- Hey, everyone, it's Tuesday
and you know what that means?
I'm on Tumblr.
Using the hashtag Katie FAQ, I have
received your questions
and I'm gonna answer them
and I also receive some of your questions
when you reply to a thread or when you
share something of mine and comment,
I'll get emails from that and sometimes
I'll respond to those, too,
so I have a few of those,
I think they come through diskus
or discuss or however you say that,
so I have four questions today, as well as
a little message at
the end for any of you,
so stay tuned, and the journal topic.
So, without further ado,
my first question today is:
"What do I do if I have
a friend who always
draws attention to my cuts and
says barb things about them,
making me feel worthless as though
my cuts are not deep enough,
how can I cope with this?"
There are two choices, I
mean, I'm sure there's,
in my opinion, there are two choices,
the first choice is to actually
talk to our friend about it
and I know many of us
don't like confrontation
and a lot of times,
we'll put up with a lot
and we'll feel really
hurt, but we are scared
to actually have the
conversation about it.
And yes, I know it is
hard to talk about things
and some people don't respond
the way we're hoping they do,
but I would try to talk to her about it
and just honestly, she
may not know what to say
and her jokes may be hurtful,
but she doesn't realize that,
you know what I mean, so it
doesn't hurt to pull her aside
and just say, "You know,
I'm really struggling
right now and I'm really
trying to get healthy.
Could you just be careful what you say,
because sometimes it hurts my feelings."
I mean, I know it's hard
to speak up for ourselves,
but you're worth it and
you deserve to have respect
and to have people understand
where you're coming from, okay?
The second option is to just avoid her,
I mean, unless she's
a really close friend,
sounds like she might be kinda toxic
and she might not be good for you,
so I would try to make new friends
that are more understanding
and more caring
and more loving, okay?
So, I know those aren't
always the best options,
but sometimes we just have to hear
somebody else say it, you
know, and you're like,
"Oh, I guess I do have to do that."
Okay, number two.
"I have had an eating
disorder for about five years
and I used to self harm as well.
I'm now in treatment, but my friend
who's been helping me through all of this
has a sister who is showing
signs of an eating disorder
and I've even seen scars on her legs.
Should I talk to her about this?
I feel like I'm a hypocrite and that
it's my fault that she's doing this."
Of course you should talk to her about it.
To be honest, because she knows
that you've been going though this
and she's kind of seen your path,
she'd be more apt to listen to you
and I know that for a lot of us,
we're really, really self critical
and you're thinking, "Oh, all
of my experiences means that
I'm bad and it'd actually be
bad and who am I to tell her?"
And you don't have to
tell her to do anything,
but you can say to her,
"I've been where you are
and if you ever want to talk,
I'm always open to talking."
And you can make sure she
knows how to get ahold of you
and you can let her
know about our community
and my website if she
wants someone to talk to
or my videos or anything like that.
You're there to support
her and you obviously
care about her and she cares about you,
and so you understand in a
way that her sister can't
and that could be really valuable,
so I would definitely talk to her.
You're not a hypocrite,
you're just noticing things
that some people may not notice,
a lot of people who haven't either
worked in eating disorders, self harm,
or had it themselves don't
know the warning signs,
so the earlier we get
help, the better, right?
So, I say talk to her and just
let her know you're there, okay?
Now, question number three.
"Hi, Katie, my question is, is it normal
to want to leave or have a break
or quit counseling because you're tired
of talking and working
through your stuff."
Uh, yeah, definitely.
I even feel that way.
I remember when my dad passed away
and I was like, doing all this hard work,
where my therapist explained
it best, she's like,
"Katie, you run marathons."
I don't really run marathons.
"In life, you do a lot, you're very busy,
you run marathons and now
that your dad passed away,
it's like you put on an 80 pound backpack
and someone slaps you
on the back and is like,
go run that marathon."
And I was like, "But I
can't, I'm so tired."
And that's kinda how we feel sometimes,
working on stuff is really hard.
I've always told my
clients, "You're so brave
for coming in and for
wanting to work on things."
Because it's actually much easier
to just stay stuck in our ways,
not getting help, not changing,
expecting everything
else to change around us,
it's much harder to actually work on it,
and we'll wanna quit, and honestly,
I find personally, as
well as with my clients,
that when we wanna quit, we're just about
to break through something
really, really powerful.
So, please stick with it.
I know, and for this particular person,
the counseling matchup
might not be the best,
and maybe you wanna find someone else.
Sometimes you can shake it up.
I've actually changed
therapists three times
in the past, like eight years, I guess,
I've changed therapists three times.
So, maybe you just need to mix it up,
because sometimes you just need
a different perspective, okay?
Final question, number four.
"Will they tell my ..."
This is actually my
question I put together,
based on all the questions
that I get all the time
about if someone will tell your parents.
"What if I wanna talk to them
about my self harm, my eating disorder,
or my past abuse, are they
gonna tell my parents?"
Now, I've said this in other videos,
but it's been a long time and I have
a lot of videos out there, so
it's hard to find it, right?
The truth is, if you're under 18,
yes, they can tell your parents,
they can report child abuse,
because as therapists,
we are legally bound to report things,
and ethically bound to
talk to your parents first.
So, we kind of get in a
catch where we have to.
You can talk to any
therapist and you could say,
let's say, one of the
questions I've been receiving,
people are like 16 or 17, we don't
have to tell your parents,
it's an ethical decision
that as a therapist, we have to make
and you can always ask
before you say anything,
you can say, "What is your privacy policy,
because I know that I'm not 18,
but I don't want my parents
knowing about everything.
What are things you would tell them,
even if I didn't want you to?"
See what they say.
At least then we know, right,
before we say anything,
but I would encourage you
to talk about it anyways,
because as much as we don't
want anybody to get in trouble
or anybody to get hurt, you've been hurt,
and you deserve to be
able to process through it
and get better, 'cause
you're worth it, okay?
Okay, before I forget, this
is my little announcement.
I have been notified and I ran into a guy,
I've been hanging out at YouTube,
for any of you following me
on Instagram at KatieMorton1,
I went to the YouTube mothership
and I've been attending trainings
and Shawn's been learning
a lot there, too,
'cause he helps me out and some guys
said I have to get on Reddit.
Do any of you know about Reddit?
I don't understand it, I've gotten on,
but any of you, if you
want, if you have time,
you can do me a favor and
you can tell me how to do it
or you can post my videos on there
and you can thumbs up them to the top
and that can help our community grow
and it can help spread it to more avenues
and I just don't understand Reddit,
so if any of you know, please let me know.
I'm gonna see if there's
a way I can reward you
if I can maybe send you a
tshirt or an iPhone case,
but I don't know how I'd do
that since it's not my own,
but maybe I can send you a bracelet, hey!
So, anyway, if you know
about Reddit, let me know
and let me know if you're doing
some things on there to
help spread the word.
Without further ado, journal topic.
Okay, so I love stories with a moral.
I can't help myself, maybe
that's why I'm a therapist,
but there is this story, and I'm actually
gonna read it to you, it's not very long,
but it's about facing
difficulties with positivity.
What I talk about all the time.
And all of us have shitty days, right?
And we just wanna scream like,
"(screams) Why is it so annoying?"
But it's all about how we look at it.
Now, this story's really cute.
It says, "This parable is told of
a farmer who owned an old mule.
The mule fell into the farmer's well.
The farmer heard the mule praying."
Or whatever mules do when
they fall into wells,
maybe just make noise and grunt a lot.
"After carefully assessing the situation,
the farmer sympathized with the mule,
but decided that neither the mule
nor the well was worth
the trouble of saving.
Instead, he called his neighbors together
and told them what happened
and enlisted them to help haul dirt
to bury the old mule and
put him out of his misery."
'Cause otherwise, he'd just stay
in that well and slowly die.
"Initially, the old mule was hysterical,
bucking and going on, but as
the farmer and his neighbors
continued shoveling the dirt, shoveling,
and the dirt hit his back,
a thought struck him.
It suddenly dawned on him that every time
a shovel load of dirt landed on his back,
he could shake it off
and he could step up.
He did this, blow after
blow, shaking it off
and stepping up, shaking
it off, and stepping up,
shake it off and step
it up, he repeated this
to himself to encourage him.
No matter how painful the blows
or how distressing the situation seemed,
the old mule fought panic
and just kept right on
shaking it off and stepping up.
It wasn't long before the old mule,
battered and exhausted
stepped triumphantly
over the wall of that well.
What seemed like it would
bury him, actually helped him.
All because of the manner in which
he handled his adversity.
That's life, if we face our problems
and respond to them positively
and refuse to give in to panic,
bitterness, or self pity,
we can shake it off and we can step up."
And I just love this story, because we all
have things happen, people are
throwing dirt on us all day
and I like the visual, because sometimes
it does feel like bad things
are hitting you in the back
and all you wanna do is
either scream or cry or both
or like, throw rocks at
people or who knows, right?
But it gets really overwhelming
and people can be really cruel,
but if we shake it off and we step up,
it will bring us to a whole other level
of who we are and what we're about,
and I would like you to journal
about some things that
may have happened to you
and what you've learned from them
and how you've become a better version
of yourself because of it.
And if we're not through
that whole process,
let's start dreaming
about it, think about it,
I like to use the term dreaming,
because it's fun to just think about,
what in a very idealic
world, what could I do,
and how could I change, and what would
make that better and
what did I learn from it?
And you know, even if
we're not, in the moment,
able to do that, we can
always return to our journal
to read through our stories
and just be reminded
of how amazing we all are.
So, I love you all.
I will be on the website
and YouTube tomorrow,
'cause it's Wednesday, so make sure
you ask your questions and
put your hashtag Katie FAQ
or Katie, my quick question is
and put it right in so I can see it.
I hope you all have a wonderful evening.
I love you all and I'll
talk to you soon, bye!
