Posted by fxckfeelings on October 3, 2011
When people are overbearing, the natural response is to overreact, either by submitting entirely to their will or coming back with the same level of aggression. While our instincts tell us to “fight or flight,” we have to overcome our core lizard brain, take a step back, and figure out our own plan and our own moral and ethical priorities. Then we can state opinions, invite rational discussion, and evolve past conflict altogether.
–Dr. Lastname
I appreciate my husband, I really do; he’s a hard-working, reliable partner and father. The problem is, he’s also a reliable pain in the ass. He’s so controlling about whether the kids are polite, or the living room is clean, or the food tastes good…he’s always giving us dirty looks or telling us how we should act, and then does everything himself, anyway, so it will turn out the way he wants. If I criticize him, he acts like an underappreciated martyr and won’t talk to us until I apologize, but I hate apologizing; it doesn’t fool him, and it makes me feel unfairly humiliated, dishonest, and angry. How do I manage his overbearing behavior without wanting to kill him?
In many ways, telling someone you’re sorry is more taxing than telling someone you love them. An apology might get you some peace and reduces tension in the family, but, unlike expressing love, it’s all give and no take. And in this case, you’re saying sorry when you really don’t give a shit.
So, on the one hand, you’re showing him you appreciate his hard work and understand his intentions are good (even if they drive him to be a jerk, thus avoiding a pointless fight, which is good for everyone involved.
The negative side, however, is that you force yourself to lie, reinforce his feeling of being a righteous martyr, and perpetuate the controlling behavior that drives everyone crazy in the first place. Essentially, the more you tell him “I’m sorry,” the sorrier you’re going to be in the long run. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 22, 2011
No matter how many times we say that no love is so powerful that it should render one powerless, we keep getting emails about broken hearts, broken promises, and the resulting broken lives. When love pushes you to fuck up your life and/or someone else’s, it’s your choice to either fight to stay in control or say, well, love is all you want, so whatever happens must be worthwhile. You might be in love, but you’re not without choices. And if/when you make the wrong choice, you can always choose to write us.
–Dr. Lastname
When my son was born 30 years ago, I met two other moms and we became friends. Although with partners, we shared the same interests and our kids got along well, and we spent the next years as very good friends doing lots of things together and with the children-one of those friends even married my brother (one son and three years later, they divorced). At the same time, I met a new partner (I was now separated from my son’s father), and we spent the next 27 years having a very on-off relationship. It’s difficult to sum up all those years but I think I can say that I probably cried through most of it! I should have left, I didn’t, he wasn’t committed, I was, I wanted a family life, he didn’t. I’m not perfect and I didn’t always behave well. Five years ago he had a son by another, not partner, woman and when that didn’t work out he and I got together again. Then last year, I invited my friend/ex sister-in-law to lunch with us, and they got together. The shock was immense … and it’s not so much the loss of either but this terrible feeling that I have been used as a sort of dating service by my friend and I just can’t get rid of this feeling of betrayal. It’s now a year on and I haven’t seen them since, and the emotional hurt is a lot less– I have done lots of new things, made new friends, and life is rosier, but I have this constant anxiety that this friend is going to take someone else from me – my sister? my other brother? and, worst of all, I have this strange fear that it will be my son. I would like to be happy for my ex and my friend, but I can’t. I protect myself by staying away but I have this huge sense of loss that I have lost this whole part of my life. I need to let go of this underlying anxiety that I am going to lose someone to her again.
When it comes to kids, we expect parents not to expose them to unnecessary rejections and losses from adults they’ll get attached to, who will then go away. When it comes to how parents protect their own hearts, however, the same standards don’t seem to apply, even though, as your experience shows, they really should.
Yes, I understand, you’ve loved a guy for 27 years, but it was always off-and-on, causing you intermittent heartache and wasting your opportunity for something better. You wouldn’t have needed a shrink, psychic, or your average plumber to predict a sad end to all you invested in him and his family.
That doesn’t mean your love was meaningless or less than real. It was powerful, at least for you. Like a good mother, however, your job is to protect yourself from real attachments that can’t work, and you haven’t done that. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 19, 2011
The purpose of life is not to be found in human connectedness, or at least not the kind that arises from the instant sharing of feelings, food, and/or bodily fluids. RomComs, pop songs and almost every advice source might tell you otherwise, but there’s no reason for people who don’t connect easily to feel or be excluded from the human race. Whether you’re attachment-impaired or dealing with someone who doesn’t know a relationship from a turnip, your job is to build relationships according to your own standards, in your own way. Even if you don’t share, you can still care.
–Dr. Lastname
Even in my 40s, I carry a lot of baggage/resentment from my upbringing. I was born in a foreign country and adopted by an older couple who had already raised two of their own kids before deciding to adopt. They were worn out, emotionally distant–my Mother suffered severe depression—so it was a quiet, lonely, and undirected childhood. I’ve since created what most days feels like a good life but working in a very competitive field, I feel like it can all be taken away from me in a flash (and, like most people since the economy collapsed, I’ve been laid off a number of times). I’ve always managed to find work, but I can’t help but think my shy and quiet demeanor has a lot to do with ending up on the chopping block; slipping through the cracks has been the recurring theme of my life. On some level I know I suffer from attachment disorder–connecting with others has always been a challenge and making idle chit-chat with co-workers and “bragging” about my accomplishments takes extreme effort—but moving forward I’d like to feel more connected to people I work with and form stronger relationships and friendships in my life. I think it would be good for my career and my overall being. How do I make that happen?
Before plumbing your personal history for the cause of your isolation, examining its impact on your resume, or trying to increase your degree of connectedness to other people, there’s a much simpler first step—asking yourself why you’re doing all this in the first place.
You’re not saying you’re lonely or that you wish to be closer to a particular friend or family member, just that, if you were more connected to others in a general, categorical way, you would be less disposable and less easily fired. That may be true.
On the other hand, you’re also saying that your lack of connectedness, like your mother’s lack of connection with you, represents a kind of failure that makes life less meaningful. That’s just plain false. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 15, 2011
As diseases go, mental illness is a doozy to treat; some mentally ill people are too humiliated to ask for help, and others are too crazy to ask. If you want to help them (or yourself), keep in mind that it’s the illness, stupid, which distorts the attitude towards treatment. Use the same logic and moral values for mental health treatment decisions that you would use for other illnesses; there’s nothing humiliating about getting sick, no matter what a sick brain decides.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been wrestling with depression for years now and my maternal side of the family has a history of depression and suicide. I don’t feel that I can do this on my own anymore and need help. I don’t want to just take a medical cocktail of antidepressants. My question to you is how do I go about finding a therapist and/or doctor that will be most helpful to me.
The first step for getting treatment for your depression seems simple– don’t get depressed about treatment for depression. After all, depression’s just another form of pain unless it twists your thoughts into thinking that not getting rid of it is a kind of failure that marks a meaningless life.
As long as you realize depression is a persistent ailment, just like persistent back pain or diabetes, you’ll have an easy time making treatment decisions because you won’t regard using treatment as evidence of weakness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 1, 2011
It’s hard not to think of stoner weirdos as victims of bad choices who need a haircut and a good, tough talking-to. In reality, many misfits, potheads especially, have no control over the fact that life offers them no good fit for their talents and temperament, and the belief that they should have or could have done better makes them more passively resistant, unpleasant, and prone to mass consumption of tacos. So, instead of moralizing and breaking out the shears, confront their negative behavior by accepting the fact that stoner misfits are who they are while offering suggestions about how they can do better with themselves (starting with fewer tacos).
–Dr. Lastname
There’s a guy on my team at work who drags everyone down, but the boss does nothing to confront him, and it really prevents us all from doing good work. This guy does just enough to get by, and he sucks up to the other guys, so they’re somewhat protective of him. Meanwhile, he’s dismissive with me and the other women on the team and has a way of passing the buck to us, losing what we give him, and then blaming our hormones if we complain. No surprise here, he’s a heavy stoner and smokes during the day, but everyone at work seems to think it’s no big deal. I like the job and the people, but I’m afraid that complaining to our boss will be seen as petty and disloyal to our team. I don’t mind telling this guy to his face that I’m unhappy with his work and attitude, but it would just make him even nastier and impossible. At the same time, I don’t want to be silent just because the boys don’t respect what I’m saying. What can I do to make this work?
When you’ve got a job where you like the work and the people you work with, it’s natural to feel that the bad behavior of a single jerk shouldn’t be able to ruin it for you (and everyone else), let alone a lazy, sexist jerk with a drug problem.
Trouble is, his behavior can totally ruin it for you and everyone else unless your boss or other co-workers are reasonably good at managing his behavior instead of just avoiding conflict and sharing dumb jokes.
Unfortunately, as you may have noticed, they’re not really rising to the task so far, and that’s something you don’t control. At least it seems you’ve been good about controlling your own rage. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 25, 2011
The most powerful mama-bear parenting instinct, to feel infinitely responsible for protecting your baby from harm, is helpful when your child is, say, being attacked by a bear, but it’s infinitely troublesome in all but the most basic situations. Yes, you’ve got to do your duty if and when there’s something you can do, but most of the time, your options are limited and protective powers feeble. Your real powers come from not losing your confidence, even when your child is suffering at the hands of something other than a large predator, and conveying a belief in your ability to get through bad things together in the long run.
–Dr. Lastname
My 5-year-old son is a sweet, sensitive kid who’s generally happy and gets along well with his older brother, but ever since he got a baby brother six months ago, he’s been impossible to console when a tantrum comes on. If he feels left out of something, he’ll cry hysterically, big fat tears for a LONG time afterward, without my being able to distract him out of it. And the other day, he was so upset about something pretty trivial that, when we were sitting together later he said, “Mama, is it okay if I die?” And while, on the one hand, it is pretty silly to hear that sentence in his tiny little funny voice, it’s also very sad, since I know he just wants me to give him lots of attention and reassurance, and I did do that a little bit, but I’m worried that, if I feed into his need for attention, it will become his middle-child fate to join the drama club, or else ignore it and have him feel like no one really cares about him.
Your basic instinct as a parent is to soothe a crying baby and feel successful if it works. If it doesn’t work, you’re a failure, you’ve got to keep trying, and, even when it finally works, you worry that there’s a grander failure on the horizon, like a child who ends up selfish or gets a tribal tattoo.
Yes, even if you do finally soothe your child, you wonder whether you’ve got a kid who’s very unhappy because you don’t understand his needs, or a needy kid who’s training you to spoil him. That’s why parents pray for “easy” kids, and lazier types stick with pets. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 11, 2011
Whether or not it’s more blessed to give than to receive, both activities are loaded with lots of potential punishment, particularly if you feel unworthy and/or poor to begin with. If giving is necessary to make you feel worthy, you’ll end up a good-hearted sucker, and if being given to is the only thing preventing you from living in a trailer down by the river, you’ll end up in a black-hearted rage. There’s no need to feel bad about giving or receiving if you feel proud of who you are rather than how well you’re doing. A healthy perspective is the best blessing of all.
–Dr. Lastname
My friends tell me I’m too good to my ex-wife because I always take care of her when she’s in town by giving her a place to stay, feeding her, and tending to her medical needs. Even our kids say she uses everyone, promises everything, and gives back nothing, and, after many years of marriage and an equal number divorced, I know they’re right. I argue back that it’s not smart for me to antagonize her after she’s promised me half the estate she inherited from her dad, but they tell me that she never keeps her promises and she always figures out a way to blow her money on impressing new acquaintances and going on shopping sprees. My goal is to find ways to protect myself and maybe satisfy my friends’ concerns without fighting with my ex- and maybe losing her bequest.
God bless the giving people of the earth—kindergarten teachers, foster parents, 02% of psychiatrists—but I’ve said many times that, no matter how saintly their exterior, the givers’ biggest recipient of generosity is often their immediate feelings.
Let’s face it, giving feels good (partly because it offers peace of mind to the persistently guilty), and that means it’s bad, at least under some circumstances. Giving too much, like any source of good feelings, is dangerous to you and detrimental to the object of your charity. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 8, 2011
Funny thing about fuck-ups—“fucking up,” despite being their specialty, is their least favorite topic of conversation, probably because they haven’t joined the honorable brotherhood of fuck-ups by choice. I know, life is supposed to be all about choices, but it’s actually about the choices you make about the things you have no choice about. Assume that most people don’t like to fuck up, figure out what their limitations are, and your conversations will become fuck-up-free.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t understand why my colleague has become such a sloppy teacher. She’s smart and well-trained and relates well to people, but it’s become common knowledge in our department that the kids don’t like her and complain that her classes are disorganized and have very little content. Maybe she’s decided that her part-time sales job is more important than teaching because it makes her more money. My goal, if she’s really decided that teaching isn’t important, is to avoid discussing the subject with her and talk about other things when we hang out. Does this make sense?
People always interpret one another’s inexplicable actions as if they’re the result of choice, rather than, well, inexplicable. The reason they call them stupid decisions is because intelligent forethought was never part of the equation.
It’s upsetting to see your friend and colleague do a bad job, so you assume she’s doing it because she chose to commit her time elsewhere, where the money is. Sadly, you’re probably inflating her grade. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 28, 2011
If we’re to believe the common wisdom that self-esteem is as important to the human body as insulin, white blood cells, and limbs, then it’s important to remember that too much is a bad thing. True, too little is the one that hurts in the short run, but too much can lead to bad decisions that can be just as harmful as diabetes. What’s important is to manage the self-esteem you’ve got so it doesn’t make you a wimp or a jerk. Maintain a healthy balance, because you need too much self-confidence like you need that extra arm.
–Dr. Lastname
I constantly feel inadequate, though I am socially quite confident and easy-going. I have always been a worrier, and someone that seeks approval from others—mainly because of the relationship I have with my parents, where praise is hard to come by. Ever since graduating (a year ago),my confidence seems to have hit rock bottom. I became very disheartened by the whole application process, and felt like I became reduced to a series of bullet points. As a result, the many rejection emails I received were crushing. I have since found a job I generally enjoy, but cannot shake a feeling of anxiety. I constantly worry that I’m being a bad employee, friend, daughter. I worry about money, about the fact I don’t meet guys that I can make a relationship work with…When a guy I was dating recently treated me undeniably badly, I still found myself questioning my own behavior, worrying it was my fault. I want to make plans for the future, but keep finding reasons why my ambitions will be impossible to achieve. How can I stop giving myself such a hard time, and take my future by the horns?
Yes, there are people who are optimistic, happy, and full of confidence, and their optimism often generates its own good results and gets everyone, including advice-givers, worshiping the “groove” they’re in and telling you how to get it.
What they don’t tell you is that the groove is overvalued; sooner or later, life sucks, and when it does, it won’t shake you nearly as much as someone who has never experienced self-doubt and thinks they’ve got the world by the tail. So one thing you can be optimistic about is that you’re prepared for disaster.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 25, 2011
Most times, people assume they have values if they want to do good and punish the wicked. You should know, however, that, since punishing the wicked feels good, it probably isn’t good for you (or for anyone). Real values take into account the fact that many good deeds end up badly, and doing the right thing is often frustrating because you can’t control how it turns out. Still, if you stay true to what you think is right, no matter how it feels in the short-run, you might not feel good, but you’ll feel good about yourself.
–Dr. Lastname
A lot of your responses seminal components point to having the questioners turn their attention to their ‘values.’ Can you please elucidate a bit on how you define said values with regards to the context you utilize said term, as well as how to go about developing such a core set of values when one feels that he or she has none?
Values are whatever make you feel like a good person, aside from just feeling good because you’re feeling good (e.g. by enjoying what you’re doing, or having a good talk, or getting good feedback, or just being lucky).
In other words, there are lots of perfectly constructive ways to feel good that aren’t bad for your health, but they’re like a sunny day. They represent good luck, which means you don’t control them, and if you make it your goal to feel good, it’s like giving yourself responsibility for good weather. You’ll be sorry (and I’ll be working).
Values, on the other hand, have nothing to do with your luck and are under your control, because you can always try to do something you think is worth doing, whether you get it done or not. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
