A Broken Therapist¡¦S Guide to Completeness

By Mark Vegh

In A Broken Therapists Guide to Completeness,
Mark Vegh explains how so many of us live with
a fragmented perspective due to hurts and
traumas of the past. We try to hide from our
pain or push it away, but it only makes us rigid,
cautious, and defensive. Or rather we stew on
the past bumps and bruises, becoming resentful
and bitter. Vegh uses the funny, the serious, and
the irreverent to show you the wizard behind
the curtain of moving beyond crisis, a little
concept that encapsulates the things he found
that worksits called dialectics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jan 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781469154558

Mark Vegh

Biography Mark Vegh resides in Chilliwack, British Columbia, Canada, with his wife and three children. Mark is a registered clinical counselor and works as a child and youth mental health therapist with the Ministry of Children and Family Development. He has completed a bachelor degree in pastoral theology and a master’s in counseling. It might sound like Mark has things well together, but here’s the catch. By the time Mark was twenty-seven years old, he was twice divorced—a far cry from what a healthy Bible student and upcoming family counselor usually looks like. However, Mark believes that he has found perspective and skills along the way that has helped him remain relatively whole and untainted by the hurts and pain of emotional crisis. Some of the sanity-saving tidbits he found were taught to him, some he fell upon by accident, and others he studied and practiced. In A Broken Therapist’s Guide to Completeness, Mark explains how so many of us live with a fragmented perspective due to hurts and traumas of the past. We try to hide from our pain or push it away, but it only makes us rigid, cautious, and defensive. Or rather we stew on the past bumps and bruises, becoming resentful and bitter. Mark uses the funny, the serious, and the irreverent to show you the wizard behind the curtain of moving beyond crisis, a little concept that encapsulates the things he found that works—it’s called dialectics.

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Copyright © 2012 by Mark Vegh.

Library of Congress Control Number:       2012901002

ISBN:         Hardcover                               978-1-4691-5454-1

                   Softcover                                 978-1-4691-5453-4

                   Ebook                                      978-1-4691-5455-8

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Contents

Introduction  Why and What I’m Writing

Chapter 1  The Two Sides of You

Chapter 2  My Lowest Moment

Chapter 3  God

Chapter 4  Completeness When Bad Things Happen

Chapter 5  Completeness with Other People

Chapter 6  Completeness in Marriage

Chapter 7  Completeness with Raising Children

Chapter 8  Completeness with Your Memories

Chapter 9  Split Personalities

Chapter 10  My Dialectical Appendix

References

To Heather, my wife, the woman who has put up with my quirks, my faults, and my history and yet loves me somehow. I love you.

Also, to my beautiful children—Danika, Keighley, and Marek—pride and joy fill my life because of you. And let’s not forget that you’re the best teachers of patience and endurance. And to your future children, I had them in mind also when I first began to write.

Last, to the National Hockey League’s 2011 Western Conference champions, the Vancouver Canucks, thanks for the ride, the memories, and the inspiration.

Introduction

Why and What I’m Writing

Why I’m Writing This

This book started out as a letter that I wanted to give to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren but evolved into something bigger within the first few weeks of writing. I’m thirty-five years old, so you might as well guess that I don’t have any grandchildren. I’ve been married for five years (or at least our wedding was five years ago). My wife, Heather, and I have two daughters who are aged six and three and a smiley, well-tempered five-month-old boy. Now my children might not have any children of their own, so in that case I’m glad I decided to write a book instead of a personal family letter. However, when I watch my oldest girl, Danika, take care of her snail farm so tenderly, play school with her dolls, and give my young boy, Marek, so much motherly attention and when my younger daughter, Keighley, puts a rubber ball up her shirt to imitate pregnancy, then presents her doll to us as her newborn infant, and dresses up as a hybrid between mermaid and fairy, I’m convinced that one of them is bound to have children. My chances are even better now that I scored a son as well!

Although I’m not writing this book exclusively to my grandchildren and great-grandchildren, it is partly dedicated to them. I want to give my descendants a chance to know something about me, especially the ones who I don’t have the pleasure of meeting. I plan to have ten copies printed out and bound with a rustic leather covering of some sort and then sealed in gift boxes for my children to pass down to their children. I pictured the book copies being handed down on a Christmas morning, never having been seen by the recipients until that very moment. At least that is how I see the first generation of baton passing unfolding, and following that, the book copies might get passed down formally or informally in all sorts of ways. Whatever works the best is fine with me.

Maybe I’m a little arrogant to presume that my descendants will be interested in anything I have to say, so if that’s you, and this book has been shoved in your lap, I have two contingencies that I want to suggest. First, I don’t want you to feel any pressure to read this. I want you to have a family copy to read if you want, put on your shelf, use as a conversation piece, or put in storage. There will be some of you who are interested in your personal past, who deeply identify with your family history, or who are drawn to psychological and social health. I’m confident that you will read every page. So whether this book is used as an ornament in your house or actually read through and then later read again, know that I’ve already thought of you before you were born, and I love you.

Second, if you find yourself captured by this book’s content, I don’t want you to feel obligated to agree with all my ideas and opinions. Take what is useful and leave the rest behind. Depending on your stage of life, you will most likely relate to some of my experiences and insights more than others. Maybe after a few more years, some life experience, and maturity, you will read this book again and relate to me differently. This book is about feeling complete, content, and satisfied despite the disturbances that you run into throughout living. I will illustrate my way of finding completeness through personal stories about myself, religion, relationships, and marriage (in my case, marriages). I implore you to question me, disagree, test things out, or embrace my ideas. If you’re not into hearing about religion, read between the lines in order to get to the heart of the matter. If you’re not married and never plan to be, use the principles I will be presenting to better your friendships and family relationships. Maybe you are reading this purely out of curiosity. Maybe you’re wondering what a babbling ancestor has to say that he thinks is so important. In that case, I give you full permission to make fun of me, and in a sense, we can laugh at me together! Whatever you do with this material is completely up to you, and you will still have my unconditional acceptance.

I wanted to write to you in what might seem premature (you not being born yet) to let you in on a fraction of my life, time, and culture and also to share some personal stories of loss, pain, crisis, and completeness despite it all. What has made things interesting for me is that I think I’m genetically too sensitive. I’m susceptible to overwhelming emotions and usually lack the skill to cope effectively. In other words, I cause much of my own suffering, or at least exasperate it by acting poorly. Of course there are other bad circumstances that are not my fault, but usually I’m the one having to fix things in my life anyway—no one else will. I want to illustrate for you that whatever ingredients cause you pain and whatever trouble you cause for yourself, you don’t have to become old and wise to finally feel complete. You can start learning how to feel content and at peace with yourself far sooner than you might think. At thirty-five, I already have found plenty of ways to get to the other side of my misery, sometimes by accident and other times by acting intentionally.

I hope that hearing a small bit of my story will leave you entertained and also that the themes that arise will transcend my time and culture and will illustrate how you can move past the pain of life stronger and smarter. Maybe dedicating this book to you will increase the chances that I will have an audience in one hundred years plus. I hope most things I dare to say are both sincere and genuine, and relevant, despite the time and age that passes. Although a futile wish, I would love to be around to see which of my insights are universal enough to mean something special and which will be laughable. I have a fixation for hypothesizing about the things we do now that in a hundred years people will say, I can’t believe the stupid things people actually did back then. But besides my selfish little fixations, I want to write to you from my heart and pass down a little wisdom that I hope will be as effective in living for you as it is for me.

What I’m Writing About

Marsha Linehan developed dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) to treat people diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. In her book, Cognitive-Behavioral Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder (1993), Linehan describes her meager attempts to treat this population with traditional therapy methods. She decided that borderline personality disordered people, who generally struggle with multiple life problems and suffer all sorts of emotional pain, simply needed something more. She explains that DBT works to decrease specific troublesome behaviors while introducing mindfulness, behavior, and dialectical skills to cope and solve problems more effectively.

You’ll see that all three skill sets have significantly impacted me, but it is dialectics that has grabbed my attention and my heart. As I progressively mastered this perspective, this dialectical experience, I began to recognize it as what helped me through so many of life’s follies. Dialectics helped me grow up, get through interpersonal crisis, and maintain a relatively embittered-free, grudge-light, and sourless life. I’ve only been formerly introduced to dialectics for about five years. When I previously stumbled upon dialectics, I certainly didn’t know that this concept existed, yet when I analyzed what helped me, dialectics was it. When I reviewed what I did when I was at my best, I thought dialectically. When I reinvestigated the most comforting and influential theological theories I studied in undergraduate school, dialectics was the hidden backbone. When I relooked at the therapy models I learned in graduate school, dialectics was anonymously prominent. When I reflected upon the most notable moments of intuition and clarity, dialectics quietly visited me. I’m fortunate to have run into dialectics repeatedly without even knowing it, but now I feel prosperous to know dialectics as an explicit friend and aid.

Don’t take me the wrong way here. Dialectics isn’t a deity, guardian angel, or some kind of cosmic power, but rather a God-given gift. Our human capacity to experience our internal and external worlds dialectically can help us grow individually and as a community, help us through crisis and pain, keep us whole, and maintain our emotional balance. Those of us who feel complete and whole tend to be immersed in this dialectical experience, often without a formal awareness. No, dialectics is not exactly a living entity, but it is a way of thinking and being that I hope to bring into your conscious sights.

Chapter 1

The Two Sides of You

If you’re anything like me, you have problems. You have people problems, money problems, attitude problems, medical problems, or anxiety problems. You have problems handed to you, problems that you cause all by yourself, problems that you resolve quickly, and problems that don’t go away. There are all sorts of problems in your past, a bunch right now, and still more to come. You even have problems with guilt because you worry about all your trivial problems in a world where there are much bigger problems than yours. Yes, there are problems.

From the get-go, I want to be super clear—I do not have the answers to your problems. Hell, I have enough of my own to deal with, so I can’t imagine being good enough to tackle yours! In fact, I would be ripping you off if I tried. For me to help solve your problems would be no better than asking you to snort me like a line of cocaine—it takes care of things for the moment, but you need to come back next week for another line. Problems are like those annoying things we have to tackle in daily life in order to feel better, like mowing the grass, cleaning the house, and my favorite, dusting. The problem is that problems come back again. Yes, they might look a little different, more sophisticated, or present you with new complications, but they are still problems. Test it out if you don’t believe me. Go on a cruise somewhere spectacular and leave your problems behind on the departure dock. Drink margaritas, dance the nights away, find a new spouse, adopt a llama. I don’t care what you do, but I would bet you my next year’s paycheck that those same problems will be waiting for you on the dock when you get back, except now they’re well rested, full of vigor, eager and ready to get back to work on you. My point is problems do not and will not go away.

Another problem is that problems have a way of eating at us, burning away our skin one layer at a time. Even when we feel like we’ve solved something, there is a good chance that we walk forward with thinner, more sensitive skin. We are vulnerable to slow deterioration, wear and tear, and physical and emotional damage, all because of problems.

So if we can’t solve this perpetual group of entities called problems, let’s try to create a new problem, except this time one that we can solve. What would happen if we make our new problem about figuring out a way to allow other problems to come and go, as they do anyway, and find a way to feel whole instead of damaged, growth rather than stunted, and complete over fragmented? What if we experience our problems in a way that fueled energy, vigor, and anticipation about what’s next instead of bitterness and loss? I think that the way we go through a problem and then walk beyond it is the difference between those happy and energetic grandpas and grandmas and bitter old people. You know what I mean, don’t you? I’m sure you’ve come across that quirky old woman who’ll talk about anything to anyone, just waiting to pop out of nowhere and tell you her old-people stories in some attempt to encourage your growth and maturity. And then there’s her nemesis—that old guy that is forever complaining about taxes, our politically corrupt leaders, the teenagers these days, the rise of immorality, ugly tattoos, and unnecessary piercings. How do you think this guy chose to walk through his everyday problems throughout his life so far? Are you following me here? I am saying that each and every problem will contribute to helping us become fragmented and broken or increase wholeness, completeness.

If you’re reading this book and you are that bitter old guy, don’t despair. There is a little human quality I like to call the scrooge effect. This means that even after a lifetime of facing problems in ways that made you into such an ornery bastard, one or two novel experiences can change you. To suggest any different would be like telling you that because you’ve been dancing the waltz for forty years, it’s going to take another forty to teach you a new dance, groove to new music, and tango with a new crowd. That’s ridiculous! You can probably start to tango within a couple of lessons. You don’t have to backtrack for forty years to experience change; you just have to skip track, trek through the bushes for a few miles, and find another road.

Pull Yourself Together!

I’ve already proposed that we don’t cause all of our problems, but I think I’ve caused most of mine. When I tally my biggest mistakes, shortcomings, and impulsive acts—all my ill behaviors that handed back shame, loss, and limping dreams—I simply don’t deserve to have a wife and three beautiful children who love me, own a house, and God forbid, work as a clinical therapist. I don’t have a criminal record nor have I done jail time. I haven’t done anything maliciously wrong as far as I know. I’ve never been addicted to drugs or alcohol, beat my wife, or prostituted myself for money, but I may as well have done every one of those things. At least I’m no better than anyone who has. My tainted past consists of repeated offenses against my own values, behaviors that lacked personal integrity, and oh, so much pride. Given my humanistic nature, I would have committed crimes and gone to jail, been drug-addicted, beat my wife, and such—just like others who do those things—if I had to walk two steps in their shoes. I’m no better. Probably out of all the slimy, pigheaded things that I’ve done, judging others as somehow lesser than me is probably my worst crime.

On the other hand, I have a lot to be proud of. I worked hard in school to earn my upper graduate counseling degree. I have spent and saved money wisely and always had good job references. I think I’m a good dad and husband most of the time. I eat healthy and exercising regularly. Feedback from my therapy clients suggests that I’m a skilled child-and-teen therapist. My colleagues tell me that there is not much that can shake me; I can find empathy for almost anyone.

These two self-portraits might seem incompatible, like I’m describing two different people altogether. However, I’ve deeply identified with both portrayals—the good and the bad, the fallible and the proud, the problems and the successes—and acknowledged both as being me. If I was to ignore one for the sake of the other, I would be living with an embittered attitude, defensive, denying, or with despair and hopelessness. I am both a failure and a success, and unless I can absolutely invite both perceptions into my life, I will not grow or, at the most, grow very slowly. Embracing the horror of the one and pleasure of the other at the same time is the only way I know how to get through a problem feeling at peace, satisfied with my world and myself—feeling complete.

Have you heard those sayings that liken life to a journey? There are so many of them. There are pathways we choose in regard to career and direction, mountaintop and valley experiences that label good and bad times, and forks in the road that highlight difficult choices. Each little saying hints that human life is about the adventure of getting through rather than getting to. Life is a journey, not a destination. We raise our glasses and toast, Here’s to the journey! I like these metaphors. They encourage us to stay focused on the immediate rather than worrying about the things to come. They help us remember to enjoy the small pleasures of today rather than fretting over our next big goal. I never fully understood the little pleasures until I had children. With kids, every moment of peace and quiet is soaked in like a sponge to water. When I walk through my house free of a three-year-old hanging from my arm and a six-year-old taxiing my leg, I consider it a fond moment. When I lock myself in the washroom with a good novel—Heather thinks I’m just sitting there, reading—I experience the joy of the moment.

So this life-is-a-journey concept appeals to me, but I would like to refine it a bit. Instead of life being just one big journey, I would like to suggest for stops along the way. There are natural places to rest or camp for a while and times when the landscape changes, where we pause and take a look around us. One metaphor describes life as a train ride that has numerous stops in different towns and cities throughout your travels. These intermittent stops during the journey might be developmental or personal milestones, special events, or seemingly random circumstances. Some examples might be getting married or divorced, graduating from high school or earning a degree, turning sixteen and buying your first car, turning nineteen (or twenty-one, depending on what country you live in) and going to the bar, getting a new job, or getting fired.

Often a problem occurs when we move along from one path to another during our journeys. We become easily fragmented. Our bodies begin to walk a new path, but our soul remains behind to wander aimlessly around in what was supposed to be the road behind us. We go through very difficult times—such as a divorce or two, the untimely death of a spouse or child, bankruptcy, or the onset of a depressive disorder—and we become ghosts of ourselves. Part of us never makes it to the other side of the experience. It’s like if that unfortunate event, whatever it was, never happened, we would have continued to be a full, vibrant, and successful person rather than the shell of a person we became instead. A part of us stays tied to the past road sometimes our whole lives; we build shacks along the ditch or grow into the ground like tree stumps. Another part of us moves on, but we find ourselves spending most of our energy thinking about the past pieces of our journey, not able to move forward. Now don’t get me wrong; of course the journey down hard roads will influence your character, but the idea is to walk the road until you get to the end, your whole self, and then start down a new road, hopefully having new information and an expanded orientation about how life works. I hope I can help show you the difference between genuinely getting through something painful and getting through it pseudo-like or disjointed.

There is a metaphor: a wound heals but always leaves a scar. I guess this means that we can heal, but we are changed. I would like to reframe this saying a little: wounds heal and leave scars, but be careful not to relate to your scars too much. In other words, I think we can get to the other side of our painful struggles relatively free of a tainted, twisted, and sour perspective of our lives. As a therapist, I have heard countless stories, from other professionals and clients alike, that scream the kind of stuckness I’m talking about. Watch for those who are divorced, lost an arm or leg, grieved an untimely death in the family, or struggled through alcohol or drug addiction. They are your friends, family members, acquaintances, or maybe someone you just met in a coffee shop. They might relate to their story a little too much. No matter what the beginning topic of the conversation is—weather, taxes, politics, the lousy service in the coffee shop you’re in—the topic inevitably changes to reveal their dark travels and their loss. You wonder how the conversation trailed off this way. You might wonder why someone you barely know is telling you explicit details of her tale. Maybe it seems like someone is using you as a sounding board, trying to sort out his own journey. Or maybe it’s your therapist or pastor who is sharing pieces of her life, and although eloquently delivered, her monologue is far more meaningful to her than you. Or maybe you have a friend that seems to relate a past experience he once had to almost everything that happens.

Don’t read me wrong here. I would say that most of us have to debrief and think over the things that have happened to us in order to make sense of life. A case in point is me writing this book! But there should come a point when you can let that story go, stop relating to it, and feel complete without it.

From my mom’s side of the family, it seems to be in my genetics to be sensitive about things, quick to anger, and impulsive. I’m sure that many of you reading this will have to struggle through significant heartache, headaches, crisis, self-doubt, and the like, all because you get overwhelmed and act in ways that get you in trouble. You’re not alone in this. There are lots of other people trying to sort all this out as well. There are plenty of others who get overwhelmed with seemingly unimportant snags in their plans, but we can learn to make it to the other side with a positive, hopeful, and mostly untainted perspective intact. Instead of feeling like one foot is in the present and the other in the past, we can walk forward whole.

A Few More Guidelines to Help

Before we move on, I want to reiterate some important guidelines to remember as you read. It is important to me that you feel no obligation to believe what I say about God, yourself, others, or couple relationships. Try not to relate too much with this material. Question everything I write, use what you can, and put the rest aside. I believe you will get the most out of this book if you feel freedom to disregard it, walk away from it, or embrace it. Be thoughtful about the things you expect from yourself and the things you just let be. Be even more thoughtful about the things you expect from other people and the things you let be. I’ve let go of most of the expectations I had for myself, barring a precious few. For example, I strive to see myself no better in worth or goodness than anyone else. Second to that, I try to eat healthy and exercise. Beyond these two, I can’t think of anymore expectations significant or stable enough to mention.

This book is not a regurgitation of research and scholarly preparation. Everything I write is about the wisdom that I discovered by accident or insights that I found in a book that I happened to be reading. Before I began writing this book, I did not read one new word to help me prepare. Instead, I reflected on everything that I have ever read that has been of some help to me. I also remembered the people that have helped me the most. This book is based on my true experiences, follies, and triumphs. I would hate to think of you walking away feeling discouraged that all I gave you was a bunch of academic knowledge unattainable to robe yourself in as you moved forward.

At the same time, when you find some concept or idea that makes sense and you want to try it on, don’t throw it out immediately after you discover it’s not working. Remember that we make mistakes when we try something new. Think of your mistakes as the next step closer to succeeding. Try it again and again, spend time with your mistakes, troubleshoot them, love them, and embrace them. Attaining a more complete, whole, content sense of your life can happen for you, and some of the steps to get there will even come quite natural once you’re introduced to them, but other steps may take practice and time.

Chapter 2

My Lowest Moment

I remember moving back in with my parents at twenty-six years of age. They lived in a quaint apartment, perfect for them but, I thought, crowded with me there. I moved into their spare bedroom. It had a queen-size bed dressed with my