“‘What Would I Do If I Could Suddenly Feel…’”

“I’m shocked when I find out that someone lives past sixty-five years old or when youth die from diseases rather than murder. That’s problematic, yes?” Recently, I just celebrated my aunt’s ninetieth birthday. Yes. 90. It floored me on multiple levels. One, she has a perpetual mid-seventies vibe about her. Two, many of our family members have lacked the ability to live that long. Three, on my mind were the deaths of two students of the Upward Bound program I graduated from. It bothered me that I jumped to thinking that the deaths may have been gang-related or caused by intoxicated motorists when in reality both students were dealing with long-term illnesses. And though passing away from such illnesses may not appear as tragic as murder, suicide, or the like, death is death—especially when it comes to the youth. So why does it seem like living long is such a strange concept and departing early or horrifically is practically a new norm?

Primarily used to help in the removal of phobias, desensitization is a cognitive-behavioral process developed by psychologist Mary Cover Jones. It has its roots in the classical conditioning methods of Ivan Pavlov (hence, why it is also called Pavlovian condtioning). With Pavlovian/classical conditioning, the objective is to use a natural (unconditional) stimulus to cause a person or thing to respond to a different and neutral (conditioned) stimulus in a very similar fashion (see either image for better details).  Pertaining to that, desensitization—when used therapeutically—involves the person or thing being directly exposed to what appears threatening to them. The interactions with the source of fear or anxiety can happen in two ways: vivo desensitization (confronting the issues in real-life situations) and vicarious desensitization (created models to represent actual conflicts). As they continue to interact with the locus of fear they realize that what they fear is not as threating as once perceived, or at all. The dark side of this, pertaining to violence, is that if one is highly exposed to arguing, fighting, sexual intercourse, guns, bombing, thievery, etc., over time a person will grow minimally affected with these encounters. Of course, this varies based on the magnitude of specific events and the perception of results afterwards.

All of that said, “You are what you eat.” The things that you digest and surround yourself with make up everything you are. But do recall that diets can be changed, and the earth functions in seasons. Let’s end the numbness; it’s time to reclaim your senses.

- Brandon Avery

“When the Parentals Need Parentals… (-___-‘) ”

“If adolescents are the ones with all of the changes happening, can someone explain the EPIC episodes that my parents are having?” As most of my posts have, this topic derived from a conversation with a close friend about how she has become adamant about living out her dreams and begun putting in the work to do so. However, she feels that her parents are quite lackadaisical in regards to their desires and sometimes argues with them about their perceptions and behaviors. This is most definitely not irregular; even I—as many older adolescents do—tend to dispute with parents about the errors of their ways. We don’t mean to call them out disrespectfully, but it is bothersome that those who we model our adulthood after suddenly have major cracks in their previously perfect, gilded figure. Yet, I’m sure you’re still wondering, Where does it say all of this is okay? (OMJesus, I’m such a poet!! #UOENO)

Harry Prosen, John Toews, and Robert Martin co-authored an article discussing the intersection of parental midlife crisis and adolescent rebellion. With parents coming to terms with the finiteness of time, much of their time is devoted to “making up for lost time”; this rings an alarm for the teenager as they no longer look at their main role model—their parents, especially the parent of the same sex—as the most stable person behaviorally. (This phenomenon is called deidealization.) Parents, though, work their hardest—even forcefully—to maintain this perfectionistic relationship to reduce the chances of rebellion, which more often results in the opposite. Another factor of the disharmony between the two age groups is the shift from “alloplastic mastery” to “autoplastic mastery” in parents. This means that midlife adults grow more concerned with improvement of the self and can find contentment with the pace of the outside world, contrasting their previous apprehension with control of external affairs in order to gain a sense of independence.

Now you may think that the best thing to do is to prevent the combatting from occurring and become dependent on one another. (This would most likely occur if the child fears the demands of an independent adulthood and the parent is overly anxious with aging and its effects.) TOTALLY reasonable, but let’s be honest; how often are we successful when driven by fear or stress? Yes, nobody has time for conflict between the parentals and pubescents, but when progression is the objective, the ugly often precedes the pretty. #KeepCalmAndJustWerk

- Brandon Avery