Posted by fxckfeelings on September 17, 2020
The only thing worse than getting stuck working for decades in a field or job we hate is getting stuck in unemployment, poverty, and having to use take-out containers as toilets. So, if like our reader from earlier, you’re unsure about whether it’s worth trying to find new work, here are five ways to assess whether you can and should leave your shitty job.
1)Define What Makes Work Worth It
Become your own reverse HR department and make a list of the important things you need for a potential job; a certain amount of money is obviously important, but you may also require anything from a time-limited commute to flexible hours to a clear path to promotion. Don’t forget possible worst-case scenarios, like the likelihood that you’ll need a rainy day fund for an illness or disability. It’s not what you feel you need, like respect; it’s what you know you need to survive and make your hard work worth it.
2) Identify The Downsides
Once you do your objective assessment of what you want from a job, identify the things you dislike most about your current job and would never want again. Evaluate their impact, not in terms of negative emotions like anger or hurt but in business-like measures. For instance, consider whether the job makes it too hard for you to spend time with your family, exposes you to risk of harm or violence (from handsy bosses to unsafe equipment), or prevents you from gathering the experience and skills you need for your next job.
3) Explore Available Alternatives
Now that you know exactly what you do and don’t want, start looking at what’s out there in terms of better alternatives or even a job that will pay enough and meet all your absolute and/or have an additional something that makes it worthwhile to possibly move. Don’t hesitate to network or get informational interviews to figure out whether realistic alternatives exist.
4) Ponder Possible Improvements
Since finding a new job, let alone one that checks all your boxes, is never a guarantee, consider possibilities for improving your current job. It’s possible that just by faking happiness and a better attitude–by keeping negative feelings out of your voice and choosing your words more carefully—you might be able to reduce tension and criticism and improve your current situation as well as your possible future ones. Get coaching on your communication if you think it will help.
5) Make An Unemotional Choice
If you review your scorecard, you’ll be able to decide whether to leave based on objective criteria, not overwhelming hatred for your co-workers or your boss. Determine which essentials your job does and doesn’t provide, which irritants really threaten your family life, safety, or future, and what alternatives exist in your community that might justify a job search. Then, whether you enjoy your job or not, you’ll know you’re doing your best to make a living, using whatever opportunities life offers at this time.
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 10, 2019
Persistent voices in our heads—the ones that push us to do everything from avoiding our work to immediately finding an open drive-thru—are virtually impossible to shut up. What you can do, however, is shut them out or talk them down. So, if, like our reader from earlier, you have a nagging voice in your mind that constantly puts you down, here are five ways to argue with it, work around it, and generally not keep it from controlling your life.
1) Source Your Self-Hate And Be Specific
While the negative voice in your head may be persistent and relentlessly cruel, it is also usually somewhat vague, at least when it comes to what you’ve specifically said or done to be so worthy of its endless barrage of loathing. So when it starts laying into you for your so-called awfulness, try to think specifically about whether you’ve done any bad deed or or have any habit so awful to truly deserve its torment. Limit yourself to what you would hold anyone responsible for, like drinking or lying or not keeping promises, and not for things you wouldn’t, like not being gorgeous or born rich.
2) Get Your Own Guidelines
To truly arm yourself against the voice, figure out for your own objective set of standards for what it means to be a good person. Use standards that most people would agree with and that you would use on a friend, like being reasonably respectful of other people’s needs, doing your share, and taking care of yourself. Remember, this is not about your wishes to be handsome, rich, or sociable; these are positive qualities that most people want, but they don’t really speak to one’s character and they definitely aren’t things anyone can easily control.
3) Figure Yourself Out Fairly
Using those standards, and getting input from objective friends or a therapist if necessary, determine what your shortcomings are. Remember, these are shortcomings that involve character, not just the minor things you don’t like about yourself. So avoiud fixating on your looks, mannerisms, or anxious speech and focus instead on any possible bad habits that cause harm, like being so busy hating yourself, or paying so much attention to whether people dislike you, that you don’t return calls or pay attention to the important people in your life.
4) Make A Plan (And Script) For Improvement
Once you know where your true faults lie, you can make a plan to improve yourself or at least manage your bad habits to keep them from taking over. Work with friends or a therapist to assure yourself that you’re living up to reasonable standards, particularly in the area of reaching out and making friends, regardless of what your internal voices are telling you. That way you can go about your life and even meet people with a much lower risk of self-sabotage.
5) Use Your Self-Assessment To Shut Down Your Brain
Stick to your script, keep trying to learn from your mistakes, and never let yourself take your negative voice at its word. Remind yourself that your negative voice may be persistent but that doesn’t make it honest; you’re tough self-assessment has shown you that with ample evidence. So instead of letting the negativity run you over and keep you down, push yourself to roll your eyes at it and answer back. You may never get it to shut up entirely—unfortunately, being self-conscious and negative may just be a part of who you are—but you can put it in check and shut it out of the process of meeting people, achieving things, and generally living life on your terms.
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 15, 2018
Just as there are people who feel so confident in their greatness that they just believe in it without concrete support or evidence, there are those so certain that they’re dumb, hateful and repulsive that they can’t not find evidence of their supposed horribleness everywhere. When that happens, it seems appropriate to focus on their lack of self-esteem as a legitimate target for psychotherapy, but this focus may just intensify such a person’s self-involvement and sense of being defective without necessarily making things better. So if knowing that you’re a compulsive self-hater isn’t doing anything to make the hate stop, ask yourself to define what it means to be a good enough person, regardless of the constant thoughts telling you you’re anything but. Part of you may always be certain that you’re the worst, but if you can stick to your own standards of being good, then you’ll at least be able to refute that certainty by continuing to do your best.
-Dr. Lastname
I feel like EVERYONE hates me; I’ve got some piss-poor self esteem and try to keep conversations with strangers to a minimum since I feel like I’m a dick who’s wasting their time with whatever garbage comes out of my mouth. I’ve been diagnosed with social anxiety disorder but no amount of sugar coating with polite diagnosis can help me out of this. I’ve read books on Buddhism, social esteem, etc., but it all just feels like flimsy spiritual trash that doesn’t sink in. My goal is to either A, stop giving a shit about what people think about me and enjoy life as a curmudgeonly 20-something, B, figure out some way to not be a dick without necessitating spiritualism and masquerading kindness.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 19, 2018
If, like our reader from a previous post, you’re feeling lost after losing a long-term relationship, don’t let the urge to sulk and self-flagellate prevent you from doing a smart, objective romantic post-mortem. After all, every bad break up is an opportunity to learn good lessons about what went wrong, so as a cheat sheet for your relationship evaluation, here are five unhealthy things that people are all-too-often attracted to; learning how to recognize your weaknesses is the only way to get stronger, smarter, and less likely to ever be this miserable again.
1) Attracted to Unavailability
Groucho Marx famously said he didn’t want to join any club that would have him as a member, but when it comes to relationships, most people feel the inverse; they only want to be with people who don’t seem to want them around. This may be due to deep-seated, unhealthy levels of insecurity and self-loathing, i.e., the feeling that, if someone loves you and is eager to spend time with you, there must be something wrong with them. So check to see if you tend to pursue those who keep their distance while avoiding those who show interest and seek your company. If you do, it’s worth taking time to get to like yourself a little more before finding someone else to love.
2) Cool with Constant Criticism
If you’re a perfectionist who is often self-critical or just been raised by a family of critics, you may find yourself attracted to people who also love picking you apart. As long as they aren’t also mean and unloving, that’s fine, but that’s rarely the case. Ask yourself if past partners have been cold and good at put-downs; if they have, beware seeking the company of critical people and get to work on finding ways to be kinder to yourself. Raise your standards for how you treat yourself and you’ll automatically raise the standards for how you expect to be treated by others.
3) You Find Slackers Sexy
You may be the kind of hard worker who’s drawn to partners who generally give making an effort a hard pass. Perhaps you’re drawn to the appreciative-yet-aimless because they make you feel useful and strong by comparison, but their inability to share your work ethic, along with a willingness to let things go to pot when you’re unavailable, will eventually make you nuts. So if you find that you have an unwise tendency to love the lazy, make an extra effort to try finding a partner with a job, a goal, or just an aversion to spending too much time on the couch.
4) The Need To Nightingale
Too many people are attracted to the damaged and wounded, likely because they get an extra good feeling from having someone they can’t just love but also rescue and take care of. This attraction may come from taking care of someone while growing up who was wounded, or from feeling wounded themselves. For whatever reason, helping the helpless is a hopeless situation; if they get better, you’ll resent feeling useless, and if they don’t, you may still eventually become disappointed by your partner’s persisting disabilities. If it becomes clear that a larger-than-expected number of your exes were the walking wounded, find a smart way to channel your nurturing instincts, like through volunteering, or adopting a one-legged cat, so you can find a partner who doesn’t require them.
5) Drawn to Drama
While it would be nice if everybody were happy to get their drama fix through tabloids, pro wrestling, or the Bravo network, too many of us enjoy and invite drama into our everyday lives. Lots of us are attracted to the kind of people who can turn real life into an episode of Real Housewives; the crazy, angry, and altogether dramatic who initially provide a lot of fun, excitement and passion (that eventually becomes exhausting and even scary). So if you tend to bypass boring people and seek out “big personalities,” it’s time to stop seeing drama as a draw and start recognizing it as a red flag.
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 28, 2017
Finding stability after an especially shaky period is a major and worthwhile achievement, but it may leave you feeling a new kind of uncertainty, stranded between troubled old friends who know you well and well-balanced new friends who would be totally thrown if they learned about your past. Gaining respectability, however, doesn’t require you to hide your past or get approved by other respectable types; instead, decide for yourself whether your efforts have helped you become a decent, independent person. If you respect what you’ve done with your life then you can insist on finding solid friends, whether you have a solid past or not.
-Dr. Lastname
Due to a combination of bad luck, poor decisions and generally reckless behavior, I went through a difficult patch in my late teens/early 20s. A brief highlights tour: abortion, severe depression, being broke, sex work, failing out of college…all in all, it was shitty. Ten years later and I’ve gotten a degree, a good therapist, some success in a far-less-shady line of work…I’ve even gotten engaged to a very nurturing and wonderful man. The problem is that these two realities—my past and my present—are so at odds with each other that it’s becoming increasingly hard for me to deal with. For example, having lost a lot of friends during the bad years, I have recently started trying to make new ones with colleagues I really like and would like to be closer to, but having to hide the details of my past/“double life” means they’ll always be at a distance. The same thing applies to my fiancé’s family, since knowing about my past will make them both wary of me and create difficulties for him. Even my long-time friends (who know my history) are reluctant to talk about the topic, and now that I’ve recently started experiencing flashbacks and panic attacks about that time, it does hurt that I can’t seem to confide in them about the practical problems that I am currently facing. I am functioning quite well about 75% of the time, but my moods can be unstable and at the times when I see this situation stretching out of me for the rest of my life I feel, frankly, almost as depressed as I did in the bad old days, despite being happy and extremely grateful about how well things have turned out. My goal is to A, find some way of making peace with my past and B, figure out some way of sharing my experiences with friends in a way that is appropriate but lessens my feelings of loneliness.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on June 27, 2016
Like pooping our pants, biting our enemies, and enjoying Disney Channel shows, self-doubt is a regrettable aspect of childhood we’re supposed to grow out of. If, however, years of learning, practicing, and getting older don’t keep persistent self-doubt from pestering you on into adulthood, it’s usually taken as a sign of low self-esteem and possible failure in normal maturation. In actuality, it can also be a trait that, for reasons we don’t understand, afflicts mature people who have worked hard, gained skills, and deserve much more confidence than they ever experience. We don’t think these traits can be changed by treatment, prayer, or, as always, anything short of lobotomy, but we have many ideas on how you can manage self-doubt almost as well as you do your bowels.
-Dr. Lastname
I am constantly plagued by negative self-talk. Most days I lack confidence in nearly everything I do. No matter what it never seems to be enough for me. How can I let go of the constant self-judgment and self-criticism? These mental habits sabotage my day–stirring anxiety, panic, and impulsiveness. My goal is to change this internal negativity into something positive, nourishing, and/or helpful. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 4, 2016
Maybe it’s an extension of normal perfectionism, but obsessing over perceived physical imperfections is an affliction that sometimes happens to very good people. Unfortunately, doctors have neither been able to find the reason behind nor the cure for these obsessive thoughts, but if you’re one of those unfortunate people, you aren’t totally without hope. Though feelings of ugliness are painful and hard to bear, there are ways to remind yourself that they aren’t the truth, and that your future never need be as ugly as the thoughts in your head.
-Dr. Lastname
My concern has to do with feeling ugly. I often feel quite not-OK with how I look, specifically my face, and it causes me unease and unhappiness. I also feel I was very unhealthy and underweight in my late teens (from eating very little and working way too hard at school), and that I could/should look better/like my handsome brother, and often just feel kind of this general malaise and shittiness when it comes to my appearance. I can’t imagine ever even wanting to date somebody given how almost guilty and unhappy my looks make me feel. Every mention of attractiveness and even the sight of a pretty girl quickly triggers a twinge of sadness and a kind of sigh and a drive to ruminate, which I’m finding it hard to deal with now and I’m and worried about coping with it in the future when life gets much harder. Right now I live with my parents and am quite comfortable, but I don’t know how I’m going to function when I’m on my own struggling in the real world. I can’t imagine happily meeting friends for brunch and not getting weighed down by the whole, “I look gross as hell and it’s probably my fault and things might very well suck forever and I might be screwed” train of thought. My goal is to be less affected by my feelings about how I look and have some sense of hope about the future.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 1, 2016
Unlike severe autism, autism spectrum disorder is more a collection of differences than a disease. True, there are disabilities and moments of feeling alienated, but some abilities are enhanced, so it’s less like being broken and more like being Batman. So if you have Asperger traits, don’t make it your goal to be “normal.” Recognizing your weaknesses does not oblige you to eliminate them, but to learn how to use your strengths to manage them and be the person you are (and perhaps save Gotham, if you’re so inclined).
-Dr. Lastname
I’m over 60 and have just discovered/realized I am on the autism spectrum (what they used to call Asperger’s). I’ve spent my life trying to fit in to a neurotypical world. I’m also a little over a year divorced from someone who emotionally abused me for almost 20 years. Between these two things, I’m kind of reinventing myself. I’m already saying f*ck to ‘normal’ (neurotypical) and to society’s dictates for women my age, but that doesn’t mean I’m totally comfortable with what’s happening. My goal is to figure out how f*cked I am, and what can I do about it.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 21, 2016
At the start of a new year, you don’t have to be like our reader from earlier this week—someone in an usual career going through an usually hard time—to feel motivated to get your shit together. Here are five easy steps anyone can follow to get back on track no matter how rocky the terrain of your life happens to be.
1) Get A List of Goals
Obviously, if you’re trying to figure out how to get organized and motivated, you need to know what’s important enough to you to work for. Define these goals in terms of values, not results, e.g., include making a living, not making a mint. Think about what’s necessary, healthy, and fun in the long run, not what your wildest dreams are made of.
2) Put Together Your Priorities
The hardest part of prioritizing is learning to both accept the fact that two or three things deserve highest priority and the skill of juggling them all at once. It gets easier over time, and in the process of learning, you also get better at figuring out whether some of your priorities are actually worth dropping or putting aside.
3) Choose a Coach/System
Without a domineering spouse, day job, or ticking bomb in the basement, most people have to develop a system for self-management, particularly when they have to juggle their own obligations on top of their spouse’s, kid’s, dog’s, etc. Since most schools don’t teach you executive functioning skills, take a course and/or hire a coach. It’s amazing how much better you can do with a good to-do list, a set of urgency categories, and an omnipresent schedule.
4) Suss Out a Schedule
Assuming you have lots of responsibilities, limited time, and a strong desire to have fun, you need to create a schedule. A schedule helps you develop habits and shortcuts, so that you can reduce procrastination, deal with top priorities first, and make time for the things you really want to do. Again, don’t hesitate to take a course or use a coach.
5) Learn Your Limits
Many people experience endless feelings of responsibility once they engage in a serious task and those feelings can become consuming, particularly if an outside source (boss, spouse, parent, etc.) believes your share of responsibilities is never big enough. Train yourself to judge your responsibilities objectively by comparing them to your job description, taking into account your resources, and determining what a good person should do. Then you can remain focused on what’s really important, not overextend yourself, and not only get your shit together, but get shit done with a real sense of pride.
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 27, 2015
Even for sane people, brains aren’t always totally cooperative, reliable things; most of us deal with unwanted thoughts and urges on a daily basis, like doubts about our looks or abilities or nagging impulses to do, say, or touch things that should remain left alone, at least in public. When those yearnings are extra persistent and painful, however, like our reader from earlier this week who couldn’t shake the urge to get pregnant, there are still ways to keep your brain in control. Here are five ways to keep unwanted thoughts from overstaying their welcome.
1. Snap Out of It (Literally)
As silly as it sounds, it does help to put a rubber band around your wrist and snap it every time you have the unwanted thought. It turns out that the distraction helps to stop a thought from turning into a rumination. If it helps to follow up this proverbial smack on the nose with a newspaper with a treat, all the better.
2. Acknowledge and Answer
Instead of taking the thought at face value and letting it get you down, respond to it by reminding yourself that you’ve made the best compromise possible, tough decisions are often painful, and you’re proud of your ability to put up with pain. If the voice isn’t going to shut up, it’s going to be told that it’s wrong.
3. Utilize Unassuming Obsessions
Since it’s fairly difficult to pull up distracting positive thoughts when you’re in the throws of heavy, nagging obsessions, try instead to distract yourself with unimportant, public ruminations, like how it’s unclear whether people watch Empire because they think it’s really good or delightfully idiotic, or why the Red Sox fired the one announcer who could make a horrible season watchable.
4. Stand up to Shame
Negative thoughts flourish with shame and secrecy—if you’re too ashamed of them to get talk about them or get help, they’ll get the run of your head—so tell those close to you that you suffer from ruminations and appreciate distraction. If you don’t want to wear the rubberband, you can ask them to step on your toe or pinch your tush if you ever, ever start to share the subject of your ruminations.
5. Seek Support
Spend time with other people who suffer from ruminations (an OCD clinic should know where you can find a support group). You’ll find many nice, otherwise sane people who experience painful, intrusive thoughts and still find ways to go on with their lives. They may also have more good hints about how to ignore the thoughts and prevent their painfulness from driving you to feel like a failure. Either way, they can help you to feel less alone, more in control, and thinking more positively about the problem in general, even if you can’t stop thinking about other things.
