Posted by fxckfeelings on May 16, 2013
Criticism, like network sitcoms, gas station food, and internet trolls, requires careful consideration before you decide whether it’s worth taking to heart/anymore of your time. Unfortunately, many people in relationships immediately take and react to their partner’s criticism, even when it’s wrong, either because they’re so used to being in the wrong and feeling guilty, or because they have such a strong need for unconditional (or just fairly conditional) approval that they can’t stand not getting it. In any case, before you react to your spouse’s disapproval, consult your own standards of behavior and respect yourself if you know you’re living up to them, outsourcing the need for praise to friends or hairdressers if approval is really that important. As long as you respect your own good judgment, you’ll have no problem managing judgments you don’t agree with, and won’t have to waste your time feeling annoyed, sick or guilty over bad TV, bad sushi, or bad criticism again.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t stand my husband’s criticism but the fact is, I’ve deserved it, because I’ve been a lush for twenty years and not much use after 9 PM. I’ve always worked hard and the kids think I was a pretty good parent before 9. Still, I feel I’ve been a failure as a wife, even though I think one reason I drank so much is because my husband’s overbearing criticism really got on my nerves, and booze was the easiest way to cope. Anyway, now that the kids are grown and I’ve had more than a couple medical problems, I got myself sober, but the marriage is really no better. My husband tells me in couples therapy that our family would be a lot more secure financially if I hadn’t been a drinker (which is really bullshit) and that I still haven’t really acknowledged what a big burden I put on him (I’ve said I’m sorry, but it’s never enough). Meanwhile, he blames me for ruining his life and burning the steak. I’m so angry I’m not sure I want to stay with him, but it’s hard to have any conversation that doesn’t turn on his right to be angry at me, which I think, given my history, he has. My goal is to figure out whether I want to stay with him for the next part of my life.
One of the unfortunate things that happen when you’re ashamed of bad behavior in a close relationship is that you lose the ability to stand up for yourself, even when your behavior is actually OK. You might always be an alcoholic, but you’re not always going to be at fault for everything in your husband’s life that goes wrong.
Escaping into drinking, affairs, or any major kind of avoidance may give you temporary relief from an unhappy relationship, but it also secures your right to feel even more totally responsible for that unhappiness than you did in the first place. You’re essentially breaking out of one prison and into another, even shittier one. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 13, 2013
While it’s said that you only hurt the ones you love, it would be more honest to say that you only hurt the ones who love you. What’s worse, that hurt usually comes from pushing them away when they’re trying too hard to help. Trying to redeem or heal someone, or yourself, through caring and communication usually does less rescuing and more repulsing. After all, if one or both people can’t consistently manage their own responsibilities, honest talk and helpfulness does little but make excuses and turn love into prolonged anguish. Develop a reasonable set of standards about what a person should do to take care of him/herself, before you offer or ask for help. Otherwise, you’ll earn all too well how true the “help until it hurts” saying is.
–Dr. Lastname
My friend and I have feelings for each other, which are no secret to either of us—we had kissed and had even gotten close to having sex but when it came down to being completely honest about our feelings we couldn’t do it. I knew this was unhealthy but I was scared because not only are we both guys but we both had a lot of issues when it came to love. He would say things like, “I don’t know what I want,” and “Don’t fall in love with me.” It was confusing because before that he would be asking me to “make love to him” and had even said, “I love you” twice. I know that part of it was fear of being with another guy. Then, two months ago, I got into a car accident because I was drunk. He was there but, luckily, no one was hurt. Now he says he’s forgiven me, but he has also picked up a girlfriend, which was a shock to me and it hurt. In the beginning we had great chemistry but then we lost that when we stopped being honest with each other. I believe it happened when feelings started getting intense. I want for us to stop hurting each other and start being honest. I’m not sure how to do this and it is breaking my heart. I wouldn’t mind being his friend if he would just stop playing games or whatever this is with me. Is he just confused or being cruel? I can’t make up my mind.
Hollywood wisdom is that women don’t like Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but given how far-fetched your average romantic comedy is, that’s simply untrue. A movie about two people with great chemistry overcoming impossible circumstances by having a heart-to-heart and ending up happily ever after is built on a reality so false, it makes The Hobbit look plausible.
While that good, honest talk solves all romantic problems in TV/movie fantasyland, frustration like what you’re experiencing in real life is more often due to the other things that you’ve mentioned troubling you and your friend: confusion, fear, and uncertainty about who each of you wants to be with and who you want to be. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 9, 2013
For parents of kids in high school, it often seems like your goal is to get your kid through school, and your kids’ goal is to find every way possible to get distracted. Some of those distractions, like video games or music, are harmless, while others, like drugs or serious relationships, can go from a diversion to totally destructive. Sometimes when a kid seems over-interested in romantic relationships, it’s because the relationship with school needs work, but other kids would chose relationships over the best school in the world, just because of how they’re wired. In any case, parents, it’s important for you not to show anger or fear, regardless of how you really feel. Instead, if you can, sell the kid on school, sell the school on working with your kid, and if that doesn’t work, it’s time to homeschool your kid in managing intense sexual relationships. As long as you avoid guilt and blame, you can be a great teacher, no matter what curriculum you’re forced to use.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m 14 this year and in my second year of high school, and in my area there are a couple schools that I could’ve gone to. Unfortunately, there was only one co-ed school, and it had a “bad reputation.” My parents forced me to go to the other school, an elite girls school, instead. I didn’t like it even before I started going there, but I never knew it would be this bad. It’s really strict and I actually hate not having boys around. I’ve never been boy crazy but now I feel like I can’t stand it. And this year, I discovered this good co-ed school that I originally thought was far away but is actually closer than the school I go to now. I can’t rest until I get to move schools, but how do I convince my parents to let me move without telling them that I want boys in my life? They’re not the incredibly unreasonable strict type, so they wouldn’t have forced me to go to a single sex school if there wasn’t a choice. Still, I can’t say that I hate it because it’s a girls school! They’d never let me move because of that. It may sound silly but I’ve gotten really depressed recently. The school also has lots of other different problems, mainly the strict part. I hate strictness. It kills me, and I just want to be free. I feel like I’m suffocating and I can’t escape.
We rarely get letters from readers in their teens, probably because, when you’re fourteen, developing an independent view of the world and living under your parents’ absolute authority, feelings are one of the few things under your own control. It seems natural that your average adolescent’s response to a site called fxckfeelings.com would be “fuck you dot org.”
That said, we’re glad to hear from someone young, and it’s important during this stage to seek knowledgeable outside opinions, especially because so much of your time is spent with the same group of teachers and other kids your age. School can feel a lot like jail, except you learn things way more valuable than how to make wine in a toilet. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 22, 2013
People who knowingly distort the truth seem to deserve more blame than those who truly believe what their mind makes up, but when you’re close to a liar, the issue isn’t who deserves more blame, but who is more dangerous to your welfare. Somebody who lies on purpose often does so out of a guilty conscience, while those who believe in their lies are more apt to see you as. the deceitful one who’s deserving of blame and punishment. So when lying is an issue, don’t waste time on how it makes you feel or whether the truth needs to be told. Instead, look at what happened when the liar was exposed in the past and do what’s necessary to protect yourself, even if it means leaving a liar behind, and as such, the truth unspoken.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband has a porn problem– problem because he hides it, lies about it, and blames it on others (as in, “Oh, my friend sent me some virus and that’s what opened the browser window to the helpful find-a-local-hooker site”). He also has a deadline and personal responsibility problem– lots of promises to accomplish tasks at home, precious little success. I still find benefits from being married to him. He works hard and his income is very useful. He has been sober for twenty years now, and if he is screwing around on me he is doing it discretely. He is vital to the childcare and child transportation scheme. He can be pleasant to be with and supportive, and our sex life is good. And I am 50, fat and tired and figure I would face a life of lonely celibacy without him. I can generally cope with the down side of things, but I persist in feeling angry and disappointed when he once again lets me down, and every once in awhile I find myself believing that someday he’ll change. I’m worried that I may have my thumb on the scale when I weigh the pros and cons of sticking with him. I also worry that our kids might be better off without the toxic atmosphere when I am once again disappointed. I need help finding ways to cope with the inevitability of being let down, and the serenity prayer just ain’t doing it.
It’s hard not to experience being lied to as a personal betrayal of trust, whether the liar is close to you, like a husband, or a stranger, like a politician with an unfortunately phallic last name. The reason liars can take any form, however, is that as personal as the act feels, it’s often nothing but a bad habit.
After all, nose-pickers aren’t trying to gross you out, nervous whistlers aren’t trying to annoy the shit out of you, and alcoholics aren’t getting shitfaced just to make your life more difficult. You feel like you’re in the crosshairs, but you’re just collateral damage. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 15, 2013
Like a pain threshold, need to buy a Hank Williams record, and Jesus, a true appreciation of what’s important only seems to become clear when our lives seem most meaningless or most precious. When everything seems to be going wrong for yourself, or a loved one is going through his or her last days, you can feel like a helpless, frustrated loser, at least at first. Once you realize, however, that you’re just a human being who doesn’t have much control over the really bad things in life, you can stop feeling like a loser and start gaining perspective about what’s really important, like doing good and being good, with or without country music.
–Dr. Lastname
I am 40 years old and have gone from a size 4 to a size 14 in very little time. Basically, I love food and drink, but I also take spin classes three times a week. I feel like no one will ever love me for who I am “on the inside” now that I’ve gotten this big, especially because I didn’t have a boyfriend until I got skinny in college. I had been seeing a therapist for four years, but my limited funds have gotten in the way. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think that to be loved meant to be thin. I want to convince myself that, like so many before me, being big doesn’t mean being unlovable, and to be ok with my weight, because I am beautiful with it (right?). How do I put my self-confidence out there again? I have a bunch of Percocets from a recent surgery, and while body image is not the only thing I struggle with, I think about those pills all the time. To date, they have been my medal of honor. They are here, and I am strong enough to leave them there, so far. Help.
It’s hard not to be lonely, dateless, and getting nowhere with diet and exercise, without feeling bad about your life. You feel ugly inside and out, in an ugly, unfair world, often from the vantage point of on an ugly, un-fun fake bike.
You want to empower yourself and you’re willing to work hard, but when nothing’s going your way, the confidence often just doesn’t come and the weight won’t go away. That doesn’t mean, however, that you’re a failure, or even that the world is quite as ugly as it seems.
It means you’re not lucky, at least not yet, even though you’re doing lots of good things to make your life better. You’re doing right by yourself, but as much as we all like to get inspired by stories of self-empowerment, the truth is, it has its limits. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 11, 2013
When a close family member acts like a jerk, punishing them often seems to offer the offended relative the double benefit of getting to express anger and discourage the wrong-doer from pulling the same crap in the future. Unfortunately, that “double benefit” usually doubly backfires, leaving you alienated from the offending relative and twice as pissed off the next time said crap is inevitably pulled. If, instead, you waive your right to punish wrongdoing, you will often give yourself an opportunity to provide good coaching, or, if that’s impossible, to set strong limits. Fighting a jerk by becoming a jerk is cathartic, but it’s more effective to fight a jerk by being a boss.
–Dr. Lastname
Maybe it’s because I was distracted by the fact my second marriage was in the process of finally falling apart, but when my twenty-two-year-old son had suddenly married a girl I thought he’d only been dating casually while living abroad, I was caught totally off guard. I just had no idea it was that serious, or that they’d even have that much in common since English is not her first language. I know I’m a little overbearing, but I love my kids and we haven’t had any conflict, so I was shocked, hurt, as well as a little worried that he’s being used for a green card. His mother was also kept in the dark, but we’ve talked about it and share some concerns, so at least we’re agreeing on something for the first time in years. I know better than to have it out with him, so my goal, I think, is to keep the peace and get to the bottom of this somehow, unless you’ve got a better idea.
While you certainly have a right to feel hurt and worried about your son’s mystery marriage, negative expressions of how you really feel would do nothing but get him defensive and reinforce his conviction that he was right to keep you in the dark.
After all, any criticism, justified or no, just validates his assertion that if he’d told you, you would have been critical, and he didn’t want to hear it. That you would certainly want and deserve to hear about your son getting married is, for him, beside the point.
If you’re up to the job of being his chief adviser and can put aside the normal, natural feelings of a father who’s just taken a jab to the heart, however, there’s more you can do to be helpful than just shutting up. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 8, 2013
Sometimes goals that appear meaningful, like speaking your mind, getting closure, or getting an art degree, are excuses for pursuing feel-good results we damn well know will turn out badly. If you put aside your yearning for a better world while examining the probable results of your actions, however, you’re much more likely to do actual good, even when it doesn’t feel so hot, rather than let good intentions draw you into making the same old mistakes. No matter how right it feels to try, getting the last word, closure, and/or a BFA just aren’t worth it.
–Dr. Lastname
It really isn’t my ex-girlfriend’s fault that I got paranoid and couldn’t work for two months—she didn’t make me start using meth with her (she’s was a heavy user when we met). I used because I wanted to, not just because I loved her and the chemistry between us was amazing. Eventually, though, the meth made me unbelievably paranoid (I’d never been into drugs before) and I thought she was putting the smell of cat piss in my apartment. I also couldn’t sleep, think straight, or pay attention to anything for more than two seconds, so it wasn’t long before my boss told me to get help or else. Months of treatment have almost put my brain back where it was before and I’m almost ready to return to work, but I want my ex-girlfriend to know I don’t blame her and I want us to part on good terms, so I think we should meet once more, just to get closure. My goal is to erase the negativity caused by my bad reaction to meth and close the book on the situation for good.
After month of treatment, you should be well-versed in how to approach your addiction one day at a time; while there might be a rehab out there that preaches having one last meth binge hurrah “for closure,” it probably won’t be open for long.
The search for closure is the broken person’s version of the Holy Grail; long, dangerous, and ultimately futile. You might think you’re trying to put things right, but you’re really just picking a scab, so if you think it’ll help you heal, the opposite is true. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 1, 2013
Since we now live in a mostly-online world where everything is a loss/”fail” or victory/”for the win,” it’s normal to regard death as the ultimate fail since we’d give almost anything to prevent it from happening to ourselves and those we love (although if it happens to our worst enemies, it’s a win situation, even if most of us wouldn’t even admit that in Youtube comments). In reality, we disrespect our humanity by considering ourselves defeatable by something we don’t control, and what we do with ourselves and our family and friends when someone is dying or otherwise afflicted is what makes us great/gives us p0wnage of mortality, at least for a little while.
–Dr. Lastname
After 15 years of homelessness, prison, jails, rehabs, psych meds, medication management, horrific poly substance abuse, and occasional hopeful stints of sobriety, our son overdosed two months ago. He was 30 years old.
All the years of fear, guilt and depravity notwithstanding, his father and I miss him terribly. I won’t go into the efforts (financial, emotional, time) to get/keep him sober that consumed our entire family for the last decade. Lets just say our son’s use of his drug of choice, heroin, has been the 24/7 of our lives. I could write a book about police cars in the driveway, family sessions I’ve sat through with green rehab “counselors” who appeared to be clinging tenuously to not using themselves, and the finer points of being frisked by zealous prison guards.
Some days, like today, all I can remember is what a horrible slog it’s been. Other days I remember my son’s big, kind heart when he was himself, his ability to read a room, and the way he only talked when he had something to say.
I’ve examined our family life over and over, and I had pretty much come to grips with the past, and the present. The future was plainly jails, institutions, or death. I knew all this, and had many sleepless nights to steel myself for the inevitable.
Of course when the inevitable arrives, it is a total sledgehammer to the heart and mind. The worst part is this: his father and I had kicked him out of our home (again) where he was living (again) because he was shooting Xanax. He actually got the Rx for Xanax from the same doctor that prescribed his Suboxone (why heroin addicts should not be prescribed Benzodiazopines is another post). Later that night he died of an overdose from a lethal mix of Xanax and heroin.
So, he is dead, after we pushed him out in an argument. No goodbyes, no “I love you,” just unkind and hurtful words.
In a way I feel this was our son’s final selfish act, leaving me a lifetime of guilt and replaying that night he left over and over in my mind. I feel I’ll go crazy if it doesn’t stop. I don’t want to live this way for the rest of my natural life.
[Please note: We usually edit submissions for length and clarity, but we felt this was so well-written that it should be left almost entirely intact. If the author ever follows through on her threat to write a book, we would read it.]
The usual way we judge ourselves as parents is by the way we help our kids survive and grow, even if we can’t make them happy. That standard is usually fair, unless your child suffers from a disease that nobody and nothing control, from doctors and medication, to the child or the parents who feel responsibility for his/her survival.
The toughest thing in the world then is to judge yourself properly when you still can’t stop your son from dying, unhappily, in the midst of drug abuse and conflict. It’s a mix of every kind of hell, because you feel you’ve failed, that he failed, and that the universe has failed everyone involved.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where nice kids get addicted to horrible drugs, nice parents can’t save them, and part of the illness of addiction is that the kids fuck up again and again, and you can’t keep them at home when they do. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 28, 2013
Addiction is easier to understand if you picture it as a mental squatter, the way advertising for nasal decongestants depicts mucus as a working class family that happens to be gooey, green, and getting by in your sinuses. Even when people are strongly motivated to stop compulsive or addictive behavior, their addiction is often one step ahead of them, distorting their thinking to undermine their efforts and stay put. In some cases, they are so obsessed with the self-perceived ugliness of their bad habit that they can’t consider more important reasons for stopping, while in other cases, they are so obsessed with finding their addiction’s ultimate cause that they wind up blaming people who care the most and could offer the most help in their recovery/to send the addiction packing. If you’re ready to quit, avoid stoking up feelings of self-disgust or blame; instead, prepare to tolerate pain without blame while looking for positive reasons to manage lingering inner demons and keep them from setting up house.
–Dr. Lastname
I think I meet the clinical definition of having an eating disorder (at least, according to the all-knowing and all-powerful Wikipedia). For the past four years I have been binge eating and semi-purging through excessive laxative use. Before that, for about two years, I was probably somewhat anorexic, although I say this in retrospect as I don’t think I either realized or would have admitted it at the time. (5’2” and less than 90 lbs. is pretty thin, though). My goal is to stop binge eating, and I don’t know how. My eating and obsession with food have basically taken over my life, and though I fight it and things have gotten better than they were a year or two ago, I’m constantly afraid of when I will binge next. I don’t trust myself at all. It affects my professional life, and I need to stop letting that happen. I miss the self-control and feelings of power and self-worth that my thinness used to give me. I realize that going back to that is not exactly a healthy goal, though. I’d frankly be pretty pleased if I could just stop binging and get on with my life.
It’s hard to underestimate how all-consuming an eating disorder can be; as you obsess about the ways to keep food out of your body, it becomes the main occupant of your mind. Every moment spent avoiding the act of eating requires twice as many moments of mental torment on the subject.
Then there are endless concerns about your appearance, feelings of worthlessness, compulsive behaviors, and the intense ties between them. Eating disorders foster a kind of self-obsession, a dependence on your own thoughts and secret behaviors that devalues other goals and relationships.
It’s not surprising then that managing an eating disorder requires, not more self-control, but an acceptance that you’ve lost control and a willingness to admit other people, like family and therapists, into your private, obsessive relationship with food. It’s not unlike the so-called First Step of managing an addiction—admitting your helplessness and recognizing the importance of values other than your needs and shame. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 18, 2013
When you feel misunderstood or criticized by someone you really need a good relationship with and aren’t a hypnotist, warlock, or mob boss, you probably feel like you lack the power (or powers, or firepower) to find a desirable resolution. Still, don’t think your only choice is to figure out what’s wrong and try harder, or figure there’s no hope and walk away. Instead, ignore their agenda, re-approach the situation with your own idea of what’s best, and talk actively about it while refusing to talk about topics that have been beaten to death. The other person will either find it’s better to follow your lead, or, if s/he doesn’t, you’ll know you didn’t walk away without giving it your best effort on your own, regular-guy terms.
–Dr. Lastname
I need to figure out how to do better during job interviews. I thought I was fully prepared for the last one—I’d researched the company and was ready to discuss the experience and training that made me qualified for the position—and then they ambushed me by asking a series of probing, uncomfortable psychological questions about what I’d do or have done in difficult situations when I’m angry or in conflict, and I got tongue-tied. I’m just not glib or confident when I’m surprised or anxious, so I feel like I showed them I don’t have good self-esteem. My goal is to be prepared to handle anything they throw at me, so I can be competitive in a tough job market.
Job interviews always feel like performances aimed at getting people to want to hire you, but that’s really not the truth. That’s like going on a blind date with a guy who has Nazi tattoos and lives in a dumpster but worrying only about whether or not he’s impressed with you (and if you so much as live in a car, he should be).
While you certainly don’t want to stroll into an interview straight from a jog, with uncontrollable gas, or physically fighting a bad case of lice, your job is to discover whether you and the job would be a good match and to confirm that you really know what your resume and references say you know. Regardless of its pay or prestige, you don’t want a job you can’t see yourself doing. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
