Posted by fxckfeelings on January 21, 2010
In-laws are classically seen as a pain in the ass, but when your in-laws’ offspring becomes your ex, and your own offspring remain, that pain doesn’t go away. Sustaining relationships with exes is hard—especially when those exes are drunk, crazy, and generally impossible—but when you have kids, you’re forced to sustain those relationships, with parents and grandparents, like it or not.
–Dr. Lastname
My ex-wife cares about our kids, but she’s always been overbearing and intense, which is why I ‘m very happy not to be married to her now. Her latest rage, in both senses, came from her new therapist, who persuaded her that she’s depressed and has bad dreams because she was neglected and maybe abused by her alcoholic parents, so now she wants our kids to have no contact with them, their grandparents, at any time, whether the kids are staying with me or with her (we have joint custody). Now, I’m not crazy about her parents and they sometimes drink too much, but they never did anything unsafe and the kids love them, so I was shocked to hear from the kids that they miss their grandparents (my wife never informed me about her new policy). I don’t want to trigger a court fight with my wife—I can’t afford it, and neither can she, but she spares no expense when she feels her kids are threatened by the forces of evil—and I’ve got no great wish to put myself on the line for her parents, but I don’t like having her tell me what the kids can do when they’re with me and I don’t think losing their grandparents is good for them. My goal is to send her a message that she can’t control what our kids do when they’re with me and protect the kids from losing their grandparents.
The short answer is, you can’t win a pissing contest with a fire hydrant.
Yes, your ex-wife has no right to tell you what you can and can’t do with the kids when they’re with you, and yes, it hurts them to be cut off from their grandparents, and yes, in the short run it’s entirely within your power to facilitate grandparental visits.
No, none of this matters in the big picture.
If your wife is the kind of self-righteous, crusading, angry asshole you describe her as being, then you have very little power to make things better and many, many opportunities to make things worse.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 18, 2010
People get demoralized when they feel they’re not getting what they deserve, be it pain relief or respect. It’s natural to go on strike and either A, start raging against the machine of injustice, or B, go the other way and surrender to a life on the couch in sweatpants and a snuggie. Of course, the resulting fall-out will feel like a side-effect of the original injustice, not a direct result of your tantrum, but you’ll be too high on rage/comforted by your snuggie to understand. Understand this now, before you protest; better to suffer the original injustice in peace than the further demoralization of unemployment, stiff drinks and a blanket with sleeves.
–Dr. Lastname
I have a dedicated husband, three teenagers, a nice house, a well-behaved dog—it’s not a bad life—but I’ve had a nagging sadness my entire life, and I still do, despite all the good things I’ve got. I deal with it, admittedly, by drinking a bit. I wouldn’t say I’m a drunk, and my drinking doesn’t interfere with my parenting or my marriage anymore than my mood does, but I know that what I’m doing is self-medicating. My husband wants me to see a shrink because he thinks I should take real medication for depression, but if my drinking doesn’t mess up my life, and if, despite all I have, I can’t be happy, anyway, then I don’t understand what makes one medication better than the other. My goal isn’t to be happy, just to withstand my misery, my way, right or wrong.
I understand that chronic depression, which is what we call “nagging sadness” in the biz, isn’t fun. It can make you grumpy, negative, unmotivated, scattered, and lousy at whatever you’re trying to accomplish.
All that’s excluding the pain, so no wonder it can demoralize you into seeing a negative future for yourself. It’s enough to make you want to turn “what the fuck” into words to live by.
If there was some way to relieve your pain that was risk-free and didn’t affect your other life priorities, that would be wonderful (for you—the aforementioned biz would probably dry up).
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 7, 2009
At fxckfeelings.com, we’re never afraid to tackle the ickier topics; we deal with not just the feelings that come out of us, but the solids, as well (although often they’re equivalent). So if someone can’t hold it down or you can’t hold it in, sure, it’s an awkward situation, but it’s not the end of the world. You’re not responsible for what goes in or what comes out, just for what you do about it, whether it’s your problem or your neighbor’s.
–Dr. Lastname
I just started at college, and I like my roommate, but she’s bulimic and hard to be around. Not just because she’s sick (and everybody on the floor knows about her problem, it’s hard not to), but because when she binges, it’s on my food because that’s what’s closest, and she always feels really bad about it and cries that she wishes she could stop, but then she doesn’t offer to pay for it and it’s costing me a lot of money. Part of me just feels bad for her, because she’s clearly really messed up, but another part of me is pissed because I’ve lost a lot of money this year on food that she’s eaten and thrown up, and that just makes me feel guilty like I’m a bad person for putting my lost money above her health. I want to move after the break, but I don’t want her to feel abandoned. My goal is to help her and myself.
Welcome to that other part of college, Hard Knocks University, where the class Helplessness 101—what to do when you can’t help both someone and yourself, and sometimes you can’t help at all—is a frosh requirement.
The tough part is not the decision, but accepting the shitty nature of your options. Bulimia, like any chronic condition (depression, addiction, etc.) is not completely curable, not by you or certainly the patient herself.
If you buy into the psychobabble about body image and low self-esteem, you might think you could help her by praising her strengths, noticing her attractive qualities, or getting her to think about the superficiality and limitations of attractiveness. Ha!
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 3, 2009
No matter how much someone loves us, there’s usually one thing about us they can’t stand. As we’ve said many times here, short of a new hair color or weight gain, changing who you are is virtually impossible. So accepting what you don’t like about someone is a necessity if you want to avoid relationship hell, and accepting that someone else’s non-acceptance is something you can’t accept.
–Dr. Lastname
My big sister, whom I live with, is always on my case about my spending habits—I’m no good at budgets, and she knows I’ve always been that way—but the more she nags me , the more I want to spend. I’ve been feeling really down for the past year or so, which also doesn’t really help me get motivated to do much of anything, including taking care of my kids, which just makes her even angrier, because she says that I basically spend money and she does all the work, including cleaning and childcare. So when I told her I needed money to visit a sick friend, she said she’d give it to me, but then there’d be no money for Christmas presents. So now it’s a few days from Christmas and she’s blaming me for spending the Christmas money and I’m tired of listening to her lecturing. My goal is to get her to find the money, which I’m sure she can, and get her off my case.
You’re pushing for money you don’t control from a sister who may not have it, and you want her to change feelings that aren’t going to change in a living situation that you can’t afford to escape. While you’re at it, you should attempt to eat a mouthful of pure cinnamon and cure cancer.
As you might have gathered, you can’t have what you want, any of it, and going after it will make your happy home into a hellhole that will make your kids yearn for the day they can escape for their lives and sanity.
You’ve got a right to your wishes—they’re human and understandable—but watch what trouble you create by making it your goal to express them. You’re not just farting into a phone booth, but laying down a shit as well.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 9, 2009
The holidays are a boom time for business, not just for malls and Salvation Army Santas, but for those of us in the mental health game; from family fights at Thanksgiving through being lonely on New Year’s Eve, holiday malaise keeps most shrinks pretty busy until the thaw begins after a chilly Valentine’s Day.
The reason for all this misery is due simple; all occasions involve great expectations for happiness and their close cousin, guilt, which is especially pronounced during this period, because, as much as nobody wants to avoid their own family or a stranger in need, it’s especially hard to do so “during the holiday season.” Of course, it’s bullshit, and a pain for most people, but for me, cases like these mark the beginning of the shrink’s harvest festival. Let me reap what you sow!
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t know why my sister turned out so trashy—we were raised under the same roof, and it wasn’t in a trailer—but she’s a real mess, with a drunk mess of a husband and three messy step-kids, and because of her traveling “Springer Show” of a family, I dread any and all family gatherings. She and her circus show up at Thanksgiving at my parents’ house every year, and by the end of the night at least one adult and two children are crying, and every year I swear I’m never going to put myself and my husband through another holiday disaster, but every year Mom talks me back into it and so it goes, over and over again. As the big day approaches, I want to know if there’s anything I can do to make this year any less excruciating. My goal is to find a way to be around my sister/my entire family without wanting to impale myself.
In addition to your Springer Show knowledge, you are certainly (and smartly) demonstrating the wisdom of not expecting family get-togethers to be fun, warm, and happy.
Sure, it would be nice to find yourself at a very special Thanksgiving (and in the TV-holiday-episode way, not the short bus way), and maybe that’s the kind of holiday gathering you used to take for granted chez vous.
Unfortunately those days are over, and the goal for you and your mother is to get used to the big, sad change and make the best of it. In one sense, it’s your sister’s fault, but since she married an asshole because she’s stupid, and not because she wanted to fuck your and her Thanksgiving over, it’s really no one’s fault.
It’s just life, and you often don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 5, 2009
Bitching about our higher-ups at work is a national pastime, but the sad fact is, there’s a reason bosses get paid more; being the one in charge of keeping everyone else happy is a real pain in the ass. If you get thrust into that position at work yourself and are expected to rally the troops, you first need to ask yourself whether you’re leading them to victory, or your own personal Waterloo.
-Dr. Lastname
I’ve worked at the same place for a long time. I’m a secretary, but I do get some respect due to seniority and the fact that I’ve always gotten along well with my peers and the higher-ups. That’s why some of my co-workers, who are younger and don’t know the new boss as well as I do, pushed me to confront him about the fact that he’s made some foolish decisions about the staff. The only problem is that, knowing he’s clueless and impulsive, I doubt he’ll hear what we have to say and he may well feel that we’re trying to get him fired, which may prime him to retaliate. Plus, all these kids are pushing me to say something because they’re angry and feel that agreeing with one another validates what they say, but they have no real evidence that the boss said what he did. I want to make the boss see that he has to be more careful so we can all go back to doing our jobs.
It’s an achievement that you have the confidence of your peers and administrators—kudos—but your goal is not to represent your co-workers, or anyone else, before first considering the risks.
From management’s side, you might be seen as leading a mutiny, make yourself responsible for the actions of people who are not as restrained and sensible as you are, and, surprise, get yourself fired. From your co-worker’s point of voice, you may also piss everyone off because you can’t give them the justice they sent you for.
In the end, the only thing everyone may agree on is that they’re mad at you. Then you’ll get depressed, and then tada, welcome to my practice!
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 26, 2009
Like the injured gazelle at the watering hole, human beings also have an instinct to conceal their weakened status; often, our worst fear isn’t being set upon by unknown predators, but by those close to us, who will be disappointed when our wounds impair our usual performance. Even a gazelle, however, would realize that, when wounded, putting pride and other people’s needs first is ridiculous.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m an early middle-aged woman, lucky enough to have the problems that come with getting saner and older. I grew up in one of those sad alcoholic homes from which I never gave up working to extricate myself. I screwed life up at first but have been recovered from alcoholism over twenty years, similarly recovered from eating disorders (bulimia, anorexia, binge eating), returned to the school I had ditched to finally graduate with honors, kept jobs (now retired) and, a real miracle, I have been married to a terrific guy in my sobriety and am (for real) happily married. I have solid loving friends. I’ve seen therapists for the depression, which intermittently interferes but even found a half-assed but useful medication. A good life…except for the real problems that come with age. That wonderful husband has a couple of chronic diseases, my best friend died of the cancer I survived, and everyone is dead in my small original family. I am experiencing that trapped childhood feeling of being in a world in which I am helpless and those I love are hopeless and going away. I realize I must just feel the hurt and keep on anyway, but I am tired, and my stamina is more fragile now. I disappoint those I love and make mistakes more. Goal in writing you: To get a better grip on myself and accept more deeply that I cannot change the pain of life. I would like to not keep blaming myself, a old bad habit that lingers. Sorry I’ve gone on so long but I guess I wanted to show that I have really tried to help others and myself even if I’m whining now.
You see your goal as rising above the pain of aging, but you can’t fool me (remember, I went to Harvard): your deeper goal is to help people, to the point that their aging has worn you down and caused you to forget that you have other goals. For example, not getting worn down unless it’s really necessary.
So it’s not aging that’s your problem, but what aging has done to your ability to help others while keeping your priorities straight. That’s what I think is causing you the most grief. After all, if you were old but weren’t as responsive to the needs of others, all you’d have to worry about is your bad back and Tivo’ing NCIS.
On top of ascertaining your real goal, I can also guess you’re not from Samaria, so you don’t have a Samaritan license (funny, you don’t look Samaritan). That’s the first thing that’s wrong with your initial goal—wanting too much to help others.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 22, 2009
When different members of one family worship more than one god, life can become an unholy mess. If all parties can appreciate each other, however, and share the same values—even if they attribute their higher motivations to be good to different sources—then religion doesn’t have a goddamned thing to do with the love that a family shares.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife is Jewish, and I’m not (I’m a severely lapsed Catholic). Our oldest kid is about to enter school, and my wife has put it on the table that she wants him to go to a Jewish private school, which is surprising to me, not just because I’m not Jewish, but because my wife isn’t that religious at all—we go to celebrate a couple of holidays a year at her parents’ house but we never go to temple or anything. Now she wants our son to learn Hebrew, and I don’t get it, not just because she’s never cared before, but because if she’s worried about getting him a good education, Catholic schools are cheaper and he doesn’t need to learn a new alphabet. I don’t know how to get into this discussion without opening a huge holy can of worms, which is so strange considering how small a role religion has played in our married life up to now. My goal is to figure this out without stepping on any landmines or having my son end up studying and entering a religion I myself don’t practice (nor does my wife!).
If you stick with your own kind, be they your same religion, race, or member of the same area Trekker group, you can take lots of things for granted. It’s easier, there’s less pain, and you share common holidays, religious education, and strange-smelling foods.
Then again, maybe you knew what you were doing when you married outside the clan; it’s going to be a lot more interesting. Of course, if you dislike negotiation and conflict, you should have stayed away from Jews [disclaimer: Dr. Lastname is a proud member of the tribe].
If you can accept the fact that there are some painful, unavoidable differences between you and your wife, however, then you can start working on defining your areas of commonality and difference and find respectful ways to compromise without incurring any wrath, be it God’s or your wife’s.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 19, 2009
The old saying is, “opinions are like assholes– everybody’s got one.” The sentiment here at fxckfeelings.com is more along the lines of, “assholes make up a lot of the population,” so you need to deal with other people’s unsolicited input without letting it grind you down. Many opinions are ignorable and interchangable, like many of the assholes in the universe. Other opinions, however, are worth considering, because not everyone is an asshole, and you might have something you need to learn.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve always gotten some attitude at work because I’m a woman (some people seem to act like that’s the only reason I’ve gotten as far as I have), but recently, due to the economy, I’ve been dealing with a lot more disrespect. Frankly, the opposite should be true, and I should be getting loads of appreciation for doing twice the work I used to after so many lay-offs. Instead, people think that it’s not fair that I get to keep my job, and while the sexist stuff was annoying, this recent turn of events has made things almost unbearable. I’m sick of not being appreciated for my talent and hard work and instead having to deal with everyone’s bullshit and bitterness instead. My goal is to get treated appropriately for a job well done, simple as that.
While appreciation certainly makes the job easier—it makes most things in life easier—it doesn’t cut it as a goal, if only because need for appreciation makes you easy prey to anyone who gives you lots of appreciation, twice as much work, and no more pay. I can’t abide your goal to be a sucker.
Appreciation also makes you reactive to other people’s feelings, instead of to your own reasons for being there, so don’t quit a job because everyone at work is critical, and don’t stay because they tell you you’re marvelous.
Remember what you’re working for: money, not love. Unless you’re a bad prostitute.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 7, 2009
We all want someone to be sorry or grateful when our feelings are on the line, but, feelings and people being what they are, it’s sometimes worth ignoring our emotional needs to hear a few simple words. Apologies and gratitude carry a lot of emotional currency, but just like regularly currency, they need to be genuine to be worth anything.
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t fight with my adult son, but it’s because I bite my tongue. When he’s working as a doctor he’s very professional and well respected, but he’s basically always been very moody, and when I hang out with him for more than a few hours, I often run into a big dose of real nastiness. He’ll look sour and complain that I want him to do something he really doesn’t want to, or that I should have gotten him something, or that he doesn’t want to go out to dinner and I should go out alone. He’s rude and grumpy in a way that he would never be with a friend. When he was an adolescent, I wrote it off, but he hasn’t changed at all. Afterwards, he never admits that he did anything wrong. No wonder he doesn’t have a girlfriend. My goal is to get him to see that he acts like a shit and get him to apologize.
It would certainly ease your pain if your son were to apologize, but a solicited apology is about as helpful as unsolicited advice; it’d merely be a response to your feelings rather than a genuine realization that his behavior is out of control and bad for him.
So far, that’s eluded him. Making him say he’s sorry for it is not the same as making him be sorry for it.
And you should always remember the dark, demonic side of nice people who get nasty sometimes; even when they’re sorry, the next time they feel bad, they want to hurt someone. It’s particularly tempting to hurt someone who says “ouch, you’ve really hurt my feelings,” because that’s like remarking to a hungry bear that you feel really delicious that day.
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