Posted by fxckfeelings on February 20, 2014
Some parents are gluttons for responsibility and guilt, while others are just regular gluttons for video games and donuts, but neither instinct necessarily leads to good home management. To raise a child while both honoring other responsibilities and occasionally indulging some pleasures requires you to create priorities and stick with them, whether they feel good or not. You may sometimes need to frustrate those who depend on you, and sometimes yourself, but your goal—as with any diet, nutritional or behavioral—is to figure out a balance that will work and just stick with it.
–Dr. Lastname
About a year ago, I found a rental for my parents, sister, spouse, and my baby to live in. My parents and sister were living with my aunt prior to the move, but things were not going so well there and I was a new, panicked mother seeking support, so I thought all of us living together would be the perfect solution. Before getting into it, I was fully aware that my mother had a gambling addiction and my stepfather was in and out of a job. They have always been financially irresponsible and neglectful in general when it came to other responsibilities. Well, I feel miserable here and I want to leave, but there is this overwhelming amount of guilt I feel. I know I shouldn’t feel responsible in any way, but I am the only person here who wants to build a better future, and I feel like they cannot have one without me. My mom works 40 hours a week with terrible health issues and has lost some of her teeth, so she feels sick all the time and has very low self-esteem. Because I love her so much, I can’t help but feel an overwhelming amount of sympathy. She hasn’t gambled as much as she use to. Probably because I started to when we moved in together, had a small gambling addiction myself, then I banned myself from the casino. It may have woken her up a bit, but we are still broke. My spouse and I have to constantly pay for what they can’t with the bills and do all the grocery shopping. Everyone here but my spouse is passive aggressive, and when I get the courage to speak up, my family gets very emotionally wounded. I’m fed up with myself because I can’t find the strength to leave, and I am confused because there are times when I want to stay, but that is only when things are going well, which is rare. I need advice on how to handle my over excessive guilt and how to speak up when it’s needed.
At a certain point, all parents are confronted with their own, special chicken/egg dilemma; they don’t have to figure out which came first, but who comes first, given the conflicting needs of their parents versus their kids, and their duties to both. It’s painful enough to make you wish you were poultry.
After all, there’s nothing wrong with helping your mother or seeking her help with childcare. As a married mother who runs her own household, has a child to support, and is obliged to share decisions with a spouse, however, it’s your job to ask yourself if you can withstand the harm it might do to your new family if you live with your mother and her entire damaged entourage. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 17, 2014
Marriage requires a lot of sacrifice, and while surrendering some independence and half your Netflix subscription fees are worth it, the ability to keep strong emotional reactions from screwing up rational judgment is not. Sometimes, marital conflict will cause you to blame yourself unfairly, just to restore peace, and other times, you’ll blame your partner unfairly, to head off a situation that scares you. In any case, don’t forget that you can make an independent judgment without blaming or demeaning your spouse. Give yourself time, use normal business practices, and you’ll always find a positive way to discuss your differences and stand by both your vows and your own vision of what’s right and wrong.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband stormed out of our house last night because I just can’t seem to meet his needs or understand where he’s coming from. He’s needed more help lately because he hurt himself falling on the ice, and it’s hard for him to do the chores. I could make excuses for myself and tell you I have a full-time job and I try to be sympathetic, but obviously I’m not succeeding. My goal, if I could only achieve it, is to be better at understanding my husband and making him feel valued so he comes home.
Certain marital complaints are impossible to judge, the most common being that you sounded nasty or uncaring. Until a smartphone app is invented that will scientifically judge the negativity and/or offensiveness of a spouse’s tone of voice, this is a complaint about which no one can be objective.
Then again, in the absence of smartphones, there are always plain old smarts, which means creating standards of your own to compare his complaints with. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 30, 2014
Many of us suffer stress and torment by accepting nutty ideas, either because we’re literally hearing voices, or just because we’re reading women’s magazines or buying into our own baseless guilt. It’s easy to feel you’re doing what you have to do when you’re really just holding yourself responsible for problems you don’t control and making efforts that can do no good. Unless mental illness makes it impossible, most of us should examine our beliefs before accepting them. Then we’re better able to stand up to critical thoughts, undeserved self-punishment, and airbrushed models in the name of deeper values.
–Dr. Lastname
My sister started hearing voices when she was about 20 and then got diagnosed with schizophrenia, but she controls it well with medication and is able to hold a challenging secretarial job, so I know she’s relatively lucky. Sure, she had a brief hospital stay a couple years ago when her paranoia got out of hand, but since then she’s been fine. The other day, however, when we had dinner together, she was more outgoing about her fears of my being able to read her mind or put thoughts in her head. I was glad she could confide in me and I wondered if that was a sign she was getting better, but then I had second-thoughts about whether, if she was talking about it more, that it was maybe getting worse, and she was going to share her fears inappropriately with people at work. I’d like to know whether her talking about her symptoms is a good sign or bad sign and what I should advise her to do.
Back in the day, shrinks always thought sharing was a good thing, even if patients shared how much they hated us, thought we were aliens from Jupiter, and/or wanted to kill us. Thanks for sharing, even more thanks for not murdering.
In the long run, we thought sharing was always a good step towards recovery. Actual experience, however, has taught us otherwise, so your question is sensible, and you should, indeed, be prepared to discourage sharing when you think it’s a bad idea.
The key question you should ask your sister, and encourage her to ask herself, is whether she’s as sure as she usually is that the things she fears aren’t really happening. You’re less worried about her losing her job and more worried about her losing her mind. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 16, 2014
More than ever, in this age of comment sections and endless e-feedback, everyone feels entitled to share their opinion without stopping to judge whether it’s really deserved, harmful, or beneficial. It’s easy to dismiss your average Youtube commenter when he types “U R Gay” for the thousandth time, but it’s harder when the critic lives in your own house or even your own head. The fact that the feelings are sincere seems like reason enough to express them, and the lust to punish is hard to resist, but the things we often feel critical about are things that both can’t be helped and can be made much worse by constant critique. So give yourself the time to judge whether your critical impulse is the result of prejudice and irritability, or a signal that it’s necessary to protect yourself, whether that means keeping quiet or just off-line.
–Dr. Lastname
I often wind up fighting with my wife about money, since she loves to spend it. I can’t really complain that she spends too much, though, because, at the end of the year, she’s more or less within budget. At the same time, she’s so emotional and impulsive about her decisions, and some of the things she buys are just so frivolous, that I can’t help telling her what I think, which she says is very insulting, and then she acts like the injured party and we don’t talk for a week. My goal is to have a reasonable talk with her about how she spends money.
If it annoys you that your wife spends money without thinking about it, then you might want to look into the logic of confronting her about her spending without really thinking about it. If you can’t keep your mouth shut, it’s hard to expect her to do the same with her wallet.
Just because your partner’s spending habits rub you the wrong way doesn’t mean you’re obliged to bring up a difficult, unpleasant subject. Especially since doing so has a history of accomplishing little aside from annoying the crap out of both of you. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 9, 2013
If everything that was good for you also felt good for you then kale would be heroin, running would be orgasmic, and one-a-day vitamins would put you into a pleasure coma. Unfortunately, bad things often feel best, which is why heroin is heroin, kale tastes like land seaweed, and passion can be poisonous. That’s why you can love someone who’s just not good for you and hate a job that you do well for good reasons, but before assuming your feelings are telling you the truth, take time to measure a relationship by how well it fulfills your purpose, meets your standards, and satisfies your moral priorities. Then you can do the right thing, even if it feels (or tastes) terrible.
–Dr. Lastname
What could have been a perfect relationship slipped very quickly down hill as two insecure people who have both been emotionally abused by our families growing up both went through stressful times suddenly. We couldn’t manage to make it through the bad times due to coping mechanisms we both employed to save ourselves from more pain, having not had long enough to make the relationship secure. Still, I’m really struggling to let him go. I felt this connection that I’ve never felt before and this is the first person I’ve ever missed in my life. I know he needs space to sort himself out but I want him back and I’m not sure whether to cut the cord now even though I really feel like I can’t and it would cause more pain. I don’t know how to let him go, or make the right decision.
The strength of your connection to a lover is great inspiration for a love song—maybe something by Taylor Swift if she ever dates Sean Penn—but a good song won’t tell you whether a relationship is good for you, is likely to last, or what you can or should do if it falters.
The fact that you and your former lover are insecure victims of abusive families may explain why you’re both anxious and vulnerable to doing negative things when you’re scared, but it won’t tell you how much he can control his negative behaviors and/or tolerate yours. For that, you need to review facts, not your emotional family history. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 5, 2013
As we often say, help isn’t just a two-way street, but a full-on intersection; it can be benefit or hindrance, both to the person being assisted and the helper him or herself. Regardless of whether your desire to help is driven by compassion, love, guilt, or fear, pay attention to priorities, consequences, the limits of what’s possible, and your responsibility for meeting your own needs. Then you’ll probably discover that giving right and going slowly is more effective than giving more and risking an accident.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve always been proud of being the backbone of my family, but I’m close to having a total meltdown. It’s not that my husband doesn’t work hard, too, but I’m taking care of our kids, who are especially busy with after-school sports, tutoring, etc., plus my ailing mother, plus my sister who’s mourning the sudden and unexpected loss of her son, and then on top of that, my own work, which is insane this time of year. I told him I just want to quit everything and go live on the beach in a hut. He laughed, but I meant it. I know all of these people need me, but I’m going crazy. Still, I’m ashamed, and my goal is to figure out what to do.
You’re proud of being the backbone of your family, but you’ve got your own skeleton to worry about, and it will collapse if you don’t find the backbone to stand up to the impossible job you’ve given yourself.
It’s simply not possible to personally take on an infinite number of top priority responsibilities, even if they’re all driven by emotional and financial necessity. It makes sense that you think living in a hut is your only/best alternative to weathering a hurricane of responsibilities. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 2, 2013
There are millions of reasons that being an adolescent girl is absolutely the worst—their peers are monsters, their teachers are idiots, their crushes are never as cute as vampires—but all of these issues are made worse by the fact that nobody seems able to help them. After all, when you’re trying to help a young girl deal with hormones and bad habits, not only will a rescue attempt possibly alienate the person you’re trying to help, it may offend the people whose help you need or let them off the hook when you need them to take more responsibility. In any case, assume that, in addition to giving them love and understanding, you must also be prepared to accept limited resource and political realities. Good rescues require good management, especially when you’re helping someone during the worst time in their life.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m worried about the kind of attention my granddaughter has been getting lately and how my son and his wife are handling it. She’s a terrific girl who has always done well in school, but she started going through puberty right before junior high. Now she has a gorgeous figure and is quite excited by all the attention she’s getting without quite understanding what it means. I know her parents have explained sex to her, as if there was anything they could tell her she hasn’t seen on TV, but I don’t think she gets what boys expect of her and just seems to like the romance and secret meetings with cool kids who wouldn’t look at her before. When I bring it up with her parents, they tell me they know they can trust her and they don’t believe in infantilizing her and ruining a good relationship. My goal is to help them be more appropriately protective.
When it comes to expressing concern to someone about their child, it’s nearly impossible not to imply that something’s wrong with that someone’s parenting, the child’s behavior, or their relationship. The line between concern and criticism isn’t just razor thin, but the criticism side is filled with angry wolverines, landmines, and open sewers.
Fortunately, your view isn’t blaming, but you’re still in a precarious position addressing your granddaughter’s sexuality and appearance. Frank talks about sex never seem to cover the unique burdens of being beautiful, and an adult trying to impart wisdom to a tween about image and perception is like trying to give your father advice on how to grill meats; you can’t educate someone who’s convinced of their own expertise. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 17, 2013
Life is always unfair—kids get sick, dogs don’t live forever, the Real Housewives supply is infinite—but how you react to unfairness is what matters. Some people who are undeniable victims of hard luck never see themselves as helpless, whereas other people feel like victims because life does not always reward good moral choices with good luck. If your luck turns bad, you have a right to hurt, but never expect good luck to reward you for being a good guy. You’ll never feel like a victim if you accept bad luck as part of a shitty, unfair world, and take pride in doing what you think is right, regardless of all the illness, injustice, and Bravo starlets who are out there.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve been derailed for the last three years after thinking my life was moving along perfectly well. I’d worked for 15 years at a large company, starting out as a clerk, and somehow my warm personal style and hard work—it sure wasn’t my education, because I never did well in school and did just two years of college—kept getting me promoted until I was about to be regional director. I had three sons and a husband I thought I could count on. Then, suddenly, due to what almost everyone agreed was a minor, unintentional accounting error, I was fired because I technically broke company policy and a higher-up had decided to be a hard-ass. And my husband decided, just about the same time, that I was boring and he moved out. The kids are still great, but I feel stopped in my tracks and turned upside down, not just as if I’ve lost everything, but as if life has stopped playing by the rules. I’m doing a job search, but it’s hard to get into it or really take anything that seriously, other than the kids. My goal is to get back my faith in life, because I thought I was doing everything right, but then everything went totally wrong.
If Job, the guy in the Bible story who God screwed royally, basically to make the devil look stupid, was actually a bad guy, he might have had the satisfaction of knowing that his bad luck was for a good reason (besides winning a bet with Satan).
Unfortunately for everyone, he was a good person, just as I assume you are, so all the bad things that happened to him were for no reason and left him feeling he was living in a world where rules don’t count. That’s why his decision to keep on being a good guy was so remarkable and Bible-worthy.
Until several years ago, your life worked by the rules and reaped justifiable rewards, but then life did one of its horrible little twists and you were fucked for absolutely no reason, and from several directions at once. We want a world where the bad guy always gets what he deserves in the end, which reassures us that we’ll get good results if we work hard, act nice, and play by the rules. You’re living proof that life is unfair, which is a hard burden to shoulder. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 10, 2013
There’s no perfect way to deal with someone close to you when, due to depression, discouragement, and/or plain laziness, they become too dependent on you for support; whether your strategy is to give loving comfort or a tough kick in the pants, their attitude tends to defeat them and their would-be helpers. If you wish to help someone who is under-engaged in life, whether your motivation is love or self-survival, don’t wait for the underactive to feel rejuvenated. Instead, create a regimen and reward progress with gifts, food, and/or good ol’ verbal encouragement. Then, if they still don’t do their share, decide on the support you think is right to provide, knowing that change is not an option, but cutting them off is.
–Dr. Lastname
My younger son is 23 and living at home. He dropped out of university and has drifted since, working abroad for a while, now doing an office job on a temp contract for the past year. When not at work he sleeps in and is lackadaisical in direction. I am going through a divorce from his father and working very hard in a low-paying job. I am also having to support my daughter through the collapse of her marriage. My son wants to quit his job which he dislikes and sees as a dead end and use the time to pursue a career. His earnings are paying for some of his bills and he hasn’t saved much although I charge very little rent. I fear his half-hearted approach will soon return and resent coming home from a tough shift at work to find him still in bed. My goal is to be supportive without feeling used and resentful. I am worried about him but nagging wears me out and I have problems of my own.
Whatever career your son hopes to pursue, let’s hope it’s not one that requires basic skills of observation; you’re obviously stretched out, so if he thinks he can rely on you when he doesn’t have income, he’s not just oblivious to your situation, but his own.
Even if he doesn’t realize it, you know that his business plan is heavy on dreams and light on discipline. Instead of expressing anger, skepticism, or disappointment, however, ask him whether he sees himself as having a problem with avoidance. Shame may have made him lie about his difficulties and pretend that he’s done more than he has. If he can acknowledge the problem, you can offer him coaching, advice, and incentives for building good habits. You may not be able to help support him financially, but you’ve got emotional support in spades. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 7, 2013
There’s a certain art to negotiation, especially when the discussion involves money; go too hardline, with a patronizing tone or, say, a shutdown government, or too soft, hesitating to stand up for your own financial needs, and you’re not going to make any headway. Worse, you could get incredibly angry, and money rage can be just as dangerous and useless as road rage, except with road rage, you still usually get somewhere. Better to avoid arguments about non-payments, regardless of how unfair or harmful they are, and if good advice and sweet reason don’t work, do what’s necessary to protect yourself while bringing conversation to a firm stop. If you can’t stop yourself from losing it over money, the only thing to shutdown is the conversation, then learn and move forward.
–Dr. Lastname
My daughter is supposed to be a grown-up—she graduated from college but now she’s living back home—and the other day I realized she hasn’t opened a credit card bill in three months. I said something to her, and she still did nothing, and then I was really worried about the mounting interest payments and her credit rating, so I told her I didn’t understand what she was doing and why she was being so irresponsible. She started crying and accused me of being mean and picking a fight, and then my husband asked me why I was attacking her. My goal is to stop this fighting and get my daughter to live up to her responsibilities.
You can’t help being worried, as a parent, when your daughter’s avoidant behaviors no longer just possibly result in suspensions or a visit from the principal, but in fines, a ruined credit rating, and worst of all, frequent collection agency calls. Adult problems, however, deserve adult talks, and a verbal spanking does not qualify; berating her for failed responsibilities usually doesn’t work.
The reason why is that, while she knows you’re right, she doesn’t know why she did it, and her helplessness will make her even more avoidant—of you, your advice, and the next batch of credit statements. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
