Posted by fxckfeelings on March 20, 2014
Families have the magical ability to hide their contempt in plain sight or, sometimes, create the illusion that that their torment doesn’t really exist. No matter what type of nasty sorcery your family works on you, don’t fight it ineffectually by rebelling or getting angry. First figure out what you think is right, then, when you have sufficient conviction on which to ground your courage, draw a line without allowing yourself to be drawn into a fight, and shazam, the spell is broken.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband knows his family is full of overbearing jerks, beginning with his father, but he has a strong sense of duty and wants our kids to know their cousins. So, for a long time, we spent long holidays with his father and sibs, but after a few years my husband agreed that it would be best for me to opt out because they were especially nasty to me and I couldn’t see any point to putting up with it except during special family events. The strange thing is that my husband still spends quite a bit of time with them, even though they’re pretty sarcastic and critical with him, and then he comes home worn out and grumpy. I wonder if he spends more time there than is good for him, but he treats my concerns as if I just want him to take my side against his family. My goal is to get him to see that I don’t want him to support me against his family, just to own up to the fact that his family possibly isn’t that nice to anyone and he spends more time than is healthy.
Whether you wish to comment about a husband’s overinvestment in anything from booze to his bracket to, yes, social time with an overbearing family, you can’t tell him what to do without becoming an overbearing wife who “hates” his dad. And while you may indeed dislike his father, that’s not your point.
You don’t want your relationship with or opinion of his family mediated or commented upon, because the issue concerns his relationship with them, and you wish he would take your concerns seriously rather than treating them as a personal emotional problem, a challenge to his loyalty, or a general rattling of the chain the he imagines connects you to his ankle. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 10, 2014
If you think of your life as a rollercoaster—and there are plenty of inspirational posters that would like it if you did—than the downhill plunges will feel uncomfortable, scary, and inducing of barf. Whether you’re looking back on your best days or your worst decision, it’s hard not to fear the transitions and wonder what you did wrong to fall so profoundly, even when you’re not at fault. If, however, you accept your current low as a painful fact of life that hasn’t changed your values or basic priorities, then you need never feel like a failure and instead can take pride in enduring whatever life throws at you and still working hard. Then life will be less like a scary rollercoaster, and more like a steady old road.
–Dr. Lastname
I wish I could stop thinking about how I’ve ruined my life. I used to be comfortably well off and never worried about the food bill, basic repairs, or even taking a vacation. Then I had to make a major financial decision about my capital and decided to put it all into an investment that was a total bust. There’s no point in explaining everything that went wrong, but, by the time I got out of it, I was broke, and now, every time I thing about it, the bills I haven’t paid, or the phone calls from creditors I have to constantly ignore, I want to throw myself out a window. It was the biggest, stupidest mistake of my life, and I shouldn’t have believed any of the advisers who said it was a good risk. My goal is to stop being haunted by the feeling that my life is, or should be, over.
If you judge your actions by how they happen to turn out, then every bad luck turd that comes your way is a personal failure, including: getting the flu (you were too stupid to get a shot!); getting laid off (too foolish to prepare for the recession); and getting hit by a meteor (too busy watching “Real Housewives” to buy a telescope).
In a fair world, where everything is safe and predictable, you’d be right, but in this world, you’re just being mean to yourself over something that probably couldn’t have been helped. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 20, 2014
Some parents are gluttons for responsibility and guilt, while others are just regular gluttons for video games and donuts, but neither instinct necessarily leads to good home management. To raise a child while both honoring other responsibilities and occasionally indulging some pleasures requires you to create priorities and stick with them, whether they feel good or not. You may sometimes need to frustrate those who depend on you, and sometimes yourself, but your goal—as with any diet, nutritional or behavioral—is to figure out a balance that will work and just stick with it.
–Dr. Lastname
About a year ago, I found a rental for my parents, sister, spouse, and my baby to live in. My parents and sister were living with my aunt prior to the move, but things were not going so well there and I was a new, panicked mother seeking support, so I thought all of us living together would be the perfect solution. Before getting into it, I was fully aware that my mother had a gambling addiction and my stepfather was in and out of a job. They have always been financially irresponsible and neglectful in general when it came to other responsibilities. Well, I feel miserable here and I want to leave, but there is this overwhelming amount of guilt I feel. I know I shouldn’t feel responsible in any way, but I am the only person here who wants to build a better future, and I feel like they cannot have one without me. My mom works 40 hours a week with terrible health issues and has lost some of her teeth, so she feels sick all the time and has very low self-esteem. Because I love her so much, I can’t help but feel an overwhelming amount of sympathy. She hasn’t gambled as much as she use to. Probably because I started to when we moved in together, had a small gambling addiction myself, then I banned myself from the casino. It may have woken her up a bit, but we are still broke. My spouse and I have to constantly pay for what they can’t with the bills and do all the grocery shopping. Everyone here but my spouse is passive aggressive, and when I get the courage to speak up, my family gets very emotionally wounded. I’m fed up with myself because I can’t find the strength to leave, and I am confused because there are times when I want to stay, but that is only when things are going well, which is rare. I need advice on how to handle my over excessive guilt and how to speak up when it’s needed.
At a certain point, all parents are confronted with their own, special chicken/egg dilemma; they don’t have to figure out which came first, but who comes first, given the conflicting needs of their parents versus their kids, and their duties to both. It’s painful enough to make you wish you were poultry.
After all, there’s nothing wrong with helping your mother or seeking her help with childcare. As a married mother who runs her own household, has a child to support, and is obliged to share decisions with a spouse, however, it’s your job to ask yourself if you can withstand the harm it might do to your new family if you live with your mother and her entire damaged entourage. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 17, 2014
Marriage requires a lot of sacrifice, and while surrendering some independence and half your Netflix subscription fees are worth it, the ability to keep strong emotional reactions from screwing up rational judgment is not. Sometimes, marital conflict will cause you to blame yourself unfairly, just to restore peace, and other times, you’ll blame your partner unfairly, to head off a situation that scares you. In any case, don’t forget that you can make an independent judgment without blaming or demeaning your spouse. Give yourself time, use normal business practices, and you’ll always find a positive way to discuss your differences and stand by both your vows and your own vision of what’s right and wrong.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband stormed out of our house last night because I just can’t seem to meet his needs or understand where he’s coming from. He’s needed more help lately because he hurt himself falling on the ice, and it’s hard for him to do the chores. I could make excuses for myself and tell you I have a full-time job and I try to be sympathetic, but obviously I’m not succeeding. My goal, if I could only achieve it, is to be better at understanding my husband and making him feel valued so he comes home.
Certain marital complaints are impossible to judge, the most common being that you sounded nasty or uncaring. Until a smartphone app is invented that will scientifically judge the negativity and/or offensiveness of a spouse’s tone of voice, this is a complaint about which no one can be objective.
Then again, in the absence of smartphones, there are always plain old smarts, which means creating standards of your own to compare his complaints with. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 30, 2014
Many of us suffer stress and torment by accepting nutty ideas, either because we’re literally hearing voices, or just because we’re reading women’s magazines or buying into our own baseless guilt. It’s easy to feel you’re doing what you have to do when you’re really just holding yourself responsible for problems you don’t control and making efforts that can do no good. Unless mental illness makes it impossible, most of us should examine our beliefs before accepting them. Then we’re better able to stand up to critical thoughts, undeserved self-punishment, and airbrushed models in the name of deeper values.
–Dr. Lastname
My sister started hearing voices when she was about 20 and then got diagnosed with schizophrenia, but she controls it well with medication and is able to hold a challenging secretarial job, so I know she’s relatively lucky. Sure, she had a brief hospital stay a couple years ago when her paranoia got out of hand, but since then she’s been fine. The other day, however, when we had dinner together, she was more outgoing about her fears of my being able to read her mind or put thoughts in her head. I was glad she could confide in me and I wondered if that was a sign she was getting better, but then I had second-thoughts about whether, if she was talking about it more, that it was maybe getting worse, and she was going to share her fears inappropriately with people at work. I’d like to know whether her talking about her symptoms is a good sign or bad sign and what I should advise her to do.
Back in the day, shrinks always thought sharing was a good thing, even if patients shared how much they hated us, thought we were aliens from Jupiter, and/or wanted to kill us. Thanks for sharing, even more thanks for not murdering.
In the long run, we thought sharing was always a good step towards recovery. Actual experience, however, has taught us otherwise, so your question is sensible, and you should, indeed, be prepared to discourage sharing when you think it’s a bad idea.
The key question you should ask your sister, and encourage her to ask herself, is whether she’s as sure as she usually is that the things she fears aren’t really happening. You’re less worried about her losing her job and more worried about her losing her mind. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 23, 2013
As emotions go, guilt is often the most devious; it’s very good at tricking us into believing we’ve done something wrong, when we know we haven’t. It’s so slick that you can feel guilty for not feeling guilty in the first place. That’s why guilt is a terrible barometer for whether or not you’ve made a good or bad decision; sometimes the right choice makes you feel wrong and the wrong one righteous, at least in the short run. If you think of values and consequences, however, as well as needs, you’ll usually come up with a choice you won’t feel guilty about being proud of.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: We’re taking Thursday off, so please have a great Boxing Day without us.
I’m a medical doctor—I graduated three years ago and did extremely well in my school. But then I broke up with my boyfriend, and for a while, I hated myself very much for it. Coupled to it was the death of one of my closest relatives. I turned lethargic, did not want to function, never talked to anyone and was alone. Finally I managed to get into a job not at all related with medicine, but for the past few months, I have been experiencing severe guilt about my decision. At the same time I don’t feel active or ready enough to put in the hard work necessary to go back to medicine. At least this feeling is welcome as I am finally feeling something. I have stopped trusting any guy and don’t want a relationship, but I’m consumed by this feeling of guilt. Unfortunately I also have a bit of narcissism, I feel that I m more intelligent than most of the people I meet, and so did not visit any counselor either. I just want to know if you have any suggestions on how to conquer my guilt and lethargy.
Even with support from a very nice therapist, all the insight in the world, and/or a job in the medical profession, guilt and lethargy often hang around as long as they want. You could find cures for cancer, bad boyfriends, and even depression, but still feel guilty that it took you so long, guilt is that insidious.
The way to conquer those symptoms is to prevent them from affecting your beliefs about yourself and the world. Up until now, it seems the symptoms have been brainwashing you into feeling like a hateful, worthless failure instead of a smart medical school graduate with an unlucky personal life. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 12, 2013
While most people with mood disorders don’t technically “hear voices,” they sometimes experience something much scarier; their own internal monologue lying to them. Whether your mental illness is convincing you you’re worthless or the king of the world, don’t follow your corrupted instincts when it comes to managing medications and drawing up safety plans. Instead, study the facts, learn from your own experience, and plan the odds, rather than letting your confidence play you and make you crazier than you really are.
–Dr. Lastname
I am a doctoral candidate preparing to defend and graduate in May. I am so terrified of what comes next (giant black hole; there be dragons) that I am undermining my progress and succumbing to despair. This is tied to my utter lack of ambition. I don’t know how to dream Real Things. All this worry and fear and lethargy leaves me feeling exhausted. And I am so worried and so frustrated with (what I perceive to be) my laziness, my incompetency that I become angry at the smallest things. How can I learn to get work done and to build a life? How can I learn to do it just because it must be done? How can I distinguish between real and false selfishness (it feels selfish to build a life just for me)?
The business of many doctoral candidates is to find a meaning in many random, painstakingly-researched, frustrating phenomena that ties them together and gives you a new idea you can dwell on for several hundred pages. Congratulations, you’re very good at it; too good at it, as you’ve turned your talents on your own troubles.
It’s certainly possible that your fear of any and all future jobs, combined with terminal laziness, incompetence, and an inability to distinguish between real and false selfishness have paralyzed you and filled you with self-loathing. More likely, however, is that your self-doubt has written a thesis outline tying together your many layers of failure. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 9, 2013
If everything that was good for you also felt good for you then kale would be heroin, running would be orgasmic, and one-a-day vitamins would put you into a pleasure coma. Unfortunately, bad things often feel best, which is why heroin is heroin, kale tastes like land seaweed, and passion can be poisonous. That’s why you can love someone who’s just not good for you and hate a job that you do well for good reasons, but before assuming your feelings are telling you the truth, take time to measure a relationship by how well it fulfills your purpose, meets your standards, and satisfies your moral priorities. Then you can do the right thing, even if it feels (or tastes) terrible.
–Dr. Lastname
What could have been a perfect relationship slipped very quickly down hill as two insecure people who have both been emotionally abused by our families growing up both went through stressful times suddenly. We couldn’t manage to make it through the bad times due to coping mechanisms we both employed to save ourselves from more pain, having not had long enough to make the relationship secure. Still, I’m really struggling to let him go. I felt this connection that I’ve never felt before and this is the first person I’ve ever missed in my life. I know he needs space to sort himself out but I want him back and I’m not sure whether to cut the cord now even though I really feel like I can’t and it would cause more pain. I don’t know how to let him go, or make the right decision.
The strength of your connection to a lover is great inspiration for a love song—maybe something by Taylor Swift if she ever dates Sean Penn—but a good song won’t tell you whether a relationship is good for you, is likely to last, or what you can or should do if it falters.
The fact that you and your former lover are insecure victims of abusive families may explain why you’re both anxious and vulnerable to doing negative things when you’re scared, but it won’t tell you how much he can control his negative behaviors and/or tolerate yours. For that, you need to review facts, not your emotional family history. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 21, 2013
When confronted with jerky behavior, your natural instinct is to stop said jerk from causing trouble, but bad behavior is like bad health; you have to figure out the causes behind the problem before you can appropriately react. After all, some people are unpleasant because they can’t help it, while others just enjoy making other people unhappy, so blind attempts at confrontation can either confuse the jerk or encourage their antagonistic behavior. So don’t assume that bullies need to be stopped before first sizing up what makes them bully others and what your resources are. Become a doctor of dickishness, do an assessment, and then you’ll know whether you need to help them change, stop them, or simply head the other way.
–Dr. Lastname
My grown-up son often gets into trouble at work because he’s very critical about everything he thinks is wrong. He tells his co-workers when he thinks they aren’t working hard enough and criticizes his boss for making the wrong decisions and just generally creates a bad atmosphere. Then he doesn’t understand why the boss tells him he’s negative and asks him if he’d like to work elsewhere. When he was younger, I took him to a shrink about his anger issues and I’ve tried to figure out what he’s angry about, but it’s done no good. He doesn’t understand why his criticism gets people pissed off, and it just makes him more negative. My goal is to help him understand why he’s angry and stop being so negative.
Maybe your son is just angry and has a bad attitude, but what’s more likely is that he’s irritable and clueless about how his irritability affects people, and criticism just makes him more irritable without helping his cluelessness. He’s not a rebel or an Asshole, just socially retarded and maybe a little Asperger-y.
Instead of wondering what you did wrong to make him so insensitive to other people’s feelings, assume that, like so many people—mostly engineers, scientists, and people who own capes—he was just born that way. Then what he needs is not reprimands, but instruction in the kind of basic etiquette that most people pick up by instinct. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 14, 2013
Whenever someone’s bad behavior forces you to set limits, it’s like slapping a hysterical person in the face; you can’t know in advance whether they’ll thank you or hate you forever. In either case, if you do it only when necessary, nicely, and with respect, you’ll know you’ve done a good service, whether it’s appreciated or not. In the short run, you’ve offered them a target for their resentments about the world and it’ll sting them as much as it stings you, but in the long run, you’ve given them a chance to learn and grow.
–Dr. Lastname
My eighteen-year-old son is very bright and imaginative and, when he’s sweet, I feel we have a special relationship. Periodically, however, he gets frustrated with things and gets very, very nasty with me. He bullies me into doing things for him and I try to be flexible, but then if I don’t do exactly what he wants he throws a big scene and threatens to break the furniture or crash the car. After the last incident, I threw him out of the house and he went to live with his father for a few days. Now I’ve got him back, but I know it’s going to happen again sooner or later and I don’t know how to explain to him that I can’t give him everything he wants without provoking an irrational freak-out.
When you have a kid who throws dangerous freak-outs, don’t make it your top priority to avoid provoking him; a child’s tantrums are a pain to deal with at any age, but trying to permanently tiptoe around a moody teenager is just as futile and damaging as always coddling a cranky toddler. They keep having tantrums while you get progressively more insane.
Of course, you don’t want to give him a hard time, but the behavior/temper problem is his, not yours, and not only will you drive yourself crazy, you’ll fail to give him the kind of help he needs most, which is a clear set of rules that can help him manage the poorly hinged part of his personality. Tantrums may be eternal, but so are time-outs, even if they take a different form. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
