Posted by fxckfeelings on September 8, 2011
Getting over a relationship can mean a lot of things—a bad haircut, eating entire pints of ice cream, sex with people you wouldn’t normally make eye contact with, etc.—but what’s most important isn’t how you get over it, but what you get out of it. If you come out the other side with bad feelings but great insight, you’re feeling worse but doing way better than the person who feels great but lacks perspective altogether. Those who don’t learn from relationships are doomed to repeat them, no matter how many bad haircuts it takes.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t seem to recover from my wife’s infidelity. Six months ago, when I found out, it nearly destroyed me. I stopped sleeping, and started eating compulsively, and felt depressed and anxious all day. I have a demanding job and we have a 2-year-old son and I simply had to keep going. Now, after months of couples therapy and my wife’s promising to stop drinking and then starting up again, I’ve gotten strangely detached. I don’t think our marriage is going to make it and, on some level, I don’t care. I can’t lose the 20 pounds I gained, I don’t exercise the way I used to, and I can’t seem to get my confidence or happiness back. What more should I be doing?
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you, not for losing a horrible spouse (that seems both insensitive and obvious), but for becoming a fat, lazy mope. Most people consider “letting themselves go” to be a bad thing, but in this instance, it’s a positive side-effect of recovery at work.
After all, the best measurement of how well you’ve recovered from trauma is not how good you feel. This Sunday marks a rather grim anniversary for many Americans, and after 10 years, some of those people still hurt, and some of those in pain are also in shape. Trauma doesn’t factor into it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 1, 2011
The Bible is too black-and-white to be helpful about the necessity of brother-keeping; so sayeth the Lord, we’ll never feel like good people if we don’t care about our families. The trouble is, some relatives are dangerous or draining to be around, and we’ve got other obligations. So forget about absolute moral imperatives and develop your own rules for being a good person when responding to the needs of people you love (but have good reason not to like or trust). And so it was written.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m wondering whether I should try to do something to help my ex who I feel is spiraling into unhealthy (mentally and physically) old age (i.e., be my brother’s keeper rather than “let live”). He’s been acting weird, keeping strange pets and stranger company, and he moved to a rough part of town though he has the money to live wherever he wants. It’s like he’s having a late-life crisis. I know he’s got a bunch of medical problems and I wonder whether he’s taking care of himself. My goal is to figure out how far I should push him to get help.
Whether or not you should be your brother’s, or your ex’s, keeper is a meaningless question if you expect the answer to be yes or no. Nothing involving exes is simple (even their pets).
If you’re actually wondering how far you should go, that’s a terrific question for which there’s a good way to develop an answer of your own. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on June 9, 2011
Nuclear meltdowns may poison the air and water for miles around, but, in terms of actual damage done, love is probably the greater environmental hazard because it affects more people, gives no warning, and can’t be doused by heavy water. We should give kids courses on “duck and cover” before exposing them to the seduction of dreamy romances, but until then, there are some ways to avoid the fall out. It’s not easy building a hazmat suit, but there are ways to do it if you still have possession of your personality after the exposure is over.
–Dr. Lastname
A year and a half ago, my ex-fiancé died suddenly from a heart attack. He was 38. We had broken up a year earlier, and it was a very messy break-up. He called my boss at work and told her I was trying to have her fired so I could steal her job, I walked away from most of my personal belongings when I moved out, and I walked away from my savings because we had a joint bank account. I went to the funeral and found out that while we were planning our wedding he was pursuing on-line long-distance relationships as well as inappropriate relationships with women in our city. A letter from one of the long-distance women was read out at the funeral. I can’t move past this. I have been dating a man for about 3 months now and he’s wonderful. I have a really hard time thinking positively, and every time we have an argument I think ‘worst case scenario’—that he will leave me. How can I think more positively?
First, begin with the idea that love is dangerous and some people are more vulnerable than others. We’ve called love a virus before, and sadly, your emotional immune system is impaired.
People love to say it’s important to “follow your heart,” but for people like you, that can be deadly; after all, those same people might say that “love is blind,” and when you’re helpless to love, following your blinded heart can lead you right off a cliff. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on June 6, 2011
The reason that high school movies will never go out of style is that a large part of our compass of self-definition, the one that tells us whether we’re doing a good job and adjusting satisfactorily, is magnetically driven by the people we see, socialize, and suffer with every day. Thankfully, real life comes with graduation, and, if you’re lucky, the ability to escape the judgment of peers and make your own evaluations. If you really miss high school that much, skip the critical contemporaries and go straight to John Hughes.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m feeling a little lost. For most of my life, I’ve been an excellent student. I made As and Bs with minimal effort. Seriously, I’d just show up to class, take a few notes, and get an A. I didn’t really have to try. It just happened. The past two years, however, it seems like I’ve been sinking further and further into a hole that’s gotten so deep, I can’t even see where I fell in. I have difficulty motivating myself to get out of bed 90% of the time. When I used to be able to pen an excellent paper in a few hours’ time, I find myself now staring at a blank Word document with nothing but a header for weeks. My GPA has plummeted from fantastic (not stellar, but it would’ve done well enough) to abysmal. The only thing keeping me from dropping out of college entirely is the fact that I know I’d have nothing else at all to live for. My family already thinks I’m a failure, because I haven’t graduated yet. The past two years has put me painfully behind schedule. I’m thoroughly unhappy, and I honestly don’t know how the hell to stop it. I need help figuring out what the hell I need to do to get out of this hole.
Pretend you’ve just been told you have a fatal disease. Suddenly, your GPA and the opinions it inspires in your family and friends probably matter a lot less, no?
When you’re in workplaces, families and/or schools, they seem to be the whole universe and your place in them seems to define who you are. The best thing about being cast out, or even just moving on, is that you gain an opportunity to define your worth more independently, in terms of your values and efforts, instead of what people thought of your performance.
Right now, your grades and your family are telling you you’re a failure, but they don’t deserve to have the last word. You have obstacles you can’t control, and you have good qualities not currently recognized in your limited universe.
It’s time to reassess not just what’s wrong, but how it’s wrong, for whom, and how much is really in your power.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 2, 2011
As feelings go, love isn’t so problematic—you feel good, you act nicer to others, and if all goes well, it is truly “all you need.” Unfortunately, if you’re not careful, love can easily triggers negative thoughts and actions that lead to a whole heap of trouble and turn love from something fuzzy into “a battlefield.” If you can remember who you are and what you believe in, however, you can take risks on love without losing your sanity, and find something more compatible with reality than pop songs.
–Dr. Lastname
You’ve probably had a disgusting amount of questions like the ones I’m about to put towards you, and that’s another thing that annoys me—I’m a cliché. 17 months ago my boyfriend broke up with me, explaining that he was too young to be in a serious relationship. I know this is perfectly logical but I have never been able to get over it, even though I do understand his point of view. I am still very much in love with him. I know perfectly well that realistically no one really marries their first love, that realistically it wasn’t even a proper adult relationship but I feel as raw today as I did the day it happened. I’ve been diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. I have regular nightmares about him. Last Easter I attempted suicide yet it failed. I’ve been sent to counseling, but I didn’t like it. I dropped out of university as I was too distracted and there is nothing I can throw myself into to make me forget it. The idea of him with someone else would kill me. I keep thinking to myself, I’m only 21 and I shouldn’t take this so personally and seriously but I do and I have no idea why. I know I need to wise up but I can’t.
Some say love’s like a drug, but we think it’s more like a (sometimes) innocuous mental illness; it doesn’t make you “crazy”—at least not necessarily—but it does give you weird thoughts, sometimes long after the relationship is over.
While those thoughts are hard to stop and easy to believe in, at least they’re not true. Like anxiety and depression, love has a weird way of keeping itself alive by changing the way you think and act, until it changes your beliefs. That’s when you’re in trouble.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 25, 2011
There’s plenty of evidence out there, from newspaper headlines to vicious drivers, that life is unfair. The clearest proof, at least as we see it at fxckfeelings.com, is that we never cease to get cases about unfairness and the need for justice it inspires. Accepting that life is unfair doesn’t mean giving up, just giving up on the futile goal of stamping out evil altogether. Learn to tolerate unfairness and manage the anger and pain it inspires. After all, given all the ways life can suck, we’re sure you have tons of other personal problems you can write in about.
–Dr. Lastname
I was a wild girl as a teenager and took drugs and cheated on my boyfriends, but one of them stuck by me and now I’ve got a good marriage and 2 nice kids. Life has been pretty good to me, but lately, I don’t know whether it’s getting older or having some acquaintances die, but I feel preoccupied with death and a feeling of not being a very good person. I mean, focusing on those things makes me feel ungrateful, because I’ve been so lucky, but then I feel guilty that I’ve had so much while people I came up with didn’t get the same things I did. I wish I wasn’t so worried about death and thinking about what a jerk I was and how I didn’t get what I deserved.
What we all deserve is a good childhood and a decent set of genes. What most of us actually get doesn’t come close.
Instead, most people end up with a random mishmash that easily includes an extra dose of wildness and parents who are too wild themselves to help us manage our own impulses (the apple, and the genes, don’t fall far from the tree). In a world that’s this unfair, nobody can claim to deserve anything.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 21, 2011
Love without trust is always a painful, combustible combination. If your partner does something to lose your trust, s/he’s got to get lost, no matter how much love remains, and you’ve got to learn your lesson and move on. If you can’t trust someone whose behavior is OK because your trusting feelings just won’t come, then maybe the pain is worse, because there’s nothing to learn and nothing to do. In either case, when the trust goes, acknowledge that you’re not going to get what you want and need to settle for the best possible disaster before everything blows up in your face.
–Dr. Lastname
My partner cheated on me while I was pregnant with our baby, and kept ME the secret. He told lies about me and told people that we were no longer together so that he could openly date the other woman. I’m struggling to stop thinking about it all, and the whole ordeal has triggered a particularly intense bout of depression and self-harm. I have hundreds of questions I feel I need answers to, but my partner is 100% unwilling to discuss the matter, seeing it as “dragging up the past”. My goal is to be able to get through the day without memories of the betrayal and the gossip that surrounded it intruding on my life.
When a guy hides his relationship with you when you’re pregnant, you don’t have hundreds of questions that need answers; you’ve got a few simple, sad, unpleasant answers that need to be accepted.
After all, you’re not doing a PhD in trying to understand him. That’s a waste of time and, like most inquiries into the sad “whys” of this universe, a sneaky way of avoiding acceptance.
You could see it as him not being that into you, but the reality is that he’s not into anyone, at all, except for himself. At this point, the only important question is one you have to ask yourself, and it’s figuring out what’s the right thing for you to do, regardless of what your should-be-ex might think.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 14, 2011
It’s hard to believe in yourself when the one you love rejects you, or even just rejects your motives when you’re trying to do right. If there’s no way to feel good unless you can correct him/her, yourself or the situation, forget about feeling good (duh) and decide for yourself whether doing something wrong and rejection have anything to do with one another (after all, sometimes, it’s really not you, it’s them). If they do, congratulations, you’re allowed to improve yourself. If not, prepare to reject a tidy resolution and stand up for yourself while carrying a broken heart.
–Dr. Lastname
I know it’s dumb to date a co-worker, but my ex works in a totally different department—we see each other around the office, but he isn’t my boss (although he was a boss). He’s also generally liked and respected by all, so nobody questioned my choice. We dated for 4 years, and just after we moved in together, he turned 45, freaked out, and said he couldn’t be with anyone. So now I’ve been dumped for no reason by a guy I have to still see all the time who everyone around me loves. It’s impossible for me to get over him, and I’m not leaving my job, so do I just have to wallow in it forever and never move on?
No one gets dumped “for no reason,” particularly when it’s by a 45-year-old guy who was 41 when he met you and had never been married. Do the math.
The only 41-year-old guys who are worth considering for anything other than a casual relationship are guys whose girlfriends died, fled the country, or turned evil, and, in spite of gross humiliation and rejection, the guy stuck around, trying to make it work.
Otherwise, it’s not just a case of “he’s not that into you,” whatever that means; it’s “he’ll never be that into anyone, ever,” other than himself. A lot of guys are like that, and they’re easy to spot since they’re the ones who are still unmarried at 45.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 28, 2011
Despite being one of the most intense emotions in the world, love is not something you should take personally. You’re wired for it, in the deepest parts of your brain, just like penguins and meerkats. Even in the wild kingdom, the resulting attachments seem extra intense, unhappy, and/or joyful. If you need to share your tortured feelings, go ahead, but at some point, shut up and figure out how to manage the hurt. Re-stimulating the love-fixation centers in your brain by venting your feelings won’t help you control them, and, instead of mating for life, you’ll end up moaning alone in the emotional wilderness.
–Dr. Lastname
I am in love with a man who is married and has 2 children. He left his wife and family and wanted to live with me, but then I had a miscarriage and then felt I could not live with him. He has since gone back to his wife and I feel so awful.
What gets lost when you feel awful about a love gone wrong is that love often goes wrong. You didn’t beat the odds, but most people don’t. And most people weren’t as up against it as you were.
What you need to do now is remember that you had goals of your own before you fell in love. It’s your job to think about where love is likely to go, even when you’re crazed by it, so you’ll be prepared for moments like this.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 24, 2011
There are many good reasons love is often compared to delicious food, and one is that delicious food, like love, has a habit of sticking to your bones, and memory, long after the meal is done. While good food can become fat, love gone wrong curdles into regret, sadness, and/or ill will. If you don’t accept those feelings, regardless of how undesirable they are, you’re doomed to stay miserable/stuck in your fat pants. Fortunately, you aren’t what you feel, or what you eat, so you can learn to manage your love aftermath by admitting to the heartbreak, learning from the experience, and continuing your search for love while on a reasonable diet.
–Dr. Lastname
I was cut off suddenly by someone I loved 6 years ago, and it still feels like it happened yesterday. I want to move on so that I can have feelings for another person, but it just hasn’t happened. I’m afraid I will feel like this forever.
When you can’t get over being dumped, and time is healing no wounds, then check out two possible reasons. Three reasons if you have a large tattoo of your ex’s name in a highly visible place, but that’s a simpler problem to fix.
One is that your personality may have innate tendencies to hang on, or obsess, or self-blame, or do something that keeps losses from fading away. Sadly, personality isn’t something you control; if anything, it controls you.
That’s why good, smart people may find they tend to hang on to old losses, and figuring out why is often an excuse for hanging on rather than letting go. If you tend to hang on, accept that fact about yourself so you can learn to manage it (despite the past, your feelings, or your personality).
The second reason is that grief, guilt or regret may lead you to do things that keep you hanging on (like, in certain cases, therapy). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
