Ann

This episode deals with self-harm and mentions suicide - please listen with care. There are also a couple of F-bombs and a few other run of the mill expletives.

The medical term for it is non-suicidal self-injury or NSSI.

But if your child is self-harming – most likely cutting themselves – that description probably does nothing to make you feel any better.

Self-harm is completely baffling for parents. You don’t understand it – why would they do it?  If it’s not about wanting to die, then what? Why would they want to inflict pain on themselves?

And what you don’t understand can make you more fearful – possibly to the point of being in denial.

And being in denial is exactly what today’s guest does not want you to do. She says, she understands the impulse to bury your head and hope that your kid just grows out of this behavior – but, as she says in her book (Holy Shit my Kid is Cutting), “The emotions causing distress are leaking out now, beyond containment and management. You literally have physical evidence of your kid’s emotional pain on their body.”

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that helps parents who are struggling to find peace and connection with their teens. My name is Ann Coleman; I’m an attorney turned parent educator and a mom who has been there - and I’m on a mission to help you build a stronger relationship and decrease the conflict with your kid so you can help them grow into the young adult they’re meant to be.

My guest today is  Dr. JJ Kelly (aka “the punk rock doc” and owner of a business called “Unorthodocs, Inc. [spell it]) – she is a lightening bolt of straight talk – I can tell you that she and BS are not friends.

And although she’s a licensed clinical psychologist, she goes about things…she’s a little unorthodox (with an x). She left the whole diagnostic and statistical manual of mental health disorders on a shelf somewhere in her former practice.

And what she does now, she feels does so much more good; she teaches people emotional intelligence skills – something most of us go through life never learning. It’s these skills, she says, that allows us to live “happy, healthy, free.”

I invited Dr. Kelly on the show because of her book, Holy Shit, My Kid is Cutting; the complete plan to stop self-harm. So, I started out by asking her to explain self-harm.

 

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Anytime you're hurting yourself on purpose and you're trying to get away from your emotional experience that you think you can't tolerate, you self-harm. It can be cutting, it's often cutting, but it comes in a lot of forms, you know, people - I don't want to go into all the gnarly burning and all that stuff. But, you know, drinking can be self-harm. Over even over scheduling. I think people's marathoning can be self-harm. That's more adults than kids. But, you know, certainly any sort of substance abuse. OK, yeah. And high school, college, they do some recreational experimentation. But not, oh, I'm pissed at my parents, I'm going to go out and get wasted. That's not recreational. That's self harm.

 

Ann

Right. So really anything that is like, you're trying to cope with something, but you're coping with it in a maladaptive way, is that how you describe it?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Yeah, that's a great. Sure. Yeah. I always think to like, some of these things actually temporarily work, the self harming, to get them out of whatever emotional experience they're having that they think they can't tolerate. The problem is you get like a shame bill at the end. You know, it's not it's not cost free. And it's healthy to feel shame after you hurt yourself on purpose. So you know, these kids are motivated to not do it or do something else. If you give them some healthier skills, they'll grab onto them. Nobody wants to feel that shame. Not really.

 

Ann

Well, so the whole self-harm, cutting and really, you know, doing the things to yourself that really cause pain, is that the diagnosis? Is that a diagnosable thing? Or is that something that we're looking for as like a sign of some underlying issue?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

I think that self-harming can happen with anxiety, it can happen with personality disorders, it can happen with depression. I'm not as into the diagnoses of that kind of thing because I just, the DSM is kind of...

 

I'm not into it. I don't know what I want to go into why I'm not into it. But like, I think that individuals are similar and different. And I think these symptoms are of some sort of pain that isn't being addressed in a healthy way. And of course it is, because who the hell ever taught us coping skills that are healthy in any sort of systematic way. It's crazy to me that this isn't taught in schools.

 

Ann

And what we're talking about is emotional awareness and emotional regulation, that kind of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

coping skills. Yeah, what do you do? How do you how do you continue to act according your values when you're emotionally activated? Because the majority of us are reactive. When we have a big emotion, we do things that we regret later. Well, how do we not do that is what I teach. And it's definitely possible. But it's just that information has not been readily available to us developmentally or at all.

 

Ann

Well, and that's where I was for years. I didn't even know what I felt. So it wasn't even about how do I regulate my emotions. It was like, why do I feel this way that I feel and I don't even know what I'm feeling? So, you know, some of us are way down here on the totem pole.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Yeah. Yeah. Totally.

Dude, everyone is like I start everyone of any age I'm actually like going through my messy desk now trying to use a visual aid. I start I start every single person of any age. These are hot off the press. I'm so excited about them. You know, you can find these everywhere, but they're shit. They are

 

Ann

Ahaha! Oh yes, emotion wheels. Yep. Yeah.

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

And specifically what I mean by that is these are filled with thoughts, not feelings. Attacked is not a feeling. It is an inference about somebody else's intention that you can't confirm as fact unless you ask them and they go, Yeah, I'm attacking you. So people do that shit all the time. I feel worthless. Worthless ain't no feeling. When you when you think you're worthless.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

does that make you feel? So now we can get to the feeling but also if by defining it as a thought instead of a feeling that automatically means it's not necessarily fact just because you thought it. Now we can argue about this worthless thing which is really important because people believing as fact these worry thoughts of I am worthless we definitely want to disrupt that thinking because no one is worthless. And if people are going around with that kind of shame or worry or anger turned inward or whatever feeling is making them think I am worthless, we really wanna mess with that and get at the underlying feeling and validate that, but not what we think. We think all kinds of crazy shit. We don't wanna believe all that.

 

Ann (narration)

So, I have to interject here because this is so important. There are scientists who study nothing but human emotions and there are vastly differing opinions out there about things like whether people all over the world experience the same emotions, whether emotions have been determined by evolution, whether there’s a set of primary emotions that we all have – and if so are there 7, 9, 15?

One of those researchers invented what he called the Wheel of Emotions in 1980 with 8 core emotions with 3 levels of intensity, that blended with each other to form additional emotions. For example, rage was a primary emotion with a lesser intensity being anger, lesser still is annoyance and if you blend annoyance with the lesser intense emotion of boredom, you get contempt.

So what Dr. Kelly is referring to is a Wheel of emotions, emotions wheel or feelings wheel – whatever you choose to call it - it’s a circle with lots of different words that describe emotions in different emotion families – like anger, fear, happiness, sadness – Different mental health providers or people who just work with others about feelings and emotions may include various emotions depending on their own opinion and how many they can fit on the wheel.

And as she mentions here, some people include words on the emotion wheel that are not actually emotions – but really a thought.

If you’re an OG listener you may have hear me talk about how our thoughts, emotions and behavior all impact each other – you change one and the other 2 change. It’s called the cognitive triangle.

Generally, we think of the three in this order – our thoughts impact our emotions, which impact our behavior.

So, really understanding the difference between thoughts and emotions is really critical to our mental and emotional health – our emotional intelligence.

Dr. Kelly used an example –“I feel attacked” But attacked is not an emotion. Attacked is the way you think about the other person’s behavior – the intent in their words. It’s an assumption you’ve made - It is not the emotion you feel. You might feel exasperated, intimidated, disappointed or embarrassed, but you don’t feel attacked.

The same goes for things like I feel stupid (no – you may feel ashamed, sad, embarrassed, nervous) but you thought that whatever you said or did made you look stupid to everyone else. Same thing for betrayed, dismissed and on and on. So, thoughts are not feelings and thoughts aren’t truth. You can actually download her feelings wheel – I’ll have the link in the show notes.

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah. Well, and that's the problem I think with teenagers too, is that they do have that automatic negative glass half empty kind of thing just because of the way their brain works. And they tend to go to that side, don't they? More than.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Totally, but I'm putting the whole teenager thing. Everybody does that. Genius. I've worked with a ton of very smart people that often are like, I feel stupid. A, not an emotion. B, your IQ says otherwise. What the hell are we talking about? Like the mind gets in the way. Yeah. IQ does not mean EQ.

 

Ann

Yeah. So how do we get there? Right.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

By any means. Most people have a very primitive vocabulary for their emotional experiences, regardless of IQ.

 

Ann

Yeah, and that's another, a whole other thing. I remember the first time I read, I guess it's Lisa Barrett Feldman, I think, who wrote all the stuff about emotional granularity and how getting to the nitty gritty and being able to describe exactly how you feel helps you to understand what you need to do to cope with those feelings. And most of us are so far away from that. We might know we feel bad, or we may know we feel sad, or.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Mm-hmm. Ugh. Right.

 

Ann

You know, maybe we know we feel annoyed, but other than that, it's so limited. Our vocabulary is so limited. And that's one of the things I actually have in my parent camp for parents is a list, just a list with definitions of all the ways that you can feel. And so is that one thing that we're, I hate to say failing, I don't wanna put that on us, but with our kids, are we, we're not doing this either. I mean, they're not doing it in school, but we're not doing it either. We're not teaching them about emotions. We're not talking to them about their emotions. So, kind of, we do need to kind of step up our game there, right?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock

Oh, for sure. Everybody puts this on the fridge. Like I it's on my website, you can just go print it out and put it on the fridge. And then the whole family can be they can go around. Well, how are you feeling? You're not I feel like you're not listening to me. Well, like you're not listening to me ain't no feeling either. If you think that I'm not listening to you, how does that make you feel and then we can walk them through that kind of wealth while repeating it ourselves and building our own vocabulary. I love it because the whole family can do it together. And then there's a shared vocabulary there on a lot of different emotional things. And it just it streams up its streamlines communication. I think the communication is really shit in families, particularly if there is emotional activation.

 

Ann

Yeah. Well, so tell people what, because I know, I mean, when I hear that and I don't understand the context and, you know, someone who's not done the studying and understanding this stuff, it seems silly that, oh, why do we have to describe how we feel all the time? Why do we have to talk about these feelings all the time? What is so important about this? Help people understand why this is so important and why we need to get it and help our kids get it.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Hmm. Well, there are a lot of layers of that, but the breakdown, I think the simple breakdown is because if you mistake thoughts for feelings, you're gonna believe everything you think. And fear lies to us. And anger makes nice people act like assholes. And it makes people re fear makes people reactive and defensive. And then we build stories against our loved ones when we're emotionally activated. So it's very, very important to not believe everything that we think when we are emotionally activated. And that's just general mindfulness. That's one.

The other one is, or another one, is that emotions are signals to us. I mean, it makes no sense to just forget or just disregard that we have emotional experiences because we do. So we better build some intelligence around it. I mean in our patriarchal society, you know, that is seen as feminine and weak and not useful. But all human animals have emotional experiences. And the patriarchy hurts men too, because all they're allowed to feel is anger. Like, everybody's scared. We're all animals wired for fear. And if we feel fear all the time, then we want to get past that primal instinct of survival that triggers the fear and use our hopefully evolved brains to move past that initial primal impulse into something more mindful that matches our values and you and I don't have to agree on what our values are which is a beautiful part of it too we The tools work for anybody as long as they know what their values are. You don't have to do what I say I don't like that whole thing Anyway, you can do according to you and then gut check yourself and make sure you're not full of shit like trying to rationalize Acting in a way that doesn't match your values, but you know fear signals to us that we might be in danger in modern society, not so much. So that might be then fear might be signaling, oh, that's something I'm afraid of, I want to go toward that. If it's not going to kill me, I want to be brave and build my self-esteem with enacting my courage and go toward the thing I'm afraid because afraid of because most of the good stuff in life is scary.

 

Ann

Mm-hmm.

 

Ann

True, true.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

So I guess, you know, if it doesn't kill you, yeah, okay, you're probably going to want to go toward it. Anger signals to us that our boundaries are being crossed. Now we don't want to hang on to that. We want to decide if we want to let it go or we want to decide if we want to say, hey, that's pissing me off. Like, I don't like when you do that. Please stop.

 

You know, everybody thinks anger is just this explosive thing because no one's trained in how to manage your anger according to your values, but it absolutely can be done. And it's quite powerful to be like, please stop talking to me like that.

 

I didn't swear at you, I didn't name call, I didn't shout at you. It is a healthy expression of anger. So all these emotions signal, they're signals to us. So we want to learn what the signal is, and what to do about it, and how it matches our values. So it makes no sense to me to be like, oh, emotions, that's for weak people or what?

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, and it's so important in the parent-child dynamic too because like I told you, I think before we started recording, my fear of what my son was doing, smoking weed and gonna be just like his uncle who was a drug addict, my fear made me reactive, it made me control him, which made him.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock

Right.

 

Ann

rebel even more and do more stuff. So, you know, it's such a cycle that we can get ourselves into if we don't understand our emotions, if we don't know how to talk about them with other people, if we don't know how to channel them the right way. And so that's where this self-harm, this cutting behavior comes in is when kids don't know what to do with their emotions. Is that okay? So, and then

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Mm-hmm.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Mm hmm. Yes. And I think anger is usually the fuel for it too. It's rage. Yeah.

 

Ann

Is it? And so where, from what? Is it, I mean, is this trauma based a lot of times or is it coming from somewhere else? What is it? I don't get it. I truly don't understand this.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Um. Okay, it sure can be trauma based. It doesn't need to be. It often is. But even that, it's like, their perception is that they cannot tolerate whatever emotion they're experiencing. So, a lot of times good kids it's very natural when the hormones kick in adolescence to have really big emotions and to direct those unhealthily at the parents. That is pretty a pretty normal piece of development. I fucking hate you, you know, like, and they don't actually hate you. They are just having all kinds of overwhelming feelings and you're there.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

And sometimes it's much worse than that with toxic relationships with parents and kids and the parents are have a lot of problems that they didn't do anything about but it is, I don't know what to do with all this. And so the cutting specifically is a locus of control. They they're like, okay, I'm going to be in pain anyway. So I'm going to inflict it - to give an illusion of control. And the problem is, is that does kind of work because the pain sort of, you know, like takes the train off the tracks in their brain a little bit. And it is a distraction from whatever's going on. So that's a problem because then they perceive it as working because that's a semi-accurate perception.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

It works in that they don't feel that huge, you know, amorphous pain in the moment. But then they're ashamed about what they've done. They're hiding it a lot of times. The original problem is not getting solved. It's a bandaid.

 

 

Ann

Yeah. Does it actually release anything in their brain or do anything that makes them feel better? Or is it just a distraction like, oh, my arm hurts now rather than my insides or what? That's what I don't get.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

it's not fixing anything.

 

Yeah, the brain drugs, the brain drugs are still, I mean, everybody talks about it, like they know what they're saying, but it's guessing. Yes, that would be my guess is that physiologically, something happened, I mean, in the nervous system, certainly the distraction can just calm the nervous system down in general, but it is a psychological process as well.

 

 

Ann

Yeah. And something happens because they do it over and over. I mean, it's like an addiction almost, isn't it? Or?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

that illusion of control. Well. Well, wait, think about it. If it is not, if the problem's not getting solved, and this worked, I mean, drinking works, quote unquote, to numb someone out when let's say they're grieving.

But the grieving is still there when they sober up. If they drink again, they will numb out again temporarily, but the problem of facing the grieving and going through a grieving process is not solved. So in that, it may not be the brain disease of addiction, but certainly it's compulsive because they don't have any other skills to even temporarily stop that distress.

 

Ann

Yeah. Is there something that like, I know that when my son was going through everything he was going through, I know looking back that I was exacerbating that problem. I know that part of it was me. And is, is there something, is it the same kind of thing when your kid is cutting? Is it something, and I'm not trying to blame parents. I'm, I'm trying, you know, hopefully we can recognize what we may be doing wrong that's maybe pushing this problem or maybe even causing the problem. But what do parents do that might make this worse?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Yeah. Well, I think we can use your example. You said that when your son started, let's say experimenting at first, it might've gotten worse, it probably did. But when he started using substances, your fear kicked in based on your possible trauma, but distress about your brother. Then that distress, was heightened because you have this past link in your brain about substance use that you then projected on your kid and that pain and then had a much more intense response had your brother not used in a way that distressed you in the past. So I do think it is really common for all of us, whether we're parents or not to take our past and project it on the moment and have a distorted view of what the moment is and then behave according to that distortion instead of the reality of this present moment. That is very problematic.

I have one more thing to say about that anyway is I think that parents can suffocate their kids and then that pisses them off. And then once they see cutting in particular or self harm that like leaves a mark, parents freak the fuck out, which I have a lot of empathy for. However, they don't understand it. They're not their rational brain is gone.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

I mean, in a way great because the panic sends them in to me right then and there. They should have been in probably a year ago. There were signs that this was happening that parents are afraid of that. So they're like, oh, in denial about it until there's a crisis. That's a problem.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

But they're so scared, they'll pretty much do whatever I tell them to do, which is useful except that they still don't understand what's going on. And maybe because they made that person, they're never gonna get past that panic, which I appreciate too. That leaves me with some objectivity because it's not my kid. You know, I might panic too, if it were mine.

 

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah. Well, right. Well, I mean, I can only imagine because, you know, with that, you know, cutting yourself, especially if it's, you know, it's on your arms or something, I can imagine that parents, they automatically go to suicide, suicidality, they're going to kill themselves. Oh my God. So talk to me about that a little bit. Is it tied to that? How is it tied to that? Is it?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

That's right. Right. Most kids that I have seen have had suicidal ideation with if they are cutting specifically. The problem is, is that the majority of them have not had a serious suicide attempt and don't even have a plan. It is linked to suicide, but irrationally so a lot of the time.

 

Ann

meaning they're not headed in that direction?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

meaning they're not gonna they're not gonna kill themselves.

 

Now that is a really dangerous thing for a clinician to say, right? Like we'll get sued or whatever. However,  in my 20 plus years of working, I have never had a teen kill themselves. I have had a lot of them talk to me about it. I have had, I mean, literally probably thousands of kids that cut themselves. And over the years, and it is

 

Ann

Yeah. Right.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

It's surprising how quickly the majority of them stop. When they're listened to, I listen to, we talk about it thoroughly. So that I indicate to them that I will not be backing away from this in any way and I'm not afraid of it.

 

And then we barely talk about it because you don't want to reinforce like basic psych, like with a tantrum, you reinforce the thing, the behaviors you want to continue, you ignore the behaviors that you don't want to continue. Now that is so counterintuitive. You ignore cutting. Oh my god, what are you talking about? They're gonna kill themselves, you know it but the truth is, a lot of times, yes, I do ignore it after the first initial

 

We've gotten neck deep in the topic. I've indicated I'm not going to back away from it. If they come in and I see more new ones on them, we are talking about it again. But mostly we are spending our time talking about the tools that can be used instead of cutting, when to use them, trying to anticipate the kinds of things that make them go off and get ahead of it and...

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

use the skills instead, then they gather their own data. Oh, wow, she's actually not full of shit. Those skills did work. Like they don't have to let they they're like, Oh, whatever, another shrink telling me what to do until they get their own data that they have gathered in the moment. And then I got them. Then they have buy in. Now they'll listen to more of the things that I have to say because there's trust now.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

I'm not bullying them with my own thoughts. We don't have to agree. So there's built in respect. And now they'll have the courage to try more of the skills because if you only learn one and you use it every time you wear it out. So you need a toolbox. That's right for all of us.

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah, it doesn't work eventually. Yeah.

 

Do they know when, so when they come in and talk to you, do they know what it is that is upsetting them in the first place? Are they able to pinpoint the things or do you kind of have to draw it out of them?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

A lot of times they do. You know, pretty much all kids are reluctant blame their parents. I know that sounds funny too because you know all you parents experiences them blaming you. But when it's like an outsider you know they don't know me. Particularly kids of color. I see a ton of kids of color and you know I'm the white one that they're talking to and you know they don't want to talk shit about their family.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

to white devil over here, you know what I mean? Like there's a betrayal in that. They can sit and talk shit about their family, but nobody else can, but they have to, we talk about how some negative, repeated negative interactions with them and their parents have had negative effects. It's not about blaming the parents, it's about talking about how the impact of some of these interactions isn't really working and it's affecting them negatively. It is rarely only the parents blame for the social pressure, the academic pressure. It's just this big rock, you know, weighing down on them. So we go over all the things, but I'm real, I'm real ready to be like, you know, like this isn't about parents blaming the parents, it's about talking about all the stressors that are leading to this. And you know, there is always room for improvement in communication between

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

adolescents and their parents.

 

Ann

Right. Well, that's what I was going to ask is like when they, when you do uncover those situations, do you talk to the parents and tell the parents this is not good, don't do this anymore or, or are they just kind of left out in the cold and wonder what they need to fix?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc Well, I wrote the book for them. So they're not left out in the cold. Like I wrote the book for them. One to, you know, support them and educate them and two to back them off. You know, I don't do separate meetings with the parents because it's so expected in the Bay Area, first of all, that they're going to have meetings with me and the kids then don't trust me.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

I have tested this a ton over 20 years and it has never worked to do it. I'm not gonna do it. I get how it makes the parents anxious, which is why I wrote the book for them. But I am not gonna get paid to narc on kids. They won't tell me anything. I make it really clear before they hire me, which they almost always forget quote unquote in a crisis.

 

So I try to, you know, quell the parents anxiety about not knowing everything that's going on in our meetings by saying, you know, you got another adult's eyes on the situation. You know that if some shit is hitting the fan, I have to call you. And I would anyway.

 

 

Ann

It is nerve wracking for us because we worry that there's something we should know. But to your point, if there's something we should know, you would tell us anyway. So having another adult and an adult like you watching out for their kids, I mean, everybody should be thankful for that. And so what I think is so good for parents to hear here is that this is resolvable  problem. It's not something that's going to definitely lead them down a horrible path. But I'm also hearing you say that it is extremely important that at the first sign of it, they get their kids to someone like you. And so to explain what should they be looking for in a therapist and what kind of person, what degrees, whatever, what do they look for?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Of course. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Oh, yes, definitely. Hell yeah.

Well, I two things one is I am not a therapist anymore. I started my own company and I teach the emotional intelligence skills because I don't want people dependent on me for years like that. That's one. Two is I talk about this in the book a little bit. I if it were me and I were the parent I would be looking for because shrinks are crazy. And I mean psychiatrists.

 

Ann

And we're talking about psychologists or psychiatrists. Yeah, okay.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

both. When I say shrinks, it's like basically everyone in mental health, but specifically the ones with doctor in front of their name, which makes them apparently godlike in their knowledge. No, nope, no. So what I would be doing is talking to them and I would ask them some regular question like a human question like

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

you know, how do they decompress or something that they're not expecting to see how they react to that? Do they give me some sort of bullshit MD or PhD answer that some professor told them to say early in their career? And they tell me nothing about themselves, because that's what we're taught to do.

 

Or do they say something like a person? Do they sound like a person? And even if they say something like I curse, and that's not for everybody, but you know it's real. Like you might not like that, but you know that I'm a realer person than somebody that gives you some bullshit answer that is totally sanitized. So watch, I mean, even if it's off, putting to you on some level, that might just be because you're unlike that person. And that's not a reason not to do it. If they sound like an actual person. I wouldn't go for somebody in their first year either. I mean, sometimes it's cost prohibit prohibitive. But yeah, I would want someone with some experience.

 

Ann

Yeah. And about the psychiatrist thing too, because I mean, we know psychiatrists prescribe. I mean, that's what they do. And it's generally a 15 minute, here's a pill and there's no therapy involved there. And what blows my mind is they don't even do the tests that psychologists do, where you actually fill out questions and answer questions or whatever. So with this particular problem is medication.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Right. Yep.

 

Ann

The answer is that who you would want to go to first anyway, a psychiatrist?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Never go first, not first. Or simultaneously, do not have your kids see a psychiatrist without also seeing a psychologist or somebody that talks. Please do not just medicate them without some sort of talk therapy, emotional intelligence training, social emotional learning, whatever but don't just put them up. That is my career long pet peeve. And psychiatrists think they can do therapy and they can't for the most part.

 

And dude, the kids over the years that have seen, well, a lot of times the ones that I see have seen a ton of psychiatrists and already a ton of psychologists. And by the time they get to me, I mean, it's the Bay Area too, right? So I'm sure like New York is like that too. And actually a lot of them have been from New York. But...

 

They're like, the things that they say about the I mean, they know so well. They're like, Oh, that guy was full of shit. I mean, he's like, you know, 700 bucks an hour, like the best Yale graduate, whatever. And he didn't even ask me like, so what's going on at home? Like, no regular like somebody that just has the degrees from fancy places and has the government funding. Like, that don't mean shit, man.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

It really doesn't. If you can't connect with a kid, there's no healing that's going to... Yes, they pretend. They know how to pretend for adults. They've been doing it in school and with their parents forever. They know how to play the game. They'll say whatever they can say to get through the appointment or get through the residential program or whatever. If they don't connect with some adult there...

 

Ann

Well, and it's, it's right. It's about emotional intelligence there too, between the therapist and the, yeah, yeah.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

They're not gonna tell the truth because they don't think it's a safe thing to do. They're just gonna get further dinged by another adult who has power over them. They're not gonna tell the truth. And if they're not telling the truth, they're not getting better.

 

Ann

Oh, oh, that's awesome. I didn't even realize that. Okay. So that's a wonderful thing. So you can do it virtually. And if people want to find someone like local or whatever, what type of therapy do you feel works best for this?

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Hmm. Well, my all my emotional intelligence training skills are based on dbt dialectical behavior therapy. It's kind of Zen mindfulness, Zen mindfulness meets cognitive behavior therapy. It's the shit. It is so awesome. DBT rules. But like anything else, you guys the purse, the shrink has to be good at it.

 

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

It can't just be any DBT. I mean, we're already sort of in the minority. Like people think it's the new thing. It's been around since the mid 80s. But I think it's still so secretive to people or like elusive because it's so experiential that you could read a book about DBT and kind of not get it. Because it happens. I mean, the gifted misfits book that I wrote is my course based on DBT. So you can learn emotional intelligence skills by reading that book and it's thin, I make them all thin because nobody reads book books anymore.

So yeah, the gifted misfits can give you like the first pass but you know, so much of it happens as you practice the skills. And then come back and then we talk about how you can tweak it further based on your life, your experience, your values, your family system, whatever.

 

 

Ann

That is incredible.

 

Ann

For these parents who have this going on with their kids, their kids need to be doing something, either with a therapist with DBT, through a program like yours, or yours in particular, learning about their emotions, doing all the things. They don't need to be just turning a blind eye to it and thinking, oh, this will pass, right?

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Definitely don't do that. Yes, I appreciate the impulse to want to ignore it because it's scaring you. Please don't do that.

 

 

Ann

Yeah, yeah. And I think in your book, one of the points was that it's gonna get worse before it gets better.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

Yeah, the shit tunnel. I have all these like weird things that I say that now like the advanced students, you know, they imitate it and they say they make fun of me, but they also kind of use it seriously. Like, you know, like water off a duck's ass, you know, like that sort of mindfulness, you don't let other people get to you kind of thing. You got to go eat your shit sandwich. Like you make a mistake, just go like apologize, get it over with. But this one, it gets worse before it gets better is sort of the metaphor that I use for psychological work in general, like you're stirring things up. You know, our defenses kind of keep us at status quo and change scares the shit out of us.

 

But you know what? Is it better at the end? Yeah, it is. So you got to go through the shit tunnel. And that's what I say to people like you're in the middle of the shit town. Hey, did you ever see the Shawshank Redemption? You know, Andy Dufresne? He like, he uses a rock to get in a human sewage tunnel. So he's choosing it, right? This is part of his escape plan from Shawshank prison. So he gets in this tunnel full of human sewage, the shit tunnel, and he's crawling through it. And they say something like football fields length of this tunnel. He's like barfing as he goes, and then he has to crawl through his barf too. Like, ah, so nasty, dude, so nasty. But you know, like what will you do for escape from misery and confinement?

 

In this case, psychologically, your own comfort zone, your own routine of the same shit all the time is making you miserable. So climb through your shit tunnel, you get to the end, you're on the other side now. It's not like you never will have to deal with some of those things again, but not like that. When you do the work, you do the anger work, you do the fear work, you do the grieving, whatever is necessary for healthy change, getting to the other side. The other side is you are proud of yourself. You like who you are flaws and all by the way, you don't have to hide all your flaws all the time in order to like be present as perfect. That has shame in it anyway, because you're denying all the imperfect parts of yourself, you're hiding it, you're worried about somebody finding you out. Like that is the

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

That's the best thing I do, I think, is model how to just be yourself, not hide your flaws. Like I'm working on them. We're all a work in progress. I don't know if I'll ever stop cursing. But you know, like I've, I've gotten more vulnerable over the years. I've surrendered at times. I never thought that was possible by 20s. You know what I mean? We're all evolving, but we have to do it on purpose. And it's

 

Ann

Yeah.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

It's painful. It's so damn scary. Surrender. Are you kidding me? Like 20 years ago, I would have been like, who the hell is time surrender to what you got to make your own way, bitch? You know, like, we gotta we gotta ask ourselves the hard questions like how have I internalized the sexism of a patriarchal society? How as a white person? Am I unintentionally racist? Not if

 

Ann

Yep. Yeah.

Yeah. Ha ha ha.

Yeah, how? Yeah.

 

JJ Kelly - The Punk Rock Doc

How am I? If I'm gonna work with these kids, you know, like, how is your very liberal family accidentally behaving homophobic, in a homophobic way? You invited your one kid's partner and your other kid's partner you didn't invite. That's homophobic, dude. Like, you didn't mean to do it. If you ask these parents, are you homophobic? They'll be like, absolutely not. But you know.

 

Like you are, it's an accident. We all have unintentional biases. We got to ask ourselves the hard questions if we want to shed shame, grow as a person and like ourselves, because that's the tagline that everybody's latched onto. I said in a podcast interview once, happy people act right. I just spontaneously said it. That's so true by the way. And people have latched onto that because you know truth when you hear it, right?

 

Ann (narration)

So – DBT. I’ve talked with several people on the show about Dialectical Behavior Therapy. Dr. Kelly describes DBT, as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT or talk therapy) combined with Zen Mindfulness skills. Sounds pretty great.

And in her 8-week courses, she uses DBT and teaches emotional skills like we’ve been discussing. Learning to be more emotionally aware and emotionally regulated is what will help your kid to avoid cutting and channel these emotions elsewhere – learn the necessary tools to manage better.

She has a totally self-directed course, and a beginners and intermediate course that utilizes weekly Zoom meetings and small groups. All the links are in the show notes.

And because this is a massive issue for parents, I will continue talking about self-harm and cutting in a soon to be released future episode. There’s just too much to cover to do it in one episode.

Just remember, cutting can stop but likely only with professional help and learning the emotional skills required to manage daily life. It will not go away by ignoring it, lecturing, punishing or shaming.

If this is happening with your kid, check out Dr. Kelly’s book, Holy Shit My Kid is Cutting, her courses, or reach out to your pediatrician, school counselor or another parent for a referral to a therapist who works with adolescents and understands self-harm - and it would be awesome if they use DBT to teach these emotional skills. Do your homework.

………

Okay - that’s it for Speaking of Teens today. I want to thank you for listening and ask you to share this episode with anyone you think may need it. Tell your friends how much you get out of the show and advise them to listen.

And you are invited to come join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group to discuss any issues you’re having with your teens (anonymously even) - the link is at the very bottom of the episode description in the app where you’re listening.

Until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way.