My Mental Health take on Abortions

Hey everyone, I know it has been a while since I last wrote a blog, but I’ve been busy. Managing IMHCA, working my private practice, working my other job, and managing other aspects of my life has left me pretty busy. Though, taking a few moments to write this blog is important. Due to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, a lot of women are afraid. Thanks to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, it’s left up to the individual states to decide the fate of women’s reproductive rights. Though, I’m not here to get political or talk about politics. I’m here to give the mental health perspective.

Over the years I have done counseling and consultation for women who are on the fence of wanting to get an abortion or not. I have also done counseling for women who have gotten abortions and, both, feel guilty and not felt guilty about it. I have also done counseling for women who were forced to keep the baby whether due to religious reasons, familial expectations, societal expectations or what have you. I also counseled women that wanted to keep the baby, despite other people saying not to. One general aspect or topic always comes up, the dehumanization they experience from everyone else. No matter what side of the aisle you’re on, what your religious beliefs are or what your morals and values are, women do not deserve to be dehumanized.

For those that do not know what dehumanization it is defined as the following in the APA Dictionary of Psychology, “Any process or practice that is thought to reduce human beings to the level of mechanisms or nonhuman animals, especially by denying them autonomy, individuality, and a sense of dignity.” By doing this to women, a lot of mental health issues can surface as the result of the dehumanization. Of course, depression and anxiety will come out of that, but other things like frustration, grief, being co-dependent, not taking care of oneself, following a negative self-fulfilling prophecy, suicidal ideation, suiciding and more.

Without making this blog too long, we need to support women, help them build autonomy, help them maintain their sense of dignity and treating them like humans. How do we do this? We need to, first and foremost, respect the decision that they make no matter what. Ultimately women know themselves better than we will ever know. Ultimately the individual woman knows themselves better than anyone else would ever know them. So, at the end of the day, let’s respect women’s choices because they know themselves better than we will ever know them.

The Importance of Pre-Marital Counseling

Pre-marital counseling is an important aspect in marriages that a lot of couples do not take advantage of or utilize. Around 50% of marriages end up in divorce for reasons that could have been prevented in pre-marital counseling. Whether the reason was the person was not the right fit, both people did not agree upon finances or what have you, the reasons could have been identified and processed through in Pre-Marital counseling. Depending on the therapist, pastor or whomever, couples get deep into their relationship and explore areas where they never thought to explore or thought would never be a problem. In pre-marital counseling couples explore a lot of things like the following: Familial relationships and expectations, Finances and expectations, Living styles and expectations, Expectations for the other person, Values, Religion, Politics, Marriage and Life goals, Mindsets that revolve around a lot of different things both inside and out side the marriage and more.

A lot of couples believe that Pre-marital counseling isn’t covered by their insurance. There are ways to work around that so that insurance can cover pre-marital counseling. One way is by utilizing a Z code (Z63 I believe) in the back of the DSM. Another way is to have one person go through an assessment and get diagnosed and have one of the main focuses of the treatment plan be put in regards to marriages. That way the spouse is able to come in and talk as well. True that’ll be a different processing code, but that code can be reimbursed by insurance.

In conclusion, don’t let money be a reason why you aren’t going to pre-marital therapy. There is nothing wrong with doing pre-marital therapy with a pastor, but I would recommend you do pre-marital therapy with someone who has a mental health license. Hopefully what was talked about in here will help alleviate any concerns about finances, but ultimately do what you are comfortable with.

Why Do Hurt People, Hurt People?

No matter where I work, I always get asked this question. Why do hurt people, hurt people? The simple answer, they do not want to get hurt themselves. The more in-depth answer is a lot deeper than the simple one. First things first, we need to acknowledge and understand that hurt people are hurt. Hurt people have been through one or more crisis or traumatic events. Hurt people have experienced pain, loss, betrayal, abuse, violence, guilt, grief, shame and more. Based off their experiences, hurt people don’t want others to get close to them. That there lies the contradiction. Human beings are social creatures. Humans need that social interaction to survive, whether they are extroverted or introverted. Hurt people also crave that social interaction, but their mind is telling them, based on their previous experiences, that they will get hurt again. So hurt people go through the cycle of bringing people in, just to push them away again.

Thankfully, there is a way to heal. There is a way to overcome and break the cycle. Of course, getting professional help from a clinician is always recommended, though here are some things you can do in conjunction with getting professional help. Identify what you feel uncomfortable about with people, that causes you to push people away. This could stem from safety, not wanting to get taken advantage of, etc.… Once you identified that, set clear boundaries and expectations for your future relationships. Remember boundaries are set in place to make sure you do not get taken advantage of and to make sure you stay safe. Also make sure those boundaries and expectations are healthy and not toxic. Don’t generalize or overgeneralize. During your journey, certain people will remind you of the person or people that hurt you. That will always put you in alert mode or that fight, flight, or freeze mode. By not generalizing or overgeneralizing, you’ll won’t be in that alert mode, and you’ll be able to relax, instead of constantly feeling stressed and on edge. Lastly, make sure to indulge in self-care. This will help you learn to love yourself again, believe in yourself again and regrow your self-confidence.

In conclusion, true hurt people hurt people. Though, hurt people are also able to heal as well. During these trying times, make sure you’re taking care of yourself. Remember, there is only one of you, so cherish yourself.

Counseling Racist Clients

Hey everyone, this blog will focus on my experience with counseling racist clients. First thought that would probably go through your mind is why would a racist client come and see you Coresair, since you’re black? Those reasons I’ll get into later and true those are anecdotal, based on what those clients were willing to tell me.

My first experience with a racist client came during my internship. I was interning in Oregon, Illinois and this individual was one of my first clients there. At the start you can see the shock of the individual, when they first saw that I was black, but they went on with the session. They talked about their anger and frustration about their daughter being influenced by black teens, specifically black male teens. I could tell how hesitant the individual was with their words as the conversation kept going and how uncomfortable the individual got, due to complaining about black male teens, while I was a black therapist. After that session, the individual never saw me again. The whole office felt bad for me because they figured out based on the individuals’ mannerisms as they interacted with the front desk and left as to what happened. Note, this was an office full of white women and one white man, though that was one of the most supportive offices that I have ever worked for in my entire professional career. My internship supervisor at the time and I had a conversation about the experience and processed that experience as well. My supervisor noted the further away from Chicago you get, especially going to Iowa, the whiter the population will be as well as a less progressive mindset. True not everyone has a less progressive mindset when race is present, but in my instance that was the case.

Over time from my internship and up to now in my professional career, I can count on two hands of all the openly racist clients that I have had. Remember racism is more than just saying the N-word, though I have had white clients use the N-word openly in session, it’s about a learned mindset. Those clients ranged from people who you wouldn’t believe held these mindsets all the way to KKK members. There were a wide range of reasons why I was selected. The first and biggest reason, I was the only one that had opening or luck of the placement. When you work either in an inpatient setting or a community mental health facility, you get a lot of people on your caseload and they have little control on who they get placed with. Once they see who I am, they usually ask to transfer to someone else. I usually give them the “It’ll probably be x amount of time before you get transferred so we can work together until then” speech and usually they decided to work with me until transferred. One of the minor reasons for choosing me was to vent about black people to a black person. This usually involves a lot of generalizations and over generalizations like, “Why do all black people….” Or “Hey you make good enough money so remind me how black people are poor, marginalized or etc.…” or “Hey you’re able to do this so why can’t black people do this?” and other comments like that. Another reason was to have me change their mind about black people for them. Usually coming from an ultimatum with a loved one to get counseling for their thought process or mindset, else the loved one will stop talking to them, divorce them/leave them, etc.… The last reason was to be racists against me. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking, coming to see you and being racist against you is a lot of wasted money. Though, when you’re in a place to where you can barely trade someone, if at all, due to everyone having a lot of people on their caseloads you take what you can get. This racism mostly comes in the forms of negative critiquing, belittling, and undermining in sessions. Are those the only ways, no of course not. Was that the main ones that happened to me, yes.

Before I end this lengthy blog, I do want to say that in my internship and at my jobs there are safety structures in place. If a client is mean, negative, disruptive or what have you, you are able to end the session immediately and talk to a supervisor. Though, thanks to the training that I had in my program as well as the reinforced support from my internship, I knew how to navigate these situations and conversations. With that, I was able to come up with techniques to counseling clients who are racist. These techniques aren’t new, they are techniques that generally every counselor knows. Though I apply them in ways to help with clients who are racist. Well, I’ll end there, thank you all for reading. Maybe in the next blog I’ll go over the tips, tricks, and techniques to use when counseling someone who is racist.  

Why is it so hard to Forgive and Let go?

Hey everyone, today I’m going to write about forgiveness and letting go, in counseling. The actual process of forgiving and letting go I’ll make a separate video about. Though I’ll go into the mindset of why it is so hard to Forgive and let go.

When we talk about mindsets, we talk about conditions that have been engrained in us over decades. Those conditions help us navigate and interact with the world as we know it. How we determine that navigation is dependent on our successes and failures. If we are successful at something, we will continue to do that thing. If we fail at something, either we stop doing that thing or find out what we did wrong and try again. To get into Forgiveness and letting go, these situations arise not due to our own successes and failures, but the success and failures of other people. When other people are concerned, we often either put ourselves against them or compare ourselves against them. The old school way of thinking goes into winners and losers. This can be seen, especially, when other people’s actions determine our success and/or failures. Losing tends to get lumped into forgiveness and letting go. Even if our failure wasn’t our fault, we still feel that loss. We hold onto that loss because the loss was not our fault. We did everything correctly and still came up short, because of the actions of someone else. Even though that failure isn’t our fault, we blame ourselves. In blaming ourselves, we get angry, mad, jealous, and frustrated. Who better to feel these emotions against, than the person that facilitated that loss. We can’t forgive and/or let go, because we want that other person to fix the situation, to say sorry, or what have you so that we can feel better. That’s the thing though, we’re still putting power into that other person. If us getting over our loss is dependent on the other person, we’re still handing that person power over us.

For example, you and a friend work at the same business and you both are working on a project. Your friend falsely takes credit for the entire project and gets promoted. Wanting your friend to say he is sorry, go to your boss and note that you both worked on the project together to get equal credit or what have you, places power over you in his hands. Your friend may or may not go and talk to the boss. Ultimately you are moving forward shouldn’t be conditional to what your friend does. When you forgive and let go, you get to keep that power. The reason being, you are relying on yourself and not someone else to move forward. Ultimately, that’s the reason why it is so hard because we don’t want to come to terms with our loss or failure. Coming to terms would cause us to face something that we do not want to about ourselves. Moving forward, we should not look at that as a loss or a failure. We should look at that as a lesson to help better ourselves and move forward, without letting the past weigh us down. When we do that, we stay in control and forgiving and letting go will become easier to do.

The meaning behind the logo

Hello everyone, since my Facebook page has been up for a bit, I think it’s about time to talk about the meaning behind my logo. As you know, my logo is a fishing rod surrounded by a squiggly circle. The fishing rod represents tools and goes with the old saying, “Give a man a fish, you’ll feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, you’ll feed him for the rest of his life.” The squiggly circle represents support. This ties into being able to consistently do both, with giving a man fish while he perfects fishing, until the fisherman doesn’t need to be given fish anymore. That support varies, like squiggles, to where the support is close if you need it and far away but still there, if you do not need the support as much or at all.

Now the deeper meaning behind the logo goes with the counseling process and the saying that a lot of counselors both love and hate with trusting the process. When teaching a man to fish, we need to recognize that the man isn’t going to be successful in catching fish all the time, especially starting out. So, giving him fish will help make sure that the new fisherman is taken care of, until he is able to perfect fishing to the point where you don’t need to continue giving him fish, unless the fisherman needs support. Same thing with therapy, counselors teach clients skills to use to help manage their mental health. Clients will not be successful utilizing the skills starting out and/or utilizing the skills efficiently may take more time than anticipated. That’s why extra support is needed until they can utilize those skills efficiently. Also, if a crisis happens,

Well that is the story behind why I chose the logo. Though feel free to let me know your thoughts.

The Mental Health behind the Intersectionality of Institutionalization and Racism

Hello everyone, this is Coresair Mack from Mack’s Empowerment Counseling LLC. First off, I want to say Happy Martin Luther King Day. Even though his birthday was on the 15th of January, we have the third Monday off. After watching a lot of his speeches and reading a few of his letters, I thought of a good topic to write about. This mainly focuses on a part of his speech, The Other America, though this is an important topic to discuss. I will do my best to talk about the mental health aspect behind the intersectionality of Institutionalization and Racism.

First, we need to get on the same page between what is the definition of both of those words. The Oxford Languages defines racism as the following: “Prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.” Oxford Languages also defines institutionalization as the following: “The action of establishing something as a convention or norm in an organization or culture.” This may not be the definitions that everyone goes with, but these are the definitions that I am going with as I move forward with this topic.

Now when it comes to the intersectionality, we understand that there is still racial injustice here in the United States. Racial injustices that include, but not limited to, housing discrimination and redlining, injustices in schools, Racial slurs against Black Americans in person, online and through other means of communication, and other things along and not along those lines. In regards to 2022, this does not happen everywhere. Society has grown to see racism and discrimination as a bad thing, for the most part. Though there are still parts of the United States that still hold onto these negative beliefs and values and often wonder why. We look at those things and note that at one time, this was the norm in the not so long ago past. Institutionalization plays a part, because White Americans were taught that Black Americans were inferior and that justified slavery. After the civil war and Juneteenth 1865, White Americans were still taught that Black Americans were still inferior which resulted in racist laws and segregation. After the civil rights movement even coming into January 2022, White Americans are still being taught that Black Americans are still different in a negative way or inferior, because of the information they were told by either their parents or society. One of the main reasons, in my opinion, this is still going on is due to negative stereotypes. Negative stereotypes of African slaves and Black Americans have been passed down throughout the centuries. Mental health comes in when we face the unknown. As people, we do not like things we do not know about and feel uneasy when the unknown comes into play. We as human beings do our best to fill in that knowledge with either correct or incorrect information. When the information is compiled, generalization happens. Our brain automatically labels and categorizes anything that is related or associated to that thing with that information. With that association, comes biases. In this case, when talking about Black Americans a negative bias is, usually, associated with them. Research shows that a majority of White Americans do not have any non-white friends. Even some of those White Americans with a “token” black or black friends still label them into those negative stereotypes and negative biases. Negative biases that have been passed down through generations ranging back centuries. Again, placing a group of people into one category is a lot easier than taking that first step to getting to know that person, due to the fear of the unknown.

The easiest way for me to explain this is with the concept known as race mixing and interracial relationships. To give some context, interracial marriage has been fully legalized in the United States since 1967, and even to this day there are still White Americans that do not believe in interracial relationships or race mixing, due to the inferiority of Black Americans. This was taught and passed down to White Americans through centuries of negative stereotyping and negative biases against Black Americans. When we look at the intersectionality between this normative mindset and racism, we see an easiness to keep the unknown and the danger away, instead of taking time to learn about other cultures and people. Laws were created to combat this in society, though not every mindset in that society changes with the law. I can go in deeper with the mental health aspect, but I’ll save that for a video.

I will end with this, am I saying all White Americans are like this? No, I am not. Obviously, there are White Americans going back centuries and even up to 2022 that rejected the negative stereotypes that they were taught by either their parents or society. This led them to become more open and understanding of other people, not just in the Black American Community. Can this also relate to other minority races here in the United States? Yes, this can be, and this should be looked at. Overall, this will, hopefully, help reduce the negative stigmatization of minorities in the United States.  

Why We Need Rehabilitation Counseling in Jails and Prisons

Hello everyone and Happy Holidays! I am here to talk about something that has been on my mind as we are heading into the new year. That’s the fact that we need more Rehabilitation Counseling in Jails and Prisons. A lot of you are probably wondering what brought this to the forefront of my mind. Well as I was looking up ideas for my next Youtube video as to how well the United States did with mental health, one thing that was not on the statistics was Americans who are/were incarcerated. Incarcerate Americans and Homeless Americans are two of my most passionate populations that I look to either help or spread awareness on. So here are some statistics I found about Incarcerated Americans.

According to the World Population Review 44% of Americans who were released from prison will return within a year. Specifically in Illinois 17% of Americans will return to jail or prison within one year and 43% will return to jail or prison within 3 years. This brings Illinois recidivism rate to 39.9%. In regard to why the recidivism, there are a lot of reasons why Americans go back to jail. The reasons are, but not limited to, the following: poverty/lack of resources/socioeconomic status, institutionalization, lack of care for mental health and substance use issues, their environment or community they are going back to, disadvantage of employment opportunities and more. We must not forget that recidivism affects everyone and not just the American that committed the crime. Recidivism affects the families of both, or multiple parties involved, the community the crime was done in, the taxpayers and more in negative ways. Also, recidivism affects our outlook on other Incarcerated Americans as well in the form of generalization and over-generalization.    

For the reasons listed above as well as more reasons that were not brought up or mentioned, Rehabilitation Counseling is very much needed here in the United States, especially in Illinois. Rehabilitation Counseling will help with institutionalization, help with any mental health or substance use needs, help with finding resources, help with advocating for resources that do not exist in their area and more. All in all, we must do our part to take care of each other, regardless of our feelings towards another population. Doing this will help us move forward to a better community, state, and country.

Overcoming Implicit Bias when working with the Homeless Population

Everyone has similar and different opinions about the homeless population here in the United States. Also, there are new studies that are being done, new hypotheses that are being created and new facts that are constantly being proven and disproven about the homeless population. Now all this affects internal biases because your brain picks up and stores this information. Even if you consciously know that the information is wrong or false, your brain and body will react to that information unconsciously as if the information were true. Now, to overcome this bias, we first must acknowledge all the correct and incorrect information we were told about the homeless population. This will increase our mindfulness of what we need to look out for. Second, we need to step away from generalizing and over generalizing. Everyone is homeless for their own specific reason. Acknowledging that will help you, again, become more mindful of your thoughts whenever you come across someone that is homeless. Third only focus on the facts of the situation. Assumptions and opinions are just those, assumptions, and opinions. Assumptions and opinions are formulated on something that is 100 percent true, the person being homeless, and jumps to something that may or may not be true (the person lost his money to drugs, the person doesn’t want to work, the person got screwed over by his family, the person lost all their money in the stock market, etc.…). Lastly, disprove your wrong thoughts. Ask yourself, do I know this to be a 100% fact? If there is anyway you can disprove the thought, then kick the thought out of your head. As you continue to call yourself out on your thoughts and disprove them you will only be left with either no thoughts on the matter or what is 100% true. Hopefully this helps give you guys a better understanding of implicit bias and how you can overcome your own implicit biases.

Private Practice is finally up and running!

Hey everyone,

Mack’s Empowerment Counseling LLC is up and running! Thank you everyone for your encouraging words and support! Now I can finally take clients as well as start uploading content for everyone. Thank you again and please prepare for your weekly blogs.

Another update on the practice

Hey everyone,

This is Coresair Mack, giving you all an update on the private practice. Things are looking well, I am currently waiting for the city of Elgin to schedule an inspection of my office space. After that, I can pay them some money and get my business license. This process has taken longer than anticipated, but I can finally see the end to this process. I also apologize, I haven’t been writing my blogs or doing my YouTube videos. I actually created a video, doing an article review, but the video is too big to send from my phone to YouTube or to send from my phone to email. So I had to cancel that one and I am planning on doing another video this upcoming week as well as another blog post.

Thank you everyone for your patience and thank you for all of your kind words of encouragement. Please let me know, if you have any questions.

Update on the Private Practice

Hello everyone, this is Coresair Mack and I wanted to give you all an update on the Private Practice. So, I have successfully had my first public hearing, but I have to do two more. So it looks like I won’t be able to get my business license until September. I also know I haven’t been posting as much, but that is due to working on getting everything ready for the practice as well as preparing for these hearings. I’ll post a video later today or tomorrow on my youtube channel explaining more about that. Thank you to everyone that has been supportive and helping me with this process.

Coresair A. Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC

What is CRT and the mental health implications of CRT

I have a lot of people coming up to me and asking what Critical Race Theory (CRT) is and how it is either going to help or harm the United States of America. Well, I will write a blog on CRT based on the research that I have done and the mental health implications that come along with the theory. So first, what is CRT? From the research that I have done, CRT is a theory that looks at the intersectionality between race and the law. CRT does not answer why racism, but how did racism manifest in this situation. CRT was derived from Critical Theory (CT). CT identifies and challenges society and culture through power structures. If those power structures are found unjust, then CT looks to see how to make those power structures more just for society. CRT started with critically looking at the law in the late 1960s but has evolved to look at and critique other societal dynamics in our current society. Based on my research, I mainly looked to the American Bar Association (ABA), the reports and Youtube video from Christopher Rufo along with his references as well as other documents and came to the following conclusion. CRT is taught in law school as well as undergraduate classes that pertain to law. Despite popular belief, CRT is not taught in grades K-12. What is actually being taught is, complete American history. Starting at the Junior High level and moving up, teenagers will learn a more completed version of America’s history so that future generations do not repeat the negative actions and events of our past.

Now we get into the mental health implications for those that are both for and against teaching a more complete version of history. Those that are for learning a more complete version of history will find that they have a new perspective. For any race or nationality, they will have higher self-esteem and self-confidence. The reason being, is due to learning both the good and the bad of America. They will have more self-esteem and self-confidence by learning what they should do more of and what they should really stay away from doing. Also, this reinforces more of the “If you see something, then say something” trope where if racism happens, they can call that out. Overall, they will learn what is racist and not to continue versus what is not racist and to continue through our American history.

For those that are against teaching a more complete version of history, I divided them up into two sections. The first is those that don’t agree but don’t really care and those that don’t agree and will fight to not see it happen in their schools. Those that disagree but really do not care, nothing really is going to happen with them mentally. People are entitled to their own assumptions and opinions, whether the schools should teach a more complete version of American history. Those that disagree and fight tooth and nail, fall more into the anxiety, fear and possible paranoia section. We need to remember that anxiety is an emotion reacting to a perceived event, or the event could or could not happen. Some of the perceived threats I have gathered from concerned people are the following: Teaching complete American history will divide American citizens, teaching complete American history will teach Black Americans to hate White Americans, teaching complete American history is racist, teaching complete American history will teach white American kids to hate their parents and themselves, teaching complete American history will cause Minority Americans (specifically Black Americans) to rise up and take over America and more. Due to their anxiety, people are making a lot of assumptions and opinions. Those assumptions and opinions are not 100% true but believing so would strike a lot of unnecessary and excess anxiety, fear and paranoia. Also, this would cause people to go into the fight, flight or freeze mode. In this mode, people will feel the need to defend themselves and everyone the hold dear to what they are reacting to. In this case the emotions are in control of the people, instead of the people being in control of their emotions.

Now we get into the other part of anxiety. Usually anxiety comes from something that either is 100% true or perceived to be 100% true. Based off of the thing, assumptions and opinions that are not 100% true, form around that thing. So then we ask ourselves have those people experienced any of what was stated above? We need to remember that a lot of times, people are reacting to something that happened in the past. So it is worth sitting down and having that dialogue to gauge other people’s past experience. That way, we are able to see where this anxiety and fear is coming from. That way, when listening to understand, we are able to have a more effective conversation because both sides will be heard.

In conclusion, CRT is not being taught in k-12 schools. What is being taught is complete American history. No matter which side of the fence you are on about this, remember everyone is entitled to their own opinion. We need to ask ourselves who is in control. Am I in control of my emotions or are my emotions in control of me? I am always one to encourage open dialogue to understand instead of to respond. This way we can gain a new perspective on teaching complete American history and help manage our emotions in the process. Remember, we are all North American at the end of the day.

Coresair A. Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC

Why it’s difficult to leave an abusive relationship

A question that I get asked a lot is about abusive relationships, specifically why do people stay in them. There are surface level reasons like financial stability, prestige, and other things along that nature, but let us go deeper. The deeper reason that can evolve into the surface level reason, is due to the abusive relationship being their new normal or what they are used to. What a lot of people do not realize is that the human body adapts physically, mentally, and emotionally to whatever lifestyle the person chooses. For example, whenever someone is in a negative situation, whether that situation be traumatic or not, they are gradually getting acclimated and used to being treated negatively. They would expect negativity and even be weirded out if negativity did not happen to them. Also, their brain would rationalize that negativity as being their new normal. This also ties into habits. As the body adjusts to its new normal, habits start forming based off that new normal. Those new habits are going to be negative. Normally to break a habit, it takes 21 days of doing the opposite thing and not doing the usual habit. This is the reason why, positivity would feel weird to the person that is going through an abusive relationship and why it takes time, usually an average of 7 times, for someone to leave an abusive relationship. Positive things feel weird, not normal, and awkward/uncomfortable for that person. That is one of the reasons why, helping them out of the abusive relationship will feel weird at first and would have them go back to their negative safety net. Overall, the reason why people stay in abusive relationships is due to the abusive relationship being their new normal or them being comfortable with the negativity.

Coresair A. Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC

Why do my thoughts automatically go to the negative, especially after a crisis or traumatic situation?

Today I want to blog about something that I find common among people who are currently experiencing a crisis or traumatic situation, have experienced a crisis or traumatic situation, have something bad happen to them no matter how big or small, or just because it is a Tuesday. A lot of people ask me, “Why does my mind always go to the negative?”.  First and foremost, it is a lot easier to be negative than positive. When you are negative you have a perceived control over yourself and the situation. While being negative, you have a perceived notion that you will not appear weak, will not get taken advantage of and, again, have a perceived control over the situation. The reason behind this is your brain. Your brain stores negative things that have happened to you as well as negative events you witness happening to someone else. Your brain does that to keep you safe. This goes back to the caveman analogy. Let us say a caveman is walking past the tall grass, then a saber tooth tiger comes out and attacks the caveman. The next time the caveman goes outside and sees talk grass, he would associate that with the saber tooth tiger attack. His thoughts would automatically go to the negative, basically telling him that he is going to get attacked again. Then the self-doubt comes in because the caveman does not know if he can defend himself. The caveman’s self-esteem and self-worth goes down also since he is not able to provide for his family or tribe. Fast forward to today and nothing changes because your brain works the same way. Negative things that have happened to us or negative things that we witnessed are stored in our animal or reptilian brain. Our reptilian brain only reacts base off survival. The thoughts go there first because it is in your brain’s best interest if you survive. So, any crisis or traumatic event that happens to us, anything bad or negative that happens to us or anything we perceive that happens to someone else is stored there. When we are about to get to the same or similar situation, our brain produces those negative thoughts to keep us out of that same or similar situation and keep us safe. Our brain does not want us to get hurt or put in a bad or negative situation ever again, so it will produce those negative thoughts as a deterrent. This is where our human brain comes in to put logic to the negative thoughts to balance that out to neutral, so that we are not afraid staying in our homes all day. Unfortunately, our brain does not recognize that by doing this, hinders us instead of helps us. Again, therefore we have the human part of our brain put in logic and reasoning.  Though, that is the long version of why your mind goes to the negative.  

Coresair Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC

Do parents who are suicidal love their kids?

One question that I get a lot that I want to blog about is “Do parents who are suicidal love their kids?” also “How can parents who are suicidal love their kids?”. The short is, yes, just because someone is feeling suicidal that does not take away any other emotions that they are feeling, love included. The longer answer, to answer both questions, we must go back to what we know about suicide. Anything can cause people to feel and be suicidal. We need to remember that everyone processes things differently and some people are better able to cope with certain things, than others. Whatever situation or thing they are currently going through or have gone through (whether it being a crisis, trauma or otherwise) those instances help reinforce the feelings of hopelessness and worthlessness. Relating back to their children, we need to remember that both hopeless and worthless feelings are extraordinarily strong, depending on the person. They could love their children so much, that they could see themselves as a hinderance or standing in their child’s way with whatever is going on with them as a parent. Again, hopelessness refers to a person’s situation or what is going on outside of them and worthlessness refers to the person’s wellbeing or what is going on inside of them. Parents will usually do what is needed to help their child, whether that is leaving their child with all their money, making sure they are taken care of with family and/or friends and making sure everything is lined up for them to succeed after suicide. Is that the case all the time, and the answer is no. Even if they do not have the means or resources, the parent will do whatever is needed to make sure their child is taken care of after the suicide. We also need to remember that not every parent who is feeling suicidal, completes suicide. Whether that is an unsuccessful attempt, they decide not to do it before the fact or they do not attempt or complete. Just because either situation happens, we need to remember that the feeling of love does not lessen or diminish. In conclusion, a parent’s love does not go down or disappear if they are feeling suicidal. We all need to remember that everyone reacts to everything differently, not put judgment on the parent due to not knowing what they are going through and work on getting rid of that negative stereotype and stigma to help parents who are feeling suicidal know it is okay to reach out for help.  

Remember if you or anyone you know is feeling suicidal please reach out for help.

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 800-273-8255

Coresair A. Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC

Introductory Blog Post

Hello everyone and welcome to Mack’s Empowerment Counseling LLC. This is just an introductory blog to let you know what I’ll be using the website for. Once I get my business license and everything up and running, I’ll primarily be using this website to help schedule clients for sessions. Secondly, I’ll be using this to put out blogs about things mental health with crisis and trauma, what’s going on with the private practice and anything else that you guys are interested in me writing about. Of course, these blogs will be my own take on different mental health topics, based on the research that I have done. I hope to do at least two blogs a month. I also have a Youtube Channel where I put out videos every week or every other week, depending on my schedule. If you guys are interested in following me on Youtube, please go to the following link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGKU8MR6Yfzagrr_7DTVF_A/featured

Thank you all very much for reading this and have a great rest of your day.

Coresair A. Mack MS.ED, LCPC, NCC