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 15, 2013
Like a pain threshold, need to buy a Hank Williams record, and Jesus, a true appreciation of what’s important only seems to become clear when our lives seem most meaningless or most precious. When everything seems to be going wrong for yourself, or a loved one is going through his or her last days, you can feel like a helpless, frustrated loser, at least at first. Once you realize, however, that you’re just a human being who doesn’t have much control over the really bad things in life, you can stop feeling like a loser and start gaining perspective about what’s really important, like doing good and being good, with or without country music.
–Dr. Lastname
I am 40 years old and have gone from a size 4 to a size 14 in very little time. Basically, I love food and drink, but I also take spin classes three times a week. I feel like no one will ever love me for who I am “on the inside” now that I’ve gotten this big, especially because I didn’t have a boyfriend until I got skinny in college. I had been seeing a therapist for four years, but my limited funds have gotten in the way. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t think that to be loved meant to be thin. I want to convince myself that, like so many before me, being big doesn’t mean being unlovable, and to be ok with my weight, because I am beautiful with it (right?). How do I put my self-confidence out there again? I have a bunch of Percocets from a recent surgery, and while body image is not the only thing I struggle with, I think about those pills all the time. To date, they have been my medal of honor. They are here, and I am strong enough to leave them there, so far. Help.
It’s hard not to be lonely, dateless, and getting nowhere with diet and exercise, without feeling bad about your life. You feel ugly inside and out, in an ugly, unfair world, often from the vantage point of on an ugly, un-fun fake bike.
You want to empower yourself and you’re willing to work hard, but when nothing’s going your way, the confidence often just doesn’t come and the weight won’t go away. That doesn’t mean, however, that you’re a failure, or even that the world is quite as ugly as it seems.
It means you’re not lucky, at least not yet, even though you’re doing lots of good things to make your life better. You’re doing right by yourself, but as much as we all like to get inspired by stories of self-empowerment, the truth is, it has its limits. 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 April 4, 2013
There are plenty of things that money can’t buy, but when you don’t have any money, you’d gladly sell any number of those things for some food, rent, or pride. Whether economic desperation destroys a once-solid relationship or forces you to kiss up to someone you once told to kiss off, it’s hard not to feel like a loser when you have no money left to lose. Working hard when you feel like a loser, however, is a much tougher feat than working hard when life is fair and the rewards flow in. If you refuse to hold yourself responsible for hard times and give yourself proper credit for what you do with them, you can survive periods of apparent dependence and humiliation without losing faith in yourself or the truly priceless values you stand for.
-Dr. Lastname
I know my husband wants a divorce because I’ve worn him out with my up-and-down moods, emotional crises and being unemployed and dependent on him for the past three years. It’s lots more than he bargained for, particularly since we never wanted kids and married five years ago for companionship, when we were both making good money and never thought one of us would have to support the other until we were both retired and had good pension plans. Now I can’t afford to let this marriage end, not just because I still love him, but because I’m broke and have nowhere else to go. I haven’t given up on trying to find work—I’ve kept up a steady search, and I’m not too picky—but it’s been very discouraging and my chance of getting anything like the salary I got before I got sick is very slim. So I’m scared shitless he’ll get a lawyer, force me out, and lock the door behind me. My goal is to figure out how to postpone that day until I’m back on my feet.
When uncontrollable events make a nice, companionable partnership increasingly burdensome and loveless for one or both partners, said partners can very quickly turn into archenemies. When two people can no longer turn to each other, turning on each other becomes their next option.
During what amounts to a marital Armageddon, finger-pointing abounds, and you could easily see your husband as a fair-weather promise-breaker, he could see you as a needy leach who promised a lot more than you delivered, and mutual accusations could bring out nasty behavior and more destruction.
Your first goal is to keep a lid on the potential ugliness, but even shutting up can be dangerous. Acting as if you don’t give a damn, or feel like the injured party, or both, can stir up trouble without a word’s being spoken. You need to define and own a positive goal in order to manage an extremely negative situation and keep everything from falling apart. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 1, 2013
Since we now live in a mostly-online world where everything is a loss/”fail” or victory/”for the win,” it’s normal to regard death as the ultimate fail since we’d give almost anything to prevent it from happening to ourselves and those we love (although if it happens to our worst enemies, it’s a win situation, even if most of us wouldn’t even admit that in Youtube comments). In reality, we disrespect our humanity by considering ourselves defeatable by something we don’t control, and what we do with ourselves and our family and friends when someone is dying or otherwise afflicted is what makes us great/gives us p0wnage of mortality, at least for a little while.
–Dr. Lastname
After 15 years of homelessness, prison, jails, rehabs, psych meds, medication management, horrific poly substance abuse, and occasional hopeful stints of sobriety, our son overdosed two months ago. He was 30 years old.
All the years of fear, guilt and depravity notwithstanding, his father and I miss him terribly. I won’t go into the efforts (financial, emotional, time) to get/keep him sober that consumed our entire family for the last decade. Lets just say our son’s use of his drug of choice, heroin, has been the 24/7 of our lives. I could write a book about police cars in the driveway, family sessions I’ve sat through with green rehab “counselors” who appeared to be clinging tenuously to not using themselves, and the finer points of being frisked by zealous prison guards.
Some days, like today, all I can remember is what a horrible slog it’s been. Other days I remember my son’s big, kind heart when he was himself, his ability to read a room, and the way he only talked when he had something to say.
I’ve examined our family life over and over, and I had pretty much come to grips with the past, and the present. The future was plainly jails, institutions, or death. I knew all this, and had many sleepless nights to steel myself for the inevitable.
Of course when the inevitable arrives, it is a total sledgehammer to the heart and mind. The worst part is this: his father and I had kicked him out of our home (again) where he was living (again) because he was shooting Xanax. He actually got the Rx for Xanax from the same doctor that prescribed his Suboxone (why heroin addicts should not be prescribed Benzodiazopines is another post). Later that night he died of an overdose from a lethal mix of Xanax and heroin.
So, he is dead, after we pushed him out in an argument. No goodbyes, no “I love you,” just unkind and hurtful words.
In a way I feel this was our son’s final selfish act, leaving me a lifetime of guilt and replaying that night he left over and over in my mind. I feel I’ll go crazy if it doesn’t stop. I don’t want to live this way for the rest of my natural life.
[Please note: We usually edit submissions for length and clarity, but we felt this was so well-written that it should be left almost entirely intact. If the author ever follows through on her threat to write a book, we would read it.]
The usual way we judge ourselves as parents is by the way we help our kids survive and grow, even if we can’t make them happy. That standard is usually fair, unless your child suffers from a disease that nobody and nothing control, from doctors and medication, to the child or the parents who feel responsibility for his/her survival.
The toughest thing in the world then is to judge yourself properly when you still can’t stop your son from dying, unhappily, in the midst of drug abuse and conflict. It’s a mix of every kind of hell, because you feel you’ve failed, that he failed, and that the universe has failed everyone involved.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where nice kids get addicted to horrible drugs, nice parents can’t save them, and part of the illness of addiction is that the kids fuck up again and again, and you can’t keep them at home when they do. 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 25, 2013
Some families are horrible to live with because, although everyone means well, their individual suffering and sensitivity make them act badly, while, with other families, a rejection-sensitive demon-spawn who does not mean well is torturing the clan from within and acting like a terrible beast. So, before letting your own family-focused feelings drive you into conflict or away from the fold, ask yourself how well your family members can behave and under what circumstances. Sometimes better behavior management can help their good intentions overcome their bad moods; other times, the only way to help is to build a solid wall, slip out the door, and solder it shut, like you mean it.
–Dr. Lastname
I feel like the depression and anxiety issues of my husband and three sons is literally sucking the life out of me. There are days here and there when one of them will be in a good mood, but for the most part it’s gloom and doom, and their inability to make a decision about ANYTHING has become equally exhausting. I know they can’t “snap out of it”, just “get over it” etc., and they’re all receiving professional care…but honestly, after a couple of years of this, I’m wearing down. I have lupus, and while I’m generally a positive, happy sort of person, I’m at the point where I really do need their assistance sometimes. I’m starting to feel like my hair could be on fire and no one would even notice, much less get up to help. Sometimes I can get one of them to take the dog out, or bring the laundry downstairs, but it practically takes an act of congress to make it happen…and we all know how that process goes. I want to be supportive, and feel I’ve done my best to be patient and tolerant…but how do I protect my own health and sanity while this situation drags on?
If your family has turned into a misery association that is dragging you down, imagine if it was possible to quit your current family and find a new one. After all, If a workplace is often compared to a family, then it should not be hard to picture leaving your position at Misery and Frustration Inc. for a position elsewhere.
This fantasy also forces you to think about your own goals in life, aside from your response to their depressed feelings and unhelpful, apathetic behavior. As a parent, it’s easy to put those things on the back-burner while you try to make them happy, but as a professional, you’re supposed to think about what needs to get done before quitting time. 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 18, 2013
When you feel misunderstood or criticized by someone you really need a good relationship with and aren’t a hypnotist, warlock, or mob boss, you probably feel like you lack the power (or powers, or firepower) to find a desirable resolution. Still, don’t think your only choice is to figure out what’s wrong and try harder, or figure there’s no hope and walk away. Instead, ignore their agenda, re-approach the situation with your own idea of what’s best, and talk actively about it while refusing to talk about topics that have been beaten to death. The other person will either find it’s better to follow your lead, or, if s/he doesn’t, you’ll know you didn’t walk away without giving it your best effort on your own, regular-guy terms.
–Dr. Lastname
I need to figure out how to do better during job interviews. I thought I was fully prepared for the last one—I’d researched the company and was ready to discuss the experience and training that made me qualified for the position—and then they ambushed me by asking a series of probing, uncomfortable psychological questions about what I’d do or have done in difficult situations when I’m angry or in conflict, and I got tongue-tied. I’m just not glib or confident when I’m surprised or anxious, so I feel like I showed them I don’t have good self-esteem. My goal is to be prepared to handle anything they throw at me, so I can be competitive in a tough job market.
Job interviews always feel like performances aimed at getting people to want to hire you, but that’s really not the truth. That’s like going on a blind date with a guy who has Nazi tattoos and lives in a dumpster but worrying only about whether or not he’s impressed with you (and if you so much as live in a car, he should be).
While you certainly don’t want to stroll into an interview straight from a jog, with uncontrollable gas, or physically fighting a bad case of lice, your job is to discover whether you and the job would be a good match and to confirm that you really know what your resume and references say you know. Regardless of its pay or prestige, you don’t want a job you can’t see yourself doing. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
