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Monday, December 23, 2024

D’oh Choice

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 23, 2013

As emotions go, guilt is often the most devious; it’s very good at tricking us into believing we’ve done something wrong, when we know we haven’t. It’s so slick that you can feel guilty for not feeling guilty in the first place. That’s why guilt is a terrible barometer for whether or not you’ve made a good or bad decision; sometimes the right choice makes you feel wrong and the wrong one righteous, at least in the short run. If you think of values and consequences, however, as well as needs, you’ll usually come up with a choice you won’t feel guilty about being proud of.
Dr. Lastname

Please Note: We’re taking Thursday off, so please have a great Boxing Day without us.

I’m a medical doctor—I graduated three years ago and did extremely well in my school. But then I broke up with my boyfriend, and for a while, I hated myself very much for it. Coupled to it was the death of one of my closest relatives. I turned lethargic, did not want to function, never talked to anyone and was alone. Finally I managed to get into a job not at all related with medicine, but for the past few months, I have been experiencing severe guilt about my decision. At the same time I don’t feel active or ready enough to put in the hard work necessary to go back to medicine. At least this feeling is welcome as I am finally feeling something. I have stopped trusting any guy and don’t want a relationship, but I’m consumed by this feeling of guilt. Unfortunately I also have a bit of narcissism, I feel that I m more intelligent than most of the people I meet, and so did not visit any counselor either. I just want to know if you have any suggestions on how to conquer my guilt and lethargy.

Even with support from a very nice therapist, all the insight in the world, and/or a job in the medical profession, guilt and lethargy often hang around as long as they want. You could find cures for cancer, bad boyfriends, and even depression, but still feel guilty that it took you so long, guilt is that insidious.

The way to conquer those symptoms is to prevent them from affecting your beliefs about yourself and the world. Up until now, it seems the symptoms have been brainwashing you into feeling like a hateful, worthless failure instead of a smart medical school graduate with an unlucky personal life. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Involving Conflict

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 16, 2013

While the “fight or flight” response seems ingrained in most any living thing with legs or wings, your average human’s response to aggression is slightly more nuanced; instead of “fight or flight,” it’s more like, “flight or stay put and become a dick or a doormat.” If, however, you give yourself time to think through your moral priorities, risks, resources, and the ends you want to achieve, there’s always a third, non-dick or –doormat option, which is, stay and decide to set limits. Instead of trying to intimidate or placate, you learn to protect yourself from the chaos of conflict by doing what you think is right and encouraging others to use their complex human brains to do likewise.
Dr. Lastname

My family is lucky that I’ve always been a peacemaker, because my husband is very opinionated and overbearing. I know there’s no point in trying to reason with him or oppose what he’s saying, because he’s never going to change his mind and opposition just makes him angrier, and when he’s angry he just berates me until I stop talking and yells until I beg him to stop because it’s upsetting the kids. He’s never, ever been physically violent, just loud. Sometimes, however, I find myself feeling helpless, depressed, trapped, and full of resentment and anger. My goal is to feel better about my husband’s behavior without rocking the boat.

Although rocking the boat may feel painful and like the wrong thing to do—it is, after all, one of the best ways to tip over and sink—there is usually a possible benefit in family situations. And not just because a sinking ship will drown most rats.

For instance, it may stop you from having to go along with a bad or dangerous decision, or protect you from toxic exposure to prolonged criticism. In actuality, your husband is the real boat-rocker who insists on his right to yell you into submission and you have to decide what action will best keep it afloat, even if that action triggers threats and loud voices that make you feel like you’re drowning. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Value Added Facts

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 9, 2013

If everything that was good for you also felt good for you then kale would be heroin, running would be orgasmic, and one-a-day vitamins would put you into a pleasure coma. Unfortunately, bad things often feel best, which is why heroin is heroin, kale tastes like land seaweed, and passion can be poisonous. That’s why you can love someone who’s just not good for you and hate a job that you do well for good reasons, but before assuming your feelings are telling you the truth, take time to measure a relationship by how well it fulfills your purpose, meets your standards, and satisfies your moral priorities. Then you can do the right thing, even if it feels (or tastes) terrible.
Dr. Lastname

What could have been a perfect relationship slipped very quickly down hill as two insecure people who have both been emotionally abused by our families growing up both went through stressful times suddenly. We couldn’t manage to make it through the bad times due to coping mechanisms we both employed to save ourselves from more pain, having not had long enough to make the relationship secure. Still, I’m really struggling to let him go. I felt this connection that I’ve never felt before and this is the first person I’ve ever missed in my life. I know he needs space to sort himself out but I want him back and I’m not sure whether to cut the cord now even though I really feel like I can’t and it would cause more pain. I don’t know how to let him go, or make the right decision.

The strength of your connection to a lover is great inspiration for a love song—maybe something by Taylor Swift if she ever dates Sean Penn—but a good song won’t tell you whether a relationship is good for you, is likely to last, or what you can or should do if it falters.

The fact that you and your former lover are insecure victims of abusive families may explain why you’re both anxious and vulnerable to doing negative things when you’re scared, but it won’t tell you how much he can control his negative behaviors and/or tolerate yours. For that, you need to review facts, not your emotional family history. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Help-Bound

Posted by fxckfeelings on December 5, 2013

As we often say, help isn’t just a two-way street, but a full-on intersection; it can be benefit or hindrance, both to the person being assisted and the helper him or herself. Regardless of whether your desire to help is driven by compassion, love, guilt, or fear, pay attention to priorities, consequences, the limits of what’s possible, and your responsibility for meeting your own needs. Then you’ll probably discover that giving right and going slowly is more effective than giving more and risking an accident.
Dr. Lastname

I’ve always been proud of being the backbone of my family, but I’m close to having a total meltdown. It’s not that my husband doesn’t work hard, too, but I’m taking care of our kids, who are especially busy with after-school sports, tutoring, etc., plus my ailing mother, plus my sister who’s mourning the sudden and unexpected loss of her son, and then on top of that, my own work, which is insane this time of year. I told him I just want to quit everything and go live on the beach in a hut. He laughed, but I meant it. I know all of these people need me, but I’m going crazy. Still, I’m ashamed, and my goal is to figure out what to do.

You’re proud of being the backbone of your family, but you’ve got your own skeleton to worry about, and it will collapse if you don’t find the backbone to stand up to the impossible job you’ve given yourself.

It’s simply not possible to personally take on an infinite number of top priority responsibilities, even if they’re all driven by emotional and financial necessity. It makes sense that you think living in a hut is your only/best alternative to weathering a hurricane of responsibilities. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Marital Dis

Posted by fxckfeelings on November 25, 2013

If you truly want to believe in the old saying, “There’s someone for everyone,” you have to add the caveat, “assuming that many of those people aren’t exactly right for each other.” Some people think they’ve found “the one,” but then can’t see their partner’s faults because of the wishful optimism of love. Others sour on their spouses because of the tired pessimism of long-married irritability So if it comes time to make a tough decision about a marriage, be sure to ask yourself what continuing your partnership is likely to do to your finances, parenting, and security given what’s happened so far and what you now know about the character of your significant other. Once you figure out whether your someone is actually Mr. Wrong or Mrs. Will-Suffice, you’ll have a much better idea of whether you should hire a therapist to help you get along or a lawyer to preserve your assets.
Dr. Lastname

Please Note: There will be no new post on Thursday due to American Thanksgiving. As always, we are grateful for our families and your misery. We’ll be back next week.

I’m living a nightmare and feel totally helpless. I thought my wife had overcome the drug habit she was struggling with before we got married (otherwise I wouldn’t have married her). Normally, she’s the sweetest person in the world. Recently, she went back being the evil witch I remember her being when she was on drugs, blaming me for everything and threatening to take me to court for abusing her. When I asked whether she was on drugs again, she said I was a crazy asshole. Two hours later she said she was sorry, that I was right, but she felt ashamed of using drugs and was taking it out on me. She said treatment just didn’t work for her. My goal is to get her to get help so she goes back to being the amazing woman I love.

There’s a reason that “addict” is a term you live with forever. That’s not to say it has to be a horrible stigma—college graduate and Torontonian also qualify as life-long labels—but no matter how much you wish addiction would be behind you or someone you love for good, it’s always there.

You thought your wife had overcome her drug habit because you loved her sweet, kind side and wanted to think ugly, addict side wasn’t real. She’s not a bad person, but she has a bad side and a bad disease that she doesn’t seem ready or willing to deal with. Even when she’s being kind, her evil side is always going to be there, and she’s doing nothing to stop it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Shame Difference

Posted by fxckfeelings on November 11, 2013

Not being accepted is worse than just a terrible feeling, because it’s about who you are; it’s the reason people do everything from buy new faces to entire self-help libraries, to do whatever they can to become something or someone they don’t have to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, radically changing yourself (without the use of a scalpel, at least) is highly unlikely, so most people save their money and do everything they can to avoid non-acceptance and react negatively when it’s unavoidable. Whether you’re afraid of judgment if your true self is revealed, however, or suffer from it without hope of improvement, don’t let it define you. Build your own standards of behavior and measure your progress by how well you live up to them. Then you can accept the potential pain of non-acceptance as a sad part of life and the cost of being your own person and reject the cost of surgery and The Secret.
Dr. Lastname

I know I drink too much and I’d like to get it under control, but I don’t want anyone to know about my problem. I don’t know what my wife would say, even though she probably already knows something’s wrong with me, but I’m afraid of what she’d think of me if I came to her to talk about it. I can’t imagine going to meetings because I’m afraid of running into someone I know. I really want to cut back, but I can’t face anyone to ask for help.

It’s normal to feel ashamed of a drinking problem, and the shame, along with dishonesty and secrecy, is one of the main ingredients of alcoholism. Just add the booze itself, shake or stir, and serve in a salt-rimmed class.

That’s why waiting until the shame disappears before facing your wife and talking about your problem is a bad plan. The more shame you feel, the less help you get, the more you do to be ashamed of, and the less likely the conversation is going happen in your lifetime. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Torment Threat

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 31, 2013

At a certain age, it becomes clear that high school ends, but the feeling is one you never outgrow; there will always be days when you want to dress like an idiot, be forced to eat food on a tray, or feel bullied, either by a group of alpha-males or by your own inner-Heather. No matter what the source of your browbeating, however, getting a bully to stop is often impossible, and fighting a bully may give him/her more power over your feelings and thoughts. So remember, standing up to a bully doesn’t require you to fight, win, or gain control over someone else. Instead, it requires you to know your own values and respect your own behavior, regardless of whatever mean, provocative statements get thrown your way, or how many Mean Girls/Women/Men you have to encounter throughout your life.
Dr. Lastname

I’ve been sober 15 years and get a huge amount out of my AA meetings, but I still hate myself. It isn’t that I act like a jerk anymore—I’ve got a great husband and I do my job and make a living—but that doesn’t change how I feel. I don’t do anything bad, but I waste time, I don’t have the smarts to go back to school and do well, and I haven’t done anything particularly good or accomplished much. I envy people who are successful, which makes me feel that much smaller. I wonder what steps I need to work on to ever get to like myself.

For some people, hating yourself is an unavoidable bad habit, like mentally biting your nails, and if you’ve ever been a nail-biter, you know that it’s almost impossible to stop entirely, even if you’re destroying your fingertips and/or self-esteem.

As painful as self-hatred is to live with, it’s probably an unavoidable condition for many perfectionists and idealists especially, as well as those who were subject to severe criticism and abuse as kids. Expecting to be healed from it, then ,just adds to your sense of having an unacceptable defect and thus to your self-hatred, as you start hating yourself for hating yourself for hating yourself, etc.

For many years now, you’ve done nothing you should hate yourself for and you’ve got people in your life who don’t hate you. If you still hate yourself, in spite of these good things, then it’s probably a feeling you can’t change. Given that you’re a self-hater, however, you’ve done a remarkable job of changing or preventing self-hating behaviors, and remembering that is your best weapon against your brain’s urge to knock you down. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Family Valued

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 28, 2013

It’s easy to disagree with a stranger—if it wasn’t, we wouldn’t have road rage, Judge Judy or the internet—but it’s both difficult and painful when you find yourself unable to find common ground with someone you love. Whenever you feel pressured by someone you love to do something you hate, whether they’re motivated by destructive needs or idealistic ones, don’t feel obliged to end the pressure by changing their minds. Instead, accept the pain of unbridgeable differences and protect yourself from unnecessary conflict. Then, when you take action, you will have the confidence and optimism of someone who does not have to explain or persuade, even if the person you can’t relate to is a relative.
Dr. Lastname

I’ve always known my father can be a little weird, but he’s generally a decent guy and I know he loves my kids. The trouble is, he’s got it in his head that my wife is an evil person who has serial affairs and doesn’t really care about our kids, and that I can’t see it because she’s got me fooled. Whenever he visits, he gives her dirty looks and takes every opportunity to whisper about how insincere she looks and how badly she manages the kids and, of course, my wife picks up on it, which is what he wants. I can’t impose him on my wife, the tension is not good for the kids, and I can’t get him to see that he’s wrong, because he feels he’s on a mission from God. My goal is to find a way to persuade him to stop so that we can spend time together as a family.

If you’re a parent, you‘ve been told that it’s important that you and your spouse are in agreement and present a united front. In reality, the wish to overcome and erase disagreement, be it between parents or families in general, causes lots more trouble than disagreement itself.

Your father should know by now that, by openly expressing hostility towards your wife, he does nothing but cut himself off from both you and his grandchildren, hurting everyone and reducing whatever positive and protective influence he wants to have. He is cutting off his family to spite his fact-less assertion. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Community Venter

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 21, 2013

It’s easy for your individual sense of right and wrong to be at odds with the customs and attitudes of your community, workplace, and/or message board chums, and you may well experience guilt when there’s a difference between the two, regardless of whether you did anything wrong. As a result, it may be hard to find your own way when you first go solo, or to re-discover your own way when pressured by an absorbing new community. In any case, ignore guilty feelings and get back to basics. Judge your actions in the light of your own experience and values and stand by them, regardless of what others think, say, and put into FAIL-related .gif form.
Dr. Lastname

I grew up in a very Christian family where we all went to religious school and attended church several times a week, and kids weren’t allowed to date or talk to members of the opposite sex on the phone (or even consider sex before marriage). Now that I’m in my second year of college and away from home, however, I’m not sure I want to live my life this way. The school is Christian, but there are other, secular universities nearby, and I like hanging out in the college bars in town and dating. Of course, doing so makes me feel like I’m sliding into sin and would catch all kinds of criticism if my parents and home community knew what I was doing. I feel like I can’t feel like a good person in either world; I haven’t really been a bad person, but my faith in my parents’ rules has lessened. My goal is to stop swinging up and down like a yo-yo.

When you’re young, your main way of knowing whether you’re doing right or wrong is by perceiving whether others, particularly grown-ups, are angry at you; sometimes it’s through a subtle reward, and other times it’s via a very blunt spanking.

This sensation usually persists, even when you know, as an adult, that you’ve done nothing wrong or everything right. If you belong to a religious community with many conventions and rules, those feelings are also tied to doing what everyone else defines as good behavior, like going to church, praying, and not dating, all of which are tied to what they believe God wants. And God hasn’t handed out personal wrath in at least a millennium or so. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

Cents Negotiations

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 7, 2013

There’s a certain art to negotiation, especially when the discussion involves money; go too hardline, with a patronizing tone or, say, a shutdown government, or too soft, hesitating to stand up for your own financial needs, and you’re not going to make any headway. Worse, you could get incredibly angry, and money rage can be just as dangerous and useless as road rage, except with road rage, you still usually get somewhere. Better to avoid arguments about non-payments, regardless of how unfair or harmful they are, and if good advice and sweet reason don’t work, do what’s necessary to protect yourself while bringing conversation to a firm stop. If you can’t stop yourself from losing it over money, the only thing to shutdown is the conversation, then learn and move forward.
Dr. Lastname

My daughter is supposed to be a grown-up—she graduated from college but now she’s living back home—and the other day I realized she hasn’t opened a credit card bill in three months. I said something to her, and she still did nothing, and then I was really worried about the mounting interest payments and her credit rating, so I told her I didn’t understand what she was doing and why she was being so irresponsible. She started crying and accused me of being mean and picking a fight, and then my husband asked me why I was attacking her. My goal is to stop this fighting and get my daughter to live up to her responsibilities.

You can’t help being worried, as a parent, when your daughter’s avoidant behaviors no longer just possibly result in suspensions or a visit from the principal, but in fines, a ruined credit rating, and worst of all, frequent collection agency calls. Adult problems, however, deserve adult talks, and a verbal spanking does not qualify; berating her for failed responsibilities usually doesn’t work.

The reason why is that, while she knows you’re right, she doesn’t know why she did it, and her helplessness will make her even more avoidant—of you, your advice, and the next batch of credit statements. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »

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