Posted by fxckfeelings on August 31, 2009
We’ve devoted a lot of column space to the issue of helping people help people—how to, when to, who to, etc—mostly involving cases of loved ones and addiction. Ironically, helping those who aren’t very close to us with less severe problems is often much more complicated. The key is finding a balance between helping your fellow man and not screwing yourself.
–Dr. Lastname
My son just started school, and I’ve become friends with his best friend’s mother. She’s a very nice, cool person, but I’ve gone shopping with her a bunch of times now—at the mall, at Costco—and I’m almost 100% sure that she’s a serial shoplifter. The first time it happened, I genuinely believed that she just forgot to pay for the sweater she’d put over the handle of her younger daughter’s stroller, fair enough. But then at a mall I saw her use the same stroller to steal again, arguing with a manager over a shirt with a missing button while she walked out with a $100 pair of shoes. It’s weird, because every time we walk out of the store, she’ll be like, oh, I forgot to pay for those shoes, I’m too embarrassed to go back now, which is getting really hard to believe now that she’s done it over and over again. Part of me worries that she might be a little nuts and it worries me to have her watch my son when he goes over to her house to play with his friend. But mostly I think she just has a problem, like smoking or something, but one that could get her into a lot of trouble very quickly, and if I could just talk to her about it as a friend, I might be able to help her. My goal is to do what I can to keep my new friend, and keep her out of trouble.
There’s one part that always gets left out of the Biblical story of the Good Samaritan– Risk Assessment.
There’s no arguing that it’s good to help people, but, since it feels good to help people, you know there’s a down side, and that down side is that it’s sometimes dangerous. After all, any good lawyer would tell you that if Jesus had lived longer, he would have gotten himself sued.
Your first job, as a responsible person and mother, is to assess the risk of being helpful by guessing, from her past behavior, whether your friend is likely to turn on you and rip out your guts. Remember, some people with destructive habits are sharks; they’re angry, very sensitive to having their weaknesses exposed or criticized, and will respond to your kindness by swearing a blood feud.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 24, 2009
Like our clinical definition of “asshole“, “boundary issues” are a reliable source of high-risk pleasure for all participants and a regular, recession-proof employment for yours truly. If you’ve ever had someone become your instant best friend, or dated someone who couldn’t not be friends with his/her exes, then boundaries are low and the risk of heartbreak is high. Learn what boundaries are, where they are, and guard them well.
–Dr. Lastname
Even though I’m married, and even though I don’t think I’m in any danger, I’m pretty sure I’m in the middle of a “Single White Female” situation with a woman I work with. When she joined my department, we became fast friends because I thought we had similar tastes, and she was pretty funny and unbelievably generous (a month after she got hired, it was my birthday, and she organized the whole party, made a bunch of food, etc.). We were really close for a while , and I was flattered when she bought herself a pair of my favorite shoes, decided all my favorite movies were her favorite movies, and became chummy with many of my friends in and outside of the office. But then she started to get mad at me for small, silly things, and her mirroring of me became less flattering and more creepy and suffocating. She’s so not the generous, kind person she used to be with me—she doesn’t treat me kindly most of the time, let alone like a friend—but I’m not leaving my job, so I can’t get away from her. Besides, she’s “taken” most of my friends, so I feel like I’m stuck with her for the rest of my life. My goal is to figure out A), if I’m just being paranoid and/or self-centered, and B), how to gracefully get some distance without her making my life a living hell.
Overly close relationships serve one important purpose; they remind you why it’s good to have personal boundaries.
Like any wall, a personal boundary may sometimes make you lonely by keeping other people out. But without a boundary, you’ll never have the freedom to breathe, make personal choices and assert your own priorities.
You may counter that it’s not healthy to keep people from getting close, but your goal is not to get close to someone. It’s to get close without compromising your own most important priorities and your awareness of them. In other words, it’s to get close while retaining your boundaries. At least that’s the goal for your next friendship, after you get some space from the Needsy twin.
Looking back, you can see red flags warning you that your new friendship was not boundary-friendly. It happened too fast, felt too good, and involved too much fan-worship, mirroring, and absorbing of your taste, style, and social life. And footwear.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 10, 2009
Some people find themselves suddenly, inexplicably cursed by a life of hardship and pain, while others cruise through a blessed existence of acclaim and luck. Truth is, of course, that the person in pain isn’t doomed to constant misery, and lucks brings its own peculiar, unavoidable hardship; thankfully, everyone of us, in one way or another, is fucked. It’s where we go from there that makes the difference.
–Dr. Lastname
Just a few years ago, in my early 20s, I was a fun, outgoing law student at a top tier school, on the cusp of beginning a promising career in a competitive field that I loved. But then, out of no where, my health fell apart. Without getting into it, I was diagnosed with a rare, chronic disease that causes me so much pain and fatigue that even the simplest tasks have become arduous. I had to drop out of school, move back home, and learn to deal, not just with the physical pain of everyday life, but with feelings of failure and being a complete loser. All my old friends are moving upwards and onwards, like I was once set to do, and all I can do is take it slow and try to cope with this new, brutal reality. Plus, because my disease is rare and not physically obvious (I look healthy), several friends and even family members have decided that I’m not sick, but that I just buckled under the competitive pressure of my law career or that I’m just lazy, and am using a fake disease as an excuse. They say things like, “my joints hurt, but I go to work everyday,” and I just want to curl up and die. Between my own disappointment and their cruel judgment, I’ve withdrawn from social interaction almost completely for a year now. My goal is to not completely isolate myself from the world and maybe even start to enjoy some social interaction again despite feeling self-conscious and experiencing such dismissive attitudes from others.
It’s good that you want to get out of your self-imposed solitary confinement—living like that’s unhealthy, even for people who are physically healthy to begin with—but attaching the enjoyment of social interaction onto your goal is not so hot, especially when you’re suffering from a disease that seems to make enjoying anything nearly impossible and gives prospective friends a case of the repulsive willies.
Problem is, despite your best efforts, enjoyment is out of your control, and if you make a big effort to extend yourself socially and run into crap, you’ll feel like a stupid failure and personally rejected, when, really, it’s your standards that are the problem. Yours and everyone else’s.
A better goal is to work at not taking your pain and isolation personally while working out rational standards for what it means to cope with them.
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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 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 22, 2009
Admitting you have a drinking problem is the first of the 12 steps, but what if you aren’t really sure you have a problem, despite what people close to you say? Today’s cases show how seeking treatment for your addictions and seeking the approval of others are two things that don’t necessarily go hand in hand.
—Dr. Lastname
I’m a little frustrated with my job right now, so every night after work, I like to have a few beers with dinner to relax. Problem is, I’m a skinny Indian guy, so a few beers is enough to make me pretty tipsy (which means I get loud, maybe a little annoying, sloppy, whatever). My roommate has joked that it’s time for an intervention for my alcoholism, but he’s joked about it enough that I’m not sure he’s joking anymore. I’ve always thought an alcoholic is someone who drinks constantly, blacks out, can’t be trusted, and I’m none of those things. I mean, I go out to bars on weekends sometimes and drink ‘til tipsy (or further), but I don’t sneak beers at the office or anything, and I don’t think I need my nightly beer-o (beer trio), although I haven’t tried to go without it, because I really don’t want to. So my goal is to figure out what to do with my drinking problem, which I think is more my roommate’s problem than mine.
Your goal with drinking isn’t to avoid meeting someone’s definition of alcoholism: it’s to have a good time without screwing up your priorities. Sure, those priorities include keeping your job and fulfilling other important obligations—which you claim to have no problem with—but they also include keeping good friends and not limiting your friendship circle to those who like being tipsy, sloppy and annoying.
If you’re driving away good people who don’t enjoy alcohol as much as you do, i.e., if your roommate’s really saying that he likes you but would rather spend his evenings with someone who is quieter and less jolly, then you’ve got a problem that needs management whether you call it alcoholism or not. The longer you argue about whether your drinking is medically dangerous or gives your roommate the right to be critical, the longer you’re putting off the management job. Call it alcoholism or call it lice, either way, you drinking habits are messing up your life and need to be addressed.
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