Posted by fxckfeelings on June 6, 2011
The reason that high school movies will never go out of style is that a large part of our compass of self-definition, the one that tells us whether we’re doing a good job and adjusting satisfactorily, is magnetically driven by the people we see, socialize, and suffer with every day. Thankfully, real life comes with graduation, and, if you’re lucky, the ability to escape the judgment of peers and make your own evaluations. If you really miss high school that much, skip the critical contemporaries and go straight to John Hughes.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m feeling a little lost. For most of my life, I’ve been an excellent student. I made As and Bs with minimal effort. Seriously, I’d just show up to class, take a few notes, and get an A. I didn’t really have to try. It just happened. The past two years, however, it seems like I’ve been sinking further and further into a hole that’s gotten so deep, I can’t even see where I fell in. I have difficulty motivating myself to get out of bed 90% of the time. When I used to be able to pen an excellent paper in a few hours’ time, I find myself now staring at a blank Word document with nothing but a header for weeks. My GPA has plummeted from fantastic (not stellar, but it would’ve done well enough) to abysmal. The only thing keeping me from dropping out of college entirely is the fact that I know I’d have nothing else at all to live for. My family already thinks I’m a failure, because I haven’t graduated yet. The past two years has put me painfully behind schedule. I’m thoroughly unhappy, and I honestly don’t know how the hell to stop it. I need help figuring out what the hell I need to do to get out of this hole.
Pretend you’ve just been told you have a fatal disease. Suddenly, your GPA and the opinions it inspires in your family and friends probably matter a lot less, no?
When you’re in workplaces, families and/or schools, they seem to be the whole universe and your place in them seems to define who you are. The best thing about being cast out, or even just moving on, is that you gain an opportunity to define your worth more independently, in terms of your values and efforts, instead of what people thought of your performance.
Right now, your grades and your family are telling you you’re a failure, but they don’t deserve to have the last word. You have obstacles you can’t control, and you have good qualities not currently recognized in your limited universe.
It’s time to reassess not just what’s wrong, but how it’s wrong, for whom, and how much is really in your power.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 30, 2011
When people are in pain and can’t find a good treatment, they often feel like filing a protest—it’s the adult, less-trivial version of a child pitching a tantrum when their situation becomes too unfair. One way to rebel is to embrace a treatment that feels good but does harm, another is to avoid a treatment that feels bad but might help in the long run. As with a red-faced toddler, you can’t help such a person by supporting their expectations, you can only remind them that life is, in fact, unfair, and that they’d better deal with it as it is, or you’ll have to reassess your relationship/take a time out.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife is a good woman, and she loves our son, but she has a trauma history and when she gets anxious, she gets very negative and loses hope in us, herself, and our future. Antidepressants helped some, but less than we hoped. Two years ago, before our son was born, her psychiatrist showed her that negative thinking was half the problem and urged her to get DBT, a kind of cognitive behavioral therapy that would help her develop positive thinking habits. She didn’t follow through but seemed to be doing well until the other day, when I discovered she’s been drinking secretly since she delivered. She says alcohol is the only drug that helps relieve her anxiety, which has been overwhelming. My goal is to find something else that will help her.
Everyone is entitled to anxiety-relief, a fair life, and a healthy body. Along with that entitlement comes the guarantee that everybody (except for a few lucky jerks) has to pay the price.
At this point, her motto is, to paraphrase the New Hampshire license plate, “live free (from anxiety) or drink.” If it were up to you, she wouldn’t feel this way, but it’s not, and you’ve got to tell her that neither freedom nor booze is an option.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 19, 2011
Lot of people can’t control their own behavior 100% of the time and no one can control anyone else’s behavior, but there’s a big difference between biting your nails and sleeping all day, or between dodging someone’s road rage and watching them starve themselves to death. No matter how bad the behavior or how helpless it makes you feel, knowing that you’re not responsible for a solution can give you the courage to do some good and respect yourself and other control-impaired people, regardless of what happens or how bad it is.
–Dr. Lastname
So you say “fxck feelings” and act on what I can change. How do I sit through a feeling and get to the other side of it without resorting to destructive habits (eating/not getting out of bed/no proper sleep because if I go to bed I will think and feel and remember as I’m falling asleep of all those things that I don’t want to keep remembering and that make me sad) that compound those feelings instead of dull/diffuse them? My goal is to live (emphasis on the word “live”) through a feeling until it goes away or at least becomes akin to white noise, instead of distracting myself away from a feeling with destructive behavior/habits to avoid it until I’ve made it ten times worse.
In one of her short stories, author Lorrie Moore describes two explorers captured by an angry tribe of natives in the jungle. The explorers are offered the chose of “death or Roo Roo,” and the first man choses Roo Roo, which turns out to be lethal torture. The second man then opts for death, so he is killed…by Roo Roo.
What you’re dealing with is a death-or-Roo Roo situation.
You either let depressive sleep impulses drive you to destructive habits that feel better in the short run and hurt you more in the end, or you suck it up until it’s not so bad (or you get distracted by something worse) and even then it’s not great. Alas, it’s a jungle out there.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 9, 2011
Parents get a lot of blame when something goes wrong in their kids’ lives, and a fair share of it is heaped on by those in my industry. The lion’s share, however, comes from parents themselves, and that feeling of responsibility, no matter who assigns it, is great at making things worse. The truth is that parents have little control over their kids’ weaknesses or the fact that life is sometimes hard and painful beyond their powers of protection. Accept this sad truth, and you’ll become a much more effective parent and much less blaming of your spouse and your kid, whether Freud’s disciples admit it or not.
–Dr. Lastname
I still can’t understand why my 15-year-old daughter would purposely overdose. I understand she’s always been an emotional kid and that she hasn’t been happy lately, but my husband and I love her. We’ve always told her we want to hear about any problem she wants to share with us, and she knows it would kill us to lose her. Still, she seems to have no remorse for what her suicide might have done to herself or the rest of the family. My goal is to understand how she could do it and teach her a sense of responsibility so it won’t happen again.
In many ways, a suicide attempt is like a natural disaster; you shouldn’t bother asking why it happened, or what if you had done things differently. Whether you blame global warming or God’s wrath, it won’t change the fact that it happened or that there is at least some chance that it will happen again.
The moment you think you understand the reason, you’ll think you know what she did wrong, or, at least, what she should have done better, and that will just make her feel more like a loser, and more like doing it again. Or you’ll think you know what you or your husband did wrong, which will make you feel like losers and blame one another, and make her feel like doing it again.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 5, 2011
People like to turn to an authority when they’re helpless, and if that helplessness only applied to 911-like situations, there would be no problem. For problems that don’t involve theft or fire but sadness and family, however, authority is useless; sure, doctors like me can give advice, but until medical schools start borrowing from Hogwarts’ curriculum, the best resources you have are your own. The sooner you realize that, the sooner you’ll learn to draw on your own authority to come up with the best possible management plan and execute it with confidence. You are your own best first responder.
–Dr. Lastname
I need to find a doctor who will tell my daughter she needs to take her medication. She’s always had a problem with depression, and she did well in high school when she took antidepressants. Now, however, she’s 24 and very reactive to however she’s feeling, whether it’s not getting out of bed, or not working, or feeling dizzy and deciding it’s the medication and stopping it. My husband and I can’t get her to stick with anything, and she won’t listen to us in any case, so our goal is to get you, or some professional, to tell her what she needs to do.
Whenever parents want a doctor to tell their kid what to do, you can be pretty sure they’ve lost faith in themselves and overestimated the power of communication/a medical degree.
And no, it doesn’t matter how old the kid is or how many Harvard degrees the doctor has; the doctor doesn’t have more power than the parents, no matter how powerless the parents feel.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 2, 2011
As feelings go, love isn’t so problematic—you feel good, you act nicer to others, and if all goes well, it is truly “all you need.” Unfortunately, if you’re not careful, love can easily triggers negative thoughts and actions that lead to a whole heap of trouble and turn love from something fuzzy into “a battlefield.” If you can remember who you are and what you believe in, however, you can take risks on love without losing your sanity, and find something more compatible with reality than pop songs.
–Dr. Lastname
You’ve probably had a disgusting amount of questions like the ones I’m about to put towards you, and that’s another thing that annoys me—I’m a cliché. 17 months ago my boyfriend broke up with me, explaining that he was too young to be in a serious relationship. I know this is perfectly logical but I have never been able to get over it, even though I do understand his point of view. I am still very much in love with him. I know perfectly well that realistically no one really marries their first love, that realistically it wasn’t even a proper adult relationship but I feel as raw today as I did the day it happened. I’ve been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I have regular nightmares about him. Last Easter I attempted suicide yet it failed. I’ve been sent to counseling, but I didn’t like it. I dropped out of university as I was too distracted and there is nothing I can throw myself into to make me forget it. The idea of him with someone else would kill me. I keep thinking to myself, I’m only 21 and I shouldn’t take this so personally and seriously but I do and I have no idea why. I know I need to wise up but I can’t.
Some say love’s like a drug, but we think it’s more like a (sometimes) innocuous mental illness; it doesn’t make you “crazy”—at least not necessarily—but it does give you weird thoughts, sometimes long after the relationship is over.
While those thoughts are hard to stop and easy to believe in, at least they’re not true. Like anxiety and depression, love has a weird way of keeping itself alive by changing the way you think and act, until it changes your beliefs. That’s when you’re in trouble.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 21, 2011
Love without trust is always a painful, combustible combination. If your partner does something to lose your trust, s/he’s got to get lost, no matter how much love remains, and you’ve got to learn your lesson and move on. If you can’t trust someone whose behavior is OK because your trusting feelings just won’t come, then maybe the pain is worse, because there’s nothing to learn and nothing to do. In either case, when the trust goes, acknowledge that you’re not going to get what you want and need to settle for the best possible disaster before everything blows up in your face.
–Dr. Lastname
My partner cheated on me while I was pregnant with our baby, and kept ME the secret. He told lies about me and told people that we were no longer together so that he could openly date the other woman. I’m struggling to stop thinking about it all, and the whole ordeal has triggered a particularly intense bout of depression and self-harm. I have hundreds of questions I feel I need answers to, but my partner is 100% unwilling to discuss the matter, seeing it as “dragging up the past”. My goal is to be able to get through the day without memories of the betrayal and the gossip that surrounded it intruding on my life.
When a guy hides his relationship with you when you’re pregnant, you don’t have hundreds of questions that need answers; you’ve got a few simple, sad, unpleasant answers that need to be accepted.
After all, you’re not doing a PhD in trying to understand him. That’s a waste of time and, like most inquiries into the sad “whys” of this universe, a sneaky way of avoiding acceptance.
You could see it as him not being that into you, but the reality is that he’s not into anyone, at all, except for himself. At this point, the only important question is one you have to ask yourself, and it’s figuring out what’s the right thing for you to do, regardless of what your should-be-ex might think.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 11, 2011
If you watch basic cable, you’ve seen enough shows about bizarre health problems to know there’s someone out there for everyone, willing to put up with anything; from morbid obesity to tree hands to a lack of sex organs, there’s no physical trait so daunting that there isn’t someone out there (usually someone with low expectations) who can’t accept it. It’s always surprising, then, when people with lesser problems, like illness or bad habits, have trouble getting the same level of unconditional support. Of course, acceptance, as hard as it is, doesn’t mean being a doormat. That’s why the payoff of acceptance is becoming stronger, prouder, and more realistic, even if it never airs on basic cable.
–Dr. Lastname
I like my wife, except when she doesn’t take her bipolar medications, which she hates, and then she becomes nasty, irritable, and overbearing. She makes my life miserable, and I worry about her impact on the kids. My goal is to protect the kids and get her to take her medication.
The best way to keep someone from taking their medication is to persistently ask them whether or not they’ve taken their medication.
That’s not to say that leaving the issue alone will insure she takes her meds, either. The point is, if she doesn’t want to take then, she won’t. The second part of the goal is a no-go.
The best you can do is tactfully encourage your wife to look for her own reasons to take medications. Having done that, you can predict whether it’s ever going to happen, and direct your life accordingly.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on March 14, 2011
When someone expects a lot from you, it’s supposed to be a sign of respect; they think you’re capable enough to achieve great things. A lot of the time, however, it’s just a reflection of their false hopes and laziness, because they want you to be able to do everything they can’t do, the generally impossible, the dishes, and everything in between. If you accept their overly-optimistic assumptions, you’ll also share their frustration, guilt, and maybe blame. Don’t start helping before giving careful thought to what’s really possible. Then figure out a positive way to share the bad news…in the most respectful way possible.
–Dr. Lastname
It was just starting to look like my 25-year-old son had found some happiness and confidence when, bang, he had a bad motorcycle accident, broke his leg, lost his contract job because he couldn’t do it, and slipped back into the depression that has dogged him (and the rest of the family) since he was a teenager. He’s a good kid who managed to finish college in spite of dropping out a couple times because of depression, and now, to see him lying around the house, declaring that he’s just another “failure to launch,” is breaking my heart. My goal is to help him feel better about himself and life.
We’ve talked a lot recently about how some people have difficulty getting motivated after a long depression, but when you are depressed, you actually have tremendous motivation…to see your world as being shit.
Depression gives you the power and motivation to refuse to see it any other way. Even when depression isn’t in the cards, it’s hard to convince someone who’s feeling down that they’re wrong.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on March 10, 2011
Families are forever, just like diamonds and herpes, so it’s natural to want to change family relationships when they’re excruciating or failing apart. Everyone assumes that our best tools are communication and understanding; for some reason, we hold to this belief, even as repeated efforts to communicate and understand have made relationships worse. Whether a relationship is supposed to last for years or not, learn to accept it as it is. Then your plans will become more effective, but, like diamonds and herpes still, that relationship will remain hard, and there will be flare-ups.
–Dr. Lastname
My father asked me to write this letter for both of us. I was forced to move into my father’s one-room apartment and live with him after I lost my job and ran out of money (I’m 40). I’m grateful he took me in, and I’m trying to make enough money to get out on my own again. In the meantime, we’re stuck with one another, and we can’t stop fighting. I want him to understand the fact that I can’t help having a terrible temper, being very distractible, and not having the energy to clean things up because I’ve been diagnosed with depression and ADD. He wants me to understand that it’s hard to put up with my being a slob and never cleaning up and that he can’t help getting furious. We both want to put an end to the hostility.
Asking for understanding from your father is a really bad way to try to reduce hostilities, and a really good way to increase them. And no, it’s not opposite day.
Sure, he’s your dad, but let’s dispose of the notion that parent-child relationships are always supposed to be perfect, and can and must be fixed if they’re broken. Just because you share blood doesn’t mean you should share an apartment or that you can expect to get along, if you do.
As for “fixing” your relationship…well, if your father was fixed, you wouldn’t be here, and that would be the best solution to your conflict. Otherwise, you’re his son, but that doesn’t mean you should be able to get along.
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