Posted by fxckfeelings on January 22, 2015
If there was an ancient koan about self-destructive people, it would probably question whether the constant screw-ups are caused by making crazy decisions, or failing to make good ones (and maybe a leaf and stream would be involved). Unfortunately, some actively self-destructive people are the way they are, and some passive failures just can’t be who they should be. So, if you’re perplexed by someone who can’t do right or can’t avoid doing wrong, don’t assume you can help or that they can help themselves. Take a careful look at their ability to accept help and do better before deciding whether help is possible, blame deserved, and certain riddles (and people) would best be left alone.
–Dr. Lastname
My sister has always had a lot of struggles in her life, starting from when she came out at a young age and lost our mother soon after. My dad has given her a lot of support financially over the years and continues to do so, even though she’s got a partner (male) and a baby whom we all adore and look after any chance we get. Here is where the rest of the family and I are starting to get concerned; ever since my niece was born, my sister smokes pot daily with the baby right beside her, and recently she’s been making some rash decisions: breaking up with her partner who loves her and supports her; dating a woman with a history of being unstable and bringing her to their house; and planning to move out although she has no job/income. The whole situation is starting to take its toll on my aging dad (who is very involved in the care of her child) as well as the rest of the family, and if anyone tries to broach our concerns with her she explodes into a rage. Ultimately I think the root of the problem is the pot addiction (maybe combined with the anti-depressants), her unwillingness to quit smoking, and the fact that our nephew is affected. We are all at a loss as to what to do and how to approach it for fear of alienating her and thus our nephew, but we need to set some boundaries around our support for her. Or, do we stay out and let her live her life, meanwhile watching how it affects our nephew and divides the family? Our goal is to figure out how to offer help without getting cut off and heartbroken.
Unfortunately, you’re right in assuming that your sister will probably respond negatively to any limits you place on her. In short, if you imply that she’s fucking up her life, she’ll say fuck you, but with you and your family cut off, your niece will be extra fucked over.
The key to not making things worse as you try to help is remembering that some people are just like that and can’t be rescued. You can be sure that your sister’s messing up her life because she’s designed to do just that; she’s a human wrecking ball, but nobody’s at the controls. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 19, 2015
Strong feelings, like sports victories and financial losses, often seem inherently important and noteworthy, but, in reality, they mean very little taken out of context. Sometimes you feel something strongly just because you’re especially touchy (or don’t feel that much because you’re comfortable and momentarily undisturbed), so, as with an extra-inning win for a team that’s already been eliminated or a million dollar loss to a billionaire, it’s a small blip in the bigger picture. Don’t then jump to conclusions about your strong feelings, or their absence, until you’ve considered what you’re after and what you consider most important. Then you’ll know whether your feelings are a big deal or a bunch of nothing.
–Dr. Lastname
Let me preface this by saying that I am seeing a psychiatrist and on two medications, yet I continue to struggle with depression, as well as multiple sclerosis (MS). My problem though involves my husband, who has been my rock. When I met him, he was a hunk. We created two gorgeous children thanks to his gene pool; I often think that if I didn’t carry them people wouldn’t believe they were mine! He is a stand-up guy who comes from a great loving family, does the laundry, buys the groceries and cooks when I can’t— he even makes the coffee every the morning. I absolutely love my husband, but…am I still in love with him? I know that he’s great, and the sex isn’t bad, but I’ve just lost that loving feeling, as the saying goes. My goal, I guess, is to get that loving feeling back.
Many feelings—loving, hating, hurting, etc.—are sometimes experienced more intensely by people with MS because of subtle changes in the brain. It can act like a magnifying glass, blowing up your every emotion and, in some cases, leaving a burn.
In your case, your love for your husband hasn’t intensified, but your need to feel in love with your husband, and awareness that you aren’t as intensely in love as you once were, have become overpowering. And having strong feelings about weak feelings can feel like a strong force striking your brain.
Luckily, there’s no reason you can or should change your feelings. What you should do, however, is question their importance when compared with your values, sense of the alternatives, and the possible influence of your illness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 5, 2015
We’ve written many times about the way mental health professionals especially tend to be either demonized or canonized; nobody expects their dentist to fix their lives or thinks their accountant is a monster and a fraud when s/he’s not perfect, but these are the expectations for those who deal in problems that are frightening and poorly understood, like mental illness. People would like to think therapists can provide control, but they’d also like to think the problem will go away by itself if you return to your usual routine. If you can accept the fact that some problems can’t be solved, however, and that the influence of professionals is always limited, you’ll be ready to learn everything you need to know and become your own expert on tough problems, imperfect professionals, and, if you’ve got the time, your own taxes.
–Dr. Lastname
My fifteen-year-old son does poorly in school whenever he gets depressed, which is fairly often, but his current school’s counseling staff is totally worthless—they haven’t just failed to help him, but so many students that their ineptitude is an open secret amongst parents and teachers—so I’m worried that they won’t do much for him once the depression starts and his grades slip. My goal is to figure out what to do to get his school to provide the counseling services he (and other kids) deserve.
If counseling were a reliably good treatment for depression and was available exclusively through schools, then you’d have a worthwhile fight on your hands. The movie version would win awards and you’d get your face on a dollar coin.
Unfortunately for your Oscar dreams, but fortunately for your son, the stakes for your battle aren’t nearly that high.
In reality, the help that almost all counseling provides is limited, and may have less to offer now that you and your son are knowledgeable about depression and can talk to one another about it. Your school’s counseling staff may be especially weak, but their legendary ineptitude need not get in your son’s way. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 22, 2014
Freaking out is good for your health in the moment if you’re facing a lion, zombie, or Beyonce, but if the moment passes and the freak-out doesn’t, then you’ve got problems. Some people then freak out about freaking out and see nothing but dark clouds sweeping in, while others shut the world out entirely and create a darkness of their own. In either case, if you don’t want fear to run your life, learn to assess your real risks and actual strengths. Then you can face anything from scary thoughts to American royalty without freaking out too much and feeling like your life is over.
–Dr. Lastname
Over the last few years, my panic attacks have been getting worse and nothing seems to work. So far, I’ve been able to hold it together and do my job, but I often have to hide in the bathroom for short periods in order to catch my breath and talk myself off the ledge. Valium helps a bit, but I have to be careful not to take it regularly or I’ll get addicted, which I’m very frightened of happening because addiction runs in my family. Other medication hasn’t helped, nor have changes to my diet and exercise routine, so I’m getting scared and desperate. My goal is to find a psychiatrist who can help me before anxiety ruins my life.
When you’re prone to experiencing random episodes of intense, meaningless fear that make your heart race, your throat close up, and your brain tell you the world is ending, it’s hard to be optimistic. They don’t call them panic attacks because they make you freak out about how great your future will be.
On top of that, panic attacks have no cure and, as you get older, anxiety tends to get worse. So, while it’s not surprising if you see the light at the end of the tunnel as either a train, a laser cannon, or the fires of hell itself, you have good reason for hope. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 18, 2014
The human mind is capable of many complex, inscrutable functions, but when it comes to hopeless situations, they’re processed by a part of our brains that hasn’t evolved since we had tails. That’s why, in those moments, our instincts tend to go one of two stupid ways: either you deduce that nothing’s working and never will, or that nothing’s working but definitely will if you try the opposite of whatever you’re doing now. Thus does our lizard brain control our response to foreign policy, midterm elections, and alcoholism. Better to force some human-level reasoning to what’s rarely an either/or situation and respect what you’re able to accomplish with what you control. When your instincts tell you to give up is when you know you need to give a situation more thought.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m an alcoholic (with twenty years of sobriety), so when it became clear my daughter also had the disease, I tried to stay focused on doing my best to help her and not start freaking out and blaming her or myself. I think I did OK because my daughter is trying to stay sober and goes to meetings every day (I know, because she’s living at home now), but every eight weeks or so she stops going and, a couple days later, she’s drinking again. We then have a talk and she gets back on the wagon, but it wears me out and I’m losing hope. My goal is to figure out how we can get out of this rut without something horrible happening first.
It’s tough to see your daughter with an illness you know so much about and yet couldn’t prevent; given the season, you must feel like her ghost of Christmas future, if Christmas was less about Jesus and more about just drinking a lot.
On the other hand, it also sounds like you bring a great deal of knowledge and wisdom to the job of helping her. You don’t get outraged when she slips, and, perhaps as a result, she recovers her sobriety pretty quickly. Then, you manage to keep from losing it when she loses her sobriety all over again. At least until now. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 10, 2014
If illness is a painful condition that you don’t choose to bring on yourself, then being an Asshole™ is probably an illness, at least for those born with bad tempers, quick impulses, and no ability to see consequences ahead of time. Depression definitely is an illness, and one that often tricks the sufferer into believing he’s an Asshole™, even though real Asshole™s are incapable of self-awareness. Either way, Assholes™ usually blame others for what’s happening to them, whereas depressed people blame themselves, and neither group can get anywhere unless they can see their problem as a condition, rather than a fault. Then they can take responsibility for managing it without blaming themselves or others; a tall order for Asshole™s, a challenging one for depressives, but a worthy move for anyone.
–Dr. Lastname
I think my husband is sick, but he thinks he’s normal. After the last time he got drunk and threw things, he got carted away by the police and hospitalized, but he says the doctors at the psych hospital didn’t think he was depressed and there was nothing they could do to help him. He doesn’t drink every night, and he never hits anyone, but he can be a mean drunk. Even when he’s not drunk, he’s prone to quarrel with authorities, whether it’s a cop giving him a ticket or a waiter. I never know when his evil side will come out, and his mother told me he always had a wicked temper. My goal is to persuade him or his doctors that he has an illness and needs help, before he gets into major trouble.
All too often, either out of fear, denial, or both, people refuse to see symptoms of mental illness for what they are. If someone has wild mood swings, it just means she has an artistic temperament, and crippling phobias means he’s nervous, and hallucinating makes her fun at parties.
Sometimes, however, bad or self-destructive behavior has nothing to do with mental illness, or at least not the kind a doctor can do much about. A lawyer, maybe. Or an exorcist.
Two things might be wrong with your husband, both of which are not his fault, but they differ in the amount of responsibility he can or should take for managing them. It all depends on whether his anger is a symptom of illness, or a sucky part of his personality. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 6, 2014
The sad irony behind most stupid decisions is how much careful, intelligent thinking goes into convincing ourselves that the moronic, often-fearful choice we’re about to make is somehow the right thing to do. This is never truer than when it comes to relationships, when we can talk ourselves out of the game entirely or into a commitment that we’re bound to lose. So don’t waste needed brainpower to substantiate the feelings that tell you whether you should start going out or finish by tying the knot. Look at your basic abilities, decide to do what’s meaningful, and you’ll wind up making the smart choice.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m pretty good at being an independent lady but I do get lonely sometimes. I’ve thought of making more of an effort to date, but I’m not in great shape right now—I messed up my foot last year, so I went from not-thin to just fat—and it really bothers me that I haven’t take good care of myself and lost the weight when it’s really my responsibility. I feel I can’t expect to get together with a healthy guy if I’m not healthy myself, because I can’t get someone to love me if I don’t love myself, and it’s visibly obvious that I don’t. My goal is to figure out a way to get healthy so I can start dating without shame.
If your main concern is showing the world you take care of yourself, then being an Asshole to yourself is not a great way to start.
Taking care of yourself means being a good friend to yourself, and right now, you’re being the kind of friend who’s in high school, evil, and telling you, for your own good, that you’re like The Even Biggest Loser. You could do better in high school, and you can do better by yourself now.
After all, your basic values about mutual respect don’t depend on health, but on character. So, unless you’re about to bungee jump or enter a crowded elevator, don’t pay attention to any so-called weight requirement. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 3, 2014
Sometimes anxiety and depression are not illnesses, though they may feel like it; they’re part of every human’s normal alarm system, warning you that something painful or soon-to-be-dangerous needs your attention. When anxiety and depression randomly tell you that the world sucks, however, that’s when you cross the line from normal to unnecessary, requiring attention. Either way, never rush to discount what anxiety and depression have to tell you about the world, but never believe them until you’ve assessed the alarm and reached your own conclusion.
–Dr. Lastname
My anxiety has been better lately, but it kicked up last weekend after my roommate’s friends broke a window in our apartment while they were tossing around a football. My roommate’s a nice guy, but he doesn’t want to pay for the window because he says the landlord doesn’t take good care of our apartment in a bunch of other ways. Now I’m starting to worry about what will happen when the landlord sees the damage and whether it will come out of my security deposit, which seems unfair, since I wasn’t even here. Anyway, my goal is to figure out whether I should up my medication because the stress from this whole thing is really hard to take.
Anxiety, like tiredness or anger, isn’t inherently problematic; if we never felt these things, it would be a big problem, and a probable sign of drug use, lobotomy, or being dead.
The issue, of course, comes with feeling anxious too much, or tired all the time, or angry at trees for being lazy. The current anxiety you’re feeling is the regular kind; it’s your response to your roommate’s actions that need rethinking. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 20, 2014
In this day and age, it’s almost impossible not to know what Attention Deficit Disorder is (or to not have a direct connection to someone who has it, or to not have an opinion on it, just because). On the other hand, very few people are aware of Attention Surfeit Disorder, which is when people habitually get so perfectly focused on the problems that grab them that they can’t see why anything else matters, even if it’s a looming disaster. Whether you can’t focus on any one thing or focus far too much on one thing exactly, be aware that our brains have different ways of focusing, and that each has its own strength and weakness. Then, whether you have a fun diagnosis or not, you’ll be better at managing your priorities instead of following whatever captures your attention.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m curious to your thoughts on subclinical anorexia. I was (voluntarily) hospitalized with anorexia nervosa last year. Since then I’ve managed to keep my weight out of the danger zone, but not up to where my physicians would like it. Honestly, I don’t see the point. Even at my lowest weight I completed an MPH at Hopkins (my third post-graduate degree), I’m in the “healthy” BMI range, technically, and I hold a full time job in addition to teaching science at a local University two nights a week. Who the hell cares if I don’t hit my target weight? My goal is to continue to achieve excellence without worrying too much about what doctors tell me about my weight.
When you focus too much on perfection in one particular aspect of your life, be it in terms of appearance or professional achievement, it’s like searching for a house based on the quality of the faucets; you become so fixated on the gleaming chrome that you don’t notice the lack of square footage, light, or even plumbing.
Obsessional, single-minded focus is always unhealthy when it gets you to disregard whatever else is truly important in your life, like your health and friendships. You tell yourself it’s good to work harder to make yourself better…while losing track of the fact that what you’re sacrificing is worth more than the excellence you’re driven to achieve. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 9, 2014
Fear, like high school and colonoscopies, is an uncomfortable-yet-necessary part of life. Problems arise, however, when fear either becomes excessive, thus limiting our life experiences, or insufficient, thus opening us up to dangerous experiences that could end our lives entirely. If your fear level is set too high or too low, draw on your experience and values to decide what actions are necessary, then manage your fear accordingly. You may not be able to change your fear level or the amount of dis/comfort it entails, but you can definitely prevent fear from changing your life for the worse.
–Dr. Lastname
I am very afraid of presenting in front of the class. I start to shake and stutter and it really happens automatically and I can’t do anything about it. Even when I don’t have to present, I always feel nervous and shy. I’m actually very afraid to talk to someone at my school even if it’s another student. Do you have any advice I can use? My goal is to be able to talk to people and stand up in from of the class without looking like an idiot.
Talking to people, especially in school, is more dangerous than most people think; one false word, sneeze, or pop culture reference, and before you know it, you’re saddled with a humiliating (possibly sneeze-related) nickname for the rest of your life or an open invitation to get your ass kicked. So, when your brain floods you with nervousness whenever you try to speak up, it’s actually trying to protect you from a dangerous activity.
Unfortunately, that fear may make you shake and stutter, thus attracting humiliation, thus proving your brain is right and making you terrified to open your mouth again, etc., perpetuating the safety/silence cycle.
You haven’t done anything wrong to make yourself nervous; you are just extra sensitive to the risks of embarrassment and rejection in school life, and you may have good reason. Unfortunately, though, it isn’t easy to make severe nervousness go away, and if you avoid class presentations and social contacts until you start to feel better, you may not learn much or talk to anyone for a long time. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
