Posted by fxckfeelings on January 8, 2015
Unless you’re a robot, lobotomized, or the anti-cable news pundit, it’s impossible to assess a situation without some level of inherent, personal bias. It’s especially difficult if you’re assessing your own decisions; your judgment will appear consistently poor if you’re self-critical, or consistently justified if you’re critical of everyone else. Whatever your nature, don’t leave self-judgment to your reflexes; regardless of whether you tend to blame yourself, others, or both, take time to measure the moral value of your actions, particularly when life forces you to make compromises. Then act accordingly by protecting yourself when you deserve it, and making improvements when that’s what you should do, so you push your bias towards doing what’s best.
–Dr. Lastname
My ex-husband isn’t a bad guy, but he was and is a drinker who much prefers hanging out at the bar with the boys. We get along OK though, so we still live in the same house because we can stand to and it’s best for the kids. Lately, however, I haven’t had my usual energy due to my Crohn’s disease, and it bothers me. I always do OK at my full-time job and I never mess up caring for the kids, but I’ve been letting some of the household cleaning chores slide, and my ex has been giving me a hard time about it. I know I’m fucking up, so his criticism really gets to me. My goal is to find a way to restore my energy or at least get him to be more understanding of my condition.
Even if you and your ex are technically apart, it’s nice to keep things peaceful and together for the kids’ sake. It’s not nice, however, if the arrangement is putting so much pressure on you that you’re coming apart at the seams.
If you focus too much on responding to criticism and forget about whether you do or don’t deserve it, you take responsibility for shit you don’t control. And just because your ex can’t control his drinking doesn’t mean you can’t control your reaction to his complaints. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 5, 2015
We’ve written many times about the way mental health professionals especially tend to be either demonized or canonized; nobody expects their dentist to fix their lives or thinks their accountant is a monster and a fraud when s/he’s not perfect, but these are the expectations for those who deal in problems that are frightening and poorly understood, like mental illness. People would like to think therapists can provide control, but they’d also like to think the problem will go away by itself if you return to your usual routine. If you can accept the fact that some problems can’t be solved, however, and that the influence of professionals is always limited, you’ll be ready to learn everything you need to know and become your own expert on tough problems, imperfect professionals, and, if you’ve got the time, your own taxes.
–Dr. Lastname
My fifteen-year-old son does poorly in school whenever he gets depressed, which is fairly often, but his current school’s counseling staff is totally worthless—they haven’t just failed to help him, but so many students that their ineptitude is an open secret amongst parents and teachers—so I’m worried that they won’t do much for him once the depression starts and his grades slip. My goal is to figure out what to do to get his school to provide the counseling services he (and other kids) deserve.
If counseling were a reliably good treatment for depression and was available exclusively through schools, then you’d have a worthwhile fight on your hands. The movie version would win awards and you’d get your face on a dollar coin.
Unfortunately for your Oscar dreams, but fortunately for your son, the stakes for your battle aren’t nearly that high.
In reality, the help that almost all counseling provides is limited, and may have less to offer now that you and your son are knowledgeable about depression and can talk to one another about it. Your school’s counseling staff may be especially weak, but their legendary ineptitude need not get in your son’s way. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 29, 2014
When you’re about to knowingly get involved in an unpleasant situation—job evaluation meeting, lunch with in-laws, childbirth, etc.—it’s natural to mentally prepare yourself in order to make the experience slightly less awful. Sometimes, however, both options—expecting the worst or hoping for the best—can open you to more suffering. So don’t expect to find an antidote to the pain of disappointment, whether or not you can see it coming. Often, bearing it is the only way to carry on, whether that means getting through labor or maintaining flawed but important relationships.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: Just as we took a day off on Christmas Day, we’ll be off on January 1st. Here’s to a (mostly) happy and healthy New Year, and we’ll see you in 2015.
My brother drives me nuts, but the sad fact is that I drive myself nuts thinking about how much he’s going to bother me before he and his wife and kids even arrive for family get-togethers. It’s not unjustified; sometimes, he acts like a jerk, criticizes my life choices, and takes my things without asking. Still, in the week or so before I know I have to see him, I find myself imagining all the possible, horrible things he could do or say—some only vaguely possible—and I’m furious with him before he even arrives. Maybe I’m paranoid, or an angry person, but I wish I could stop before I lose my mind or stab my brother for something he hasn’t done. I can’t go through another Christmas like this one. My goal is to not let my brother bother me so much, in my mind and in real life.
Part of you can’t help but love your brother, even if you also hate him, and part of that part hates yourself for hating him so much, or thinking about how you hate him so much, while the rest of you hates thinking about the issue at all. He’s the conflict that just keeps on giving.
The one upside to your emotional clusterfuck of a relationship is that you know better than to attribute your conflict to a single issue that, if you could just talk it out or have a nice, healthy fistfight, would be finally over and done with. You can’t talk out a quagmire, or punch it out, either. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 18, 2014
The human mind is capable of many complex, inscrutable functions, but when it comes to hopeless situations, they’re processed by a part of our brains that hasn’t evolved since we had tails. That’s why, in those moments, our instincts tend to go one of two stupid ways: either you deduce that nothing’s working and never will, or that nothing’s working but definitely will if you try the opposite of whatever you’re doing now. Thus does our lizard brain control our response to foreign policy, midterm elections, and alcoholism. Better to force some human-level reasoning to what’s rarely an either/or situation and respect what you’re able to accomplish with what you control. When your instincts tell you to give up is when you know you need to give a situation more thought.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m an alcoholic (with twenty years of sobriety), so when it became clear my daughter also had the disease, I tried to stay focused on doing my best to help her and not start freaking out and blaming her or myself. I think I did OK because my daughter is trying to stay sober and goes to meetings every day (I know, because she’s living at home now), but every eight weeks or so she stops going and, a couple days later, she’s drinking again. We then have a talk and she gets back on the wagon, but it wears me out and I’m losing hope. My goal is to figure out how we can get out of this rut without something horrible happening first.
It’s tough to see your daughter with an illness you know so much about and yet couldn’t prevent; given the season, you must feel like her ghost of Christmas future, if Christmas was less about Jesus and more about just drinking a lot.
On the other hand, it also sounds like you bring a great deal of knowledge and wisdom to the job of helping her. You don’t get outraged when she slips, and, perhaps as a result, she recovers her sobriety pretty quickly. Then, you manage to keep from losing it when she loses her sobriety all over again. At least until now. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 15, 2014
As with nuclear waste, old hard drives and used take-out containers, there’s no clear way to dispose of unpleasant thoughts; some people feel like nasty feelings should be buried and ignored, and others that they must be purged and shared in order to be expunged. In actuality, feelings often aren’t unworthy even when they make you feel vaguely guilty, and don’t need airing even when they whine at the door and ask to be released. Before you decide whether your thoughts are hazmat grade, weigh them against your values and the consequences of self-expression. Often, you’ll find they don’t need to purged, just safely ignored.
–Dr. Lastname
After 25 years of happy marriage and three great kids together, I lost my wife to cancer two years ago. I think I’m ready to find another partner at this point, but I felt weird the other day when a co-worker suggested he set me up with a friend and I said I wasn’t ready. The truth is, I know a bit about her and, though she’s a nice person, she’s been struggling to find fulltime work for a few years now and there’s no way I could afford my current lifestyle if I had to support a partner. My goal is to figure out whether there’s something wrong with putting money ahead of love.
Having raised three kids and nursed a wife through cancer, you know that money isn’t the enemy of love— life is.
Life throws trouble at you, like medical problems and tuition, and love is what helps you give things their proper priority and makes you hurt when you can’t do as much as you’d like.
If you had no one to love in your life, and no better opportunity to find someone to share it with, then you might have good reason to sacrifice wealth and stability for a loving partnership. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 20, 2014
If focus exists on a spectrum from oblivious to obsessed, you’d be surprised how hard it is to find a happy medium, and how impossible it is to budge your brain if it tends to work at either extreme. So don’t blame your mind for paying attention in a way you don’t want or need. Once you accept the way it works, you will become better at making it work for you, no matter what its preferred setting.
–Dr. Lastname
I hate some of the sounds people make. Chewing, mouth breathing, loud repetitive nose breathing, even excessive coughing if I’m in bad mood. I know it’s ridiculous, because I make these noises too; they’re human noises. It’s not that I hate everyone’s noises, like my friends’ chewing is fine, but my dad’s annoys me. I hate myself for this. I hate myself because I can’t control my facial expressions, I try really hard to, but people still notice; my whole body language changes when someone is making a sound annoying to me. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, because I know they can’t help it, but I can’t help it, either. My stepmother makes a lot of noises. She has nose issues so she chews, drinks, and breathes loudly, all the time. I love her, and I try so hard to keep myself in check, but it’s not working. My reactions, subtle or not, are causing friction. My goal is to control my issue.
The problem with fixations like these is that the effort you make to ignore body noises just makes you notice them even more, which just leaves you more irritated and more determined to ignore them, and so on. You grimace because you can’t scream, and want to scream because you can’t just staple their mouths shut.
In these situations, it’s easy to blame people who irritate you for driving you nuts, but you seem to accept the fact that what’s happening is nobody’s fault. You don’t expect them to breathe or chew more quietly simply because those sounds disgust you. You just wish you could control your reaction, or at least your sourpuss. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 17, 2014
No matter what the talking heads say, a bleeding heart is not a partisan trait, nor is it always a negative one. You don’t even have to be a registered voter to be a good, caring person, and party affiliation doesn’t determine whether you’ll care too much and take responsibility for problems that you can’t really help. Learn how to assess your responsibilities realistically, whether you embrace or reject the problem at hand. Then, when a problem comes within range of your heart, you’ll be able to decide what to do without having to blindly follow any party line.
–Dr. Lastname
My girlfriend’s father is a widower in his mid-eighties who is still physically fit and able to drive. He is a difficult man, socially awkward and uneasy in company. He fills his days by going round thrift shops and yard sales buying old books and large quantities of stuff which he does not need or use. He used to sell it, but the dealers he supplied have died or long been retired so it just mounts up, particularly since his wife died. Now his house is a mess and a lot of living space is now uninhabitable. He cannot bathe or shower as the tubs are used to store stuff. My girlfriend feels guilty and stressed, but is too busy to do anything about it. I wonder whether I can move in with her if this is a family trait. I find this sort of lifestyle depressing and off putting. She is a kind and reliable person with many good qualities. My goal is to work out a coping strategy.
Caring about other people’s problems is a good trait if you can do something to help them, but otherwise it’s a good way to cause yourself trouble you don’t need. It’s just like hoarding, except with anxiety instead of expired food and dead cats.
Before taking on responsibility for an unsolvable problem, ask yourself whether that problem is likely to cause you trouble, or whether there’s anything that really needs to be done about it. Unless your girlfriend’s father wants to use your house as a storage unit, living with his hoarder status might not be too much for you to bear. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 10, 2014
If illness is a painful condition that you don’t choose to bring on yourself, then being an Asshole™ is probably an illness, at least for those born with bad tempers, quick impulses, and no ability to see consequences ahead of time. Depression definitely is an illness, and one that often tricks the sufferer into believing he’s an Asshole™, even though real Asshole™s are incapable of self-awareness. Either way, Assholes™ usually blame others for what’s happening to them, whereas depressed people blame themselves, and neither group can get anywhere unless they can see their problem as a condition, rather than a fault. Then they can take responsibility for managing it without blaming themselves or others; a tall order for Asshole™s, a challenging one for depressives, but a worthy move for anyone.
–Dr. Lastname
I think my husband is sick, but he thinks he’s normal. After the last time he got drunk and threw things, he got carted away by the police and hospitalized, but he says the doctors at the psych hospital didn’t think he was depressed and there was nothing they could do to help him. He doesn’t drink every night, and he never hits anyone, but he can be a mean drunk. Even when he’s not drunk, he’s prone to quarrel with authorities, whether it’s a cop giving him a ticket or a waiter. I never know when his evil side will come out, and his mother told me he always had a wicked temper. My goal is to persuade him or his doctors that he has an illness and needs help, before he gets into major trouble.
All too often, either out of fear, denial, or both, people refuse to see symptoms of mental illness for what they are. If someone has wild mood swings, it just means she has an artistic temperament, and crippling phobias means he’s nervous, and hallucinating makes her fun at parties.
Sometimes, however, bad or self-destructive behavior has nothing to do with mental illness, or at least not the kind a doctor can do much about. A lawyer, maybe. Or an exorcist.
Two things might be wrong with your husband, both of which are not his fault, but they differ in the amount of responsibility he can or should take for managing them. It all depends on whether his anger is a symptom of illness, or a sucky part of his personality. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 6, 2014
The sad irony behind most stupid decisions is how much careful, intelligent thinking goes into convincing ourselves that the moronic, often-fearful choice we’re about to make is somehow the right thing to do. This is never truer than when it comes to relationships, when we can talk ourselves out of the game entirely or into a commitment that we’re bound to lose. So don’t waste needed brainpower to substantiate the feelings that tell you whether you should start going out or finish by tying the knot. Look at your basic abilities, decide to do what’s meaningful, and you’ll wind up making the smart choice.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m pretty good at being an independent lady but I do get lonely sometimes. I’ve thought of making more of an effort to date, but I’m not in great shape right now—I messed up my foot last year, so I went from not-thin to just fat—and it really bothers me that I haven’t take good care of myself and lost the weight when it’s really my responsibility. I feel I can’t expect to get together with a healthy guy if I’m not healthy myself, because I can’t get someone to love me if I don’t love myself, and it’s visibly obvious that I don’t. My goal is to figure out a way to get healthy so I can start dating without shame.
If your main concern is showing the world you take care of yourself, then being an Asshole to yourself is not a great way to start.
Taking care of yourself means being a good friend to yourself, and right now, you’re being the kind of friend who’s in high school, evil, and telling you, for your own good, that you’re like The Even Biggest Loser. You could do better in high school, and you can do better by yourself now.
After all, your basic values about mutual respect don’t depend on health, but on character. So, unless you’re about to bungee jump or enter a crowded elevator, don’t pay attention to any so-called weight requirement. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 27, 2014
Along with avoiding conflict, favoring calm, and having taste that’s too sophisticated to tolerate Michael Bay, human beings are also notoriously bad at correctly placing blame or finding the true source of an issue. We punish ourselves for problems that we have no control over and indict others for creating trouble that it’s our job to prevent. Instead of rushing to judgment, we should ignore our thoughts, dreams, and tempers and consult our values first. Then we can decide whether we’ve really done wrong and need to do better, or whether someone else has erred. Either way, we’ll know where the blame truly lies and be able to buck our nature to calmly find a solution.
-Dr. Lastname
I have done a pretty good job of keeping things together through a very tough few years. I have mostly come to terms with the break up of a long and unhappy marriage and become a stronger person as a result. In my waking life I have learned to choose my thoughts and control my feelings and behavior to good effect. The trouble is my dreams, which are frequent and often disturbing. In dream-life I am still very emotional and out of control and tied to past experiences. I will dream I am dancing with my ex or that we have reconciled happily and wake up feeling sad. Or I dream that my new partner is cheating or being an asshole when he has given me no cause to doubt him. Sometimes I wake up in a state of distress after reliving painful events without the benefit of rational thinking and wish I could sleep without being invaded by the bizarre and the uninvited. Are dreams just random or a result of what lurks in the subconscious mind? My goal is to have faith that I have coped quite well with very difficult circumstances and to understand the message behind my restless nights.
It’s a good thing we can’t be held legally responsible for our thoughts or dreams, or we’d all be in jail, riddled with STDs, or kicked out of school due to failing exams we didn’t know we had or excessive public nudity. If the law can’t punish you for your dreams, there’s no reason to punish yourself.
We also know that depression floods us with irrational, negative thoughts, causing us to blame ourselves for everything that has gone wrong and assume that everything will go wrong in the future. So making a big deal about dreams seems like a sure way to magnify the impact of negative thoughts and self-doubts that we neither deserve nor control. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
