Posted by fxckfeelings on June 28, 2009
A lot of readers, either with amusement or anger, like to challenge the “fuck feelings” mentality; surely, they respond, not everyone’s just a big baby, and there must be some legitimacy to some feelings, given the right circumstances. Those readers might try to use these two cases—the feelings within, and/or the situations that have spawned them—to find the exception to the rule. But if you really think we assign some feelings more value than others, then you misunderstand the rule entirely.
–Dr. Lastname
I know this site has fun with people who whine because the truth hurts, but I want to know whether you can apply that philosophy in situations like mine. My son died in a car accident a year ago—he was just a little guy, bad weather…total freak accident. One day he was fine, the next day, he was gone. My wife was driving, and while I know it wasn’t her fault, I’ve pulled away from her, and she doesn’t really talk to me, either. It’s possible that I’m drinking too much, because I am drinking to numb the pain. Would you honestly tell someone in my position, “fuck feelings”? What would you tell me? I know this is short, but my goal isn’t complicated. I just want to get over the pain of my grief.
From your first question, it seems you think this site confuses whining with real pain, which isn’t our intended message. Pain is what it is—all questions posed on this site involve real pain—and grief over the loss of a child happens to be the worst. At least, we can’t imagine anything worse.
But pain becomes dangerous when you expect to control it, because you then hope for things that simply aren’t going to happen and avoid dealing with what you’ve got, which is a life that can dump terrible suffering on you, for no reason, at a moment’s notice.
Here, your pain is telling you that you need to drink, there’s no point in not numbing the pain of your loss, there’s nothing left in your marriage because your wife isn’t talking to you, you were unable to protect your son, you’ll have nothing to give other kids, and things are just going to get worse. You pain is real, but what its telling you is fucking bullshit.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 24, 2009
Trying to loudly convince someone that they’re wrong about you is like trying not to think about elephants; the harder you work at it, the more you fail. The women in these two cases are obsessed with someone else’s disapproval, they couldn’t think of elephants if they tried.
–Dr. Lastname
I knew my father wouldn’t understand, but I thought it would be harmless to visit my ex-boyfriend, who is also my son’s father, who was also an abusive jerk. I was young when I dated this guy and was pretty naive (naive enough to get pregnant), and my father really had to step in and protect me, which I swear I’m grateful for to this day. I haven’t dated any jerks since then (well, jerks that bad : )), and I’ve got a great kid, and I’m not the person I was when my ex and I were together. I avoided him, and kept our son away from him, for over ten years, but when he reached out to me a few months ago, saying he wanted to make things right, I guess I slipped, and I went to see him. Nothing happened, honestly, but my father won’t stop being angry with me and telling me I don’t value myself enough, as if I were still a 15-year-old letting a guy slap me around. It kills me that he feels this way, tears me up inside, and I can’t stop crying about it. I wish you could persuade him to stop believing this about me. My goal is to get him to believe me that I’m over this guy and that it won’t happen again.
Ultimately, you’re the only person who can truly judge your worth. Unless you’re a child, lobotomized, or eager to join a death cult, it’s your job to make that determination, not your father’s or anyone else’s.
That’s why you can’t try to restore your self-esteem by changing someone’s opinion of you because, in doing so, you’re giving someone else that power, and it’s not theirs to have. There’s nothing wrong with wanting his good opinion, but it’s total self-betrayal to make his good opinion more important than the judgment that you and only you are capable of making.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 10, 2009
We’re all familiar with the overgrown-child/slacker archetype, the 30-something offspring who lives in the basement and still has mom do his/her laundry. In film and TV, that character is played for laughs, but in real life, adults that rely heavily on their moms—either because they can or because they have to—are sometimes very unfunny. In these two cases, those close to needy adult-children aren’t amused.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in my 30s and have always been the responsible and goal oriented brother, but my baby brother, who’s just out of college, has always been the opposite. He basically sponges off our mother, and his ungrateful attitude towards her is making me more and more angry. I don’t want to feel this way, because I know what he does for her is not my concern, but it has gotten to the point where I don’t want to be around my brother because I don’t want to witness any of his behavior. I literally feel ill when I see the way he just takes from our mother and really uses her, but my mother doesn’t see it that way, so she resents me for feeling like this. My father is actually on my side, but my dad travels a lot for work and is not always around to put his foot down. Overall, my brother and I are just totally different people/personalities, and there are so many different conflicts in our way of thinking, but now the differences between us are spilling over into the rest of the family dynamic. Is it wrong to distance myself from him? I don’t want to dislike him as much as I do, but being around him isn’t going to help.
I’m not sure what your goal is here, but I think we both agree what it isn’t– trying to change your brother. Without the benefit of supernatural powers, you can’t get your brother to stop being a sponge or your mother to stop protecting him, regardless of how much you’d like them to change.
Trying to do so, as you’ve experienced with your mother, could drag all of you into a rut. As a goal-oriented guy, you may have a particular talent for straightening things out, a talent which helps you work hard and make a living, but if you apply that talent to changing your family, you’re in trouble.
You might feel a moment of relief after telling them what you really think; it’s what I have previous described as something of a “feelings fart,” as the relief is temporary with a lingering effect that poisons the air and clears the room.
In other words, your toxic emission with cause your brother will tell you that you’re mean and jealous and your mother will accuse you of tearing him down when he needs building up. No wonder your father travels a lot for work.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 8, 2009
These two cases are based on feedback we got from our sibling-related post a week ago. Thanks to the anonymous readers who took the time to write in, and we hope these respond to your concerns.
–Dr. Lastname
Last week, someone wrote in asking how to react to his younger brother’s claim that their father had molested him, and you told the older brother, essentially, to tell his younger brother to move on. I find myself in a similar position to that younger brother—my step-father molested me for years—but A, there is no doubt as to my claims, I assure you, and B, I have yet to tell my family (my step-father just died). If and when I do tell my family, if they react the way you instructed that guy to react, I’d be pretty furious, and frankly, I can’t believe you’d give anyone that advice. It’s taken me years to come to terms with what happened, and I couldn’t tell anyone what happened, let alone my family, until several years after the abuse stopped/I got away. I don’t think I’m wrong in expecting my family to support me, and besides, isn’t advising the older brother to tell his abused sibling just to “move on” just a way of excusing the father’s behavior for the sake of the family reputation while letting his younger brother suffer yet more humiliation? I’m not writing in for advice—my goal is to get you to admit your advice was deeply flawed.
One very tough part of disclosing long-ago sexual abuse is that you have so little control over how members of your family, or anyone, will react. In some families, you will be embraced by people who believe in you, validate your experience, and are grateful that you spoke out. Your courage in doing so will be well rewarded.
But in many families, there are people who can’t believe the abuse happened or who aren’t strong enough to face what they know (even though they’ve otherwise proven themselves to be very loving and supportive while you were growing up.). Your courage will not be rewarded, or even appreciated in the slightest.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 3, 2009
It’s wedding season, which means we’ve got a couple of cases involving equal helpings of drama, family/friends, and bullshit. Indeed, fxckfeelings.com is the ideal place to speak now or forever hold your peace.
–Dr. Lastname
My best friend is marrying an asshole next month, and I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut, but now that the wedding is almost here, I really worry I’m letting her make the biggest mistake of her life. She and I have known each other since high school, and while this isn’t the first jerk she’s dated, he’s certainly one of the most manipulative and creepy, and, sadly, the first one to bring up marriage. I’m fairly certain that he’s cheated on her already, but I have no proof, and besides, I can tell that she’s too in love with him to listen to me. Is there anything I can say to her to make her see sense? Should I look hard for proof of his asshole-ishness? My goal is to speak now or forever hold my peace/have to avoid one of my oldest friends until the messy divorce.
You probably already know this since you’ve kept your mouth shut for so long, but just to state the obvious, opposing her feelings of love with your feelings of mistrust is a good way to end your friendship with your betrothed friend and strengthen her isolation. Doing that will make her more reliant on her fiancé. You will have vented your dislike and done your duty/more harm than good.
A better goal is to see if you can get your friend to be more careful in terms of making such an important life decision, without suggesting in any way that your negative feelings for her fiancé are the reason for your advice. You can tell her to look before she leaps without indicating that there’s a specific pile of shit to avoid.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 31, 2009
The concept of being one’s “brother’s keeper” has never been a very good one; from the Bible to the Clinton boys, older siblings taking responsibility for their youngers has rarely had good results. In these two cases, older siblings feel obliged to get their little brother/sister back on track, but being related to someone by blood doesn’t make them any easier to control. You can’t “keep” your siblings, but you can keep trying to do the right thing.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m one of seven kids, standard big Irish family, fairly standard/normal childhood, everybody seems to get along. My youngest brother, however, has always been a quiet kid (and I’m the oldest, so he’s much younger than me), and while he’s not the black sheep exactly, he’s always been a little bit different and maybe something of a misfit in general. One of my uncles died recently, and at the wake, my brother took me and all of our siblings aside to tell us that he’s been going to therapy and has recently recovered memories of being molested by our late father. Now, I’d never describe my dad as being a warm or lovable guy, but he wasn’t a monster– never raised a hand to me or anyone else in the house that I saw, and certainly never tried to touch me in a sexual way (or any of the other kids as far as I know). And, like I said, I’m not that close with my younger brother because I was in high school when he was born, so basically, to put it nicely, I just don’t think he’s remembering things right. None of the other siblings do, either, but ever since he made his little announcement, he’s been pushing us to support him and getting angry when we try to calm him down/kindly and tell him he should back off. Since I’m the oldest, my other brothers and sisters are looking to me to handle the situation, but I really have no idea what I can say to make this go away. My goal is to figure out what the hell is going on and get him to stop.
You might not know your brother that well, but I’ve dealt with his type many times: certain people go through life feeling different, cut off, ultra-sensitive, and constantly unhappy. They are troubled as much by not knowing why they’re suffering as by the suffering itself.
In their isolation and misery, they are constantly wondering what went wrong, if they did it to themselves, and what they should be doing about it. If they can believe that someone bad did something horrible to mess up their minds, whether it happened or not, it makes sense of their suffering and gives them something concrete to do about it.
Sure, something bad may have happened to them, or their reaction to constant suffering may have exposed them to additional harm at the hands of people they would otherwise have stayed away from. The sad thing is that no one has a solution to their suffering: not friends, not therapists, not older brothers.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 27, 2009
Protecting one’s children is a powerful instinct, but it’s important not to become so blinded by that instinct that you can’t see if your protection is doing more harm than good. The two kids in these cases are particularly vulnerable, but their parents might be so committed to fighting for their kids that they can’t see how they’re actually declaring a larger, futile war.
–Dr. Lastname
My son is in 5th grade, and my wife and I were recently called into a meeting with the vice principal to discuss my son’s behavior. We were told that he routinely disrupts class, talks back to teachers, throws balls over the wall at recess, and, overall, “refuses to behave.” His school work is terrible, I admit that, and she says that this is because it’s nearly impossible to teach him since he won’t focus or really do anything but act up. Her recommendation was meeting with a school-appointed psychiatrist, and that that doctor would likely prescribe medication for ADHD. My wife is OK with that plan, but I think the situation is crazy, not my kid. He’s 10 years old, of course he’s acting like a brat, and I’m sick of people throwing drugs at every child that doesn’t sit still. I don’t want my son turned into some Ritalin zombie. My goal is to get him to get him in line with his school without putting him on pills.
You’re the parent, the tough decisions are always your responsibility, and the decision whether or not to medicate your kid is a hard one. What you and any right-thinking teacher or doctor would prefer, first and foremost, is a non-medical way of helping your son control his behavior.
While the common perception (yours included) is that shrinks like myself are eager to put people on the pharmaceutical bandwagon, that simply isn’t an infallible truth. Medication is never entirely safe, and is certainly less safe than most non-medical interventions, like behavioral treatments. Just because doctors can prescribe medication doesn’t mean it’s always our go-to answer.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 24, 2009
Love is at its most dangerous not when its bonds are most intense, but when its status between two people is muddled and ambiguous. Here are two cases where the feelings are unclear but the stakes remain high.
-Dr. Lastname
I don’t know if my husband is cheating on me, but I admit that I’m convinced enough that I’m wondering what to say to him. He’s always looking for an excuse to get out of the house—suddenly every single game, no matter what sport, deserves a trip to the bar with his buddies. It may just be that he doesn’t like to hang out with the kids, or that I annoy him, but that seems to extreme. We’ve never had a screaming fight about the whole thing, mostly because we’re both too tired from work and life and whatever. When I do joke about it, he just swears up and down he’s not cheating, and that he’s going alone out because I hate going out with him, and that I’m letting my insecurities get the best of me. And I guess he’s right in some ways, because I am kind of shy and, when I’m busy, I forget about going out. But he knows how much it drives me crazy, and that I need help with our kids, so you’d think he’d cut back out of consideration for my needs. I’m tired and lonely, too, so now I wonder where I’m supposed to turn. So that’s it. My goal is to keep anyone from cheating on anyone.
Just the fact that confrontations over infidelity are the climax of choice for most tabloid TV programs should tell you that they seldom work out positively. Instead, they lead to mutual accusations, just-stop-attacking-me apologies, ineffective denials, and/or resolutions to do better followed by the same old behavior.
The problem is that, if he tends to lie or fool around, then that’s the way he is. As much as it feels personal, it usually isn’t, and if you looked at his past under a fidelity microscope, you’d probably find microbes of secret flings everywhere, and those microbes will keep chugging along until the Cialis stops working.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 20, 2009
Everybody has bad habits, but nail-biting is one thing, theft is another. When someone has a habit that is so obviously awful, we’re certain that such bad habits must have an equally obvious and easy fix. These cases show that what isn’t true for junkies also isn’t true for pyros– bad habits are hard, if not impossible, to break.
-Dr. Lastname
My husband and I have tried everything, but we can’t get my stepdaughter to stop stealing. It started with shoplifting at the mall—clothes, jewelry, even shoes a couple of times—but once she got caught and actually sent before a judge, she did some community service and hasn’t shoplifted since. So now she just steals from us. She started sneaking into our bedroom and lifting money from our wallets. When she ignored our punishments and wouldn’t stop, we put a lock on our door, so she started stealing anything else she could get her hands on (and some things, like DVDs, she’d then sell so she could go back to the mall to buy things she used to steal!). She’s not my daughter biologically, but I’ve been married to her father since she was a toddler, so this isn’t acting out due to a divorce. Still, neither her father nor I can control her, and if we do somehow get her to stop stealing from us, I’m afraid she’ll go back to stealing from others and wind up in jail. I just want her to stop.
Sometimes you can’t get kids to stop stealing and they can’t stop themselves. It’s a sad truth that parents and therapists and tough judges and kind reformers don’t have the answer. We all know nice, concerned, fully functional parents who have out-of-control kids. Kleptomania is just nature’s little present to your offspring.
I don’t mean to suggest that we should ever stop trying to help our sticky fingered children stop stealing, but if you expect them to stop, or expect yourself to get them to stop, you can drive them crazy, the stealing gets worse, and you’ll sink into feelings of failure at a time when you need to persevere and stay strong for the long haul.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 17, 2009
When everything in life seems to be going wrong, somebody’s bound to assure you, “at least you’ve got your health.” The problem is, no matter how much yoga we do and kale we choke down, we can never really control how healthy we are. Here are two cases of people who, in one way or another, are worrying themselves sick.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband and I just got pregnant, and while our parents are overjoyed, husband and his family keep ribbing me about my birth plan, and it’s starting to piss me off. Mainly, they think I’m stupid or something because I want a homebirth, and while my husband supports my decision—which I came to after reading some books, talking to friends, etc.—he’s made it clear that he thinks a conventional delivery would be smarter (and his mother now calls me “flower child” to my face, which isn’t funny, just weird). Conventional medicine isn’t always right, especially when it comes to taking into account the psychic scars that come from delivering a child in a sterile environment where s/he isn’t allowed to bond with his/her mother immediately, etc, etc. I just want to make sure that I have that our child is healthy and happy from his/her first second, and I hate that my husband thinks that this is a joke. My goal is to get him on board to put our baby’s health first and his stupid preconceptions second.
The scary thing about getting pregnant is knowing how much of your future happiness depends on having a healthy baby, and how powerless you are to guarantee that future. Of course, you do the usual—good nutrition, medical screening, no alcohol—but, in the end, there’s a natural process at work that goes wrong a certain percentage of the time regardless of prayer, diligence, organic this or holistic that. That’s life in its rawest form.
Our usual human reaction to such mortal helplessness is to invent and believe in various methods of control–some of which are incompatible with others–and then wage war with those who got it wrong, all of which splits the family and intensifies blame when something goes wrong. Welcome to why parenting is so hard.
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