Posted by fxckfeelings on July 1, 2009
Human nature tells us that the best way to solve a problem is to get to the root of the issue, but some problems, like mental illness, have no simple cause and no solution to speak of. In today’s cases, two people need to rethink their approach to mental illness; when you stop looking for someone to blame or a silver bullet cure, you can get to the real business of learning to cope with the reality of the present.
–Dr. Lastname
I think one of my sister’s kids might be mentally ill—he’s 9 and very intense and unhappy—but my sister doesn’t see it, and I don’t know how/if to get her to pick up on it. It should be fairly obvious to her since we saw the same symptoms in our mother, who wasn’t diagnosed as bipolar until we were kids and she had a chance to put on quite a show. I guess my sister doesn’t really understand that our mother wasn’t just a mean drama-queen but actually sick, maybe because she was younger when Mom went to the hospital and doesn’t really remember, or maybe because she’s in denial, or maybe both of those things combined with the fact she and her husband are space cadets that are such hands-off parents they don’t even notice that one of their own children is clearly suicidal. My goal is to get my sister out of the clouds and get my nephew some help, because if something happens to that kid, I don’t blame genetics, I blame her.
As any teacher well tell you, the danger of bestowing your idea of help on another parent’s child is that you have very little control over how parents react, because no parent wants to hear that something is wrong with their child. And their default response lies somewhere between defensive anger and general freaking out.
The freaking out also comes from the fact that it’s hard to keep the urgency and alarm out of your voice, no matter how diplomatic you think you are, and feelings trigger feelings. Suddenly you’re in a perfect storm of hysteria, but hey, no good deed goes unpunished.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 28, 2009
A lot of readers, either with amusement or anger, like to challenge the “fuck feelings” mentality; surely, they respond, not everyone’s just a big baby, and there must be some legitimacy to some feelings, given the right circumstances. Those readers might try to use these two cases—the feelings within, and/or the situations that have spawned them—to find the exception to the rule. But if you really think we assign some feelings more value than others, then you misunderstand the rule entirely.
–Dr. Lastname
I know this site has fun with people who whine because the truth hurts, but I want to know whether you can apply that philosophy in situations like mine. My son died in a car accident a year ago—he was just a little guy, bad weather…total freak accident. One day he was fine, the next day, he was gone. My wife was driving, and while I know it wasn’t her fault, I’ve pulled away from her, and she doesn’t really talk to me, either. It’s possible that I’m drinking too much, because I am drinking to numb the pain. Would you honestly tell someone in my position, “fuck feelings”? What would you tell me? I know this is short, but my goal isn’t complicated. I just want to get over the pain of my grief.
From your first question, it seems you think this site confuses whining with real pain, which isn’t our intended message. Pain is what it is—all questions posed on this site involve real pain—and grief over the loss of a child happens to be the worst. At least, we can’t imagine anything worse.
But pain becomes dangerous when you expect to control it, because you then hope for things that simply aren’t going to happen and avoid dealing with what you’ve got, which is a life that can dump terrible suffering on you, for no reason, at a moment’s notice.
Here, your pain is telling you that you need to drink, there’s no point in not numbing the pain of your loss, there’s nothing left in your marriage because your wife isn’t talking to you, you were unable to protect your son, you’ll have nothing to give other kids, and things are just going to get worse. You pain is real, but what its telling you is fucking bullshit.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 24, 2009
Trying to loudly convince someone that they’re wrong about you is like trying not to think about elephants; the harder you work at it, the more you fail. The women in these two cases are obsessed with someone else’s disapproval, they couldn’t think of elephants if they tried.
–Dr. Lastname
I knew my father wouldn’t understand, but I thought it would be harmless to visit my ex-boyfriend, who is also my son’s father, who was also an abusive jerk. I was young when I dated this guy and was pretty naive (naive enough to get pregnant), and my father really had to step in and protect me, which I swear I’m grateful for to this day. I haven’t dated any jerks since then (well, jerks that bad : )), and I’ve got a great kid, and I’m not the person I was when my ex and I were together. I avoided him, and kept our son away from him, for over ten years, but when he reached out to me a few months ago, saying he wanted to make things right, I guess I slipped, and I went to see him. Nothing happened, honestly, but my father won’t stop being angry with me and telling me I don’t value myself enough, as if I were still a 15-year-old letting a guy slap me around. It kills me that he feels this way, tears me up inside, and I can’t stop crying about it. I wish you could persuade him to stop believing this about me. My goal is to get him to believe me that I’m over this guy and that it won’t happen again.
Ultimately, you’re the only person who can truly judge your worth. Unless you’re a child, lobotomized, or eager to join a death cult, it’s your job to make that determination, not your father’s or anyone else’s.
That’s why you can’t try to restore your self-esteem by changing someone’s opinion of you because, in doing so, you’re giving someone else that power, and it’s not theirs to have. There’s nothing wrong with wanting his good opinion, but it’s total self-betrayal to make his good opinion more important than the judgment that you and only you are capable of making.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 17, 2009
Elvis once sang, “I’m caught in a trap and I can’t back out ’cause I love you too much, baby.” For our first case, that sentiment rings true. Our second sides more with the Public Enemy school; that “Elvis was a hero to some but he never meant a goddamn thing to me,” so trap be-damned, I’m outta here. Here are two men reacting very differently to feeling stuck. Thank you, thank you very much, goodnight.
–Dr. Lastname
I lost my job last month, so my wife and I have had to move in with her parents until we get back on our feet. In a lot of ways, it could be worse—her parents have a huge old house, my kids love spending time with their grandparents and vice versa, my wife is a lot less stressed out—but, aside from the lack of privacy and pride, the biggest issue for me is my mother-in-law (a cliché, I know, but hey). This woman always has to be right, she has to have an opinion about everything, she has to know what everyone’s doing all the time…I feel like an angry teenager because I can’t go out to pick up a pizza without getting grilled for information with an additional load of condescending commentary (“Oh, I would NEVER order from that pizza place,” “You’re such a good daddy to get a treat for the little ones!”, etc, SHUT UP). My wife is used to it—she grew up with it!—but I’m not, and I can’t find a job, and I am losing my ability to resist telling her to FUCK OFF. Plus my wife doesn’t want to hear me complain about it, so she wants me to “talk to someone,” but without any insurance, I’m talking to you. And so, my goal is to find a way to get through this situation without going to jail for murder.
OK, let’s start with the positives; your goal in dealing with your obnoxious mother-in-law is a good one because you’re not trying to change her, get anyone else to change her, or find an escape where one doesn’t exist. You are admitting you’re fucked, and that’s the first step to a not-cure.
You’re also not implying that you’re a failure because you lost your job or can’t find a new one that would allow you to bid her adieu. You’re not saying “I shouldn’t have allowed this to happen” or “I shouldn’t let her get to me.” You haven’t let your seething irritation stop you from looking for work and being a father, so you don’t have to fight a false belief in your failure or the bad behaviors that follow that belief. Again, you’re on the right path, even if that path is paved with turds.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 14, 2009
Nobody enjoys the break-up process, but there are ways, as either the dumped or the dumpee, to make that process even worse. Between a woman who thinks she’s permaturely ending things to a man who can’t let go, these two cases show how breaking-up is not just hard to do, but easy to fuck up royally.
–Dr. Lastname
I just broke up with my boyfriend, and even though I thought I was doing the right thing in the long run, I think I’m now making a habit of ending relationships before they get too serious. This time I ended things because, after a year together, I had to face the fact that I wasn’t as excited about him as I should be, and certainly not as excited about him as he was about me (and never was—this wasn’t an issue of the spark being gone, but never really being there in the first place). I left the guy before him because he and his mother were very close—maybe too close, in that his mother seemed to boss him around—and that mother lived hundreds of miles away, which meant he’d want to move hundred miles away eventually, and I really didn’t (let alone raise a family there so close to his crazy mother). I’m not that old, but I’m definitely in the marriage window, and while I think I’m just being realistic when I make these decisions, I worry that I’m just panicking in the face of actually settling down. I hate how much I’ve hurt my exes by what I’ve done, my goal is, I don’t want to do it again.
It’s understandable to feel bad when you’ve made someone else feel bad, but feelings aren’t that important when you’re looking at the bottom line. Before you start criticizing yourself for the painful outcome of these two relationships, considering the obstacles that make it difficult to find a good partner.
Ultimately, your goal isn’t to avoid painful breakups; it’s to deal with prospective partners honestly while you try to find a good match, knowing that it’s entirely possible to begin a relationship with someone you like and respect and then discover problems that would doom a long-term future.
That’s what you can’t control here: the unsolvability of two of those problems and the need to break the relationship sooner rather than later, regardless of the pain you might cause.
We both know couples who broke up because one of them is over-responsive to another priority in their lives, like a mother or job or college basketball. So when you’re considering settling down with someone, you need to ask yourself how this guy is likely to respond if the demands of our family conflict with his other loyalties.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 10, 2009
We’re all familiar with the overgrown-child/slacker archetype, the 30-something offspring who lives in the basement and still has mom do his/her laundry. In film and TV, that character is played for laughs, but in real life, adults that rely heavily on their moms—either because they can or because they have to—are sometimes very unfunny. In these two cases, those close to needy adult-children aren’t amused.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in my 30s and have always been the responsible and goal oriented brother, but my baby brother, who’s just out of college, has always been the opposite. He basically sponges off our mother, and his ungrateful attitude towards her is making me more and more angry. I don’t want to feel this way, because I know what he does for her is not my concern, but it has gotten to the point where I don’t want to be around my brother because I don’t want to witness any of his behavior. I literally feel ill when I see the way he just takes from our mother and really uses her, but my mother doesn’t see it that way, so she resents me for feeling like this. My father is actually on my side, but my dad travels a lot for work and is not always around to put his foot down. Overall, my brother and I are just totally different people/personalities, and there are so many different conflicts in our way of thinking, but now the differences between us are spilling over into the rest of the family dynamic. Is it wrong to distance myself from him? I don’t want to dislike him as much as I do, but being around him isn’t going to help.
I’m not sure what your goal is here, but I think we both agree what it isn’t– trying to change your brother. Without the benefit of supernatural powers, you can’t get your brother to stop being a sponge or your mother to stop protecting him, regardless of how much you’d like them to change.
Trying to do so, as you’ve experienced with your mother, could drag all of you into a rut. As a goal-oriented guy, you may have a particular talent for straightening things out, a talent which helps you work hard and make a living, but if you apply that talent to changing your family, you’re in trouble.
You might feel a moment of relief after telling them what you really think; it’s what I have previous described as something of a “feelings fart,” as the relief is temporary with a lingering effect that poisons the air and clears the room.
In other words, your toxic emission with cause your brother will tell you that you’re mean and jealous and your mother will accuse you of tearing him down when he needs building up. No wonder your father travels a lot for work.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 3, 2009
It’s wedding season, which means we’ve got a couple of cases involving equal helpings of drama, family/friends, and bullshit. Indeed, fxckfeelings.com is the ideal place to speak now or forever hold your peace.
–Dr. Lastname
My best friend is marrying an asshole next month, and I’ve tried to keep my mouth shut, but now that the wedding is almost here, I really worry I’m letting her make the biggest mistake of her life. She and I have known each other since high school, and while this isn’t the first jerk she’s dated, he’s certainly one of the most manipulative and creepy, and, sadly, the first one to bring up marriage. I’m fairly certain that he’s cheated on her already, but I have no proof, and besides, I can tell that she’s too in love with him to listen to me. Is there anything I can say to her to make her see sense? Should I look hard for proof of his asshole-ishness? My goal is to speak now or forever hold my peace/have to avoid one of my oldest friends until the messy divorce.
You probably already know this since you’ve kept your mouth shut for so long, but just to state the obvious, opposing her feelings of love with your feelings of mistrust is a good way to end your friendship with your betrothed friend and strengthen her isolation. Doing that will make her more reliant on her fiancé. You will have vented your dislike and done your duty/more harm than good.
A better goal is to see if you can get your friend to be more careful in terms of making such an important life decision, without suggesting in any way that your negative feelings for her fiancé are the reason for your advice. You can tell her to look before she leaps without indicating that there’s a specific pile of shit to avoid.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 31, 2009
The concept of being one’s “brother’s keeper” has never been a very good one; from the Bible to the Clinton boys, older siblings taking responsibility for their youngers has rarely had good results. In these two cases, older siblings feel obliged to get their little brother/sister back on track, but being related to someone by blood doesn’t make them any easier to control. You can’t “keep” your siblings, but you can keep trying to do the right thing.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m one of seven kids, standard big Irish family, fairly standard/normal childhood, everybody seems to get along. My youngest brother, however, has always been a quiet kid (and I’m the oldest, so he’s much younger than me), and while he’s not the black sheep exactly, he’s always been a little bit different and maybe something of a misfit in general. One of my uncles died recently, and at the wake, my brother took me and all of our siblings aside to tell us that he’s been going to therapy and has recently recovered memories of being molested by our late father. Now, I’d never describe my dad as being a warm or lovable guy, but he wasn’t a monster– never raised a hand to me or anyone else in the house that I saw, and certainly never tried to touch me in a sexual way (or any of the other kids as far as I know). And, like I said, I’m not that close with my younger brother because I was in high school when he was born, so basically, to put it nicely, I just don’t think he’s remembering things right. None of the other siblings do, either, but ever since he made his little announcement, he’s been pushing us to support him and getting angry when we try to calm him down/kindly and tell him he should back off. Since I’m the oldest, my other brothers and sisters are looking to me to handle the situation, but I really have no idea what I can say to make this go away. My goal is to figure out what the hell is going on and get him to stop.
You might not know your brother that well, but I’ve dealt with his type many times: certain people go through life feeling different, cut off, ultra-sensitive, and constantly unhappy. They are troubled as much by not knowing why they’re suffering as by the suffering itself.
In their isolation and misery, they are constantly wondering what went wrong, if they did it to themselves, and what they should be doing about it. If they can believe that someone bad did something horrible to mess up their minds, whether it happened or not, it makes sense of their suffering and gives them something concrete to do about it.
Sure, something bad may have happened to them, or their reaction to constant suffering may have exposed them to additional harm at the hands of people they would otherwise have stayed away from. The sad thing is that no one has a solution to their suffering: not friends, not therapists, not older brothers.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 24, 2009
Love is at its most dangerous not when its bonds are most intense, but when its status between two people is muddled and ambiguous. Here are two cases where the feelings are unclear but the stakes remain high.
-Dr. Lastname
I don’t know if my husband is cheating on me, but I admit that I’m convinced enough that I’m wondering what to say to him. He’s always looking for an excuse to get out of the house—suddenly every single game, no matter what sport, deserves a trip to the bar with his buddies. It may just be that he doesn’t like to hang out with the kids, or that I annoy him, but that seems to extreme. We’ve never had a screaming fight about the whole thing, mostly because we’re both too tired from work and life and whatever. When I do joke about it, he just swears up and down he’s not cheating, and that he’s going alone out because I hate going out with him, and that I’m letting my insecurities get the best of me. And I guess he’s right in some ways, because I am kind of shy and, when I’m busy, I forget about going out. But he knows how much it drives me crazy, and that I need help with our kids, so you’d think he’d cut back out of consideration for my needs. I’m tired and lonely, too, so now I wonder where I’m supposed to turn. So that’s it. My goal is to keep anyone from cheating on anyone.
Just the fact that confrontations over infidelity are the climax of choice for most tabloid TV programs should tell you that they seldom work out positively. Instead, they lead to mutual accusations, just-stop-attacking-me apologies, ineffective denials, and/or resolutions to do better followed by the same old behavior.
The problem is that, if he tends to lie or fool around, then that’s the way he is. As much as it feels personal, it usually isn’t, and if you looked at his past under a fidelity microscope, you’d probably find microbes of secret flings everywhere, and those microbes will keep chugging along until the Cialis stops working.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 20, 2009
Everybody has bad habits, but nail-biting is one thing, theft is another. When someone has a habit that is so obviously awful, we’re certain that such bad habits must have an equally obvious and easy fix. These cases show that what isn’t true for junkies also isn’t true for pyros– bad habits are hard, if not impossible, to break.
-Dr. Lastname
My husband and I have tried everything, but we can’t get my stepdaughter to stop stealing. It started with shoplifting at the mall—clothes, jewelry, even shoes a couple of times—but once she got caught and actually sent before a judge, she did some community service and hasn’t shoplifted since. So now she just steals from us. She started sneaking into our bedroom and lifting money from our wallets. When she ignored our punishments and wouldn’t stop, we put a lock on our door, so she started stealing anything else she could get her hands on (and some things, like DVDs, she’d then sell so she could go back to the mall to buy things she used to steal!). She’s not my daughter biologically, but I’ve been married to her father since she was a toddler, so this isn’t acting out due to a divorce. Still, neither her father nor I can control her, and if we do somehow get her to stop stealing from us, I’m afraid she’ll go back to stealing from others and wind up in jail. I just want her to stop.
Sometimes you can’t get kids to stop stealing and they can’t stop themselves. It’s a sad truth that parents and therapists and tough judges and kind reformers don’t have the answer. We all know nice, concerned, fully functional parents who have out-of-control kids. Kleptomania is just nature’s little present to your offspring.
I don’t mean to suggest that we should ever stop trying to help our sticky fingered children stop stealing, but if you expect them to stop, or expect yourself to get them to stop, you can drive them crazy, the stealing gets worse, and you’ll sink into feelings of failure at a time when you need to persevere and stay strong for the long haul.
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