Posted by fxckfeelings on April 18, 2019
When, like our recent reader, you know you’re trapped in a pattern of becoming the most attached to people who are the least interested or even worthy of your attention, it’s useful to strategize and make a plan for when the next would-be (but shouldn’t-be) object of obsession crosses your path. Here are five task-oriented techniques for overcoming obsession before it starts.
1) Accept Your Obsessiveness without Obsessing About It
You might think that you could avoid future fixations if you could just figure out why they happen, but plumbing the depths of your psyche to figure out which childhood trauma or lost toy caused you to be this way is, in fact, just another empty obsession that will lead you nowhere. As you’re already learned the hard way, there’s no better way to feed an obsession than to obsess about it, even if what you’re obsessing about is why you have it and how you can make it go away. In reality, no one knows why some people are prone to obsessive attachments and no one has a formula for ungluing you once you’re stuck, other than time and a constant effort to manage your unfortunate habit.
2) Delve Into Distraction
When you start to feel obsessive thoughts creeping in, try to keep your brain busy with more important activities instead. A new object of fixation can be hard to resist—especially at first, when they seem so exciting and promising—but your attachments to other people, work, family, and your long term interests will always be much stronger and more meaningful, in the end, than any obsession. So immerse yourself in whatever usually matters to you, fighting as hard as you can until your shiny source of fixation fades away.
3) Don’t Think You Can Turn A Fixation Into A Friendship
As much as you’d be willing to settle for any relationship with an object of obsession, even a platonic one, it’s too much to think you can immediately force yourself into a benign friendship with someone you were once fanatical about. These attempts at casual connection usually just make the obsession worse, since you’ll now be analyzing and obsessing over every conversation hoping to find evidence of something more. Then you won’t be able to control your sensitivity to being treated as a casual friend and you will hate yourself if your vulnerability shows, which will then cause you to obsess over your pain and foolishness until you’re in full fixation meltdown. Accept the fact that your obsession limits your options and there’s to be no contact until you’ve recovered.
4) Process Patterns
Obsessive tendencies are a lot like weather; you can’t control them, but with enough experience you can learn to predict when they’re coming and prepare for the storm accordingly. Look back at the kind of person you get obsessed with and identify what drew you to them. Unfortunately, the things you like about obsessive objects probably double as red flags, which means those are the qualities you should look out for and avoid in the future. Then list the character qualities that might guarantee you a more positive and reliable response so you can seek them out instead. Recall how quickly you latched onto people in the past and examine whether you could have improved your safety by slowing things down, determining new mandatory procedures for pumping the breaks in the future. You may not be able to make your brain stop obsessing, but you can teach yourself ways to stop those obsessions from taking over.
5) Consider Treatment
If the symptoms of your obsessive tendencies are extraordinarily painful or interfere with work or important friendships and you can’t find a way to break out of the cycle on your own, don’t be afraid to find a therapist who can help you manage the issue. Consider first non-medical treatments, which include everything from exercise to cognitive behavioral therapy (techniques to manage unwanted thoughts) to hypnosis. If those prove ineffective, you should consider medical treatments, namely medication that is low risk yet frequently effective, like a high dose of an SSRI. Either way, don’t assume that you’re doomed to an endless cycle of empty obsession and heartbreak. With some work and even a little help, you can learn ways to manage obsessive tendencies so your obsessions no longer manage you.
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 4, 2019
Having crushes turn into obsessional attachments may seem like a bizarre weakness or psychiatric symptom that only happens to people who lack pride, insight, or self-respect (or like the premise to an excellent musical sitcom). In reality, such obsessive behavior can happen to anyone, but once it gets going, no amount of pride, insight, and treatment can make it go away. Nevertheless, if you are unlucky enough to have the kind of crushes that can crush your spirit and self-esteem, there’s no reason to let them ruin your life or to make you despair about your ability to ever find a healthy attachment. It just means you have to learn how to manage your attraction and obsessive impulses, no matter how powerful your emotions or ability to carry a tune.
-Dr. Lastname
So I’ve tried over the last few years to be close friends with someone that I was once involved with briefly. Our friendship’s had its up and downs, but I was managing, although “managing” isn’t quite what I was after. At a certain point he developed cancer; it now looks like he’s in the clear, but I was there for him every step of the way, and during the whole ordeal we expressed our love for each other constantly, hugged, kissed, and spent time together. Problem is, we were supposed to be platonic, but I never quite got past wanting him, and I’ve had a therapist talk to me about having attachment issues in general. So this guy and I are still friends, but hell has opened up least week because I asked for a firm commitment to get together over the weekend, after which I became obsessed, acted out, was anxious… something of a tidy mess. I know what I need to do and it hurts bad, but I also think I’ve made more progress with him faster now than ever before, so I dimly hope he and I salvage something. I’ve been searching for books, advice of relationships to figure out how I might heal faster, let go completely if need be, and learn how not to repeat the same mistakes again. My goal is to find some task-oriented technique for overcoming my obsession, or for dealing with my attachment issues overall, because as much as I want to keep my connection to him, I worry that I’m being an idiot by refusing to give up on what I want him and I to have.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 21, 2019
Intervention may be long off the air, but its approach to pushing addicts and alcoholics into recovery is still part of the national consciousness; it’s now taken as common wisdom that the way to get someone you care about into rehab is through raw, emotional confrontation. In reality, when there aren’t cameras, specialists, and access to highly specialized recovery programs around, it’s much better to keep emotion, confrontation, and personal responsibility out of it. So, for those of us in the real world dealing with an addicted loved one in real time, here are five steps you can take to compose a statement or otherwise address a loved one’s alcoholic or addictive behavior.
1) Put Things Positively
Regardless of how entitled you are to feel angry, hurt, or screwed, expressing those feelings will only make achieving your purpose more difficult; your goal isn’t to start an argument, vent your unhappiness, or listen to excuses, but to discourage alcoholic behavior and protect yourself from its effects. That’s why your statement should express what you believe is the best approach to a problem that isn’t necessarily solvable or controllable. So begin by talking about the alcoholic’s positive qualities and achievements, i.e., the reasons that you care about and love him in the first place. Then refer to alcoholism as an illness and set of behaviors, not a fault in his character, that’s a problem that has aroused your concern and for which you have a plan.
2) Fixate on Facts
When addressing the problematic aspects of his alcoholism, focus on behavior that you believe is doing the most harm to his life or that goes most against his values, not what irritates you the most. That means behavior that damages his health, puts his and the safety of his loved ones at risk, and generally is at odds with the kind of good, caring person you’ve known him to be. Of course, you know that conveying the magnitude of a problem is not likely to make an alcoholic change. What you’re after is a bald statement of fact that gives him reason to fear and oppose what his addiction is doing to him for his sake, not yours.
3) Beware The Blame Game
The amount addicts and alcoholics hate taking responsibility for their actions is matched only by their love for their substance of choice, so don’t let the conversation become about who’s really to blame or should take responsibility. You can never be sure how much you, the alcoholic, a therapist, a program, or anyone else can make a difference when it comes to alcoholism. Regardless of how an addiction starts, it develops a power of its own. Plus, if you put too much emphasis on how his addiction impacts your life, he’ll make you the reason for getting sober instead of doing it for himself (and then blame you if sobriety doesn’t stick). So be clear that you’re determined to help in any way you think might work if he sees that sobriety is best for him, and that you respect him if and when he does the best with the addiction he’s got.
4) Put Forth Your Plan
Now that you’ve cited concrete issues with his behavior, spell out the protective changes you’re going to take in order to address his issues and help him recover. These may include limiting the time you spend together, leaving events early if he gets drunk, or even notifying his doctor that he’s an alcoholic. If he feels unsupported or criticized, don’t feel guilty. You’re not trying to punish him, just to do what’s necessary and/or constructive for the both of you. If he promises to get help, be supportive of that choice, but don’t change your plan based on empty guarantees. By avoiding unrealistic optimism, you make clear that he has a tough road ahead and that external factors such as your love, the family’s support, and the presence or quality of treatment cannot guarantee success.
5) Conclude the Conversation
Once you’ve stated the facts and your plans going forward, it’s time to end discussion. Resist if he tries to engage you further with excuses, or further thoughts about sobriety or how both of you feel. Don’t try to plow through the conversation and “win” with the force of your personality, because that would be a temporary victory and make you responsible for generating his motivation. Instead, wrap things up once you’ve created a set of conditions and actions that rest on facts, hoping that your continued belief in those facts and you’re following through on those actions will, in the long run, build his motivation. If they don’t, they will at least improve your self-protection and give you peace of mind knowing that you did all you could in a fairly impossible situation.
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 7, 2019
When you discover that a loved one is in a life-threatening situation, it’s natural and often helpful to focus all your strength on removing obstacles to a cure. That works well if you can fix the situation by donating bone marrow or even lifting a car off your injured child, but addiction is a much harder obstacle to remove than a Chevy or even cancer. That’s because addiction not only has no clear cause, but also no cure, and the effort to find either can exhaust your resources and harm the ones you love the most. Instead of striving for the super-power to save someone at all costs, learn how to give it your best shot, respect your own efforts without becoming responsible for a fix, and then find ways to live with the obstacle, not remove it, for as long as necessary.
-Dr. Lastname
Several months ago, my dad got diagnosed as pre-diabetic and was told to stop drinking. We gave him time—he’s been a drinker for most of 50 years—but here we are now, many months later, the only thing that’s changed is that I can barely be around him because his drinking makes me so furious. It wasn’t until he got diagnosed that my mother and I realized how dangerous his drinking is to his health. We knew it was dangerous in other ways, because when he’s drunk he turns into a zombie/jerk: he gets aggressive, he doesn’t understand anything that is said to him, he can’t speak or walk, and my mom is stuck having to apologize for him and take the brunt of his behavior. Other members of our family have been noticing and talking to my mom about an intervention, but she’s worried about his feelings, which I understand—he has had a very hard time at his job—but to me that is no fucking excuse for killing yourself little by little every fucking day. I don’t want to lose respect for my mom too, because she’s my best friend, but I’m also getting frustrated with her for how much she enables and protects him. For months I have been keeping my anger to myself and talking with my mom, but she says we can’t talk to him with anger. But why fucking not? I’m so pissed at this point I feel like I can’t be around them anymore. If nothing changes soon my relationship with my parents is going to crumble. My goal is to get somebody or something to change before I lose my family entirely.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 9, 2018
If you live with a recurring, debilitating mental illness, you may, like our reader from earlier, be hoping to find a routine, a management plant, or just an ancient spell that will keep unpleasant, disruptive relapses at bay. Unfortunately, mental illness doesn’t reliably respect our routines—it is, for lack of a better word, crazy that way—so instead of looking for ways to prevent relapses, here are five ways to deal with a relapse if and when one does occur.
1) Don’t Confuse A Few Symptoms With Something Bigger
Beware the urge to overreact every time you find yourself dragging, getting overly anxious, feeling miserable, or generally exhibiting some of the symptoms that come with your illness, especially when they could have an easy-to-identify cause, like PMS or stress at work. Instead, force yourself to look at the bigger picture; review your list of prior symptoms and ask yourself whether these ones are occurring in the same bad combination that interferes with your work and relationships and refuses to disappear after you’ve tried to chase it away with some healthy, happy activities. Then get input from your therapist or just people who know you as you decide whether to declare an illness in progress and implement your relapse plan.
2) Put Your Relapse Plan Into Action
As described in our earlier response to our reader, you should already have prepared a list of the interventions and medications that did or did not seem to work in the past and used this experience, together with advice from clinicians and others who observed your responses, to devise a plan for stopping future relapses. Of course, you may not know for sure what worked because clinical symptoms are often slow to respond and circumstances make it hard to tell what treatment, among the many you may be trying at one time, is actually doing the trick. As such, your plan must take these uncertainties into account while offering you clear options.
3) Know What New Treatments Are Out There
After reviewing your current relapse plan with your current doctor, ask her about any new treatments that may have been developed since your last episode. While remaining open to new treatments and ideas, remember to trust your own ideas, because your doctor is less likely to remember what worked for you in the past than you do. Also, there is currently no way for doctors to make good predictions about what will or won’t work for you based on an analysis of anything but the most basic symptoms and, of course, your previous response.
4) Push Back Against Fear and Pessimism
Drawing on your previous experience with depression and anxiety, as well as any ideas you have picked up from cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), doctors, and friends, ask yourself whether your current thinking is distorted by symptoms, e.g., whether your depression or anxiety is making you believe that nothing seems to be working, you can’t tolerate your symptoms, your health routine has failed, etc. Then use your knowledge about the facts of depression and your own experience with it to respond to those false, negative perceptions of reality that your illness is flooding your brain with.
5) Begin Treatment While Staying Both Positive And Pragmatic
Knowing, as you do, that the results of current treatments for mental illness are always hard to predict, even when a certain treatment has worked well in the past, focus on how well you do with the process rather than the quality of its results. If improvement is delayed or a particular treatment fails, remind yourself that other treatments may well succeed and that keeping your life on track and persevering with your work and relationships when you’re impaired and distracted by psychiatric symptoms is always an achievement to be proud of and feel good about, even when you feel terrible overall.
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 28, 2017
It’s hard to watch your child struggle in school, even when your child is old enough to rent a car and the school work that’s giving him trouble is for his master’s degree. Your parental reflexes tell you that you’re responsible for alleviating his pain and, when you can’t, you still can’t help but feel like a failure. Remember, however, that the pressure shouldn’t be on you to absorb his pain, but on him to absorb your values so he knows how to persevere and do tough things when he decides they’re worthwhile. You can never fix your kid’s problems, but if you teach him how to approach problems with the right ethics and expectations as his guide, he’ll have a set of tools he can use to help himself for a lifetime.
-Dr. Lastname
I have a son who has continually struggled in high school and now in college. He is very bright but has difficulty keeping organized and completing his work. The doctor prescribed him medication which he doesn’t like taking because he doesn’t like how it makes him feel, but when he does take it he does do better at getting his work completed. He’s now in his third year of college and is still struggling. He feels that there is a stigma attached to medication… that it’s a drug and he’s cheating by taking something. It also prevents him from getting a good night’s sleep. But he’s otherwise so slow at completing tasks it takes him nearly an hour to eat his dinner when I cook a meal. My goal is to get any suggestions that you might have to make his life easier.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 24, 2017
Many of us, not just our reader from earlier this week, struggle with insomnia. Of course, said struggle doesn’t just mean dealing with sleeplessness but with the false and terrifying myths about the many ways insomnia can ruin your life. If you can’t sleep and can’t stop being freaked out by the potential effects it’s having on you, please do yourself a favor and read these five biggest lies about insomnia and the sad/sleepy truths you should believe instead.
1) “Insomnia is preventable and treatable with good sleep habits.”
No illness is ever guaranteed to be preventable and treatable, especially those that are more behavioral than physical, and statements like these aren’t just false but damaging as they often create unreasonable expectations for control. Yes, good sleep habits will push you in the right direction, but life will sometimes disrupt your sleep habits in ways you can’t avoid and even the best of habits can’t always control the neurological demon inside your brain that decides it wants to play and read and have great ideas just as your body wants to collapse. So yes, always be open to treatment, but don’t despair or blame yourself when they aren’t as effective as you’d like.
2) “Insomnia is always a sign that you’ve got bigger issues that require treatment.”
Insomnia may sometimes reflect your worries or neuroses, but that doesn’t mean that logging several hours on a therapist’s couch to work out those issues is guaranteed to unclog your non-existent sleep valve and make rest possible again. If you do find yourself being kept up with anxious thoughts, then do what you can to put your worries into perspective while also accepting your insomnia as just another part of your current bad luck so it doesn’t become yet another thing to get worried about.
3) “Sleeping pills are bad for you.”
All pills are potentially both good and bad for you, from Advil to vitamins, and focusing on the bad part is a good way to let fear demoralize and immobilize you into avoiding potential treatment altogether. Instead of spooking yourself away from medication, educate yourself as to the particular risks of each type of sleeping pill, both in terms of trying it once and, if it’s helpful, taking it more often. Then weigh those risks against its benefits. Of course, always use non-medical methods first, but when insomnia doesn’t respond to non-medical methods, you have a right to research and consider plan B.
4) “If left untreated, insomnia will permanently damage your health.”
Living damages your health, period, but insomnia’s potential impact on your wellbeing is a lot less clear. It does good when it puts you on alert for danger and trouble, as when you need to stay up to watch over a sick child or are required to stay on call for important news. On the other hand, it can also weaken you, at least temporarily, when you’re so tired that it’s harder for your body to fight off an infection. Either way, if you let a fear of insomnia exaggerate its dangers then that fear will cause you far more harm than insomnia ever could.
5) “Insomnia won’t just damage your health, but your ability to do anything from your job to parenting to operating heavy machinery.”
You may not be able to perform at your highest level when you’re tired, but ask any parent what they’re able to do when they haven’t slept well and they’ll tell you that they seem able to do everything well enough since they haven’t gotten fired or wrecked their car despite not having a decent night’s sleep since having kids. Instead of letting insomnia terrify and paralyze you, use that fear to become a knowledgeable and confident manager of insomnia. Once you learn the facts about how insomnia affects you and how you can deal with it, you won’t have to let scary myths keep you up at night.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 31, 2016
There are no surefire ways to cure, let alone control, mental illness, so, if like our reader from earlier this week, you find yourself yearning for a way to get your sick brain well, then you should stop torturing yourself and start redirecting your energies elsewhere. Here are five better goals for controlling your illness.
1) Assess Your Own Symptoms
Make your own list about the things that bother you most about your illness, paying more attention to your own experiences than the descriptions from doctors or textbooks, or whether you fit one specific diagnosis or another. Give priority to the symptoms or problems that endanger your safety, cause you pain, make it hard to work, or interfere with being a good friend. Only you know what symptoms are worth keeping an eye on and making an effort to manage.
2) Keep Track of Trouble
Until doctors develop a blood test or breathalyzer for measuring mental illness, you’re the one who knows best how you’re doing from day to day. So keep a log or diary of your symptoms and status, reviewing the list of problems that bother you and putting a number from 1 to 5 next to each one representing how bad it is on that given day. That’s the only way you can tell whether whatever you’re doing to get better is having a good effect or not.
3) Adjust Your Expectations
While you should of course work to get better, you should never expect to achieve total recovery. Some people do get better and never have symptoms again, but it isn’t necessarily because they’re good patients and know how to do the right thing (though that helps). It happens, mainly, because they’re luckier and their illness is not as bad. So instead of expecting to get better, get real about the work you have ahead of you and what the realistic rewards are.
4) Punishment Hinders Progress
If you try too hard to make yourself better and become too obsessed with your illness you’ll spend all your time looking for treatment and be too busy to spend time with friends, enjoy a fine meal, or generally go about your usual business. As hard as you should try to explore treatments that might work and pursue methods that you think are helping, you shouldn’t keep going with a treatment that isn’t working, nor so focus on treatment that you forget to live your life.
5) Remember the Real Goal
The fact is, you don’t beat an incurable disease by making it go away but by going about your business in spite of all the trouble that the mental pain, fatigue, doctor visits, medication side effects, and general chaos of your illness throws in your way. When you can tolerate all that shit, stick to your values, and try to live a life that matters, you’re accomplishing something incredible.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 10, 2016
If, like our reader from earlier this week, you find yourself yearning for a direction in an otherwise meandering, misfit-esque life, it’s not worth trying to get somewhere new by trying to get a new personality or character. Before you try to get on a new track, forget trying to be a new person and take these steps to assess whether and how you need to get your shit together.
1) Figure Out Your Finances
The first step to getting your life in order is figuring out whether you have the funds to stay solvent and stable. It’s not enough to cover each month’s expenses, particularly if you’re using your credit card to do it and have nothing put aside for disasters (e.g., car repairs, months of unemployment, a case of cancer, etc.). Think of worst-case scenarios, figure out what you’ll need, and give yourself an honest earnings target that includes health insurance (see item below and cancer reference above).
2) Get Honest About Your Health
You’ll find it hard to get anywhere if your body isn’t on board, so getting your health assessed is a key part of getting your life straight. Don’t just ask yourself whether you’re eating healthy or are strengthening your immune system; after all, there’s little agreement on how much you should or can use your diet to control your health. What you can do that will have a big impact, however, is to exercise, stop smoking if you haven’t already, stop drinking as much if it interferes with your other important goals, and work at reducing your weight if necessary.
3) Meditate On Your Morals
A moral code can act like a compass that guides you through all of your big life decisions, so figuring one out and sticking to it is necessary if you want to figure out a better way forward. Besides, anybody can act like an asshole if he isn’t careful since all it takes is obliviousness and a few urges that might make you cranky or in need of something belonging to someone else. So ask yourself which qualities you admire in others and would want to emulate yourself, and also ask your nearest and dearest whether you have your inner asshole under adequate control. If you have no nearest and dearest, that might be an answer.
4) Focus on Family
Getting your shit together can’t happen without getting your (ancestral) house in order, so ask yourself what, if anything, you owe your family and what values and relationships you enjoy or not and whether they’re worth holding onto, even if you don’t enjoy them every much. Then score your behavior by how well it matches these goals, giving extra points for participating in family events you don’t necessarily enjoy but believe are necessary for keeping the clan together.
5) Get Real About Your Relationships
If you think you don’t have your shit together because you don’t have a partner, you might have the wrong idea; not everybody is suited for partnership, and there’s no shame in being a hermit if it suits you best. So begin by asking yourself what you want relationships for, i.e., if you’re just looking for some distraction and fun, or if you’re eager for something that involves work, promises, and a tolerance for dirt and unpleasantness. Then rate your efforts to start and maintain such relationships, ignoring what you don’t control, like the behavior and character of others or the feelings they cause. And if you decide that you don’t really care about wanting a relationship, period, then not having one may not be what’s normal, but you can be confident that it’s what’s right for you.
It’s admirable to want to get your shit together, but cleaning up your act doesn’t mean becoming a new, perfect person; your standards for having your shit together should come from your own values and be a reflection of your imperfect self, not what people expect of you. Even so, they aren’t easy to achieve, so be prepared to work hard if there’s a deficiency you decide to work on and give yourself high credit if there isn’t.
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 8, 2016
While it’s easy to change our outsides—a new haircut here, a gastric bypass there—changing who we are inside can be next to impossible. If you don’t just want to be a better person, but have a different personality altogether, then trying to change yourself can just makes things worse. There are ways, however, to respect yourself even if your personality and personal abilities fall far short of your ideal. You might not be able to change who you are, but you can change your view of who you are and be proud of being a good person, despite your less-than-good nature.
-Dr. Lastname
Briefly, I’m a middle-aged guy, have a decent job in marketing, live with my girlfriend, and try to be a good person. I grew up without a father, and maybe having no male role model has made it hard for me to feel like a grown-up. I’m directionless, single, never married, no children. I haven’t really committed to a career, and I’ve spent a lot of time either unemployed or underemployed and trying to figure out what I want to be when I grow up. So far so good, but here’s where it gets weird. Every time I see a movie with a strong male lead, I find myself starting to imitate the fictional character. I observe their mannerisms, and begin to emulate them for days, weeks, or even months. I even check out the way they dress—the various accessories like clothes, shoes, and hats that they wear—and then I start to accumulate those things as well. As you might imagine, this can get pretty comical when I start walking around looking like Indiana Jones complete with fedora and leather jacket (no whip, I have my limits). Sometimes I’ll watch a TV show in the morning, emulate that character, then see a movie in the evening and want to be that character. The problem is that I don’t know who I am or what to do (as far as making plans, goals, etc.) when I’m not playing a role, wearing a costume, or planning my next purchase. When I’ve tried not to shop or emulate a character (for a few weeks) I feel anxious and directionless. By contrast, when I do shop or have a character in mind I feel full of purpose, even a little manic. The fictional imaginative character acts like scaffolding for my own personality. But buying accessories has gotten to the point of compulsion, where I don’t feel I cannot not have the item and still be okay. My goal is to be myself and start living a real life, but I’m not sure who the hell that is anymore.
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