Carmen's Psychicdonut.com Blog

 
Before I met my husband, I was involved with a few dysfunctional men. I would often get the puzzled and even angry question “how can a woman as strong as you keep attracting these losers?” And while there are a bunch of deeply rooted issues and reasons, there are also a few that can be explained much easier and in a shorter version.  

Let’s start  by debunking a common misconception. Being smart, successful and strong in one’s career, does not mean one is equally as strong in one’s personal life. The heart is an intricate thing and the ways of the heart are not easily explained. I will not speak for other women, but I finally figured out why I would be so strong and successful in one area, and fail so miserably in another.

The two are not equal to me, because one is about survival, while the other is not. Having been on my own since I was 17 meant I always had to have a job. It meant that I had to take care of myself, because there was no one else to fall back on if I couldn’t make the rent. In business it was easy for me to fall back on logic and doing what I had to do. I knew that screwing up was not an option, because that meant going under.

My personal life is a different story. Being an empath with a severe inferiority complex and a desperate need to rescue and fix broken souls created a monster. Because I had (and to a degree still have) an almost crazy sense of loyalty, and had been dumped or abandoned, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t going to do what others had done to me. I had made a decision to set the wrongs right and that meant that you just don’t walk out on people, even if they are disloyal, crazy or unable to give or receive love .
In business this proved to be a strength! Being set on doing the right thing and helping people brought out strong management skills. This was recognized and so I kept getting promoted. Just think about the teams I ended up managing! All projects that required ”policing” and where I had to ensure that the bad guys wouldn’t make it online, wouldn’t steal identities, abuse the system, commit crimes, etc., came to me.

I will always be a person who gives the benefit of the doubt, in business and personal life. But, I have learned to follow my instincts and I stopped making excuses for other people’s bad behaviors. I know now that I cannot rescue or safe anyone who doesn’t want to be and I had to learn that it isn’t my job to begin with! 

There are a bunch of women out there, doctors, lawyers, business leaders, etc., who are smart, educated, and successful and are involved with weak or abusive men. What proves to be a weakness in one’s professional life can be one of the biggest weaknesses one the personal side. Some of us are incredibly successful and intelligent and we still feel worthless or not enough. Some of us have a very strong desire to help others (think of a doctor), or to put others ahead of themselves and end up giving to the wrong people at the wrong times, because fixing is something they “naturally” do.

I have been scolded, ridiculed and attacked many times for being “so naive” and for giving too many chances. But the interesting thing is that I wouldn’t change that part of me. I am glad that I have a big heart, even though it has gotten trampled on before. I am happy that my heart never hardened, that bitterness didn’t get the better of me or that I became a self-serving, cynical or angry being. Sometimes life and people can get me down, but then I remember the lesson. The lesson was that almost everyone deserves a second chance and it is ok to try to help. It just isn’t ok to ignore your gut, to sacrifice your own happiness or self-worth in the process. This is where the lesson to love myself comes around full circle.

There is a saying that is a bit cynical but demonstrates the point “God helps those who help themselves.” I had to learn that you can’t change people. All you can do is help those who are ready to be helped and want the help. The rest needs to find their own path, namely without me by their side.

Personally, I love self-help books. I am committed to my own well-being. Hence, self-help books tend to work well for me. I can take most advice, regardless of shape or form and put it into action, provided the source knows what they are talking about. It doesn’t matter if the insight is coming from a conventional therapist, a hypnotherapist, a book, a workshop, a course, a TV show or a friend, I’ll generally put it to good use.

Self-help books won’t work for most of the population though. Why? Because a lot of these books are using common sense approaches that you and I could have, and probably did, come up with on our own. I remember reading “He’s Not that Into You,” and felt rather stupid after finishing, thinking  “well, there we have it. If he doesn’t call you, he truly isn’t into you (which is what my gut already knew), and not in the hospital after some horrid accident (which is what I wanted to believe, because rejection just sucks).”  Most of the time, when reading a self-help book I would think to myself  that I, or anyone else for that matter, could have written the same thing. But, common sense does not work for the vast majority of the population! If that would be the case, they’d already have the friendships, jobs, relationships, bodies and lives they are trying to learn about in said book.

The latest one people are talking about is a book called “He’s Just Not Your Type (And That’s a Good Thing)” by relationship expert Andrea Syrtash. First of all, there are sure as hell a lot of “experts” out there these days! It seems to be the easiest title to obtain and requires absolutely no degree or certification at all. I think I am a “Muppet Expert” I just don’t see how that will sell books for me. Anyway, so here is another expert with another book that makes me go “DUH!” Really? We didn’t know that being too picky and having unrealistic expectations won’t find us our soul-mates? We didn’t know that limiting our “types” to less than 1% of the population will keep us single? Wow, who would have thought!? Bzzz…thanks for playing!

The problem with these books is that they do not work for the average Joe Schmoe. A person who keeps finding themselves on the same bad, self-deprecating, self-destructive path over and over will need a lot more than a book. No book in the world will help them get it, because they are lacking the tools and self-awareness to recognize their patterns, and realize that their suffering and misery is a mere result of their own hard-wiring, created by years and years of the same thoughts and actions. So telling them the obvious, no matter how well one sugar coats it, won’t do a damn thing. It will usually push them into an even more defensive stand on “why it isn’t their fault that there is no one out there who meets their standards and that settling is not an option.” Come on! These type of people don’t even think they need therapy, so the expert believes they will definitely read THEIR advice and go “Yes! I finally found out why my life sucks! Thank you, Mr./Ms. Expert!”

These  books have usually the same effect as a diet book has on a morbidly obese person. Yes, it’ll do a lot of good to tell them that overeating and bad diet can lead to diabetes, heart problems and cancer. Or tell a smoker the current statistics on lung cancer, better yet, show them pictures of people who are dying of lung cancer! Think it’ll stop them or make them quit? Not so much!

We all know, to a degree, why and where we are failing in our own lives, but that doesn’t mean we have the actual  tools or ability to change it. Even the true experts, i.e. doctors, licensed therapists, etc., will have no effect on a person who is not willing to change or hasn’t reached rock bottom yet. In my opinion, more than half of the population is in dire need of some serious therapy, like conventional therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, hypnotherapy, life coach, spiritual coach, psychic, whatever works, but a book will just be another failed attempt to help those who can’t help themselves. The sad truth is that even the most inspiring book cannot change neuropathways and hard-wiring of an individual, no that can only be achieved by actual work on oneself. And so, sadly I must say a book that is telling people to date outside their comfort zone gets a “Fail” stamp from me. 

Lately the news report a lot about the douche bags of the world, Tiger Woods, Jesse James and our latest addition, David Boreanaz. Then we hear more rants about how men can’t be trusted, think with their penises, are all cheaters and so on. Actually, the latest studies show that women are just as likely to cheat, but they do a much better job in covering it up and lying! And, we also have to remember who these guys cheated with! ‘Cause I am not necessarily buying that these “poor girls were duped.” I think that most of them knew perfectly well what they were doing and simply didn’t have a problem sleeping with a married man, just as they didn’t have a problem trying to make money of their affairs or even trying to blackmail the guys they slept with. When it comes to getting the person they want, women are much more cunning than men.

Women have a much bigger arsenal and therefore do more damage. We tend to be rather intuitive, we sense how others feel and we tend to have people confide in and open up to us. So, when a woman decides to go over to the dark side, it is bad times! A woman will hit below the belt line and use anything and everything to hurt. They tend to be much more deliberate in their delivery and more behind the back. Where guys get in brawls, we go public and write nasty things for all to see on public forums. We are passive aggressive and we often don’t confront people at all. Where guys bust in noses, we bust reputations.

We usually do learn from our mothers. I watched mine, who wasn’t a bad person, but manipulative and severely broken, and I decided early on that I never wanted to be like that. Don’t get me wrong, I have had my fair share of psychotic episodes, and have behaved in ways that could definitely compete with the best nutjobs out there, but overall I did my best to avoid giving into certain behaviors. It helps having friends who’ll call you on your crap! I also think in order to call someone “evil,” or crazy, a certain behavior has to be a habit, i.e. done continuously. Having behaved like a douche bag in the past on rare occasion doesn’t qualify for the label (sorry, my humble opinion) 

What make us women often rather lethal is our inability/unwillingness to forgive and move on. When bad things happen to us, we are usually more able to articulate our emotions and therefore we are perfect in making excuses and justifying even our most despicable behaviors. Men bottle their stuff up, while we spew it out there into the world. Maybe we play the victim better, so when we tell our sob stories, others tend to buy into it. Support of one’s bad behaviors leads to more of the same and I know many who are quite skilled in getting continuous buy-in from those, who are more than willing to agree on how bad they have had it/have it still. If you take a look at the high school cliques of the mean girls this point is perfectly well illustrated. Human beings usually choose friends who are a lot or just like them.

Did you know that it is predominantly women who screw up children? Yep, you’ve heard that right. This is due to the fact that mothers actually play a larger role in the family than fathers. When things go sour, men tend to disassociate and check out. They tend to disappear, or avoid. Women cling, hold on to, manipulate, control and don’t let go. If I take a look at my own family here, I can safely say that my mother did more damage in certain areas, because she was around much longer and more often. Women tend to project, so they are more likely to attempt to live their life through their children. My mom must have told me about a gazillion times that she had much higher hopes for me and only “meant well.” Her meaning well was shoved down my throat for as long as she lived, along with the reminders of what she had sacrificed for us and how ungrateful we were for not acknowledging her suffering and sacrifices. Taking a look at the men I have dated in the past, most of them had been screwed up by neurotic, manipulative and overbearing mothers and only one had been damaged by a very demanding father who was never satisfied.

But not all is lost and we do have advantages over men. We do tend to be more willing to work on ourselves. Hence, predominantly females end up in therapy or in some kind of self-help class. We generally can admit much easier than a man when we need help, and we are not too proud to get it. Plus, we are often more open minded and willing to try out unconventional methods of getting where we want to be, i.e. trying hypnotherapy or consulting the tarot. Sometimes our compassion can be our biggest asset, namely when we realize that what we are doing is mean, spiteful or crazy. We are more likely to get fed up earlier with our craziness, and it tends to be women who break the cycles in crazy families, much more so than men.

I think when we take a look at the latest douche bags in the public eye, we should remember that they didn’t commit the douchery on their own, but had some willing participants. And  checking out Jesse James’ fling, Michelle McGee, I am probably in the company of many when I say “Yeah, that chick is an equally large douche bag.” Let’s just remember that the bad apples reside in both genders!