Posted by fxckfeelings on December 29, 2011
Being thoughtful is good, but being thoughtful to the point of painful obsession is having OCD, with fearful thoughts that stick in your brain and won’t go away unless you do something sort-of-magical and sort-of-stupid that gives you a moment of relief (before your fears start again). The good news is that it happens to good people who learn how to manage and live with it, which can happen much more easily if you can abandon the worst obsession of all—finding a way to cure the OCD altogether.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: Monday is also a fxckfeelings.com holiday. Happy New Year (and again, if/when it’s unhappy, you know the drill).
I’m a current student and I’ve sort of self-diagnosed myself as having an unusual kind of OCD. It started out four years ago when I was studying for an upcoming major exam. I had always been one of the few top students, but at one point in time in the midst of hours of straight studying, I couldn’t absorb any more info, and in a fit of frustration, a ball of emotions welled up and I actually said harshly in my mind to myself, “you shall FAIL!”, even though I’ve always tried to avoid such negative thinking. What came next was an unshakable, unexplainable, and annoying-yet-scary series of feelings, thoughts and emotions for the next few days and weeks. After that episode, I developed an irrational apprehension about me having “ruined” myself and my academic ability. To get myself back to my normal, anxiety-free mind when studying or doing anything related to studies, I imagined “transferring” the whole chunk of this mental mess on other stuff, whether it is the faces of people who did badly in academics in my field, to those I don’t like, etc. Still, my mind would automatically be inclined to have these random obsessions appear in my mind while studying, and it’s really prevented me from fully unleashing my full academic ability in subsequent grades. I really felt restrained and trapped by this, and my goal is to eliminate this strong-rooted (it’s been 4 years) mental condition that happens whenever I study and then makes it almost impossible.
Some OCD thoughts are crippling but come out of nowhere, like fear of contamination or making a mistake. While they often lead to compulsive rituals, like repeated hand-washing and fact-checking, you manage to keep studying. So, while you’re suffering, you’re still lucky.
The fact that your obsessive fears are tied to school may make them easier to deal with, because, unlike germs, school (usually) doesn’t go on forever.
School is built on mental constructs that attract obsessions like lint to a dryer vent; it’s got grades, grade-points, and exams that hinge on a word or the instructor’s interpretation of same. It invites obsession and obsessive argument, which can be torture, but at least it has an end date. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 19, 2011
When grown kids need permanent parental support, it’s hard for those parents to feel like they’ve succeeded. Every parent worries that they’re not doing enough for their kids, but for those who have adult kids with problems, that worry is amplified by anxiety and guilt. They can take over management, however, by assessing their responsibilities rationally and keeping their worries in check. It’s not healthy to care for and protect your children too much, but the only parents that fail are the ones that don’t care enough.
–Dr. Lastname
Helping my daughter pay the rent on a bigger apartment seems to have lifted her out of her depression and she’s much more active at her job, but she’s still not making enough money and I’m running out of cash. If I tell her that she has to take a roommate, I’m afraid she’ll just crawl under the covers again and we’ll be back where we started. It shouldn’t be that hard for her to make enough money, but it is. I’m mad and I’m stuck. My goal is to get her to make more money and/or understand that I can’t keep supporting her like this.
While you may think you’re giving your daughter money out of love, you’re actually doing it out of fear. That’s trouble, because when you give money out of fear, you’re usually being mugged.
Fear makes you forget long-term risks, like what you’ll do after you run out of money and the consequences for you, her, and other people who depend on you. Your love is infinite, but your finances aren’t. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 15, 2011
Feeling you’ve made a mistake is usually an instinctive reflex that has nothing to do with sober judgment and/or actual responsibility and a lot to do with guilt. You feel you’ve made a mistake when things turn out badly, or your efforts fail, or you’re still in pain, so you feel obliged to give yourself a good kick…which usually makes things worse. It’s not that we’re incapable of examining blame and responsibility rationally, it’s that self-flagellation gets rid of guilt faster than self-reflection keeps us from accepting a guilty verdict.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been struggling with performance anxiety for years. It was particularly difficult during university, where I saw three psychologists, including a campus counselor, who, while supportive, weren’t helpful. It got much better though when I was able to take control of a treatment group I was facilitating, where I could design the program and run it the way I wanted to. I enjoyed being the therapist who helps others, and the experience gave me confidence. Still, the anxiety has not been extinguished in all situations—when teaching and presenting at conferences, the anxiety in these two areas is just as high as it was previously. I have been managing this for a long time and I do not feel motivated to continue to place myself in situations where my anxiety is raised again so high that I experience nausea, stomach pains, dry mouth, etc., not to mention the exhaustion I feel after the anxious-provoking event has finished. I do have some mild/moderate social anxiety—I don’t like socializing in big groups unless I know the people, and this prevents me from making new social contacts and networking for my profession. I am well versed in exposure therapies and ACT and have used these to get me to the point I am at now, and I continue to use them. However, I don’t think my anxiety will ever improve beyond where it is now and I am too exhausted to continue to try. I guess I’m stuck and don’t know if I should try to find a specialist to help me to continue to force myself to network, push myself to present at conferences, and become an academic psychologist or move into working as a clinical psychologist in a private practice, where I would work more on my own and I would be happier and more relaxed but also know that I am avoiding the events that are anxiety-provoking.
Maybe being in the mental health business makes you feel more responsible for controlling symptoms of anxiety and becoming a role model for good mental health. It’s ironic, given that most people in our field are the worst role models for mental health. If we were totally sane, we’d just go into dermatology and rake it in.
If you are driven to perfection, it’s causing you to forget that certain symptoms, like anxiety, tend to be incurable, and that, if you’ve reached the point where you can’t make them better, it’s because you’ve done an amazing job of managing them and pushing yourself to the limit of what you can bear. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 12, 2011
Ideals often screw up priorities, because it’s much more attractive to go after something beautiful that you really, really want rather than take on whatever is do-able and necessary. It’s not a matter of killing your dreams, just being smart about them; the only antidote to faulty ideals is to exercise your common sense regularly, thinking about what’s likely to work, given your resources, rather than what you’d want the most in a fair, ideal world. You don’t need us to tell you that the world is not ideal, so beware reaching for the stars and falling on your face when the top shelf will do.
–Dr. Lastname
So I’m a 20-something girl who has been faced with a couple big problems in a short period of time, the first being that I am in my last semester of nursing school and I failed. This has been a very long hard stressful experience, and being faced with failure is devastating. I have to wait till September to try to get back into the program and that’s my last chance, so I’m having a hard time accepting that my very laid-out plan for my life is now in jeopardy. Also I am being faced with health issues, with myself and with my family, and finally, I have been in a mind-fuck of a relationship for three years with a person that shows me five different faces. I know all the ways he’s done me wrong but I cannot walk away because I have yet to conquer him, even tough I’m trying to accept the fact I cannot change him and need to stop being a doormat. In summary, I have obvious control issues, over-analyze everything, have anger that is uncontrollable if I don’t get what I want, and really need help to fix it.
Priorities are like dominos, and if you put the wrong one first, you lose your goals one by one. So, while this may look like a chaotic clusterfuck of issues, you probably already know that it’s actually a chain reaction caused by putting school behind this five-faced jerk.
After all, the main source of your strength is your desire to get stronger, pick up skills, and make a living, while the main source of weakness is, as usual for most people, your need for something/someone you can’t have.
Fortunately, you’re smart enough to recognize your effort to change your boyfriend is a compulsion that you just can’t stop, and you have the willpower and determination in your character to take on and pursue difficult goals.
Unfortunately, you’ve focused this strength on changing your boyfriend, thus throwing said smarts and willpower down the shitter. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 5, 2011
People often think of their workplace as a family, but what’s more true and less acknowledged is that a family is a workplace, albeit one in which you have a deeper investment and more casual Fridays. In any family, money is love and love is money, and you can’t disagree about money without its getting personal, so don’t let it. Maybe you can’t stop the hurt when you feel short-changed by someone you love, but you can keep it from spreading by keeping your feelings to yourself and remembering your most important priorities before you negotiate. You’ve got too much to lose to endanger your job security.
–Dr. Lastname
I trust that my sister will be a fair executrix for my father’s will, but I often feel out of the communication loop because she’s closer to my other sister, and I’m often the last to know about her decisions. When I’ve shared my feelings about this in the past, she’s just gotten testy. Recently, I wondered why his will had not put in a special bequest for my daughter, because he’d once expressed that intention, so I asked my sister whether she could get hold of an earlier will and see whether the bequest had been there before and then taken out. She blew up at me about how I didn’t trust her, and couldn’t see why it was such a big deal. My goal is to get her to see that my request was legitimate and to keep me informed.
Nothing has more potential to damage a family dynamic—not a long car trip, adultery, a coming out here or there—like a dispute over a will.
If somebody feels screwed, cheated, or in any way shortchanged, blood ties will get bloody.
Luckily, you trust your sister, so that eliminates the most common source of conflict. Unfortunately, you’re now creating conflict in an extremely fragile situation where it doesn’t need to exist. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 1, 2011
When what you yearn for in a partner and what’s good for you are not the same, it’s tempting to trust your feelings and try to bring reality into line in the face of any obstacle, especially reality. Eventually, however, you will tire yourself out and/or end up seeing a shrink who will tell you you were doing nothing wrong except for not facing facts and giving up. On the other hand, if you trust your ability to judge what’s good for you, and impose your judgment on your feelings, you’ll do better and come closer to your dreams. So when your Pollyanna instincts tell you about the transformative nature of love, remember the cost involved (beyond the shrink’s fee).
–Dr. Lastname
I thought I’d always be able to trust my wife, even though I’ve never been able to trust anyone else before. I’m just like that, always nervous and suspicious, even when people are reasonably nice. My wife is an unusually nice and nurturing person, but when I found out she was doing some compulsive shopping and she lied about it, I flipped out and I can’t recover. The more she tries to reassure me, the more I don’t trust her. She’s just about had it with me and I want to recover our old intimacy before our marriage breaks up.
It’s really remarkable that you assume that your wife isn’t necessarily bad, just because she’s triggered your suspicions. It’s also remarkable that she’s the first person you’ve trusted, but why focus on the negative.
Most people who suffer from severe suspicion are pretty sure that it’s the other person’s bad actions that have caused a loss of trust, but you aren’t falling for that trap.
You’re open to the idea that your wife isn’t that bad, even though her actions have shattered your peace of mind. But you’re also a little too accepting that one white lie and the sadness that lie has caused you can lead to your divorce.
It’s a bummer, but this sounds less like therapy-inducing “trust issues” and more like a severe case of “the honeymoon is over.” In other words, if you expect to get back that old trusting feeling, given the demon of suspicion that has always haunted you, you’re probably wrong.
Plus, trying to get it back will just make both of you feel more angry and responsible for the pain you’re in. False hope is more dangerous for your marriage than your wife’s covert shopping habits.
Rely instead on your good common sense and do a fact-based investigation of your wife’s trustworthiness as a partner; don’t listen to your feelings before you collect, and review, the facts. Begin by defining the crimes that you consider deal-breakers, like compulsive shopping that empties your accounts or major drug use or lying about other close relationships. Imagine advising a friend about the kinds of bad spousal behavior that can turn marriage into a dangerous, depression-inducing burden without hope of redemption.
Then weigh your wife’s behavior against these standards. If her shopping doesn’t represent a major drain and her lying doesn’t apply to most difficult topics, then it may not represent a major threat. From what you say, that’s a possibility, but it’s for you to decide.
If it’s true that she’s not so bad, however, then you’ve got a tough job ahead of you that will actually increase your pain, not make it better, but thems the breaks. If you decide your marriage is worth hanging on to, then you’ve got to stop breaking it up while seeking a relief you’re never going to feel.
Once you stifle your paranoia and decide this is your problem to manage, you open new doors for yourself. You can talk to a therapist about ways of thinking positively despite your mistrust, and you may also find that your mistrust gets better if you don’t stimulate it by expressing it. If nothing else works, you may find that medication can help.
It may initially make you feel helpless and hopeless to allow suspicion to reenter a relationship you thought would be a safe haven. In the long run, however, tolerating a certain amount of suspicion may save your marriage and allow a deeper sense of trust to develop. Sure, you’ll always worry about her shopping sprees, but you may also take comfort in the fact that she tolerates your faults and that your partnership is good for both of you. Trust your own standards, rather than your feelings, and divorce may not be so inevitable after all.
STATEMENT:
“I’m profoundly disappointed to discover that my marriage is no longer a refuge from the suspicions that have always tortured me, but I won’t let them control what I do with it. If I decide that my marriage is solid enough, I will find ways to keep my suspicion from making my decisions for me, even if I can’t get rid of them. If I let them control me in the past, I’d have never gotten married. Now I need to take the fight to the next level.”
I’ve broken up with my boyfriend many times over the 5 years we’ve dated, but after I made it clear to him, for the umpteenth time, that he had to start including me in his inner family circle, he turned around and told me not to drop by on Thanksgiving because he needed to spend time with his kids, which made me explosive. It’s not just that he excludes me from his inner family circle; he’s always backing out of plans, which is why we still live separately and I never know whether we’ll spend time together next weekend. Now that I’ve cooled off, I find it hard to really end things with him when we’ve been together so long and know one another so well. I feel like we should be able to work things out, but maybe we keep breaking up for a reason.
You’re obviously attached to your boyfriend and haven’t been able to give him up, even when you knew the relationship wasn’t working for you. Maybe you love him too much or you’re too needy, which are also two reasons that you should flee from this unhealthy relationship in the first place.
In any case, you’ve told him what you want, again and again, and there’s been no progress. The problem isn’t that you’ve failed to get through to him; it’s that reality has failed to get through to you.
The sad fact is that there’s usually no way to change the distance between you and the person you love. It’s like the distance between molecules; you can push it back and forth, but there’s something basic about it, on average, that you can’t change, even with a megaton of talk, therapy, or whatever.
If you can bring yourself to accept the idea that he, and the relationship, are not going to change, and decide that this relationship will never give you enough of what you want, then you have to find the strength to move on.
Remember that you’re right to look for someone who includes you in his intimate family gatherings and with whom you can make reliable weekend plans. Until you find that person and check out his credentials, however, you must become strong enough to keep your heart to yourself. Hang out with friends and family, develop social hobbies, and build up your independence muscles so you aren’t forced to lean on people who aren’t sturdy. Build your strength while remaining wary of your instincts.
Don’t assume there’s someone out there for you, because there often isn’t, and the false assumption that there is will confirm your belief that you’re doing something wrong every time you don’t connect, and that will lead you back to connecting too much. There may be someone out there for you, or not, but your job is to conduct a good search, not compromise your heart or try to force the wrong guy to do the right thing.
STATEMENT:
“I can’t help feeling very connected to my boyfriend, but I know he can’t meet my needs and I can’t change him. If I want a chance at a better partnership, I must move on and become independent enough to resist going back or falling into some new and equally painful compromise. I know what’s good for me and I can’t afford to accept less.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 17, 2011
Just as there are diseases that can compromise the human immune system, there are factors that can compromise our emotional immune systems, as well. If you’ve been abused or take too much pleasure in giving, you’re more susceptible, not just to bad relationships, but to more psychic damage from those relationships. There are ways for the emo-immuno-compromised to protect themselves by strengthening their minds and learning to avoid the kind of people that could hurt them the most. Until they develop a mental prophylactic, adopting strict self-standards is the best way for anyone to stay safe.
–Dr. Lastname
I was sexually abused quite a bit by my dad (and am de-repressing memories right now, fun-fun). I am realizing that I am very fearful of the people I love, and avoid them. Honestly, if I didn’t need to bond to keep from going insane, I would never have a close relationship, because anyone I care about enough can destroy me. But I’m in a lot of pain from loneliness as it is.
Many people believe there are tons of benefits to confronting your past, namely that it will teach you something that will bring catharsis to your present. The common notion being that if you can figure out what went wrong then you can avoid being victimized again.
The problem here is that reviving memories of sexual abuse by your dad will also bring back the old feelings of helplessness and having no choice, which, of course, is the opposite of your situation as an adult, so the lessons are the opposite of useful to your life now.
You’re not examining the past to drown yourself in feelings of helplessness, but to assure yourself that you can protect yourself from abuse. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 10, 2011
Depression puts a strain on relationships, as does any illness, but it also acts as a filter through which only the worthiest of friends emerge. After all, one of the great rewards of a good friendship is feeling helpful and supportive to a sick friend, and one of the reddest flags of a bad friendship is someone who isn’t capable of either. So when depression tells you that you’re a burden to your friends, remember that, like most of what depression says, it lies. You’re never a burden to a true friend, particularly when you’re struggling, so if someone can’t be a good friend to you when you need them the most, then good riddance.
–Dr. Lastname
I need to face the fact that I have trouble getting close to people. I recently had a close relationship with a guy I was crazy about, but I often get depressed and, when it happens, I get quiet, and he couldn’t stand it. I’m good at functioning when I’m depressed, it’s never stopped me from getting my work done, and I push myself to hang out with friends, but I can’t help the fact that I don’t have much to say and that I don’t really feel like laughing. I kept telling him it wasn’t personal, but he didn’t really believe me. My goal is to figure out how I can find a partner if I can’t really interact very well.
The biggest negative thought you can have when you break up with someone is to believe it’s because there’s something wrong with you, either because your boyfriend said it or because that’s what your brain is telling you.
Nobody says, “it isn’t you, it’s me,” and means it, so you shouldn’t, either.
Remember, it’s deep human nature to blame ourselves for crap that happens, be it a failed relationship or a failed baseball season. It’s your job, however, as your one and only chief protector, to put this assumption to a logical test. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 7, 2011
Frequent readers of this site know that, when confronted by a crazy person, (or asshole ™), one should react the same way they would if they were getting charged by a Grizzly bear; don’t run, stay calm, and play dead. This is hard advice to follow when that crazy person is someone close to you whom you care about and normally count on to be sane, but if you take their symptoms personally and react to those symptoms with strong emotions, they’ll come at you harder than they would some stranger on the street/in the woods. With some people, the illness consists of surges of fear, anger, and despair that cast them and you in leading roles in a suicide-bomber psychodrama; with others, the fear is more centered in thoughts than feelings, which means less drama and less spite, but more crazy ideas that can’t be reasoned away. Either way, the challenge is to remember the difference between the person you love and the craziness going on, make no sudden movements, and wait for the attack to pass.
–Dr. Lastname
When my wife is feeling fine, she’s a reasonable, hard-working, dedicated woman who believes in helping others, but then she gets into this grim, obsessed mood and knocks herself out and then gets mad about how people don’t respect or appreciate her and she just doesn’t care any more. Yesterday, she told the boss she didn’t care if he fired her, because she didn’t care. If he fired her, it would damage a career she really cares about and, besides, we need the money, but when I tried to tell her she needed to shut up, she told me she didn’t care about our marriage or about living any longer, particularly if I didn’t support her. What do I do to stop her from hurting herself?
As we’ve said before, there are a lot of people out there who either don’t believe in mental illness, or do believe it exists but don’t really understand what it is. The former usually believe in Xenu, the latter are baffled by “Hoarders.”
Either way, the easiest way to explain mental illness to those types is to describe the disease as a demon, and yes, it’s a sad fact that people are quicker to understand satanic possession over an actual illness, but such is the biz. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 3, 2011
When people who look smart and capable perform poorly, we assume they can do better, and if we can only bless that co-worker/child/local sports team with more encouragement, they’ll be able to come out on top. Trouble is, many of the obstacles to good performance are big, bad, and beyond our understanding, and that’s when a “can-do” attitude becomes a burden and a curse to those who look so capable but are actually “can’t-don’t”s. So, when encouragement becomes discouraging, keep your positivity up, just lower your expectations.
–Dr. Lastname
Is the habit of procrastination a reality that cannot be changed, or not? I often find myself procrastinating so long that something I feel I want to do or should be doing is no longer possible to do. Then I feel terrible about myself and berate myself. Should I give up those dreams/things I want to do or should I plug on and do the best I can, hoping that I can overcome procrastination enough to actually accomplish a few things?
Berating yourself whenever any bad habit gets the better of you can make you feel weak, angry, hopeless, etc. The one thing it can’t do is make that habit go away.
On the plus side, your frustration shows that you care about doing better, but self-blame leaves you feeling weak, angry, hopeless, etc., which makes it harder for you to get out of your chair and start catching up.
While logic dictates that finding the source of a problem will lead you to the solution, trying to find out why you procrastinate doesn’t usually help. For one (deliciously ironic) thing, it gives you a reason to avoid doing what you need to do. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
