Posted by fxckfeelings on February 4, 2010
If someone’s related to you, there’s no guarantee they’re going to be honest with you, or even honest about you to anyone else. You can try to get them to own up to their problems with anger, eloquence, and/or the help of the court system, but the smarter choice is to stop pushing them towards the truth and hold onto the facts yourself. As long as you’re calm and factual, people can draw whatever conclusions they want and your relatives can stick to their version, but your part in the family affair is settled.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m fine now (I’m 14), but I’m trying to figure out how to deal with a crazy father who physically abused me until a couple of years ago—that’s when my mother finally figured out what was happening and had me come live with her. The trouble is, I guess you could say my father doesn’t see reality the way other people do and he never remembers hitting me. In his mind, when he’d hit me, it was because I was trying to destroy him, so what he tells the judge is that he loves me and that my mother is a raging alcoholic who has brainwashed me to hate him (my mother stopped drinking after the divorce, years ago) and he really believes what he says. My goal is to get him to stay away from me and convince others that his version of reality isn’t real.
Kids aren’t the only ones who have trouble accepting the fact that we often can’t protect ourselves from scary crazy boogeymen, particularly when the craziness isn’t obvious, and the boogeymen are family.
We’ve said it here before: certain crazy people are not obviously crazy and are particularly good at persuading other people to see them as injured victims because they truly, truly believe they are, no matter what really happened. It’s a kind of sickness for which no one has the cure, and nobody feels sicker than the victims in the wake of these sickos, who don’t necessarily feel sick at all.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 14, 2009
As Christmas gets even closer, we have to help our readers with even more holiday-inspired, toxic self-reflection. The holidays have the unfortunate tendency to push people to examine and confront their hurt feelings, when really, the best gift they could give themselves is to ignore their feelings and just enjoy their friends, family, and seasonal baked goods.
–Dr. Lastname
I consider myself to be a pretty thoughtful gift-giver—I pay attention to what other people need, things they don’t even know they need, their birthdays, their anniversaries, and I usually get it right. My husband, on the other hand, isn’t sentimental at all about birthdays or anniversaries and doesn’t remember them, so he’s a lousy gift-giver and, I can’t help it, it really gets to me. After I knock myself out to get him a good birthday present, he either forgets mine, or gets flowers at the last moment, or thinks of getting me something and then doesn’t follow through. We have a wonderful marriage but every year around Christmas, his lazy, lousy gifting really gets on my nerves (particularly since I can’t help doing a good job with his gifts). It’s humiliating. My goal is to find a good way to address this problem so I won’t resent him this Christmas.
There’s not one, but two good reasons why it’s a bad idea to address the problem of unequal gift giving with your husband, and the first, it’s a safe bet, is that you’ve done it before and it turned out badly. I’m right, am I not? (It’s important for me to be right, given my Harvard background).
You reproach your husband for neglecting your Christmas needs, he gets defensive, tells you how he knocks himself out for you, maybe goes further and remembers the time you didn’t do your share, and then you have to tell him how he got the facts wrong.
Meanwhile, both of you are drifting further away from any spirit of Christmas giving, other than that old staple of gift-giving everywhere, the Christmas Earful.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 15, 2009
Accepting that we are all fucked by life is a basic tenet of the f*ckfeelings.com philosophy; there’s a certain zen to it, as we encourage not just being one with the universe and its glory but also with its amber waves of pain. For people who suffer from depression, pain makes an obvious attempt to define your life goal as “I’ve got to stop this.” But killing pain, as desirable as it is, will always compound your troubles if you make it your goal. Your goal is your goal and pain is pain and never the twain should meet.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been struggling with depression for most of my adult life, and I do mean struggling. No matter how many times I find myself going through months at a time of feeling hopeless, angry, and miserable, I know it’s a treatable illness—a chemical imbalance— nd that there must be a way to control it. Over the past twenty years, I’ve been through a handful of shrinks and at least a dozen medications, because no matter how bad it gets, I’ve refused to give up looking for the treatment that will allow me to fulfill the promise of my otherwise lucky life. The problem is that, twenty years into this battle, and I’m still not winning. Treatment works for a while, and just when it seems like things are finally working out for me and I’m in the clear, everything falls apart again. My goal is to figure out how—with what treatment, medication, game plan—to get control of this disease and live a normal life, because I’m stronger than this, and I refuse to let depression get the last laugh.
Hold up—did I miss the morning’s headlines that declared depression a curable illness? Up until yesterday, it wasn’t, and when you think about it, the list of truly curable diseases is an adorably short one. Really, unless you’ve got athlete’s foot, you’re probably shit out of luck.
That said, it doesn’t mean you should shoot yourself unless you’re similarly upset by the incurability of hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, and all the other illnesses that most of us get, sooner or later. Even athlete’s foot isn’t worth it.
The issue here is that if you think that beating an illness means getting rid of it, you’ve lost before you’ve begun to fight. And if that illness is depression, then losing means getting more depressed, which means becoming a bigger loser, ad infinitum.
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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.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 1, 2009
Guilt is an unvoidable part of life—as well as a central motivator of at least a couple of religions—and often the sources of guilt (see: family) never go away. What most people don’t realize is that there’s false guilt and real guilt, the former far more easy to ignore, the latter worth confronting in a meaningful way. Still, while you can’t get rid of guilt overall, there are ways of managing it so that, at the very least, it doesn’t become a holy pain in the ass.
–Dr. Lastname
My mother is a drama queen– she thrives on family conflict and gossip and needs to control every step of my life. She has her nose in everyone’s business, talks badly about most people, and also has a violent temper (at 79 years old, she still throws things and flips people [like me] the bird out of anger). Several events happened that finally made me so angry with her that I literally told her off and have cut ties with her for over a year, but during this year I have suffered from terrible guilt and shame for turning my back on my elderly mother. Believe me, I feel better and more relaxed without her constant turmoil, but there are nights that I wake up from a dream where I am shunned at her funeral as “the daughter who abandoned her mother”. I have tried, in the past, to talk sense into her and explain my feelings but she creeps back to her same troubling ways. My goal is to get over the guilt that I feel about cutting my mother out of my life.
Anger is never a good reason for doing anything, and particularly not for cutting off ties with your mother; after all, anger’s a feeling, and you know that’s a dirty word. It’s not that you don’t have good reasons for being angry, just not for letting anger make your decisions.
As you’ve now realized, once you let anger take over, it’s very hard to protect yourself against guilt, which is where your major problem lies now. The only good, healthy defense against guilt, other than drowning your neurotransmitters in alcohol, is to know you’ve done the right thing, regardless of how unhappy you’ve made someone feel or how badly they’re suffering while you’re the one standing watch.
In this instance, unfortunately, you haven’t done the right thing, so guilt has become your master.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 28, 2009
From having your sister falsely accuse you of stealing her doll to being landed with a deadbeat dad, most people learn early that family is rarely fair. Still, be you the familial accuser or accusee, there’s usually a great risk to speaking your mind; family bonds, unlike bridges, can never be completely burned, so unless you want to be forever tied to someone you’ve tried to set on fire, it’s better to shut up about injustice and accept the relatives you’ve got.
–Dr. Lastname
My mother has always been quick to take offense—hear things the wrong way, feel easily hurt, want an apology—and I’ve always been the one to smooth things out and reassure her and, if necessary, tell her I’m sorry. Recently, she got really angry when she heard me talking to a family friend at a party and thought that I was being critical and complaining about her. I told her that was absurd, I didn’t mean things that way and that the family friend didn’t hear it that way. Besides, it’s not the sort of thing I’d say about anyone. But my mom acted like I didn’t realize how mean I’d been. So I spoke to the family friend, who agreed with me, and I asked her to talk to my mom and let her know she hadn’t heard any criticism either, but my mom says she’s just trying to smooth things over. I know this is just how my mom is, but that doesn’t mean that it ever stops making me crazy, and everything about this latest stunt is totally unreasonable. My goal is to get her to see she’s being a nut and get over it.
Freud famously put a lot of emphasis on mothers, and most people assume that “tell me about your mother?” is the first question a psychiatrist asks a patient. My response to that, however, is that I don’t really care about your mother. And even if your mother was my patient, I wouldn’t be able to make her “better.”
You think, if only you could get your mom to stop being a nut, your problems would be over. And hey, if only I could find a way of turning dog turds into solid gold, I’d never have to work again. Alas, turds are turds, and your dreams haven’t come true for many years. Assume they won’t come true now.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 7, 2009
We all want someone to be sorry or grateful when our feelings are on the line, but, feelings and people being what they are, it’s sometimes worth ignoring our emotional needs to hear a few simple words. Apologies and gratitude carry a lot of emotional currency, but just like regularly currency, they need to be genuine to be worth anything.
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t fight with my adult son, but it’s because I bite my tongue. When he’s working as a doctor he’s very professional and well respected, but he’s basically always been very moody, and when I hang out with him for more than a few hours, I often run into a big dose of real nastiness. He’ll look sour and complain that I want him to do something he really doesn’t want to, or that I should have gotten him something, or that he doesn’t want to go out to dinner and I should go out alone. He’s rude and grumpy in a way that he would never be with a friend. When he was an adolescent, I wrote it off, but he hasn’t changed at all. Afterwards, he never admits that he did anything wrong. No wonder he doesn’t have a girlfriend. My goal is to get him to see that he acts like a shit and get him to apologize.
It would certainly ease your pain if your son were to apologize, but a solicited apology is about as helpful as unsolicited advice; it’d merely be a response to your feelings rather than a genuine realization that his behavior is out of control and bad for him.
So far, that’s eluded him. Making him say he’s sorry for it is not the same as making him be sorry for it.
And you should always remember the dark, demonic side of nice people who get nasty sometimes; even when they’re sorry, the next time they feel bad, they want to hurt someone. It’s particularly tempting to hurt someone who says “ouch, you’ve really hurt my feelings,” because that’s like remarking to a hungry bear that you feel really delicious that day.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 17, 2009
As Yogi Berra once said, “It ain’t over ’til it’s over,” and while that’s surely the case for the current Red Sox season, it’s also true about relationships. Due to anything from a shared possession to a shared child, couples often end up tied together when they’re not together anymore. For those couples, they have to tread even more lightly now that they’re apart, or, when it comes to conflict between exes, it will be deja vu all over again.
–Dr. Lastname
After my husband and I got divorced, I started going to a therapist, because I was really leveled by the whole experience. Plus I worried I was facing a custody battle over our son, who was only five, and wanted to make sure I kept it together for him. Ultimately, custody went more smoothly than I expected (my son lives with me over the school year and spends summers and some holidays with his dad), and my ex and I are on civil terms. To make a long story short though, in talking to this therapist about my ex and his odd family (with whom he spends lots of time in the summer), the therapist asked me if my ex-husband had ever talked about being molested—the family behavior I described as odd, on top of my ex-husband’s own quirks, seemed indicative of a pattern of abuse. I got up the courage to confront my ex about it, but he shut me down pretty fast. The problem is that he has our son with him and his family, and I’m worried absolutely sick, but there’s nothing I can do. I’d like to help my ex in a way, but my goal, really, is to do what’s best for my son.
Let’s imagine, just for the sake of argument, that your ex-‘s family is eccentric but not abusive. You push your ex-, he tells his family, they’re all offended and can’t talk about you without snarling with anger. Now they’re not just eccentric, they’re enraged.
Then, your son picks up on the vibrations and starts walking on eggshells with everyone, including you. That’s how dangerous it is to try too hard to protect your son from abuse; declare war on those who threaten him, and he could be your first casualty.
A better goal is to do whatever you can to protect him from abuse while also trying to protect him from the potential conflict an allegation will trigger. It’s certainly a fine line, and you must be able to tolerate fear and uncertainty to walk it. You don’t really have a choice, because the alternative is worse. And, anyway, it’s part of your parental job description.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 6, 2009
One of the basic tenets of the fxckfeelings.com philosophy is this: you can’t change people. As such, even trying to change someone’s mind by making their anger go away is never a good goal, whether it’s the anger of a naggy spouse or a misbehaving kid. Instead, change your line of reasoning: go back to basics and define the issues for yourself. Then, if you’re lucky, they’ll change their own minds.
-Dr. Lastname
My wife and I are both artists—her painting, me sculpture—but after our son was born, it became clear that one of us was going to have to get a real job in order to pay the bills. I was making more money from sculpting at the time, so she was the one to take the plunge. Her job is actually somewhat creative, and she doesn’t hate it completely, but now that I’m not having as many shows and selling as many pieces, she’s leaning on me constantly to work harder or find a better-paying job. I try to tell her that I’m doing the best I can, but she doesn’t accept that, and if I even suggest that she’s bitter that she had to give up her art and I didn’t, she absolutely loses it. The truth is, I think my career is worth holding on to, but I don’t know how to convince her unless I make a windfall in the next six months. My goal is to get my wife to get off my back.
Never try to get your wife off your back, because that a), implies you’re already trapped underneath her, and b), means you’ll be lying, squirming, and generally pulling all the stops to change her mind/get her to move, which will just strengthen her resolve.
In fact, if you look behind you, you’ll notice you’re giving your wife a piggy-back ride at this very moment. So your goal will wrench your back.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 24, 2009
Trying to loudly convince someone that they’re wrong about you is like trying not to think about elephants; the harder you work at it, the more you fail. The women in these two cases are obsessed with someone else’s disapproval, they couldn’t think of elephants if they tried.
–Dr. Lastname
I knew my father wouldn’t understand, but I thought it would be harmless to visit my ex-boyfriend, who is also my son’s father, who was also an abusive jerk. I was young when I dated this guy and was pretty naive (naive enough to get pregnant), and my father really had to step in and protect me, which I swear I’m grateful for to this day. I haven’t dated any jerks since then (well, jerks that bad : )), and I’ve got a great kid, and I’m not the person I was when my ex and I were together. I avoided him, and kept our son away from him, for over ten years, but when he reached out to me a few months ago, saying he wanted to make things right, I guess I slipped, and I went to see him. Nothing happened, honestly, but my father won’t stop being angry with me and telling me I don’t value myself enough, as if I were still a 15-year-old letting a guy slap me around. It kills me that he feels this way, tears me up inside, and I can’t stop crying about it. I wish you could persuade him to stop believing this about me. My goal is to get him to believe me that I’m over this guy and that it won’t happen again.
Ultimately, you’re the only person who can truly judge your worth. Unless you’re a child, lobotomized, or eager to join a death cult, it’s your job to make that determination, not your father’s or anyone else’s.
That’s why you can’t try to restore your self-esteem by changing someone’s opinion of you because, in doing so, you’re giving someone else that power, and it’s not theirs to have. There’s nothing wrong with wanting his good opinion, but it’s total self-betrayal to make his good opinion more important than the judgment that you and only you are capable of making.
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