Do Know, Don’t Care

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 13, 2009

Sometimes, knowing is indeed half the battle, at least if you’re talking about where you left your car keys or the answers to a math test. When it comes to tracing the origins of your behavior, however, pinning your temper on dad or your bad taste in men on bad boys isn’t going to lead you to a nicer, smarter you. Knowing why you’re a prick won’t make you better; not being a prick will, regardless of where the fault for your prickish genes lies.
–Dr. Lastname

It’s been a tough year (surprise), and so I’ve been a little more quick to anger than I usually am, and I tend to have a few more beers after work than I would normally have. Things with my wife were kind of rough because of all of this, so she told me to see a therapist, and for the sake of my marriage, I agreed, because losing my wife would be the worst thing that could happen. Six months or so ago, my therapist started asking me about my childhood, and it finally clicked that my dad also had a really bad temper, and was also a pretty lousy drunk, but I’d never really thought of him that way, and I’d never really made the connection to my own behavior. My therapist was really pleased at my breakthrough, but here I am, six months later, and I don’t feel any better, and my wife is ready to leave if I don’t stop yelling at her. My goal is to use what I’ve learned in therapy to solve my problems, but what is it I haven’t figured out, why do I keep acting this way, and why am I spending money on therapy if I’m getting nowhere?

Once psychotherapy helps you figure out where your mean streak comes from, you can write an interesting book about it and, usually, blame it on a brutal ancestor and tell Oprah all about it.

What all that hard-earned knowledge probably won’t help you much with is keeping you in check the next time you get irritable and/or drunk. Bad daddy or no, what will help you a lot more is to get sober and learn how to shut the fuck up.

No one knows why some people have a mean streak, but such a trait is probably one of those things that are both bad for you and good for you; in the right situation it helps you survive (no one messes with the Hulk) and gets passed onto your green children in your genes.

The Darwinian solution provides a good answer to most questions—”no one knows why you do X, but it’s probably not all bad”—because it’s hard to disprove, and carries an implication that you can probably guess by now: you’re probably not going to get rid of your mean streak, unless you’re agreeable to a friendly lobotomy.

Many therapists think they can help you overcome your anger if you work hard with them, and, while they’re sincere, they’re usually wrong. They can help you manage it, but nothing more than that, and, in your case, not until you get sober.

If you wait for your anger to go away before doing anything about it, you’ll be on wife number 5 in no time. This is why certain kinds of therapy can do lots more harm than good unless you’re willing to ask yourself the one question you’d prefer not to: what do I do next if this treatment doesn’t make my anger and dependence go away (just my money and patience).

So your goal isn’t to figure out why you’re angry, or to stop feeling angry, or even to stop feeling thirsty. It’s to accept the feelings and urges that you’ve got, and get better at managing them.

You’ve got to accept the shame of not being able to control a natural and unavoidable tendency to transform into Superasshole (maybe you were bitten as a child by a radioactive rectum).

Once you make that your goal, you’ve got a much better chance of succeeding; not at feeling better—because c’mon, you’re not stupid—but at reacting to life’s misery with fewer tantrums and beers, daddy be damned.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement you can use to keep yourself on track. “I hate being mean and I know that, when I’m mean, it always seems like other people deserve to be put down. But it hurts me and my family more often than not, so regardless of whether people deserve it, I’ve got to improve my self-control and learn to eat shit, rather than become an asshole (there’s a consistent metaphor here). Which means controlling whatever releases my anger (tasteful restraint on the metaphor), like drinking. I will have no shame about admitting my asshole tendencies, as long as I know that, whenever I tighten up (can’t escape the metaphor), I’m strengthening my self-control.”

I’m not a stupid girl, but it took me fifteen years to realize that I always date the same kind of guy, someone who is kind of sad and wild but always turns out to be nasty and unreliable. I don’t know why I’ve always gone for mean sad sacks, but I have, many, many times, and knowing that, I want to avoid my deadbeat curse. The problem is, I don’t know how to start being attracted to different kinds of guys, or even where to find them. And meanwhile, I’m still a deadbeat magnet, so I want to know how I can stop attracting such losers and reel in better quality material. My goal is to get out of my romantic rut and date guys that don’t suck.

If you can find a survival benefit to being mean, (under the appropriate football field or nuclear apocalypse scenarios), you can also find a survival benefit to being attracted to the mean.

For example, your partner’s cruelty will protect your genes, or, maybe you’re so good at nurturing you can’t distinguish between babies and outlaws. Whatever.

Again, the genetic explanation is far from scientific, but fits the fact you’ve already encountered: you, and your tastes, are not likely to change, no matter how much you talk about them.

So tell your friends that you’re tired of hearing them tell you they told you so–almost as tired as they are!—and that you want to change your ways and are open to suggestions.

The usual ones that come up, like drawing up a list of negative screen-outs for your dates and sticking with them (e.g., no guys who had nasty fights with prior girlfriends unless the girlfriend was clearly nastier and crazier). Have your friends screen your dates.

Don’t be discouraged if you’re not attracted to nice guys. Remember, there are some songs you dislike the first time around, but wind up liking a lot in the end. You can’t force yourself, but give yourself time and you’ll probably wind up liking a nice guy well enough.

Sure, you may not get as hot about a nice guy as you would about an outlaw. But if your primary goal is to get turned on, stick with outlaws and get a good, solid humiliation at the same time. And if you yearn to nurture and live with a nasty, vicious, out-of-control criminal, get a Jack Russell terrier.

STATEMENT:
Announce your policy with a statement. “I may want to tame a beast, or beastly guy, who’s in pain, but I don’t have the touch, the whip, the chair, the whispering technique, whatever, and meanwhile I need a friend and partner I can trust. So I’ve got to watch out for my sick yearnings, stick with better ways of screening out the ones I want, and stay single, lonely, and unsatisfied until I find the one I really need.”