Posted by fxckfeelings on July 30, 2009
When women are hooked on the wrong kind of love, they often want advice for the wrong reasons, which explains why sometimes good advice is worse than no advice at all. Oddly, giving romantic advice to friends is sort of like dating itself; if it doesn’t stick after a few attempts, then stop wasting your time.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve given my closest girlfriend the same advice a million times, and a million times, she’s passively ignored me, so I’ll say straight away that my goal is to give advice she’ll actually listen to. The problem she always comes to me with is this (and in her mind, it isn’t a problem, at least at first): said friend is in a band, and because of that, she’s always on the road, and in her travels she meets these guys (either randomly for one night or for a few weeks at a time if they’re touring with her band, that kind of thing), and every so often she falls for one of these guys and wants to find a way to have a real relationship with him, even though it’s logistically impossible in the long term due to the fact they live in one place and she lives in another (never mind that they’re usually too young, too drunk, too full of themselves, etc). I tell her those things, but she insists her feelings (which is what made me think I should write you!) can’t be ignored, that guy-of-the-moment gives her butterflies and she can’t remember being this excited about anyone. It’s only a matter of time before things go horribly wrong (he stops returning her texts/calls, starts being a jerk to her, take your pick), and then she’s sad, tells me she should have listened to me, and wonders why she’s so dumb about guys. I, too, wonder, but I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.
Instead of asking yourself what’s wrong with your advice because it hasn’t got through to her after a million times, ask yourself whether there’s any hope of her hearing your advice. Ever. And not because she has tinnitus.
Because the sad thing is, when it comes to the thrill of romance, some people are addicted to those “butterflies” and want to embrace that sensation, no matter how many times they’ve been burned. They love love, whether it’s real or phony, and regardless of how long it takes them to recover, or what else they lose while recuperating. Love is blind, your friend is deaf and dumb.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 20, 2009
Lots of men may be drawn to long legs and big boobs, but there’s nothing sexier to most guys than a severely unstable female. You can marry these women or try to help them, as the people in these cases have tried to do, but when it comes to semi-sane drama queens, there’s only one good bit of advice: run for your life.
–Dr. Lastname
My mother was crazy (bipolar or schizo, it was never clear), and as her youngest, I was the one who took care of her and eventually found a way to get her into the hospital where the state took care of her until she died. I was a crazy kid, but not technically crazy like my mom—I drank too much, got high a lot (too much), crashed a car or two. I met a girl who was crazier even than me, she got pregnant, and so we got clean together to start our family. I’ve stayed clean, but the mother of my kids—now my ex-wife—didn’t. She held it together when she was pregnant all four times, but otherwise, she’d fall off, and now that she and I are finally through, I’ve got the kids and she’s got a nasty drug problem which she funds through alimony, boyfriends, and money she wins from taking me to court for one bullshit reason or another. As for the kids, one has gone through rehab, one is a mom at 18, one’s on tons of medication, and one was killed earlier this year when he was driving drunk. This is a long way of asking a simple question: what the fuck is wrong with me, after the way I was raised, that I can’t stay away from crazy women? Now I’ve passed this curse on to my kids, and now one of them has died because he was unlucky enough to be born to a former-drug addict and a current psychotic crack whore. My goal is to get crazy out of my life for good.
It doesn’t take a Harvard degree (or two) or even a passing familiarity with Sigmund Freud to know that you tend to feel attracted by people who are like your parents, whether you like your parents or not, whether your parents were certifiable or not.
If you expect that feeling to go away, and meanwhile keep dating the people you feel like dating, you’ll keep on getting into trouble, because, surprise, that feeling doesn’t usually go away. And don’t expect therapy to take it away, either.
Like it or not, that feeling—that attraction—is stronger than whatever most therapists have to offer, so if your goal is to stop wanting crazy, forget it. You’re crazy for thinking you can help yourself. (That sounds like it might make a good country-and-western lament).
You’re right to think about the kids, but wrong to think about what your crazy-loving has done to them. The past is past and remorse will do no more than get in your way now. Instead, you should be thinking about how to help them handle their own crazy-loving urges.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 16, 2009
After our last post’s fun foray into terlet humor, we return to the more somber world of family dynamics. In this cases, two people learn that, while it’s always hard for parents to set limits for their kids, it’s even harder for kids to set limits for their parents.
–Dr. Lastname
I didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so I got a job at the local coffee chain when I was in high school so I didn’t have to rely on them. But I needed their help to go to college, so my dad sold some property to pay my tuition, and told me he was sure I’d succeed and he would expect me to help him out someday. After college, I went back to the coffee shop and became manager, and since then, I’ve actually moved up to a fairly high position in our regional office. I used to make lattes, and now I have a corner office and a car I paid for outright. At the same time, I became aware of how poorly my parents manage their money. They buy things they can’t afford and never say “no” to the other kids, no matter how stupid their requests. Then my father comes to me for money, always for specific bills he can’t pay, like the mortgage, or car insurance. But at the same time, he’s spending money he can’t afford, so I feel like I’m bailing out a sinking ship and my efforts are a total waste. My goal is to get my dad to understand that he has to budget his money and learn to say “no” and that I can’t continue to support him like this without going broke myself. But I can’t stop feeling responsible for saving my family from the mess they’re in.
If your dad could understand and accept the need for budgetary controls, it would have happened three major impulse buys/maxed out credit cards ago, so your goal as it stands now is useless.
Worse than that, even suggesting a budget to him will bite you in the ass, because he probably blames his problems on bad luck, not getting enough help, being too nice a guy, etc. So when you suggest, in the kindest way possible, that he’s a financial fuck-up, you’ll become the scapegoat. You’ll go from being the solution to being the problem so quickly, you’ll get whiplash.
He’ll see you as the ungrateful son who benefited most from his generosity, and now is too selfish to give back. You’ll get angry and pull away, which will unite the rest of family behind him, and leave you shunned, alone, and unable to give them help when they really need it. Your goal isn’t just useless, it’s the perfect shit-storm.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 13, 2009
This post might not be for the faint of heart, but then again, life rarely is. After all, shit is inescapable, not just as metaphor but as reality, thus, it’s worth exploring those issues that deal not just with emotional crap, but with crap, period. Here at fxckfeelings.com, we take your shit seriously. Literally.
–Dr. Lastname
OK, I’m having an issue with a guy at work, and it’s pretty gross, but it’s also driving me crazy and nobody will take me seriously. I can’t say exactly where I work, but it’s the kind of bureaucratic place where nobody ever gets fired. Like you’d have to murder someone in the office, and even then, vacation without pay. This guy recently got kicked down to my office, which is pretty small and windowless (it’s a filing sort of thing), and I’m not sure what landed him here—he’s nice enough, although he’s a little creepy around girls—but all I do know is that he farts. All the time. And I know, it’s funny, ha ha, but it’s not funny when you have to spend all day with him and he occasionally bends over to file something and lets one rip in your fucking face. Normally, I’d just bust his balls about it, but he has zero sense of humor, and I think he’d just stare at his feet and say nothing and avoid me in the future. Which would be great, except our desks are right next to one another. My boss thinks it’s a joke and told me to deal with it. But it’s not a joke, it’s fucking gross, and working with him makes my sick, literally. So my goal is to get someone to take me seriously and help me deal with this guy.
Congratulations! You’ve come to the right doctor because, while I rarely care about your feelings, I always take farts seriously. After all, is it possible to feel happy without happy bowels? Of course not.
I’ve often theorized, (if not in scientific meetings, at least at family get-togethers), that farts were the first form of pheromonic communication, before people learned to lie by making sounds with their vocal cords. After all, while assholes often lie, farts do not.
Then the brain routes their message directly to the amygdala, (I’m sure that’s what brain imagists will discover, when they do the necessary experiments), which is, on the higher level, very similar to what happens when you touch a hot skillet and jump back before you realize what’s happened.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 6, 2009
In honor of our nation’s birth, we’re doing our patriotic duty this long weekend and helping out one of our elected leaders (at least until he’s forced to resign); this man may no longer be a hopeful for the White House, but he’s already the commander-in-chief of feelings. We also reach out to his wife, who probably is less in need of a shrink than a good divorce lawyer.
Happy 4th!
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve always had a God-given gift for communicating with people and have tried to use my gifts to lead people in a moral direction. In recent years, after achieving success as a lawyer, and marrying a truly remarkable woman, I felt a calling to run for office and, with her help as campaign manager, I was elected to office. I wasn’t afraid to take unpopular positions if I felt I was doing the right thing, because I trust my passion; that’s what connects me with people. About a year ago, I felt an unbelievable sense of connection with a beautiful, foreign woman. I’ve never felt so close to anyone, and it seemed unfair to either one of us not to share our love. But instead of having a beautiful experience to share and then put behind us, I became obsessed. It distanced me from my wife, who sensed that something was wrong, and it distracted me from work. I had to lie, and I hate lying. Finally, and with great relief, I confessed the truth. But I still can’t stop thinking and talking about her and now my marriage and political life are a mess. In the past, passion has brought me all my success and I need passion in my life. Now, I want to recapture that passion in a way that revives my marriage, interest in my job, and relationship with the public.
To successful politicians, who often have your style and personality, intense feelings often seem like the core of their being, and what makes them special. Such feelings give the gift of easy communication, charisma, material success, votes, and a certain je ne sais what the ladies love (and, sometimes, the dudes—here’s to you, Larry Craig, for having more charisma in your feet than most of us have in our entire bodies).
Sooner or later, however, your skills work their mojo, you achieve your goals, and life settles down to boring conversations with family and the same old guys at work (even if many are relatively famous), and at that point, if passion has become your elixir of life, you may feel like you’ve lost your oxygen and slid into meaningless mediocrity. The spark, as you might call it, is gone.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 1, 2009
Human nature tells us that the best way to solve a problem is to get to the root of the issue, but some problems, like mental illness, have no simple cause and no solution to speak of. In today’s cases, two people need to rethink their approach to mental illness; when you stop looking for someone to blame or a silver bullet cure, you can get to the real business of learning to cope with the reality of the present.
–Dr. Lastname
I think one of my sister’s kids might be mentally ill—he’s 9 and very intense and unhappy—but my sister doesn’t see it, and I don’t know how/if to get her to pick up on it. It should be fairly obvious to her since we saw the same symptoms in our mother, who wasn’t diagnosed as bipolar until we were kids and she had a chance to put on quite a show. I guess my sister doesn’t really understand that our mother wasn’t just a mean drama-queen but actually sick, maybe because she was younger when Mom went to the hospital and doesn’t really remember, or maybe because she’s in denial, or maybe both of those things combined with the fact she and her husband are space cadets that are such hands-off parents they don’t even notice that one of their own children is clearly suicidal. My goal is to get my sister out of the clouds and get my nephew some help, because if something happens to that kid, I don’t blame genetics, I blame her.
As any teacher well tell you, the danger of bestowing your idea of help on another parent’s child is that you have very little control over how parents react, because no parent wants to hear that something is wrong with their child. And their default response lies somewhere between defensive anger and general freaking out.
The freaking out also comes from the fact that it’s hard to keep the urgency and alarm out of your voice, no matter how diplomatic you think you are, and feelings trigger feelings. Suddenly you’re in a perfect storm of hysteria, but hey, no good deed goes unpunished.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 10, 2009
We’re all familiar with the overgrown-child/slacker archetype, the 30-something offspring who lives in the basement and still has mom do his/her laundry. In film and TV, that character is played for laughs, but in real life, adults that rely heavily on their moms—either because they can or because they have to—are sometimes very unfunny. In these two cases, those close to needy adult-children aren’t amused.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in my 30s and have always been the responsible and goal oriented brother, but my baby brother, who’s just out of college, has always been the opposite. He basically sponges off our mother, and his ungrateful attitude towards her is making me more and more angry. I don’t want to feel this way, because I know what he does for her is not my concern, but it has gotten to the point where I don’t want to be around my brother because I don’t want to witness any of his behavior. I literally feel ill when I see the way he just takes from our mother and really uses her, but my mother doesn’t see it that way, so she resents me for feeling like this. My father is actually on my side, but my dad travels a lot for work and is not always around to put his foot down. Overall, my brother and I are just totally different people/personalities, and there are so many different conflicts in our way of thinking, but now the differences between us are spilling over into the rest of the family dynamic. Is it wrong to distance myself from him? I don’t want to dislike him as much as I do, but being around him isn’t going to help.
I’m not sure what your goal is here, but I think we both agree what it isn’t– trying to change your brother. Without the benefit of supernatural powers, you can’t get your brother to stop being a sponge or your mother to stop protecting him, regardless of how much you’d like them to change.
Trying to do so, as you’ve experienced with your mother, could drag all of you into a rut. As a goal-oriented guy, you may have a particular talent for straightening things out, a talent which helps you work hard and make a living, but if you apply that talent to changing your family, you’re in trouble.
You might feel a moment of relief after telling them what you really think; it’s what I have previous described as something of a “feelings fart,” as the relief is temporary with a lingering effect that poisons the air and clears the room.
In other words, your toxic emission with cause your brother will tell you that you’re mean and jealous and your mother will accuse you of tearing him down when he needs building up. No wonder your father travels a lot for work.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 31, 2009
The concept of being one’s “brother’s keeper” has never been a very good one; from the Bible to the Clinton boys, older siblings taking responsibility for their youngers has rarely had good results. In these two cases, older siblings feel obliged to get their little brother/sister back on track, but being related to someone by blood doesn’t make them any easier to control. You can’t “keep” your siblings, but you can keep trying to do the right thing.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m one of seven kids, standard big Irish family, fairly standard/normal childhood, everybody seems to get along. My youngest brother, however, has always been a quiet kid (and I’m the oldest, so he’s much younger than me), and while he’s not the black sheep exactly, he’s always been a little bit different and maybe something of a misfit in general. One of my uncles died recently, and at the wake, my brother took me and all of our siblings aside to tell us that he’s been going to therapy and has recently recovered memories of being molested by our late father. Now, I’d never describe my dad as being a warm or lovable guy, but he wasn’t a monster– never raised a hand to me or anyone else in the house that I saw, and certainly never tried to touch me in a sexual way (or any of the other kids as far as I know). And, like I said, I’m not that close with my younger brother because I was in high school when he was born, so basically, to put it nicely, I just don’t think he’s remembering things right. None of the other siblings do, either, but ever since he made his little announcement, he’s been pushing us to support him and getting angry when we try to calm him down/kindly and tell him he should back off. Since I’m the oldest, my other brothers and sisters are looking to me to handle the situation, but I really have no idea what I can say to make this go away. My goal is to figure out what the hell is going on and get him to stop.
You might not know your brother that well, but I’ve dealt with his type many times: certain people go through life feeling different, cut off, ultra-sensitive, and constantly unhappy. They are troubled as much by not knowing why they’re suffering as by the suffering itself.
In their isolation and misery, they are constantly wondering what went wrong, if they did it to themselves, and what they should be doing about it. If they can believe that someone bad did something horrible to mess up their minds, whether it happened or not, it makes sense of their suffering and gives them something concrete to do about it.
Sure, something bad may have happened to them, or their reaction to constant suffering may have exposed them to additional harm at the hands of people they would otherwise have stayed away from. The sad thing is that no one has a solution to their suffering: not friends, not therapists, not older brothers.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 20, 2009
Everybody has bad habits, but nail-biting is one thing, theft is another. When someone has a habit that is so obviously awful, we’re certain that such bad habits must have an equally obvious and easy fix. These cases show that what isn’t true for junkies also isn’t true for pyros– bad habits are hard, if not impossible, to break.
-Dr. Lastname
My husband and I have tried everything, but we can’t get my stepdaughter to stop stealing. It started with shoplifting at the mall—clothes, jewelry, even shoes a couple of times—but once she got caught and actually sent before a judge, she did some community service and hasn’t shoplifted since. So now she just steals from us. She started sneaking into our bedroom and lifting money from our wallets. When she ignored our punishments and wouldn’t stop, we put a lock on our door, so she started stealing anything else she could get her hands on (and some things, like DVDs, she’d then sell so she could go back to the mall to buy things she used to steal!). She’s not my daughter biologically, but I’ve been married to her father since she was a toddler, so this isn’t acting out due to a divorce. Still, neither her father nor I can control her, and if we do somehow get her to stop stealing from us, I’m afraid she’ll go back to stealing from others and wind up in jail. I just want her to stop.
Sometimes you can’t get kids to stop stealing and they can’t stop themselves. It’s a sad truth that parents and therapists and tough judges and kind reformers don’t have the answer. We all know nice, concerned, fully functional parents who have out-of-control kids. Kleptomania is just nature’s little present to your offspring.
I don’t mean to suggest that we should ever stop trying to help our sticky fingered children stop stealing, but if you expect them to stop, or expect yourself to get them to stop, you can drive them crazy, the stealing gets worse, and you’ll sink into feelings of failure at a time when you need to persevere and stay strong for the long haul.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 14, 2009
Everybody has one little thing about themselves they wish they could change, but more dangerous is the one little thing about someone *else* you wish you could change, either because you want to help them or help yourself. Here are two cases that prove that change truly does come from within…your own mind.
-Dr. Lastname
(And for those still hell-bent on wanting to change, you can always submit your own problems here).
I’ve been with my husband for 4 years now, and in that time, I’ve gotten less and less tolerant of his casual attitude towards keeping appointments and being on time. He doesn’t just not show up—he’ll always call with a reason he’s late, or at least make some joke that used to charm me enough not to get annoyed—but still, he knows it’s irritating, and I’m starting to think it’s indicative of something bigger, like, maybe he doesn’t love me enough to follow through on his promises. (And I know he does this to everyone, but he shouldn’t be doing this to his wife, and I know they’re mostly little promises, but shouldn’t those be the easiest to fulfill?) Just talking about this, I feel like I’m losing my mind, which means there’s nothing about his flakiness that doesn’t drive me crazy. Maybe, because it’s not cute anymore, I worry that nothing about him will be cute anymore? Do you think going to couples therapy would help? We should be starting a family by now, but should I be with a guy who can’t keep a simple schedule? Because my goal is to stay married and stop being annoyed.
First of all, don’t let yourself believe that your husband could stop being late if he loved you more. If you do that, you’ll attack him for devaluing your relationship, he’ll feel the relationship is devalued by your failure to accept him, he’ll act worse, and the devaluing will start to come true.
It’s much less dangerous, if more painful, to accept the sad facts that he can’t stop being late and you aren’t going to change him. Then you’re also free to respect his love and all the positive qualities you chose him for.
It’s tempting to drag him into couples therapy, let fly with your grievance, and hope the therapist can get him to change. Alas, therapists have no more power than you do to accomplish such change. The result will be much like a loud, chair-rattling fart: an explosion of hot air providing immediate relief for the one feeling the pressure, followed by a bad smell that everyone is helpless to dissipate. A good therapist will stop you before you start and ask you whether you really want to do this.
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