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welcome! to emotional feelings!
after looking things over here at emotional feelings,
try out "the layer down under," (part of the emotional feelings network of sites) & read a special "i
just gotta say it" column concerning porn addiction by clicking here! Be sure to scroll down towards the bottom of the right hand column to find it!
another important suggestion... visit
this homepage to learn more about the features included within the emotional feelings network of
sites!
I was personally very touched by this inspiring story as I watched it on
television last night (2/27/07); especially after I experienced a life altering injury which took me 2 years to recover from.
What I want to ask you is...
If you can't help out with the helmets, below for our military men, can
you volunteer or help our returning soldiers who are recovering with extreme traumatic brain injury?
Here are some links!
Check them out, I know that my family will be searching for a way we can help!
Remember that those with traumatic or extreme physical injuries most often develop problems with their mental health!
What is Operation Helmet?
Founded in 2003 by Dr. Robert H. Meaders whose grandson is an active duty Marine in Iraq, Operation Helmet is a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) organization dedicated
to providing safer helmet pad upgrade kits to the troops in Iraq & Afghanistan.
To date, more than 6,000 kits have been shipped to the troops in the field.


How this site works best for you!
You'll
notice that there are many underlined link words in each article below. The reason for this is that you have reached not only, "emotional
feelings, the home site," but the emotional feelings network of sites. There are
many sites included within the network that'll be visited by clicking on these underlined link words.
If you can't find what you came
here looking for, visit the homepage for the emotional feelings network of sites by clicking above & read the options on
the homepage for the networks index of sites. Try to be specific when looking for an emotion or feeling word & click on the site you need!
It's very simple & very
interesting to follow your way thru the layers of your buried or stuffed emotions & feelings that have accumulated throughout the years!
when you've reached this point, or this website, you know you're making
progress!!!! this part gets difficult because now is the time to look within & become emotionally honest with yourself!!!
Best of luck & if you're
still stuck, send me an e-mail anytime, by clicking
here & I'll be glad to send you an immediate personal response!
Sincerely,
Kathleen



Avoidance: The Good, The Bad and the Very Ugly by Kathleen Howe
I've written a few times
concerning "avoidance" because I was the "Queen" of avoiding
things. I used denial, ignorance and just plain fear - a huge wall of fear - and I used each one of these tools to the very ultimate pinnacle they might be used. When you're avoiding
things, it doesn't matter how dangerous it may be for you. You just can't or won't deal with it. In my case, I truly couldn't.
I had this huge blockade that wouldn't let me enter and it took years for me to recognize the blockade itself, identify the exact dimensions of my blockages and years to process the backlog of emotions and feelings that caused my avoidance behavior to begin with. I had to literally take my past apart
with a fine tooth comb, then research it like it was a term paper - better yet - a thesis and then deal with it the best I
could, but always in my own time frame.
With avoidance behavior and feeling like you must avoid something - there are good reasons for avoiding
that are usually safety issues. Much like anger, avoidance can keep us safe. We know that rattle snakes can bite us and kill us - so we
avoid them. We know that driving too fast might make us wreck and ultimately injure or kill
whoever is in the car with us so we AVOID driving too fast. So as you can very simply see
- avoidance can have a good place in our existence.
With anger, you can find that if you use anger for "good" it can cause you to take action and change something that is wrong with your situation. Sometimes when you get mad enough you can change your behavior and stay with it - to keep your word when you say, "I promise I'll never do that again because it makes me
so mad when I forget what I'm doing and then I end up getting hurt!"
If we use our brains, when we need to, to reason out and weigh the pros and cons to any situation, we'll see that we must avoid
the things that might hurt us and heed to our common sense. It's the avoidance factor that
we must pay attention to for good old common sense safety. Don't play in the street, avoid it and tell your children to avoid
it because they don't want to get hit by a car. That is the simple part.
I've read many articles that say we must look for the rationality of our
situation. Avoiding what is "rational" to avoid. For me,
I've got to say that I have to keep it in the aspect of "common sense" because when you're experiencing painful symptoms of
pain or loss, perhaps depression or an anxiety disorder or both - there are many symptoms that will blind you to the "rationality" of your choices. You have an "emotional element"
included into your reasoning and you might not be able to differentiate whether or not you are being rational.

Examining my past and thinking
about whether or not I could see the rationality of the situation made me delve even further into the possibilities concerning avoidance behaviors than I normally would. When you're trying to describe behaviors that
you, yourself have experienced it can be difficult to be objective because you already know what the reasoning was behind
it all. So I must tell you that if your life seems to be one disaster after another and it started with the tiniest snowball,
from a one hour snowstorm and it ended up being the North Pole with a bunch of igloos everywhere.... you're most likely not
sure that what you're doing is "avoiding" anything. You have the symptoms of your situation
and circumstances overpowering your thought processes. You're living in a chaotic environment.
I had so many difficulties to deal with and I wasn't dealing with any
of it. You see, when it starts snowing and people go outside and run and jump with glee because they're excited about snowball
fights - they're not thinking about how many days in a row that it's going to snow. They're in the moment. They're experiencing
the here and now. There's nothing wrong with that - we all need to experience living in the present moment, but we have to be realistic and rational. This would include finding out that
it's going to snow non-stop for three weeks straight and there's a possibility that you could lose your power or get "snowed
in." There's preparing that must be done. Get it?
If you've ever lived in south Florida, down around Ft. Lauderdale or Palm
Beach on the east coast for any length of time, you've experienced hurricane season. Most people in south Florida
avoid their responsibility of being ready for a hurricane should one happen to suddenly brew up
and head your way. There's physical work to be done if you're living down there and this happens. You must tape and board
up your windows. Batteries, canned food, water and a number of other emergency supplies must be ready at any moment. It happens
every year down there. The weather man announces that it's time to get ready for hurricane season and yet we're all creatures
of procrastination or "avoidance behaviors" and we put it off until the storm is on its way.
When a hurricane is looming off the coast and the television is saying
get ready because it will hit between the hours of.... if you haven't prepared - being reasonable, rational, and realistic
in your thinking and you avoided your personal responsibilities - you'll go to the store
and the lines are two hours long for batteries, water and canned food. No lie. The Home Depot and Lowes are sold out of plywood
and you're out of luck if you didn't get it already. There's no duct tape to be found within a 300 mile radius. Hurricanes
hit within a huge radius of space. All of those millions of people who live in Florida might experience the hurricane so everyone
must get ready.
In life we have storms just like snowstorms, blizzards and hurricanes.
We have natural disasters such as tornadoes and floods and earthquakes. I'm using these weather storms as simple examples
of how your life gets disrupted when we weather the storms of divorce, infidelity, illness, death, loss, violence, crime,
abuse, and many other terrible happenings. If we don't get real with our lives and we shut it all out, avoiding the impending doom - it will hit us. It will hit us harder the more we avoid it. How can we stop from
doing this avoidance thing when we aren't sure when it's really happening to us? When do we get concerned? When do we find
that things are so out of our control that anxiety and fear are beginning to drown us and we can't breathe and we're
beginning to experience panic attacks?
Believe me, it's almost too late when the eye of the hurricane is passing
over your home; if you still have a home standing. New Orleans, you saw it happen! Everyone saw it happen on television. The
storm was coming and no one used their pea brains to say - we've gotta get the heck outta here
now! They avoided the warnings by the National Weather Service. Believe me, all of those people had cable television
and the capability to watch the news and the weather channel to heed the warnings. The people in New Orleans avoided the inevitable.
And the story continued and we all know what happened.

Domestic violence is a very big
storm front. It's one of life's escalating storms. It starts small and continues in a cycle to build and build and
build and then the intensity of the storm becomes so severe that someone gets killed. Just like the hundreds that die in a
hurricane because they didn't see the signs, prepare and get real with the world - they choose to be "unaware" of what is
happening in their present environment and they become a victim.
Avoidance is like that. It just sneaks up and
bites you in the butt and then it really hurts. Sometimes it just takes a bite and leaves and other times it eats you up.
Something my mother never told me because she most likely thought that I would pick it up on my own was, if someone isn't
nice to you - just stay away from them. You know she never told me, "Kathleen, you have choices in life." I never thought
of that, I just existed. I just went with the flow of what I "needed" at that moment. I was in emotional pain and I wanted
it to stop. So I just kept trying to do something that would get me out of pain without even thinking about the consequences
of what I was doing. I had lived in a "fairy tale" world my entire childhood and I truly believed through my early teen years
that I would meet my Prince Charming and he would ask me to marry him and I would ride off into the sunset with him and everything
would be fine in my life.
Yes, I am admitting to believing that. While I had many unique experiences
growing up, I was naive and sheltered. I knew many things that many people never learn, but I had no life skills. I didn't
know what I needed to know in order to survive in the world. I was totally clueless. I was so clueless that I didn't know
that people had to pay bills. I had no idea how much money my parents made or if they ever had enough or not enough money.
Whenever I needed or wanted anything, I just asked for it and it appeared. Yep, I was that dumb. I was highly intelligent,
but dumb.
I didn't know that there was welfare until I was in my late thirties,
early forties. True as can be that little fact is. I didn't know how to manage on my own. I had always been married with children
so to speak. When I got divorced, I got remarried. When I got divorced again, I got remarried again. I was a mess. I let people
walk all over me and let them abuse me in every way because I didn't know that it was my job to look out for myself. I just
didn't get it.
There are people in this world that are uneducated in the most vital of
all matters. When something happens to them, that is uncomfortable or negative, they don't know how to cope with it and they
just do the best they can with whatever they have. They go with the flow. If the marriage is miserable they go out and get
drunk and make the situation worse. They do all kinds of things that are bad for them, but they don't know what to do. This
is the beginning of the crucial part of avoidance. Once you start relying on avoidance behaviors to get through the pain,
then you continue to avoid everything. You let yourself become numb to the world and if you avoid it - it can't touch
you. But that's not true, it's just what you believe at that point.

The reason we find ourselves using
avoidance behaviors for the bad reasons we use them is we were never taught how to cope with the bad things that happen to us in our lives. No one ever tells us that if B happens - and you don't do C - then
D will happen very quickly and there will never be an E. It's that simple. No one understood the importance of learning valuable life lessons when you were growing up. If your parents didn't know this stuff, how could they teach you? Most likely
they did whatever they could to cope and it was the "wrong thing" and you watched them do it.
When your parents had a big fight
and your dad hit your mother and she went to bed with a shiner and never said another word about the whole incident... you
just assumed that this was how life works! Yeppers... this is what happens. Kids watch very
closely as to what their parents do and they copy them. They mimic their behaviors no matter how good or bad they are. Even
if they say to themselves, "I'll never hit anyone like that when I grow up!" They most likely will.
It's like doing something through
osmosis. You don't know why you're doing it but you're doing it.
In order for you, as an avid avoider,
to stop avoiding things you must understand this whole story. It's my main theme over and over again! Educate yourself by reading the article. Read it and read it and
read it until you totally understand it with no questions. After you can honestly say that you understand it - take action. Follow the directions. Take action to change by following the directions. Learn how to copy and paste and then copy and paste this article and print it out. Read it slowly
and read it about twenty times before you do anything else. Then look back into your life and be HONEST for the first time in your life with yourself and see if you can jot down some of the situations I was describing. See if
you can map out the storms that you weathered from the time you were born. Really. Keep trying it until you can find several
memorable situations. Write them down. You must write them down and follow these directions without
avoiding a single one.
If you've followed my directions - great! You're that much ahead of the
other twenty people that just read this article and forgot about it. Pat yourself on the back and celebrate your accomplishment! They shook their heads up and down, signaling that they understood what I meant and they even said to themselves, "Yeah.... that makes sense." But the difference between you and the other
twenty is that you didn't avoid following the directions and they did. You took the first
positive step towards helping yourself when the others didn't.
Believe me, I can read your minds. You might copy, paste, print and read the article three times, but there's a few others
that followed the directions and they won't have to come back here to copy, paste, print and read again. After you've followed
my directions and you're ready to learn more about getting rid of your avoidance behaviors,
e-mail me. emotionalfeelings101@hotmail.com
Tell me what you learned, just one thing. You don't have to say anything
else, but one thing and then I'll tell you where to find the remainder of the articles that explain how to get rid of avoidance behaviors. It won't ever cost you anything to get the information, except the effort
in following my directions. You'll have to become humble while you rearrange your life and fix it from weathering all those life storms. Believe me. I know. I've been working for six years and I'm still not finished! For each time that I follow the directions all the
way through and accomplish that very small accomplishment; I feel myself becoming empowered with pride and strength and control. See if you feel it too.

Acute Traumatic Stress Management
Whatever happens to us during
peak emotional experiences in our lives, the gifts of life & the losses of life, will
stay with us forever.
In the same way
that negative experiences are etched in our minds, so too may the positive force of Acute Traumatic Stress Management. Having someone say & do the right thing, at the right time, can dramatically affect an individual's recovery.
It's important to realize that addressing emergent psychological needs in the aftermath of a tragedy doesn't require an advanced degree in mental health. In fact, the best help is often rendered
by people on the front lines - people who take the time to listen & say the right things at the right time.
However, it's important for caregivers to know what to say & do before they reach out to help others. Traumatic experiences, by their very nature, compromise our ability to think clearly & often leave us feeling out-of-control. By having a plan, a traumatic stress response protocol, caregivers will be in control. They'll know what to say & do. They'll be prepared.
Beyond having an understanding of traumatic events & traumatic stress, caregivers must be equipped with practical tools that they can use to help others in the face traumatic exposure. This is
the primary goal of Acute Traumatic Stress Management (ATSM).
ATSM was developed as a 10
stage model in order to provide structure during an unstructured period of time - & to enable caregivers to "read off
the same page."
i.e., if I was helping an
individual to remain in a functional state, by focusing on the facts of a given situation, it would be unfortunate & potentially
problematic for another caregiver to walk over & ask, "How ya feeling?"
In fact, this situation was
described to me by a New York City police officer in the wake of September 11th. He reported that he was talking with a colleague
about extricating bodies when, "...some nut in a red jacket came over & asked me how I was feeling.... I told him to get the ____ out of here. I wanted to kill the bastard!" There's a right thing to say & a right time
to say it.
Following, is a brief overview
of the 10 Stages of ATSM. For additional information, caregivers are encouraged to read Comprehensive Acute Traumatic Stress Management (www.ATSM.org).
Noteworthy, is that ATSM was
built on a strong, empirically-based foundation. The first 4 stages of this model are of primary importance to emergency medical personnel & have to do with considerations surrounding situation management & emergency medical
care. The latter 6 stages may be implemented by all caregivers.
It's important to recognize that time constraints & the intensity of individuals' reactions, will vary. Consequently, appropriate intervention may
not fall neatly into a linear progression of stages. Caregivers will need to be flexible given the presenting circumstances.
1. Assess for Danger/Safety for Self
& Others
Upon arriving at the scene,
assess the situation in order to determine whether there are factors that can compromise
your safety or the safety of others. You'll be of little help to someone else if you're injured; i.e., don't enter a building that has obviously
sustained structural damage. If possible, remove people from the location in order to risk further traumatic exposure.
2. Consider the Mechanism of Injury
Form an initial impression
of those impacted by the event. In order to understand the nature of an individual's exposure,
it's important to assess how the event may have physically impacted the person - that is, how environmental factors transferred to him.
i.e., if people are unconscious,
it's important to know what factor, or factors led to their loss of consciousness. It's also important to consider the perceptual experiences of victims.
i.e., directly observing the
bodies of children who have drowned will have a powerful impact on observers. Similarly, the sounds of people moaning will etch a lasting impression in the minds of all who arrive
at the scene to help.
Ask yourself whether it's
necessary for you to expose yourself to the inner perimeter. Direct exposure to a gruesome scene can compromise your ability
to address emergent psychological needs.

3. Evaluate the Level of Responsiveness
It's important to determine if an individual is alert & responsive to verbal stimuli. Does he feel pain? Is he aware of what's occurred, or what's presently occurring? Is he being influenced by a substance?
In the aftermath of Rita & Katrina, it's quite
possible that people are experiencing "emotional" shock. Therefore, symptomatology may mimic acute medical conditions (i.e., rapid changes in respiration, pulse, blood pressure, etc.). Recognize that a psychological state of shock may be adaptive in preventing the individual from experiencing the full impact of the
event too quickly. Keep in mind that during traumatic events, people can experience a wide range of emotional reactivity.
4. Address Medical Needs
Emergency responders are trained to assess the
ABCs (i.e., airway, breathing & circulation). They understand
that if a man isn't breathing, there will be little else that can be done to help him.
Emergency responders also understand
the importance of addressing significant symptoms (e.g., severe chest pains) as well as the importance of knowing about existing medical conditions (e.g., diabetes). They've also been trained
to know the kinds of injuries that may present a threat to life (e.g.,
internal bleeding).
It's critical that medical intervention be provided
by trained emergency medical personnel. Consider the potential danger of moving a young woman who is found trapped under rubble.
Despite the best intentions of caregivers, the woman may have suffered a back injury & movement could cause permanent injury to her spinal cord.
It's imperative that life-threatening illness & injury are addressed prior to psychological needs.

5. Observe & Identify
Observe & identify those
who've been exposed to the event. Very often, these individuals will not be the direct victims. They may be secondary or hidden
victims.
As I stated previously, witnessing,
or even being exposed to another individual who has faced traumatic exposure, can cause traumatic stress.
As you observe & identify
who has been exposed to the event (i.e., directly &/or indirectly), begin to observe
& identify who is evidencing signs of traumatic stress.
An awareness of the emotional, cognitive, behavioral & physiological reactions suggestive of traumatic stress is important. Carefully look around you.
Anyone, including yourself,
may be a direct or hidden victim. This observation & identification stage of ATSM may be viewed as the first traumatic stress - specific stage.
6. Connect with the Individual
Introduce yourself & let
people know your role (e.g., "My name is Ron, I'm a social worker"). If the individual isn't
physically injured & he has been cleared by emergency medical personnel, move him away to prevent further traumatic exposure.
Begin to develop rapport by
making an effort to understand & appreciate his situation. A simple question such as, "How are you doing?" may be used to engage the individual. Use appropriate non-verbal
communication (e.g., eye contact, body turned toward him, a gentle touch, etc.).
Recognize that during a traumatic experience, individual reactions may present on a continuum from a totally detached, withdrawn reaction to the most intense displays of emotion (e.g., uncontrollable crying, screaming, panic, anger, fear, etc.).
In view of the magnitude of
these hurricanes, you may likely find yourself working to connect with small groups of individuals.

7. Ground the Individual
When you have established
a connection with an individual or small group of individuals (e.g., eye contact, body turned toward you, dialogue
directed at you, etc.), you can initiate this grounding stage. Begin by acknowledging the hurricane at a factual level.
Here, you attempt to orient
the person by discussing the facts surrounding the event. Address the circumstances at a cognitive, or thinking level. While we don't discourage the expression of emotion, attempt to focus on the facts in the here-&-now & help the individual to know the reality of the situation.
His "reality" may be seriously
clouded due to the nature of the event. Remember, traumatic events overwhelm an individual's coping & problem-solving abilities. Assure him that he's now safe, if he is. He may still be "playing the tape" of the event over & over in his mind.
By reviewing facts, you may
disrupt "negative cognitive rehearsal" (i.e., repetitive, potentially destructive thinking), help the individual to function & enable him to deal with the circumstances at hand.
It's important to "place the individual in the situation." Encourage him to "tell his story" & describe where he was, what he saw, what it sounded like, what it smelled like, what he did
& how his body responded. Encourage him to discuss his behavioral & physiological response - rather than "how it felt."

8. Provide Support
Factual discussion & the
realization of a severe hurricane, may likely stimulate thoughts & feelings. This is often the time when individuals who are exposed to trauma need the most support.
However, in reality, it's
also the time when many people look the other way. Many individuals feel terribly unprepared to handle others' painful thoughts & feelings. Oftentimes, they fear that they'll "open a can of worms" or "say the wrong thing."
Generally, a reasonable attempt
to help others is preferable to avoidance.
It's important to establish & maintain a facilitative or helping attitudinal climate. Here, you attempt to understand
& respect the uniqueness of the individual - the thoughts & feelings that he's experiencing.
You strive to "give back" a sense of control that has been "taken from" him by virtue of his exposure to the event. You support him & you
allow him to think & feel.
Due to the magnitude of these
storms, many people will experience an overwhelming sense of aloneness & withdraw into their own world. You should make a respectful effort to "enter that world" & to help the individual to know that he isn't alone & that his unique perception of his experience is important.
Don't attempt to talk a person
out of a
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