Posted by fxckfeelings on January 21, 2013
For all the lip service people give to the importance of truth, your average person is willing to work a lot harder to preserve a bullshit notion than admit what’s real, and that’s not just true for college quarterbacks. Depressed people prefer to listen to their rotten emotions telling them a hundred reasons why they’ve failed, no matter how many victories they’ve achieved, and people with bad habits can find a hundred reasons for thinking they had no choice, despite the many avoidable fuck-ups they’ve fucked up. That’s why thinking is better than just believing, so you can follow a simple moral procedure, add up what you’ve actually accomplished given what you do and don’t control, and give yourself good advice, fair judgment, and a break from all the hard work that defending bullshit requires.
–Dr. Lastname
In 2011, I was working two minimum wage jobs seven days a week, trying to cram in a social life while getting over a REALLY bad break up. Eventually, I gave up trying to fix it myself and started going to therapy once a week for 8 months. A year later, I got a better paying job, had free weekends, a new boyfriend, our own flat, an OK social life, BUT I sometimes still feel like it’s 2011 in an emotional sense. I still feel emotionally drained, exhausted, suffer low self-esteem and spend most days trying to not fight with my boyfriend over dishes. I then start feeling bad because I think I am not being grateful for the fact that my life did change for the “better.” I know I suffer from depression– have done since I was about 8 due to having a very abusive father, and long story short, I moved out when I was still in high school (about ten years ago). I thought therapy would help but it seems to have brought other problems to surface. Anyway, my question is, at what point should I stop trying to find happiness and just be happy and what does that even mean? Everyday is very different– one day I feel like buying a one way ticket to anywhere that will have me & leave everyone and everything I have behind, and then the next day I am dancing around the house feeling like I won the lottery. It’s starting to drive my boyfriend crazy but he tries to accept me as I am. So extreme are two days that I am not sure I know how I feel anymore about anything. My goal in 2013 is to stop getting upset/stressing about things that do not help my situation and to learn to relax more and enjoy just being. How do I achieve this seemingly easy task but which to me seems like a very very difficult algebra problem?
While many Christians ask themselves “What Would Jesus Do?,” we often ask our readers to ask themselves “What Would A Friend Say?” While Jesus’s imagined answers are often similar, it’s hard to imagine going out to a bar with Jesus after work and kvetching about your life, so “Friend” seems to work better.
That said, if you told a friend about your struggles—depression, irritability, past-trauma—they would tell you that they’re sorry you’re hurting, but that it’s worth taking time to appreciate all you’ve accomplished, despite what you’ve gone through. Like Jesus, they would not judge. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 17, 2013
It’s often been said that if you want to make god laugh, make a plan, but this is not the case for people dealing with mental illness, mostly because of all the pain you have to accept before you even get to the plan-making stage. If you ignore that pain, you’re a dumb ostrich who will make an avoidant plan, but if you focus too much on it, you develop a ruminative plan and become your problem. So brace yourself for unavoidable pain, prepare to do two things at once, and plan away. Then your choices will take you as close as possible to where you want to be, and your plan, or at least your ability to make one, will make any higher power proud.
–Dr. Lastname
I have a big problem getting myself to study. I do things late and then don’t get good grades, or I don’t get anything done, or I stop somewhere in the middle. I guess I have a problem with concentration and also with laziness. I’ve also done this thing since I was a little child where I turn on music, I sit on a couch or my bed and rock myself, hitting my back towards the backrest of the couch, sometimes it takes hours, sometimes it’s quite quick, like half an hour. I also have quite low self-esteem, not sure what is the reason…I am trying to overcome it somehow but it always gets to me again and I have to deal with it and then I have these days like I do not want to get up—I can’t think of a reason to, and I do not want to go anywhere and I am scared of everything. Sometimes I feel like people are watching me and criticizing me and I don’t want to go to the market because I don’t want to deal with anyone. Sometimes I eat a lot because I am in that crazy mood and I feel bad about it, not because I’ll gain weight (maybe a little bit) but especially because of my health… I criticize myself a lot. I write something or say something and in a while I hate it even if the first impression about it was really good. So… I might be a little bit screwed up I guess… I would be thankful for some opinion or advice what to do with all this.
You’ve certainly got a ton of problems, including trouble concentrating, studying, getting up in the morning, keeping your weight under control, dealing with paranoid thoughts, etc. (but hopefully not memory, because I’d have to think there are even more issues you forgot and left out).
The big question to ask yourself, however, is not what’s wrong with you and to count all the ways, but what you’ve done with your life in spite of these problems. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 14, 2013
When people judge success or failure by the ensuing level of happiness, good guys blame themselves for things they don’t control and bad guys blame everyone else for their own mistakes. Instead of putting your accomplishments on a feelings-based scale, think carefully about what you really can and should control, given your values. That way, no matter if you’re a good guy dealing with bad luck or a jerk who assumes he’s a victim, you can at least feel happy about doing what’s right.
–Dr. Lastname
I wish there was something I could do for my older son (now about 30), but he’s never been happy and I’ve gradually got used to the idea that maybe he never will be, although I’m not sure I’ll ever not feel bad about it. He’s got a job and takes care of himself but, unlike his younger brother, he doesn’t have a girlfriend or a job that he likes. My own belief, and I’ve lived by it myself, is that everyone should at least find work that they like, and then it’s not hard to be happy, but he doesn’t seem close to finding work he likes, and he doesn’t seem to be trying. So I doubt there’s anything I can do to help him, but I thought I’d ask you anyway, because, as his mother, I’ll never feel I’ve succeeded until he finds happiness.
There’s nothing that warms a mother’s heart more than to see her kid smile, but you should also know, by the many good, well-parented, miserable adults in this world, that a good upbringing can’t stop someone from being downbeat.
Your son’s tendency towards misery is not more your fault that it is his; it’s a tough world, genetics has no mercy, and bad things happen. Don’t make those bad things worse then by making him responsible for his inability to get happy and causing you both to feel like losers.
It’s common to believe that one can be happy if they find work that they like, but, like taking good care of yourself, eating right, having regular bowel movements, and most other common sense keys to happiness, that belief is largely bullshit. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 10, 2013
Deciding whom to blame for a problem you can’t get a handle on is easy if you follow your instincts, but instincts should also tell you that a decision made based on intuition instead of thought is probably wrong. In reality, you need to look carefully at whether a person is doing his or her best with what’s actually controllable before deciding whether what’s missing is better discipline or better luck. Ignore your instincts, assess the uncontrollable and you’ll come up with helpful and constructive ideas by looking for facts, not blame.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in college, and my problem is that I have ADD and even when I’m on Ritalin, I get distracted very easily if something about a course is hard to understand. Then I wind up fucking around, doing other things, spending too much time with my boyfriend, and falling behind. After two or three weeks, it’s too hard to catch up and I don’t want anyone to know, so I stop going to class. A few weeks after that, there’s nothing to do but drop the course, which makes me feel like a loser. I had the same problem in high school, but I’ve never found a drug or dose that’s made the problem better. My goal is to find a better medication or a way to try harder so that I don’t get behind in the first place.
There’s no doubt ADD is your problem, but another problem lots of people with ADD develop over the years of experiencing learning as a painful, humiliating process is avoidance. It came from your ADD, but it’s its own problem, and not the kind they make pills for.
A lot of people with ADD get good at lying to themselves and others about what they’re failing to do and what the consequences are going to be. It started as a coping mechanism, but it’s developed into a pain in the ass. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 3, 2013
Any number of sources, from teachers to parents to inspirational posters featuring wolves, teach us that we should be able to achieve our goals by working harder and feel great when those goals are achieved. Unfortunately, mental illness often trumps these expectations by making it impossible to do certain kinds of work or enjoy the non-working hours that should bring happiness. So, if you’ve got good evidence that mental illness has altered your capacities, despite good treatment, it’s time to change your teachers/parents/wolves’ assumptions about high performance and happiness and identify the other things that matter more.
–Dr. Lastname
My daughter suffers from bipolar disorder, and while I admire her determination to finish college and want to support her confidence, I know that she hasn’t been able to read more than a chapter or two since her illness started 10 years ago. She does fine on courses that don’t require much reading, as long she takes one at a time. Otherwise, she melts down– she can’t do the work, withdraws, stops attending classes, and looks more symptomatic for a month or so until she recovers. My goal is to build her confidence and help her overcome the stigma of having mental illness.
People often think that the measure of recovery after a disabling illness is how much normal function you get back, but when you’re dealing with an incurable illness, “normal” and “recovery” are defined differently.
Pushing yourself harder to meet the old standard under your new set of circumstances is an effective way of meeting your goals, but only if those goals involve making yourself feel like a loser for not being able to accomplish something that’s practically impossible.
True recovery means doing your best to live up to your values, regardless of how well your equipment is working; performance is the means, not the end. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 13, 2012
Given how little we control our own urges, it’s not surprising that we also have trouble controlling our reactions to them, but it is odd how often those reactions are totally wrong. Brains have a pretty good track record with instincts; get thirsty when hot, get sleep when tired, get away when near snakes, etc. When people get urges that are humiliating, however, even when they’re doing a good job of controlling them, they wrongly blame themselves, but when they get controlled by noble urges, even when they’re causing terrible harm, they give themselves a pass. So, however much you love or hate your urges, don’t give yourself a hard time about stigma or anti-stigma. Instead, remember your own moral priorities and ask yourself whether you’re doing the right thing with whatever urges, pretty or ugly, that you got, and to avoid snakes.
–Dr. Lastname
I have yo yo’d with my weight for ever—I was 8 years old when I remember going on my first diet, and I had binged by lunch time. I have seen a psychologist regularly in the past and a psychiatrist more recently, and been diagnosed with a binge eating disorder as well as melancholic depression. I also have a history of being sexually abused when I was a child and required hospitalization once for an attempted suicide (prior to diagnosis) and have been on various anti-depressants. Last year I decided to press charges against my abuser and the investigation is still taking place. This was very big for me as previously I couldn’t speak about or put into words to anybody what had happened to me, but with the professional help over years, could make a police statement. I have managed to get into a healthy weight range many times in the past, but only when on a program like Jenny Craig or weight watchers, and I resent having to do these programs and can’t commit to them after I have done them once, but I can’t seem to stay in this healthy way of life on my own. I am either losing weight or putting weight on– my thought are always around food, what when and where I can eat next. I hide most of my eating from everyone including my husband. I feel like a drug addict and don’t know how to take control of my eating. I do really well in my career and other areas of my life, I just can’t flip this switch that turns me into a zombie when I want to eat. I read everything I can about these disorders, I talk about strategies with my mental health professional, but when the urge to eat takes over I go into a zone that I can’t switch myself out of. How can I stop this pattern?
Having an eating disorder is rough, but it’s even worse if you give yourself a disorder about your disorder, giving yourself a hard time for having a hard time. It’s especially unnecessary given the fact that it’s harder to find someone with complete control over unhealthy food impulses than it is to find a unicorn.
Almost everyone has trouble controlling eating habits, as evidenced, not just by the multi-billion dollar industry devoted to weight management (which, as you’ve discovered, is no silver bullet), but by the fact that very few people get permanent weight control without surgery. In reality, of course, as much as we try to control our weight, more often, it controls us. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 29, 2012
Whether traumatic or dynamic, having an early and/or intense sexual experience can make you worry that your ability to have solid adult relationships will be damaged. While sexual trauma can make intimacy scary, and sexual overstimulation can distract you from it, there are ways to move past your past. If you have a clear vision of partnership and the discipline to implement it, sexual feelings need never control your life. You may never stop them from causing pain and distraction, but they can never stop you from finding and being a good partner moving forward.
–Dr. Lastname
I recently had a severe panic attack that lead me to believing I was molested as a young child. From what I know, I lost my virginity to a man in his 20s when I was 13 years old, or in 7th grade. After visiting with some old friends, I brought up an event which had happened when we were 13 years old that involved men in their late 20s or older, alcohol, and oral sex. She was horrified I brought it up, but to me, it was something that was part of my life, but after heading home that night, I began to think that maybe it wasn’t so normal for young girls to be having sex and that’s when my panic attack sunk in. For some background, I was “raised” by a 15-year-old mother who I believe loved me, but was at times, emotionally abusive and manipulative, and often times neglectful as she also had three other children after me. My father was also very young and inconsistent, I often went months without hearing from him and longer not seeing him. Anyways, eventually I lost my virginity to a man in his 20s which lead to years of promiscuity with much older men. My brother is now in his 20s and I try to gain perspective by mentally placing him next to what I perceive as a 13-14 year old, but I really can’t process the age difference. I don’t necessarily feel like a victim because I felt like such a willing participant, but lately, I’ve had this deep terrifying feeling that this sexual history goes back much further than I can remember. Although I can’t figure out what happened to me as a child, I do have these “flashbacks” that sometimes make no sense and I can’t seem to place them on a timeline, but my mind will immediately discard them and a sense of panic will set in. My goal is to come to terms with my history so I can start processing and begin to heal.
Being forced by a chance perspective to reexamine your basic assumptions about your childhood—whom you could trust, how safe you really were—can create a domino effect of doubt.
You’re now compelled to call your entire sexual history into question and wonder whether anxiety and flashbacks are side effects of the shock, or legitimate signals of unremembered sexual trauma. Between what you do remember and your lack of parental protection as a child, it could mean that you were sexually abused.
It’s never certain, however, that recalling such an experience in therapy can produce healing, and there’s a danger that delving into childhood trauma may make you feel more helpless and trap you in loops of negative thinking that keep the dominoes of doubt in perpetual free-fall. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 19, 2012
Normally, whoever breaks a marriage vow has first dibs on feeling guilty, but divorce, like marriage itself, is often a team effort. Often, what actually drives you away from a committed relationship isn’t restlessness or lust, but a deep and unavoidable flaw in the relationship itself. Once you confirm that such a flaw exists, don’t blame yourself for having mixed feelings; although good reasons probably remain for staying as well as going, give yourself a valid choice instead of accepting the guilt and taking one for the team.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: The next post will be next Monday, 11/26, since we’re taking time off for American Thanksgiving. We look forward to addressing your crises then.
I’ve made a mess of my marriage by cheating on my husband, and I know it. I wish I could stop, but sometimes I also wish I hadn’t let him talk me into marrying him—I tried to call it off, but he got suicidal, so I felt I had no choice. Still, it wasn’t an awful decision…he’s a good guy, we have great kids and a nice home. But I still find myself wanting to cheat, even though it causes him pain, I can’t seem to stop having occasional flings. These guys don’t really mean anything to me, but I’ve got to stop hurting my family. My goal is to stop.
You might not have a great marriage, but, like a sports team or boy band, a marriage is only as strong as its weakest member. That’s why trades exist, Justin Timberlake went solo, and the mirror is the first place to look if you’re searching for the source of your marital issues.
At this point, the burden of trying to be a good wife drives you into a bad habit that you’re ashamed of, so the worse you feel, the worse your bad habit gets. From a therapist’s point of view, it’s a gift that keeps on giving, but from your point of view, it’s a trap.
If you really want to break the cycle, your first job is clearing your head long enough to figure out whether you really want this marriage or not, challenging the idea that you’re at fault for its failure. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 8, 2012
Although stopping long-term intensive psychotherapy can leave you in a state of mourning and fear, particularly if it occurs during tough times or against your wishes, it’s unrealistic to expect that returning to therapy will make everything right again. Instead, give yourself time to adjust to change and reassess your ability to stay functional and positive. Then, if you think it’s necessary, find a therapist who’s a good, supportive coach and use him or her for a different kind of therapy that keeps your head straight without stirring up your deeper feelings. If you’re certain that you have to be “in therapy” to get helpful support and are helpless without it, then the therapy you’re in is helping you a lot less than you think.
–Dr. Lastname
In my early 20s I spent 4 years in therapy (which I think in and of itself says a whole lot about the not good place I was in my head). Therapy ended, not because I was ready, but because I moved. I am now 46, and in the years since I continued to work through a lot of things on my own, with my therapist’s voice in my head, if no longer in actual therapy sessions. In January my grandmother took a turn for the worse, with both health and cognition, and we had to place her in full nursing care. She has always been one of the most influential and positive forces in my life, so I had a hard time dealing with this. It sent me spiraling down into my 4th lifetime episode of depression. I’ve started back on Prozac, which I now realize I need to stay on for the rest of my life to try to prevent future recurrences, and I’ve spent the last 10 months in therapy with my former therapist via phone sessions as we now live 1,000 miles apart. I have finished working through a lot of stuff in that time, meaning I’ve changed my attitudes and perceptions and behaviors, which has changed my life, inner and outer. I wish I’d figured it out 25 years ago, during that first round of therapy, but better late than never. It’s been a hard year. My grandmother died 7 weeks ago. The grief hit me more than I ever imagined. I thought I’d prepared in those months when she was slowly dying, but I was wrong. What is the saying—Where there is no struggle, there is no strength? Good growth has come of the pain—I have returned to college, and I am training for my first full marathon in January. I am at a truly good place in my head and was ready to end therapy, so two weeks ago, with my therapist’s blessing, I had my last session. I knew, though, that ending therapy because I am truly ready is a celebration, but that it would also be a loss. It is currently hitting me harder than I imagined. How do I get through this and find a place of healthy acceptance of this transition?
While it’s unfortunate that stopping intensive psychotherapy after many years is hitting you hard, it’s not surprising. As you well know, loss is painful, be it the death of a loved one or the end of a source of support.
That said, your pain doesn’t mean your psychotherapy has been less complete than you thought or that you stopped it too soon, just that you can be a solid, resilient person and also be very sensitive to loss, both because of temperament and circumstances. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 18, 2012
Assessing one’s self-esteem is like checking for Puxatony Phil’s shadow on Groundhog Day; while we have a long tradition of caring about its status, the results are fairly meaningless. After all, some people with strong characters don’t like themselves because they don’t measure up to high standards, and other people are madder at life’s unfairness than they are at themselves and underperform, not because they don’t like themselves, but because they care more about feeling good than getting strong. And of course, sometimes, it’s just cloudy. In general, it’s better to have a strong character, even if makes you kick yourself, than to see yourself as a deserving, entitled victim in order to break out of the rut of bad decisions and get out of Puxatony once and for all.
–Dr. Lastname
My 14-year-old son seems to care about his schoolwork but he’s unusually stubborn (the psychiatrist says he has Asperger’s syndrome) and he never does his schoolwork the way his teachers want him to. When they ask him to show his work in Math, he refuses, but he often gets the answers right anyway, just without any proof. When they ask him to do a draft of an essay, he just won’t do it, but then the final version he writes at the last minute is fairly reasonable. My son always feels guilty and angry, both for not being understood and not being able to do it correctly, and I’m worried that they’re not teaching him right, in a way that caters to his specific needs. My goal is to get them to give him better help.
You’ve been trying for many years to get your son to show his Math work and finish his preliminary drafts on time, and it just doesn’t happen. He’s had many teachers work with him and no one has found the answer. You’ve made an effort, and after showing your work, it’s fair to conclude “the answer” doesn’t exist.
In addition, telling teachers they need to improve is bound to make things worse since they already have the government telling them they’re responsible for their class’ performance, regardless of what those kids and their families are like. Holding them accountable for not getting results—the “show your work” of the teaching world—isn’t quite fair since you know it’s an impossible job.
Once you add your own personal “no child left behind” intervention, don’t be surprised if the teachers start to find fault with both you and your son in order to defray blame. Whatever happens next, it won’t involve praise or more positive results for anyone. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
