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 14, 2009
Everybody has one little thing about themselves they wish they could change, but more dangerous is the one little thing about someone *else* you wish you could change, either because you want to help them or help yourself. Here are two cases that prove that change truly does come from within…your own mind.
-Dr. Lastname
(And for those still hell-bent on wanting to change, you can always submit your own problems here).
I’ve been with my husband for 4 years now, and in that time, I’ve gotten less and less tolerant of his casual attitude towards keeping appointments and being on time. He doesn’t just not show up—he’ll always call with a reason he’s late, or at least make some joke that used to charm me enough not to get annoyed—but still, he knows it’s irritating, and I’m starting to think it’s indicative of something bigger, like, maybe he doesn’t love me enough to follow through on his promises. (And I know he does this to everyone, but he shouldn’t be doing this to his wife, and I know they’re mostly little promises, but shouldn’t those be the easiest to fulfill?) Just talking about this, I feel like I’m losing my mind, which means there’s nothing about his flakiness that doesn’t drive me crazy. Maybe, because it’s not cute anymore, I worry that nothing about him will be cute anymore? Do you think going to couples therapy would help? We should be starting a family by now, but should I be with a guy who can’t keep a simple schedule? Because my goal is to stay married and stop being annoyed.
First of all, don’t let yourself believe that your husband could stop being late if he loved you more. If you do that, you’ll attack him for devaluing your relationship, he’ll feel the relationship is devalued by your failure to accept him, he’ll act worse, and the devaluing will start to come true.
It’s much less dangerous, if more painful, to accept the sad facts that he can’t stop being late and you aren’t going to change him. Then you’re also free to respect his love and all the positive qualities you chose him for.
It’s tempting to drag him into couples therapy, let fly with your grievance, and hope the therapist can get him to change. Alas, therapists have no more power than you do to accomplish such change. The result will be much like a loud, chair-rattling fart: an explosion of hot air providing immediate relief for the one feeling the pressure, followed by a bad smell that everyone is helpless to dissipate. A good therapist will stop you before you start and ask you whether you really want to do this.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 10, 2009
How do you help people fix the way they help other people? The easy answer is, you don’t, but if the answer was easy, we’d be out of work. Here are two cases of helpers’ helpers in need of help themselves.
-Dr. Lastname
My wife is a good woman, but she can’t say no to people close to her or control her giving. Her mother has Alzheimer’s and often gets hysterical over aches and pains, or has paranoid ideas about being sexually molested by nurses, and my wife confronts the staff at the home at the drop of a hat to straighten things out. That just gets the staff upset because my mother-in-law is almost brain-dead and the complaints aren’t real, so now everybody’s mad at my wife because they think she’s blaming them. I’m not happy with her always being unhappy, and she blames me for not being supportive, and I’m worried she’s getting depressed. My goal is to get her to be less involved with her mother and less unhappy.
It’s hard to feel that you’ve done your best to help someone when they don’t get better, and they’re not satisfied with what you’ve done. Your wife can never feel she’s done enough for her mother; and you can’t feel you’ve done enough for your wife. And there’s no way to stop those feelings.
If you try to help her, you will probably make things worse. If you use a therapy session to confront your wife about her negativity and its bad effect on you and her mother’s care—if you suggest that she’s bending over backwards because her mother was really a jerk who always made her feel guilty–the more you’ll regret it.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 7, 2009
Since Monday was about anxiety, it makes sense that Thursday should be about the peanut butter to anxiety’s jelly– depression! In these two cases, depression has created urgent circumstances, not just for someone in pain, but for a sympathetic bystander. And, as often happens, the negative beliefs caused by depression are much more dangerous than depression itself.
–Dr. Lastname
Someone I’m close to called and e-mailed me a few times last night about killing himself, and this isn’t the first-time this has happened. The last time I got him to call a hotline and get help, and he agreed to go to therapy, but for whatever reason, it didn’t take, and now we’re back to square one. I’d like to believe that this time is another false alarm—that the fact he tells me he’s going to kill himself means that he wants me to talk me out of it—but how can I ever be sure? When he called last night, he asked me if I wanted to kill myself with him, I said no, but then he hung up before I could ask him where he was. Without a location for him, I didn’t feel like I could call the police, but I did call his parents (they couldn’t reach/find him, either). I don’t know what else to do, and frankly, I’m terrified. Please help me do whatever I can to keep him alive.
It’s dangerous to try to save the life of a suicide bomber, and that’s what certain very angry suicidal people are. It’s dangerous for them as well as for you, because the fact of your caring may give them a witness, a target for their anger, and a sense of meaning to their death.
If you don’t respond to his calls, he may take perverse satisfaction in letting you know he died because you failed him. If you do respond, he may tell you that you’re the only person keeping him alive.
Along the way, he tries to talk you into joining him. Whatever. He puts a terrible responsibility on you for his tortured life, and things go downhill from there.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 22, 2009
Admitting you have a drinking problem is the first of the 12 steps, but what if you aren’t really sure you have a problem, despite what people close to you say? Today’s cases show how seeking treatment for your addictions and seeking the approval of others are two things that don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
—Dr. Lastname
I’m a little frustrated with my job right now, so every night after work, I like to have a few beers with dinner to relax. Problem is, I’m a skinny Indian guy, so a few beers is enough to make me pretty tipsy (which means I get loud, maybe a little annoying, sloppy, whatever). My roommate has joked that it’s time for an intervention for my alcoholism, but he’s joked about it enough that I’m not sure he’s joking anymore. I’ve always thought an alcoholic is someone who drinks constantly, blacks out, can’t be trusted, and I’m none of those things. I mean, I go out to bars on weekends sometimes and drink ‘til tipsy (or further), but I don’t sneak beers at the office or anything, and I don’t think I need my nightly beer-o (beer trio), although I haven’t tried to go without it, because I really don’t want to. So my goal is to figure out what to do with my drinking problem, which I think is more my roommate’s problem than mine.
Your goal with drinking isn’t to avoid meeting someone’s definition of alcoholism: it’s to have a good time without screwing up your priorities. Sure, those priorities include keeping your job and fulfilling other important obligations—which you claim to have no problem with—but they also include keeping good friends and not limiting your friendship circle to those who like being tipsy, sloppy and annoying.
If you’re driving away good people who don’t enjoy alcohol as much as you do, i.e., if your roommate’s really saying that he likes you but would rather spend his evenings with someone who is quieter and less jolly, then you’ve got a problem that needs management whether you call it alcoholism or not. The longer you argue about whether your drinking is medically dangerous or gives your roommate the right to be critical, the longer you’re putting off the management job. Call it alcoholism or call it lice, either way, you drinking habits are messing up your life and need to be addressed.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 19, 2009
We’re starting the week with both sides of the relationship coin; the rejected and the rejector. If the advice seems cold–and our relationship advice often does–please remember that, like love, the truth hurts.
–Dr. Lastname
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually succumb to romantic whim, but when this guy came along who seemed so thoughtful, and forthright, and eager to get married and have kids, I was completely swept off my feet. He traveled a lot for work, but we’d talk all the time, and he’d always say how much he missed me and longed to see me again, send me little care packages and love notes. Then, on the day he was to return for a long stay, he walked into our apartment and told me he couldn’t see me anymore. Just like that. He said he was doing me a favor by cutting it off before he did something really awful, but I have no idea what that means. If he wanted fun and romance, I would have hung around for that for a little while at least, so why did he bring up marriage and kids if he was just messing with me? Besides, I find it really hard to believe he’s that much of an asshole to fuck with me on purpose. He was so kind! My goal is to figure out what the hell happened, because one second he wanted to get married, and the next second he wants out of my life for good, and I refuse to believe I can’t snap him out of this and go back to the way we were.
It may sound mean to say fuck feelings to someone who is suffering from a breakup, but when love is the issue, look how dangerous your feelings become if you don’t balance them with a solid wall of hard information and good common sense. Love is blind. You don’t know, when you fall in love with somebody and they appear to fall in love with you, whether they’re the steady type or like Georgy Porgy: in and out of love every few months. Georgy Porgys exist, and they’re heart-breakers. They’re a major reason you must go slow and check for references when love is too good to be true. And that’s a positive lesson you can take away from this experience: learning not to trust your feelings unless they’re backed by facts.
Don’t take this loss personally. Grief can make you question your attractiveness, intensify your loneliness, and make you more vulnerable to no-win lovers. Instead, remind yourself that you did nothing wrong, you’re not unlovable, life is a jungle, and the only thing you need to change is not your personality, but your screening technique.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 15, 2009
Today’s cases are a double helping of people who feel like they’ve ruined their lives; one curses a bad choice, the other a character flaw, but both have made the bigger mistake of not being able to evaluate what failure actually means. It’s not that their lives can be 100% fixed, but they’re not 100% broken, either.
-Dr. Lastname
When I was in my teens, I decided to become a priest, because I really believed the priesthood would make my life complete. I fully immersed myself in the church, lost touch with all my friends, and spent the next ten years studying at the seminary, training in the religious life. The more I learned, however, the more I began to question the church’s teaching, and this made a lot of my peers and superiors anxious and annoyed. Eventually, I became disillusioned and finally decided to leave, but I had no idea what I was truly giving up. My oldest friends have educated themselves, found partners, and settled down, while I’m back living with my parents, having acquired no marketable skills and alienated myself from all my friends in the priesthood. You don’t need to lose God to feel like you’ve missed out on life late in the game. I feel I’ve failed myself. My goal is to fix this mess I’ve made of my life.
If your goal in becoming a priest was to be happy, then I can see why you regard yourself as a failure, because, in spite of a huge effort lasting many years, you quit the priesthood and are as unhappy as you’ve ever been, so congrats, the results of this critical decision couldn’t possibly be more negative or disappointing. On the bright side, there are better reasons for wanting to be a priest that have nothing to do with being happy or getting good results. Perhaps you wanted to be a priest because you believe in making the world a better place by helping others and making sacrifices, and, if that’s the case, how can you possibly be a failure?
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 12, 2009
If last week started with 101 cases, this week begins with a few from the 201 level; the first two are follow-ups to Thursday’s post about how to deal with crazy people, and the last case, about therapy itself, might seem a little too inside baseball at first glance, but it’s really about basic ways to evaluate whether or not therapy is worth it for you. Especially if you’re not actually crazy.
Thanks for the letters, and please keep them coming. Also, thanks to everyone for the nice tweets, and we’d respond personally more frequently were we not somewhat twittertarded. Alas.
-Dr. Lastname
Follow-up to the crazy neighbor dilemma: If the sane party chooses to move, how will they be able to sell their house without lying about why they are moving? Will anyone buy their house if they say there is a vindictive crazy man next door who may fixate on your family? What are your thoughts?
While this query might have been submitted with a short, direct response in mind, I’m treating it as a full case as it brings up an interesting issue; what’s your goal if someone has you squeezed into a totally inescapable corner, like the crazy neighbor who terrorizes you if you stay in your home and prevents you from selling it and leaving?
You might think your goal is escape, but in reality, that’s more of a wish; sometimes you’re fucked, you can’t escape, and feeling you should will increase your helplessness and self-blame and make you do something stupid. Simply put, your goal is to accept that you’re fucked and keep trying to escape. Remember, this is not useful, solution-oriented advice– it’s advice about what to do when there are no solutions, which is what life’s toughest situations are all about. And those are the kind of situations that drive someone to pay lots of money to talk to someone like me.
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