- Hey everyone it is Thursday.
And that means I'm on Twitter answering your questions.
If you've used the #KatiFAQ
and you tweeted it to me or you DM'ed it to me
I have read and I have filtered through them
and I have six of them today.
So I've gotta get crack-a-lackin' on this
so I can get through them.
And stayed tuned because I also have a journal topic
that's really cool.
It was actually something that I just watched
a video from one of my followers
and she has a new book
and I thought some of the things that she was working on
were really cool for all of us to work on.
So I will share that at the end, so stay tuned.
Now, without further ado, first question.
How do I tell my parents I'm in therapy
without telling them why.
Now I have issues with this a lot in my practice,
as well as from many of my followers
you will ask me the question
"hey how do I tell my parents I want therapy
without telling them why," 'cause we might not want to say
I have an eating disorder or I self harm
or I'm really anxious or depressed.
I find, sorry, my nose is itchy.
(sniffs)
I find that the easiest way to do this
is to say something to the effect of,
hey mom or hey dad, you know, I'm seeing someone
just because I've been feeling kind of down lately,
and it's really helped me to talk it out with
someone who is more objective.
Leave it at that.
If they keep prodding you can say, you know,
sometimes school makes me anxious
or I was just really stressed out
and it's just really helping,
I'd like to keep going.
And I would leave it at that.
They shouldn't ask more than that,
and if they do you can just say
you know that's why I'm going,
just 'cause it gives me someone to talk to.
Don't you like having someone to talk to?
I would say something like that
and just leave it at that
because it's not really their business.
Okay?
Question number two,
is it possible to have your weight come back
and be more depressed than ever?
Tell me I'm not alone here.
You're definitely not alone.
Everybody feels that way.
When we gain weight back
and we get back to maybe our healthy weight
or our ideal body weight.
A lot of times our self image and our depression can worsen
and that's why it's really important
for us to have support and to have groups.
I think for this the best is groups
because just like this question this person asked
is like, tell me I'm not alone.
And you're not alone.
And I have a video on how building a better body image
and I need to do more on those.
I just have so many videos to do guys.
I try to do as many as I can, okay.
But you're not alone and I would reach out to your therapist
and talk about it and process through it.
And if it's a medication thing
if you're not taking your medication
and you're supposed to or if you're on medication
and you're still feeling really depressed,
I would talk to your psychiatrist or your doctor
to see if that will help with that as well.
Okay?
Question number three,
my friend said she's going to kill herself
and now she's been gone for three days
I told my counselor but nothing's been done yet.
What do I do now?
Other than telling your counselor or talking to her parents,
or some other way of getting ahold of her,
there's really no nothing else we can do.
And I think that's why in a lot of my videos
I talk about having healthy boundaries with people.
And the fact that even though we love our friends,
if they're going through a really hard time
and they're suicidal,
there's only so much we can do.
I mean that's feasible, that we can actually do.
And to hold ourselves to a higher standard
and to think "I should call this
and I should do this."
It's kind of setting ourselves up to feel really bad
about the situation and the outcome
and maybe even blame ourselves
when we're doing as much as we can.
So I know it's hard, but just keep telling yourself
"I'm working as hard as I can".
And when you can get ahold of her,
remind her that you're there.
Like I say, that's really all we can do.
And I'm sorry, and I'm sorry that your friend is suffering,
but hopefully things will be okay.
Question number four,
my mother is extremely emotionally abusive
and I don't know how much longer I can deal with it,
but I'm under 18 and can't get away.
How can I cope?
I struggle with this with a couple clients.
I don't have any currently,
but the things that have worked best for them is
signing up for any kind of after school program
or joining a choir or learning guitar
or joining some kind of team
or something, anything to get you out.
My old client joined a book club,
joined intramural soccer, started doing all sorts of things.
Making plans with friends, just not being home
until later and when you call to check in
or to let your mom know,
you keep it very short and limited.
Just say I wanted to let you know I'm going here,
I'll be home at this time, love you, bye.
And that's it.
I mean I know this sounds really terrible,
but to put ourselves in situations where someone
can just keep hurting us and keep being detrimental
to our recovery we have to kind of slowly protect ourselves.
And then hopefully you'll be able to move out soon,
you'll be 18 soon.
Okay?
Question number five,
oh and for that one, also,
if any of you've dealt with this
and there are certain phrases
and ways you know that you've kind of helped yourself,
as always let us know, okay.
Question number five,
Why do we have to say out loud in therapy
what we are feeling if we already know ourselves.
For example if I'm crying, my therapist will ask
what I'm feeling, but I just don't want to say it.
It's that reason exactly, why you have to say it.
'Cause you don't want to.
And it sounds really silly,
but there's something really cathartic
and really therapeutic about saying it out loud.
Almost like we're admitting it to ourselves
and we're owning it, right.
It sounds kind of ridiculous,
but for me even as a person in therapy,
it helps me to own my emotions.
Today I was really pissed off,
because I thought we were doing this
and they didn't make the plans, I thought they were.
Whatever it is right.
It's important for us to be able to verbalize it
and admit it to ourselves
and accept the emotion.
Because one of the biggest difficulties, even me,
is admitting and accepting emotions for what they are.
Like I don't really like anger,
it makes me kind of uncomfortable
and so I have to practice being angry
and being okay with it and owning my anger.
Like "yeah I was really fucking pissed off
because that person was a jerk", blah, blah, blah, blah.
But once I say "okay yeah" but you know what, that's it.
It doesn't ruin my day, I can express it,
I can be open and honest and then I can move on.
And that's part of why your therapist is doing that
because it will help you to own it,
process through it and to move past it.
Otherwise we tend to stuff it.
And the crying that we usually do in therapy
is because it's been stuffed for so long.
I mean that's just my personal opinion
with my own therapy, but yeah that's why.
Question number six,
is it strange to feel frustration towards people
who I suspect of using eating disorder behaviors
because I feel like my eating behaviors
are my special thing.
No, I hear this all the time.
Our eating disorders are really competitive
and they're our worst enemy
and they put us against people
that we love and care about
and people that we don't even know.
They'll put us against anybody
and compare us and make us competitive and angry
and it's very normal.
And the best thing to do is to download my workbook,
my eating disorder workbook,
task one and talk back to that nasty voice
because it's, it'll do that to you.
It's terrible, but, until we get our eating disorder
under control and we feel better managed,
like we're getting a support and recovery
it'll keep doing that.
It just, I don't know, I don't know why it is.
It is just part of the process and part of the disorder.
Okay?
Now shout out to Emily Mae Butler,
she wanted a shout out today
'cause she's feeling kind of down.
So I hope that brightens your day.
And today's journal topic.
I have a follower, Fallon, who did a video
and her channel is singing with Celine.
I forget the name of the book I was telling her,
I wrote it down and then I accidentally deleted the note
and then I couldn't find it in her video
while I was scrubbing through it,
so whoever's book this is, I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to use your stuff
without giving you credit.
But, I thought this was a really cool tool.
And the questions, and I'll say them slowly
so you can write them down.
I want you to fill out,
we're talking about qualities that you feel you have
and qualities that you feel you value in others.
And I think this will really help us
and that building a better body image.
And this is something I may add to a workbook in the future
'cause I'd like to do a body image workbook.
But, without further ado, before I ramble into oblivion.
Make a list of the qualities
that you value about yourself and others.
Make a list of the qualities that you feel you have.
Make a list of the qualities that people you admire have.
And how many of those things influence your self esteem.
And I think this is great,
this is actually something that I'm personally gonna do
and as always, if you do this,
please take a picture of it,
tweet it to me, take a picture,
send it to me on Instagram and just put the @KatiMorton
or @KatiMorton1 in whatever you're doing
so that I can get notified and I can check it out.
'Cause I love to see what you guys are doing
and how hard you're working
and everything like that.
So yeah, I think it'll really help.
And let me know what you think,
if you like it give me a thumbs up
and I'll see you all tomorrow.
I'm interviewing Brad Feld, I'm really excited.
He is a venture capital person,
which in the startup world,
like if you're starting up your own little business,
those are people who could invest in you.
And he's been really successful
and he suffers from depression and he talks a lot about
his process through it and he has some great information
great books, great tips,
he has a blog you can follow.
So I'm really excited to see him tomorrow,
so tune in if you can at two pm, Pacific Standard Time,
while I interview him.
Have a wonderful evening,
I'll see you all tomorrow.
Love you, bye.