THE SECRET LIVES OF ADULTS
How to make your relationships work
ALLISON Keating always knew that she wanted to be a psychologist — “that or a fashion designer or an architect”, she says, adding with a laugh, “but me and maths were a pretty poor combination.”
What fascinated her from an early age was the way “you’d be out and someone would be saying something and I’d wonder, ‘did they actually mean that?’ And then you’d hear back that actually, something else was going on for them… I’m really genuinely interested in people and what might be their real issue, as opposed to what they said”.
And it is still the astonishing freedom of the therapy room that appeals to her — the way men and women are willing to come in and drop whatever mask they have been wearing and talk to her about the truth of how they feel. “I wish people would not waste so much time and energy holding back and pretending,” she says.
Allison studied at DCU and has had a practice in Malahide, the BWell clinic, for 14 years. Before that she was a trauma counsellor, working with asylum seekers with PTSD. She has also been the resident psychologist on TV3 Ireland AM, and is currently on Saturday AM and Sunday AM, as well as a regular on the Ray D’Arcy Show.
Now she has written a book, The Secret Lives of Adults, in which she likens each of us to a Russian doll, containing different versions of ourselves depending on our relationship to others: as a child, a sibling, a parent, a friend, a partner, a worker. The aim of the book is to improve each of these relationships as well as the most important one of all — the one we have with ourselves.
This one, the self-relationship, is intriguing and complicated, made up, Allison explains, of “three selves: the public, the private and the unconscious self ”.
And it is the gap between these three where trouble often starts, that distance between how we act and how we feel. “I see the gap between the public and the private self, for many, getting bigger and bigger.
“I got the idea for the Russian doll because people were coming to me and, as they were talking, I would imagine spinning plates they couldn’t let drop.
“There could be a sick parent, a child with something wrong, pressure at work, at home, the demands of modern life. From my perspective I was seeing people presenting with what are called ‘anxiety’ and ‘burnout’ but really it was just too much for too long. It’s the demands in all our roles that are increasing.
“What I’m seeing now are distress rates from people who have never had mental health issues going through the roof. These people might never have experienced anything like this before and suddenly they’re not sleeping, they’re not eating. It’s very frightening for them.”
Interestingly, the type of person she sees most often “tends to be the person who has always coped, who is the go-to for other people — ‘Oh, ask X, she’ll do it. She’s always so calm…’ When your identity becomes the person who’s strong, people do over-depend on you.”
And the result, over time, can be a gradual wearing down of energy until that person reaches crisis point.
“So many of my clients went to A&E first, thinking they were having a heart attack. If you’ve never experienced a panic attack, where you can’t breathe and there’s a big weight on your chest, it’s a very scary experience. Once they get the all-clear from a doctor then you start from there.”
Often the start can be something tiny. “Sometimes I ask, about meditation, could you do a minute? Even just a minute a day to begin with. Bring it in, in very small amounts. Because if someone is coming to me saying ‘I feel like I don’t have time to breathe’ that’s where you need to start. Often people say ‘I need to change this, and this, and this…’” They want to chuck it all out and start again? “Exactly. But you have to take it bit by bit. It is unrealistic to think you can change everything, in a sweep.”
Allison is both amusing and perceptive on the notion of selfcare, saying: “We talk about it, and paint pretty pictures of it, but really no one is doing it. They don’t even know what it is, other than an Instagram-able picture.”
So if modern life is the cause, and is pretty much a fixed point for most of us — ie, we can’t make huge changes to our circumstances — what does she recommend?
The answer is pleasingly practical. “When I went to study psychology I came out of it going, ‘OK, great, but where are the skills? Where’s the how-to bit?’ I’m also a total nerd and love understanding the neuroscience behind this. That, to me, is fascinating. I love taking that — great ideas and research — and applying them.”
The result is a book full of suggestions for what, and how, to do — everything from reconnecting with childhood hobbies that gave you joy to simply scheduling time to meet friends, exactly as you would a work meeting, every week.
‘I suppose I wear my heart on my sleeve and say it as it is. People would know if I was upset’
Sometimes it means saying no. “For me, it’s all about time and energy. Do you have the time? And do you have the energy? Those are two great questions to ask ourselves. If people answered them honestly we’d all say ‘no’ a lot more.
“The words ‘yes, yes, yes’ are always coming out of our mouths. If you’re having that moment of thinking ‘Crap, why did I say yes to that?’ then you need to ask what’s going on that I’m always trying to please people?”
It’s interesting, she notes, that when people start changing, family and friends don’t always like it. “They encounter resistance from those around them. Changing yourself is hard — it’s really hard — but changing yourself in the teeth of opposition from those around you is even harder.”
Change, she points out, is something we encourage in children, but we frequently internalise the notion that as adults our lives should be settled, sorted.
“But the curve balls keep coming — your health, your family, your job, it’s a constant state of flux. Yet people have this idea that you should have it sorted and that it should remain that way. That causes tension.”
Allison grew up in Malahide — her parents have a family property development company — and is one of four sisters.
“I thought of myself as the middle child and until I went to college thought being the middle child was really great,” she says.
“My dad was the middle child in his family and he always said ‘the middle child is really special’. I thought it was amazing — I had no sense that it could be otherwise.”
So did that make her the diplomat, the peace-keeper? “I would definitely be, not the diplomat, but if there’s arguments I would be the mediator. I can see everyone’s point of view,” she says.
“I wish for harmony but then if something needs to get sorted it needs to get sorted. I would be very direct. I think that’s where real, authentic relationships come from and I prefer those types of relationships — a smaller number of friends but for those relationships to be completely open and honest. I suppose I wear my heart on my sleeve and say it as it is. People would know if I was upset.”
Her husband, Thomas, works in IT (he’s also a serious sprinter; the week after Allison and I meet she is going to Spain to watch him in the World Sprinting Masters in 100m and 200m events). They met in Voodoo music venue in Dublin on a night out with a group of friends and have three daughters together, aged nearly nine, six and three.
Like all of us, it is as a parent that Allison finds herself most challenged on a personal level. When I ask what pushes her buttons, she says: “Time! You’re trying to get them somewhere, get somewhere yourself… It’s when the roles are crossing over. You’re trying to be mum but you’re also trying to get work done. That definitely sets me off.”
And it was as a parent that she internalised one of the hardest lessons — the fundamental lack of control in all our lives.
“My youngest daughter Brooke got very sick when she was 10 months old. She got the flu. It was one of those rug-from-under-you moments. She had a temperature and no one was worried but I thought she was breathing funny. I thought, ‘Something’s wrong here’.
“So I took her to the doctor and was told ‘Go straight to Temple Street’. We were seen immediately, and I was like, ‘Sh*t’. I have goosebumps still, thinking about it.
“All of a sudden there was a team of 12 around us. They couldn’t get her breathing, they were looking to resuscitation. I was freaking out but quietly. The tears were coming out my nose. I don’t think I even cried out loud. That day I realised, ‘Oh my God, you’re not in control’.
“It terrified me. That changed everything. Not that I thought I was in control but we all live with the illusion that we are, to some extent.”
Her daughter was in hospital for 10 days, in isolation, and it was a year and a half to get her back to proper health. “Every few days it seemed something else would happen. She got everything, every cold, cough, she was back into hospital several times. She’s fantastic now, thank God.” So what got Allison through? “I said to myself ‘It is what it is’. I kept saying it.”
This kind of trouble is exactly where the application of practical, positive psychology comes in. “Life is not fair and I mean that in a straightforward honest way. Bad things happen to good people. Life is not skipping through a meadow with flowers. You never know what’s around the corner, it is always in flux and we need to accept that. Nothing stays the same.
“Change, if you want it, is possible but it is painful. It is raw, you will feel exposed, you will feel uncomfortable as hell, but you will grow as a person. I think a lot of this book is looking at how to walk into the uncomfortableness on purpose.” The book, she hopes, will help people on the path.
“None of the book is about ‘having a positive attitude’ because that drives me crazy and it’s actually very dangerous. It is giving them something that will genuinely help. Not false hope, actual practical things that are evidence based, that you can put into your life and sustain.
“Peace of mind,” she says, “is what people want mostly. That’s what they come to me looking for. And out of that comes joy.”
‘The Secret Lives of Adults’ by Allison Keating is published by Gill Books