Study Says,Casual Sex Can Cause Depression

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“There’s always been a question about which one is the cause  and which is the effect.  This study  provides evidence that poor mental health can lead to casual sex, but also that  casual sex leads to additional declines in mental health.” Sandberg-Thoma conducted the study with Claire Kamp Dush,  assistant professor of human sciences at Ohio State.  The research was published online recently in  the Journal of Sex Research and will  appear in a future print edition. One surprising finding was that the link between casual sex  and mental health was the same for both men and women.   “That was unexpected because there is still this sexual  double standard in society that says it is OK for men to have casual sexual  relationships, but it is not OK for women,” Kamp Dush said.   “But these results suggest that poor mental health and casual  sex are linked, whether you’re a man or a woman.”  Read More

I need to give a hat tip to Elizabeth Scalia for pointing my attention to this piece.

You’ll recall I asserted this exact same thing in my interview with drive time shock jock Tracy Jones on WKRP WLW  in Cincinnati several months ago.  The researchers seem mystified as to why it is that casual sex causes depression and why this is true for both women and men.

The Christians reading this will probably be face-palming right about now because we accept these facts–for the most part anyway (I think the male casual sex/depression link would surprise a lot of my Christian friends infected with the secular culture’s double standard about men)–as biblical truths.  But we have to do a better job of explaining why casual sex is wrong beyond just saying “Jesus said, NO!”  (as if he was “Grumpy Cat” or something)

As I assert in my book Holy Sex!  the brain is wired to view sex as a sign of intimacy and unity.  In fact, the brain responds to break-ups the same way it responds to physical pain.  When two people make love, their brains begin to think of the other as part of each self.  The lovers literally become wired together.  When they break-up, the brain responds to the social wound as if the lovers experienced a physical wound; a broken arm or a broken leg.  Now imagine intentionally setting yourself up to get physically wounded again and again.  You would call that person “mentally ill” right?  Well, that’s what casual sex is–setting your brain up to be wounded again and again.   And setting oneself up to get hurt again and again–especially in the name of fun–is a depressing thought.

Sex is a powerful drug.  In particular, it is a drug that literally bonds two people together–not just metaphysically, but neurologically.   The brain can’t tell the difference between a one night stand and an LTR.  It just knows that it is being bombarded by chemicals that make it start to bond with another person and think of that person as part of oneself.  Losing a part of yourself is depressing.  The brain processes a break-up after sex like it would process an amputation and, to respond to the other question the study asked, the reason that causal sex negatively affects both women and men is because male and female brains are more alike than they are different.  Yes, there are differences between the sexes, but those differences tend to be more qualitative than structural. It isn’t as if women have entire swaths of brain territory that men don’t.  It’s just that some areas of the female brain light up a little differently than other parts.  But both men and women have all the parts of the brain that make them human beings, and the bonding process is a basic human response.    The mental health of both men and women is negatively affected by casual sex because we weren’t physically made to do it, and acting in a manner that is contrary to our design causes us to feel broken down and depressed.

The good news is that the flipside is also true.  People who have fewer sexual partners (for instance, one) and who remain faithful to that partner are happier, and both mentally and physically healthier than people with more sexual partners.

If you’d like to learn more about having a healthy, joyful, life-long love, or how to effectively articulate the truth of the Catholic vision of love, check out Holy Sex!  A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving.

 

How Do We Keep Our Kids Catholic?

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A great reflection by More2Life Radio contributor, Kim Cameron-Smith of IntentionalCatholicParenting.com

So how do we keep our kids Catholic, then?  We build a strong Catholic home culture and we love our children unconditionally.  We respond to their legitimate needs with respect and tenderness.  We parent with grace and authority, but never strident, rude, controlling coldness.  This is a difference between authoritative parenting (clear expectations guided by warmth and acceptance) and authoritarian parenting (an expectation of blind obedience with threat of severe consequences for disobedience).  The fact is, and this statement is supported in the scientific literature, children who are securely attached to their parents are far more likely to internalize the values and religious faith (or non-faith) of their parents; children who are insecurely attached are far less likely to internalize those values or that faith.  That means we can have all the family Rosaries we want, but if we scare our kids, ignore them, threaten them, make them feel invisible, stupid, or bad, then they will be easy pickins for the goofy stuff they’ll encounter in adulthood that masquerades as deeper meaning.   READ MORE

For more information on raising Catholic kids check out a copy of Parenting with Grace:  The Catholic Parents’ Guide to Raising (almost) Perfect Kids!

14 Habits of Highly Miserable People

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In this tongue-in-cheek article, one of the founders of the Family Therapy movement articulates 14 things that people do to make life much harder than it needs to be along with suggested “exercises” for becoming even more miserable.   It’s a lot of fun and educational to boot.  Here’s an example…

Be critical. Make sure to have an endless list of dislikes and voice them often, whether or not your opinion is solicited. For example, don’t hesitate to say, “That’s what you chose to wear this morning?” or “Why is your voice so shrill?” If someone is eating eggs, tell them you don’t like eggs. Your negativity can be applied to almost anything.

It helps if the things you criticize are well liked by most people so that your dislike of them sets you apart. Disliking traffic and mosquitos isn’t creative enough: everyone knows what it’s like to find these things annoying, and they won’t pay much attention if you find them annoying, too. But disliking the new movie that all your friends are praising? You’ll find plenty of opportunities to counter your friends’ glowing reviews with your contrarian opinion.   READ MORE

Staying Present to Your Kids When You Travel–Guest Blog by Dave McClow, MDiv, LCSW, LMFT

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How do you stay connected to your kids when you travel?

Here’s 7 things to do.  Written to Dads but works for traveling Moms too!

Your kids still need to experience your presence even when you are out of town. Here are 7 ways to extend your presence when you are traveling. Connecting with them in multiple ways can help your wife manage them better.

1) Obviously, plan phone calls, but do Face Time/Skype, and texting. They need to see your face and you may get 30 seconds rather than 10 with 1-3 year olds.

2) Send pictures of what you are doing, where you are going, what you are seeing. “We have the technology,” use it!

3) Do a voice recording or video of yourself reading or telling the kids’ favorite story(ies).

4) Give your kids a “transitional object,” like a teddy bear that you hug and give to your kids, so that whenever they need a hug from daddy, they can hug the bear. Other examples could be a rosary, a medal, a rock, your picture or a picture of you and the in individual child together. Pray over the object in their presence and give it to them. They know it is from Dad and carry it with them and pull it out when they want to connect with Dad.

5) Make sure to put Dad’s picture in the kids’ bedrooms. And Mom could put Dad’s picture at the dinner table or on the counter while he’s away.  Another visual cue that Dad is still present even when he is not there.

6) Write a loving note to each of the kids that lets them know you’re thinking of them while you’re gone, love them, are proud of them, etc.  They could open it on a particular day or if they have a time when the miss Dad.

7) Make a ritual of lighting a candle at Church that represents your prayers and protection of them and you while you are gone.

What do you to extend your presence when traveling?

Dave McClow, M.Div., LCSW, LMFT  is a clinical pastoral counseling associate of the Pastoral Solutions Institute.  To learn more about making a marriage, family, or personal counseling appointment with Dave or any of the associates in our tele-counseling practice, please visit the Pastoral Solutions Institute online or call 740-266-6461 today.

Overcoming Bitterness: 5 Steps for Healing the Hurt that Won’t Go Away

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Photo by Raychan on Unsplash

No one wants to be bitter.  It sneaks up on us.  Bitterness is unforgiveness fermented.    The more we hold onto past hurts the more we become drunk on our pain and the experience can rob us of the joy we can find in anything.
Bitterness occurs when we feel someone has taken something from us that we are powerless to get back.  We hold on to the hurt in an attempt to remind ourselves and others of the injustice we’ve experienced in the hopes that someone will save us and restore what we’ve lost.  Unfortunately, bitterness only makes our sense of the injustice grow.  It does nothing to heal the wound caused by the injustice.  In fact, it causes the wound to become infected with anger.

Bitterness:  Wrath’s Little Sister

Bitterness is wrath’s little sister.  Where anger can be just and moral if it propels us to seek solutions for the wrongs we have experienced or witness, wrath is a deadly sin because it becomes anger that feeds on itself and adds to wreckage caused by the original wound.  Bitterness does this too, but instead of burning down the house with everything we value still inside, bitterness is quieter, slowly poisoning our life until we lose it one joy at a time.

Here are some things you can do to begin to overcome bitterness.

1.  Forgive

Forgiveness does not mean pretending everything is “OK.”  It doesn’t mean forgetting the hurt either.  According to St. Augustine, forgiveness is simply the act of surrendering our desire for revenge; that is, our desire to hurt someone for having hurt us.   Forgiveness is the gift we give ourselves that enables us to stop picking at the scab and start making a plan for healing.

2. Make a plan

Forgiveness allows you to free up the energy you need to begin healing the wound. If the person who hurt you is willing to work with you, begin mapping out exactly what changes or effort you would need to see from that person to let you know that it is safe to reconcile.  If you are on your own, focus your energy on making a plan for how will you strive to regain as much of what was lost/taken from you as possible.  The more you strive to find alternative ways to recoup your losses, the less bitter you will feel even if the hurt persists.   It can be tempting to give into feelings that “there’s nothing I can do”   but resist the temptation.  In fact, if you feel this way and can’t think of solutions, talk to a professional to check your math before deciding that you just need to grieve your loss.  If, after consultation, you find that there really is nothing you can do to reclaim what was lost or taken from you, focus your energy on developing new goals that will help you reconstruct a compelling future.  The book, The Life God Wants You to Have:  Discovering the Divine Plan When Human Plans Fail can be a tremendous help for figuring out what God is calling you to work toward in the next chapter of your life.

 

3.  Stop Dwelling and Retelling

When we are hurt, we have a tendency to turn the painful events over and over in our head or tell anyone who will listen about our pain–even over and over again.  It is fine to talk to people we think can help us heal the hurt, facilitate reconciliation or help us rebuild our lives, but other than that, we should do what we can to stop dwelling on the story of our injury ourselves and stop speaking of it so freely to others.  When we are tempted to “dwell or retell” the best course of action is to refocus on what we can do–TODAY–to take at least some small step toward refining or actualizing the plan we’ve developed in Step 2.  The more you are focused on solutions, the less you will experience the sense of powerlessness that comes from ruminating on the hurt.

4.  Seek Grace

It can be next to impossible to heal some wounds without God’s grace.  Bitterness causes us to shun God’s grace in favor of obsessing over the wound.  If you are holding on to bitterness I encourage you to take it to confession.  Please don’t be insulted by the suggestion.  I know that you are the victim and you have a right to your pain.  Still, holding on to anything except God’s love, mercy and healing grace separates from God and the life he wants us to have. Confession can open your heart to receive the healing that God wants to give you.   It can help you surrender the pain and powerlessness and begin to discover new options.  Stop hoarding your hurt.  Make your desire for healing official by taking your tendency to dwell in the powerlessness to the confessional and seek the grace to leave it there.

5.  Seek Professional Help

If the bitterness won’t let go even after you’ve tried all of the above, it’s time to seek professional help.  Working with a professional can help you see possibilities that your pain has blinded you to and give you new tools to heal the wounds that are holding you back.   If you have a faithful professional in your area that you have worked with before, it may be time to reconnect.  If not, I would invite you to contact me through the Pastoral Solutions Institute to learn more about our telephone counseling practice.  Healing is possible with the right resources.

Hebrews 12:5 says, “See to it that no one falls short of the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”  You don’t have to be bitter or consumed by feelings of powerlessness and sadness.  Take action today to cooperate with the grace God is giving you to break free of the bonds of bitterness.  You can discover that with God’s help, there is so much more to life than pain.