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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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 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 May 3, 2009
To most, freedom from fear seems like a reasonable goal; after all, ridding yourself of all anxiety would reduce your blood pressure, whiten your teeth, get rid of your gut, etc. Never mind that the possibility of a fear-free existence is sold to us by everyone from alarm companies to boutique medical practices. The problem is that fear, like happiness or anger, is, you guessed it, out of our control. Here are a couple cases where wanting to control fear clouds the real goal at hand; living in the face of ever present danger.
–Dr. Lastname
I didn’t used to be an anxious person, but I haven’t felt right since I got mugged a few months ago (I was jumped, robbed, and beaten pretty bad, and yes, amazingly, they caught the guys). I’m afraid to go out after dark and I wake up with nightmares, which is bad, but somewhat manageable and at least makes sense. What I’m really having trouble with are the less-than-occasional anxiety attacks with dizziness, shortness of breath, nausea, the works, and they’re completely incapacitating. It’s not just unhealthy, it’s making my life impossible. I should be able to stop them if I can get to the bottom of this trauma, right? I’ve lost my peace of mind and I want to get it back.
You don’t recover from trauma by recovering your peace of mind because, first, it’s often impossible and, second, it may be undesirable, at least if you define peace of mind as the absence of fear and anxiety. Simply put, life is dangerous. While you might not see your brain’s fearful reaction to your trauma as positive, it’s just adjusting by putting you on permanent alert for the next attack.
In doing so, it’s preserving you and passing on your genes to the next generation, which is more likely to have the same guard-against-attack thermostat. So don’t feel it’s wrong to be post-traumatically anxious; the anxiety may tire you out, but it’s also there to make you hyper-alert to the next threat, whether it comes by day or night.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 29, 2009
Monday was about wanting to be liked, so today is about wanting to control hate. Anyone who’s read a history book, seen a Michael Bay movie, or mentioned the Yankees to a member of the Red Sox Nation (yeah Van Every!) should know that hate is not something that we have much power over. Sadly, that doesn’t stop us from sometimes trying. Here are ways to manage hate before you start hating yourself.
–Dr. Lastname
I cannot fucking stand my sister’s husband, never have, never will. He’s a condescending moron, and whenever I try to talk to her about how much he sucks, she just gets mad and doesn’t talk to me for a while. I love my sister though, even if she’s got shit taste in men, and don’t want to stop seeing her or her kids just because he’s always around, being a bastard. My real goal is to get her to leave him, but since that’s not working, I’ll settle on figuring out how to not want to murder my brother-in-law so I can still spend time with my sister.
First of all, you should ask yourself whether you hate your sister’s husband because you find him annoying, or because you think he’s bad for her. Either way though, there’s nothing much you can do, and sharing your feelings with her will reliably make things worse, so you’d better shut up and re-examine your goals.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 26, 2009
We’re all familiar with the phrase “he’s just not that into you,” but as easy as the eponymous treatise is to purchase in airport bookstores, the notion is often harder to grasp. Here are a couple of cases where people can’t accept not being accepted.
–Dr. Lastname
I recently got engaged to a great man whom I’ve been dating for several years now. His family is great, but I often get mixed vibes from his parents— especially his mom. (For the record, I’m a nice girl who plays her role well, e.g. I bring flowers over on holidays and send thank-you notes.) When my fiancé brought this issue up to his mom (with my encouragement) around Christmas time, she said she felt terrible that I felt slighted, but, when I was over their home recently for Easter, “mom” was chatting up a storm with the other brother’s fiancée, and no matter how hard I tried to join in the conversation appropriately it just didn’t work. After my fiancé’s father made a comment about me being quiet, my fiancé told his parents that I had felt slighted again. Then his mom sent me a friendly email trying to make plans, but his dad was annoyed saying that he doesn’t see how I’m “neglected.” If they treat me like this now, what will happen if we have kids someday? Will they ignore them, too? My goal is to enjoy holidays with my in-laws without feeling like I need to get them to like me.
It would be nice to eliminate your need for approval, but it’s not going to happen. Since there’s no way that your future in-laws are going to change their natural preference in daughters-in-law, trying to change your feelings or theirs is a dangerous goal.
Some therapists would recommend individual or family therapy, but given your and fiancé’s excellent efforts to communicate with his parents and the unfortunate (but not uncommon) result, therapy is likely to do more harm than good. The more you suggest your in-laws acknowledge and change their uneven behavior, the more likely they are to become stiff, unaffectionate, and eventually critical, putting your fiancé in the middle and increasing everyone’s helplessness. Ouch.
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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 5, 2009
For our inaugural posting, we thought we’d start slow with a few 101 cases; one person who’s lonely, one who’s miserable, and one who feels responsible for someone else’s misery. You know, simple stuff.
You’ll notice that at the end of every response, we provide a simple statement, either for yourself or for problematic third parties, that we think will simply put our advice into action. It’s less “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough,” and more, “I’m in a sea of shit, but I’m swimming as hard as I can.”
We’ll have more cases coming on Thursday, and remember, if you have problems of your own, we’re here to help. That said, read on to see what our vision of help is. –Dr. Lastname
I’ve gone on my last internet date. All my friends are married at this point, and when they set me up on blind dates, the fall-out is usually so dramatic that I’ve resorted to the internet instead. Now I’m finding out that blind blind dates are even worse. Most of the responses I get are creepy, and the few dates I like suddenly drop me, or just want something short-term, which isn’t what I’m looking for. I’m lonely, I’m sick of being single, and the whole process is making me more depressed because it’s so mechanical and devoid of romance, which is supposed to be the fun part, right? I’d say I’m a normal person, good job, have all my limbs…why am I still alone? Is this the best I’m going to get? My goal is to find a partner who will make me happy, but I’m ready to give up. –desperate.com
Finding a happy partnership is always a dangerous goal because it makes you dependent on something you can’t control but still have strong feelings about. If you don’t find someone—and there’s no guarantee you will—you’ll feel like a loser, rather than just plain lonely. If your goal is to feel less lonely, or satisfy other strong feelings that drive people into relationships and ignite excitement, you’re more likely to fall for the wrong person and/or forget about the other important things in your life. Don’t make it your goal to find someone or be happy (or, God forbid, both). Your job is to conduct a good search for a partner while remaining lonely for as long as it takes to protect your heart and everything of value in the life you have as a single person/human being.
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