SELF-ARCHEOLOGY

QUESTION How does our mind “create” problems like anxiety, depression, bulimia, anorexia? ANSWER In order to manage unpleasant feelings or threatening environments our body and mind develops certain beliefs, reactions, and behaviors. Some of them, like you mentioned, are chronic or acute anxiety, depression, eating disorders, self-mutilation, abusive behavior, and many others. The origins of it can be traced back to a person’s early development and formative years, but some of it can develop or intensify in later life. Human beings are mainly shaped by their environment. We learn to adapt to it and develop certain traits, characteristics, and behaviors to survive better in whatever environment we are in. Some of those strategies and reactions are unhealthy and counterproductive, if you look at it from a completely objective, detached, or myopic perspective. Of course cutting your own body with a razor blade until you bleed, or vomiting out your food, or feeling and acting help...

QUESTION The longer I know someone, the more anxious I feel around them. Why is that? ANSWER It is hard to say for sure without knowing a person’s history and the particular situation they are in. Based on my personal and professional experience, someone who feels increasingly anxious around others is afraid of the relationship becoming more close and more intimate. Not necessarily in a romantic or sexual way (although it can definitely be that, too), but just knowing each other better, being more vulnerable, and so on. Now why is that? Generally, I see two cases: one , the person is afraid of building an intimate, caring, loving bond with someone, and two , they are scared of others exploiting and deliberately hurting them. Sometimes it is a combination of both. In the first scenario , the person is not used to healthy intimacy and has trust issues. They may not know how to have mutual respect, reciprocity, and power equality—or even what it looks like. They also may not kno...

Question What do I do when my loved one feels depressed and when I try to figure out what’s going on they don’t respond to my messages and don’t pick up the phone? Answer It is difficult to tell without knowing more about the situation. Is this how they usually act? Is it related to you or your relationship? How “depressed” are they? Are they simply sad or overwhelmed, or is it more serious, like suicidal, self-sabotaging, or self-harmful thoughts and actions? If no one’s well-being is in any immediate danger, I think the best way thing to do is simply talk to them when they feel a little better. Approach them with curiosity and empathy. Ask questions, express genuine compassion, be attentive and understanding. Avoid putting your own discontent above their struggles. It’s not about you right now.  Understand that they are not doing it to hurt or upset you. They are simply emotionally overwhelmed, and their way of coping with it is to isolate themselves from the world, inc...

Disrespectful Treatment of Children People often forget or lack the empathy to realize that children are human beings too, just smaller. As a result, children are treated disrespectfully, humiliated, controlled, manipulated, and traumatized in a variety of other ways. In this article, I won’t talk about harsher forms of abuse that occur but rather will specifically address two main forms of how children are disrespected in regular interactions on a basic human level. If you are a relatively healthy person, you treat your fellow human beings with respect. You meet someone, you say hello, you smile back, and so on. Now, since children are smaller than us and have much less life experience, it is easy to forget that they are human beings deserving decent treatment, too—one might argue even more than adults do. And yet, more often than not, children are engaged with as if they are fundamentally inferior. Such treatment can be separated into two categories: Scorn . Engaging with a...

Here we are again. The holiday season is upon us. People are running around trying to organize things for the upcoming holidays, and trying to find gifts for their friends, loved ones, and those they don’t care about or even hate. Why? Many reasons, and we’ll talk about some of them. There are a few problems with all of this and here I will discuss two of them. Moreover, I offer a perspective on how you can make things better for yourself and those around you. The first problem is that the whole tradition thing can be messy and complicated. Yes, the holiday tradition can be beautiful: devoting time and attention to those who are dear to you, thinking about them and giving them something that will hopefully bring them some joy. But—the important thing is to ask yourself if it’s something you WANT to do or if it’s something that you feel you HAVE to do? Plenty of people think they “have to”—that’s the tradition, and everyone is doing it. Yet, many people hate the holidays and exp...

Those of us who have encountered people with narcissistic, predatory, or even sociopathic tendencies (for the sake of simplicity referred to as manipulator ) have experienced a phenomenon where the manipulator tries to vilify you by using triangulation , gossiping, power play, mischaracterization, and other tactics. It usually goes like this....  The Mechanism Behind It The manipulator is driven by shame, insecurity, and fear. As soon as they start feeling inferior, or as soon as you notice the manipulator's toxicity—or as soon as they notice you noticing their toxicity—they begin feeling deep insecurity. In their attempt to manage it, they may try to cover their tracks and save their image by giving you made up explanations and excuses, instead of recognizing their unhealthiness and working on themselves to overcome it. If you are able to see though their smoke and mirrors tactics, ideally you will either set a firm boundary and distance yourself from them or they wi...

Recently, I posted a picture on the Self-Archeology Facebook page that says the following: "Narcissists literally have two faces—their real face and their stage face. And neither is anything like the other. Which one you see will depend on how long you’ve known them. Narcissists can be very charming and know how to gain favor. Anyone who doesn’t know a narcissist well will tell you the narcissist is one of the greatest people they’ve ever met! They believe this is one of the most intelligent, kindest, most interesting, funny, agreeable, most attractive, talented or accomplished people ever. They may wish they themselves had it so "together" or were so popular. However, anyone who knows that same narcissist better (family members, longtime coworkers, etc.) will tell you the narcissist is one of the most horribly frustrating and toxic people they know, and the mere mention of their name makes them feel uneasy, angry, frustrated or otherwise unhappy. Being the only one wh...