Posted by fxckfeelings on May 6, 2013
Your heart is like your best friend in junior high; if it tells you you’re doing the right thing, it could easily be a lie told in a storm of hormones, emotions, and/or stupidity. When you’re angry or hurt, negative feelings are obviously not a reliable guide to doing what’s right, but a desire to care for the needy and helpless can be just as unreliable. In figuring out the best choice, don’t make a big deal out of hate or love, because doing what’s makes you feel like a good person and actually being a good person aren’t necessarily the same thing. Instead, remember your promises, the good you’re trying to do in this world, and all possible realistic outcomes. You may wind up with a lot of frustrated feelings, but if they accompany a bunch of smart actions, you know both your heart and mind were in the right place.
–Dr. Lastname
I am looking for advice in how to deal with my aunt. Some background: she’s my father’s only sibling and, when I was growing up, we were extremely close. As I got older, I noticed that she was very self-centered, racist, classist, politically conservative, and very immature, which lead to some very upsetting arguments and tiffs (she didn’t respond well to having her authority questioned and I was supremely uncomfortable with having my friends and viewpoints criticized constantly). Over the next few years we had several blowouts, and she promised again and again that she would change—no more lying, no more manipulations, no more treating my father and other family members badly, no more running her mouth ignorantly and offensively. Then, about four years ago, we both accused the other of undermining each other at work (we worked for the same company), she was remarkably offensive to her brother (my father), and we stopped talking (she refused to speak to me, and I thought it was the best idea she had in years). Now she’s sick and my father is pressuring me to make nice to her, at least at family get-togethers. Is this worth sacrificing my hard-won sanity for? I know I would be upset if she died, but I can’t say I miss her at all from my daily life. I get the feeling that my family (especially my grandmother/her mother) would judge me for it, as if I’m deliberately being hurtful to her without cause. I’m so very tired of “being the bigger person” between the two of us, having to set my feelings and concerns aside for “the greater good of the family” and her wellbeing, without a thought for mine. My goal is to figure out how to navigate my family while staying sane.
The idea of flashing a friendly smile at your nasty, bigoted aunt at a family party and sharing a few words of small talk might make you crazy, but it won’t drive you insane. At the risk of sounding crass, you might be tired of being “the bigger person,” but since she’s about to stop being an “alive person,” it’s a finite sacrifice.
Don’t make just nice because it’s temporary, however, or because you want to please your father and grandmother; you’re old enough to make your own moral decisions and act on them, and the key to a good moral decision is not reacting to how you feel, but to what you value. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 25, 2013
The difference between conversation and confrontation is much more than those middle syllables; conversations exchange information, and confrontations either resolve or create issues, which is why most people wish to avoid them. Doing so can keep the peace, but can also keep those issues at a standstill. On the other hand, taking on a confrontation without careful management can trigger war that makes real discussion impossible. So don’t assume that your choice is between confrontation or silence. In actuality, if you decide it’s necessary, bring up difficult issues in a peaceful, conversational context, and, when war is unavoidable, don’t let anger interfere with your constructive goals.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband isn’t perfect, but we’ve had a good marriage, he’s been a steady guy, and together we’ve achieved financial security. I know he loves me, but he’s fond of spending time with video games and, over the years, sex just stopped happening. I’m not crazy about sex either, so in some ways we’re very compatible, but I was really hoping we’d start a family—I love kids—and it’s clear now that, as things stand, nothing is going to happen and that that’s the way he wants it. I wish we could talk about it, but he hates confrontations as much as I do and I’m afraid that forcing the topic would just push him away. Besides, being confrontational isn’t my nature. I feel stuck and my goal is to figure out some way to proceed, if possible, without ruining our marriage.
Although you hate confrontation, you’re not your typical passive type, stewing in a corner, bemoaning your loser husband who prefers video games to your vagina; you’ve clearly decided that your life is better with the marriage than without it, even though it contains sad disappointments, and are able to acknowledge your own shortcomings (like being uncomfortable with the word vagina).
While saying nothing might appear passive and self-defeating, it actually reflects much thought, love, and acceptance, both of yourself and your husband. The only question remaining is whether you’ve done your best to manage and negotiate these marital disappointments, because, as much as you’ve accepted a number of sacrifices to stay in the marriage, giving up on a family might be one too many. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 22, 2013
People who knowingly distort the truth seem to deserve more blame than those who truly believe what their mind makes up, but when you’re close to a liar, the issue isn’t who deserves more blame, but who is more dangerous to your welfare. Somebody who lies on purpose often does so out of a guilty conscience, while those who believe in their lies are more apt to see you as. the deceitful one who’s deserving of blame and punishment. So when lying is an issue, don’t waste time on how it makes you feel or whether the truth needs to be told. Instead, look at what happened when the liar was exposed in the past and do what’s necessary to protect yourself, even if it means leaving a liar behind, and as such, the truth unspoken.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband has a porn problem– problem because he hides it, lies about it, and blames it on others (as in, “Oh, my friend sent me some virus and that’s what opened the browser window to the helpful find-a-local-hooker site”). He also has a deadline and personal responsibility problem– lots of promises to accomplish tasks at home, precious little success. I still find benefits from being married to him. He works hard and his income is very useful. He has been sober for twenty years now, and if he is screwing around on me he is doing it discretely. He is vital to the childcare and child transportation scheme. He can be pleasant to be with and supportive, and our sex life is good. And I am 50, fat and tired and figure I would face a life of lonely celibacy without him. I can generally cope with the down side of things, but I persist in feeling angry and disappointed when he once again lets me down, and every once in awhile I find myself believing that someday he’ll change. I’m worried that I may have my thumb on the scale when I weigh the pros and cons of sticking with him. I also worry that our kids might be better off without the toxic atmosphere when I am once again disappointed. I need help finding ways to cope with the inevitability of being let down, and the serenity prayer just ain’t doing it.
It’s hard not to experience being lied to as a personal betrayal of trust, whether the liar is close to you, like a husband, or a stranger, like a politician with an unfortunately phallic last name. The reason liars can take any form, however, is that as personal as the act feels, it’s often nothing but a bad habit.
After all, nose-pickers aren’t trying to gross you out, nervous whistlers aren’t trying to annoy the shit out of you, and alcoholics aren’t getting shitfaced just to make your life more difficult. You feel like you’re in the crosshairs, but you’re just collateral damage. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 18, 2013
Whether it’s mental illness, high blood pressure, or Bieber Fever, finding out that you or a loved one has a chronic, incurable condition stirs up feelings that you must learn to manage if they aren’t to manage you. Instead of attempting to change what you can’t or fleeing into comforting activities with bad hangovers, gather your courage and learn about actual risks and the limits of treatment. If you do that and avoid panic, self-medication, and/or dubious musical choices, you’ll become effective at helping yourself while staying focused on your life rather than your disease.
–Dr. Lastname
I met the greatest girl six months ago—she’s smart, hard-working, and we share the same values, so it’s not just an infatuation based on her looks or laugh or whatever. As I was getting to know her, I was thinking she’s the sort of person I would want to have a family with. Then, a couple of weeks ago, I got the feeling that she was getting a little…weird? She wasn’t sleeping, and was working obsessively on random stuff like color-coding the bookshelves, couldn’t stay focused, even while driving, which was pretty scary. Then last week, she started to talk fast/non-stop and text our friends about how great our sex was. The next thing I knew she was in the hospital, where I now understand she’s been once before, and her parents tell me she’s bipolar. I’m really not discouraged about her having a mental illness freak-out, I just want to find a way to help and also not let this get in the way of our relationship.
We tag every post on this side with “acceptance,” and that’s because it’s central, not just to dealing with life’s problems and getting to use the iTunes store, but in terms of long-term relationships. Acceptance isn’t easy for most, but it’s clear you have full faith in your girlfriend, in sickness and in health.
The downside to such natural, positive acceptance, however, is the lack of screening process for the life you wish to share with her; if you’re looking for a partner, you also have to ask whether her illness will allow her to do the job. Your relationship is rooted in something real, but so is her illness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 11, 2013
When a close family member acts like a jerk, punishing them often seems to offer the offended relative the double benefit of getting to express anger and discourage the wrong-doer from pulling the same crap in the future. Unfortunately, that “double benefit” usually doubly backfires, leaving you alienated from the offending relative and twice as pissed off the next time said crap is inevitably pulled. If, instead, you waive your right to punish wrongdoing, you will often give yourself an opportunity to provide good coaching, or, if that’s impossible, to set strong limits. Fighting a jerk by becoming a jerk is cathartic, but it’s more effective to fight a jerk by being a boss.
–Dr. Lastname
Maybe it’s because I was distracted by the fact my second marriage was in the process of finally falling apart, but when my twenty-two-year-old son had suddenly married a girl I thought he’d only been dating casually while living abroad, I was caught totally off guard. I just had no idea it was that serious, or that they’d even have that much in common since English is not her first language. I know I’m a little overbearing, but I love my kids and we haven’t had any conflict, so I was shocked, hurt, as well as a little worried that he’s being used for a green card. His mother was also kept in the dark, but we’ve talked about it and share some concerns, so at least we’re agreeing on something for the first time in years. I know better than to have it out with him, so my goal, I think, is to keep the peace and get to the bottom of this somehow, unless you’ve got a better idea.
While you certainly have a right to feel hurt and worried about your son’s mystery marriage, negative expressions of how you really feel would do nothing but get him defensive and reinforce his conviction that he was right to keep you in the dark.
After all, any criticism, justified or no, just validates his assertion that if he’d told you, you would have been critical, and he didn’t want to hear it. That you would certainly want and deserve to hear about your son getting married is, for him, beside the point.
If you’re up to the job of being his chief adviser and can put aside the normal, natural feelings of a father who’s just taken a jab to the heart, however, there’s more you can do to be helpful than just shutting up. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 8, 2013
Sometimes goals that appear meaningful, like speaking your mind, getting closure, or getting an art degree, are excuses for pursuing feel-good results we damn well know will turn out badly. If you put aside your yearning for a better world while examining the probable results of your actions, however, you’re much more likely to do actual good, even when it doesn’t feel so hot, rather than let good intentions draw you into making the same old mistakes. No matter how right it feels to try, getting the last word, closure, and/or a BFA just aren’t worth it.
–Dr. Lastname
It really isn’t my ex-girlfriend’s fault that I got paranoid and couldn’t work for two months—she didn’t make me start using meth with her (she’s was a heavy user when we met). I used because I wanted to, not just because I loved her and the chemistry between us was amazing. Eventually, though, the meth made me unbelievably paranoid (I’d never been into drugs before) and I thought she was putting the smell of cat piss in my apartment. I also couldn’t sleep, think straight, or pay attention to anything for more than two seconds, so it wasn’t long before my boss told me to get help or else. Months of treatment have almost put my brain back where it was before and I’m almost ready to return to work, but I want my ex-girlfriend to know I don’t blame her and I want us to part on good terms, so I think we should meet once more, just to get closure. My goal is to erase the negativity caused by my bad reaction to meth and close the book on the situation for good.
After month of treatment, you should be well-versed in how to approach your addiction one day at a time; while there might be a rehab out there that preaches having one last meth binge hurrah “for closure,” it probably won’t be open for long.
The search for closure is the broken person’s version of the Holy Grail; long, dangerous, and ultimately futile. You might think you’re trying to put things right, but you’re really just picking a scab, so if you think it’ll help you heal, the opposite is true. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 28, 2013
Addiction is easier to understand if you picture it as a mental squatter, the way advertising for nasal decongestants depicts mucus as a working class family that happens to be gooey, green, and getting by in your sinuses. Even when people are strongly motivated to stop compulsive or addictive behavior, their addiction is often one step ahead of them, distorting their thinking to undermine their efforts and stay put. In some cases, they are so obsessed with the self-perceived ugliness of their bad habit that they can’t consider more important reasons for stopping, while in other cases, they are so obsessed with finding their addiction’s ultimate cause that they wind up blaming people who care the most and could offer the most help in their recovery/to send the addiction packing. If you’re ready to quit, avoid stoking up feelings of self-disgust or blame; instead, prepare to tolerate pain without blame while looking for positive reasons to manage lingering inner demons and keep them from setting up house.
–Dr. Lastname
I think I meet the clinical definition of having an eating disorder (at least, according to the all-knowing and all-powerful Wikipedia). For the past four years I have been binge eating and semi-purging through excessive laxative use. Before that, for about two years, I was probably somewhat anorexic, although I say this in retrospect as I don’t think I either realized or would have admitted it at the time. (5’2” and less than 90 lbs. is pretty thin, though). My goal is to stop binge eating, and I don’t know how. My eating and obsession with food have basically taken over my life, and though I fight it and things have gotten better than they were a year or two ago, I’m constantly afraid of when I will binge next. I don’t trust myself at all. It affects my professional life, and I need to stop letting that happen. I miss the self-control and feelings of power and self-worth that my thinness used to give me. I realize that going back to that is not exactly a healthy goal, though. I’d frankly be pretty pleased if I could just stop binging and get on with my life.
It’s hard to underestimate how all-consuming an eating disorder can be; as you obsess about the ways to keep food out of your body, it becomes the main occupant of your mind. Every moment spent avoiding the act of eating requires twice as many moments of mental torment on the subject.
Then there are endless concerns about your appearance, feelings of worthlessness, compulsive behaviors, and the intense ties between them. Eating disorders foster a kind of self-obsession, a dependence on your own thoughts and secret behaviors that devalues other goals and relationships.
It’s not surprising then that managing an eating disorder requires, not more self-control, but an acceptance that you’ve lost control and a willingness to admit other people, like family and therapists, into your private, obsessive relationship with food. It’s not unlike the so-called First Step of managing an addiction—admitting your helplessness and recognizing the importance of values other than your needs and shame. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 21, 2013
Whether you feel so strongly that you can’t figure out where your emotions are trying to take you or so rejected that you can’t let your feelings take you anywhere, you know the name of the website so pointing out how stupid it is to rely on feelings would be redundant. What does help, however, is to get in touch with the deeper values in your life that make it meaningful to make painful compromises in close relationships. Once you know what these values are, you can always find a compromise to respect, regardless of how it makes you feel (or how we feel about feeling in general), and take action that makes you proud.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been in a relationship with the same guy for the last eight years—we met when we were in high school and have been together ever since. We live together and have talked seriously about getting married and starting a family, but I am not sure I want any of this with him anymore. In recent months (and I’m not sure whether this is a cause or symptom of how I feel about my future with my boyfriend) I’ve developed a giant crush on a guy at work– I really, really like this guy, in a way I didn’t think possible outside of high school, to the point where I wish I (and he) were single. But this crush also makes me feel horrible – I feel like I am slowly but surely destroying my relationship, I worry that I am just going to hurt my boyfriend, and to top it all off I know deep down that I will never be with the guy at work (for various reasons – he has a girlfriend, I’m not really sure he likes me in that way, and I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t ever date a co-worker anyway). So I don’t know what to do. I love my boyfriend and I still want to be with him right now, but this has made me think that we maybe aren’t going to work out in the long run. On the other hand, the thought of leaving him to live alone is really scary/sad – I don’t have a lot of friends who live nearby, so I think I’d just be by myself a lot, which would be incredibly depressing. I also just don’t think any place would feel like home without him, although I’m not certain this isn’t because I have no idea what life would be like without him. So it just seems pointless to leave what really is a good relationship to live alone and sad, as it is unlikely (as I said above) that my crush and I would ever get together. So, my goal is to determine what I can fix in my relationship with my boyfriend so we can move forward into the future, and to get over my work crush so he and I can just remain friends.
Maybe people who get big crushes need to get their wishes granted, at least once, and have a love affair with someone who ends up breaking their heart and crushing their notion that love is the most important thing in the world.
Without that big heart-break, they can’t break out of the same cycle that you’re in—trying to figure out whether a big crush will run rampant and break up your current partnership without your having any control over it or getting anything good out of it.
In other words, you know you’re in trouble when you have the same sort of fears about having a crush that you do for getting bitten by a zombie. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 14, 2013
Most of us feel driven to help someone who’s in pain, whether they want it or not, but as sitcoms, Jodie Foucault books, and alcoholics have tried to teach us over and over again, stepping in to relieve or prevent suffering isn’t always a good idea. The sad reality is that lots of pain can’t be helped, and the sufferer is the only one who can make the tough decisions required to manage that pain effectively. Helping, then, is often less a matter of providing relief and more of encouraging people to ignore pain that they can’t change and take credit for the good things they do about it. The outcome isn’t as dramatic as it is when you attempt to rescue someone, but it’s often a lot more meaningful for everyone involved.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m a resident advisor in a college dorm (it’s free room and board, and I’m a psych grad student, so it’s training of sorts), but I’m stuck because I don’t know how to help one of the kids on my floor. He’s severely depressed and it’s complicated by the fact that his parents, who are Middle Eastern, don’t believe in mental illness and think he’s supposed to just get over it, so they won’t pay for treatment and would probably accuse him of shaming the family if they knew he got it. For a couple years, he was cutting his arms while keeping it a secret and not letting it affect his grades. Lately he says he’s stopped cutting but often thinks of suicide and sometimes gets into a strange, spacey state of mind where he’s caught himself standing on balconies and thinking about jumping. He’s a good kid and he denies being traumatized (I think he might be in the closet, and with his parents, I understand why he’s afraid to come out), but he obviously needs help. My goal is to find him the help he needs.
Before trying to help someone who’s suicidal and restricted by his own beliefs from getting help, you’ve got to remind yourself that your powers are sharply limited, and that, even under the best circumstances—if you had a practice and he was a willing patient—his case would be a challenge. This is the stuff they don’t teach you in school, or you’d switch your degree to finance.
You can coach him on his options, but the alternatives are all painful and there’s no guarantee of relief, so don’t expect to make him feel better; what you can do, however, is help him see his choices as meaningful and positive. In other words, if the desire to heal others is what’s driving your degree, it’s time to begin your coursework for Life is Unfair 101. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 7, 2013
From “I can’t make you me,” to “You can’t hurry love,” to “You can’t force the funk,” pop music has done a good job of informing the public that you can’t push someone to fall for you if the don’t want to. Sadly, there are fewer hits about how you can’t really make anyone do anything, even if it’s to stop the mistrust and anger of someone you love. If you’re in that situation, you first need to figure out whether their feelings are warranted, according to your own standards; if they are, you have to worry less about changing their mind than changing your behavior to earn back your own (and their) respect, and if they aren’t, you need to figure out whether you’re just being oversensitive about a love that’s worth keeping, or whether you just can’t make it work. At least pop music has heartbreak covered.
–Dr. Lastname
I have made some mistakes in my past and unfortunately my girlfriend discovered them—I never told her about them because I wanted to protect our relationship, and I’m trying to be good. I don’t talk to other girls anymore and I avoid every other temptation because I don’t want to have problems with her. Now when we have arguments she always brings up my past. I tell her not to think about the past anymore because it’s over, and besides, we didn’t know each other back then, but she’s stressed that I’ll repeat my old behavior in the future and do the same thing to her. How can I prove to her that she’s wrong? I’m very in love with this girl and I’m trying my best to get back her trust.
To paraphrase the wise words of RuPaul, if you can’t trust yourself, there’s no way in hell you’re going to earn the trust of somebody else. Of course, as hard as it is to trust, love, or even just like somebody else, it’s even harder to start with yourself.
If you’re just controlling bad behavior for the sake of someone you love, you won’t meet that definition because you’re doing it “to be good”, which you won’t always be, or for the sake of love, which you won’t always feel. Plus, if you screw up, you might be inclined to but the blame on the person for whom you were trying to straighten up in the first place, which becomes a pass to behave even more badly in the future.
So if you want your girlfriend to trust you, you have to know you can control your own behavior and live up to your principles, even when you feel injured, angry, unloved, needy, or let down. It’s not easy to do, but it’s the only way. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
