Posted by fxckfeelings on September 19, 2019
Anxiety is like the “aloha” of mental illnesses; it has several different meanings, except none are evocative of greeting, peace or paradise. Not only can anxiety be a symptom of chronic illness, it can also be a chronic illness itself, as well as an intensely painful emotion that makes your worst fears seem real over time or in intense, debilitating bursts. It’s not unusual then for people with severe symptoms of anxiety to distrust diagnoses, become convinced that they’ll lose their health if they don’t obsessively, and fruitlessly, search for an answer. If, however, you use anxiety as a motivation to do research and explore alternatives, you can find good ways of managing it. That way, your anxiety, in whatever form it takes, won’t make achieving some form of aloha impossible.
-Dr. Lastname
All my life I have been a bundle of nerves and was eventually diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Recently, however, I have been experiencing debilitating physical symptoms that led me to believe that I have other medical issues that are being overlooked. I’ve been getting chest pains (which sent me to the ER and the doctors confirmed it wasn’t a heart attack), fatigue, trouble sleeping, nausea that comes and goes, brain fog, trouble seeing sometimes…most recently I developed the most annoying symptom, uncontrollable muscle twitches all over my body. My primary care physician told me this is all just anxiety manifesting itself, but the symptoms are so physical at this point that it is driving me to make appointments with specialists to find out what’s wrong before I totally lose it mentally. My goal is to find out whether this is just anxiety or something that could be even worse.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 15, 2017
When it seems like the whole world is plunging into the abyss, it can be hard not to make like our reader from earlier this week and fear getting swept up in the chaos, giving in to despair, and letting your own little world/entire life get sucked into the black hole. Of course, no matter how hard it can get to find your way in a confusing world, all hope is not lost; if you take the five steps listed below, you can learn to tune out as much chaos as possible and keep your own life from together as the world falls apart.
1) Tune Out the Negative and Unnecessary
Constantly following the news, especially if it’s all scary and bad, may seem necessary in order to stay on top of important information. In reality, it’s more like keeping your tongue on top of a canker sore; a nasty compulsion that only makes you feel worse. That’s why, no matter how frightening and constant the bad news may be, it’s important to step away from TV, periodicals, and Facebook feed, change the subject when people start to go off about world events, and generally avoid the urge to fixate on all things horrible. Yes, you’re part of a greater community and you want to make it better when you have the chance, but when you’re sure that/scaring yourself because no such chance exists, you have to protect yourself from aggravation and fears that you can do nothing about with a bubble of blessed silence.
2) Make Time for (and Merriment With) Those You Care About
When you’re feeling scared and down, being social requires a lot of effort—even more effort than being political—but it also offers much deeper rewards. It’s easy to share intense political feelings and opinions with others who feel the same way, online or in person, but then you’re left with deeper discontents and shallower personal connections. So keep the focus on getting to know people beyond politics as well as doing enjoyable things with the people you already know well and love. Sharing individual concerns, involving yourself in day-to-day realities, and generally reminding yourself there are good, caring people in the world will give you small doses of much needed hope.
3) Don’t Take the Bait From People You Hate
When the world is driving you crazy, then it’s easy for the people around you to drive you crazy and natural to seek ways of expressing and relieving your irritation. Unfortunately, trying to release your rage through picking fights with those you disagree with online is almost guaranteed to backfire. As we always say, nobody has ever died from bottling up their feelings, but plenty have died (or at least gotten threated or doxed) from unbottling them. Not only do you do more damage to yourself by stirring up fights with people you think are deserving idiots, you don’t even do anything positive for them since verbally attacking someone, online or in-person, isn’t the best way to win others over. Instead of ruminating about your anger until you crave release, remind yourself of your most important priorities, like being a decent person and focusing on the people and things that matter to you, not the morons who ultimately don’t.
4) Mind Self-medication
Aside from seeking relief from anger by getting into fights, it’s also natural to do so by getting high or drunk while giving the finger to all those who claim to reward hard working people like you in what’s supposed to be a reasonable, fair world. Unfortunately, self-medication is also a form of self-destruction that will turn you into a selfish jerk and make you accomplice to what you most despise. So bear your pain without finding chemical shortcuts to alleviating it, continue to fight hard to stay good, and you’ll find yourself refocusing on what you value in life instead of seeking the relief that comes with losing focus altogether.
5) Concentrate on What You Control
It’s not easy to make a living and be a good guy in this world, particularly given all the bad guys out there who find real success and the distractions and disappointments that come from periods of political craziness so nutty that we worry about our ability to continue living, period. It’s not easy, but it’s your responsibility to put your foot down and put a big beautiful wall around your own mind, family, and life; all the other craziness is totally out of your control, but the craziness that can be affected by your own actions and relationships is what you can realistically have a positive impact on. The state of the world matters, but your own life matters more; stay on top of the things that are actually in your control, not on the bad news, so you can make your world, and a small part of the larger world, a better place.
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 18, 2017
It’s hard not to take it personally when your country’s leaders represent values that you despise, making you feel obliged to both renounce all they represent and responsible for making things better. After all, you are expected to make sacrifices for your country, but if you can’t make sacrifices for new national goals you don’t believe in, it’s hard to decide whether to give your all to getting your country back or getting out of Dodge and leaving the leadership to self-destruct. Whether you’re describing personal problems or national ones, however, it’s never fair to hold yourself responsible for righting wrongs that are beyond your control, especially when doing so distracts you from your actual responsibilities. It’s important then to remain in touch with the responsibilities you actually control so you can keep your head up and be proud of doing your best to be a good person, even if you feel your country is headed down the toilet.
-Dr. Lastname
A year ago I knew what I wanted to do for the next 30 years, but then, after a series of challenges, including a re-valuation of my nine-year romantic partnership and Donald Trump getting elected President of the United States, I don’t know what I want to do next. I want to get as far away from my current life as possible as it’s based heavily on the American Dream (TM)—I just bought a house and I own my own business with my spouse, and it’s a decent life, at least hypothetically, even with the financial stress of a large amount of debt. But after America made a really bad choice, I don’t want to have anything to do with the country, its ideals, or its empty commercialized promises. I don’t want the American Dream, or even to live here. I’ve never fit in well and now I realize just how mismatched my entire life philosophy is with American culture. Maybe this shouldn’t be a traumatizing experience, but I’m having serious trouble shaking this off— I am a planner without a plan, I don’t know my purpose, and I’m still trying to work through anger at the people who voted for the current President, many who are my friends and family. I want to move out of the country partly just to say “fuck you all, you voted for him and now you never get to see us because we live on the other side of the Earth.” Now, I think once I get out of this hole I will be better for it, with a more complete view of myself and my place in the world, but I’ve been struggling to get out of this hole for months now and not seeing any progress. I take meds for chronic depression but this is a serious dip even for me. My goal is to find a smart sensible plan, even though I’m depressed as fuck, everything feels meaningless, and all I really want to do is get away from my life and the American nightmare. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 31, 2016
There are no surefire ways to cure, let alone control, mental illness, so, if like our reader from earlier this week, you find yourself yearning for a way to get your sick brain well, then you should stop torturing yourself and start redirecting your energies elsewhere. Here are five better goals for controlling your illness.
1) Assess Your Own Symptoms
Make your own list about the things that bother you most about your illness, paying more attention to your own experiences than the descriptions from doctors or textbooks, or whether you fit one specific diagnosis or another. Give priority to the symptoms or problems that endanger your safety, cause you pain, make it hard to work, or interfere with being a good friend. Only you know what symptoms are worth keeping an eye on and making an effort to manage.
2) Keep Track of Trouble
Until doctors develop a blood test or breathalyzer for measuring mental illness, you’re the one who knows best how you’re doing from day to day. So keep a log or diary of your symptoms and status, reviewing the list of problems that bother you and putting a number from 1 to 5 next to each one representing how bad it is on that given day. That’s the only way you can tell whether whatever you’re doing to get better is having a good effect or not.
3) Adjust Your Expectations
While you should of course work to get better, you should never expect to achieve total recovery. Some people do get better and never have symptoms again, but it isn’t necessarily because they’re good patients and know how to do the right thing (though that helps). It happens, mainly, because they’re luckier and their illness is not as bad. So instead of expecting to get better, get real about the work you have ahead of you and what the realistic rewards are.
4) Punishment Hinders Progress
If you try too hard to make yourself better and become too obsessed with your illness you’ll spend all your time looking for treatment and be too busy to spend time with friends, enjoy a fine meal, or generally go about your usual business. As hard as you should try to explore treatments that might work and pursue methods that you think are helping, you shouldn’t keep going with a treatment that isn’t working, nor so focus on treatment that you forget to live your life.
5) Remember the Real Goal
The fact is, you don’t beat an incurable disease by making it go away but by going about your business in spite of all the trouble that the mental pain, fatigue, doctor visits, medication side effects, and general chaos of your illness throws in your way. When you can tolerate all that shit, stick to your values, and try to live a life that matters, you’re accomplishing something incredible.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 29, 2016
Some people assume that “fuck feelings,” aside from an excellent book title, is a statement intended to devalue or eliminate feelings, like an emotional “shazam.” In reality, of course, feelings have their own way of telling you that they’re very important, no matter what you chant at them, and that the only way to feel better is to air or obey them. Your best tactic then isn’t to look for a magic word or pill to keep your thoughts or feelings in check but to constantly remind yourself that they aren’t as important as your values and knowledge of right and wrong. Even though you can’t control your feelings, you shouldn’t always believe what they tell you or do what they want you to do (but you should buy and believe books that give advice like this).
-Dr. Lastname
I’ve been reading your book and I’ve made some very positive strides towards accepting myself. However, I have Schizoaffective and Bipolar Disorder and I am wondering why I continue to do weird wacky things, even after I accept that I should f*ck my feelings, they don’t totally go away. My goal is to eventually get better control of my behavior by coming to terms with my illness.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 23, 2016
Once you’ve been struck by a natural disaster—a snow storm caves in your roof, a tornado takes off your roof, and flood sweeps away your roof and the house it’s attached to—you have no choice but to grit your teeth and start over. Legal disasters, on the other hand, often seem resolvable, thus luring you into putting the rest of your life on hold while fighting for a victory that may never come. So never assume that a legal problem will end, even if right is on your side. If a lawsuit has blown the roof clean off your life, start learning how to begin again instead of waiting for it to eventually blow back into place.
-Dr. Lastname
My ex-wife has falsely accused me of physically and sexually abusing her and our children over the course of our entire marriage (over 20 years). The accusations have resulted in a complete cutoff of any contact with my elementary school-aged children. I’m hoping it will be ultimately resolved in the family court system but after two years, I’m losing hope. The loss has been overwhelmingly devastating for me and isn’t getting any better over time. I go to bed, crying and having dreams about my children when I fall asleep. Only to wake up again, crying. I’m not sure how to cope with this anymore. It’s really taken a toll on me. My goal is to figure out how to move forward.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 24, 2015
Everyone—not just those who, like our reader from earlier this week, are diagnosed OCD or bipolar—struggles with unwanted impulses from time to time. It’s normal to sometimes fight the urge for a second helping of lasagna, and it’s also common, though more problematic, to crave another shot of whiskey. If you find yourself gripped by unusually strong, possibly scary, urges that are sometimes impossible to control, however, and are wondering whether something not-normal is going on, here are five symptoms of mental illness to look out for that may be hindering your ability to fight addictive behavior.
1) Unusual Obsessing
Rumination is a symptom of OCD that locks your brain in a rut and forces you to think, over and over, about something you want, are afraid of, hate, you name it. Normally, you’d distract yourself by thinking of other things, but OCD won’t let you, even though the obsessive thought may scare you or not be what you actually want at all. Don’t assume that these thoughts mean that you’re a weak or bad person deep down; if you literally can’t get someone or something off your mind, then something’s wrong with your mind, not with you, and you need help.
2) Habit Trap
Repeated rituals are what make OCD obsessions feel a little better, i.e., you can shut up the persistent worry that your family will get murdered if you check that the door is locked exactly ten times before bed. When that ritual is texting a crush to make sure he still doesn’t want to see you, however, the potential for humiliation is worse. Ask yourself whether you’re compulsively texting because it gives you temporary relief, before you find yourself dealing with long-term pain and embarrassment.
3) Needless Neediness
Worthlessness and emptiness are common symptoms of depression, which drive someone to date people who aren’t right for them because they can’t deal with the intense pain that comes from being alone. If you find yourself driven to be with partners who either aren’t that interested or worthwhile, consider whether you have other symptoms of depression, like hating yourself and having trouble tolerating your own company.
4) Undeserving Desire
Lust tends to disappear with depression (along with libido altogether), but it can get extra intense during the manic phase of bipolar illness. Sexual excitement can make an otherwise ho-hum relationship addictive, and a hyperactive sex drive can push you to do, say, and wear things that you know are dangerous. If your sexual desire is stronger than usual and causing you to do things that go against your better judgment, then it’s worth seeking help.
5) Mania Masquerade
Mania makes everything intense, not just your sex drive; it can obliterate self-control, not just in terms of your impulses, but of your limbs and other organs. And while that might seem like a terrifying experience you’d want to avoid, mania feels so amazing and empowering that you don’t just become blind to your lack of control, but intoxicated by it; dangers that you might normally avoid become extra attractive. So if your thoughts are racing, your sexual liaisons have become more dangerous, and your friends seem to be freaking out despite your insistence that you feel great, you might be in danger, and they might have a point.
Whether you’re aware of uncontrollable urges or so sick than you can’t even tell what urges are even good for you anymore, it never hurts to ask for help, explore whether mental illness may be part of your problem, and take whatever steps possible towards getting your impulses under control.
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 10, 2015
Having an Asshole™ parent is never easy—just as our reader from earlier this week, along with countless other readers/comedians/former Presidents over the years—but you can make it easier if you refuse to accept all the blame foisted upon you by their loving Asshole™ arms. Here are five ways to define your responsibility for the happiness of an Asshole™ parent, and, in doing so, quietly declare your independence.
1. Exact Expectations
Ask yourself what kind and how much support, contact and company you would expect from your own adult daughter, assuming you will remain blessedly free of Asshole™ genes by that stage. Give particular thought to what you would expect if you were sick, in trouble, or just trying to keep in touch.
2. Put Her In Perspective
During the above process, ask yourself whether, assuming you’re well, not in crisis, and not an Asshole™, you’d feel entitled to impose all your needs on your adult kids. In all likelihood, you would consider it your job to prioritize their needs ahead of your own and to hope they would do the same with their children.
3. Push Perspective Further
Ask yourself whether, like your mother, you’d consider yourself entitled to tell your kids anything you felt like saying, or to unload your disappointment with your friends or other relatives, or whether whining is ever good for anyone. If you’re answers are all “no”s, then tell yourself “no” when you want to feel guilty for not giving her an ear when she wants to do any of the above.
4. Assess to What End
If you still think you owe it to your mother to be her ever-patient audience, then ask yourself how much happiness it actually gives her, and for how long, for you to be her punching bag/emotional support, and whether that happiness is worth the cost to you in terms of loss of energy, privacy, sanity, etc.
5. Put it in Writing
If your values tell you that your mother’s expectations of you are unreasonable and her approach is harmful, and/or making her happy is not worth the cost, prepare a brief statement that you can stick to, no matter how powerful her combined Asshole™/parenting powers. In it, assert that, though you really like to make her happy, you have different views about the amount of sharing that is good for a relationship, and that prevents you from complying with her requests. Now you’ve defined your responsibility to her, but more importantly, you’ve defined it for yourself, so no matter what she thinks, you know what’s right.
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 17, 2015
You’d think that people would want to stop doing things that are irrational and painful, but it’s because they’re uncontrollable that they’re doing them in the first place without being able to stop. In any case, don’t let your allergy to irritability control your partnership decisions. Look at the whole person before making up your mind about the value of preserving your relationship. Then, if you decide it’s worthwhile, we’ll have tips later this week for using your acceptance as a tool in negotiating a better relationship that any (mostly) rational person could agree to.
-Dr. Lastname
My husband has been diagnosed with ADHD, takes meds for ADHD, and sees a psychiatrist twice a month. A couple times a week (sometimes more) he gets angry/irritated with me for the tiniest of missteps. I’m usually surprised and I never know what will set him off. I’ve been seeing a therapist who helps me to maneuver around it and not take it personally, etc., but it always stings when he gets pissed at me. It seems kind of human to flinch when anger comes at you out of the blue. Plus, he denies that it’s anger, even though if any human were to overhear his voice and see his face, they would say, “wow, he’s pissed at her.” He’s really wonderful in many ways (which is why I’m trying to find a solution), but I don’t know if this is something that can be resolved. I have a metaphor for the situation: its like we have this lovely glass of water, but he keeps pissing in it, then says, “just drink it, it’s just a little piss.” Well, no thanks. I know sometimes bad and unfair things happen and when they do, by all means, get angry…but his anger is way out of proportion. My goal is to have peace and harmony in our marriage.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 1, 2015
Sometimes, the good guys win, but when that happens, it’s usually followed by closing credits and an argument with your friends over whether it was all worth seeing in 3D. In real life, the bad guys don’t just win more often, but they make you feel like such a huge loser that you sometimes feel like your life is over. The good news, if there is any, is that your feelings of failure aren’t exactly real, either; if you’re working to get back on your feet, despite what you’ve been through, then you’re like a big screen hero. Later in the week, we’ll spell out the exact procedure for doing so.
-Dr. Lastname
I recently lost my job thanks to some crazy bosses. They made sure they lied and set me up so that I wouldn’t be able to get unemployment. Now I technically have the time to focus on some other projects I’d put on hold, but I’m so stressed out from losing my job and not being able to help my husband out or even have the money to start my business that I can’t focus and get anything else done. I feel totally stuck and completely screwed. My goal is to figure out how to get my mind straight so I can get back on track.
When you’ve been unfairly knocked down and don’t immediately have the resources to pull yourself back up, it’s natural to feel, to use the aforementioned clinical term, “completely screwed.” You feel powerless to fight back, pull yourself together, or do anything but curl into a ball under a bunch of blankets with a bag of Doritos for the immediate future.
What you have to remember, of course, is that you’re not responsible for doing the impossible, just for dealing with total shit as well as you can. Between your state of mind and the state of your finances, immediate recovery is just that, impossible, and when you’ve already been knocked down so hard, there’s no reason to kick yourself even lower.
Your goal then isn’t to find energy and concentration that aren’t there, or start a business with money you don’t have. It’s to take good care of yourself while you get over trauma and depression and then get back to your old priorities.
Fortunately, there’s nothing wrong with your priorities or, apparently, your marriage. Depression will get better with time but, whenever it’s disabling or not, there’s good reason to seek treatment with therapy and, if absolutely necessary, medication. With time, you will learn much from the collapse of your last job that will help you find better work in the future.
Your husband doesn’t see you as a failure or slacker, so don’t judge yourself by unfair standards. Being screwed is a normal part of life and you’re learning how to survive and recover. You’re probably not even doing it badly, it’s just hard not to feel self-blame and despair. So don’t apologize to your husband or retreat from your friends. Instead, let them know you need their support while you work out a way to keep busy, exercise, and resume work.
Once you’ve been screwed, you have to accept that it’s going to be a while before you can get back on your feet. In the meantime, remember that there’s nothing about this experience that makes you a failure. Eventually, there will be much about it that will guide you in better directions, starting with up from under the blankets and off the floor.
STATEMENT:
“I feel shattered, but that’s a natural reaction to a normal-yet-shitty experience. I earned my pain the hard way, by working hard and running into trouble I didn’t cause. I will recover as fast as I can and as well as I can.”
