Posted by fxckfeelings on December 2, 2013
There are millions of reasons that being an adolescent girl is absolutely the worst—their peers are monsters, their teachers are idiots, their crushes are never as cute as vampires—but all of these issues are made worse by the fact that nobody seems able to help them. After all, when you’re trying to help a young girl deal with hormones and bad habits, not only will a rescue attempt possibly alienate the person you’re trying to help, it may offend the people whose help you need or let them off the hook when you need them to take more responsibility. In any case, assume that, in addition to giving them love and understanding, you must also be prepared to accept limited resource and political realities. Good rescues require good management, especially when you’re helping someone during the worst time in their life.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m worried about the kind of attention my granddaughter has been getting lately and how my son and his wife are handling it. She’s a terrific girl who has always done well in school, but she started going through puberty right before junior high. Now she has a gorgeous figure and is quite excited by all the attention she’s getting without quite understanding what it means. I know her parents have explained sex to her, as if there was anything they could tell her she hasn’t seen on TV, but I don’t think she gets what boys expect of her and just seems to like the romance and secret meetings with cool kids who wouldn’t look at her before. When I bring it up with her parents, they tell me they know they can trust her and they don’t believe in infantilizing her and ruining a good relationship. My goal is to help them be more appropriately protective.
When it comes to expressing concern to someone about their child, it’s nearly impossible not to imply that something’s wrong with that someone’s parenting, the child’s behavior, or their relationship. The line between concern and criticism isn’t just razor thin, but the criticism side is filled with angry wolverines, landmines, and open sewers.
Fortunately, your view isn’t blaming, but you’re still in a precarious position addressing your granddaughter’s sexuality and appearance. Frank talks about sex never seem to cover the unique burdens of being beautiful, and an adult trying to impart wisdom to a tween about image and perception is like trying to give your father advice on how to grill meats; you can’t educate someone who’s convinced of their own expertise. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 11, 2013
Not being accepted is worse than just a terrible feeling, because it’s about who you are; it’s the reason people do everything from buy new faces to entire self-help libraries, to do whatever they can to become something or someone they don’t have to be ashamed of. Unfortunately, radically changing yourself (without the use of a scalpel, at least) is highly unlikely, so most people save their money and do everything they can to avoid non-acceptance and react negatively when it’s unavoidable. Whether you’re afraid of judgment if your true self is revealed, however, or suffer from it without hope of improvement, don’t let it define you. Build your own standards of behavior and measure your progress by how well you live up to them. Then you can accept the potential pain of non-acceptance as a sad part of life and the cost of being your own person and reject the cost of surgery and The Secret.
–Dr. Lastname
I know I drink too much and I’d like to get it under control, but I don’t want anyone to know about my problem. I don’t know what my wife would say, even though she probably already knows something’s wrong with me, but I’m afraid of what she’d think of me if I came to her to talk about it. I can’t imagine going to meetings because I’m afraid of running into someone I know. I really want to cut back, but I can’t face anyone to ask for help.
It’s normal to feel ashamed of a drinking problem, and the shame, along with dishonesty and secrecy, is one of the main ingredients of alcoholism. Just add the booze itself, shake or stir, and serve in a salt-rimmed class.
That’s why waiting until the shame disappears before facing your wife and talking about your problem is a bad plan. The more shame you feel, the less help you get, the more you do to be ashamed of, and the less likely the conversation is going happen in your lifetime. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 14, 2013
In relationships, play-off series, and Breaking Bad (RIP), chemistry is as necessary as it is intangible, but it’s often as hard to gauge as it is to create. Just as you can like someone without a spark to be had, you can frequently be mad at your partner and not have it affect your basic chemistry one bit. Before deciding whether to reach out or pack up, ask yourself whether a relationship has the potential to meet your basic requirements, and if it does, try to negotiate behavioral change in a positive way. Whether it works or not, you’ll feel you did your best without screwing up your message with disappointment, hurt, or heavy losses on the field or at a meth lab.
–Dr. Lastname
When you find someone you like, the chemistry is there, you have the same values, you get along, then the problem arises when one person thinks the other one doesn’t really like them that much because they start to pull back for one reason or another. Then insecurities start to play a big part and you end up arguing over the fact that someone doesn’t want to see you as much, for whatever reason they have given. How do you then work out what’s real, the truth, whether you like each other enough or whether you’re feeling like this because it’s not actually right, not because of the excuses someone has given for not wanting to see you?
We firmly believe in the old adage that love is blind, which, in modern terms, means it can make most people a little Aspergery and blind to social cues. We call it “a touch of the ‘tism,” and it can make you particularly vulnerable during the courting process.
For example, when someone backs away after the two of you seem to have hit it off, it usually means that the other person doesn’t know how much you like him/her or doesn’t realize how much you have to offer, due to a little ’tism of his/her own.
On the other hand, it could indicate some ’tism on your own part. After all, there’s a risk to reaching out that goes beyond a fear of rejection and comes from the fact that people often draw back for good reason. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 13, 2013
While it’s said that you only hurt the ones you love, it would be more honest to say that you only hurt the ones who love you. What’s worse, that hurt usually comes from pushing them away when they’re trying too hard to help. Trying to redeem or heal someone, or yourself, through caring and communication usually does less rescuing and more repulsing. After all, if one or both people can’t consistently manage their own responsibilities, honest talk and helpfulness does little but make excuses and turn love into prolonged anguish. Develop a reasonable set of standards about what a person should do to take care of him/herself, before you offer or ask for help. Otherwise, you’ll earn all too well how true the “help until it hurts” saying is.
–Dr. Lastname
My friend and I have feelings for each other, which are no secret to either of us—we had kissed and had even gotten close to having sex but when it came down to being completely honest about our feelings we couldn’t do it. I knew this was unhealthy but I was scared because not only are we both guys but we both had a lot of issues when it came to love. He would say things like, “I don’t know what I want,” and “Don’t fall in love with me.” It was confusing because before that he would be asking me to “make love to him” and had even said, “I love you” twice. I know that part of it was fear of being with another guy. Then, two months ago, I got into a car accident because I was drunk. He was there but, luckily, no one was hurt. Now he says he’s forgiven me, but he has also picked up a girlfriend, which was a shock to me and it hurt. In the beginning we had great chemistry but then we lost that when we stopped being honest with each other. I believe it happened when feelings started getting intense. I want for us to stop hurting each other and start being honest. I’m not sure how to do this and it is breaking my heart. I wouldn’t mind being his friend if he would just stop playing games or whatever this is with me. Is he just confused or being cruel? I can’t make up my mind.
Hollywood wisdom is that women don’t like Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but given how far-fetched your average romantic comedy is, that’s simply untrue. A movie about two people with great chemistry overcoming impossible circumstances by having a heart-to-heart and ending up happily ever after is built on a reality so false, it makes The Hobbit look plausible.
While that good, honest talk solves all romantic problems in TV/movie fantasyland, frustration like what you’re experiencing in real life is more often due to the other things that you’ve mentioned troubling you and your friend: confusion, fear, and uncertainty about who each of you wants to be with and who you want to be. 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 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 October 4, 2012
While we’re taught by our elders that sex is the greatest way a man can express his love and admiration for a woman (and only after marriage), experience teaches us that attraction can be fairly impersonal, based less on who you are than where you are, what your hair color is, and if you say yes. It’s odd then that people struggle to accept that a lack of attraction can be equally impersonal, even in a marriage, and that there are limits to how much it can be influenced by talk, wine, and roses. The fact is that there’s much about interpersonal sexual chemistry that you and your partner will never control, so doing your best to bridge the gap is the best defense you will ever have against doubt, blame, and feelings of failure. Losing sex can hurt, but if you know it’s not your fault, it doesn’t have to ruin your relationship or your self-confidence. Sex is impersonal, but commitment isn’t.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband and I went to couples therapy a few years ago, but it left me with a lingering feeling of bitterness towards him that I had never felt before. I know I tended to ignore him when we were busy raising the kids, and I understood he felt aggrieved that things didn’t get better when the nest emptied out. So I tried hard, at the urging of our couples therapist, to make time for him and try to touch him and give him pleasure in bed. What left me bitter was the way he responded (i.e., he didn’t). No matter how hard I tried, nothing I did was enough, so I gave up. I’m not going to leave him because I like our family life, I’m looking forward to retirement, I have lots of interests, and I don’t want to complicate life with a divorce. I wouldn’t have sex with him now, however, if he begged. My goal is not to get hurt again.
Hurt feelings can make one half of a married couple withdraw from the other, which can just cause more hurt feelings, etc., etc. Structured re-engagement via therapy can sometimes stop that cycle, providing that a couple still has love and effort to give. Then again, that re-engagement effort can also reveal that love has left the building or, as in your case, is stuck in a revolving door.
For your own peace of mind, you did the right thing trying to repair your relationship, regardless of whether it led to disappointment. Unfortunately, one of the things you can’t control is your husband’s emotional and sexual response, and while therapy was supposed to bring you together, it instead gave you a reality check. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 20, 2012
Maybe you can’t help feeling guilty when someone tells you that you’ve destroyed their self-esteem, particularly when you’re critical of something they’ve done, no matter how much you know they’re overreacting. If, however, you remember how little control you have over anyone’s self-esteem, including your own, and have expressed your criticism positively, you can arm yourself against guilt and stand by whatever you’ve said. It’s not your fault if they’re hypersensitive (or hyperbolic).
–Dr. Lastname
I’m going to kill my kid if she doesn’t kill herself first. She’s a drug user and chronic fuckup, on probation for a DUI, and she just can’t stay out of trouble. Last week she stole my checkbook and went on a spending spree at Best Buy. A month ago she got restless, took my keys, and went out for a midnight drive without a license. I don’t think it’s just because she’s depressed. I think I’ve failed her, probably because I’m an alcoholic and wasn’t sober during her first ten years. It’s so hard for me to feel compassion for her, though, because I’ve managed to get sober and put the work in to stay that way. When I confront her about how stupid she’s being, she says “I want to die, you’re right, I’m an awful person,” and puts a handful of pills in her mouth. That’s when I really want to kill her, while I’m driving her to the hospital. She’ll only go to AA meetings if I drag her along, and she doesn’t get anything from them, so maybe she just has to hit bottom first, although I can’t imagine how low she’d have to go. My goal is to stay away from her before I do something I regret.
It’s horrible to have a kid whose fuck-ups are fearsome, persistent, in your face, dangerous, and expensive. You give her an inch, she takes a mile of rope and hangs both of you.
Even more horrible, however, is letting your anger loose on such a kid, then watching her declare you’ve made her hate herself so much that she does something risky and dies. Losing a kid is terrible, but losing a kid after so many words you can’t take back is worse.
While you’re the first to call her a fuckup, you’re the last to actually believe it. It’s true that some fuckups can see the light, try to get better and learn how to hit the breaks on their urge to partake in fuckuppery, but that’s their call, not yours. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 2, 2012
Sure, there’s something to the childhood logic that first comes love, then comes marriage, but only between two people who aren’t allergic to commitment, which has much more to do with character than love. Instead of trying to forcibly wrest commitment from the one you love, even if that someone seems totally loveable, focus your own ability to commit, and insist on receiving the same without negotiation. If they can’t meet that commitment, then what you’ve got isn’t true love, and it’s time to find someone else to sit in the tree with.
–Dr. Lastname
I know it’s a cliché, but here goes. For a little over a year, off and on, I’ve been dating this smart, good looking, talented guy, and when we’re alone, he’s sweet and perfect. Thing is, he doesn’t want anyone to know we’re together/”be official,” so when we’re together in public, he either ignores me or acts like a jerk (which he says he’s doing so his friends won’t suspect anything). He also stands me up and doesn’t call me back, which is why we’ve broken up a few times, but then he begs for my forgiveness, reminds me why I like him, and we start seeing one another regularly again until a few weeks later, when he fades away until I can’t take it anymore, and then it all repeats, over and over. He swears he’s just confused about making our relationship public and official, but I can’t put up with this much longer. What can I do to convince him to get over his fears, admit we’re together, and be the great guy I know full-time?
Love gets people to think with their hearts instead of their minds, and since your heart’s currently taking you on an emotional rollercoaster, your mind’s a little too dizzy to think straight, or at least see the big picture.
After all, treating you badly in public is a dubious tactic, no matter what the motivation, and ignoring you, with or without a suspicious audience, is also almost impossible to justify. The way you’ve described his overall behavior does not make your boyfriend seem “sweet,” and certainly not “perfect,” but very close to “jerk.”
So stop being in the moment and take a second to look for facts that could put this guy’s behavior into perspective. Otherwise, you won’t be able to do anything but pick the petals off flowers asking yourself whether he loves you or loves you not, and what you’re supposed to do to make it work. Unfortunately, all that leaves you with is a bunch of bald daisies and no self-esteem. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 8, 2012
On the pie chart of what goes into a healthy relationship, sex should never be the biggest slice; that’s putting the most emphasis on the one element of a relationship over which people have the least control. Besides, the fact that it can ignite all your circuits or trigger vast yearnings doesn’t mean it will find you, or make you, a good long-term partner. If your partner is loyal, caring, and reliable, then how frequently you get a piece shouldn’t take the biggest piece of the pie.
–Dr. Lastname
My 34-year-old husband is a wonderful, sexy, kind, sensitive, clever man. Fourteen years ago, however, he had a severe meth addiction that got him in jail. After ten years sober, he started drinking a few years ago, but, having worked in the addiction field, I don’t think the drinking is an issue at all, though I do think the meth has really screwed with this head. What he does have an issue with is intimacy and sex. We have a wonderful relationship so we’ve talked extensively about the problems we have—erectile dysfunction. He says that the meth fucked with his head sexually, and that it made it very difficult for him to have “normal,” i.e., non-aggressive sex. Before me, he found sex fine with women he was not emotionally connected with, but as soon as feelings came in, the sex became more difficult. Early in our relationship, sex wasn’t an issue, but as soon as we got engaged, and then married—it became very difficult. He’s warm and loving, and doesn’t want to be ‘aggressive’ with me, which means he can rarely get it up. We kiss and touch a lot, but it’s getting harder and harder to deal with; I feel rejected, he doesn’t feel like a good husband or a ‘real’ man, though I tell him every day how much I love him. When we do manage to have sex, it’s beautiful, but he rarely comes, and is rarely hard all the way through, and it’s infrequent. I definitely think it’s a psychological issue, and so does he. He talks about feeling massive anxiety and pressure that he will lose me, and this makes the problem worse. It seems this combination of our (new) marriage, his lousy job, and his past is putting a huge psychological pressure on him. I’m not sure what to do—do we go to therapy together? Him alone? What kind of therapist? How do I deal with this? I’ve been endlessly patient, I’ve snapped and lost my temper, I’ve reassured him, I’ve cried. I love him so much and I want to help him and us, and also make sure that I deal with it right.
The trouble with trying to fix sexuality by understanding its psychological underpinnings is that it turns an inability to perform into a personal failure. As we always say, figuring why something’s wrong isn’t the same as figuring out how to make it right.
Sex aside, you get along well with your husband, who seems like a hardworking guy with the strength of character to stick with a job he doesn’t like and stay off drugs. You feel respect and affection for one another. So far, so good.
In other words, you have a good marriage, even if he doesn’t have a lot of orgasms. Your relationship has the important stuff, so don’t give sex any more importance than necessary. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
