

‘They were rubbing themselves the wrong way!’

The big bang set the evolution of the Universe and life as we know it in train, and as it expanded chance would have it that a convergence of molecules, carbon atoms and other elements gave rise, in time, to the phenomenon known as Dr. Albert Ellis. How serendipitous! Maybe the World does give a shit after all!