Posted by fxckfeelings on February 7, 2013
As anyone who’s loved someone crazy or addicted knows—or really, anyone who’s watched any non-duck or -storage related programming on A&E—some addicted and/or mentally ill people take too much responsibility for the impact of their behavior on family, and others put too much responsibility on their family for saving them from themselves. In actuality, your job is never to act on your feelings of responsibility until you’ve first observed, and then accepted, what you actually control. The result may suck, and leave you feel totally helpless, but you need never be a slave of guilt when you’ve done what you can with what you’ve got (which is hopefully more than basic cable).
–Dr. Lastname
My wife (we’re gay) has Tourette’s syndrome, anger issues, and a tendency to drink more than she should. I have Bipolar disorder, and an obliviousness to other people’s feelings that is sometimes intentional, sometimes not. My wife and I dated for seven years before we got married, so it’s not like we didn’t know each other’s diagnoses and drama, but most for most of that time I was well-medicated, held down a full time job with benefits, and felt like I wasn’t being my real self. Last summer my anti-depressants kicked me into a full manic break. “God” told me to start collecting camping/survival gear and move in with friends in my home state to work on a civil rights campaign and spend time with my family. We won the campaign, and I got some cherished time with two relatives in their dying days, but I completely f*cked us financially, and ruined my wife’s trust in me. She is adamant that marriage is forever, whether we’re happy or not, and we are going to make it work. I love her, but I’m pretty sure I’m an Asshole, there’s no reason to believe this won’t happen again, and if she doesn’t get rid of me I will ruin her life, whether I want to or not. She wants stability and kids. I don’t think I can provide those things for her. My goal is to reconcile my wife’s expectations with the real limitations imposed by my case of crazy.
As we’ve often said, the best way to know for sure that you’re not an Asshole™ is the fact that you even considered the possibility that you’re an Asshole™. Assholes™ may feel injured, but, since they know it was someone else’s fault, they never feel guilty. Sadly, as a non-Asshole™, you’re forced to feel both.
So just because you’re mortified by what your last manic period did to your family finances doesn’t make you an Asshole™ or a dangerous marital partner, even though that’s the way you feel. It just makes you a good person struggling with a bad illness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 4, 2013
Even though we now live in an age when communication is technically easier than ever, there are still plenty of people who have trouble interpreting other people’s words; their phone might get a clear signal, but their brain does not. Some people read too much into what others think of them while others are oblivious, but no matter how you tend to misinterpret your fellow man, don’t trust your feelings-skewed understanding until you’ve first looked at the evidence and given time and experience a chance to tell you whether you’re making the right call or dropping it.
–Dr. Lastname
My problem is a lack of trust and a great deal of insecurities. I am suspicious of my boyfriend and of my friends. I feel like everyone had ulterior motives, and I can’t help that being the first thing that springs to mind if someone is too busy to see me, or even if they ask me to do something with them (my thoughts – maybe they feel sorry for me). I feel sorry for myself, when I have no great reason too. My life isn’t so bad. This might not sound like much but to be tormented with it everyday… It feels like much. My goal is to trust and have more confidence in myself and in others.
It’s a mistake to lump mistrustful feelings together with mistrustful actions when you describe yourself as a mistrustful person; lots of people describe themselves as having bad tempers, but not all of them allow those tempers to land them in jail.
As such, if you mistrust your boyfriend enough to dump him for no reason or force him to list the reasons he loves you every day, then you’ve got a serious problem. Not serious enough to be criminal, but serious enough to be screwed.
If, on the other hand, you have mistrustful feelings but have nevertheless found yourself a trustworthy boyfriend and sustained a relationship that works for both of you, then you’ve got a painful syndrome that you’re managing very well; you’re not mistrustful, then, you simply feel mistrust. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 31, 2013
Unless you’re living in a Nora Ephron movie, breaking up is a painful ordeal, often for the dumper as much as the dumpee; while initiating the break doesn’t have same level of shock and betrayal as being broken, there’s often tons of guilt and paralysis, and everybody ends up spending lots of money on fatty foods, impulse electronics, and shrink bills. While there’s no painless way to break someone’s heart, wallowing in guilt never makes things better, so instead of trying to change feelings that won’t change or punishing yourself for having them, learn from your experience and do what’s necessary. You can’t control your heart but you can make the best of what it does to you and, sadly sometimes, to the people who love you, even if you can’t love them back. It’s what Nora would want.
–Dr. Lastname
Just over a year into my relationship with my current boyfriend, and a week after we had moved in together, I met a man at a month long intensive personal growth course. I was clear with him that I was in a relationship (as he was clearly interested and single), but the feelings developed over the month, especially with the work we were doing together in the class. It was very hard to say goodbye. It’s been exactly a year since that time and I have not for one day stopped thinking about him and the friendship/closeness/attraction that was there. I’m still with my boyfriend and have had doubts about him ever since. I know it’s really affected our relationship. I’m a person who’s always working on myself and trying to be better, growing and changing, where he is not so much. I’m trying to get him to be more open with his feelings, but I feel like I’ll be trying my whole life. I can’t help but wonder if I’m with the right person and have to stop myself every single day from contacting the other man. I don’t know if I’m just a crazy person with fantasies about a better relationship, or if I need to take a risk and move on (even though I’m terrified) – if not for the other man but for someone who is more sensitive to my need to share deep feelings regularly. I should also mention that my boyfriend wants to have kids and we need to make a decision as soon as possible as right now I am just stalling. This dilemma has me up at night and I think about it constantly. I wish I could just trust my gut feelings but I am so confused.
If you feel a prospective husband must be someone who’s also into self-improvement and feeling-sharing, then you’re right to worry. On the other hand, after some additional experience with feeling-sharing self-improvers, odds are you’ll realize your standards are a little wrong.
You don’t have to spend as much time around the feelings-ful and improvement-driven as I have to realize they make up a high risk group of people who are exciting to get to know and talk to—much more so than most people, including your partner—but then become changeable and unreliable in the long run. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 28, 2013
Everyone will tell you that there are valuable lessons to learn from bad experiences, but unfortunately, there are some valueless lessons as well if you misinterpret your misfortune. For example, some people read too much into their painful experiences and become afraid to take new risks, while others learn almost nothing and have to retake the lesson/get screwed again and again. The answer is not to sample your crises like Goldilocks—trying to find a response that is not too much, not too little, but just right—but instead, to ground yourself in values that help you determine what risks are worth taking, what feelings are worth keeping to yourself, and what’s truly worth learning for the future.
–Dr. Lastname
The end of last year I was able to stop taking my anti-depressants after about 4 years. I feel good, my drinking is in control (though I do sometimes feel the old instinct that, when I’m stressed, a drink will help, though after one sip I know it won’t). I’m free of my fear of going outside my apartment or with groups of people. I did see a therapist, which helped me so much, though we never found out what triggered my depression, so I have a deep worry that it might come back. I know there is no point worrying about something that might never happen (I fully believe that its just a waste of time), but I doubt my relationship will survive another ride on the depression roller-coaster as it was nearly destroyed the first time. Also, my partner is concerned as I hope to have kids at some point and my partner has read that postpartum depression is worse if you have suffered depression before. The thought of being ill again terrifies me and I want to avoid that black hole anyway I can. Should I try to work out why I got depressed before? Is postpartum depression something I should be concerned about what the time comes? If I can somehow prepare myself then I’m hoping that if/when depression comes knocking again I might be able to put up a better fight.
After experiencing and surviving the pain and repercussions of a bad bout of depression, it’s normal to fear recurrence, but that fear is often worse than the thing itself; that’s certainly true with depression, as well as heights, spiders, and gays.
In fact, a PTSD-like syndrome of anxiety is common among people who’ve survived such painful and intense symptoms, so it’s important that you pay as much attention to managing the fear of depression as to treating the depression itself.
It’s understandable that you want to figure out a way to prevent recurrence, but reassuring yourself that everything is going to be alright is as misguided as parents’ insisting their kids they can grow up to be whatever they want; whether you’re hoping to rid yourself of depression or reach the major leagues despite being a one-armed girl, the odds aren’t good, so don’t make the mistake of reassuring/promising yourself that it won’t happen again.
In reality, as with all problems, real consolation comes not from putting the trauma out of mind completely, but from knowing that, whatever happens, you survived the first time and acquired a lot of weapons you’ll use to fight depression if and when it comes again.
Of course, fear will tell you that you and your relationship barely made it, but the fact is, you did make it, which is a great accomplishment. Now you’ve found treatments that work and, most importantly, you know that depression is just a bunch of symptoms, it’s not who you are; it wasn’t personal and you weren’t lazy, just unlucky and sick. Don’t get so freaked, then, by the harm a postpartum depression might do to your kids and/or marriage that you forget that child-rearing and maintaining relationships is always risky, and that you have developed good tools for managing that risk.
Yes, you have a chance of having a post-partum depression, but instead of terrifying yourself with thoughts of that possibility, investigate what you can do to decrease the risk. For one thing, you’ll find you can take antidepressants, even while pregnant; their risk of harming a fetus is low and outweighed by their ability to protect you (and the fetus) from its crushing symptoms.
And don’t fall prey to the notion that because medication has risks, it’s automatically unsafe to take, or that you’re weak or dependent to do so. It means you have an obligation, as with any danger, to weigh benefit against risk by sizing up the chance that your symptoms will come back and deciding whether treatment is worth it. So ask your doctors (and do your own research) to inform yourself about the odds of relapse. If they’re high, find out what the risks and benefits are of taking antidepressants as a preventive vitamin.
Instead of letting depression persuade you that you’ll ruin your family by making your partner and children miserable, treat it like any other disabling illness that tests most families, sooner or later, and teaches them how to survive hard times. Get your arsenal ready for fighting the negative thinking that depression both causes and is caused by.
Don’t let your experience make you a depression-phobic; remember how well you handled that depression, take a cue from the gays, and counter that fear with pride. We’d gladly see that parade.
STATEMENT:
“I can’t think about depression without feeling overwhelmed by fear. I know, however, that fear distorts my thoughts and that my experience with depression has made me much more knowledgeable and better equipped to manage it. I will prepare myself and take any reasonable risk that will allow me to stay as healthy and functional as possible, regardless of whether it recurs.”
I don’t see how I can go back to working in my family’s car business because my brother is such a dickhead. I’m broke and I need the work, and my father doesn’t mind if I work there, but my brother and I have never gotten along, and the last time we worked together he was so insulting, day after day, that I finally picked up a tire iron and we would have killed one another if they didn’t pull us apart. I promised to bury the hatchet and keep my mouth shut—as I said, I need the money—but I was back at the shop for barely four hours when he started up again and I had no choice but to punch him in the face. My goal is to teach my brother to leave me alone, so I can work at the family business when there’s no other work around.
Most of us have an instinct to push back when we’re pushed, particularly if the pusher is aggressive and insulting (and a blood relation). No words are necessary and we don’t have to be in a bad mood—all it takes to get triggered is getting cut off in traffic or a dirty look from a spouse. Maybe this instinct helps us protect ourselves from predators by showing them we’re too much trouble to dominate, but more often than not it just makes assholes, inmates, and/or corpses out of everyone.
Unlike the woman above, whose depression has taught her fear and pessimism, you don’t seem to have learned anything from your many fights. Like her, however, your response is based on feeling, not reason, so it’s both about learning from experience, as well as restraining your emotions.
Your brain is obviously wired to fight back, so if someone pushes, you feel obliged to return the favor, even if you aren’t necessarily looking for a fight in the first place. Trouble is, once that instinct gets hold of you, it gives you no choice but to fight, and the results in the real world usually suck for everyone who isn’t a Hollywood hero. Tough guys get arrested, sued, betrayed, beat up by other tough guys, and, like the rest of us, old and too weak to throw much of a punch.
So instead of just following your instinct towards fury, ask yourself whether you want to satisfy that instinct or control it. Sure, satisfying it feels better in the short run but, you guessed it, always ends badly. Controlling it is hard, takes lots of practice, and it’s what the authorities want you to do, which may make it harder for you to decide whether it’s what you want to do for yourself. Until you control that fighting instinct, however, there’s nothing anyone can say that will protect you from endless fights with your brother and others.
Wanting to control it is no guarantee that you can, and neither is therapy. If you decide to control it, you will probably need to work at building your control day by day, one day at a time, like AA, getting religion, or a gym membership. You can call it anger management, but you’d be better off calling it humiliation tolerance and/or finding goals that are more important than insult and injury (like making a living or being a good guy) and reminding yourself about them, hour by hour. The only thing you have to fight is the urge to fight, and the tire iron won’t do you any good.
STATEMENT:
“I can’t stand to feel pushed around and I take pride in being the guy who never starts fights but who knows how to finish them. I know, however, that fighting always ends badly in an unfair world and I have goals that are more important than what anyone says or does to me, particularly if they’re assholes. I am proud of myself for pursuing those goals regardless of how assholes make me feel.”
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 24, 2013
The search for sex and love is almost always put in a competitive context—it’s a game, a hunt, or some “Hunger Games”-like combination of the two—but unlike other competitions, there aren’t many reliable measurements of your dating success. Sure, it always feels like you can tell how you’re doing by whether you feel sought after or dumped, but those feelings really have nothing to do with success; feeling sought after can be arbitrary, distracting, and over-stimulating, and feeling dumped when you’ve merely been dismissed can make you lose your confidence and will to keep looking. So instead of paying too much attention to how dating makes you feel, keep your eye on the real trophy—contacting a large pool of candidates and using solid search criteria to screen out the out-of-control, the unacceptable, and the time-wasters. If you stay focused and work hard, you’ve got a fighting chance to win, especially if you know how to actually keep score.
–Dr. Lastname
I rarely meet men who are interesting, make me laugh and when I kiss them find I have a sexual chemistry with. So when this happened and he took my number, said he wanted to meet up again and texted me the next day (I replied and we had a bit of text banter), I thought, great. Only thing is, he never arranged a date (having said he was a traditional guy), and I just don’t get it. I’m trying to think that I wouldn’t want to be with a man like that anyway but why text the next day if you don’t want to see me? To validate himself by getting confirmation that I like him? I know I shouldn’t analyze this but I find it weird and annoying. How do I let it go and move on?
If you considered how doubly rare it is to find a guy who both triggers the right chemistry and is a decent human being, accepting the long odds would make for a shorter sting. Getting brushed off by a potential partner in the game of love is as personal as a quarterback getting sacked in a game of football, and just as routine.
Since most women have ended up with a copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” either because they had a long lay-over, or because their secret Santa phoned it in, most ladies are familiar with the notion of not-quite-connections.
The problem with the title/thesis of that book, however, is that it makes the problem seem personal, when it isn’t. Most of us just aren’t that in to most people, and guys, with their sexual preoccupations, are even less so. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 21, 2013
For all the lip service people give to the importance of truth, your average person is willing to work a lot harder to preserve a bullshit notion than admit what’s real, and that’s not just true for college quarterbacks. Depressed people prefer to listen to their rotten emotions telling them a hundred reasons why they’ve failed, no matter how many victories they’ve achieved, and people with bad habits can find a hundred reasons for thinking they had no choice, despite the many avoidable fuck-ups they’ve fucked up. That’s why thinking is better than just believing, so you can follow a simple moral procedure, add up what you’ve actually accomplished given what you do and don’t control, and give yourself good advice, fair judgment, and a break from all the hard work that defending bullshit requires.
–Dr. Lastname
In 2011, I was working two minimum wage jobs seven days a week, trying to cram in a social life while getting over a REALLY bad break up. Eventually, I gave up trying to fix it myself and started going to therapy once a week for 8 months. A year later, I got a better paying job, had free weekends, a new boyfriend, our own flat, an OK social life, BUT I sometimes still feel like it’s 2011 in an emotional sense. I still feel emotionally drained, exhausted, suffer low self-esteem and spend most days trying to not fight with my boyfriend over dishes. I then start feeling bad because I think I am not being grateful for the fact that my life did change for the “better.” I know I suffer from depression– have done since I was about 8 due to having a very abusive father, and long story short, I moved out when I was still in high school (about ten years ago). I thought therapy would help but it seems to have brought other problems to surface. Anyway, my question is, at what point should I stop trying to find happiness and just be happy and what does that even mean? Everyday is very different– one day I feel like buying a one way ticket to anywhere that will have me & leave everyone and everything I have behind, and then the next day I am dancing around the house feeling like I won the lottery. It’s starting to drive my boyfriend crazy but he tries to accept me as I am. So extreme are two days that I am not sure I know how I feel anymore about anything. My goal in 2013 is to stop getting upset/stressing about things that do not help my situation and to learn to relax more and enjoy just being. How do I achieve this seemingly easy task but which to me seems like a very very difficult algebra problem?
While many Christians ask themselves “What Would Jesus Do?,” we often ask our readers to ask themselves “What Would A Friend Say?” While Jesus’s imagined answers are often similar, it’s hard to imagine going out to a bar with Jesus after work and kvetching about your life, so “Friend” seems to work better.
That said, if you told a friend about your struggles—depression, irritability, past-trauma—they would tell you that they’re sorry you’re hurting, but that it’s worth taking time to appreciate all you’ve accomplished, despite what you’ve gone through. Like Jesus, they would not judge. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 14, 2013
When people judge success or failure by the ensuing level of happiness, good guys blame themselves for things they don’t control and bad guys blame everyone else for their own mistakes. Instead of putting your accomplishments on a feelings-based scale, think carefully about what you really can and should control, given your values. That way, no matter if you’re a good guy dealing with bad luck or a jerk who assumes he’s a victim, you can at least feel happy about doing what’s right.
–Dr. Lastname
I wish there was something I could do for my older son (now about 30), but he’s never been happy and I’ve gradually got used to the idea that maybe he never will be, although I’m not sure I’ll ever not feel bad about it. He’s got a job and takes care of himself but, unlike his younger brother, he doesn’t have a girlfriend or a job that he likes. My own belief, and I’ve lived by it myself, is that everyone should at least find work that they like, and then it’s not hard to be happy, but he doesn’t seem close to finding work he likes, and he doesn’t seem to be trying. So I doubt there’s anything I can do to help him, but I thought I’d ask you anyway, because, as his mother, I’ll never feel I’ve succeeded until he finds happiness.
There’s nothing that warms a mother’s heart more than to see her kid smile, but you should also know, by the many good, well-parented, miserable adults in this world, that a good upbringing can’t stop someone from being downbeat.
Your son’s tendency towards misery is not more your fault that it is his; it’s a tough world, genetics has no mercy, and bad things happen. Don’t make those bad things worse then by making him responsible for his inability to get happy and causing you both to feel like losers.
It’s common to believe that one can be happy if they find work that they like, but, like taking good care of yourself, eating right, having regular bowel movements, and most other common sense keys to happiness, that belief is largely bullshit. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 10, 2013
Deciding whom to blame for a problem you can’t get a handle on is easy if you follow your instincts, but instincts should also tell you that a decision made based on intuition instead of thought is probably wrong. In reality, you need to look carefully at whether a person is doing his or her best with what’s actually controllable before deciding whether what’s missing is better discipline or better luck. Ignore your instincts, assess the uncontrollable and you’ll come up with helpful and constructive ideas by looking for facts, not blame.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in college, and my problem is that I have ADD and even when I’m on Ritalin, I get distracted very easily if something about a course is hard to understand. Then I wind up fucking around, doing other things, spending too much time with my boyfriend, and falling behind. After two or three weeks, it’s too hard to catch up and I don’t want anyone to know, so I stop going to class. A few weeks after that, there’s nothing to do but drop the course, which makes me feel like a loser. I had the same problem in high school, but I’ve never found a drug or dose that’s made the problem better. My goal is to find a better medication or a way to try harder so that I don’t get behind in the first place.
There’s no doubt ADD is your problem, but another problem lots of people with ADD develop over the years of experiencing learning as a painful, humiliating process is avoidance. It came from your ADD, but it’s its own problem, and not the kind they make pills for.
A lot of people with ADD get good at lying to themselves and others about what they’re failing to do and what the consequences are going to be. It started as a coping mechanism, but it’s developed into a pain in the ass. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 7, 2013
Talking is many things—an activity, a profession (ahem), an anathema in almost any public setting if done via cellphone—but it’s rarely a constructive, active solution to a personal problem. Talking about fears is a good way to avoid doing something about them, whether that means stopping bad behavior or taking a good risk. So, whether you’re talking in therapy or with a friend, don’t talk up your issues until you’ve talked with yourself about what you need to be doing and whether it’s worth the fear-fighting effort. Then, if your goals are worth the trouble, suck it up and limit your talk to your fear-fighting efforts, excluding what it would take to make you feel better, like talking about your fears, especially on a cellphone in an elevator.
–Dr. Lastname
My ultimate fear is this– that my girlfriend will be swayed by another man who is more handsome and stronger and more interesting than me. I am not a jealous guy normally, but when it comes to girlfriends, then I don’t trust them. I think I am what is called an “Anxious-Preoccupied” type person. I am never reassured of how much my girlfriend loves me, or how much she cares about me, and I always need more and more validation and confirmation. My clinginess and overly attachment is what killed my first two relationships. In the beginning they adored me and found me interesting, but as our relationship grew I would slowly become more and more scared, until it ended up being an almost self-fulfilling prophecy. When I am not with her, I fear she will be with some other man. She has never given me any reason to doubt her, besides the fact that she is a desired attractive female. It’s the unreasonable trust, and one a human being cannot give someone else, but the fear is killing me, and I want to end the relationship to this person whom I love deeply, but I know I will take my weird conditioning with me to the next relationship, anyway. I don’t know how to accept this likely outcome that can happen in every relationship. My father was a cheater, and he left me and my mom when I was five. I’ve had a bad relationship to him ever since. My stepdad cheated on my mom as well, and it killed me as a nine year old seeing my mother break down. Now I am 25, and have periods of confidence, but also bad ones (like when I become overweight, as I’ve yo-yo’ed through my teens and mid 20s). Right now I am in a bad period, 20 pounds overweight, and have no job. Maybe it’s no wonder that my confidence is low, but why can’t I slay this demon? Can you tell me what to do, because this is not only ruining my relationship, but also me as a person. I seem incapable of being close to anyone without destroying their respect for me with overly attached nature.
Despite the number of little Nevaehs and Aubreees out there, the act of naming someone or something is usually given a great deal of importance; giving something a name is a sign in itself that that person/bridge/boat etc. is consequential and valuable. Given that your fears should be neither of those things, however, taking the time to name them is an odd choice.
While you might hope that naming or explaining your fears will set you free or give you courage, the reality is that focusing on your fears can easily make them seem more important than what they prevent you from doing, and make you believe that you can’t act better until you feel better. Making your fears that important then, or at least as important as a yacht, is not a good place to begin. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 27, 2012
Giving advice is like taking your pants off in front of someone; there better be some sort of invitation or context, or things are going to get weird. That doesn’t mean giving unsolicited advice isn’t the right thing to do, or that there isn’t a right way to do it; you just have to be prepared to control your emotions, particularly anger, fear, and helplessness, and only speak up when you think it’s necessary, if you wish to prevent harm or enmity. Using the proper procedures for advice giving, you can do right by the ones you wish to help, even if you can’t control or guarantee the results. If you can’t keep your negativity to yourself, however, or you know speaking up will do more harm than good, better to keep your proverbial pants on.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: We’re off again on Monday for New Year’s Eve. Here’s to a great f*cking 2013!
I talked to my cousin about her son’s guns & isolation, and now she tells me her family is “devastated.” How can I remain at peace with myself? I feel strong at the moment but feel a vague fear that a slow degradation of my strength may occur over time. Her family has been self-devastated for a long time. She divorced years ago. The oldest, adult son has never worked a meaningful job and has developed an intense focus on guns over the past couple of years. He shoots small rodents in their suburban back yard, then cooks and eats them (he uses just a pellet gun for this but with a home-made silencer, which must be illegal). The other son was within one semester of a college degree when he began using heavy drugs. His parents invested a fortune in the best rehab available but the son dropped out with two weeks to go. Start big and quit is one of the family’s MOs—a deeply ingrained pattern. I have often thought they all need “tough love” but now that I’ve provided some, I seem to be a catalyst for further dysfunction. My conscience is clear but I feel sad at what I have set in motion (other sane people encouraged me to raise the warning so I did not operate in a vacuum). Of course, it was heavily influenced by the occasion of the CT school shooting.
When someone you care about appears to be stumbling into deep trouble and letting things get out-of-control, scary, and/or armed, it’s hard not to get scared shitless on their behalf and offer them a piece of your mind.
After all, if they can’t figure out where to draw the line, you figure you can be the one to show them, even though you can’t imagine how a parent could ever, ever allow dangerous behavior to go so far. You want to help your cousin by stopping her from doing something wrong, but telling her that is the wrongest way to go about it.
When someone in trouble doesn’t ask for your help, it’s usually because they’re already worried that they’ve done something wrong and are afraid you’ll think the same. If you confirm their fear of being judged, then they’ll devote their energy away from actually confronting the problem and towards defending themselves against their new problem, you.
You were certainly right to share your worries with her about her weird gun-toting, varmint-eating son, and right to voice your concerns about dangers she may be ignoring. What you shouldn’t do, however, is imply criticism with the words “tough love,” which usually imply that a parent’s over-permissiveness has created a spoiled brat. Even assuming it’s true—which may not be the case if her son is a paranoid schizophrenic—there’s nothing like knocking someone’s parenting to cause a negative, defensive reaction (and nothing like comparing their son to a mass murderer to lay them especially low).
Try starting over, if you can, by telling your cousin what you admire about her parenting and her kids’ good qualities. After all, the older child was obviously hard-working and capable until drug addiction stopped him cold, and, since you don’t describe the younger son as a brat, there’s reason to think he may have been doing well until something went wrong, as well. Tell her you’re sorry if she felt your were criticizing her or her boys, but you just want to be sure she’s safe and offer any help you can.
Then, if she’s receptive, ask her about her older son’s behavior in concrete, specific terms. Don’t ask why he’s changed—that implies that she should have an answer that she obviously doesn’t have and that may not exist—and don’t imply that he’s behaving badly, because you don’t know how much he controls himself. Just ask for the facts, particularly about whatever he’s said or done that’s dangerous or shows his brain isn’t working right. Ask about threats, punches, voices in the head, silence when she asks questions, lost hygiene, and ideas about the FBI or Virgin Mary (it’s funny how they fall into the same category in the psychotic mind).
Whatever facts you uncover, don’t let your fears prompt you to tell her what to do; instead, find out what options she’s tried. If she seems to be ignoring a threat, ask her to consider her reasons for not being more worried. If she seems to be discounting the possibility of mental illness, ask her to read up on the signs and symptoms and consider what to do if they seem to fit.
You can’t tell your cousin how to straighten out her fucked-up family—it would be nice if you could, and even nicer if there was a way she could actually do it—but you can remind her that there are many good parents who can’t stop their families from being fucked up, and many ways of being helpful to your fucked-up kids if you don’t feel like a failure.
Offering help when it isn’t asked for is always tricky, but if you make the tone of the conversation constructive instead of critical, she might not be able to change her family, but she may be able to change her approach. And if she doesn’t, or can’t, you’ll still know you did the right thing, and you did it the right way.
STATEMENT:
“I feel like my cousin’s son could go postal while she pretends there’s nothing wrong, but I know these things don’t happen because of bad parenting. I will try to make her feel respected before inviting her to share what she knows about her son. If I have an opportunity to advise her, I will encourage her to make rational decisions about what she knows rather than following her emotions. I will not let my helplessness force me to become impatient and critical.”
My 22-year-old daughter is a good kid and deserves to be treated as an adult, but she’s been living at home since graduating college because she needs to save money, and I can’t help but notice how many guys she dates and spends the night with. She often seems disappointed when they don’t call her again, and then seems too eager to respond when someone new asks her out. I know if I use words like “bad choices” or “low self-esteem” she’ll stop listening, and maybe I shouldn’t offer advice unless it’s invited, but I sure wish I could help steer her in a better direction.
There’s an obvious danger to giving unsolicited advice (see above), and don’t think the danger is much less when people pay a shrink for it. All you need do is imply they’re doing something morally wrong and you’ve either crushed their confidence or stirred them to crush yours. Unlike the woman above, however, your concern comes from observations, not suspicion, and it regards behavior that is far more within her own control. You know of what you speak, and as long as you speak carefully, a conversation is not impossible.
Fortunately, you can often engage people in willing discussions about their dating problems if you keep the discussion positive, refrain from showing negative emotion (no matter what you really feel) and focus on the kind of thinking you want someone to do, rather than actions you want them to take. So don’t show fear or disapproval, or do the psychobabble equivalent by talking about low self-esteem.
Instead, tell her you respect her achieving her degree, saving money, and taking on the search for a good relationship. Then let her know that, if she’s interested, you’ve got some good ideas for how she can search for a partner while protecting her heart.
It’s true, you may be unacquainted with online dating or be one of those lucky individuals who stumbled into a good partnership without first having had many bad dates and a first marriage. Nevertheless, you can draw on other life experiences, like hiring someone for a job or working out a business partnership.
In the non-emotional, business-like manner of a professional matchmaker, ask her what sort of person she’s looking for and what criteria she uses to screen out deadbeats, heartbreakers, and baggage-bearers. Find out how she gathers factual information about a person’s reliability, work, credit card debt, and dumped-girlfriend history so she can head off trouble before she starts to feel attached. Discuss methods for keeping her distance while doing research.
If she feels unattractive, remind her that making herself more beautiful may get her more candidates, but also requires more careful, tougher screening. Help her list her strengths, which you know well.
If you respect the privacy of her heart while offering to coach her on a head-hunt, you can talk frankly without making her feel threatened. Then she can benefit from your wisdom while you enjoy the pleasure of being her friend (and avoid the mess of accidentally become a grandma).
STATEMENT:
“I hate to see my daughter expose herself to rejection and self-doubt as she looks for love, but I know that criticism of her poor choices will add to her self-blame. She has good values, many strengths, and much to offer. By inviting her to think about search tactics and techniques, rather than about feelings of wanting, needing, and being dumped, I will make my love and experience available to her in a way that she can use.”
