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 14, 2011
When you love someone who gets mentally ill and doesn’t recover, you may not only lose that part of their personality you loved the most, but also get stuck with a double dose of what you liked least. After all, it’s one thing to vow to be there in sickness and in health, but sickness and negativity and mania are usually more than most people bargain for. If your spouse’s mental illness makes your marriage unbearable, keep a lid on your negative feelings by respecting the burden life has put on both of you and refusing responsibility for putting things back the way they were. Once you can accept that sad reality, it’s time to figure out whether there’s room in your marriage for you, your spouse and the disease, or if your old vows no longer apply.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife suffers from non-medication responsive depression (we’ve done ECT’s, every med in the book, and she has a psychiatrist). She’s bitter and short to family; she goes off on the kids and then can turn around and be nice. I do all the work around the house, get the kids to activities, etc., and I’m wearing out. She comes home from work and just logs on her lap top and sits in front of the TV while I get dinner and clean up. She shows no affection towards me and I feel like a servant. When I complain or push her, she talks about killing herself and putting herself out of our misery (she’s been hospitalized several times) or just hurting herself (sometimes she cuts on her arms and legs). I’m getting to the point where I don’t like her anymore. She just seems to have given up. Nothing interests her, nothing tastes good…she gets no enjoyment from anything. What can I do? She’s in her forties, now, but she struggled with depression in her twenties and this current bout has been going on for 5 years. Her doctor and therapist are really committed to her, but it seems like she doesn’t care, like she enjoys being miserable. Sometimes I feel like I’m spiraling down with her, but I’m not going to give up. If I just stand by, she seems to just sink lower, but I can’t leave, because she’s said that the kids and I are the only reason she’s still alive.
If you’re like most married people, you become dependent on your spouse for a positive response, no matter how independent you are as an individual. You married her because you respect her opinion and take pleasure in her approval. You make her happy, everyone feels good. You see the problem here.
So it’s normal to feel bitterly disappointed and deflated when depression turns her into a grouchy, nasty, unappreciative, unaffectionate black hole who threatens suicide if you criticize her and never does her share.
It’s not just the lack of approval from her that’s bothering you, it’s the overabundance of disapproval, of you and everything else. 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 »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 10, 2011
Whether you feel you’re in the right or in the wrong, defining your moral position in terms of someone else’s feelings is going to get you lost. If you feel you’re in the wrong, you don’t have to win forgiveness to make it right. If you feel wronged, trying to get an apology will probably making the wronging worse. If you’re doing what’s right, it won’t matter how people respond; having confidence in carefully considered choices will keep you on course.
–Dr. Lastname
I was a terrible mother to my kids when they were younger—I yelled all the time and even hit them, and my husband had good reason to divorce me and allow nothing but occasional custody. Still, I love them dearly and I’ve always wanted to make amends; we’re all older now (they’re in their 20s), I’m a lot calmer after a lot of therapy to work through my anger issues. I’d do anything to help them, but one of them threatens to stop talking to me if I mention the fact that she drinks too much, and the other is polite but pretty distant. I feel I can’t get through to either of them because the mistakes of my past have ruined things forever. What can I do to mend our relationship?
I don’t doubt you want to help your kids, but that help comes with a high price– forgiveness for being an asshole when they were younger.
That was years ago, though, and you’ve continued to care for them and pay for them while learning to control your behavior (their being older probably helped). So before you ask how to get their forgiveness, ask what you have to do to forgive yourself. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 22, 2011
No matter how many times we say that no love is so powerful that it should render one powerless, we keep getting emails about broken hearts, broken promises, and the resulting broken lives. When love pushes you to fuck up your life and/or someone else’s, it’s your choice to either fight to stay in control or say, well, love is all you want, so whatever happens must be worthwhile. You might be in love, but you’re not without choices. And if/when you make the wrong choice, you can always choose to write us.
–Dr. Lastname
When my son was born 30 years ago, I met two other moms and we became friends. Although with partners, we shared the same interests and our kids got along well, and we spent the next years as very good friends doing lots of things together and with the children-one of those friends even married my brother (one son and three years later, they divorced). At the same time, I met a new partner (I was now separated from my son’s father), and we spent the next 27 years having a very on-off relationship. It’s difficult to sum up all those years but I think I can say that I probably cried through most of it! I should have left, I didn’t, he wasn’t committed, I was, I wanted a family life, he didn’t. I’m not perfect and I didn’t always behave well. Five years ago he had a son by another, not partner, woman and when that didn’t work out he and I got together again. Then last year, I invited my friend/ex sister-in-law to lunch with us, and they got together. The shock was immense … and it’s not so much the loss of either but this terrible feeling that I have been used as a sort of dating service by my friend and I just can’t get rid of this feeling of betrayal. It’s now a year on and I haven’t seen them since, and the emotional hurt is a lot less– I have done lots of new things, made new friends, and life is rosier, but I have this constant anxiety that this friend is going to take someone else from me – my sister? my other brother? and, worst of all, I have this strange fear that it will be my son. I would like to be happy for my ex and my friend, but I can’t. I protect myself by staying away but I have this huge sense of loss that I have lost this whole part of my life. I need to let go of this underlying anxiety that I am going to lose someone to her again.
When it comes to kids, we expect parents not to expose them to unnecessary rejections and losses from adults they’ll get attached to, who will then go away. When it comes to how parents protect their own hearts, however, the same standards don’t seem to apply, even though, as your experience shows, they really should.
Yes, I understand, you’ve loved a guy for 27 years, but it was always off-and-on, causing you intermittent heartache and wasting your opportunity for something better. You wouldn’t have needed a shrink, psychic, or your average plumber to predict a sad end to all you invested in him and his family.
That doesn’t mean your love was meaningless or less than real. It was powerful, at least for you. Like a good mother, however, your job is to protect yourself from real attachments that can’t work, and you haven’t done that. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 15, 2011
As diseases go, mental illness is a doozy to treat; some mentally ill people are too humiliated to ask for help, and others are too crazy to ask. If you want to help them (or yourself), keep in mind that it’s the illness, stupid, which distorts the attitude towards treatment. Use the same logic and moral values for mental health treatment decisions that you would use for other illnesses; there’s nothing humiliating about getting sick, no matter what a sick brain decides.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been wrestling with depression for years now and my maternal side of the family has a history of depression and suicide. I don’t feel that I can do this on my own anymore and need help. I don’t want to just take a medical cocktail of antidepressants. My question to you is how do I go about finding a therapist and/or doctor that will be most helpful to me.
The first step for getting treatment for your depression seems simple– don’t get depressed about treatment for depression. After all, depression’s just another form of pain unless it twists your thoughts into thinking that not getting rid of it is a kind of failure that marks a meaningless life.
As long as you realize depression is a persistent ailment, just like persistent back pain or diabetes, you’ll have an easy time making treatment decisions because you won’t regard using treatment as evidence of weakness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 12, 2011
When it comes to the doorway of self-respect, some people are doormats while others are battering rams. The key (pun intended) to respecting yourself is being sensible about assigning blame; not everything is your fault, not every person can be helped, and no insult is worth taking to heart. So instead of allowing yourself to be stepped on or administer punishment, judge yourself fairly and stand firm.
–Dr. Lastname
My best friend and I got together after 9 years of friendship. A couple of years before we got together, I was with a guy that my best friend absolutely hates and also works quite closely with. My friend and I love each other immensely, but after only six months it was all over and done with; his trust and jealousy issues got the better of him in our relationship even though there was no basis for it, and he called it off as he knows that won’t change about himself. While he loves me, he wants us to be in each other’s lives forever so broke it off. I thought it was something we could work on so never really gave up hope that he would return. We finally had a proper talk about all of it, however, and now I get that he is never coming back to me, but I still don’t know how to reconcile that. How can he give up on himself and his chance of love, and how do I stop beating myself up over the guilt I feel for being with that previous guy, when all that goes through my head is that had I not done that, we could still be together? I feel like I ruined what could have been the best thing in my life and don’t really know how to move on, especially when all I want is for him to have a main role in my life. How do I separate my friendship and feelings? How do I stop hating myself for what I’ve done?
Many people hate themselves whenever something goes wrong, picking apart everything they might have done different, from bringing an umbrella to not swinging on a pitch that was down in the dirt.
As long as you don’t think too hard, there’s no difference between could have and should have, leaving you with heaps of regret (along with ruined shoes and/or play-off chances). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 8, 2011
Getting over a relationship can mean a lot of things—a bad haircut, eating entire pints of ice cream, sex with people you wouldn’t normally make eye contact with, etc.—but what’s most important isn’t how you get over it, but what you get out of it. If you come out the other side with bad feelings but great insight, you’re feeling worse but doing way better than the person who feels great but lacks perspective altogether. Those who don’t learn from relationships are doomed to repeat them, no matter how many bad haircuts it takes.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t seem to recover from my wife’s infidelity. Six months ago, when I found out, it nearly destroyed me. I stopped sleeping, and started eating compulsively, and felt depressed and anxious all day. I have a demanding job and we have a 2-year-old son and I simply had to keep going. Now, after months of couples therapy and my wife’s promising to stop drinking and then starting up again, I’ve gotten strangely detached. I don’t think our marriage is going to make it and, on some level, I don’t care. I can’t lose the 20 pounds I gained, I don’t exercise the way I used to, and I can’t seem to get my confidence or happiness back. What more should I be doing?
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you, not for losing a horrible spouse (that seems both insensitive and obvious), but for becoming a fat, lazy mope. Most people consider “letting themselves go” to be a bad thing, but in this instance, it’s a positive side-effect of recovery at work.
After all, the best measurement of how well you’ve recovered from trauma is not how good you feel. This Sunday marks a rather grim anniversary for many Americans, and after 10 years, some of those people still hurt, and some of those in pain are also in shape. Trauma doesn’t factor into it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 22, 2011
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People like to think that trusting an inner voice—their gut, their instincts, the force, etc.—will always lead in the right direction. In actuality, instincts and body parts are better known for causing instant urges (a.k.a. “feelings”) that ignore logic and implant convictions that the sky is falling, love occurs at first sight, and advertising never lies. When it comes to major decisions, don’t trust your gut (which, as we’ve pointed out before, is literally full of shit). Find out facts and figure out the odds before doing something that scares you, titillates you, or gives you an enormous Visa bill.
–Dr. Lastname
My brother is a good doctor, and an especially good one given that he’s struggled with depression his whole life. When his own illness needs attention, however, he becomes a terrible patient. He doesn’t get depressed often, but when he does he obsesses about the possible side effects of each medication and so doesn’t take what’s recommended, takes half the prescribed dose, or insists on his doctor giving him something less harmful (and much less effective). The result is that he drives his doctor (and me) crazy and takes a lot longer to get better. When I tell him he’s over-reacting to his fears, he tells me “I’ve learned to listen to my body.” I know he’s a doctor, but I think his body’s lying. What can I do to help him when he’s sick?
It’s a sad fact of mental illness that it often prolongs itself by disabling a person’s ability to seek and select appropriate treatment. Like any smart disease, it knows from self-preservation (in all the ways your brother does not).
That means you can’t necessarily get through to your brother by reasoning or addressing his fears. In your brother’s case, it’s unlikely, not just because you and his doctors have tried and nothing works, but also because he is a doctor, and the side-effect of trying to treat a doctor is a giant pain in the ass.
Recognizing his response as inherently unreasonable and illness-driven, however, can build your confidence in your own opinion to the point where you don’t have to persuade or argue. If he insists on listening to his body, you can serve some truth to his brain. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on June 9, 2011
Nuclear meltdowns may poison the air and water for miles around, but, in terms of actual damage done, love is probably the greater environmental hazard because it affects more people, gives no warning, and can’t be doused by heavy water. We should give kids courses on “duck and cover” before exposing them to the seduction of dreamy romances, but until then, there are some ways to avoid the fall out. It’s not easy building a hazmat suit, but there are ways to do it if you still have possession of your personality after the exposure is over.
–Dr. Lastname
A year and a half ago, my ex-fiancé died suddenly from a heart attack. He was 38. We had broken up a year earlier, and it was a very messy break-up. He called my boss at work and told her I was trying to have her fired so I could steal her job, I walked away from most of my personal belongings when I moved out, and I walked away from my savings because we had a joint bank account. I went to the funeral and found out that while we were planning our wedding he was pursuing on-line long-distance relationships as well as inappropriate relationships with women in our city. A letter from one of the long-distance women was read out at the funeral. I can’t move past this. I have been dating a man for about 3 months now and he’s wonderful. I have a really hard time thinking positively, and every time we have an argument I think ‘worst case scenario’—that he will leave me. How can I think more positively?
First, begin with the idea that love is dangerous and some people are more vulnerable than others. We’ve called love a virus before, and sadly, your emotional immune system is impaired.
People love to say it’s important to “follow your heart,” but for people like you, that can be deadly; after all, those same people might say that “love is blind,” and when you’re helpless to love, following your blinded heart can lead you right off a cliff. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
