- Hey everybody!
It's finally Friday and that means
it's also the fourth of July.
So I've got my red, white, and blue,
which you can't really see because I've a dress on.
It is hot here in LA and I don't have air conditioning.
So anyway, trying to cool myself down,
but because it's Friday that means I'm on Facebook,
so if you asked your questions on Facebook,
you can hashtag KatiFAQ.
I found some and I have two today
because there's something I wanna spend a lot of time on
and also I have a really cool journal topic
that was sent to me, so thank you so much for that.
So without further ado, I am going to start my questions.
So, question number one, #KatiFAQ what's your opinion
on getting help from a dietitian who's very overweight?
I'm getting other help for addiction
from someone who's also overweight
and I'm so grateful for their help
but there's a part of people that is wishing
that they were healthy themselves
before providing me with help.
I understand they've been taught everything from a textbook,
but sometimes it takes someone how is endured something
to become an expert.
I don't know, I understand that they may not
be complicated by mental health problems
but my mind is still thinking, can I trust this person?
I thought this was a great question
and I have many clients who have therapists
or dietitians that they've talked to that are overweight
and it was really upsetting to them
and I think practice what you preach.
How can I trust you, if you yourself are overweight?
Now there are a couple things I wanna address in this.
Number one being, is it your eating disorder
that's talking to you that's telling you
you can't trust them or that they're gonna make you fat
just like them or I'd be curious
and this is what I usually do with my clients,
I'm curious as to what overweight looks like to you,
as what overweight means,
and also what it is you tell yourself about
someone being overweight.
Now, I have to agree with this person
that just because someone's overweight
doesn't mean that they don't know
anything about nutrition or therapy.
Weight has no bearing on our intelligence.
Often times I find that we connect certain beliefs
with the way someone looks.
Like if someone's overweight, they such and such and such,
A, B, and C, and if they're skinny their this, that,
and the other, or if they're slovenly dressed
that means this, and so we associate
who someone looks with a lot of different things
and we automatically believe that that person
exudes that, however, I do believe as a therapist
it's something that's very important to me
that I take care of my mental health
and if I can't take care of my mental health,
then who the hell can I help you with yours?
So if you have a therapist that's like
no I'm not in therapy and I'd never be in therapy
or something like that, not that they'd
necessarily tell you, but that wouldn't be
a very good therapist.
I've had a lot of people, I remember in grad school,
they're like they had a lot of issues in their family
and things they've gone through
that we talked about in school
and they were like, no I've never been to therapy
I don't really like therapy.
I would never sign up for it
and I'm like then why the hell are in school to become one?
That's stupid.
So, I believe that that's important,
therefore if a dietitian doesn't take
very good care of themselves and they're obese
to the point where it's really medically unhealthy for them,
I might find someone else because even though
they may know as much, I like to know
that the person I'm working with
actually can practice what they preach
and can give experience on things.
Just because I haven't had an eating disorder
doesn't mean that I can't learn from my clients
and learn in my own therapy about how I process things
and then help you through that process as well
if that makes sense.
Like taking in what I know about my own process with life
and also taking into account what I've learned
in textbooks and experience, together I feel like
it gives a much better picture than someone
who has no idea what's going on with themselves
or how to manage their own health or mental health.
I don't know, does that make sense?
It's not a put down on people who maybe overweight
but I have had clients who just think
that someone's overweight and then I meet them
I'm like they're not overweight,
they're just not what you think is an ideal body weight.
Which is your eating disorder talking.
So, make sure you are clear on that, okay?
I hope that helps, and if any of you
have experience with this, can you let us know
what you think too?
Okay, questions number two, how do you learn
to trust a therapist or therapy again,
when you have had a bad experience with it in the past?
When I first started therapy, I told my therapist
about my past sexual abuse, since I'm under 18
she had to report it and police had to get involved
and now I have major trust issues.
I've hated therapy ever since and it adds
to my flashbacks and leads me to self harm,
and not express my emotions and bottle things up.
I don't know what to do and it's getting really hard
to cope with everything on my own.
Thank you so much for all that you do.
To be honest, the thing about therapy
that's really important, is that you take your time with it.
Now if you've had a bad experience,
and understand, I appreciate that you understand
that she had to report it because that's something
we're like, legally, our hands are tied.
Like we have to report it,
I could lose my license if I don't.
It's something they expect of us,
and so, I would give it time.
Trust isn't something that can be built overnight.
It shouldn't be built overnight.
So when you meet with a new therapist,
I would express to them what happened in the past
and I would tell them that it's gonna take time,
I'd just be as honest as you can,
and then give them a chance to prove themselves.
As a therapist, it takes time to build a relationship.
Even though I know it's a different type of relationship,
we go in, talking about things that we wouldn't just
talk about with anybody else,
but give yourself time, it's okay.
After every session, maybe take some time
and you journal about how it's going
and things that you felt okay sharing
and maybe ways that they've proved their trust
or maybe disproved and just give yourself time
to gauge it, because you've had a bad experience,
know that it may take a little longer
and as long as you're honest with your therapist
about that, you don't even have to express
what exactly happened, you can just say,
you know I had a therapist in the past
really hurt our trust and our relationship
and so it's gonna take me a little longer
to feel like I can trust you and tell you everything
and they'll understand.
For many of you, I know you've said
like I've had a really bad experience
and I've heard horror stories,
like my therapist did such and such
and I'm like oh my God, I wish I could report them
but I can't, but you can.
That's part of what you can do,
you can report them on whatever government site,
whatever state or country, you can file a report,
so I would encourage you to do that.
In this case however, like I said she was legally bound.
Give yourself time to heal from it,
give yourself time to grow to trust someone else, okay?
It'll get there, I promise.
Okay, journal topic, now this is awesome
and I think it must have been off of Tumblr,
the person copied it because it looked very Tumblresque
in the way that it was laid out.
So it says, if I offered you $20, would you take it?
I would.
How about if I crumpled it up?
What if I stepped on it?
You'd probably take it even though it was crumpled up
and stepped on, right?
You know why?
Because it's still $20.
It's worth has not changed.
The same goes for you, if you have a bad day.
Something bad happens to you,
you're not worthless.
Someone crumples you up, steps on you,
your worth does not change.
You're still just as valuable as you were before.
And I would encourage all of you
to rewind the video, play that again,
write it down in your journal
and I want you just to think about
what that means to you.
What is your self worth?
What do you think has taken from that?
I'd like you to review that and I think
a lot of us will come across little items
and things that have happened that we think
effects our self worth, when it actually doesn't.
That's something that happened to us,
we don't have control over what happens to us,
we have control over how we deal with it
and how we move forward and I would encourage
all of you to take the time to
after you've gotten out this weekend,
if you haven't gone out this weekend,
you should be getting out right now.
But then journaling about this,
what self worth means to you
what things you feel like you've taken
from your self worth or added to your self worth
and then let's try to do more things that add to it
and talk back against those things
that have supposedly taken from you
because like I said, we don't have control over
what happens, we have control about how we manage it.
I hope you all have a wonderful weekend.
I'll see you on Monday, on Tuesday I'll be on Tumblr,
so ask your questions there.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Bye!