Self-Helpless

Posted by fxckfeelings on May 19, 2011

Lot of people can’t control their own behavior 100% of the time and no one can control anyone else’s behavior, but there’s a big difference between biting your nails and sleeping all day, or between dodging someone’s road rage and watching them starve themselves to death. No matter how bad the behavior or how helpless it makes you feel, knowing that you’re not responsible for a solution can give you the courage to do some good and respect yourself and other control-impaired people, regardless of what happens or how bad it is.
–Dr. Lastname

So you say “fxck feelings” and act on what I can change. How do I sit through a feeling and get to the other side of it without resorting to destructive habits (eating/not getting out of bed/no proper sleep because if I go to bed I will think and feel and remember as I’m falling asleep of all those things that I don’t want to keep remembering and that make me sad) that compound those feelings instead of dull/diffuse them? My goal is to live (emphasis on the word “live”) through a feeling until it goes away or at least becomes akin to white noise, instead of distracting myself away from a feeling with destructive behavior/habits to avoid it until I’ve made it ten times worse.

In one of her short stories, author Lorrie Moore describes two explorers captured by an angry tribe of natives in the jungle. The explorers are offered the chose of “death or Roo Roo,” and the first man choses Roo Roo, which turns out to be lethal torture. The second man then opts for death, so he is killed…by Roo Roo.

What you’re dealing with is a death-or-Roo Roo situation.

You either let depressive sleep impulses drive you to destructive habits that feel better in the short run and hurt you more in the end, or you suck it up until it’s not so bad (or you get distracted by something worse) and even then it’s not great. Alas, it’s a jungle out there.

The good news is that you’re seldom as screwed as you think. Depression will tell you that you’ve messed up, there’s no point in getting up, you’re falling behind, you won’t be able to explain your absences, and you’re bound to get fired. Those are thoughts that feel like truth, but, despite what depression tells you, aren’t.

If you accept those thoughts as truth, they have the power to make you feel, not just screwed, but damned and cursed. Those are the feelings that should go get fucked, because bad feelings cause bad thoughts that will fuck you if you don’t oppose them with your own wisdom and self-respect.

The depressive sleep habits you describe can destroy your confidence. It’s hard to get up, your sleep schedule makes it hard to work, you’re tired all the time, and you get colds. Your sleeping pills don’t work for long, you can’t give anything enough effort, and it’s easy to feel that your life is falling apart and that your health won’t survive the stress. Before long, you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired.

If you accept your powerlessness over a depressive sleep disorder, however, you’re no longer responsible for either causing or curing it, just coping with it. You can’t help feeling like shit every morning, but you’re a hero if you nevertheless drag yourself out of bed and out the door. You can’t help dreading bedtime, but you’ve got to respect yourself for trying to sleep while managing the painful thoughts.

So try to get up on time, regardless, and not nap during the day. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, keep to your evening routine and bedtime, and try what medications you can. Remind yourself that this will pass and that your basic health is OK, even if you have no vitality or ability to resist common viruses. Above all, respect yourself for the tremendous effort it takes for you to live your regular life.

Getting through painful feelings takes more than perseverance—it also requires an active respect for the good things you’re doing with a bad situation. Life is full of “Death or Roo Roo”-esque situations; the best you can do is respect your choice and bring the same values to the next one.

STATEMENT”
“I feel like I’m barely holding on and I can’t stay awake or think clearly, but I’m still trying to live my life my way, even if I’m forced to do it in slow motion and with tooth-picks propping up my eye-lids. I never thought it would be this rough, but I never realized how tough I can be.”

I love my girlfriend but I can’t stand watching her starve herself to death, which is what she’s doing without being able to admit it. She’s told me she had treatment once for an eating disorder, but she won’t talk about the details and she denies that it’s a problem now. I wish she was seeing a therapist, but I can’t be sure she’d be honest with a therapist if she saw one. My goal is to see her get healthy.

It’s no accident that all the problems we hear about at fxckfeelings.com are not solvable; after all, if they were solvable, we wouldn’t be hearing about them. A woman who can’t stop starving herself is one of the classic incurables.

As far as your goal goes, you’re screwed, and it would be easy, given your love and frustration, to see your relationship as a failure because you just can’t get through. You can’t get her to talk about the problem, you can’t be sure she would be honest with a therapist if she had a therapist, and you can’t get her to agree on an approach.

If you don’t see her problem as your failure, however, there’s stuff you can try. As clinicians who treat eating disorders will tell you, you can be quite direct in a positive way if you aren’t angry.

Tell her that, as much as you love her, and as good a companion as she is in other ways, her inability to control her eating behavior is dangerous and unacceptable and that, if she wants to continue dating you, there will be rules to follow. That’s just a positive re-statement of the fact that, if she doesn’t gain weight, your relationship won’t last.

Impose conditions that use your relationship as the reward but minimize your control and responsibility. They might include her seeing a therapist who’s mandated to speak with you, developing a meal plan, and including you in strategy meetings about what to do if she isn’t making progress.

Your goal isn’t to make sure she’s compliant with a plan so much as it is to make sure she’s trying. If you can’t cure, be helpful, but only if she’s willing to help herself.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t control my girlfriend’s anorexia or the pain of watching her starve, but I use what little power I have to push her into treatment, knowing I have no better alternative. What counts is doing what I can, knowing that my feelings about this are probably not going to be great, no matter what I do.”