The Sad Tale of Steve McNair and Sahel Kazemi

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I get calls all the time from young, emotionally hungry young women (girls, actually), who think that an older, often married, man really loves them.  It makes me so sad in my heart to hear these young women denying reality and setting themselves up for hurt.

20 year old Sahel Kazemi thought she had it made in the shade, because a celebrity, a former NFL football star, Steve McNair, took her partying in VIP rooms and on vacations for eight months.  She believed him when he got her on his condo bed for sex that he was going to leave his wife of twelve years for her.  He didn’t.

And then, one day, she saw some other young thing - probably another girl believing she was the one who was special to McNair.  So, one night, when McNair was sitting on his sofa, likely asleep, she shot him twice in the head and twice in the chest.  Then she sat down next to him, positioning herself so that she would fall into his lap, and shot herself (according to FoxNews). 

Here was an attractive young girl (she had just turned twenty), a teenager, a high school dropout who had moved with a boyfriend at age 17 to Nashville from Florida.  When she was 9, her mother was murdered, and, born in Iran, she and her family were persecuted for their religious faith.

This is a lot of turmoil and chaos and hurt for a young girl, and it is sad that so many family members and family friends tell this upbeat story about her, surprised that she would do such a thing.  She was clearly emotionally tortured and vulnerable, needy, and naive.  Her life began and ended in violence.

Men like McNair make me sick.  I am sicker still, reading sycophants talk about his actions on the football field, as though the admiration he earned for running a ball around a field should count for more than the human lives he betrayed.  He had a wife, with whom he had two sons, and two more sons from I don’t know where and I don’t know by whom.  He was a 36 year old man who had been given great opportunities and huzzahs for his accomplishments. His response was to cater to his childish needs to “do” young women who (without question) would simply adore him. 

It is sad that this ended in death for him and a naive and needy girl who believed that without him, there was no purpose in life. 

It is sad that, as I speak, older accomplished men in business, politics, clergy, academe, and medicine are doing the exact same thing, in order to fulfill their needs to receive a naive reverence, to feel youthful and important in the reflection of a young woman, or because they feel entitled to spoils because of their celebrity or wealth or power.

I warn young girls every day to live a life of integrity and modesty with morals, so they won’t be used in such a way.  Sometimes, though, a girl is so damaged that shortcuts seem the only way.

This time, it resulted in death seeming the only way.

Divorced, But We Get Along

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As you’ve heard on my radio program, sometimes when people get divorced, they can’t stand to be in the same room with each other.  This week, I got a question with a slightly different twist:  should divorced parents (who aren’t constantly in “battle mode”) get together occasionally for family dinners?

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

Read transcript here.

The Emptiness of Internet “Friending”

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Either directly (e.g., sadness about not having a relationship with a parent or sibling) or indirectly (e.g., having trouble being intimate), more and more callers to my radio program report a sad sort of alienation from close, loving relationships. Yet the numbers of people deeply invested in “virtual” relationships via Internet “friending” social networks like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, is growing exponentially. We are involved more in frivolous levels of intimacy and less invested in warm, caring, loving, involved relationships.

The pseudo meaningfulness we imagine as we add our names and faces to someone’s Internet site is addictive, yet ultimately vacuous. There isn’t really anyone out there who cares enough to hold your hand when you are in pain.

The Annenberg Center for the Digital Future at the University of California reported last week that 28% of Americans interviewed last year said they have been spending less time with family members. That’s nearly triple from the numbers in 2006.

In the old days when television was young, families watched together in one room. Now there are TVs in every room of the home, with 500 or more channels, and the family is dispersed, with each “doing their own thing.” The Internet is a one-on-one, non-family experience also - breaking down the cohesiveness of family dynamics, parenting, sharing, and plain old caring.

The problem is that people are, by nature, gregarious. That means we need company. When we spend our time with the technology that minimizes the intimacy of company, we forever alter the ability of individuals to actually experience pure intimacy in a positive, ultimately satisfying manner. And the experience of having lots of so-called “friends” on the Internet is beguiling, but empty — -in effect, a distorted form of solitude.

There is no wonder that so many people have a deep problem with being able to love - they mostly want to be satisfied by flattery, freedom from reciprocal responsibility and the reality of obligations and responsibilities, much less sacrifice for the general good or the benefit of another.

Technological advances in “communication” have actually increased the number of people you can interact with, but have more importantly diluted out the meaningfulness of those same interactions.

Think of families together at dinner, and a whole town helping rebuild your barn. Compare that to what you have now in your life. Which is better for quality of life?

Not Everything Can Be Fixed

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It’s funny what stays in your mind - one shot of light in the darkness of memory.  One of the more important “shot of light” memories is from my days in the Marriage/Family/Child Therapy program at the University of Southern California.  I was being supervised during my training and displaying lots of frustration over one particular client.  I couldn’t figure out how to fix, or help the client fix, the problem for which the client came in to get help.

My supervisor, a well-known and talented therapist said five words which reverberated in my head - the head of a “Type A,” over-achiever mentality person that I was (or am).  He said, “Not everything can be fixed.” 

I was shocked and horrified.  To even think that there were limits to what any human being could do, to think that there were no remedies for certain circumstances, to think that I couldn’t “lay on hands” and make all better every person I tried to help - well, all of this was unthinkable.

As I matured, however, I realized he was right.

I had several calls in the past week that demonstrated that truth — that not everything can be fixed — so it shouldn’t be broken in the first place!!  It’s why I do what I do on radio versus having a private practice.  You all get to hear what decisions, choices, behaviors, and actions put you in a (probably) unfixable place.

There was the 21 year old woman who came on the program giggling about how she had listened to me since she was 2 years old.  Now, with two children out-of-wedlock with a guy who won’t marry her because she hasn’t taken down her Facebook profile after she promised she would, she wanted to know how to fix the relationship and get married.

Since he didn’t marry her before the children, since he didn’t marry her after the first child, since he didn’t marry her after the second child, he probably isn’t going to marry her after the Facebook argument gave his dumping her some legitimacy.  I guess 19 years of listening to the program didn’t do it for her.

The second female caller was about the same age, again with two out-of-wedlock children, living at her boyfriend’s parents’ home.  She was shacking up with him, and wanted to know how to get him to move out so they could be on their own, after he said he didn’t ever want to move out of his mother’s home!

The moral of these stories is that when you insist on making impulsive decisions and act only out of the moment, then you will, at some point, dig a hole that you won’t be able to get out of. 

By the way, I told the first woman to move in with her parents, so the children can have a father (in the form of Grandpa), and she was not to date until they were grown.  I told the second woman to give up her dreams and faulty plan, keep her mouth shut, and just live there, giving the impression of being happy, so the kids don’t have to grow up with a negative mother until the kids are grown.

Of course, women are not the only ones who need to hear this message.  A lot of men marry “damsels in distress,” only to be stuck with… distressed damsels!!  They hope to save them and fix them, but….some things can’t be fixed.  I tell them to stay with a smile until the kids are grown.

I don’t accept any of the “…but what about my happiness?” rationalizations.  The answer is that children matter more than you, and you need to sacrifice and behave properly so that they have a better chance of making better choices in their lives.

Some things can’t be fixed, so don’t do them in the first place.  Consider my radio program a huge emotional and behavioral prophylactic, and take the lessons learned from the pain of others and make the right - even if uncomfortable - choices.

Getting Your Marital Flirt On

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Why should flirting be limited only to single people on a date?    Why do some marriages turn into wars instead of sassy, sexy, and flirty relationships?  One of my listeners actually asked me to offer tips on how to flirt within the context of marriage, and that’s exactly what I do today:

Or watch other videos at youtube.com/DrLaura.

Read transcript here.

Alleged Craigslist Killer’s Fiancee Has It All Wrong

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Philip Markoff, 23, the alleged Craigslist killer, has a loyal, faithful, supportive fiancée.  The big question is….WHY?

Authorities say he trolled Craigslist’s erotic services section, where he met a 25 year old woman and lured her to a luxury hotel in Boston.  Supposedly, he meant only to steal money, but he also had a loaded gun, and allegedly shot her dead, presumably because she fought him.

How’s this for evidence: 
1) the murdered woman’s underwear was at his house
2) the bullet that killed her came from our boy’s gun, and if that isn’t enough,
3) his fingerprints were found on the wall of the hotel room where a stripper was tied up in an attempted robbery.

What does his pathetic fiancée do?  She proclaims her love and support and her complete disbelief that any of this is true, describing him as a loving and caring person.

You’ve heard this story (including women who hunger to marry convicted murderers) way too often.  Why do women do this?

Simple.  Question:  how humiliating is it to be associated with an evil person?  Answer:  Very!  So, if one takes the position that “I only know him as a good person,” some of the humiliation is tempered.  After a little while, the healthiest of these women fade out of sight; the others make their identity “the fiancee OF (fill in the blank).” 

Some women find glory in “standing by an evil man,” because they believe it defines them as truly “good” to sacrifice and have such loyalty, faith, and belief.  Some women believe that their love can and will transform the man - that it will heal him, and then their own lives will have value, and he will be beholden to them, never leaving them and always loving them. Other women are frankly amoral, narcissistic, and/or sociopathic, and they identify with the perp.  That kinship keeps them connected. Still others want their 15 minutes of “reality show fame” and notice, and feel a most distorted sense of value from that exposure.

All in all, this young woman’s response ought to have been:  “I am shocked and horrified that I could not see that this man had two lives.  I am sorrowful for the woman who lost her life and her family and friends.  I regret the harm he’s caused so many people.  This is going to take me a while to recover from, as I obviously had a brush with evil.”

Instead, her family quietly called the wedding hall and cancelled the reception, because Philip was probably not going to be available.

Morning-After Pill for 17 Year Old Girls?

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Out-of-wedlock sex is just no big deal anymore.  It’s even the basic plot of many television sitcoms, making it seem like a royal good time.  After all, isn’t sex just a natural instinct and desirable physical release?  If you have an itch, it should be scratched, right?  At least that’s what I see my dog Bebe do when she clearly has an itchy paw.

Religious teaching be damned.  There should be no guilt about a good romp in the hay that is meaningless, whether extra-marital or non-marital.  Why the big fuss?

Well, let’s see.  We can throw in the “fuss” basket some of the following:

1. Sexually-transmitted diseases, some of which can kill.
2. Unwanted pregnancies, some of which we can kill or raise without a complete and loving home with two parents, who have a sacred covenant called marriage.

Of course, there’s also the unexpected consequence of realizing that very little out-of-wedlock sex has any meaning whatsoever after so many such experiences.  Women feel used and desperate; men feel crass and disappointed.  And never mind the hurt feelings that come from ultimate rejection when one gets bored and the other underestimates what being sexually intimate results in with regard to feeling about themselves and their life.

This all leads up to the fact that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has been ordered by a federal judge to allow 17 year old girls (not women) to have Plan B, the morning-after pill, without a prescription, as it is available to those over 18.  This has been an ideological issue, as some folks wish for girls (married or not) to have no impediment to “expressing their sexuality” with the back-up of the morning-after pill, as well as abortion. 

This is astonishing to me, considering all the medical and emotional issues that surround sexuality.

The morning-after pill is a contraceptive that reduces the chance of pregnancy if taken within three days after sexual intercourse.   It contains a high dose of birth control drugs. The pill works by preventing ovulation or by interfering with implantation of a fertilized egg.

I’m just sad that girls, often having sex with adult males, figure it’ll all be okay without a condom, because the adult male reminds them that “there is always Plan B or an abortion.”  Not to worry…no big deal.

Well, over 32 years of a radio call-in program has provided me proof that there is no easy fix for the feelings of guilt, loss, being used, and multiple meaningless sexual experiences.  I, for one, am sad that we keep opening the door wider and wider for women and men to feel less and less responsibility and awe about each other.  No wonder anti-depressants are among the best-selling drugs in America.

“The Bachelor” Is NOT A Guide for Real Relationships

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When the so-called “mainstream media” carries a story, one used to surmise that the information was actually important in some significant way to Americans.  We all know that’s largely untrue:  stories today are attempts to splash the water in your face to get attention for ratings and commercial time or space revenue.

ABC News actually had someone from their “ABC News Medical Unit” on to discuss the heartbreak of losing on the program The Bachelor.  It seems that this guy first announced that he was “hot” for one babe, but them changed his mind, season ending “cliff-hanger” style) and went for another babe.  He proposed, then changed his mind, and went back to the first of the two dumped babes. That set off fireworks with some silly blog site that targets I-don’t-know-what-kind-of-women who actually care about this pseudo-intimacy.

One of the dumb issues involved in this nonsense is that the babes have signed contracts that say they aren’t allowed to cry or whine about hurt feelings until the appropriate time in the unfolding saga.  They actually got “shrinks” to opine about the emotional and psychological damage that can be done to these silly babes (who I define as pretty women who exploit their looks and desire their 15 minutes of fame by going on these not-really-reality shows to find the love of their lives and the father of their future 84 children) if they don’t get to “vent” their hurt!

Oh, puleeze.  First of all, this guy shows all the bonding ability of a flea in heat; these girls act like it’s the end of the world if this “please me now/please me not” joker doesn’t want them.  Frankly, I think the jilted girl should go down on her knees and praise God that she won’t be stuck with this guy for five more minutes of her life…unless, of course, he changes his rotating little mind again.

The shrinks talk about serious consequences of getting to know someone and then getting excluded.  Let’s say the truth:  they all want to look good, win the money, get TV/movie/recording contracts and/or turn to modeling.  Getting dumped on TV is embarrassing, but throngs are willing to do so in order to get the brass rings the easy way.

If anyone thinks that these people are actually looking for or are capable of bonding with the permanent “love of their lives,” by going through this orchestrated “play-acting” on a television show, well, I’ve got a bridge to sell you…cheap.

Do any of these girls get carried away?  Probably.  Girls do that - they want to bond, nest, be told they’re beautiful and loved.  Women (as opposed to girls) know better than to think that getting a paycheck and free clothes and makeovers is the way to get that true love.