Posted by fxckfeelings on February 7, 2011
When in the midst of one of life’s many shit storms, it’s easy to forget that feeling helpless and feeling that things are out of your control aren’t the same thing. It’s probably true that you don’t have much control over what troubles you, but that doesn’t mean you’re totally powerless and doomed to total annihilation. Helplessness, after all, is just a feeling, and a dangerous one if it makes you give up, lose faith, or act like a jerk. So if you can take a step back and look at what you actually can do, even if it’s very little, those shitty storm clouds will begin to clear.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t stand myself since I lost my job—I know I hated my boss and I was looking forward to retiring in a year, but I liked the clients and was good at what I did—but getting fired was humiliating and unfair and now I don’t feel like doing anything or going out. I can’t make myself feel better and my medications aren’t working and my friends can’t cheer me up. My goal is to feel like my old self and do the kind of work I can now afford to do, since I don’t really need the money.
The job you lost is one you hated, you have enough money to live on, and you now have the freedom to do whatever you want…this is probably what you’ve already heard from your friends a million times.
What they don’t know is that thinking that way just makes you feel worse.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 27, 2011
You may love someone who loves you back, and you may want to live happily ever after, and you may have your appointment for “bridalplasty” all lined up, but there are many obstacles that can make partnership impossible. Sometimes it’s some unchangeable aspect of personality, sometimes it’s a life situation, either way, it’s a heart-shaped brick wall. Instead of trying to amp up the love that’s supposed to conquer all, figure out what else you need and accept that you need it. Sadly, when it comes to love, love is not enough, and not even liposuction can make it better.
-Dr. Lastname
I thought my problems were over when, a few months ago, I met an attractive, recently single guy who seemed very interested in me and talked openly about my being the sort of guy he’d like to marry (I’ve been burned too many times by younger guys who seem interested for awhile and then just get bored). Recently, however, I got spooked by the way he made several big choices without telling me or asking my opinion, like buying a house. I was shocked, and while he told me I could decorate the place anyway I wanted so I could feel at home, I was still emotional about him making such a big decision without even telling me. When I asked him to examine why he’d done it, he suddenly got mad and told me he didn’t need a lot of drama in a relationship and maybe we should take a break. I was shocked. I don’t want to break up; but my goal is to understand this relationship and make it work.
Just as dating should lead to marriage, the next step after fighting is supposed to be communicating and understanding one another’s position. In a fair world, this would be true. Alas, we haven’t even located that solar system yet.
If you can’t reach an understanding and instead seem to be triggering a breakup with someone who has, until now, been loving and generous, it’s natural to doubt yourself and wonder what you’ve done wrong. It’s also natural to not use deodorant—doesn’t mean you should.
Again, in a fair world, no true friend would threaten to break up with you unless you said something terrible, but that rule holds currency only in a galaxy far, far away.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 24, 2011
As a general rule, the worst kind of advice is unsolicited, but when you’re a parent, it often feels like giving your two cents is your duty, even if no one asks for it. Of course, it’s hard to offer good advice to your children about touchy, questionable decisions they’ve already made. It’s amazing what you can say and get away with, however, if, instead of giving them a piece of your mind, you take the time to ask them questions about where their mind’s at without any negativity or judgment. Hopefully, you’ll come to a conclusion that makes sense to both of you, and you can save your two cents for a rainy day.
–Dr. Lastname
I wish I could be sure that my daughter is getting the right treatment for my grandson. He’s 7-years-old and been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and his doctor started him on a drug called Abilify, which has some nasty side-effects. I’ve read on the internet that Abilify can be harmful to kids and I wish my daughter and her husband would think twice before allowing themselves to be talked into using it, but I don’t want to intrude into their decision. My goal is to make sure my grandson isn’t harmed.
Never ask someone if they’re sure they know what they’re doing, because if they weren’t sure, you wouldn’t need to ask in the first place.
If you do end up asking your daughter why she’s exposing her son to a dangerous medication, not only will she answer yes, but she’ll give you an annoyed earful as to how she’s doing the right thing, how you don’t know what you’re talking about, and how you should just mind your own business.
She might not know what she’s doing, but neither did you when you opened your mouth.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 17, 2011
At this point in our culture, optimism and communication are reflexive answers to almost every question; if life or your family is treating you badly, your gut tells you to look on the bright side and try and hash it out. What people don’t like to realize, however, be it in their brains or in their guts, is that there are often things we don’t control, and most of the time, bad circumstances and other people’s bad decisions fall under that purview. The basic rule of human behavior may be to go with your gut, but that’s actually pretty foolish when you realize your gut is full of shit.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve got 4 kids, all under 7, and a wife with a chronic, hard-to-diagnose condition that has her walking with a cane. So sometimes I feel overwhelmed. That fact is, I’ve got a good job and my wife and I get along well, and I know people who have more problems than I do. I feel I should be grateful and counting my blessings, and that’s my goal– to be at peace and not feel so overwhelmed.
The unhealthy part about feeling grateful for life’s blessings is that they’re often transitory and sometimes non-existent (unless you consider a cane a blessing).
After all, if you’re grateful today, it’s hard to feel grateful tomorrow when you don’t have those blessings, or meet someone with many more of them who is far less thankful or deserving than you (unless you’re grateful for getting to punch them in the face).
Then there’s always the chance you’ll actually meet that special person who is even worse off than you. If you feel lucky you’re not him or her, you’ll wonder why you deserved better and then need a lobotomy to protect yourself from guilt.
That’s the problem with the words “grateful” and “blessings;” they imply a relationship between you and the Celestial Bestower of Good Luck, and that will always drag you into questions of why, why-me, and what-did-I-do-wrong if/when things get worse.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 13, 2011
When faced with scary health issues, from strange lumps to bad thoughts, people often avoid treatments that hurt, particularly after long-standing symptoms have sapped their hope, fed self-hate, or fostered bad habits. They deny anything’s wrong, or they insist that resistance is futile, but either way, if you criticize them for not helping themselves, they will readily agree, hate themselves more, and burrow deeper into their holes and further away from treatment. Before they can find the way out, they need to reconnect with their real strength. Only by recognizing their actual achievements and their past and potential courage, can they face what ails them. The pain may continue, but not its power to intimidate and paralyze.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: In responding to suicidal goals, as in the case below, we do not presume to offer emotional support. If you’re at risk of hurting yourself, you should, of course, go to an emergency room, discuss your state of mind with a professional, and decide how much support you need in order to remain safe. In most of the cases we encounter, however, our correspondents are not simply suicidal; they are familiar with treatment and have come to believe that it won’t help. Often, we must agree that their feelings are unlikely to change in the near future. What we try to demonstrate, however, is that negative feelings create falsely negative and hopeless beliefs and that there are ways to recover your strength and perspective, even when the pain won’t let up.
I’m considering suicide. My life is a joke. I am in my late 30s and female and I have never had a relationship with a man. Several men have used me for sex and at least 2 of them begged me not to tell any of their friends they’d had sex with me. I’ve never been loved, been held, been listened to, been cherished. I’ve just been used like a toilet. On the outside I’m pretty. I can hold a conversation and I have a reasonable number of friends. But I hate myself and I don’t feel good enough. I was abandoned by both parents and I was raped for the first time when I was about 2-years-old. It’s like men I meet can smell the self-hate on me and they treat me accordingly. I do not have even one person in my life who cares about me or who I could trust. My friends are there to go for drinks or dinner with me if they can find nothing better to do but they are not there to be supportive ever, in any way. What is the point of me continuing to live?
It’s horrible to feel that you don’t belong to the human race, except for your ability to satisfy the needs and cravings of jerks.
Remember, however, that those feelings almost always beget more falsely negative beliefs, particularly about relationships. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you feel infinitely rejectable, comfortable in the company of jerks, and anxious around people you respect, since you know they will reject you for your anxiety and fundamental worthlessness.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 6, 2011
Names are often misleading; there are no arts or entertainment on the A&E channel, Greenland is mostly ice, and, most importantly, Therapy isn’t necessary therapeutic. Fact is, few therapies work completely or all the time, whatever kind of medical problem you have, and there are no guaranteed cures for psychiatric problems. That means there are no no-brainer decisions; all decisions require your brain, so you’re the one who must make all the tough calls. As such, you’re the one who must decide whether a therapy is therapeutic and whether, given its risks, it’s worth trying. The more responsibility you take, however, the more control you’ll experience over your choices, and the more respect you’ll command from others and yourself. If you want to see the mushy kind of therapy, you can watch it on A&E.
–Dr. Lastname
Things have been much better since my husband began therapy—he’s much less explosive and sensitive lately—which is good, because I didn’t really think we could start a family the way he was acting before. He was traumatized as a kid, and it’s made him very suspicious and touchy. I think therapy is helping him to get to the root of his problems, and that, if things continue to go well, we could actually have kids, but I’m not sure when he’ll be well enough for the time to be right. My goal is to set a goal for us.
Your husband may be happy because his relationship with his therapist has filled a deep need, or because he’s excited about a breakthrough, or because the McRib is back.
Sooner or later, however, therapy or no, life won’t be so easy, particularly if you have kids and you run into the usual kinds of medical, economic and personal kinds of bad luck that happen to most of us.
That said, don’t use your husband’s apparent happiness or serenity to decide whether he and your partnership are ready for child-rearing; what you need to know is how well his serenity stands up to stress.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 3, 2011
As most of you gentle readers have probably learned in the last week or so, Dr. Phil is officially wrong; family gatherings are made yet more miserable with good communication. The sad fact is that most of us possess the innate ability to show negative feelings without even opening our mouths, thus stimulating the worst fears and disappointments of our near and dear ones, and then, by a remarkable miracle, reading their negative body language and doing the same. It’s a game of emotional telephone where everyone trapped under one roof sharing a bloodline ends up miserable. You could hate yourself, hate your family, or just comfort eat (much like Dr. Phil?), or you could learn how to communicate more carefully.
–Dr. Lastname
For years, I’ve struggled with depression, and while I don’t blame my brother for all of my problems, he has become something of an anti-anti-depressant. I just spent a week with our parents and my brother’s family (wife and two young kids), and it was exhausting, not because I had to watch the kids, who are great, but because my brother constantly pisses me off and I use all my energy biting my tongue. And the thing is, I accept why less is expected of him; I don’t have kids, so when we’re all together I should be expected to help out more around the house. The problem is the way my brother acts so entitled and patronizing…or maybe I’m just being overly sensitive , or I deserve to bear more of the load around the house just like I deserve to die alone, etc., etc., and I’m depressed again. My goal is to be able to spend time with my whole family without feeling like my whole life sucks.
There’s nothing you can do to change your married-with-kids brother’s irritating manner, or the way your parents treat him as the successful favorite, or the black feelings they stir in your depressed, deserve-to-die-alone soul.
On the other hand, remember that disappointment echoes back and forth between close relatives, even when they’re trying to hide how they feel. Your brother may be withdrawing in response to your depression, you may be hurt by his withdrawal, and so on, while the evidence piles up to confirm your feelings of humiliation and worthlessness.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 23, 2010
When you do something truly stupid, the punishment is twofold; first, you have the knowledge of your stupidity, and then, you have living with the results of said stupidity, or making someone you love live with your stupidity, which makes you feel guilty and makes them feel stupid for loving you in the first place. Unfortunately, stupid is an incurable part of being human—some of us have a more dominant stupid gene than others—and remorse makes it worse. If you want to get smart, begin by accepting your inner stupid and getting to know its habits. Then, maybe next time stupidity calls, you’ll have a better answer and skip the punishing results.
–Dr. Lastname
PLEASE NOTE: We will have a new post on Monday, 12/27, but we’re taking a week off after that for family’ing. If you have angst, holiday related or no, that you need to share, speak now or wait until 2011.
Every now and then my husband, who is a sweet soul and mostly very smart, does something so mind-bogglingly stupid that it puts the whole family in danger. The latest incident happened when he was hanging out at a bar after work and, deeply (into drinking and) moved by the hard luck story of the guy on the stool next to him, he offered, without asking me, to guarantee the guy’s car loan. The next thing we knew, the bank was after our savings because his ex-best-bar-buddy had stopped paying the loan and the car was nowhere to be found. I admit it, I did a lot of screaming and feel like I was a saint for not killing him, but the real goal here is, how do I prevent him from doing it again.
You’re asking a mental health clinician to help you understand and/or change your husband’s behavior. Instead, you should be talking to a lawyer.
You want to stop him from doing it again, but what you really need is to protect yourself from the sure-to-happen next time his impulsive, besotted generosity imperils the family treasury.
You probably expect me, as a mental health clinician, to support the humanistic, liberal, uplifting belief that therapy can help people can change. Sadly, you don’t need a professional of any kind to tell you what you already know: that therapy doesn’t have that kind of power WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 20, 2010
Whenever people are hurting at work, management will try to boost productivity by easing pain, which makes them feel both competent and compassionate. Trouble is, most such efforts piss everyone off by trivializing pain and suggesting things can be better when they can’t. Instead of trying to coddle your workforce or push up your company morale, both the employee and the employed would probably do better if they respected the fact that work is often painful, kept the personal bullshit to a minimum, and just got back to work.
–Dr. Lastname
[Adapted from a reader’s comment.]
Our boss tried to improve sagging morale by having us meet regularly in small groups led by a psychologist. I wish I could figure out what she’s trying to do and not be so annoyed by the way she’s doing it. She asks us to think of a wish-list of how to improve the way the organization functions, and then asks if that’s alright, and then, when someone describes something they’d like to see, like making people feel special by recognizing their birthdays, she praises them for having a great idea and makes them think of ways they could implement it, and then asks us if that’s alright, and then tells us we’re doing great and asks for more and is that alright. She sounds like Hal in 2001 and acts like a computer reinforcing people for contributions that will lift the group. Frankly, she creeps me out and the reason morale is bad is because we’re working too hard and not getting paid enough. My goal is to figure out what to do about someone who is being false and unhelpful.
Your work colleagues are not your family, regardless of what the boss and the boss’s psychologist tell you. When they start holding “sharing” sessions like this, the office becomes “The Office.”
Positive recognition and communication are not the answer to your work troubles, if only because work often sucks, which is why you get paid to do it. If you’re unhappy about doing too much for too little, it sucks even more.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 16, 2010
It’s easy to feel like a success when you’re given a gold medal; and when you’re just another schmuck getting lapped at the local track, it’s hard to take much joy from your efforts. If success is subjective, so is failure. If, however, we look at our accomplishments objectively, our lives are actually Special Olympics, and many of us who feel like losers are really champions.
–Dr. Lastname
My son makes a living and he’s a nice guy, but I don’t think he’s ever really pushed himself or lived up to his smarts. He works in a pet shop and lives with a nice girlfriend, but he’s 30 already. All his friends are professionals who own their own homes, and he cleans animal cages and rents an apartment. I wish I knew how to motivate him to do more with his life. Maybe if he went into therapy he’d discover that he’s afraid of success.
To paraphrase Fran Lebowitz, if you’re an American white Christian male and you’re not President of the United States, to some degree, you blew it.
It seems logical to say, about any bright, well-educated kid, that he could do anything if he really wanted to, particularly in this country, and that it’s a shame if he didn’t seize his opportunities.
If you truly agree with this statement or Fran’s, however, your thinking is wishful and potentially dangerous.
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