Welcome to From Insults to Respect. Today we take a close look at one reason some folks have a low level of respect for people who are viewed as having a mental illness–the belief that such people are avoiding responsibilities.
There are two other main reasons for the stigma associated with being labelled mentally ill that we won’t dive into today, but I’ll just briefly mention. 
One has to do with the fact that some people at a gut level look down upon anyone who acts a little different than the norm. The other is the belief that people labelled mentally ill are prone to be violent. In actuality, the vast number of these people are not any more violent than the average Joe or Jill (see HERE for a review of the research). The misperception about this type of violence is fed by a media that has learned it has an increased viewership whenever it provides stories of particularly gruesome killings by people presumed to be mentally ill.
So, recognizing that acting differently and perceptions about an increased risk of violence are significant reasons for the stigmatizing of those labelled mentally ill, let’s now put them aside, so we can more thoroughly focus on the responsibility issue.
An Early Incident Of Someone Bringing Up The Responsibility Issue
William James, during his youth, and well before his amazing career as a psychologist and philosopher, experienced what he viewed as a mental disorder. He initially felt it was hopeless to do anything about it because he believed all mental disorders are completely due to some biological defect. Then, after coming upon some ideas that suggested will and effort can be helpful, James changed his mind, and managed to overcome his turmoil by taking on the responsibility of actively making some significant changes in his life.
Shortly afterwards, James discovered that despite his own success in reacting positively to suggestions about taking some responsibility for handling one’s psychological concerns, other people responded dramatically different. We vividly see this in an 1865 letter that James wrote to his younger brother, Henry, that reads in part:
To suggest personal will and effort to one “all sicklied o’er” with the sense of weakness, of helpless failure, and of fear, is to suggest the most horrible of things to him. What he craves is to be consoled in his very impotence, to feel the Powers of the Universe recognize and secure him, all passive and failing as he is.
Many years have gone by since James wrote that letter, and yet I have found it just as relevant in our own time. In recent years I have become acquainted with many who become angry at any suggestion regarding the value of seeking within, and to be open from others, for suggestions on how they may actively deal with these types of concerns. Rather, they choose to passively respond to what they view as a mental illness, while insisting that something like the “Powers of the Universe” is the only thing that could secure them. Although “The Powers of the Universe” sometimes is viewed by them as some religious figure, more and more in today’s world, filling this role are often psychiatrists prescribing drugs.
Another Situation In Which People Bring Up the Responsibility Issue
Approximately 2 million individuals classified as having a mental illness manage to receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). Some find this infuriating. I have personally heard many folks make remarks such as, “These recipients should go to work like the rest of us, damn it!”
This attitude is a simplification of a very complicated issue and causes, in my opinion, far more harm than good. Although there is little doubt that there are some SSDI recipients out in our society who are deliberately scamming taxpayers, others are not. Unless those criticizing the SSDI recipients have some specific suggestion on how to identify the cheaters, then the criticism unfairly tarnishes the respect of many who are doing the best they can under deeply trying circumstances.
The only reasonable proposal that I have heard to address this type of attack on responsibility is “Universal Basic Income” (see HERE). Under this proposal, everyone would get a check from the federal government that is sufficient to meet a person’s basic needs, and without a work requirement. Thus, it eliminates the giant, costly bureaucracies that run social security, unemployment benefits, and SSDI. Moreover, everyone gets these checks, so it can ameliorate the resentment that comes from thoughts that there are folks scamming the SSDI system
And Yet Another Situation In Which People Bring Up the Responsibility Issue
Anxiety is typically experienced as a type of fear about something that might occur in the future. Grief is a feeling of sadness about a loss of something or someone we value.
In our society, many folks are taught, and come to accept, the idea that experiencing fear or sadness are signs of weakness and cowardliness. This leads to feelings of guilt whenever such experiences arise. All of this occur despite the fact that pretty much all of us regularly experience anxiety and grief, including folks who act in the most courageous manner. Moreover, anxiety and grief experiences are actually enormously helpful, for they are an essential part of the process that helps us to avoid or minimize danger and to figure out how to best move forward after a significant loss.
Now many people think that feeling guilty can provoke people to act responsibly. Confusion abounds on this point. There are indeed instances in which people report that upon feeling guilty about something, it did lead to making a useful change. But, when they say this, often they are confusing feeling guilty with experiencing a sense of responsibility.
People who feel guilty typically seek to punish themselves by either throwing insults at themselves, or actually physically hurting themselves. In contrast, taking responsibility for one’s anxiety and grief, in my opinion, involves welcoming these two experiences, kind of like you might a friend, for these experiences enrich our lives if handled responsibly. If you have something more pressing to take care of for a short period of time, it can make sense to gently delay your interaction with whatever anxiety and grief you have to deal with until a more convenient time. However, the responsible thing to do is to soon invite these experiences back so you can spend some time to work through these types of concerns. Daily meditation, quiet walks, and journal writing, are ideal ways to do this.
During these times of responsibly working through experiences of anxiety and grief, you recognize you have an important job to do. This job involves allowing yourself to fully experience the physical sensations that come, not as something awful, but as something useful and containing even some aspects of great beauty. It is like listening in a caring way to a good friend who is going through an anxiety or grief experience, and empathizing on a physical level with what he or she is experiencing. This experiencing leads naturally to seeking ways to address the concerns that bring about anxiety and grief.
Even if no immediate promising ideas come from a particular episode of spending time in this way, taking responsibility involves keeping hope alive. This means that you recognize that with particularly challenging situations, it takes an extended time to fully address such concerns. In the coming days, new, fresh ideas may yet come your way, or the situations that brought about the concerns may change in unexpected ways to your advantage. In contrast to acting responsibly, experiencing guilt when feeling anxious or grief becomes an aversive experience, and one way to avoid such negative experiences is by finding or creating distractions.
These distractions, when used too often are far from ideal. It is analogous to sleep. When people try to distract themselves from their sleepiness for too long, say by watching exciting TV shows, their sleepiness becomes stronger and stronger and more and more intense. If they continue to press on, avoiding getting enough sleep with various distractions, their functioning becomes compromised. A similar process happens when we keep avoiding providing sufficient time to work through our anxiety and grief concerns.
This deterioration of functioning can be observed with a variety of experiences that get labelled as mental illnesses. For example, John Neale, working out of the State University of New York, presents a fairly good case that people who are vulnerable to manic episodes are actively avoiding their fears and grief. According to Neale’s account, when events lead to increasing perceptions of anxiety and fear, mania is triggered either by the experience of the perceived negative mood, or perhaps the threat of negative mood.
Thus, mania may, in some cases, be a way to avoid responding responsibly to anxiety and grief because of the guilt that occurs over misunderstanding the nature of these useful experiences. This misunderstanding, along with not knowing how to respond responsibly when these experiences occur, may lead to reaching a point at which the person becomes overwhelmed by unprocessed concerns. It is at this point that creating grandiose ideas manage to further distract these folks from the distressing thoughts spinning out of control. It has been estimated that 47 per cent of people who experience what mental health professionals often refer to as psychotic delusions during their manic phase claim they have grandiose abilities. This often leads to friends, family, and community members, concluding such folks are behaving irresponsibly.Conclusion
We have just surveyed the three main reasons people may come to believe someone labelled as having a mental illness is escaping responsibility. First discussed was the belief that some labelled people, rather than taking responsibility for their experience, prefer to be consoled because of what they have come to believe is their impotence to deal constructively with their sense of weakness, helpless failure, and fear. We then discussed people who resent mentally ill labelled folks collecting SSDI benefits, believing they are irresponsibly scamming the system. And finally, we looked at the theory that some mentally ill labelled people have not learned how to responsibly deal with the experiences of anxiety and grief, instead feel guilty when they have such experiences, and consequently seek to avoid these feeling with the use of various distractions.
Now, having surveyed these main reasons, some may therefore jump to the conclusion that people labelled as mentally ill should be blamed for not acting responsibly. Blame, in my estimation, is typically counterproductive. Too often, it will provoke horror, total rejection of the blamer, and a hardening of whatever position the person who is being blamed holds.
Permit me to suggest an alternative. First, assess whether or not the person is capable, for a period of time, or even over a course of a lifetime, to process any suggestions from anyone. If not, blaming is not going to help. Just showing a little kindness from time to time, I think, is the best approach, and for lifting your own sense of being a person worthy of respect.
What about those people whom you assess as capable of making some meaningful changes? Perhaps most helpful is telling them a story from time to time about individuals who have learned the difference between guilt and responsibility when dealing with their anxiety and grief. The story would then go on to illustrate how this person, when practicing responsible behavior, discovered dramatic benefits. After telling the story, ask for their reaction, and then listen in an empathetic manner to what they have to say. Although you might be tempted to make counterarguments to what is being said, often it is better to stick to just listening in a caring manner.
My posts on Abraham Lincoln, Leo Tolstoy, and Joni Mitchell can be helpful in setting you along this path (see HERE, HERE, and HERE). 
For a more in-depth story of this kind, I recommend my novel, Fights In The Streets, Tears In The Sand (see HERE). It provides a heart warming tale of a young boy who has a particularly difficult time wrestling with his anxiety and grief. When his mother is pressured by a psychiatrist to have him involuntarily treated with psychiatric drugs known to have a number of severe side effects, family and friends fight in court to be permitted to seek an alternative, more humanistic approach.
Well, there you have it, a few of my ideas on this very challenging topic. I hope it provides some useful ideas.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
Let’s begin this exploration with a diary entry from a mental patient that appears on page 224 in Richard P. Bentall’s fine book, Madness Explained:
Once we, in our modern society, come to associate anxiety and grief as painful, this leads many of us right into the idea that we best manage it as we do when we experience physical pain, that is, by distracting our minds to something pleasant and washing the feelings away by consuming alcohol and other drugs. And yet, even when dealing with physical pain, these two approaches are often far from optimal.
In research studies, when distracting oneself from pain was compared to a “sensory focus” approach, sensory focus came out distinctly better even for when dealing with the particularly challenging pain that occurs while giving birth (see 
Drugs that contain acetaminophen, like Tylenol, are the leading cause of acute liver failure in the United States, and some studies indicate that it can be harmful to kidneys as well. Each year, the side effects of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), which are commonly used for pain, cause nearly 103,000 hospitalizations and 16,500 deaths. More people die each year from NSAIDs-related complications than from AIDS and cervical cancer in the United States. Common over the counter NSAIDs include ibuprofen (Motrin, Advil) and naproxen (Aleve).
Let’s begin here with a series of studies indicating that how we conceptualize emotional arousing experiences can dramatically alter the experience.
These studies began in earnest back in 1964 when a team of researchers presented a film showing primitive adolescent “subincision” rites to their subjects and found that it produced marked stress reactions. However, when some subjects were coached to view the film as if they were objective scientists, their stress reaction was markedly reduced. The findings supported the conclusion that the same visual stimulus varies in the amount of stress produced depending upon the nature of the cognitive appraisal the person makes.
Subsequent studies replicated this study by using a series of films that showed horrific workplace accidents, and again, altering the cognitive appraisal strategy of the subjects, altered the level of stress experienced. So, perhaps altering how we appraise our experience with anxiety and grief might alter our level of stress for the better.
We have, for over two million years, been evolving ways to address our concerns so we have a better chance to survive and to pass our genes on to subsequent generations. Two of our most common concerns involve perceiving a risk of future danger, which we experience as anxiety, and perceiving we have lost something or someone important to us, which we experience as grief. Recognizing these types of concerns is the first step in a more complete process of finding ways to minimize the risk of danger and to successfully move forward despite our losses.
When we put off dealing with these types of concerns, they don’t just go away; they come back again and again reminding us that we have to adequately address them. Despite our efforts at putting them off, as our concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder and harder to delay dealing with them. Our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not. If we put off taking time to process our concerns for too long, our functioning for dealing with many aspects of life can begin to deteriorate, and at some point, we may end up having what some people refer to as a mental breakdown.
So, with this understanding, anxiety and grief are part of a wonderful process, rather than a sign of mental illness that we need to distract ourselves from or to take drugs to manage. Part of this process requires that we devote enough time to process these concerns or the level of intensity is liable to become more and more challenging.
When we are reminded of our perceived dangers and grief, rather than automatically perceiving such experiences as painful, we can allow ourselves to observe the physical sensations that come with it. If words such as, “Man, this is painful,” “Man, this is hurting,” or, “I can’t stand this suffering,” we can observe them without automatically accepting them as accurate. What is accurate is the physical sensations, and the specific concern to be addressed as best as you can fathom. Once the sensations go through us, we naturally begin to spend some time thinking about some ideas to address the concerns.
In two recent posts I aimed to encourage folks to consider learning to deal with anxiety in a manner that can improve their self-respect. The first of these, “
To begin this discussion, I present the context in which two of the leading characters from the play, The King and I, begin to sing the delightful song, “I Whistle a Happy Tune.” The song’s lyrics, along with a discussion of the song’s philosophy is then presented. In the end, we get a deeper understanding of how to wisely handle anxiety.
You can view the charming opening scene of The King and I, which includes the singing of the song on YouTube for free by clicking 
As their ship arrives in the Siam bay, Louis notices that the king’s royal barge is approaching. As Louis spies the people on the barge through a telescope, he says, “They look so cruel, mother.” Looking anxious, he goes on to say, “Father would not have liked us to be afraid, would he?”
“Oh, yes, sometimes.”
I whistle a happy tune
Anxiety is the experience of fear that occurs when we think about dealing in the future with a fearful situation. In the scene, Louis learns his father would not like it if either he or his mother ever experience fear. Perhaps his father might have conveyed the attitude that to experience fear is cowardly. This is a common lesson that children are taught by their parents, and consequently, these children may grow up to feel guilty when experiencing anxiety, and then take steps to avoid experiencing it.
Louis’s mother, Anna, admits that she does experience fear, but whenever this happens, by acting fearless and whistling a happy tune, she claims that it prevents people from suspecting she is fearful. She also claims that these actions even convinces her that she really isn’t afraid.
In the scene we are discussing, we see that the anxiety being experienced has the potential to serve a useful function. Louis expresses his anxiety to his mother when he says with tension in his voice, “They look so cruel, Mother.” Upon expressing this, it leads to a discussion between Louis and his mother about fear, and he ends up learning a strategy to deal with fear–whistling a happy tune.
Judging from Anna’s face, not only is Louis now experiencing fear, she is as well. To deal with their shared fearful experience, both of them begin whistling a happy tune. Despite employing this technique, judging from their faces, the whistling is not entirely eliminating all of their fears.
When we put off dealing with the concerns connected with our fears, they don’t just go away; they come back again and again reminding us that we have to adequately address them. Despite our efforts at putting them off, as our fearful concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder and harder to delay dealing with them. Our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not. If we put off taking time to process our fears for too long, our functioning for dealing with many aspects of life can begin to deteriorate, and at some point, we may end up having what some people refer to as a mental breakdown.
Some people who learn to feel guilty when experiencing anxiety and other forms of fear can often find ways to distract themselves from these types of feelings. As their fears begin to build up, they have to try harder and harder to distract themselves. They may begin to eat far more than is healthy, binge watching suspense movies, begin to talk and talk about anything other than their fears, etc. Alternatively, they may try to suppress the feelings by consuming more and more alcohol and other drugs.
With this understanding, we now return to our earlier question, Is whistling a happy tune a wise strategy? Part of the answer, is this: There are times when it does makes sense to put aside for a while our anxiety in order to better deal with some other pressing experience. If you find that whistling a happy tune in such situations helps, that’s fine.
If she had given them the impression that her fear can easily overcome her, the king might take advantage of this. He might think she can easily be pressured to do things she might not wish to do. Better to give the impression to him that she is a force to be reckoned with in order for her to be in a stronger bargaining position. If this was her reasoning, then attempting to put off her feelings of anxiety until she can process them in private makes good sense.
As the movie continues, we soon learn that when Anna meets the king, he informs her that he has arranged for her to live in a room within his royal palace. Anna objects to this, explaining assertively that she accepted the teaching position in part because of a clearly stated condition in her contract indicating she must be provided a cottage off of the palace grounds.
Now, I won’t reveal the outcome of this conflict in case some of you haven’t seen the movie, but the issue of wanting a place separate from the palace serves for us a powerful metaphor for my next point. Anna requires a place where she can set up a boundary separating her work responsibilities from times when she can have some peace and quiet.
Likewise, all people need to put time aside to deal with their anxieties, frustrations, and griefs. Therefore, whistling a happy tune at times makes sense. In such cases, it is crucial to make sure you put aside some time to welcome some alone time so those fears are adequately addressed at a more convenient time.
Meditation, prior to breakfast and the evening meal each day, is an especially ideal habit to get into. You can learn a simple form of meditation for free by clicking 
When we meditate, we find a quiet place, thus eliminating outside distractions. This allows us to focus on our internal issues such as our stored up anxieties. A wonderful aspect of meditation is you end up discovering that you don’t have to try to work on your anxieties while meditating. Instead, each of them at various times during your meditation float up into your consciousness quite effortlessly, and when they do, your thought processes begin the work of tossing around plans to address them, also quite effortlessly. At some point, you end up selecting a promising approach to prepare for fearful situations.
Taking walks, especially in nature, is also ideal for working through our anxieties. It is also a wonderful way to keep your heart healthy.
Recently, I wrote a post titled, “The Nature of Anxiety” (see 
The point of view that I described is in stark contrast to the common view in our society that looks upon anxiety as a negative, destructive, “abnormal” experience, a symptom of mental illness, one which must be fought and if possible, drugged away and annihilated. Today, I make the case that the opposing view has something to do with misunderstanding the nature of guilt and responsibility. But before we get into all of that, let’s take a quick look at a little parable designed to be a helpful jumping off point for today’s topic.
Five-year-old Ken is playing in his family’s living room with his blocks while his seven-year-old sister, Jill, is working on a puzzle. Ken’s mom, comes in from the kitchen and says, “Ken, that’s a nice tower you are making with your blocks. Next week you start kindergarten. I heard they have a great set of blocks there.”
“There’s nothing to be scared about, Ken,” says his mom, “Don’t be a baby!”
Ken runs to his room. On his bed, tears stream down his cheeks. “I hate myself,” he cries out, feeling guilty for what he has been experiencing.
Of course, the answer depends on how you define anxiety. Here, consistent with many experts, anxiety is viewed as feeling fear about something that might happen in the future. Some people will use the words, “a sense of uneasiness” or “worry” to describe this feeling.
When we anticipate that we will be facing some event in the future that has the potential of harm, such as downhill skiing, it is possible to feel a wonderful exhilaration. This exhilaration occurs as long as our mind is focused on memories of when we were enjoying the experience and anticipating enjoying the experience once again. 
However, while thinking of this, if our mind drifts to the possibility of being harmed and we perceive that that harm could be significant, then the feeling of anxiety would accompany those thoughts.
Many people don’t make a clear distinction between experiencing anxiety, from such experiences as frustration, grief, being upset, depressed, or melancholy. They, therefore, may use these types of words rather interchangeably. There is some justification for doing so because when we look at specific examples of people having these types of experiences, we find that all of these challenging emotions can blend together, and it is not always easy to say which emotion is most apt for describing what is actually being experienced.
When seeking to understand anxiety, it is not only useful to know its definition, it is also crucial to know its function. What purpose does it serve for us human beings?
When we have managed to avoid working through a great many anxiety concerns, and we reach a point at which anxiety begins to burst into our consciousness even when we prefer to be dealing with something else, sometimes something strange happens. All of these concerns get so mixed up in our anxiety memory that they become a mishmash. This may result in our having the experience of anxiety, but we have difficulty pinpointing what we are anxious about. We might feel that we have become anxious about everything. We may experience a general sense of dread. In the writings by psychologists, they often refer to this as “free floating anxiety.” Its function remains the same, to motivate us to spend time addressing all of the concerns that have been stored up in our anxiety memory.
Some people, using a variety of strategies to desperately avoid dealing with these memories, can eventually have an experience sometimes referred to as an emotional breakdown. Today, psychiatrists typically prescribe drugs for this. Providing a place for rest and emotional support for working through all of the stored up anxiety was the main approach prior to the drug approach era. An extensive review of the available scientific evidence by
Daily meditation and walks are ideal activities to process our anxieties. Writing a journal about events that distress us can also produce heaps of rewards, for it lets one take a step back from what occurred as feelings are put into written form. Regularly discussing our concerns with a supportive friend or family member can also be of help. Sometimes it is better to discuss these issues with a supportive counselor because some of the issues that lead to anxiety may be less embarrassing when shared with a professional who has an ethical obligation of maintaining confidentiality. Professional counselors also often have knowledge that draws upon a variety of wisdom traditions to smooth out the processing of anxiety.
Ken’s mom yells at him for feeling fearful. She seeks to have him feel ashamed for having these feelings. His sister, joins in with the shaming.
To deal with his feelings, Ken goes to his room. There, while crying and feeling guilty, he experiences hating himself. Then he finds he can divert his attention from these feelings by playing an exciting video game.
Perhaps getting something to eat works to some degree as his mind focuses on the aroma and tastes of food, so he begins to eat in excess. As he gets older, he may find that alcohol and other drugs, at least initially, deadens these feelings. As tolerance of these drugs develop, he may have to do more and more of these drugs to get the same result. The side effects and negative health consequences make this approach less than ideal.
As I mentioned, the anxiety memory has, as one of its characteristics, a tendency, when time is not set aside to address concerns, to enter consciousness with stronger and stronger feelings. When these feelings can no longer be kept suppressed or avoided, Ken may go to a psychiatrist who will translate his experience into a language of symptoms of mental illness and then prescribe a medication. Today, many psychologists and counselors may also view his experiences as symptoms of a mental illness, but will spend most of their time listening in a caring manner.
“I was scared too before my first day,” says Pete’s sister, Nancy, “but it turned out that the teacher was really nice, and we did a lot of fun stuff, and I made lots of friends.”
“Some of the kids could start calling me names.”
“First, I called the kid a name back, but my teacher caught me and said I shouldn’t do that. So then, the next time it happened, I told the teacher. The trouble with that is the kids called me names for being a tattletale. So now I just ignore name calling.”
“You’re stupid,” says Pete.
So, Pete tried it, and first when he looked into his mother’s eyes, he did it in an angry way, so his mother pointed this out to him. “You want to show the name caller that you are not scared. When you glare at him the way you did, you look like you want to challenge the kid to a fight. That’s not going to be helpful for making friends. Try to make it look friendly-like. You want to show that you heard what was said, you are not afraid, you are friendly, and you are ready to move on with playing.”
“Now, Pete, there is a lot more to learn about name calling, so we can’t learn it all in one sitting. For example, when you look down, before you look into the name caller’s eyes, I want you to ask yourself, ‘Why is this guy calling me this name?’ When you do that, let’s say you know he did it because you accidentally pushed him. If it was an accident, what could you say?”
“There are a lot more skills to learn about handling name calling, like, sometimes kids like to call each other names in a fun, playful way, just kidding around. That needs to be handled in a different way. Sometimes some kid will be calling you names over and over again, acting like a bully. That has to be handled in another way. But for now, we’ll just practice the set of skills we just worked on today for a few minutes each day until you start kindergarten. If you ask the name caller the reason he or she did it, whatever the kid says, just do the looking into the eyes, nod, and continue with what you were doing plan, but remember what the kid said. When you get home, we’ll discuss what to do depending on what was said.”
After all, suppose he has to go to war, or he has some other dangerous job. In those situations, being afraid won’t be tolerated. But, if you talk to our greatest war heroes, you find that they were very fearful when they acted out their heroic deed. They will say things like,
Guilt has you punishing yourself while trying to distract yourself from your anxiety, and/or suppressing it with drugs. When you take responsibility for your actions, you permit yourself some time to mindfully experience the anxiety you are feeling in your body. You think about what you have done in the past that might have been a mistake. From here, you begin to think about what you can do to deal as best as you can with the situation that you thought of that prompted the anxiety. Then you practice the skills that may be helpful. That’s acting responsibly. Being guilty is just wasting your time punishing yourself.
Now, sometimes you feel anxious about something and after pausing to consider it, you may feel that you are helpless to really do anything about it. When this happens, does it make sense to avoid and suppress your anxious feelings? The answer, in my opinion, is no.
Now, sometimes we begin to feel anxious because we made a mistake that involves, not just ourselves, but other people with whom we interact. The fear comes from knowing that these other people are blaming us. We may also fear that when we interact with them, we will be rejected.
Those of us who have learned to suppress these feelings may try to put the blame on others for what happened. Perhaps there is some justification to think there is some shared responsibility in what had occurred. Is this the time to attack those who also made mistakes and seek to make them feel guilty?
Instead, I suggest modeling for the others what taking responsibility looks like. Thus, when you see them, consider making the following type of statement:
Now, of course, all of what I’ve been discussing takes time. If you are to adequately address your concerns, you might have to give up a few TV shows. Perhaps a social engagement where juicy gossiping occurs might have to be cut a little shorter. I say this fully understanding that people have come to enjoy all of the activities designed to distract them from responsibly addressing their anxiety. Nevertheless, I encourage you to devote several hours per week letting your mind dwell on all of those anxious issues that bubble up into your consciousness, for you will be far better having done so.
Welcome to From Insults To Respect. Today, Fathers Day, with many of us gathering with family members, it seems an apt time to take a few minutes to think about what family means to us.
Welcome once again to Theme Time Radio Hour. I got nothing to sell, nothing to promote, just a good friend stopping by.
As Thomas Jefferson once said, “The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I rested at home in the bosom of my family.” Old TJ was a smart guy. 
Well, Melody, that’s an interesting question. Parents shouldn’t have favorites among their children, but sometimes they do. You should forget about trying to convince him that he is being unreasonable and instead pose a couple of questions. Do you think his son needs stricter rules than his daughter? Is he perhaps remembering what he did as a child? How is his strictness affecting the children? I think perhaps the best solution is to do more things as a complete family. Don’t break them up into small teams or units. The more things you do together, he will treat both children equally. I’m sure you guys will work it out. And stop giving my shows away. 
Other people have put that tag on him in some otherworldly sense. I say it as any kid who admired his dad and had a great relationship with him. He never missed a single Little League game I had. He’s collected every home-run ball I ever hit. And he’s still affectionate to me.” He paused and smiled. “Maybe he doesn’t want people to know that,” he said. “
But I’ll tell you, because it’s my interview.”…. “Look, he’s the best at what I do. I know that, and so do my heroes. I got to watch my heroes meet him and saw how they reacted, whether it was Joe Strummer or Tom Waits. It was peculiar. I’m so stoked to meet Tom Waits, and he’s so nervous to meet my dad. It’s a head spin.”
One day, upon striking out in a baseball game, the F-word leaped from my mouth. I immediately looked around to see who was in earshot. I knew my teammates wouldn’t take offense, but my curse was shouted, and I feared it might have reached the ears of my coach, or some in the stands who might be wounded by the disrespectful blow.
Later, I wondered why I cry out with this word despite knowing some might feel it disrespectful, and even sinful. Upon reflection, it occurred to me that I grew up in Brooklyn, and the F-word, along with quite a few other unseemly expressions, were so common, that I just picked up the habit rather innocently.
At one point, I happened to be writing a novel titled, 
Oh, I guess I should warn you, there is cursing in the story, including the F-word, so if you find such language unsuitable to your ears, you might want to skip the story and go directly to the “Reflections By Scientists On Cursing” section.
“What do you say tomorrow night we go to The Village?” asks George to Cliff, Steve and me as we eat a late Friday night snack at the Avenue U Diner.”
“What the fuck did you do that for?” George hollers.
“Jesus fucking Christ, what are you, the speech police?” George hollers. 
We begin to walk toward Ocean Parkway, along Avenue U. It’s mild out, with a very black sky; street lights cast a soft yellowy brightness along our path.
“I’ve heard women curse,” says George.
“George,” says Steve, “you know damn well that there’re places where you’re just being disrespectful when you curse. I never hear you curse at school when a teacher is in earshot.”
When I was growing up in Brooklyn, cursing was just something I picked up from listening to the other kids in the neighborhood, kinda like how I picked up my Brooklyn accent. I heard some adults use cursing as well.
As I got older, it seemed it was a way to bond with the guys–kinda like it made you one of the boys. You did it to rebel from the authorities who objected to such language. Sex and toiletry matters were not something people were to talk about openly, so if you did, you were somehow respected for rebelling against social norms. Shooting the shit, was an act thought of as being gutsy, a respected attribute for many a teenager. My wife tells me that similar language was used as well among her female friends when she was growing up in Rochester, New York, and apparently for the same reasons.
This experiment examined the effects of judicious swearing on persuasion in a pro‐attitudinal speech. Participants listened to one of three versions of a speech about lowering tuition that manipulated where the word “damn” appeared (beginning, end, or nowhere). The results showed that obscenity at the beginning or end of the speech significantly increased the persuasiveness of the speech and the perceived intensity of the speaker. Obscenity had no effect on speaker credibility.
Swearing, also known as cursing, can be best described as a form of linguistic activity utilizing taboo words to convey the expression of strong emotions. Although swearing and cursing are frequently occurring behaviors, the actual functions of swearing remain largely unknown. Since swearing typically includes taboo words, these words can be more powerful than non-swear words. 
Therefore, people who swear are often judged negatively, because the uttered swearwords can shock and disturb others, though the comments of others are strongly dependent on contextual factors. In this review, we provide an insight into the current state of the literature with respect to the interpersonal functions of swearing. In addition, we briefly discuss neurological, psychosocial and contextual factors that may contribute to a person’s swearing behavior. Swearing is hypothesized to produce a catharsis-effect, which results in a relief of stress or pain. Swearing also influences the perceived credibility, intensity, and persuasiveness of the swearer. Additionally, swearing can have a variety of interpersonal consequences, including promoting group bonding and solidarity, inhibiting aggression, eliciting humor, and causing emotional pain to others. This paper further presents a hypothetical model of swearing that draws from basic emotion research in an attempt to provide a scaffolding for future research.
I happened to notice that the review mentions eliciting humor as an interpersonal consequence of cursing. I find that interesting because of my own personal reaction to humor that uses cursing. A couple of times I’ve gone to comedy clubs and found that the comedians used so much cursing in their routines that it began to rub me the wrong way. It just seemed obnoxious to me, and yet others found their shtick hysterical.
Certainly cursing is not required to make people laugh. Millions find shows like, I Love Lucy and Seinfeld wonderfully funny despite there being no cursing. So, it is a puzzle to me why I, who grew up regularly hearing cursing, find that there is a point at which it begins to grate on my nerves, while others are willing to spend a pretty high ticket price to hear such shows. 
This phenomenon has taught me that individuals react so incredibly different to different styles of humor and how much cursing they can hear before it becomes annoying.
Well, recently I published a post titled, “The Nature of Depression and Melancholy” (see 
Depression and melancholy, as I explained more fully in 
This memory can be visualized as a bucket. When it is only slightly filled, each time the memory warns you that you have some work to do in order to deal with your various concerns, you can, if you so choose, easily put off dealing with them until a more convenient time by shifting your attention so you can carry out some other task.
As the concerns become more frequent, or feel more intense, some medical doctors, particularly psychiatrists, will be eager to classify your experience as a symptom of a mental disorder and prescribe drugs to deal with this. It is a lucrative business model, but in my opinion, this causes more harm than good. 
One way or another, concerns have to be addressed, and masking them with substances that have a variety of harmful side effects will only lead to more concerns in the long run.
We can visualize this as being born with either a large, average, or small concern memory bucket. For those who are born with a relatively large concern bucket, they can hold more concerns and larger, more serious concerns before their bucket begins to become filled than an average person. Thus, they can go for longer periods before they begin to have more and more difficulty shifting their attention away from their concerns. Others who are born with smaller buckets find that it takes less time than the average person for it to begin to fill up. Thus, even when facing relatively few and minor concerns than the average person, they nevertheless begin to have more and more difficulty shifting their attention away from their concerns.
For example, meditating once or twice a day provides an opportunity to spend time addressing concerns with little distractions. Although as we enter into meditation, we don’t do so with the intent to address concerns, they naturally bubble up from the relatively peaceful state, and our minds spend time working through our various concerns in a natural manner.
In today’s world, there are an incredible number of opportunities to distract us from addressing our concerns, from entertaining TV shows, movies, the ease of calling friends, and engaging on social media platforms. Methods that free us from so many distractions for periods of time can be enormously helpful in avoiding reaching what some have described as a nervous breakdown.
So, the six common characteristics of depression, melancholy, and anxiety I want to bring to your attention are, 1. the concern memory system serves as a warning sign, 2. we can delay attending to these warnings for a limited period of time, 3. when we put off dealing with our concerns, they don’t just go away, they come back again and again until they are adequately addressed, 4.despite our efforts at putting them off, as our concerns begin to accumulate without being fully addressed, it becomes harder to delay dealing with them, and our memory begins to remind us of them more frequently and more intensely, until we reach a point at which we must attend to them, like it or not, 5. people vary on how many and how serious their concerns must become before they no longer can divert their attention from their concerns, and 6. we can decrease the period of time before our concerns start to reach extremely frequent, strong, intense experiences by putting aside each day some time to reduce external distractions so we can more smoothly and comfortably address our concerns.
If we perceive a tiger rushing toward us, we would experience fear that would immediately fill up our concern bucket, and our attention would be completely on this event. During this time, you would not be thinking about what TV show you want to watch later that evening. Instead, your body would go into a state of flight or fight, your heart would be pounding, and adrenalin would begin to circulate in your blood, giving you added strength.
For example, observing a doctor coming toward you to give you an injection might produce just a mild degree of fear. At such time, you might decide to divert your attention to a pleasant image, and find you can do this.
For example, a woman might have plans to traverse a path in a jungle next week having heard that tigers have attacked people on that path. Each time she thinks about this, she is very likely to experience some fear.
After a hard day at work, Rob desires to get home so he can relax. As he is driving home, suddenly he hits a traffic jam, slowing his car almost to a stop. He initially experiences frustration. As he assesses the situation, he sees there is some road construction blocking one of the lanes. Then he sees that just up ahead, once cars pass the construction, traffic picks up to normal. This five-minute delay is no big deal, and his mind passes to some song playing on his radio.
Shanice desires to be viewed by her family as an excellent cook, and her family of four love that she takes charge of the evening meal. One day, as Shanice is working around her house, a concern arises within. She thinks to herself, “What should I make for supper?” When she can’t think of anything, she feels frustrated. Over the past few days, she has gone through her main classics, and now she doesn’t want to make something she views as “the same old, same old.”
Suddenly the phone rings, and because Shanice is in the midst of experiencing her frustration over this issue, she pauses before answering, thinking she wants to get her supper plans settled. But then she says, “I guess I could put this supper stuff off for a few minutes,” and she decides to answer her phone.
As Shanice flips through these recipes, her eyes fall upon one for sesame pasta. “Oh,” she says, “the last time I made this, everyone raved about it. I haven’t made it in a long time. I bet this might be a perfect choice, and she is now even more hopeful.”
Fred, an assistant manager in his firm, desires to get a promotion. When his annual review comes, it is excellent, and his hopes soar. One day the firms owner calls him into her office. He thinks to himself, “Maybe she’s going to tell me I’ve been promoted,” and once again his hope soars. Instead of a promotion, she fires Fred, explaining that the firm was just bought out by a big conglomerate, and they are bringing in their own personnel leadership.
It’s a month later. He is grieving because he has received rejection letters from two of the nearby firms. He also finds that when he wakes up every morning he has a bout of anxiety, fearing the letter carrier will bring another rejection letter.
Here we see an example of someone experiencing, during a period of months, strong feelings of hope, frustration, anxiety, grief, fear, and happiness. There are times Fred has trouble concentrating on the usual family matters and community obligations. Still, many of the important tasks of life that don’t involve looking for a job manages to get done by Fred. But, at one point, he does excuse himself so he can eliminate distractions, fully experience his emotions, and formulate some plans.
Janet has just graduated from a Mental Health Counseling masters program. She now has thousands of dollars in college loans, but her husband makes just enough money so their living expenses are just barely being met.
To prepare for the test, she pays for a set of computer based instructions, which also provides practice tests. The cost to take the test, and the instructional material has really stretched her budget to the ultimate limit.
In this example, if Janet was asked to describe her emotional experience during this period of her life, she may very well say that she was mainly feeling a great deal of anxiety. The combined fear of failing her test, having to take the test over, maybe failing it again, having a miscarriage or having a baby with serious medical problems, we can imagine, could have overshadowed her other emotions.
To understand the nature of anxiety, we must understand how it is related to four other emotional experiences. The above four examples seeks to help us see these relationships.
Now, when we have frustration along with grieving experiences or anxiety, many of us begin to insult ourselves. We might say, things like, “Why am I acting like a baby,” “I’m acting crazy,” “What an idiot I am,” “I’m mentally ill,” “I’m hopeless and helpless,” “This is a horrible experience, and it’s all my fault,” “I hate myself,” “I deserve to die,” etc. Those who go to war with themselves in this manner, add a whole additional serious concern to what they are already facing because people have an inherent desire to respect themselves. Creating the impression with these insulting attitudes that they are not worthy of respect frustrates this desire.
So, here we see two alternative experiences, one in which frustration and grieving gets mixed together with insulting, and one in which frustration and anxiety gets mixed together with insulting. When we experience frustration and grieving, and are also insulting ourselves, we might want to refer to this as depression.
As I pointed out in my post titled, “Depression and Melancholy,” melancholy offers us a third alternative.
Consider how musician and song writer Joni Mitchell described melancholy in her beautiful song, “Hijira.”
In melancholy, the person practices self-compassion and views the experiences of frustration, grieving, and anxiety as a natural helpful process we all must go through from time to time. Melancholy provides a richer, and more powerful approach for addressing our concerns, even the most challenging ones. It doesn’t waste time with all of the insults, though, because of old habits, some may still leap into consciousness. When they do, individuals in a melancholy state of being can observe them without believing they are true. Rather, they recognize them as old unhelpful habits, allow themselves to experience the physical sensations that come with them, and then, when those sensations pass in their own good time, they move on to other work that needs to be done.
TV shows, movies, and politics portray people constantly blaming others in a hateful manner for all the problems that they see in the world. So, this style of dealing even with our own concerns is something that we pick up like mud on our shoes after strolling through an unpaved path after a storm.
Additionally, my three novels provide an entertaining way to learn to develop self respect (see 
A central difference between the two has to do with throwing insults at ourselves; when we are depressed we spend a great deal of time doing that, in melancholy, not so much. To better understand what I mean by this, and to clarify the natural function of depression and melancholy, it will be worthwhile to first take a brief look at another state of being, sleep.
As a result of our special familiarity with sleep–we experience it pretty much every single day–when I point out six of its characteristics, everyone will readily know what I’m talking about. It will then be easier to see that similar characteristics occur with the less familiar depression and melancholy experiences.
Before we go to sleep, we experience a warning that sleep is heading our way. We refer to this warning as “feeling sleepy.”
Feeling sleepy can range from being a little sleepy, all the way to the point where we can barely keep our eyes open. This range of sleepiness is dependent on a special memory that stores how sleepy you are. This memory can be visualized as a bucket. If you are a little sleepy in the morning, the bucket is viewed as only slightly filled. If you manage to divert your attention from the sleepiness so you can go to work, by the time you get back home, your sleepiness memory hasn’t forgotten that the bucket was slightly filled earlier, and now that several more hours have gone by without getting some sleep, the bucket has filled up beyond the height than it was in the morning. 
This becomes noticeable by more frequent waves of sleepiness, and each wave feels more heavy or intense. If you divert your attention from how sleepy you are so you can have dinner and watch a few of your favorite TV shows, you will find that none of your earlier sleepiness has been completely forgotten for long, and on top of that, even more sleepiness has been added. 
Finally, some people, desiring to avoid having their bucket getting filled up too early, will carve out some time in their day to take a nap or two. Each nap lowers the level in their bucket, and they therefore remain more alert during the day after a few minutes of grogginess passes.
As Katrina is on her way to work, a concern arises within. “My job is not really right for me,” she says to herself. “It’s getting more and more boring, and the pay is barely enough to make ends meet. I have to make a change.”
Upon arriving home, Katrina puts on the TV to see some shows she likes. While watching, she finds that her concerns intrude into her consciousness more frequently and in a more intense manner than previous recent days. In the medical model of thinking about this, these intrusions would be viewed as symptoms of a possible mental disorder. As I view them, they are as natural as a sunrise.
Meditation is supremely useful for this because the practice involves going to a quiet place and then closing your eyes. Although during meditation you may spend some time focussing on your mantra, this mantra task is so simple that ample time and mental space is available for your concerns to bubble up to the surface where they can be addressed while you are in a relatively calm state.
In today’s world, because there are so many opportunities to distract us from addressing our concerns, from entertaining TV shows, movies, the ease of calling friends, and engaging on social media platforms, methods that free us from so many distractions for periods of time can be enormously helpful.
We have just looked at six characteristics of depression that are somewhat similar to the six characteristics of sleep that we discussed earlier in this essay. There are, of course, some differences between sleep and depression. The difference I want to point out here is that the passing of time is the main factor that leads to needing to go into a period of sleep. The longer you are awake, the sleepier you are likely to become.
Some concerns are relatively easy to address, others are harder. Moreover, concerns vary with regards to how threatening they are to one’s goals.
The six characteristics that apply to depression apply to melancholy as well. The chief difference between the two, as I mentioned earlier, is when people experience depression they insult themselves, whereas when people experience melancholy, not so much.
All of this leads to the person experiencing self-loathing. The insults people attack themselves with add to the concerns in their bucket, leading to it becoming fuller more quickly than if they did not do this, and the insults are distracting, so that the real work of addressing the real concerns are less efficiently addressed.
In contrast, consider how musician and song writer Joni Mitchell described melancholy in her beautiful song, “Hijira.”
Despair takes us in when we have no where else to go; when we feel the heart cannot break anymore, when our world or our loved ones disappear, when we feel we cannot be loved or do not deserve to be loved, when our God disappoints, or when our body is carrying profound pain in a way that does not go away.
Despair is a necessary and seasonal state of repair, a temporary healing absence, an internal physiological and psychological winter when our previous forms of participation in the world take a rest; it is a loss of horizon, it is the place we go when we do not want to be found in the same way anymore. We give up hope and certain particular wishes are no longer able to come true and despair is the time in which we both endure and heal, even when we have not yet found the new form of hope.
Melancholy provides a richer, and more powerful approach for addressing our concerns, even the most challenging ones. It doesn’t waste time with all of the insults, though, because of old habits, some may still leap into consciousness. When they do, those in melancholy can observe them without believing they are true. Rather, they recognize them as old unhelpful habits, allow themselves to experience the physical sensations that come with them, and then, when those sensations pass in their own good time, they move on to other work that needs to be done.
In our society, many of us learn to address our concerns using the depression pattern. How can they change that pattern so, when the bucket is full they experience, instead, melancholy?
These days, many are performing their jobs from home and are missing the camaraderie of their workplace. Such drastic changes in their lives, and that of their families, give us reason to reflect on what work means to us.
Given the main focus of this blog, you might wonder what work has to do with respect. Well, many people achieve a great deal of respect from the work they do, while others are humbled by finding they have had little choice but to take a job far different from what they had aspired to in earlier days. Others, having lost their job and finding themselves falling deep into poverty, may be questioning their own self respect. So, without any further ado, here’s a little meditation on this topic insightfully aided by Bob Dylan’s “work” episode from his Theme Time Radio Hour series, which we can listen to 
Welcome back to Theme Time Radio Hour, and this week we’re talking about work. We’re talkin’ about golden parachutes, poison pills, golden handshakes. We’re talking about workin’ like a dog, work around the clock, workin’ 9 to 5; talking about all the workin’ stiffs who’re workin’ for a livin’, who live to work, labor intensive, doin’ odd jobs, married to their job, them employee of the month hard at work. So this week, no kidding around, no fooling, no goofing off, no hanging around the water cooler, because we’re going to get right down to it, putting in an honest day’s work, for an honest day’s pay, for our subject de jure is work and jobs. 
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,
They call it stormy Monday, and, baby, Tuesday’s just as bad
I keep my nose on the grindstone, I work hard every day
Bob then tells us that if he had to have a boss, he would choose Bruce Springsteen.
You may be an ambassador to England or France
I got to get out and find a job
Just whistle while you work
You want to keep in mind that you are going on an interview, not a date. Don’t drown yourself with perfume or cologne. Speak up. Interviewers don’t want to drag words out of you. On the other hand, don’t talk too much, you don’t want to bore them. Stay focused, listen to what the question is and answer it; they don’t want to hear about what your dog did last week. Make eye contact, you don’t want to appear to be some kind of criminal. Poor language skills don’t help. Using “like” every third word or repeatedly saying “um” does not make you a likely candidate. Build trust. Don’t use a lot of little white lies, you’re going to get caught, and then how are they to believe anything you say. Wear a clean shirt, and present the best you possible. And once you get the job, you can do what everyone else does, figure out ways to get the day off. 
My last post, 
Wonderfully capturing this sentiment is a YouTube 
Off the field, Jeter founded the 
In interviews, even though he had plenty to brag about, and even when he had just won a big game with a clutch hit, Jeter remained humble while directing credit to his teammates.
One thing that I particularly admired about Jeter was that although he so passionately wanted to win, this desire was not expressed by hating his rivals. We saw this being expressed each time he would get a hit, for he had a delightful way of engaging in some friendly exchange with the player trying to hold him close to the base so he wouldn’t steal. Jeter’s ready smile during these interactions, even in the midst of a crucially important game, endeared him to players throughout the major leagues.
As an example of what many thought a serious mistake in judgment, when Jeter assumed leadership of the Miami Marlins baseball team, he naturally wanted to bring in his own assistants. This meant he had to fire those who had been in those positions before he arrived. Rather than personally calling all of these individuals to explain why he was letting them go, he had one of his underlings do most of the dirty work. The press picked up the story, and hopefully Jeter, and the rest of us as well, learn something from this.
As a Yankee for twenty years, Jeter had ample opportunities to welcome new players joining the team. Not being a Yankee player myself, I can’t speak to how he handled this. But one thing that I do know, how it is handled can go a long way toward earning a significant degree of respect from the new guy, as we will now see.
In recent years, the major leagues developed a policy seeking to end this practice of hazing.
Wee Willie Keeler was still a pretty decent ballplayer, even then…. Wonderful fellow. I was too shy to say anything to him, but he came over to me one day and said, “Jim, you’ve got a great career ahead of you. If I can help you in any way, you just say the word.” How about that? 
Baseball field managers are a special subgroup of these ballplayers. Typically, they played professionally for many years, demonstrating keen knowledge of the game, and upon reaching an age at which they are too old to continue playing at a professional level, they are singled out by club owners and their upper management team as having leadership abilities. Here, we will take a quick look at two of these guys, John McGraw and Connie Mack, not because they were perfect human beings that never made a mistake, but because a few of their attributes are particularly informative when we want to get insights about the nature of respect.
Take Mr. McGraw. What a great man he was! The finest and grandest man I ever met. He loved his players and his players loved him. Of course, he wouldn’t stand for any nonsense. You had to live up to the rules and regulations of the New York Giants, and when he laid down the law you’d better abide by it.
Another attribute that Snodgrass appreciated about McGraw was his willingness to let players make decisions on their own initiative.
Chief Myers was a catcher for the Giants. What did he appreciate about McGraw? Before playing for McGraw, he and the other players were always booked at the cheapest hotels.
In addition to McGraw, we find in Ritter’s book players repeatedly voicing high respect for Connie Mack.
In my opinion, Connie Mack did more for baseball than any other human being–by the example he set, his attitude, the way he handled himself and his players. You know, like you’re playing a great game and you’re heroes to the children of this country. Live up to it, conduct yourself accordingly. Over a period of years others followed, and baseball became respectable. He was a true gentleman, in every sense of the word. Not many men are.