Posted by fxckfeelings on December 10, 2009
Most of us make a big deal out of apologies, but the sad truth is that “sorry” doesn’t serve as a guarantee of lessons learned or absolution, just a band-aid on our hurt feelings until one party messes up again. For all our emphasis on forgiveness, it’s hardly a virtue, Christian or otherwise, if it requires you to assume that people have more choices than they really do.
–Dr. Lastname
My daughter is turning into a petty criminal. She’s getting kicked out of school again, she won’t stop messing around with drinking and drugs, she has unprotected sex, and her boyfriend is probably the guy who broke into our house and stole our TV, though she refuses to believe it. My husband and I have tried so many times to get her to see what she’s doing wrong and steer her in a better direction—we’re our own private “scared straight” program at this point—but every time we confront her about where she’s headed, she says she feels terrible, that she’s sorry, that she never wants it to happen again…and then she gets wasted and everything repeats itself. If only we could get her to understand the harm she’s doing, maybe we could get through to her and turn her around. Meanwhile, it’s killing us. We try to forgive her, but it’s hard. My goal is to forgive her and get her to see what she’s doing to herself and everyone who loves her.
There’s no point in getting your daughter to see what she’s doing wrong if she can’t really stop herself from doing it, and she really, really can’t. You can’t scare straightness into a boomerang.
Regret and remorse will make her feel bad, and you might think that will stop her from fucking up next time. Well, au contraire, my dear unHarvard-educated sap. It’s not fair, but that’s the way it works. You should know that since you’re the one missing a TV.
According to Christmas movies and sentimental parts of the Bible, repentance leads to redemption, but I say, goddammit, that’s just wishful bullshit.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 7, 2009
At fxckfeelings.com, we’re never afraid to tackle the ickier topics; we deal with not just the feelings that come out of us, but the solids, as well (although often they’re equivalent). So if someone can’t hold it down or you can’t hold it in, sure, it’s an awkward situation, but it’s not the end of the world. You’re not responsible for what goes in or what comes out, just for what you do about it, whether it’s your problem or your neighbor’s.
–Dr. Lastname
I just started at college, and I like my roommate, but she’s bulimic and hard to be around. Not just because she’s sick (and everybody on the floor knows about her problem, it’s hard not to), but because when she binges, it’s on my food because that’s what’s closest, and she always feels really bad about it and cries that she wishes she could stop, but then she doesn’t offer to pay for it and it’s costing me a lot of money. Part of me just feels bad for her, because she’s clearly really messed up, but another part of me is pissed because I’ve lost a lot of money this year on food that she’s eaten and thrown up, and that just makes me feel guilty like I’m a bad person for putting my lost money above her health. I want to move after the break, but I don’t want her to feel abandoned. My goal is to help her and myself.
Welcome to that other part of college, Hard Knocks University, where the class Helplessness 101—what to do when you can’t help both someone and yourself, and sometimes you can’t help at all—is a frosh requirement.
The tough part is not the decision, but accepting the shitty nature of your options. Bulimia, like any chronic condition (depression, addiction, etc.) is not completely curable, not by you or certainly the patient herself.
If you buy into the psychobabble about body image and low self-esteem, you might think you could help her by praising her strengths, noticing her attractive qualities, or getting her to think about the superficiality and limitations of attractiveness. Ha!
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 23, 2009
The one gift everybody can expect to get around the holiday season is a surplus of emotions (which, as I’ve said before, turns into a surplus of business for me—ho ho ho!). The ghost of Christmas (and Thanksgiving and New Years) past visits most of us, but for those with rough pasts, said ghost can be a real bitch. If you keep your emotional swamp in check and focus on the positive in the present, you can keep your festivities from being too haunted (and keep yourself out of my office).
-Dr. Lastname
You said before that everybody hates the holidays, and I think most people hate seeing their families. Well, I hate the holidays, but it’s because I don’t have a family; my parents still drink too much, one brother is in jail and the other I don’t trust around my kids, and so every time the holidays roll around I get depressed that I don’t have anyone because the people I should be happy to see are the ones who made me the crazy mess I am today (honestly—I’m bipolar, but on medication). I’m sick of basically being guaranteed to hate myself and life all winter just because of what my family did. My goal is to find a way to feel better no matter what time of year it is.
There’s a simple answer to why it’s a bad idea to expect to get over the sorrow of a bad, abusive family; because usually, it simply can’t be done.
Focusing on your pain and waiting for it to go away will spoil your holidays even more than they’re already spoiled. Talk about a turd in the cranberry sauce.
Maybe you think it’s a holiday right and tradition to vent/celebrate your sad feelings with a shrink. Well, this shrink says forget it. I’m not interested, and neither should you be.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 19, 2009
Unless you’re holding a weapon, getting someone to do something they don’t want to with a simple request is virtually impossible. Even harder, however, is getting someone to do something they don’t want to do by passively nudging them; now both the request and the delivery of the request are so repellent that you’ve guaranteed a bad outcome. Taking a stand isn’t easy, and jebus knows it’s often a bad idea, but when it has to be done, you need to cowboy up and be direct, weapon or no.
–Dr. Lastname
Lately, I’ve been trying to get my life together, and part of that is quitting drinking; my fiancé and I are actually getting sober together. The problem in all this is my mother; she lives nearby and comes over often (believing she is providing “moral support” for turning my life around), and, for whatever reason, no matter what the occasion, she brings a bottle of wine as a gift and makes a really big deal about the vintage and how refined it is and all this nonsense. I guess she doesn’t really understand that drinking is a big source of my problems, and both my fiancé and I have dropped hints to that effect, but it’s not getting through, and so, surprise, it’s messing with our sobriety. My goal is to get through to my mother that, while I appreciate her kindness, she’s actually being kind of cruel.
When you decide it’s necessary to get a grip on any powerful hard-to-control behavior, your goal is not to get people to take the hint that they should avoid tempting you. (Hint, hint—you’re being a wuss).
If you’re hinting, it’s because you’re afraid to tell people, straight out, that you’re trying to get sober, and that means that you’re more worried about what they think than about your reasons for not drinking. Your sobriety doesn’t stand a chance; you’re not strong enough.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 12, 2009
Boundary issues are always a fun topic for us at fxckfeelings.com; from those who want to get too close to those who push others too far away, people are always clashing over personal territory while assuming the other guy is violating the rules. But what if we’re wired to see our territories differently and talking about it just gets everyone more annoyed? That’s when your goal gets more interesting.
–Dr. Lastname
My next door neighbor is your typical Mrs. Kravitz…always in my business asking me personal questions. Lately, she’s taken to walking into my driveway while I am working to get more dirt. My proposed solution to remedy the uninvited driveway visits is to add on to the existing fence, cutting down the easy access. I don’t want to have a conversation about “why” I am putting up the fence, so I am just going to do it without letting her know. My only fear is that there will be some kind of future confrontation because this neighbor gets insulted at the drop of a hat. My goal is to protect my boundaries, one way or the other, without having an angry neighbor to deal with for the next 30 years.
Using a fence to block out your neighbor’s intrusive curiosity may work…unless it actually does the opposite.
After all, it may just serve to whet her appetite, and pretty soon, she’ll have you under 24 hour surveillance with Predator overflights and under-eaves webcams. You’ll look like Wile E. Coyote writing away to Acme (or the German Democratic Republic) for ever-more-advanced fencing.
In other words, your goal isn’t to stop her, but to try. If your goal is to stop someone from prying when you can’t, you’ll go nuts, and your helplessness will draw her like a magnet (and your misery will draw you to me like a magnet, trust me).
If you begin by admitting you might well be fucked, then you’ll probably try cheaper options first (unless you already have).
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 9, 2009
The holidays are a boom time for business, not just for malls and Salvation Army Santas, but for those of us in the mental health game; from family fights at Thanksgiving through being lonely on New Year’s Eve, holiday malaise keeps most shrinks pretty busy until the thaw begins after a chilly Valentine’s Day.
The reason for all this misery is due simple; all occasions involve great expectations for happiness and their close cousin, guilt, which is especially pronounced during this period, because, as much as nobody wants to avoid their own family or a stranger in need, it’s especially hard to do so “during the holiday season.” Of course, it’s bullshit, and a pain for most people, but for me, cases like these mark the beginning of the shrink’s harvest festival. Let me reap what you sow!
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t know why my sister turned out so trashy—we were raised under the same roof, and it wasn’t in a trailer—but she’s a real mess, with a drunk mess of a husband and three messy step-kids, and because of her traveling “Springer Show” of a family, I dread any and all family gatherings. She and her circus show up at Thanksgiving at my parents’ house every year, and by the end of the night at least one adult and two children are crying, and every year I swear I’m never going to put myself and my husband through another holiday disaster, but every year Mom talks me back into it and so it goes, over and over again. As the big day approaches, I want to know if there’s anything I can do to make this year any less excruciating. My goal is to find a way to be around my sister/my entire family without wanting to impale myself.
In addition to your Springer Show knowledge, you are certainly (and smartly) demonstrating the wisdom of not expecting family get-togethers to be fun, warm, and happy.
Sure, it would be nice to find yourself at a very special Thanksgiving (and in the TV-holiday-episode way, not the short bus way), and maybe that’s the kind of holiday gathering you used to take for granted chez vous.
Unfortunately those days are over, and the goal for you and your mother is to get used to the big, sad change and make the best of it. In one sense, it’s your sister’s fault, but since she married an asshole because she’s stupid, and not because she wanted to fuck your and her Thanksgiving over, it’s really no one’s fault.
It’s just life, and you often don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on November 5, 2009
Bitching about our higher-ups at work is a national pastime, but the sad fact is, there’s a reason bosses get paid more; being the one in charge of keeping everyone else happy is a real pain in the ass. If you get thrust into that position at work yourself and are expected to rally the troops, you first need to ask yourself whether you’re leading them to victory, or your own personal Waterloo.
-Dr. Lastname
I’ve worked at the same place for a long time. I’m a secretary, but I do get some respect due to seniority and the fact that I’ve always gotten along well with my peers and the higher-ups. That’s why some of my co-workers, who are younger and don’t know the new boss as well as I do, pushed me to confront him about the fact that he’s made some foolish decisions about the staff. The only problem is that, knowing he’s clueless and impulsive, I doubt he’ll hear what we have to say and he may well feel that we’re trying to get him fired, which may prime him to retaliate. Plus, all these kids are pushing me to say something because they’re angry and feel that agreeing with one another validates what they say, but they have no real evidence that the boss said what he did. I want to make the boss see that he has to be more careful so we can all go back to doing our jobs.
It’s an achievement that you have the confidence of your peers and administrators—kudos—but your goal is not to represent your co-workers, or anyone else, before first considering the risks.
From management’s side, you might be seen as leading a mutiny, make yourself responsible for the actions of people who are not as restrained and sensible as you are, and, surprise, get yourself fired. From your co-worker’s point of voice, you may also piss everyone off because you can’t give them the justice they sent you for.
In the end, the only thing everyone may agree on is that they’re mad at you. Then you’ll get depressed, and then tada, welcome to my practice!
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 29, 2009
When people feel most powerless, they instinctively attempt to exert as much control as they can; even—especially—when they have less control than ever. In those situations, they go to the one thing over which they feel they’ll always have control, which is their own life, or the lives of those closest to them, but the more they discuss whether or not to continue life, the more they make that life difficult. Ultimately, it’s best not to ask “should I live,” but to admit—you guessed it—”I am fucked.”
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t seem to make a decision about the life/death issue. I want to want to live, or have the balls to call it quits. Shit or get off the pot. It takes too much damn energy vacillating.
“To be or not to be”—that’s still the question, right? Well, it’s also a question I never like to answer or hear.
Shakespeare or no, it’s a bad question to ask, because most people who ask it don’t really want an answer; they want an antidote to their hurt or someone to blame for not providing it.
It’s similar to the way Boston taxi drivers ask the passenger whether to take the Pike or Storrow to Logan airport — to have someone else to blame when, either way, they inevitably run into heavy traffic.
I know, the question expresses your deepest feelings. It also wears out friends, drives them away/proves that no one can help, and confirms your right to be very, very unhappy. The whole cycle sucks and it’s unhealthy. Keep asking it, and somebody will go ahead and hurt you more.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 8, 2009
It’s easy, when someone can’t control their behavior, to assume that they are evil, stubborn, or somehow defective and that you’ve got to get through to them, one way or another (not so nice) way. Just because someone can’t behave, however, doesn’t mean s/he’s evil and/or totally resistant to your values; and just because you’re getting nowhere with them doesn’t mean they won’t get it together eventually. It’s easy to write someone off, and it’s easy to be written off, but if you’re hoping to work through a problem instead of just blame someone for it, the only thing incurably defective in these scenarios is the moralizing.
–Dr. Lastname
My older daughter just turned 10, and I’m fairly certain that she is pure evil. My wife and I are not bad people—no family history of mental illness, either—but our older daughter, who looks like a normal little girl, says such nasty things to her little sister that it would make your head spin. Our younger daughter, who’s 7, thinks her sister is a miserable terror, and I have to say, I agree with her; the stuff that comes out of our 10-year-old’s mouth is so cruel, I’m almost in awe of it. My wife and I have sat her down and asked her if she acknowledges how awful her words are, how much it hurts her little sister, and how serious we are about how much she needs to change her attitude. Since then, our older has been less mouthy with us, but just as terrible to her little sister, and we have no idea how to make it stop. My goal is to stop my older daughter from being so mean—that is, if she’s not just satanic and hopeless. I’d really like to get her to understand what she’s doing and why she needs to stop (if I can get that through her evil mind).
As those Spanish Inquisition cardinals learned while swishing around in their gorgeous red gowns, any effort to stamp out the devil gives him a giant energy boost and brings him (or her) to dramatic life.
This is because most of us—even the best of us, like David Letterman—have some devilish impulses that bust out when we’re tired, or rubbed the wrong way, and generally when our control is far from perfect.
So when someone tries to eradicate our wickedness, we may initially agree with their goals. Sooner or later, however, when our impulses don’t cooperate by disappearing, self-hate and shame get stronger and, yes, you guessed it, feed the nasty impulses, whatever they are. The cardinals get to meet the very devil they were trying to exorcise, and the devil’s poor host snarls back and throws up pea soup. A classic vicious circle.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 1, 2009
Guilt is an unvoidable part of life—as well as a central motivator of at least a couple of religions—and often the sources of guilt (see: family) never go away. What most people don’t realize is that there’s false guilt and real guilt, the former far more easy to ignore, the latter worth confronting in a meaningful way. Still, while you can’t get rid of guilt overall, there are ways of managing it so that, at the very least, it doesn’t become a holy pain in the ass.
–Dr. Lastname
My mother is a drama queen– she thrives on family conflict and gossip and needs to control every step of my life. She has her nose in everyone’s business, talks badly about most people, and also has a violent temper (at 79 years old, she still throws things and flips people [like me] the bird out of anger). Several events happened that finally made me so angry with her that I literally told her off and have cut ties with her for over a year, but during this year I have suffered from terrible guilt and shame for turning my back on my elderly mother. Believe me, I feel better and more relaxed without her constant turmoil, but there are nights that I wake up from a dream where I am shunned at her funeral as “the daughter who abandoned her mother”. I have tried, in the past, to talk sense into her and explain my feelings but she creeps back to her same troubling ways. My goal is to get over the guilt that I feel about cutting my mother out of my life.
Anger is never a good reason for doing anything, and particularly not for cutting off ties with your mother; after all, anger’s a feeling, and you know that’s a dirty word. It’s not that you don’t have good reasons for being angry, just not for letting anger make your decisions.
As you’ve now realized, once you let anger take over, it’s very hard to protect yourself against guilt, which is where your major problem lies now. The only good, healthy defense against guilt, other than drowning your neurotransmitters in alcohol, is to know you’ve done the right thing, regardless of how unhappy you’ve made someone feel or how badly they’re suffering while you’re the one standing watch.
In this instance, unfortunately, you haven’t done the right thing, so guilt has become your master.
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