If you are a long-term reader of mysteries, you’ve probably heard of Sisters In Crime, but have you ever heard of a special chapter of SinC, called The Guppies?
So who are the Guppies? …Organizations for crime writers abound. Sisters in Crime (SinC) is one of the most well-known, with chapters across the United States. I belong to the Northern California Chapter. In spite of wide-spread chapters, writers can still face obstacles to active participation. Many chapters draw from a vast membership area. The Northern California chapter of SinC spans 150 miles north to south. I’m located near the southern tip of the area with a dangerous mountain road separating me from most of the monthly events.
Other areas of the country are too sparsely populated to support a chapter at all. And for some, even if a chapter is nearby, health issues prevent them from attending.
Because of such obstacles, the on-line Sisters in Crime Guppy chapter proves invaluable. Several unpublished members of SinC started The Guppies in 1995 as a place to support one another with advice and encouragement. The Great Unpublished (Guppies) became a nationally recognized chapter within a few years and quickly grew into SinC’s largest chapter.
Over the years, many Guppies have gone on to be published authors. Among our ranks we count five-time Agatha winner Hank Phillippi Ryan! The Guppy experience is so rewarding that members don’t leave just because they become published, or even famous.
So Who Are The Guppies Specifically and Why Become a Guppy?
The Guppies currently have over 750 paid members from across the country! I asked some of these members, “What is your favorite thing about the Guppies or being a Guppy?”
The Guppies’ table at CCWC.
The Guppies are “a supportive, welcoming group, regardless of a writer’s level of expertise and experience. … When I can get to a conference or writers’ gathering, I look for those little Guppy pins—I know I’ve found a friend,” said Kathleen Rockwood.
Indeed, I was just at the California Crime Writers Conference. At breakfast and lunch, I looked for the Guppies table where I knew I’d feel at home.
In addition to the warmth of the Guppy pond, Kathleen also pointed out that Guppies have the opportunity to submit short stories for the Fishy Anthologies. In conjunction with Wildside Press, the Guppies publish an anthology every other year.
Lida Bushloper and I at our CCWC signing table.
Many of the Guppies mentioned in this article have stories in the newly released FISHY BUSINESS. At CCWC, Lida Bushloper and I, both Guppies, were given a signing table.
Guppy Susan Bickford says, “I would never have been published without the Guppies. It’s hard to count the ways, let alone settle on just one: fabulous courses, including Necessary Parts; critique groups; lots of advice on a whole range of topics, including just good moral support.”
I was in the Guppy on-line critique group with Susan. She, Andrew MacRae, Connie Berry, and I all went on to have our critique-group novels published. It was a strong collection of writers and the best critique group experience I’ve ever had. I also second Susan’s recommendation of Ramona DeFelice Long’s class, Necessary Parts, which helps writers whip their synopses and query letters into shape.
In addition to classes and critique groups, our outgoing president, Debra H. Goldstein, benefited from the Agent Quest program and the Emerald Short Story subgroup. These were “instrumental in me landing an agent, selling/publishing five books, and having forty short stories published—including ‘The Night They Burned Ms. Dixie’s Place,’ which not only was my first submission and acceptance by Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, but went on to be a 2018 Agatha and Anthony nominee.”
Lida Bushloper summed it all up, “I’m lucky to be a member.”
To become a Guppy, one has only to join the national Sisters in Crime. Then just sign up and pay your dues. I recommend the group to all writers of crime fiction.
And check out Fishy Business for an introduction to some great authors.
Plus, Kass Lamb has a new release coming up, now available for preorder!
The Sound and The Furry, A Marcia Banks and Buddy Mystery, #7
A tropical paradise turns deadly.
Service dog trainer Marcia Banks had thought it was the perfect arrangement—stay on her client’s private Gulf-coast island and get the human phase of the training done more quickly, while enjoying a much-needed break from the chaos of house renovations back home.
This certainly wasn’t the tranquil getaway she’d envisioned, however. Two resident ghosts, a sour-puss housekeeper and bearing witness to her client’s shaky marriage are bad enough. But within days, she’s discovered even deeper and darker layers of dysfunction.
Via emails and static-filled phone calls, fiancé Will Haines convinces her to get herself and her dog Buddy out of there, but before Marcia can accomplish this, a late-season hurricane abruptly changes course and strands them on the island… with a murderer.
Posted by Vinnie Hansen. Vinnie fled the howling winds of South Dakota and headed for the California coast the day after high school graduation. Still sane(ish) after 27 years of teaching English, Vinnie is retired. In addition to writing, she plays keyboards with ukulele bands in Santa Cruz, California, where she lives with her husband and the requisite cat.
She’s the author of the Carol Sabala Mystery series, and LOSTART STREET, a cross-genre novel of mystery, murder, and moonbeams, plus her short fiction has appeared in a variety of publications and anthologies.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
The introduction of my new Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series led to the other authors at misterio press asking me about Tarot readings… how do they work, what do some of the cards mean?
Tarot cards, with their mysterious archetypal images, frequently turn up in books and movies. Let’s face it, with cards like Death and the Devil, throwing a Tarot card down on a table can be a great way to build suspense.
Tarot cards with the Death card (image from Pixabay)
But those two cards in particular tend to freak people out. I’ve heard of some Tarot readers who actually remove them from the deck, which seems a bit like cheating to me.
Because here’s the good news – scary-looking Tarot cards usually don’t mean the obvious. Tarot, like a good mystery novel, is chock full of subtext.
The Death and Devil Cards
Sometimes, the Death card can mean a physical death. But 99.999% of the time, it refers to a symbolic death, an ending. Perhaps the end of a job or a relationship or of a way of behaving in the world.
Death is a natural cycle, and inevitable, just like many changes in our lives. And while change can be terrifying, the Death card tells us that it can be easier to go with the flow. Change is a’coming, whether you like it or not, so… may as well accept it.
As to the Devil, this card usually refers to an unwillingness to see the truth. Our own willful blindness – towards the results of our own actions, towards a situation we may be in – locks us in, chains us. We are our own devils, and most of us lie to ourselves… quite a bit. Sometimes the lies we tell ourselves are fairly innocent.
But the Devil card warns us that our self-deceptions are going to cause us trouble if we don’t wake up.
Tarot Readings
Image by soulful stock on Unsplash
A Tarot reading takes you out of your “normal” world, and
because of this, it can enable us to see the patterns in our lives more easily.
As my hero, Hyperion Night says, in the hands of a good, honest Tarot reader,
the cards can be a powerful tool for self development.
Once, when I was feeling low, I walked into a tea and Tarot room (the inspiration for my new series). The reader told me that I was going on a trip in May, and I’d meet a man.
Maybe it was because I was looking for that trip, that relationship, but it happened. The power of positive expectations is real. Or maybe the reader was really that good. But it gave me the boost of optimism I needed to move forward and through a scary situation.
But not every person with a deck of cards is good or honest. A common scam is for Tarot readers to warn their victims that a curse has been placed on them, and the reader can remove it… for more money. Basically, any time a Tarot reader asks you for more money beyond what was initially agreed on for the session, alarm bells should go off.
For a fun introduction to Tarot, and a great mystery, check out Book 1 in my new series…
Abigail Beanblossom’s dream of owning a tea room in her
California beach town is about to come true. She’s got the lease, the start-up
funds, and the recipes. But Abigail’s out of a tearoom and into hot water when her
realtor turns out to be a conman… and then turns up dead.
However, not even death puts an end to the conman’s mischief. He rented the same space to a tarot reader, Hyperion Night. Convinced his tarot room is in the cards, Night’s not letting go of the building without a fight.
But the two must work together, steeping themselves in the
murky waters of the sham realtor’s double dealings, in order to unearth the
truth – before murder boils over again.
Steeped in Murder
is the first book in the Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series. Buy the book to
start this hilarious caper today.
Posted by Kirsten Weiss. Kirsten’s never met a dessert she didn’t like, and her guilty pleasures are watching Ghost Whisperer re-runs and drinking red wine. The latter gives her heartburn, but she drinks it anyway. She writes genre-blending cozy mystery, supernatural and steampunk suspense, mixing her experiences and imagination to create vivid worlds of fun and enchantment.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
If you’ve written anything in the last 35 years, you may have gotten conflicting advice about the necessity of using certain commas. The Oxford comma has been the subject of great debate during this time (I kid you not!) with people standing firmly in one of two camps.
What The Heck is An Oxford Comma and Who Cares?
The Oxford comma, sometimes called the serial comma, is the punctuation that occurs just before a coordinating conjunction in a series of three or more items.
Huh?
For example, in the below sentence, the Oxford comma is placed beforeand:
Ross pulled himself heavily to his feet, picked up his glass, and drained the last bit of iced tea.
OH! Those commas!
You probably either always use them or never do. See, you might have your own opinion about the Oxford comma but didn’t know it! 🙂
So, why is this one little punctuation mark so hotly debated? Well, many would argue it’s more stylistic than necessary—in most cases. Every editor, teacher, and writer (published or not) have an opinion on this little devil of a punctuation mark.
There are two schools of thought on the Oxford comma (okay, three…):
They should always be used to avoid any confusion for the reader.
They are unnecessary in most cases, so don’t worry about using them—unless the sentence could be totally misread without one.
If you write properly, you don’t need them.
The reason for such differing opinions about this little comma is that humans use language. And, since humans are always changing (we hope evolving), so does our language. Grammar rules and stylistic no-no’s go in and out of favor. When I was in middle school, I was taught to always use the Oxford comma. By the time I got to my freshman year of college, they were considered outdated and usually unnecessary. Language and its governing rules are living things, always changing.
Are you asking yourself why I’m discussing the pros and cons of the Oxford comma??
Because, in the first scene of my new book in the Digital Detective Mystery series, Libel to Kill two wanna-be authors are duking it out over the Oxford comma.
See for yourself how the book opens:
“No, no, no,” Bernadette “Bernie” Comer said sharply. “I’ve told you, the Oxford comma is vital for clarity.”
Phyllis Buckley straightened in her chair. “Well, I have a brand-spankin’ new grammar book that says it’s up to the writer’s whether to use ‘em.”
“I was taught in school to always use them, and I stick by that.” Bernie sternly nodded her head once asif determining the matter was settled.
The weekly meeting of the Writing Alliance Circle, or WAC, was in full swing, as was evident from the argument that periodically resurfaced. During each meeting, writers have the chance to get feedback on their work-in-progress. It was sheer bad luck Phyllis had landed with Bernie this week.
“You were in school back when Moses brought the stone tablets down from the mountain. I hardly think we can go off that antiquated advice,” Phyllis’ voice grew loud.
I knew where this was leading, and it was nowhere good. I looked at the ceiling, gathering my patience. I stood and headed over to them. I needed to intervene before they came to blows.
Bernie huffed and crossed her arms over her ample chest. “Phyllis Buckley, you are older than me. How dare you bring my age into this. I’ll have you know my cardiologist recently told me I’d live another twenty years, regardless of my—” Libel to Kill is now available! Amazon
Why Did I Start The First Scene This Way?
The theme for Libel to Kill is overcoming societal conventions that hold us back from being who we truly are. When I was plotting the book, the idea of the Oxford comma debate came to mind, and I snagged it. I’ve been in these debates, both in person and online. They can get heated (I’m not making that up!) It was the perfect way to open the book—with a convention that has changed over the years. And one we are sometimes forced to use, (by teachers or editors) no matter our thoughts on the subject.
Below are just a few of the sentences using the Oxford comma from Libel to Kill:
This is what I’d hoped for when I’d started the group—an intimate band of wanna-be authors coming together to share our joys, frustrations, and feedback.
In the drainer beside the sink, Bernie had neatly stacked a couple of plates, a glass, silverware, and a teapot.
She [Ellie] slammed her fork down on the table, stood up, and dashed up the stairs.
Up close, I could see she [Marjory] had a rash on her neck, face, and hands.
Attempting to stay objective, I wrote the sins Bernie had assigned, along with any details about their motive, means, and opportunity, next to each name.
Bernie had an ample supply of toilet paper, hand towels, and wash clothes under the sink, along with her disposable hypodermic syringes.
Evan, Ned, and Reverend Holt could lose their businesses or vocation if their indiscretions came out.
She [Phyllis] perked up a little, dragging out lists of possible caterers, swatches for bridesmaid dresses, and a list of songs they’d like the band to play.
The first couple of pages listed chapters, the characters, and their indiscretions bulleted underneath.
Both [Bernie’s kids] had sandy-brown hair cut in easy-to-maintain styles, were tallish, and dressed in basic jeans and plain t-shirts.
Feeling dejected after my discussion with Bernie’s kids, I pushed aside my plate, put my elbow on the table, and anchored my chin on my fist.
Libel to Kill Synopsis
Jade Blackwell had no idea when she started the Writers Alliance Circle (affectionately known as WAC) it would lead to murder. Though everyone else in the village believes the old battleax, Bernie Comer, died of natural causes, Jade can’t help but see the inconsistencies. Isn’t is just possible someone killed Bernie to keep their secrets from being revealed in her libelous novel?
If that wasn’t enough, there’s also her disastrous attempts to write a mystery novel and her argumentative daughter home from college for the summer. False starts, misdirection, and a Bible-quoting parrot can’t hold Jade back for long, but would she have been better off letting sleeping dogs lie?
With her usual sidekicks too preoccupied with their own dramas, Jade is forced to seek justice on her own. Ignoring the snickers at her expense, Jade investigates Bernie’s death while trying to fly under the naysayers’ radars.
Find out how Jade Blackwell got her sleuthing start...for free! Just tap HERE to get your immediate download of Blogging is Murder.
When you sign up, you’ll also automatically be registered to win one of four grand prizes! Read Jade’s first adventure for freeHERE!
Posted by Gilian Baker. Gilian is a former English professor who has gone on to forge a life outside academia by adding cozy mystery author to her C.V. She’s the author of theDigital Detective Mystery Series.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. )
This is an “off” week for our blog, but in honor of Memorial Day yesterday, I’m rerunning one of my favorite Memorial Day posts.
(Note: the following are the opinions of this author and do not necessarily reflect those of the other misterio press authors.)
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a pacifist by nature. I abhor violence. But unfortunately in the real world there are some evil people, and even more people who are willing to do evil things in order to achieve their goals. So violence is part of the human condition and probably will be for the foreseeable future.
One of the many things I learned from being a psychotherapist is that evil survives and thrives on fear and passivity. So I do believe that it has to be stopped. And the only force evil understands is just that, force.
So how am I any different from those I accuse of using evil to achieve their own goals? I guess I’m not completely different. My only defense is that I believe in the use of violence only in defense of self and others.
In the real world, this country needs a strong military. It does act as a deterrent against a good bit of that evil. And the rest of the time, unfortunately, those men and women in uniform have to fight back the evil.
I was a teen and college student during the Vietnam War–probably the least popular war ever fought by this country. I protested against that war. But I was appalled by the treatment of the returning GIs at the hands of some of my fellow pacifists. These men and women who had served out country at great sacrifice (many of them drafted), were not always welcomed home as the heroes they were. They were sometimes spat on and called baby killers.
Humans have short memories and we don’t always learn from the past. But I think our society learned that lesson. By all means, hate war! But honor the troops who have sacrificed so much to protect our peace.
(public domain, Wikimedia Commons)
Any particular soldiers, sailors or Marines whom you’ve been remembering this week?
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
Today, we are pleased to introduce you all to another crime writer whose work we thought you might like. Please help us welcome Elena Hartwell to the blog!
Elena spent more than twenty years in the theater, before shifting her storytelling over to fiction. She writes the Eddie Shoes Mystery Series. Her next novel, Resurrection Lake, will be out in early 2020 with Crooked Lane Books under the name Elena Taylor.
Kass Lamb (on behalf of the misterio gang): Let’s start with a “tell us about yourself” question. What two or three things do you feel people need to know in order to understand who you are?
Elena with one of her horses, Radar. (Photo Credit: Mark Perlstein)
Elena Hartwell: What a great question. I guess the first thing I would say is you can’t ever really understand me! Ha ha ha, but that sort of defeats the purpose. I would say it would help to understand that my animals are one of the most important aspects of my life. I currently have two horses, two cats, and a dog.
Second, that I am an outgoing introvert. This means I enjoy people and don’t mind public speaking or events, but afterwards I need to be alone with a cappuccino to recharge. Lastly, what you do means more to me than what you say.
Kass: Why a crime writer? What is the appeal of mysteries for you?
And her other horse, Jasper. Isn’t he handsome?
Elena: This is something I think about a lot. It’s interesting because I’m not a violent person, so why am I drawn to writing about murder?
I think first and foremost, it’s about the puzzle. I love reading (and writing) the puzzle of “whodunit.” I like to incorporate human behavior into the various pieces of the picture. Because I am most drawn to character and character relationships, I’m intrigued by how we behave under the worst of circumstances. My “bad guys” aren’t all bad and my “good guys” aren’t all good.
I’m fascinated by the grey areas of human experience and how we’re all capable of incredibly bad behavior under the right conditions. What would push a person to commit such a heinous act against another human being? What would make someone else cover it up?
Kass:What type, i.e. subgenre, of mysteries do you write? Why does that subgenre appeal to you as a crime writer?
Elena: My Eddie Shoes Mystery Series is a humorous series about a private eye, set in Bellingham, Washington. I think Eddie and her mother Chava are the only mother/daughter crime-fighting duo in the genre. Eddie, the daughter, is the professional. In the books, she teams up with her mother, a card-counting poker player who was kicked out of Vegas, to solve homicides.
My new book is about a sheriff living in a tiny town in the
Cascade Mountains of Washington State. The new book is much more serious, but it
also centers around a strong female protagonist. I like that both my
protagonists are professionals.
In my Eddie books, Chava is a fun secondary character,
because she can work outside the law and the ethics of a private investigator,
but my protagonists have to weigh their professional ethics with catching the
criminal. So they sometimes have to decide if they are going to do things by
the book or take some risks to save the day. They also have training and
experience, which gives them tools to go up against criminals and solve crimes,
but it doesn’t mean they can’t make mistakes or put themselves in risky
situations.
I love the research aspect of how law enforcement and homicide investigations take place in the real world. I enjoy putting as much of that as I can into my own work. As a reader, I read a wide variety of subgenres, including thrillers and domestic suspense, but I tend to write the private eye/law enforcement protagonists.
Kass: What was your favorite book/author as a child? Why was it your favorite?
Elena: It’s incredibly hard to pick just one, but I would probably go with The Hobbit. I loved the world J.R.R Tolkien created. The magic, the animals, the non-human beings. I loved the adventure and the quest and how the smallest of the group made the largest contribution. In some ways it is the perfect book. It grapples with good and evil, war and peace, individualism versus the greater community and culminates with a fight to the death with a dragon.
Elena’s cats, Cocoa and Coal Train, supervise as she writes.
Kass: Haha, and who doesn’t like dragons? Tell us a little more about your stories. Where are you in your writing career?
Elena: I worked professionally as a playwright for several years, including professional and amateur productions of my plays around the US and abroad. Then I moved over to writing fiction.
I wrote a couple manuscripts before the first Eddie Shoes book was published in 2016, One Dead, Two to Go. That was followed by Two Heads are Deader Than One and Three Strikes, You’re Dead.
My latest novel, Resurrection Lake, is coming out with Crooked Lane in 2020, under the name Elena Taylor. I’m working on another manuscript with my agent now. I hope that standalone finds a home as well. After that, I have a few other projects in the works.
Kass: What do you find to be the most fun and/or the most difficult part of the writing process, and why?
Elena: I love the whole process, but that doesn’t mean any of it is easy! The first draft is simultaneously the most challenging and the most fun. Challenging, because I’m just hoping I will have a complete story that’s strong enough for a full-length novel. Fun, because I’m discovering the plot and the characters at the same time and they do things that surprise me.
Kass: What’s the oddest and/or most difficult thing you ever had to research?
Elena: As a playwright, I did a lot of work around Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and service men and women. That was difficult because I did a lot of research, including interviews, and the stories are heartbreaking. I include some of that in my novels, but not to the extent that I did in my plays.
My heart goes out to all the men and women who have served and who struggle. Society owes them an eternal debt of gratitude, regardless of individual politics, and should do more to help them.
Kass: I agree. One of my series is about a young woman who trains service dogs for veterans with PTSD. Now tell us, in your latest story, what was your favorite scene?
Elena: In Three Strikes, You’re Dead, I have a scene where Eddie is in a forest fire. That was so much fun to write, but I also did a ton of research, including interviews with the Issaquah Fire Department.
Best research ever! I got to ride in a fire truck. I have tremendous respect for firefighters and what they do to keep us safe.
Kass: Thanks so much for joining us today, Elena, and please hang out for a bit in case our readers have questions for you.
And folks, you can get Three Strikes, You’re Dead and the other Eddie Shoes mysteries at the retailers below…
Private investigator Eddie Shoes heads to a resort outside Leavenworth, Washington, for a mother-daughter getaway weekend. Eddie’s mother Chava wants to celebrate her new job at a casino by footing the bill for the two of them, and who is Eddie to say no?
On the first morning, Eddie goes on an easy solo hike, and stumbles upon a makeshift campsite and a gravely injured man. A forest fire breaks out, and she struggles to save him before the flames overcome them both.
Before succumbing to his injuries, the man hands her a valuable rosary. He tells her his daughter is missing and begs for her help. Is Eddie now working for a dead man?
Barely escaping the fire, Eddie wakes in the hospital to find both her parents have arrived on the scene. Will Eddie’s card-counting mother and mob-connected father help or hinder the investigation? And how will Eddie find the missing girl with only her memory of the man’s face and a photo of his daughter to go on?
And coming soon! RESURRECTION LAKE introduces Bet Rivers, interim sheriff of a tiny mountain town in Washington’s Cascade range. With the election looming up ahead, she faces the opportunity to live up to her late father’s reputation, but then a body is discovered floating in the town lake. Bet has never investigated a homicide before, and this one threatens to take everything she’s worked for, including her life.
And Kirsten Weiss has a new release today as well! She’ll be taking over the blog next week with a great post on Tarot reading!
Steeped in Murder. A Tea and Tarot Mystery
Tea, tarot, and
trouble.
Abigail Beanblossom’s dream of owning a tea room in her
California beach town is about to come true. She’s got the lease, the start-up
funds, and the recipes. But Abigail’s out of a tearoom and into hot water when her
realtor turns out to be a conman… and then turns up dead.
But not even death puts an end to the conman’s mischief. He
rented the same space to a tarot reader, Hyperion Night. Convinced his tarot room
is in the cards, Night’s not letting go of the building without a fight.
But the two must work together,
steeping themselves in the murky waters of the sham realtor’s double dealings,
in order to unearth the truth – before murder boils over again.
Steeped in Murder
is the first book in the Tea and Tarot cozy mystery series. Buy the book to
start this hilarious caper today.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
If you’re someone who has been dealing with an anxiety disorder for some time, you probably know as much or more about them than I do. But perhaps this post will offer some useful tidbits. If you’re newly diagnosed and/or finally focusing on how one or more of these disorders is controlling your life, this will provide an overview of what to do when anxiety takes over.
The Gold Standard of Treatment
Only two types of anxiety disorder are curable at this point in the history of the science of psychology. Specific phobias and some social phobias, such as fear of public speaking, are almost always learned reactions, although they are deeply ingrained in the cerebellum (as I mentioned in my last post on this subject) and do not respond well to conscious efforts to control them.
But they can usually be unlearned via a process of systematic desensitization. While practicing relaxation techniques, the person is gradually exposed to more and more of the stimuli that they are afraid of, whether it be heights or spiders or whatever.
For the other anxiety disorders, a combination of medication and talk therapy is the gold standard of care. Plus, there are a lot of other things one can do—lifestyle changes that can reduce the anxiety and make it more controllable.
Medications
Photo by Pina Messina on Unsplash
Better living through chemistry. There are over a 100 drugs on the market today that affect anxiety in one way or another. The trick is finding the right one for you, and getting used to it.
But, again with the exception of phobias (and some versions of social anxiety), there is no other way to truly control the anxiety. The body is producing it, so it must be treated biologically.
Now, if you have a fairly mild case of an anxiety disorder, there are coping techniques you can learn that may be sufficient. But for most folks suffering from these disorders… the brain chemistry is broken, and it takes adjusting that chemistry through medication to get somewhere close to normal.
1. Finding the right meds for you.
First of all, consult a psychiatrist. Don’t rely on your family doctor for this. The brain is incredibly complicated, and scientists are learning new things about it every day. And there are many different meds, each with its own pros and cons, its own way of operating on brain chemistry. There is no way that a general practitioner can keep up with all that. So find a good psychiatrist—they are the doctors who understand psychoactive drugs—and preferably find one who specializes in anxiety disorders.
Secondly, give the meds a chance to work. Most anti-anxiety meds take several weeks to start to make an impact. The best way to find the right med for you is through trial and error, which takes patience. Yes, I know it’s hard to be patient when you are anxious ALL THE TIME.
But if you eliminate a med too soon, before it has had a chance to show what it can do for you, well, that might have been the best one for you and you passed it by, out of impatience.
2. Getting used to the meds.
Folks with anxiety disorders tend to become hyper-alert to changes in their bodies and brains. Feel a little lightheaded or queasy and immediately your mind jumps to the conclusion that a panic attack is starting up.
But psychoactive drugs, by definition, are going to make you feel different. Yes, it’s really, really hard to do, but try to ride out those odd feelings until they don’t seem so odd anymore.
(For more on anxiety meds, check out this article.)
Talk Therapy
The most commonly used approach in psychotherapy for anxiety disorders is cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). That’s psychobabble for the therapist is going to help you retrain your thinking and your behavior to lessen your anxiety and learn how to manage what’s left.
By definition, psychotherapy is a bit abstract and therefore hard to test scientifically, but cognitive-behavioral therapy is the most studied form of therapy—it has a lot of fairly concrete techniques that can and have been scientifically analyzed. And it has been found to be a very effective approach to anxiety disorders.
There are a lot of these CBT techniques, but two very commonly used ones are:
Journalling is often used to pinpoint antecedents, behaviors and consequences. (Photo by Ana Tavares on Unsplash)
1. An A-B-C Assessment
A-B-C stands for Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence.
In other words, what proceeds the anxiety attack, how does the person respond to the anxiety behaviorally, and what is the consequence of that behavior. The antecedent can be an external trigger—anything from a loud noise to a weather or news report to a fight with your boss or spouse. Or it can be internal—a thought or feeling that gets things rolling.
Once the anxiety is running rampant, how does the person react? Do they become physically ill, do they hide from the world, lash out, have a drink (or several), try to pretend nothing is wrong (while anger and resentment builds up inside)?
Then the Consequence—how does the outcome then reinforce the behavior and/or the anxiety?
Ha, I bet you thought I was gonna say how does the behavior impact on the person. Well, often that is the problem. Hiding from the world (agoraphobia) definitely has a negative impact on the person’s life. But to break the pattern there’s a need to analyze how the avoidance behavior of not leaving the house is being REWARDED.
A person with panic disorder contemplates going out (antecedent), then they start to worry about having a panic attack while they are out among strangers, and how that will be so embarrassing and they won’t be able to get any help, etc. Then they decide not to go out after all (behavior), and the anxiety/worrying subsides a good bit (consequence). The avoidance behavior has just been rewarded by a reduction in anxiety.
The goal with an A-B-C assessment is to figure out where and how to break the cycle. (For more on ABC assessment, see this article.)
Which brings us to another CBT technique commonly used with anxiety disorders.
2. Changing Self-Talk
This is probably the simplest and yet most effective technique in a therapist’s toolbox. Have the person pay attention to what they are saying to themselves internally. And work with them to change those automatic internal ruminations.
Because almost always, self-talk is negative. “I’m going to screw up.” “This is going to be horrible.” yada-yada
People with anxiety disorders are NOT the only ones who tend to have negative self-talk. It’s very common in a lot of folks.
But those without anxiety disorders do not already have a constant sense of anxiety and impending doom coming from their faulty body chemistry. So they negotiate life’s twists and turns with mild to moderate insecurity, muddling through the things they’re sure are going to go badly and then breathing a big sigh of relief when it wasn’t all that bad after all.
And maybe they even gain a little confidence and are a little less negative next time.
But for folks with anxiety disorders, their self-talk often takes the form of “awfulizing.” Their already anxious minds immediately jump to the worst case scenario, and they quickly convince themselves that this is exactly what will happen, the most awful possible outcome imaginable.
photo by Sydney Rae on Unsplash
Once the exact nature of a person’s negative self-talk is identified, the therapist helps them come up with good counter-messages. Not just some bland “Everything’s going to be okay,” but something specific, like, “I’ve dealt with this _________ (fill in the situation) before and handled it. I can do this.”
And then the therapist will use role-playing to help the person practice that new self-talk again and again. Until it becomes fairly easy to catch the negatives and switch gears, when out in the real world.
Again, there are more CBT techniques than these two, but this should give you an idea of what to expect in therapy.
Other Things You Can Do
1. Learn and Use Relaxation Techniques Yoga, meditation, self-hypnosis, progressive relaxation, guided imagery, etc. Again, there are multiple options. Check them out until you find the one or ones that work for you. And then USE them. Every day, multiple times a day, and especially if you start to feel anxious.
2. Be Physically Active Nothing reduces daily stress (which contributes to anxiety) quite like physical activity! Find an activity that you like, or at least can tolerate, and then make it part of your routine. Twenty-five to thirty minutes every other day is sufficient. More often is better.
And if your anxiety disorder has led to other issues, such as fibromyalgia, find a gentle way to be active. Yoga or swimming are great options.
3. Take Care of Your Body Of course, all of us should be doing this, but if you have an anxiety disorder, this is CRITICAL. Develop a healthy eating plan, with nutritious foods that you LIKE. Make a point of going to bed at a consistent time each night, and develop a wind-down routine that helps you go to sleep more readily.
Again, experiment with different possibilities. Does reading work for you, or watching TV? Whatever you do, don’t do household chores or other stressful activities past a certain hour in the evening!
(She says as she is writing a blog post at eleven p.m…. Do as I say, not as I do. 😀 )
Resist the temptation to self-medicate with alcohol or recreational drugs. (photo by Sergio Alves-Santos on Unsplash)
4. Avoid Self-Medicating Alcohol and recreational drugs can backfire on you. They may help initially in small quantities, but their addictive tendencies and the development of tolerance can lead to more anxiety in the long run. And alcohol suppresses the production of melatonin, the hormone that promotes sleep. So it can contribute to insomnia big-time!
Also, nicotine is a sneaky drug. Smoking may make you feel more relaxed, but it is an illusion. Nicotine has a muscle-relaxant quality, which we feel almost immediately with each drag on a cigarette. But make no mistake, it is a stimulant. It increases your heart rate, your blood pressure, your muscle tension…i.e. your anxiety.
Caffeine can also be sneaky in its own way. I can’t begin to tell you how many people (my own husband included) have told me that “caffeine doesn’t affect me.”
Yeah, it does! But you’ve developed a tolerance for it so you no longer notice how it is affecting you. My husband eventually (not due to caffeine, due to aging) developed heart arrhythmia and had to cut back on his caffeine. He was amazed at how much calmer he felt and how much better he slept.
5. Break the Cycle Do not let anxiety make itself at home. When you start to feel anxious, break the cycle. This may be through self-talk, or you may need to literally get up and move. Take a walk, read a book, watch TV, pursue a hobby. Do something that distracts your mind before it starts to awfulize.
6. Make a Commitment to Your Routine Establish a routine of taking your meds regularly, paying attention to your self-talk, exercising, etc. And then when something knocks it out of whack, as life inevitably will—a holiday, a vacation, illness, etc.—make a point of getting back into your routine as quickly as possible afterwards.
7. Socialize and Seek Support Make an effort to spend time with friends and family. Socializing is a great stress reliever and also a wonderful distraction from your worries. And finding a support group of people who are dealing with similar struggles can make the process so much more bearable. Google “anxiety disorder support” and your city and/or check out the websites of organizations like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) or the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA).
I hope you find all this helpful.
Feel free to ask questions in the comments. I’ll answer as best I can. Also, if you have discovered something in particular that works for you, please share.
And I have a new release in my Kate Huntington Mysteries, Police Protection. To celebrate, I’ve put Anxiety Attack, the book before this new one, on sale for just 99 cents (through 5/24/19).
Anxiety Attack, in part, explores the experience of someone with social anxiety.
Kate Huntington’s P.I. husband had doubts from the beginning about this case, a complicated one of top secret projects and industrial espionage. Now one of his best operatives is in the hospital fighting for his life, and Kate believes the alleged shooter the police arrested—one of her psychotherapy clients who suffers from social anxiety—is innocent.
Tensions build between the couple, until a suspicious suicide brings the case to a head. Is the spy/killer tying up loose ends?
Almost too late, Skip realizes he may be one of those loose ends, and someone seems to have no qualms about destroying his agency or getting to him through his family.
And Book #10, the last in the series, is here!! Just $2.99 during PREORDER and until after its release on 5/24 (goes up to $4.99 after that)
POLICE PROTECTION, A Kate Huntington Mystery
A story ripped from real-life headlines.
A police detective is found in an alley, standing over the body of an unarmed African-American boy. Groggy from a concussion, he has no memory of what happened, and he is literally holding the smoking gun.
To the Baltimore County Internal Affairs division, it’s a slam-dunk. But various forces push psychotherapist Kate Huntington and her P.I. husband to investigate behind the scenes, and what they find doesn’t add up. Why did the boy’s oldest brother disappear on the same day? And did the third brother, who’s on the autism spectrum and nonverbal, witness something relevant?
When seemingly unrelated events emerge as a pattern of intentional obstruction and diversion, it becomes apparent that what happened in that alley was more than just a bad shoot by a stressed-out cop. And for Kate, the case has become personal as she’s connected with the grieving mother, whose dead son was the same age as her Billy.
The answers may come from unexpected sources, but she and Skip better find them soon… before another life is lost.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
Main Reading Room, Library of Congress. Photo by Carol M. Highsmith. Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
by K.B. Owen
All kinds of decisions (and a hundred indecisions, to paraphrase T.S. Eliot) go into the plotting of a mystery. For example, as I was deciding upon the plot points for UNSEEMLY FATE, book 7 of the Concordia Wells Mysteries, I knew I needed a rare literary artifact that would be compatible with the lady professor’s interests (primarily Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, and the Romantic poets). It was to be a gift from one of Concordia’s new relatives – a RICH relative (I think you can see where I might be going with this), which would set off a chain of catastrophic events that sends Concordia scrambling for the rest of the story.
The Criteria
I had one other proviso: the item couldn’t be SO rare that people would be giving it the squinty-eye and asking how the heck the rich man came to have it, and didn’t it belong in a proper museum, rather than a private gallery at some women’s college? Hmm???
That let out Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. Sigh. And as far as the Romantics, not that many decades would have elapsed before we were in Concordia’s time (1899)…so something lost or rare was less likely. Double sigh.
I was basically scouting around for something of literary significance that would appeal to my protagonist’s interests, and old enough to be somewhat rare but not holy-cow-you-must-have-stolen-that rare. AND…I wanted to be able to use cool quotes by that author as apropos headers to chapters…’cause that’s just how this former academic rolls. *wink*
Enter William Blake, the Very First Romantic Poet/Artist
William Blake, by Thomas Phillips. Oil on canvas, 1807.
William Blake had a lot to say about society, religion, art, and man’s place in the cosmos. I soon settled on his 66-page Descriptive Catalogue, of which he printed less than one hundred copies in 1809 (making it 90 years old by the time Concordia sees it). The Catalogue was written to promote an exhibition of his watercolors and frescoes in hopes of drumming up sales and potential commissions.
Here’s the full title, as William Blake was more voluble than concise: A Descriptive Catalogue of Pictures, Poetical and Historical Inventions, Painted by William Blake, in Water Colours, Being the Ancient Method of Fresco Painting Restored: and [water color] Drawings, For Public Inspection, and for Sale by Private Contract.
Blake sold copies of the Catalogue for two-and-a-half shillings each, which also covered the cost of admittance to his one-man show (in a room over his brother’s shop).
What Made It Perfect for Concordia
Of particular interest to me was Blake’s commentary in the Catalogue about Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims, which takes up nearly a third of the pamphlet. Blake had painted a work entitled The Canterbury Pilgrims, from which he later created a copper-etched plate and made prints (with watercolor touch-ups), but the text in his Catalogue went beyond mere description of his painting and analyzed Chaucer’s own characterization of the pilgrims.
Print from Blake’s copperplate etching, Chaucer’s Canterbury Pilgrims, 1810.
And our dear lady professor has an interest in Chaucer – perfect.
I was able to find descriptions of the text and cover via online searches, but then I got stuck. I wanted to know what it would be like to hold it in one’s hands, to turn the pages, and so on, as Concordia would do.
Where the Research Takes Me: To See the Real Thing
An original of William Blake’s “Descriptive Catalogue,” 1809. Housed in the Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Rare Book Reading Room, LOC.
Sometimes you just have to see something in person. I’m fortunate enough to live within 25 miles of the Library of Congress, and a search turned up an original (16 are known to exist at this point) in LOC’s Rare Book Reading Room.
There were a lot of hoops to jump through – getting a reader/researcher card, securing advance notice to have it located and pulled, restrictions as to what you can bring in with you, how the books are to be handled, and so on. But it was worth it, and I’m grateful to each of the librarians who assisted me.
And the Rare Book Reading Room is a VERY quiet place.
Any cool discoveries you’ve made recently? I’d love to hear from you. ~KBO
AVAILABLE NOW:
Unseemly Fate
Book 7 of the Concordia Wells Mysteries
Beware of rich men bearing gifts…
It’s the fall of 1899 and the new Mrs. David Bradley—formerly Professor Concordia Wells of Hartford Women’s College—is chafing against the hum-drum routine of domestic life.
The routine is disrupted soon enough when the long-hated but wealthy patriarch of her husband’s family, Isaiah Symond, returns to Hartford. His belated wedding gift is a rare catalogue by artist/poet William Blake, to be exhibited in the college’s antiquities gallery.
When Symond’s body is discovered in the gallery with his head bashed in and the catalogue gone, suspicion quickly turns from a hypothetical thief to the inheritors of Symond’s millions—Concordia’s own in-laws. She’s convinced of their innocence, but the alternatives are equally distressing. The gallery curator whom she’s known for years? The school’s beloved handyman?
Once again, unseemly fate propels Concordia into sleuthing, but she should know by now that unearthing bitter grudges and long-protected secrets to expose a murderer may land her in a fight for her life.
UNSEEMLY FATE is the seventh adventure in the Concordia Wells Mysteries, featuring 1890s professor-turned-amateur-sleuth Concordia Wells Bradley.
K.B. Owen signing books at Prospero’s Books (Manassas, VA)
Posted by K.B. Owen. K.B. taught college English for nearly two decades at universities in Connecticut and Washington, DC, and holds a doctorate in 19th century British literature.
A mystery lover ever since she can remember, she drew upon her teaching experiences in creating her amateur sleuth, Professor Concordia Wells…and from that series came lady Pinkerton Penelope Hamilton.
There are now seven books in the Concordia Wells mystery series thus far, and three novellas in the Penelope Hamilton series.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please follow us so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
A couple little goodies for you today—two posts aimed at writers, but they have a lot of good stuff in them for everyone. One is by me and the other is by a writing coach and teacher, Lisa Hall-Wilson.
The other post, by me, is about using writing to heal emotional wounds. One doesn’t have to be a fiction writer to do this. Blogging, journaling, writing bad poetry, etc. can be useful in facilitating the healing process.
Here’s the beginning of that post, and the link to read more if you like:
Writing To Heal
Writing to heal was what got me truly started as a fiction author.
Oh, I’ve always loved to write. I’d written quite a few stories through the years, plus some bad poetry, and I’d started more than one novel. But the inspiration for the first one that I actually finished, the one that would eventually become Book 1 in my first mystery series, occurred when a friendship ended abruptly.
The friend was a male lawyer with whom I’d shared a few cases—situations where one of my psychotherapy clients was dealing with some legal mess, such as a divorce. And over time, he and I had become friends.
And then we weren’t, and I realized I had seriously misjudged his level of mental health. After the friendship imploded, I thought, “Darn it! If I can’t have a healthy platonic friendship in real life, I’m going to create one.”
So I started writing the story, Multiple Motives, in which a female psychotherapist and a male lawyer are good friends, and someone has a murderous grudge against both of them. (That last part didn’t happen in real life. 🙂 ) Another thing that didn’t happen in real life, but does in the book, is that the bad things that occur in the characters’ lives make their friendship stronger, rather than destroying it.
Writing that novel helped me heal from the painful ending of that friendship. It fulfilled several of the purposes of writing to heal:
● Clarifying and venting feelings. ● Telling one’s story – being heard. ● Creating a different outcome. ● Finding meaning in the pain. ● Paying it forward – helping others struggling with similar issues and inspiring hope.
Clarifying and Venting Emotions—Why Is That Important?
In Multiple Motives, my character Kate realizes just how important her friend is to her, and then when he is in danger, she realizes what a black hole his loss would create in her life. As I was writing this story, as she was feeling those intense ups and downs, I was right there with her. It was quite cathartic.
But why is it that we feel better when we vent a negative feeling? READ MORE over at Janice Hardy’s Fiction University.
And a slight adjustment in the blogging schedule. K.B. Owen will be posting next week as she releases her newest Concordia Wells historical cozy. I’ve read it and it is great!
And then I’ll be back on the 14th with Part II of my When Anxiety Is a Bad Thing series, talking about what can be done about anxiety disorders. (And I may have a new release to announce by then as well.)
So stay tuned, folks!
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
Last month, I posted about how a controllable amount of anxiety can be a good thing when performing. It can keep us on our toes and animate our performance. But what happens when it’s not controllable? Then, anxiety is a bad thing.
Basically, this happens when our survival mechanisms go awry. One of these survival mechanism is our fight or flight response.
When we perceive a threat in our environment, our brains and bodies take over. We automatically experience a long list of reactions intended to prepare us to run away from that threat or stand and fight it off—our hearts race to pump blood to our muscles faster, our breathing becomes more rapid to suck in more oxygen, our muscles tense, our pupils dilate to see better, etc.
But what if something biological, a malfunction in our bodies or brains, triggers our fight or flight response, rather than a true threat from the environment?
Biologically Triggered Panic
You’re going about your business, perfectly calm and safe, and suddenly your heart starts thundering in your chest and you’re breathing fast and furious.
You look around, your eyes wide with fright, desperately trying to find the threat. But there is none. Yet, your mind knows that if the fight or flight response has been triggered there must be some threat out there. Right?
This is what people with certain anxiety disorders suffer through on a regular basis, sometimes several times a day.
And they cannot control it!
During a panic attack, their bodies are freaking out on them, without their mental permission. And the sense of impending doom, that is associated with that physiological freaking out, can be quite overwhelming.
Which brings us to the other survival mechanism that can go awry.
Learned Associations
One of the other ways that our brains keep us alive is by making a myriad of associations between certain situations and our emotions. This thing made us feel good in the past (like eating tasty food), so do more of it. That thing was scary and/or hurt us in the past, so avoid it.
We smell food cooking and our stomachs automatically growl, because we’ve learned to associate that smell with something good to eat. We see a snake on the path in front of us in the woods, and we jump back and our hearts start racing. We were not born with the knowledge that cooking smells mean food or that a snake is potentially harmful, and yet these reactions are automatic.
That’s because these are conditioned associations, a different kind of learning than when we intellectually process something and commit it to memory. At some point in the past, we felt the emotion (fear) while in the presence of something (a snake, or an image of a snake on TV, doing something scary) and our minds linked the two together. So now the snake is a “conditioned stimulus” for the “conditioned response” of fear.
For most of us, the fear response can be controlled, once we have assessed the situation. From a safe distance, we take a harder look at the snake and realize it’s just a harmless black snake. So we get a stick, shoo it out of our path and go on about our business.
Cerebellum Images are generated by Life Science Databases (LSDB) ~ CC BY-SA 2.1 jp Wikimedia Commons
But sometimes, these conditioned associations reach phobic levels. As a child, you’re chased and bitten by a dog, and now you are terrified of all dogs.
So why can’t we control that phobic fear?
Because conditioned associations are stored in a different part of our brain (the cerebellum) from where our thinking occurs (the cerebral cortex).
(In the swirling image to the left, the cerebellum is highlighted in red, while the cerebral cortex is the tan part.)
So you see a dog, even a small harmless-looking one, and you are running away, even as your logical brain is saying, “This is stupid, That dog isn’t going to hurt me.”
When These Two Mechanisms Interact
People with biologically-based anxiety disorders (panic disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, etc.) often get a double whammy from these mechanisms. Their fear response is being triggered when nothing scary is happening, but the mind still associates the fear with whatever is going on at the moment.
So the person can develop a phobic-type response to a variety of stimuli. They have a panic attack while at the grocery store, so they can’t grocery shop anymore without freaking out. Then they have one while at the post office and they can’t go there anymore. Then while driving, so they can’t drive anymore. Then while getting their mail at the end of their driveway…
In its worst form, this can become agoraphobia, in which the person is afraid to leave their home.
And none of this is under their conscious control!
What Can Be Done?
For those who suffer from anxiety disorders, the answer to this question is a long one. I’m going to do a separate post on that on May 14th. So please stay tuned.
For those of us who care about someone with an anxiety disorder, we need to be patient and understanding. Chastising the person for letting anxiety control their lives is not helpful.
They are most likely already beating themselves up, on a daily basis.
My mother-in-law had generalized anxiety disorder. The best definition of this disorder is being a worry-wart on steroids. People with GAD worry about everything all the time, and they cannot control this! GAD is partly biologically based, and partly a learned pattern of coping that becomes ingrained early in life.
When my MIL was in her seventies, her eye doctor told her she had cataracts and she needed surgery or she would go blind.
She would not do it. After a while, she wouldn’t even talk about it anymore.
I got it, and tried to explain it to my husband and family members. Any surgery, but especially eye surgery, is scary for all of us. But most of us can manage the fear. Not, however, if you have severe GAD as she did.
When she considered such surgery, the anxiety was overwhelming. And the more the family tried to get her to “see reason,” the more anxious she became, until even thinking or talking about it became overwhelming.
Finally everyone gave up, and she lived out the rest of her years slowly going blind, but with her daily anxiety much more manageable.
I’m not saying that I thought her choice was correct, but I understood where she was coming from, in light of the disorder she had.
When we keep pushing someone with an anxiety disorder to do something they feel they can’t do because of the anxiety, we are only driving a wedge between ourselves and them, and pushing them farther into the unnecessary and unhelpful shame they are probably already feeling about their disorder.
Then, anxiety is a bad thing indeed!
It is more helpful to say something like, “I understand. The anxiety is too much. Let’s see if you and I can figure out a way around it.”
Stay tuned for next time, when we’ll talk some more about those work-arounds and other ways to reduce the anxiety and/or cope with it.
In the meantime, I’m happy to answer questions. Have you or a loved one had to struggle with an anxiety disorder?
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
When you adopt a puppy mill survivor, there are greater challenges than when taking on other rescue dogs (which can be challenging enough).
I hope to do an expanded post on the topic of adopting rescue dogs on my own website soon. But in the meantime, here’s an “off” week tidbit for you, a great post by Your Dog Advisor with some tips for dealing with a puppy-mill survivor adoptee.
We blog here at misterio press about twice a month, usually on Tuesdays. Sometimes we talk about serious topics, and sometimes we just have some fun.
Please sign up via email (upper right sidebar) to follow us, so you don’t miss out on any of the interesting stuff, or the fun! (We do not lend, sell nor otherwise bend, spindle or mutilate followers’ e-mail addresses. 🙂 )
In spite of wide-spread chapters, writers can still face obstacles to active participation. Many chapters draw from a vast membership area. The Northern California chapter of SinC spans 150 miles north to south. I’m located near the southern tip of the area with a dangerous mountain road separating me from most of the monthly events.
Lida Bushloper summed it all up, “I’m lucky to be a member.”
A tropical paradise turns deadly.
