Posted by fxckfeelings on May 4, 2016
Maybe it’s an extension of normal perfectionism, but obsessing over perceived physical imperfections is an affliction that sometimes happens to very good people. Unfortunately, doctors have neither been able to find the reason behind nor the cure for these obsessive thoughts, but if you’re one of those unfortunate people, you aren’t totally without hope. Though feelings of ugliness are painful and hard to bear, there are ways to remind yourself that they aren’t the truth, and that your future never need be as ugly as the thoughts in your head.
-Dr. Lastname
My concern has to do with feeling ugly. I often feel quite not-OK with how I look, specifically my face, and it causes me unease and unhappiness. I also feel I was very unhealthy and underweight in my late teens (from eating very little and working way too hard at school), and that I could/should look better/like my handsome brother, and often just feel kind of this general malaise and shittiness when it comes to my appearance. I can’t imagine ever even wanting to date somebody given how almost guilty and unhappy my looks make me feel. Every mention of attractiveness and even the sight of a pretty girl quickly triggers a twinge of sadness and a kind of sigh and a drive to ruminate, which I’m finding it hard to deal with now and I’m and worried about coping with it in the future when life gets much harder. Right now I live with my parents and am quite comfortable, but I don’t know how I’m going to function when I’m on my own struggling in the real world. I can’t imagine happily meeting friends for brunch and not getting weighed down by the whole, “I look gross as hell and it’s probably my fault and things might very well suck forever and I might be screwed” train of thought. My goal is to be less affected by my feelings about how I look and have some sense of hope about the future.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 21, 2016
If you’ve survived a marriage that’s gone horribly awry, as our reader from earlier this month has, it’s hard to make a new commitment without wanting assurance that everything will go exactly according to plan. Before you pressure yourself to find and create a perfect life with your next partner and his kids, it’s important to take a little time and get a realistic idea of what your perfect life would be. Here are five steps to figuring out what your ideal life together would be so you can best decide whether it’s worth taking a second shot at family and, hopefully, happiness.
1) Calculate Kid Time
Depending on how much you loved childrearing the first time around and how much parenting fuel you have left in the tank, figure out your ideal parenting job description with family 2.0. Let your imagination roam from the minimum (frequent babysitting and microwaved meals but no disciplinary responsibilities or butt-wiping) to the ultra-max (you’re the boss, baby-maker, and mommy supreme). Take into account how much time you’d like to yourself or for work, as well as the kind of chemistry you have with your step-kids, because, if you don’t feel that close to them, you won’t feel up to a big investment.
2) Investigate your own interests
When considering how much time you’d ideally like to put aside for yourself, include the treasured hobbies of your single life (e.g., the Sunday crossword, afternoon jogs, the occasional boozy weekend brunch with friends), as well as the powerful ambitions postponed by your first marriage that you may never get to complete unless you do them soon. Then total up the hours required, whether regular or one-shot, and see whether you can balance that number with your new family obligations.
3) Wonder about work
Unless you really love your current job and don’t want to give it up for any reason (and already budgeted for the time it requires above), you should calculate your ideal job and hours in a two-income household. Review your existing income and expenses, as well as your potential partner’s, and see if a partnership shifts you in a desirable direction by giving you more disposable income and/or time.
4) Consider Your Spouse Vs. Being Single
In order to see whether your partner does more to contribute to your “perfect life” than detract from it, add up your new husband’s potential contributions as companion, parent, hunter-gatherer, etc. Then subtract his potential burdens as irritant, expense, and partially disabled albatross/additional adult child. Add a few points for a pleasing personality and good sex, but don’t forget the basics.
5) Wonder About The Worst Case Scenarios
Use all of the above information, along with your social time with him, vacations, and time with his kids to weigh and test out the pros and cons of abandoning the single life you’ve got. Remember, you may no longer have to try to be attractive or win anyone over once you get married, but you will have a new job description, a new round of child-rearing, and a new personality to contend with, so imagine them all at their most exhausting extremes in order to figure out your worst case scenarios. Then you can not only get the best idea of whether you can handle your possible new life, but reduce the possibility of unpleasant surprises and regrets for leaving single life behind.
Once you know what your “perfect” life entails, you’ll be ready to either take a well-thought-out chance or avoid another mistake.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 24, 2016
As our reader from earlier this week made clear, it’s sometimes easier to blame yourself for bad luck than accept how little power we have over our luck in the first place. So before needlessly beating yourself up for false mistakes or claiming innocence and blaming fate entirely, take these five steps to evaluate whether you’re causing your bad luck or whether you’re caught being fate’s bitch.
1) Find the Facts
Do the detective work to gather any objective details that connect your actions and responsibilities with what went wrong; facts aren’t based on opinion, so if you hold yourself responsible because you were stupid or lazy, then you aren’t being a smart detective on the case, just a big jerk to yourself. Be specific about what your responsibilities were, what actually happened, when it happened, and how much damage occurred. If the facts show that your actions were, in fact, destructive, then it’s worth looking for larger patterns and help in managing your behavior.
2) Mind Your Motives
It’s easy to tell yourself something bad wouldn’t have happened if you had simply done something differently, e.g., if you’d only left the house ten minutes later or not stayed for that second cup of coffee, you could have prevented all this trouble. Before you go down the black hole of hypotheticals, however, ask yourself whether your choices were intentionally harmful or made you feel good but were thoughtless and potentially dangerous. If the answer is no, then your regrets are pointless, but if you did make knowingly bad choices, you have to work to manage negative impulses.
3) Think In the Third Person
If your friend were in the same situation and asked you whether she had done anything wrong, odds are you wouldn’t judge her as harshly as you judge yourself and blame her for being negligent, stupid or mean; even a stranger would be more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt, with only an enemy rushing to condemn you so unforgivingly. Remember, friends don’t decide whether you’re super-smart or perfect, just whether you made reasonable decisions as an imperfect-but-trying-hard human being. So be a friend to yourself and judge accordingly.
4) Spell Out Your Standards
If you can’t get over a guilty feeling simply because things turned out very badly, ask yourself what specific rule you broke. Pretend you’re writing out five rules for people who have to manage the situation that caused you problems, for posting on the wall in the office kitchen of your mind, right near the sign about labeling your food in the fridge and not putting fish in the microwave. If you can’t spell out a rule that you broke, chances are the only rule you broke was, “don’t have bad luck.”
5) Seek Out Smart Opinions
Don’t let shame stop you from telling your story to a friend or professional, like a therapist or even a lawyer, whom you can trust to be impartial. Don’t choose someone who just wants to make you feel good or someone mean, but someone who likes you but is willing to tell it like it is. Present all the facts, asking whether you should have done things differently and, if so, is there a lesson to learn other than that sometimes life sucks. If, after all your opinion seeking, you find that the blame isn’t yours, it’s your responsibility to find a way to move on. If it becomes clear that there are things you could have done differently, your path forward involves finding ways to manage that behavior so it doesn’t mess with your luck in the future.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 22, 2016
It’s hard not to feel guilty when things go wrong, and guilty feelings may be particularly bad for just those who deserve them the least, i.e., those who are generally self-critical and insecure. If you’re someone who’s gone through a bad stretch and can’t help but feel bad and responsible for letting it happen, learn how to rely on specific information and common sense to figure out what you should really take responsibility for, if anything, and how to use your conclusions to fight a compulsive sense of having done something wrong. Instead of endless punishment, you deserve a fair assessment of the facts.
-Dr. Lastname
I often find myself on a streak of “wellbeing,” then out of nowhere I manage to fuck up whatever I had going for me, royally. Almost like I have a problem committing to something for too long. Just looking for some realistic advice as to why this may be. My goal is to figure out some realistic systems I could improvise to better cope with this dilemma.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on March 17, 2016
Sometimes, as with our reader from earlier this week, our brains can ruminate obsessively after a relationship, despite being told by our heart, gut, and feet that it’s time to move on. Here are five examples of the constant regrets your brain can shoot your way after a broken heart, and how to refute them.
1) “I’ll never find anyone else like him.”
“When I look at my list of requirements for a marital partnership—someone who’s dedicated, open, is accepting with accepting parents—I know that not being with him, or someone like him, is actually a good thing.”
2) “Sex will never be like that again.”
“As hot as the make-up sex was with my ex, it would be easier to be with someone I fought with and made-up with less, even without the passion-driven follow through. Better to be out of that hot-but-going-nowhere relationship and moving towards the future I always wanted.”
3) “If I didn’t ask for too much, we would still be together.”
“If I imagine what life would be like if we had married, I can see that he’d frequently be absent, unwilling to share tasks, and unable to explain how he spent his money. In other words, I’d always be asking for what I deserved, and still not getting it, or getting anything but angry.”
4) “If I knew how much I was going to miss him, I would never have let him go.”
“I also know that I can assign more value to relationships than they deserve, and can certainly get too invested in someone who isn’t as invested in me. So, even though I miss him a lot, that doesn’t mean that what I miss is worth trying to get back. It’s more important to get over missing him by moving forward and finding someone who’s better for me, not sinking backwards.”
5) “If I was a better person/more like the girl he now loves, we wouldn’t have split up.”
“I know my ex didn’t want a committed relationship with me or anyone else prior to our splitting up, so as much as losing him hurts, cutting him loose wasn’t personal. I left him because I knew what I wanted in life and he clearly wanted something different. I know it was the right thing to do even if it broke my heart, and even if I can’t stop feeling wrong about it.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 15, 2016
You can’t stop love from making old flames live in your memory and obsessions, and if you have the kind of brain that tends to make personal connections easily, your ex can feel like a phantom limb that you head and heart still feel long after he’s gone. Instead of waiting forever for the memories to fade before dating again, however, learn how to define the kind of future relationship that you think would be good for you, regardless of how much you long for your ex. There are ways to resume your search, even if your heart isn’t in it and your phantom feelings are.
-Dr. Lastname
Like so many people, I am struggling to get over a serious past relationship whose ghost just won’t go away. My ex-boyfriend and I had a five-year-long relationship that I confidently assumed would lead to a life together. We had a very pleasant daily life, enjoyed frequent activities with a circle of friends and shared values, important life events and love. Unfortunately, he was unable to move past the boyfriend/girlfriend stage, was never able to clearly communicate why to me (although I’m sure his parents’ snobbish disapproval of me had something to do with it), and a year ago we made the decision to end our relationship. This was an painful process that I am still not completely over— I feel rejected, insulted and strung along, not to mention robbed of my future with him for unfair and unfounded reasons. In the midst of and despite this grieving, a platonic friendship of mine transformed into more, and became serious rather quickly. This new person loves me in the way I always wanted my ex to love me— makes me a priority over his job and himself when needed, spends time on our relationship, spends time with me and his family together to make sure they understand who I am and enjoy being around me. It’s just … I pine for my old life with my ex daily. I know in my rational brain that there are very good reasons why I am not with my ex anymore. I just can’t seem to remember them. I actively dread the day when I will run into him in town with the new woman his parents finally approve of. I feel guilty when I have these thoughts, because I know I am very lucky to have found a new person who has an open heart that’s full of love for me, but I also can’t help but wonder if I was too hasty with my ex, if we could have compromised somehow. This conflict is distracting on multiple levels and keeping me from moving forward. My goal is to get over these feelings of rejection and resentment as soon as possible, and begin to fully appreciate the new person in my life the way he deserves.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on March 10, 2016
If, like our reader from earlier this week, you find yourself yearning for a direction in an otherwise meandering, misfit-esque life, it’s not worth trying to get somewhere new by trying to get a new personality or character. Before you try to get on a new track, forget trying to be a new person and take these steps to assess whether and how you need to get your shit together.
1) Figure Out Your Finances
The first step to getting your life in order is figuring out whether you have the funds to stay solvent and stable. It’s not enough to cover each month’s expenses, particularly if you’re using your credit card to do it and have nothing put aside for disasters (e.g., car repairs, months of unemployment, a case of cancer, etc.). Think of worst-case scenarios, figure out what you’ll need, and give yourself an honest earnings target that includes health insurance (see item below and cancer reference above).
2) Get Honest About Your Health
You’ll find it hard to get anywhere if your body isn’t on board, so getting your health assessed is a key part of getting your life straight. Don’t just ask yourself whether you’re eating healthy or are strengthening your immune system; after all, there’s little agreement on how much you should or can use your diet to control your health. What you can do that will have a big impact, however, is to exercise, stop smoking if you haven’t already, stop drinking as much if it interferes with your other important goals, and work at reducing your weight if necessary.
3) Meditate On Your Morals
A moral code can act like a compass that guides you through all of your big life decisions, so figuring one out and sticking to it is necessary if you want to figure out a better way forward. Besides, anybody can act like an asshole if he isn’t careful since all it takes is obliviousness and a few urges that might make you cranky or in need of something belonging to someone else. So ask yourself which qualities you admire in others and would want to emulate yourself, and also ask your nearest and dearest whether you have your inner asshole under adequate control. If you have no nearest and dearest, that might be an answer.
4) Focus on Family
Getting your shit together can’t happen without getting your (ancestral) house in order, so ask yourself what, if anything, you owe your family and what values and relationships you enjoy or not and whether they’re worth holding onto, even if you don’t enjoy them every much. Then score your behavior by how well it matches these goals, giving extra points for participating in family events you don’t necessarily enjoy but believe are necessary for keeping the clan together.
5) Get Real About Your Relationships
If you think you don’t have your shit together because you don’t have a partner, you might have the wrong idea; not everybody is suited for partnership, and there’s no shame in being a hermit if it suits you best. So begin by asking yourself what you want relationships for, i.e., if you’re just looking for some distraction and fun, or if you’re eager for something that involves work, promises, and a tolerance for dirt and unpleasantness. Then rate your efforts to start and maintain such relationships, ignoring what you don’t control, like the behavior and character of others or the feelings they cause. And if you decide that you don’t really care about wanting a relationship, period, then not having one may not be what’s normal, but you can be confident that it’s what’s right for you.
It’s admirable to want to get your shit together, but cleaning up your act doesn’t mean becoming a new, perfect person; your standards for having your shit together should come from your own values and be a reflection of your imperfect self, not what people expect of you. Even so, they aren’t easy to achieve, so be prepared to work hard if there’s a deficiency you decide to work on and give yourself high credit if there isn’t.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 8, 2016
While it’s easy to change our outsides—a new haircut here, a gastric bypass there—changing who we are inside can be next to impossible. If you don’t just want to be a better person, but have a different personality altogether, then trying to change yourself can just makes things worse. There are ways, however, to respect yourself even if your personality and personal abilities fall far short of your ideal. You might not be able to change who you are, but you can change your view of who you are and be proud of being a good person, despite your less-than-good nature.
-Dr. Lastname
Briefly, I’m a middle-aged guy, have a decent job in marketing, live with my girlfriend, and try to be a good person. I grew up without a father, and maybe having no male role model has made it hard for me to feel like a grown-up. I’m directionless, single, never married, no children. I haven’t really committed to a career, and I’ve spent a lot of time either unemployed or underemployed and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. So far so good, but here’s where it gets weird. Every time I see a movie with a strong male lead, I find myself starting to imitate the fictional character. I observe their mannerisms, and begin to emulate them for days, weeks, or even months. I even check out the way they dress—the various accessories like clothes, shoes, and hats that they wear—and then I start to accumulate those things as well. As you might imagine, this can get pretty comical when I start walking around looking like Indiana Jones complete with fedora and leather jacket (no whip, I have my limits). Sometimes I’ll watch a TV show in the morning, emulate that character, then see a movie in the evening and want to be that character. The problem is that I don’t know who I am or what to do (as far as making plans, goals, etc.) when I’m not playing a role, wearing a costume, or planning my next purchase. When I’ve tried not to shop or emulate a character (for a few weeks) I feel anxious and directionless. By contrast, when I do shop or have a character in mind I feel full of purpose, even a little manic. The fictional imaginative character acts like scaffolding for my own personality. But buying accessories has gotten to the point of compulsion, where I don’t feel I cannot not have the item and still be okay. My goal is to be myself and start living a real life, but I’m not sure who the hell that is anymore.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 25, 2016
After experiencing unimaginable injustice, it’s understandable if, like our reader from earlier this week, you also can’t imagine how you can go on with life. If you can accept the reality of your loss, however, you can learn to refocus on what’s important and imagine new possibilities going forward. Here are five ways to build a new life after a general disaster and avoid ruminating about reclaiming what you can’t get back.
1) Restart and Reset
Working hard to ignore the effect your loss has had on your life, remember what your priorities were when you were starting out for the first time, before everything went south. Include financial independence, meaningful work, worthwhile relationships, and everything a normal, moral, not-screwed person would aim for.
2) Edit Your Environment
Since your circumstances have probably forced you to move (or made moving a good idea, to give you a fresh start), fix up your new place the way you like it. It may not be as nice or big as where you used to live, but it’s yours, and making the effort won’t just make it homier, it will create a refuge where you can also feel comfortable hanging out with new friends.
3) Don’t Resist Relying on Relatives
Instead of isolating yourself and sharing pain when you socialize, choose your favorite relatives and re-invest in those relationships; your new friends might not be comfortable hearing you vent, but when it comes to finding an ear for your bitching and moaning, that’s what family is for. Invite yourself to family dinners where you’re welcome, and don’t focus on the family that might not invite you or want you around.
4) Harken Back to Healthy Habits
In the wake of a tragedy, it’s hard to find the time, money, or just the will to keep up your old exercise routine. You don’t need a gym, trainer, or intense training schedule to get in shape, just the determination to set aside some time everyday to stay healthy. And the benefits of working out aren’t just physical; exercise helps fight depression, and setting and sticking to a routine does wonders for one’s peace of mind.
5) Deter Depression
Don’t be surprised if depression creeps into your head, saps your strength, and convinces you that you’re a loser and to blame for everything’s that gone wrong. Do whatever’s necessary (internet research, shrink consultation, friend survey) to decide whether depression is what’s blocking your recovery. If so, there are many treatments that may help, some require no cost or professional intervention, and medication poses little risk, even if finding one that’s effective requires long periods of patient evaluation and some luck.
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 11, 2016
Unlike with love, ‘tis better to have always been broke than to have known big bucks and lost them all. If, like our reader from earlier this week, you find yourself in the latter situation, you don’t need to find yourself poor in both cash and self-respect. Here are five ways to build pride when you’re poorer than you used to be.
1) Forget Myths About Former Success
You probably think your prior success was due to hard work, strong ability and perhaps some unique talent/chosen one status. If you re-examine the role of luck and remember the people you know who worked just as hard and got nowhere, it’ll become clear that you weren’t quite so chosen as you recall. When you realize you don’t control success, failure becomes less personal, and future success, should you be lucky enough to find it again, becomes that much sweeter.
2) Judge Job Quality Objectively
Since we’re often far too hard on ourselves, evaluate your employment situation as if you were considering a friend in the same position, using objective criteria to define good performance (and being a friend to yourself, as well). Never use criteria like how much you’re making, whether it’s more or less than before, or whether it’s more or less than your friends or, worse yet, enemies.
3) Don’t Avoid Downsizing Decisions
Cutting back has undoubtedly required painful and sometimes humiliating sacrifices, not just for yourself, but for your family, and often within judging distance of the neighbors. As much as you’d like to forget them, list them instead to remind yourself you had the courage to do what was necessary, even though it hurt.
4) Value Evaluation
Using the friend POV again, ask yourself how much you respect someone who is hardworking, happy, and rich versus one who lost his dough and is now hardworking but unhappy and poor, perhaps to the point of suffering. Remember your answer whenever you feel like a loser, and don’t hold back from reprimanding yourself for being a judgmental jerk.
5) Rate Effort, Not Outcome.
Without comparison to your former self or dreams of obscene wealth, evaluate your efforts to do a good job using the mental equipment and other resources that you actually have, not what you wish you had. If you’ve prevented discouragement from diminishing your effort, give yourself a high score. Just because you lost your good luck doesn’t mean you’ve lost your ability to work hard, try hard, and value what you do; you may have lost your wealth, but that doesn’t mean you’ve lost your worth.
