Ask Doc Snipes Anything LIVE Q&A: Get Your Questions Answered in Real Time! 11.03.2024

Foreign. Hey there, everybody, and welcome back to another live Q and A. Today we are starting out by talking about what manipulation is, how to become more aware of it and what to do to protect yourself. So we're really going to focus on manipulation and what some people call gaslighting behaviors. So I'd like to start out by just kind of defining manipulation because in reality, we all manipulate each other all the time. If I want my children to do something, then I am going to ask them to do the do it and provide a reward when it gets done. Now, on the surface, if we're looking at the broad concept of manipulation, yeah, you know, I am manipulating your behav their behaviors through the use of rewards and sometimes punishments. But what we're talking about in today's presentation is what we'll call malicious manipulation. And that is when somebody tries to manipulate you, you in a way that is not helpful to you, in a way that violates your boundaries. And, and I think that's a great place to start is talking about what boundaries are. And I've got several videos on it, so I'm not going to go deep into depth in it. But boundaries differentiate between where I stop and where you begin physically. They also demonstrate where I stop and you begin emotionally and cognitively. So my beliefs and my thoughts and my feelings, those are mine and I can have them and I can hold them and I can put them out there on the table. You don't have to pick them up. You don't have to pick them up. I'm not going to force them onto you. Just like in a healthy relationship, we don't force, force our beliefs, our feelings onto other people. We may tell them what our beliefs are or what our feelings are, but we don't say, you need to think this way, you need to feel this way. And that's really what we're talking about is that abusive step, and I'm going to use the word abuse, abusive step of violating someone's boundaries and in a way that you want in order for you to get some gain and in a way that is not necessarily helpful for them. And again, it goes back to are you violating their boundaries? And that is what is so crucial. And when we're being manipulated, we can often tell people who manipulate us will also often, well, sometimes manipulate us for their own gain, despite how it impacts us. If you want somebody to, if you want to get a promotion but you don't want to do the work, you may try to manipulate the people around you to do all the Work for you so you can get that promotion. You see how that's malicious manipulation. You are making other people do the work, making other people do what you want them to do so you can benefit, not so they can benefit. And that is one of the keys. And I want to think about what the signs are that you're being manipulated. And you know, I, I would encourage you to share in here what experiences you've had with being manipulated either in relationship relationships or in, In the workplace, etc. We're also manipulated on the daily by our media. We are told what to believe, we're told how to interpret things. We are told a lot of things. And it's important to go back to the horse's mouth. There was something that came out yesterday that was being spread all over X Twitter, whatever we're calling it now, and turns out it was fake news. I know, imagine that. But somebody was trying to manipulate others on Twitter by spreading fake news. We see the same thing, if you will, when we look at a lot of medical information, unfortunately, which is why I like to go to PubMed. I like to go back to the research studies and see the research for myself to figure out is this an accurate conclusion or were were their conclusions skewed by something else. Getting the facts in context is, is really important. Getting the facts from the primary source, when at all possible, is important because that takes out the interpretations that someone else may have had and it takes out their biases. Sometimes people are being manipulative and they don't realize it. And we can point that out. We can point out, it feels like you, you are trying to get me to do something instead of just asking me to do it. You're trying to manipulate me. It feels like you are not respecting my boundaries and trying to make me change the way I think or the way I feel. So those are the things that, that we're talking about. And again, this is a Q and A. I just wanted to start out by putting out that topic of manipulation because we experience it, as I said, every day. And sometimes it's very benign, sometimes it's malicious. And how does it make you feel when somebody is trying to manipulate you, trying to get you to do something you don't want to do. Okay, how does it make you feel? And for a lot of people, it's anxious or angry. Well, guess what? That's because they're violating your boundaries. They're trying to take your power and make you into a, a puppet, if you will. I do a group in actually, usually it's Two groups, because it's a long. It's a long group. But in substance abuse treatment, and we use the movie Pinocchio, and we look at the different characters in Pinocchio and how they may represent the triggers and the manipulative people in their lives that sort of led them to a place where they started developing depression, anxiety, addiction, whatever the case was. And we also look at the strings. When strings are attached, that's manipulation. When strings are attached, what strings are manipulating you right now? For example, if you don't go to work, you're not going to get a paycheck. There's a. There's strings attached to that paycheck. Now, we all understand that, and we can make the choice whether or not to go to work and, and maintain our job, but there are strings attached. So what questions do you have again about manipulation, about relationships, about boundaries? I see we've got 33 people here, so I would love to hear from you. Cynthia says someone who continuously apologizes for the behavior but never changes the behavior is manipulative. You're right. You're right. Now, they may not realize they're being manipulative, but what are they doing? They. They apologize for their behavior, knowing probably in the back of their head at least, that they don't intend to change. What's their gain? Their gain is to get you to forgive them, to get you to stick around and, and not leave them. So, yes, they're manipulating you. They're saying, oh, you don't like this? I'm sorry, I'll make it go away. And then maybe it will go away for a little while, and then it comes back. We see that in the cycle of violence. We see the honeymoon period where things are great, then tension building, then the explosion, and then the apology and the honeymoon period, and we see it repeat itself. So that's a great example. Hello, Roller girl. Welcome. Hello, Senorita Aurora. Welcome back. Hello, Robert. Continuing criticism can also be manipulation. If somebody wants you to do something and, and they're doing it sort of by force, they're being aggressive in trying to get you to do it. They may criticize you and make you feel bad about yourself or make you feel unsafe in your environment or like you're going to get fired in order to get you to do what they want you to do. And that can be exhausting if you are not receiving any positive feedback. And, and, and we found the best way to maintain behavior is through rewards, not punishment. It's a whole lot easier to lead with a carrot than to propel with a stick. Overprotective caregivers can create anxious attachment, can manipulate them, their children, to feel like they're unsafe? They can manipulate their children. If I am an overprotective caregiver, I don't want my kids wandering off too far. I don't want my kids doing things that I don't know about. I don't want my kids fill in the blank. I want to be a helicopter parent. So I need to try to create a condition in which they're going to respect that, in which they're going to think, oh, my gosh, I don't want to get too far from caregiver because it's unsafe and that's manipulative. All behavior has meaning. And examining why is a caregiver helicoptering is important. Why is this person enmeshed? Is it because they fear abandonment? Is it because they actually fear something happening to the child? Because they've got their own trauma stuff they haven't dealt with? I don't know. You know, that depends on the individual. But we do need to explore behaviors from a communicative perspective and try to figure out what the benefit is to that person of that manipulative behavior. People who make you question your reality are definitely being manipulative when they. But. But there are differing points of view, and it's important not to confuse that with gaslighting or making you question your reality. There's me saying, this is what I believe, and then somebody else saying, well, I believe something different. And that is fine. Sorry, it's fine if we have different opinions. They're not trying to make me question my reality. They're saying, I see it from a different perspective. And I can choose whether or not to accept that. If they come at me and they go, no, you're wrong, you're stupid. This is what it says. I don't know how you could see it any other way. That is invasive, that's aggressive, and that would be manipulative. I think in our society, or it seems like based on a lot of my interactions with friends, with patients, with family, etc, that we've become too sensitive to differing opinions. And sometimes we feel like somebody's trying to tell us that we're wrong when they're just stating their opinion. And the key difference is if I say the sky is blue and you say it's gray outside. All right, well, we may be defining blue and gray differently, or we may be looking out two different windows. I know here in the south, you can look out one window and you can see a big old thunderstorm coming in and look out another window and it's perfectly sunny. So we need to determine whether the person's perceptions are different or the person's facts are different. Maybe they have more facts or some facts that we don't know about. So, okay, well, maybe I'll go outside so I'm not just looking out one window and I'll look around at the entire sky, north, south, east and west to see if I see what they're seeing. And that is really important to do when somebody shares a differing opinion. Check it out. Check the facts for and against their belief or their statement and the facts for and against your belief and your statement. Because I, as I said earlier, the way news and media and even research is these days, a lot of times we get cherry picked information in order to try to motivate us or shall I say manipulate us into doing whatever the advertiser wants or the pharmaceutical company wants or the mayor wants. I don't know. So we do need to be sensitive to that. And senorita, I will get to that question in a few minutes. I want to make sure that people are finished with the manipulation topic and then we can always move on. Smorf is right. Someone who tries to get a rise out of you, when you eventually do get mad or reactive and even react with aggression, they'll smile and be silent and use it later against you. That is, you know, let's go back. What's the benefit to that person to inciting you to the point of anger? The benefit to them in this particular example is so they have ammunition to use against you. Why would they do that? And, and what's the, what's the benefit to them in the long run? Are they trying to get evidence for a child custody hearing or are they trying to get information? Or I, or are they trying to cut you down or make you feel less confident around them? Because they don't feel confident. So if they've got an anger issue, they may try to bring the anger out of you so they can say, see, you're no better than me. Two very different explanations for that behavior, which is why we can't ever really overgeneralize things when we're talking about humans. Is it possible for manipulators to truly change? Sure, we can change. Anybody can change, if we become aware of the behavior and we recognize that the behavior is causing us problems in our life that are important to us. Change causes crisis and crisis causes change. If somebody is engaging in a Behavior, let's say drinking alcohol and, or manipulation, but we'll use alcohol because that's more concrete. They're engaging in addictive behaviors and it starts causing them problems in one or more areas of their life. Until those problems are more painful than the thought or the experience of being without the addiction, they ain't going to change. And, and addiction, we call that hitting bottom. And everybody's bottom's a little bit different. Whatever is going to be painful enough to motivate them to change. Because again, change causes crisis. When we make a change, we have to adjust our behaviors, we have to adjust our actions, our interactions, our beliefs. So there is a lot that goes into it now, going back to manipulation. Until the manipulator feels that what they're doing is more harmful than helpful, they're not going to change. And when we're talking about somebody, and I'm going to use it, I'm going to use the word, when we're going to talk about some, somebody, for example, who may have some narcissistic tendencies, there's a lot of manipulation that may go into that. However, if they've got narcissistic personality disorder, they may not recognize their behavior as manipulative. So they need to have their awareness enhanced. These behaviors are causing your problems. And once they're aware of those behaviors, they may kind of make a half assed effort to change. But until it hurts them, until their manipulation causes them problems that are hurtful to them, they're probably not going to maintain that change. And Cynthia's right, it raises a good point. When we're being manipulated, we don't have to react the way they want us to. We can cut those strings and be authentic and live authentically. Yes, there's going to be consequences, but there's consequences. If we allow ourselves to be manipulated, there's consequences. If we set boundaries, we have to choose which consequences we're willing to live with. Think about the consequences. When you're manipulated into doing something you don't want to do, how does it impact you physically? Your, your pain, your, your gut? How does it impact your relationships with other people? How does it impact your self esteem? How does it impact you emotionally? If you're doing something that you know is wrong or you don't want to do, how is that impacting you? So when we're allowing ourselves to be manipulated, then it starts having negative impacts. Another way you can identify if you're being manipulated is to be aware of what's important in your rich and meaningful life and when you get ready to do something, check it against that and say, is this helping me move toward my rich and meaningful life, or is this actually pulling me away in some way by someone or something? How can you support someone healing from manipulation they experienced in past relationships if it causes them moments of fear or paranoia in the current relationships? Great question, and it's true for whether it's happening in yourself or happening in someone you're in a relationship with. Recognize it. Recognize their fear. I see that you're getting anxious. It seems like you're feeling afraid or you're getting angry right now because it seems like you feel threatened or vulnerable. So acknowledge how they're feeling and then encourage them to identify or if it's you, encourage yourself or them to get grounded, identify how they're safe right now. You can do that through square breathing. You can do that through identifying five things that you see, four things that you hear, three things that you smell, two things that you can feel. There are a lot of different grounding exercises, but what's important is to help the person get into the present moment and out of their emotional mind into their wise mind. Okay, that will take some time. Don't expect somebody who has been triggered to suddenly be able to, oh, my gosh, okay, you're right. And downregulate, and everything is happy. That that's not how it's going to work. Those stress chemicals that just flooded their brain, they've got to, you know, be mopped up a little bit before they. The person can think clearly. So give some time for that disregulation. Allow them to do what they need to do to feel safe again. When they're not triggered, you can ask them, when, when you get triggered, what is it that I can do that will help you feel safe? All right, so acknowledge the feeling. And, and they may not be overly emotive. They may not say, I'm scared. They may start acting anxious or angry or restless, irritable. Okay? Acknowledge it. Help them down, regulate. And then you can process what, what they're thinking, what they're feeling based on the facts in this context at this time. And I'll go back to that difference of opinion. If you are talking to that person and you share a. An opinion that differs from theirs, which is going to happen, and they start tensing up, they start getting defensive, that's a stress reaction. They feel vulnerable in some way. Okay, Help them get into their wise mind and then evaluate what their perception was. Did they perceive that you were telling them they were wrong? Which is probably what was happening because that's what happened in their gaslighting relationship. Or did they perceive that you were just sharing your opinion so they'd be aware of it? You know, could be something simple as, I don't want to go to that movie because it's not something that interests me. And they may interpret that as being critical. Be saying that a movie they want to see is stupid or uninteresting, which means they're uninteresting. See, people's thoughts can really spiral, especially when they're feeling vulnerable. So identify the feeling. Downregulate, Help them get to a place where they feel safe and they're in their wise mind, and then evaluate the facts for and against their beliefs that triggered them to feel vulnerable. And that's generally going to be, you were trying to control me, or you were trying to reject me, or you were trying to tell me that. That I was wrong and I believed I was right. Great question. Helping people set limits with addictive others can be really challenging because part of addiction is often being a master manipulator. A person with an addiction finds this tool, if you will, that helps numb the pain when nothing else will. So that in essence, almost becomes their. Their sanctuary, their best friend, whatever you want to call it. And they want to protect that at all costs because that is what's helping them survive right now until they can find something better. Hopefully healthier coping skills. But that's helping them to survive. So why in the heck would they want to give it up? They may know it's damaging. They may know intellectually that it is causing problems. However, it's also helping them survive. So they're protecting it and trying to. Trying to manipulate others around them to recognize what they are, trying to manipulate those around them to not see the addiction or to minimize. Justify the addiction, Minimize denying, justifying and blaming. Those are the four key manipulation tools in addiction. Recognizing that is really important. Helping the loved one of someone with an addiction learn to set boundaries means recognizing what's important in their rich and meaningful life and what they hope for for their loved one. And. And then figuring out what is the healthy response to this. If their child comes to the door and says, I don't have anywhere to sleep and tonight because I spent all my money gambling, and the caregiver says, okay, well come on in, you can sleep here. That rewards that behavior. And it doesn't help junior start taking responsibility and making good choices. If they say, well, that sounds unfortunate. Here's the number of a couple of homeless shelters that you can see about crashing at tonight, that is helping them find a place to stay without enabling that behavior, without rewarding that behavior. And the person with the addiction, Junior, is probably going to get angry and try to bully caregiver into letting them in. You never loved me. This is all your fault. Blah, blah, blah. Anything they can do in order to try to manipulate the caregiver into letting them have their own way. Help the person who has difficulty setting those boundaries evaluate past experiences. And there's going to be a lot of them, so you have plenty to choose from. Past experiences where they have allowed their boundaries to be invaded, they've allowed themselves to be manipulated. And what was the short and long term consequence for both them and Junior? Hello, Manuela. Vlad. I'm glad the content is helpful for you. And one of the things we need to evaluate is when we're talking to people because we've all been manipulated. That's just. If you went to high school, you were manipulated. That's just part of the. Part of life and it's part of our social structure. And there are some people who are going to be more manipulative and more malicious than others. And that's okay. Well, it's not okay, but it is what it is. When somebody asks us to do something or tells us something, tells us their opinion or their feelings or whatever, it's important for us to stop and recognize if we start feeling resentful or anxious or angry. We do need to check the facts in context. Were they trying to be manipulative or were they just sharing their opinion? Were they trying to be manipulative or were they just asking for help or asking for something else? And I can't answer what that's going to be. But we do need to recognize that we all have stuff that gets triggered and can be brought up in the present and be mindful of what we're doing. So we are acting in the present moment to what's going on in the present moment instead of reacting to the present based on the past. And we have turned on commercials, the letting YouTube do their commercials automatically because I'm not good about inserting the commercials. And we don't get paid anything for this. We literally make zero money off of doing these lives. So. So we got to pay the bills somehow. All right, there were a few other questions that came up that weren't exactly related to manipulation. So let me go back up and review some of those. In order to get over a breakup, when you have, when you were the One in the wrong. You've got a couple of things going on there. You've got guilt and grief. So you got your two GS going on. Remember, guilt is anger at yourself for something that you did that you shouldn't have done or something you didn't do that you should have done. Grief involves anger, denial. Well, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. So grief also involves anger. So that anger at yourself for causing the breakup is. Sounds like where you're stuck right now because you have yet to process what happened in a way that you can learn from it and forgive yourself so you can move on. You still feel regret, you still feel guilt over, over what happened. And it'll be important to examine. You know, you said you were in the wrong, so whatever happened, it happened. You made a mistake. The question is, you can't rewrite the past. And it sounds like that person is not willing to go further in the relationship. So, okay, you'll have to grieve that. But, but how can you prevent that same mistake from happening again? What led up to it, and how can you prevent that in the future so you don't make that same mistake in your next relationship? What strategies can you employ? Employ proactively. Grieving that lost relationship is going to take time. And everybody goes through grief at their own rate. Everybody. And moves to acceptance in different ways. And the way I conceptualize acceptance is finishing the chapter. If your life is a book, that relationship was a chapter in the book, that chapter's done, and you've got to close out the chapter in order to move on to the next chapter in your life. Your new normal. If, if you want to put it that way. And after somebody dies, for example, they have to. The survivors have to close that chapter, however they find meaningful so they can move on to the next chapter. You don't want to stay stuck in that grieving process for that person. And, and like I said, how that happens for different people differs widely. And talking with significant others or a counselor about your grief can be extremely helpful. I'm preparing for a university entrance exam. I can't concentrate. I've been through family problems, and when I try to study, all these bad thoughts come rushing forward. I would encourage you first to check your sleep. When we are sleep deprived, we tend to have more intrusive thoughts, more negative thoughts, more difficulty controlling our thinking process, more difficulty with attention and concentration. So that's the first thing. If you're not sleeping well, that's one intervention that could be very useful for you when it comes to other things that you can do. Some people find it helpful to write down the thoughts when they occur and then put them in a box or an envelope that you set aside that you can. If you need to think about them later, you can think about them later. If it's something you're worried about, if it's a trauma, something that you're grieving, something that you've lost, it could be important to work with a therapist. EMDR is very helpful, but there are other techniques for processing trauma in order to help you integrate what happened and feel safe in your current situation. So sleep trauma processing and writing down those thoughts, putting them in a place that you can focus on them maybe at five o' clock each day, setting a time that you can focus on those and then for those thoughts, examine the facts for and against each one of those beliefs to determine whether it's an accurate belief or not. If it's accurate, what's your strategy? How are you going to address it? If it's not accurate, then what are you going to do to restructure that thought so it's not as overwhelming, so it's not as concerning. Well, I'm glad you were able to make it. Ultraviolet. It's always good to have people. What advice do I have for a person raising their nephew that shows the same behavior and personality traits other the addictive biological mom. Coming from a family of people with addictions, you're aware of it. That is 60% of the battle. You're aware of the behavioral traits. And I'm actually doing a class on how addictions can cause adverse childhood experiences and behavioral issues on Wednesday. But the, the short version of that is recognizing that the child may not have other tools. And that's important. If they do something that you don't like, helping them recognize why you didn't like that behavior and what another behavior is helping the child feel safe in their current environment. If they lie a lot, feel, for example, then we want to look at what is the benefit to them, what is motivating them to lie. And it could be that they're afraid that you won't like them if you find out the truth. They may be afraid of rejection or they may have learned through the environment that they were in that lying is one way to get what you want with little effort. So there are different ways to address it. If it's because they're afraid of rejection, you're going to address it differently than if it's a they're doing it just because they want to. And It's a willful behavior helping them understand how that behavior is unhelpful in the long run and is important. You know, I see in the short run you lied to me, you got away with this and you know, that felt rewarding. But in the long run, how does that impact them? And children have a hard time because of cognitively how they're developed so far, really conceptualizing that long run. And even in addiction recovery, recovery we talk about making changes and doing things. And yes, the high somebody gets or the pleasurable feeling somebody gets from riding a roller coaster or doing something they really enjoy pales in comparison to the high they're going to get from cocaine. However, the long term impact of proactive and pro social positive activities is beneficial. The long term impact of cocaine use is going to be detrimental to their, to their health and their well being. Examine where the child learned these behaviors, the function of these behaviors for the child provide alternatives for, for them. I don't know how old the child is, but it is likely that they have insecure attachment and they also have very little in the way of skills for emotional awareness. Their EQ is, is very, very low because they've never learned to identify their emotions and they probably because of the trauma of being in an addicted family where there was active addiction, they probably struggle with emotional dysregulation which emotions in the, in and of themselves for kids feel overwhelming. But when they dysregulate that's just that like that tsunami of emotion that is super exhausting and overpowering. Helping the child learn how to identify their feelings, understand the function of their feelings, downregulate and then evaluate their beliefs that led to those feelings is going to be really important. Any tips for supporting a person as they seek therapy for depression and self injurious behaviors? Compassion is going to be a huge thing and it sounds like you've already got that. Helping that person recognize that you're there for them, being consistently there, being empathetic with them, trying to understand where they're coming from and recognize that whatever is motivating that deep depression is you're probably never going to be able to actually replicate that sense of hopelessness is probably really difficult. And. But being empathetic with where they're at. I had a supervisor in a teacher in college who gave the example that empathy is like if you run into somebody who's stuck in a deep dark well and it's cold outside, it's, it's cold down there, it's dark, they're stuck, it's miserable and it's really hard when you're standing up, you know, outside of the well to really understand what they're going through. And so empathy is strapping on some rappelling gear and going down there to get a little bit of the experience of what they're going through to try to understand what they're going through. Now you can still climb back up. They don't have that luxury. So. So you still have more power and more hope than they may have at that moment. But try repelling down in if you will work with their therapist to identify strategies that they're working on in counseling. You know, obviously with releases of information and all that stuff so you can help replicate those at home. If you, if they engage in a lot of cognitive distortions that are keeping them feeling powerless and hopeless, then you may be able to help them restructure their thoughts when they are on, when they're not in session, when they're, you know, the other six and a half days of the week. So that's another strategy. Making a safety plan when with them and being open about what that safety plan looks like. If they are engaging in self injurious behavior is important and identifying hopefully their therapist will work with them to help them identify alternatives. It is important to remember that self injurious behaviors are often not attempts at suicide. The person's not suicidal, they're actually self injuring because they don't want to die. And that makes that's a pain that they can control as opposed to the pain that's inside that they can't control at all. It also pain causes the release of endorphins and other pleasure chemicals that may take the edge off that deep depression. There are other ways to get endorphins to release. I think it's challenging for a lot of people to wrap their heads around the fact that this person very likely does not want to die. They want to live. But the pain is just so great. They've got it, they've got to get a break from it. They've got to get be able to take a breath. Some people drink alcohol, some people, you know, use other drugs. Some people self injure. It just really depends on the person. What they found works for them. And yes, self injury can, can very easily be taken too far. So it's not something to be taken lightly. However, understanding what it is and not making the person feel pathologized for it is also really important. I had one client that I worked with who would use a red ink pen to draw on herself. And when you use an ink pen, you know, especially if you use it on, on thin skin like the, in the inside of your arm, there's a certain amount of pain. Now, you're not causing any injury, you're not actually breaking skin, but there is a certain amount of pain or tension associated with it. And just the act of doing it for her was enough of a release that she didn't need to engage in more detrimental behaviors. I had another client who would, when they'd start feeling the urge to self injure, they would put on their headphones and they would listen to a particular band really loudly. And yes, it's not good for their eardrums. I get it, totally get it. However, neither are concerts and we still go to them occasionally. Harm reduction is what we were really looking for in early treatment. Holding ice cubes or plunging both hands into an ice bath can also be alternatives. Dialectical behavior therapy was actually initially developed for people with borderline personality disorder who engaged in self injury. And one of the first things, one of the first tools or objectives of treatment is to find alternative behavior. So we know that the person is safe, we know that they're not going to self injure because they have other tools to use. It's likely going to be a long process because once somebody reaches a place of major depressive disorder, their neurochemicals are all out of whack. Their sleep schedule and their circadian rhythms are likely all out of whack. Their nervous system, their autonomic nervous system and their HPA axis are probably, guess what, all out of whack. So their body is going to have to heal in addition to their perceptions, in addition to their thinking styles and in addition to their just daily behaviors. All right, let's see. Honestly, I don't know of a good resource on domestic violence. Manuela, I hear what you're saying about certain theoretical approaches tend to not fit for a lot of people's personal preferences and belief systems. Let me think about that and do some research on what might be useful. In the meantime, you can go to like Amazon.com and find the books that are best rated on that particular topic. Naval expert, I need to know a little bit more about what you want to know about mood disorders. That's hundreds of hours of, of stuff that I could go on. So I would encourage you to review the videos I have on the specific mood disorder because there's going to be a lot of differences depending on whether you're talking about depression or anxiety or Anger or bipolar. There are going to be a lot of differences in what causes it as well as the effects and the interventions. When giving support around this subject, it triggers fears and trauma related to a sibling suicide. And I am sorry that you had to go, go through that and I can. You know, that's another layer that we need to examine. And I would encourage you to consider examining with the person with whom you're in a relationship and their therapist. Because when you start feeling triggered when that trauma comes back up, it's possible that your non verbals start reflecting that, start reflecting fear, start reflecting the message that I don't want to go through this again. That they may start reflecting I'm shutting down. Or on the other side, they may start reflecting this idea that you are going to start trying to take over that person's life and rescue them so they don't hurt themselves. I don't know what your non verbals are communicating, but when we are triggered, when we're feeling like we're reliving that situation, we go back to the behaviors that we learned back then worked. And the person who is you're currently in a relationship with, they may be interpreting your reactions as rejection of them. You're rejecting that memory. You, you're rejecting that experience that you had. You're not rejecting them, but they may perceive it that way, which may create a, a greater divide. So it's going to be important to have an open discussion about what's going on with both of you when this sort of behavior happens and how both of you can feel safe in the moment to just be as well as safe to talk to one another and support one another. Thank you for your support, Roller girl. That's very helpful. If your daughter, Manuela, if your daughter does not want to know about her estranged father, then. It's probably helpful to respect those boundaries. But that would be, I mean, there's a lot of dynamics that go into should you tell them, should you not? So that would be something that I would really talk over with a family therapist about. What are the benefits of telling her for her and what are the drawbacks to telling her for her? And you may I. I don't know what your motivations are, but for example, if you were motivated to tell her about what happened so she understood why you left or why he left or whatever, I, I can see why that might be tempting. The question is, is it going to help her, your daughter, at all, process and understand what's going on. Now if she's feeling rejected because dad left. That may be something that helps her understand. But again, without knowing more about her and your situation and the benefits and drawbacks to telling her, I can't really make a ethical or effective recommendation. Well, congratulations, Dolly. That's a huge step to get the ball rolling in recovery. It's important to make sure that your therapists identify and address, as you feel comfortable, any traumas that you've had. And I talk a lot about the connection between complex post traumatic stress and BPD symptoms in a lot of my videos. So making sure, if you're willing, if you believe you've got trauma and you're willing to work on it, making sure to address those issues can be helpful. Also recognizing that if you've got BPT symptoms, then it likely means that your autonomic nervous system, your stress response is out of whack and your nervous system, your body is going to need to heal. You're going to need to do whatever you can to reduce unnecessary stress. For example, making sure you're eating good nutrition, getting good sleep, keeping a relatively stable schedule can help. Making time to rest and relax can also be re really important. And engaging in activities that help strengthen your vagus nerve. Your vagus nerve is your relaxation response or your downregulation. And for a lot of people with bpd, that vagus nerve doesn't kick in, it just says fine, we'll just let the stress run rampant. And being able to activate that downregulation response is really helpful in healing your HPA axis and that feeling of just those emotional tsunamis. DBT skills I would focus on first distress tolerance, downregulation and like I said, healing that vagus nerve. Those are going to be really important. Once when you are dysregulated, you're acting out of your emotional mind, you're acting out of your fight or flight. We can't think clearly when we're in fight or flight. So distress tolerance skills helps you get to a place mentally where you feel safe and you can get out of fight orf flight and get into what Linan calls your wise mind and better evaluate the situation based on the facts and context and make an informed decision about your behaviors. Be careful. Yoga can be really helpful at strengthening that vagus nerve, but it can also be extremely triggering if you have a history of trauma. So because you're focusing on internal sensations. So it is very important if you have a history of trauma to approach yoga initially with caution, eventually you can get there. But there are a lot of studies that have highlighted how Just regular old yoga that's not trauma informed can actually be triggering for some people. That is a very interesting question, Senorita Aurora. Is it useful to have hope or can it become delusional? And I mean, I like to believe it's always possible to have hope, but it goes back to, and this will be the last question I answer today. It goes back to that concept of your rich and meaningful life. There are things that I hope for in my life that may never come to pass. I can still have hope for them, but I'm not going to put a lot of energy into it. When my mother was sick, did I have hope that the chemo would work? Certainly I did. But then at a certain point, you know, when she was in hospice care, I finally had to let go of that hope for the resolution that I wanted. And I switched my hope to something that was more accurate for the situation and that was that her suffering would stop. Hope doesn't have to go away, but sometimes we have to modify what that hope is for. We have to modify our end goal. I'm sorry to hear that, Ultraviolet. That is unfortunately a not uncommon side effect. I am glad that you are still in your recovery process. Well, Joe, I am glad that you found the videos helpful. I love group therapy. I love talking group therapy. So if you have any questions after you facilitate your first group or whatever, you can always reach out to me@support doc snipes.com and I'm happy to, you know, brainstorm what went well, what felt like it didn't go well, what could you do differently next time? Or even ideas for future groups? Because I am. Yeah, I love group therapy. Alrighty, everybody. Have an amazing rest of your day and I'll see you next week.