Why do we dream?  What do our dreams mean?  Why do our dreams haunt us?  I’m not a dream scientist, but if you step inside my world of crazy, I can answer your questions.  And if I don’t satisfy your questions, then you can sleep on it.  In our waking lives, we have control of our thoughts and because we do, we suppress our daydreaming and imaginations.  Usually, we are very literal when we are postulating and do not turn on the daydreaming side because we simply are concentrating too much at the task at hand.  However, when we let ourselves wander, that part of our brain turns on.  When someone tells you a story, you also imagine and see it unfold in your head, similar to when you read a book.  In our dream state, we mostly cannot control our thoughts and so our thought and imagination process meld seamlessly because we imagine what we immediately think about.

We dream because our brains never stop thinking even when we sleep.  Our bodies may rest, but our mind never does.  Remember a time when you pulled out of sleep and remembered how elaborate your dream was?  Your mind was still working.  Our dreams are a continuation of our thought patterns and what we take in from the world that we still yet have to process.  If you go to sleep with a certain crisis in mind, chances are you’ll dream about it, too.  Oftentimes, our dreams can access what we forcibly will not face in our waking lives because traumas can never really be pushed away.  When we dream of people who are dead or relationships that have ended, it is not necessarily because we want to be with them.  It only means that we have unresolved issues with these people and they remain open wounds.  To acknowledge this understands that we must deal with it in our waking lives.  We may never be able to receive closure from them, but we can express our feelings via a letter.  This will lesson our trauma.

Sometimes, we have reoccurring dreams or dreams that scare us.  Reoccurring dreams are unprocessed feelings and experiences that affected us more than what we cared to admit to.  Dreams that scare us may show us what our deepest fears are because we refuse to admit them in our waking lives.  Dreams exist to haunt us because we cannot come to terms with our past.  They are not premonitions, reasons to get back with your ex, or sessions with your dead relatives.  Maybe that last one, but I’d like to think Uncle Don has better things to do than show up at my dinner party dressed as a rabbit.  Dreams are an extension of our thought process and the place where we hide our traumas.  Because we don’t understand them, we ascribe things to them that they are not.

 

Why are we so obsessed with defining someone’s sexual orientation? I’m not talking about the debate of whether it is morally or religiously correct to be gay, but just the curiosity we have in trying to figure out what a person prefers?  You see this in celebrities, where inquiring minds ask if they are gay.  Of course, a person’s sexual orientation is their own right, but there is something more to this than meets the eye.  There are some people the public suspects of being gay, but then there are those they are just curious about even though they have seen them with a person of the opposite gender.  The reason why we ask is not because we think they are gay, but because they are different.  I remember a time when people questioned if Oprah was gay and I realized then that it was not her sexual orientation they were trying to define, but her success. When someone is unique, stands out, and does not fit the norm, we wonder why?  The only logical conclusion we can come up with is that they must be gay because gays also don’t fit the norm.  How highly illogical.

We want to define people. Pigeon-hole them.  Label them so that it is easier for us to interact with them in the world.  To understand that they are gay somehow excuses their eccentricities in our minds.  Because gays are eccentric?  Yeah, that also makes no sense. This does not make us bad people, but it is something we should look deeper into and question because someone’s sexual preferences shouldn’t matter. I would be proud to be asked such a question because it means I am not cut from the same cloth as everyone else.  It means I am different and not easily understood.  It means I am the different that others may fear.  They fear out of ignorance, for different does not automatically equate something altogether bad.  In reality, we are not obsessed with sexual orientation, but we are obsessed with labeling people so we will feel more comfortable with those who are different.  There is an uneasiness with things you don’t understand, and it’s fine to just admit that truth.

 

 

…and I don’t think it means what you think it means.

When most people hear the term privilege, they envision having something that someone else doesn’t.  In a different context, this may be considered ‘privileged,’ but not in terms of how we perceive ourselves and our world.  White privilege is something that occurs on an unconscious level, so it can be hard to define.  It doesn’t make anyone racist because it is not something that is exerted, for it simply is.  Privilege is not having to think about something because it has never been an issue for you.  It is not simply being white and somehow being superior.  It’s walking into an establishment you’ve never been to before and having no one question why you are there.  You never had to think about that.  When you are a minority, you may have experienced walking into an establishment for all the eyes to be on you asking why you are there.  I know I’ve had this done where it’s actually become verbalized.  These people may not mean to be racist or have intentions of being racist, but they are wondering why a girl that looks like me is there when a girl who has the same skin tone as  them who has never been there will not be questioned.  Those are two completely different experiences that exist based off skin color alone.

Imagine if you were in a foreign country where you were the minority.  Everywhere you go, people may be curious as to where you originally came from and if you are visiting.  They may ask if you understand the language.  They may assume you don’t know the culture and traditions.  Then imagine you were actually born there and know all these things, but you have a different experience from them because you have always been perceived as an outsider.  It may get annoying at times.  This may cause you to question people’s motives and situations you are in because you are usually treated differently.  This is not always the experience of minorities, as we are all individuals, but most of us have experienced some form of this.  White privilege, in this country, means not having to question who you are when you  encounter situations as these.  It means always being a part of the majority, where Band-Aids are your skin color, make-up is in your shade, and the world you live in is catered to you.  It doesn’t make you or the world you live in racist, but if people never even acknowledge this privilege, those in the minority will always be made to feel as outsiders.

My boyfriend is white and understands white privilege and acknowledges it and his role as a straight male.  In college, he didn’t have to think about locking his dorm room because there was a spate of rapes.  He never had to think he had to worry about people who may ostracize him for holding hands with me in public.  He does, however, understand these things and acknowledges them, but even though he does, small things still escape him because he just never had to think about them because he is white.  At trivia, he asked why I didn’t know as many things as him since I was just as capable as he was.  I told him it was because he was white.  He did not understand this as he thought they were just asking facts.  I told him they were facts, but they were written from a white person’s point of view.  There is nothing wrong with that because a writer must always draw from their experiences, but if they don’t consider other viewpoints, other views will not be displayed. The writers’ questions are mostly geared toward those who also share their experiences.  The majority of the television shows they asked about were ones with white leads and relatively few with black leads.  The music was more alternative, rock and country and not hip-hop, rap, and blues.

White privilege is not about the inherent racism in systems, although it could be.  White privilege is more about the unconscious choices you are granted in life simply based off your skin color.  It does not make you racist, but when you refuse to see it, you also refuse to see what minorities encounter.  We are equal in the eyes of the law, but we are definitely not equal in how we are treated based off of the unconscious biases of those in the majority.  To acknowledge these differences is to accept the inequalities in the world, for sometimes the most you can do is to simply accept that social injustice exists.

I am not a psychiatrist, and I am only speculating, but I suspect what happened to her were a series of unfortunate events that she could not control.  First of all, she had a seemingly perfect life up till a certain moment, and I think that was when she and Justin Timberlake broke up.  If you’ve never encountered defeat before, you may not know how to deal with it.  If things always go your way, you may think this is how it will always go.  No matter what happened with the relationship, I believe she didn’t know how to cope with the break up.  Many girls don’t, and I applaud Selena Gomez for seeking out treatment after her break-up.  We are not taught coping skills after such an event, and it can spark the moment we spiral out of control because we don’t know how to express our feelings.  And there is a stigma attached with it because people perceive you as weak because you need help.  However, if we don’t know how to heal ourselves, we continue to carry this trauma into every aspect of our lives.

On top of that, she had carefully crafted a public image of herself based on always appearing perfectly poised and happy.  How can you reconcile the two if this is how you grew up?  How do you separate the public persona from the private when you are so young?  Because she couldn’t express herself, she started on a path of self-destructive behavior that resulted in privileges being removed from her.  When they were removed, she was relegated to the role of a child.  When you lose all control, you retreat further into yourself, but at the same time, you engage in self-destructive behavior because these are cries for help.  When someone is hurting themselves this much, they are showing the turmoil they have inside, but many on the outside do not understand this and only characterize the person by their actions and not their feelings.

And that is how we as a society judge people we know nothing of.  You certainly don’t have to like everyone on the face of the earth, but with a little more understanding, you can understand how they came to be exactly where they are.

Although I could go on and on about the qualities I do not find desirable in a presidential candidate such as Trump, I’d like to focus on the fact that he is not a politician. This is one of the reasons many are drawn to him, because they feel as if he will bring a fresh, new outlook to the situation.  If the system is not ingrained in him, he may be able to alter it because he is not a cog in the system.  They want someone who they can trust.  Someone who will stand up for themselves and not back down.  Someone who projects a strong image of power and strength.  I have to admit that he is all of these things, but a politician he is not, which is the platform he is running on.  This is also the reason he would be disastrous in the White House.

Politicians know they must give and take.  They know how to work with their opponents and other countries.  They know how to make concessions.  Trump cannot do any of these, and if he can’t, he will  not be able to work with other politicians.  You can say what you want about the state of politics as it is now, but as it is now, this is what we have to work with.  If Trump refuses to make concessions because he says he is not a politician, how will we move forward?  There will always be some level of push back and accords you don’t always agree to, but a politician understands this.  Because he is so adamant of being right all the time, will he know how to make concessions?  The people who vote for him do not want him to make concessions, but in all honesty, that has never worked in the world of politics.  Despite whomever is our president, we need someone whose ego is smaller than their love for the people.

 

Let’s start out with idea that it is definitely okay to be either an introvert or an extrovert.  If you are an extrovert, you will be able to function with society better because you enjoy the company of others.  If you’re in introvert, you may see this as a disadvantage towards you, and yeah, it is.  You’re always going to feel like an outsider.  Awkward.  Anxious. Thinking constantly about what others think about you.  But you’re also freaking awesome because of these very things.  If you can learn to embrace all these things that make you who you are, you will feel more comfortable with yourself and thus feel slightly better in social situations.  It’s always going to be different for us, but we’re the ones who say the most interesting things at parties once we get started.

The reason why we say the most interesting things is because we live in our minds. We prefer the company of…ourselves and while extroverts may be comfortable  with themselves, we really know ourselves and our imaginations.  We can create whole worlds in our minds that fascinate only us.  We are extremely aware of our interactions with others and how we affect them and they us.  Because of this, we can relate more to people on a higher, emotional level quicker than others.  We are able to create because that is all we do in our spare time to recharge.  When you are inclined to solitary moods, you gain insight into who you are and those around you.  You have the time to expound on what it is to be human and are able to understand people better than those who may not have the chance to stop and ponder these thoughts.

What I’ve learned is that it is okay to be strange and different.  If you are confident about it, people will admire you, for confidence is the only thing separating quirks from strangeness.  As you grow, you will gain confidence and be able to show others the worlds you created because as an introvert, we sometimes are so private that we rarely let others see into us.  Know that what you have to offer has never been seen before.  You are completely alien and foreign and you should be proud of it, but know this world needs the likes of you.  People who can question what is and what can be.  People who can dream of new inventions and ideas.  People who don’t care that their introvertness is showing.  It’s showing and it’s awesome.

 

Psychiatrists can be extremely beneficial and oftentimes, there is a stigma attached with them because people don’t want to be perceived as unstable, which causes some who could benefit it to forego it altogether.  Therapy in itself can be useful, but it can also be completely useless if it takes years.  Although there are some psychiatrists who are phenomenal, the majority of them are not helpful unless the patient knows what their underlying issue is.  I recently knew of someone who received their 2nd DUI and was court-ordered to seek help.  I praise the justice system for realizing this and trying to fix it, but the therapy did not help.

The therapist was trying to deal with the patient’s symptoms, but had no idea what the root cause was.  A good therapist can try to tease it out, but if a patient themselves has no idea what the root cause is, it’s an uphill battle.  Therapy is meant to help a person, but how can a therapist help if they don’t understand this concept?  From talking to a mutual friend, I figured out the reason for the massive consumption of alcohol was because of unresolved feelings towards the patient’s mother’s death.  However, this was never even touched upon in therapy because it was not brought up to the therapist.  If they never get to the root of the problem, the symptoms will persist and the therapy is useless.

Currently, the majority of therapists have a passive strategy to try to help patients by letting them talk on their own terms. This can be helpful, but can also take years to finally help someone.  Instead, I wish they would take a more aggressive approach that encompasses the root of the issue by acknowledging that the patient may not even know what their issue is.  When they realize this, they will know that their job is to get them to the root the fastest way possible that can help them immediately instead of years.  Understanding humans and their foibles is easy, but changing the system of how we help them is not.

When they are in a secure place, we must force them to face their issues.  This can be done if they know they are in safe hands and not a danger to themselves.  Instead of trying to happen upon the root, we can ask questions such as ‘what are you holding on to?’ and acknowledge that we see pain in their eyes because they may not even see it themselves.  We can let them know we are there to help them through it, but they must be the ones to acknowledge the pain first.  This would be the first step in trying to get to the root instead of years of trying to tease it out.  The first question you can ask them is ‘are you happy?’  When we fail to take an aggressive approach, we must let the patient lead, which can take years, but if we lead, we will solve the issue much faster.  That is what a psychiatrist should do.