Posted by fxckfeelings on May 10, 2009
How do you help people fix the way they help other people? The easy answer is, you don’t, but if the answer was easy, we’d be out of work. Here are two cases of helpers’ helpers in need of help themselves.
-Dr. Lastname
My wife is a good woman, but she can’t say no to people close to her or control her giving. Her mother has Alzheimer’s and often gets hysterical over aches and pains, or has paranoid ideas about being sexually molested by nurses, and my wife confronts the staff at the home at the drop of a hat to straighten things out. That just gets the staff upset because my mother-in-law is almost brain-dead and the complaints aren’t real, so now everybody’s mad at my wife because they think she’s blaming them. I’m not happy with her always being unhappy, and she blames me for not being supportive, and I’m worried she’s getting depressed. My goal is to get her to be less involved with her mother and less unhappy.
It’s hard to feel that you’ve done your best to help someone when they don’t get better, and they’re not satisfied with what you’ve done. Your wife can never feel she’s done enough for her mother; and you can’t feel you’ve done enough for your wife. And there’s no way to stop those feelings.
If you try to help her, you will probably make things worse. If you use a therapy session to confront your wife about her negativity and its bad effect on you and her mother’s care—if you suggest that she’s bending over backwards because her mother was really a jerk who always made her feel guilty–the more you’ll regret it.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 7, 2009
Since Monday was about anxiety, it makes sense that Thursday should be about the peanut butter to anxiety’s jelly– depression! In these two cases, depression has created urgent circumstances, not just for someone in pain, but for a sympathetic bystander. And, as often happens, the negative beliefs caused by depression are much more dangerous than depression itself.
–Dr. Lastname
Someone I’m close to called and e-mailed me a few times last night about killing himself, and this isn’t the first-time this has happened. The last time I got him to call a hotline and get help, and he agreed to go to therapy, but for whatever reason, it didn’t take, and now we’re back to square one. I’d like to believe that this time is another false alarm—that the fact he tells me he’s going to kill himself means that he wants me to talk me out of it—but how can I ever be sure? When he called last night, he asked me if I wanted to kill myself with him, I said no, but then he hung up before I could ask him where he was. Without a location for him, I didn’t feel like I could call the police, but I did call his parents (they couldn’t reach/find him, either). I don’t know what else to do, and frankly, I’m terrified. Please help me do whatever I can to keep him alive.
It’s dangerous to try to save the life of a suicide bomber, and that’s what certain very angry suicidal people are. It’s dangerous for them as well as for you, because the fact of your caring may give them a witness, a target for their anger, and a sense of meaning to their death.
If you don’t respond to his calls, he may take perverse satisfaction in letting you know he died because you failed him. If you do respond, he may tell you that you’re the only person keeping him alive.
Along the way, he tries to talk you into joining him. Whatever. He puts a terrible responsibility on you for his tortured life, and things go downhill from there.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 29, 2009
Monday was about wanting to be liked, so today is about wanting to control hate. Anyone who’s read a history book, seen a Michael Bay movie, or mentioned the Yankees to a member of the Red Sox Nation (yeah Van Every!) should know that hate is not something that we have much power over. Sadly, that doesn’t stop us from sometimes trying. Here are ways to manage hate before you start hating yourself.
–Dr. Lastname
I cannot fucking stand my sister’s husband, never have, never will. He’s a condescending moron, and whenever I try to talk to her about how much he sucks, she just gets mad and doesn’t talk to me for a while. I love my sister though, even if she’s got shit taste in men, and don’t want to stop seeing her or her kids just because he’s always around, being a bastard. My real goal is to get her to leave him, but since that’s not working, I’ll settle on figuring out how to not want to murder my brother-in-law so I can still spend time with my sister.
First of all, you should ask yourself whether you hate your sister’s husband because you find him annoying, or because you think he’s bad for her. Either way though, there’s nothing much you can do, and sharing your feelings with her will reliably make things worse, so you’d better shut up and re-examine your goals.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 26, 2009
We’re all familiar with the phrase “he’s just not that into you,” but as easy as the eponymous treatise is to purchase in airport bookstores, the notion is often harder to grasp. Here are a couple of cases where people can’t accept not being accepted.
–Dr. Lastname
I recently got engaged to a great man whom I’ve been dating for several years now. His family is great, but I often get mixed vibes from his parents— especially his mom. (For the record, I’m a nice girl who plays her role well, e.g. I bring flowers over on holidays and send thank-you notes.) When my fiancé brought this issue up to his mom (with my encouragement) around Christmas time, she said she felt terrible that I felt slighted, but, when I was over their home recently for Easter, “mom” was chatting up a storm with the other brother’s fiancée, and no matter how hard I tried to join in the conversation appropriately it just didn’t work. After my fiancé’s father made a comment about me being quiet, my fiancé told his parents that I had felt slighted again. Then his mom sent me a friendly email trying to make plans, but his dad was annoyed saying that he doesn’t see how I’m “neglected.” If they treat me like this now, what will happen if we have kids someday? Will they ignore them, too? My goal is to enjoy holidays with my in-laws without feeling like I need to get them to like me.
It would be nice to eliminate your need for approval, but it’s not going to happen. Since there’s no way that your future in-laws are going to change their natural preference in daughters-in-law, trying to change your feelings or theirs is a dangerous goal.
Some therapists would recommend individual or family therapy, but given your and fiancé’s excellent efforts to communicate with his parents and the unfortunate (but not uncommon) result, therapy is likely to do more harm than good. The more you suggest your in-laws acknowledge and change their uneven behavior, the more likely they are to become stiff, unaffectionate, and eventually critical, putting your fiancé in the middle and increasing everyone’s helplessness. Ouch.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 19, 2009
We’re starting the week with both sides of the relationship coin; the rejected and the rejector. If the advice seems cold–and our relationship advice often does–please remember that, like love, the truth hurts.
–Dr. Lastname
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t usually succumb to romantic whim, but when this guy came along who seemed so thoughtful, and forthright, and eager to get married and have kids, I was completely swept off my feet. He traveled a lot for work, but we’d talk all the time, and he’d always say how much he missed me and longed to see me again, send me little care packages and love notes. Then, on the day he was to return for a long stay, he walked into our apartment and told me he couldn’t see me anymore. Just like that. He said he was doing me a favor by cutting it off before he did something really awful, but I have no idea what that means. If he wanted fun and romance, I would have hung around for that for a little while at least, so why did he bring up marriage and kids if he was just messing with me? Besides, I find it really hard to believe he’s that much of an asshole to fuck with me on purpose. He was so kind! My goal is to figure out what the hell happened, because one second he wanted to get married, and the next second he wants out of my life for good, and I refuse to believe I can’t snap him out of this and go back to the way we were.
It may sound mean to say fuck feelings to someone who is suffering from a breakup, but when love is the issue, look how dangerous your feelings become if you don’t balance them with a solid wall of hard information and good common sense. Love is blind. You don’t know, when you fall in love with somebody and they appear to fall in love with you, whether they’re the steady type or like Georgy Porgy: in and out of love every few months. Georgy Porgys exist, and they’re heart-breakers. They’re a major reason you must go slow and check for references when love is too good to be true. And that’s a positive lesson you can take away from this experience: learning not to trust your feelings unless they’re backed by facts.
Don’t take this loss personally. Grief can make you question your attractiveness, intensify your loneliness, and make you more vulnerable to no-win lovers. Instead, remind yourself that you did nothing wrong, you’re not unlovable, life is a jungle, and the only thing you need to change is not your personality, but your screening technique.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 12, 2009
If last week started with 101 cases, this week begins with a few from the 201 level; the first two are follow-ups to Thursday’s post about how to deal with crazy people, and the last case, about therapy itself, might seem a little too inside baseball at first glance, but it’s really about basic ways to evaluate whether or not therapy is worth it for you. Especially if you’re not actually crazy.
Thanks for the letters, and please keep them coming. Also, thanks to everyone for the nice tweets, and we’d respond personally more frequently were we not somewhat twittertarded. Alas.
-Dr. Lastname
Follow-up to the crazy neighbor dilemma: If the sane party chooses to move, how will they be able to sell their house without lying about why they are moving? Will anyone buy their house if they say there is a vindictive crazy man next door who may fixate on your family? What are your thoughts?
While this query might have been submitted with a short, direct response in mind, I’m treating it as a full case as it brings up an interesting issue; what’s your goal if someone has you squeezed into a totally inescapable corner, like the crazy neighbor who terrorizes you if you stay in your home and prevents you from selling it and leaving?
You might think your goal is escape, but in reality, that’s more of a wish; sometimes you’re fucked, you can’t escape, and feeling you should will increase your helplessness and self-blame and make you do something stupid. Simply put, your goal is to accept that you’re fucked and keep trying to escape. Remember, this is not useful, solution-oriented advice– it’s advice about what to do when there are no solutions, which is what life’s toughest situations are all about. And those are the kind of situations that drive someone to pay lots of money to talk to someone like me.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 8, 2009
Today we’re doing two long cases that are a good introduction to an important life-lesson; the difference between crazy people and assholes. Yes, there is a difference, and we’ll let the cases explain the rest.
If you have an impossible person in your life, let us know. Especially since, if that person’s truly crazy or an asshole, your friends are probably sick of hearing about it.
—Dr. Lastname
I’ve been living in this house for 20 years, but it wasn’t until last year that my neighbor decided to declare war on me and my family (word is that he used to torture the family in the house on his other side until they moved away). This crazy jerk is trying to push me out of my home by putting trash in my driveway, killing my roses (which he says are too close to his fence, whatever that means), and, when I replant the roses or put the trash in his driveway, calling the police and making false complaints about me! I call the police on him right back, but he won’t stop, and I’m about to lose it. Unlike that other family, we are NOT going to move—I’m very involved in neighborhood matters, and I’m not moving my kids—so I need to figure out a way to get this crackpot to stop. My goal is to teach this nut-job who’s boss and get him to back off.
As much as it’s your job to protect your family, you must also remember that there’s no way to protect anyone from a true nut-job. A true nut-job is sure you’re out to get him, and every conversation you have, whether reasonable or intimidating, loud or soft, juices up his conviction that you’re at war. There’s no known treatment. If he were a crook or selfish, you could appeal to his self-interest, but a true nut-job is like a religious zealot who cares nothing for pain or cost because he’s on a mission from God. There are people like that, and there’s no way to win. Knowing now that you can’t teach a lesson to someone who thinks they know the One Truth, that you’re their enemy, you can see how your goal isn’t a reasonable one.
Of course, while you can’t win, you can’t exactly lose, either, because his issue with you isn’t personal. Whatever the craziness that exists in his brain, it’s already destroyed him as a person, and it’s that craziness that’s attacking the two of you. The craziness is also a lot more powerful than anything else, especially reason, so retaliation is futile. Your job is to approach your neighbor as you would an irritable bear: play dead and hope that the bear eventually loses interest and goes away.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 5, 2009
For our inaugural posting, we thought we’d start slow with a few 101 cases; one person who’s lonely, one who’s miserable, and one who feels responsible for someone else’s misery. You know, simple stuff.
You’ll notice that at the end of every response, we provide a simple statement, either for yourself or for problematic third parties, that we think will simply put our advice into action. It’s less “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough,” and more, “I’m in a sea of shit, but I’m swimming as hard as I can.”
We’ll have more cases coming on Thursday, and remember, if you have problems of your own, we’re here to help. That said, read on to see what our vision of help is. –Dr. Lastname
I’ve gone on my last internet date. All my friends are married at this point, and when they set me up on blind dates, the fall-out is usually so dramatic that I’ve resorted to the internet instead. Now I’m finding out that blind blind dates are even worse. Most of the responses I get are creepy, and the few dates I like suddenly drop me, or just want something short-term, which isn’t what I’m looking for. I’m lonely, I’m sick of being single, and the whole process is making me more depressed because it’s so mechanical and devoid of romance, which is supposed to be the fun part, right? I’d say I’m a normal person, good job, have all my limbs…why am I still alone? Is this the best I’m going to get? My goal is to find a partner who will make me happy, but I’m ready to give up. –desperate.com
Finding a happy partnership is always a dangerous goal because it makes you dependent on something you can’t control but still have strong feelings about. If you don’t find someone—and there’s no guarantee you will—you’ll feel like a loser, rather than just plain lonely. If your goal is to feel less lonely, or satisfy other strong feelings that drive people into relationships and ignite excitement, you’re more likely to fall for the wrong person and/or forget about the other important things in your life. Don’t make it your goal to find someone or be happy (or, God forbid, both). Your job is to conduct a good search for a partner while remaining lonely for as long as it takes to protect your heart and everything of value in the life you have as a single person/human being.
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