Posted by fxckfeelings on August 13, 2009
Sadly, misogyny is a lot like Chlamydia: a lot of men spread it unwittingly until somebody knowledgeable points out the signs and clears it right up. Of course, in a lot of situations, women don’t have the option of pointing out bad male behavior—either because they’re dealing with a superior at work, or because no one will listen to them—and the infected member (the male brain) remains untreated. If you can’t fix a misogynist, however, you can always use your healthier brain to work around him.
–Dr. Lastname
In my particular field, I’m used to being patronized by my superiors because I’m a woman; it’s a male-dominated profession, and you just have to ignore the bullshit and do the work like the rest of the guys, and I’ve never had a problem with that. After getting transferred six months ago, I’ve been working for an especially condescending jerk, and, like usual, I ignored him and did my job. The problem is that a round of evaluations just came in, and he gave me a less-than-stellar assessment because he says I don’t assert myself enough, or speak up in unit meetings, or generally give as much input as everyone else. How am I supposed to do that when every time I open my mouth he pats me on the head and tells me to be a good girl and let the smart men-folk talk? I am good at my job, and this guy’s a pig, and my goal is to keep my job without losing my cool.
It’s always smart to avoid making waves when you’re floating in shit, but don’t stop there. Despite being down in it, you need to keep yourself as clean as possible and ready to move on to a better job at the first opportunity.
Sure, that’s not easy when you’re up against a boss who is hobbling you and criticizing you for moving too slow. But if you get pushed too far and express your anger, you’ll be considered disgruntled and proving his charge of not being a team player.
So your goal is not to get justice, because that just fans your rage, and you’re right to want to keep cool. Your goal is to stay focused on keeping this job while seeking a new one, despite the powerful, debilitating, Kafkaesque effect of feeling condemned by authorities for your most selfless sacrifices.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 10, 2009
Some people find themselves suddenly, inexplicably cursed by a life of hardship and pain, while others cruise through a blessed existence of acclaim and luck. Truth is, of course, that the person in pain isn’t doomed to constant misery, and lucks brings its own peculiar, unavoidable hardship; thankfully, everyone of us, in one way or another, is fucked. It’s where we go from there that makes the difference.
–Dr. Lastname
Just a few years ago, in my early 20s, I was a fun, outgoing law student at a top tier school, on the cusp of beginning a promising career in a competitive field that I loved. But then, out of no where, my health fell apart. Without getting into it, I was diagnosed with a rare, chronic disease that causes me so much pain and fatigue that even the simplest tasks have become arduous. I had to drop out of school, move back home, and learn to deal, not just with the physical pain of everyday life, but with feelings of failure and being a complete loser. All my old friends are moving upwards and onwards, like I was once set to do, and all I can do is take it slow and try to cope with this new, brutal reality. Plus, because my disease is rare and not physically obvious (I look healthy), several friends and even family members have decided that I’m not sick, but that I just buckled under the competitive pressure of my law career or that I’m just lazy, and am using a fake disease as an excuse. They say things like, “my joints hurt, but I go to work everyday,” and I just want to curl up and die. Between my own disappointment and their cruel judgment, I’ve withdrawn from social interaction almost completely for a year now. My goal is to not completely isolate myself from the world and maybe even start to enjoy some social interaction again despite feeling self-conscious and experiencing such dismissive attitudes from others.
It’s good that you want to get out of your self-imposed solitary confinement—living like that’s unhealthy, even for people who are physically healthy to begin with—but attaching the enjoyment of social interaction onto your goal is not so hot, especially when you’re suffering from a disease that seems to make enjoying anything nearly impossible and gives prospective friends a case of the repulsive willies.
Problem is, despite your best efforts, enjoyment is out of your control, and if you make a big effort to extend yourself socially and run into crap, you’ll feel like a stupid failure and personally rejected, when, really, it’s your standards that are the problem. Yours and everyone else’s.
A better goal is to work at not taking your pain and isolation personally while working out rational standards for what it means to cope with them.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 6, 2009
One of the basic tenets of the fxckfeelings.com philosophy is this: you can’t change people. As such, even trying to change someone’s mind by making their anger go away is never a good goal, whether it’s the anger of a naggy spouse or a misbehaving kid. Instead, change your line of reasoning: go back to basics and define the issues for yourself. Then, if you’re lucky, they’ll change their own minds.
-Dr. Lastname
My wife and I are both artists—her painting, me sculpture—but after our son was born, it became clear that one of us was going to have to get a real job in order to pay the bills. I was making more money from sculpting at the time, so she was the one to take the plunge. Her job is actually somewhat creative, and she doesn’t hate it completely, but now that I’m not having as many shows and selling as many pieces, she’s leaning on me constantly to work harder or find a better-paying job. I try to tell her that I’m doing the best I can, but she doesn’t accept that, and if I even suggest that she’s bitter that she had to give up her art and I didn’t, she absolutely loses it. The truth is, I think my career is worth holding on to, but I don’t know how to convince her unless I make a windfall in the next six months. My goal is to get my wife to get off my back.
Never try to get your wife off your back, because that a), implies you’re already trapped underneath her, and b), means you’ll be lying, squirming, and generally pulling all the stops to change her mind/get her to move, which will just strengthen her resolve.
In fact, if you look behind you, you’ll notice you’re giving your wife a piggy-back ride at this very moment. So your goal will wrench your back.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 3, 2009
Like almost every useful treatment, medical or otherwise, psychotherapy can be dangerous, particularly when you rely on your (say it with me now) feelings to decide whether or not to continue. Ironically, feeling good is one of the worst reasons to stay with therapy, and feeling crappy is one of the worst reasons to end it.
–Dr. Lastname
My therapist is about to depart on vacation for one month, and I’m feeling f*cking nervous and tense about it. I’d like to know what I can do to make the best of this break in therapy and come back refreshed and ready to start work again when my therapist returns, and also how to keep the unpleasant feelings of missing her to a minimum.
Congratulations! While your question seems like a short-and-sweet query (or maybe a chance to cheat on the classic back-to-school essay, “What I did on my therapist’s summer vacation”) it’s actually a perfect example of the dangers of focusing too much on feelings when you’re undergoing psychotherapy. A+
Look, there’s nothing wrong with enjoying therapy, experiencing emotional relief or a feeling of personal growth, or liking or missing your therapist. Just remember—you’re paying for this and should never forget what you’re getting it for. Or you’ll be sorry.
If you rely on your feelings to tell you whether to continue therapy, you may never have reason to stop. You may continue to like your therapist, find the subject interesting, learn something new, and feel the treatment supports you in a way nothing and no one else does.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 30, 2009
When women are hooked on the wrong kind of love, they often want advice for the wrong reasons, which explains why sometimes good advice is worse than no advice at all. Oddly, giving romantic advice to friends is sort of like dating itself; if it doesn’t stick after a few attempts, then stop wasting your time.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve given my closest girlfriend the same advice a million times, and a million times, she’s passively ignored me, so I’ll say straight away that my goal is to give advice she’ll actually listen to. The problem she always comes to me with is this (and in her mind, it isn’t a problem, at least at first): said friend is in a band, and because of that, she’s always on the road, and in her travels she meets these guys (either randomly for one night or for a few weeks at a time if they’re touring with her band, that kind of thing), and every so often she falls for one of these guys and wants to find a way to have a real relationship with him, even though it’s logistically impossible in the long term due to the fact they live in one place and she lives in another (never mind that they’re usually too young, too drunk, too full of themselves, etc). I tell her those things, but she insists her feelings (which is what made me think I should write you!) can’t be ignored, that guy-of-the-moment gives her butterflies and she can’t remember being this excited about anyone. It’s only a matter of time before things go horribly wrong (he stops returning her texts/calls, starts being a jerk to her, take your pick), and then she’s sad, tells me she should have listened to me, and wonders why she’s so dumb about guys. I, too, wonder, but I’m sure you’ve got it all figured out.
Instead of asking yourself what’s wrong with your advice because it hasn’t got through to her after a million times, ask yourself whether there’s any hope of her hearing your advice. Ever. And not because she has tinnitus.
Because the sad thing is, when it comes to the thrill of romance, some people are addicted to those “butterflies” and want to embrace that sensation, no matter how many times they’ve been burned. They love love, whether it’s real or phony, and regardless of how long it takes them to recover, or what else they lose while recuperating. Love is blind, your friend is deaf and dumb.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 27, 2009
When you work at a family business, you often feel obliged to go above and beyond what would normally be expected of you. But if “above and beyond” means your job has forced you into a moral quandary and a double life as a cop or therapist, then it’s time to forget family and get rational. And if you still can’t figure out a solution, it’s time to get a new job.
–Dr. Lastname
My family has had a business going back three generations; now my dad’s in charge, my sister and I work there, plus a bunch of cousins, aunts, and uncles. I was looking through one of my client’s files when I saw some numbers that looked off. Going through the records, it became clear that this was a persistent inaccuracy, so I went to my sister, who actually does the accounting. She was really upset I’d come to her—she admitted she’d cooked the books a bit, and hoped I wouldn’t notice—but begged me not to say anything to anyone or be mad, because our father had told her to do it, and said he had a good reason. I don’t want to ask my father what that reason is—even though I can’t imagine what reason he has in mind—but I do want him to stop, because he’s putting the entire business in danger. At the same time, he’s my father, and if I do challenge him, it would really upset him and everyone else in the family. They respect him and would consider it disloyal to question his judgment or put the family in trouble. But wouldn’t going under or getting sued also upset the family? I’ve always believed in doing the right thing, but is it right to confront him and get everyone mad at me and possibly lose my job, or to say nothing and be part of something dishonest? It’s killing me not to have an answer, and that’s my goal.
If you assume that there’s always a good way to do right—that there’s a black and white right and wrong—you’ll often make things worse for you and your loved ones. Simple-minded idealists probably do more harm in this world than all the thieves combined.
The problem with these idealists is that they elevate the peaceful feeling of a good conscience above considering what happens next or whom it harms. If this actually were a simpler world where the only temptations came from destructive or selfish impulses, and all of us really had the same ability to choose between good and evil…well then, that sounds like a very simple, logical place to be. But it also sounds like one nation under Skynet.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 23, 2009
In business negotiations, the best way to get what you want is to offer the other person something they want, respectfully. In families, on the other hand, people negotiate by being emotional, desperate, and needy, which is why the women in these two cases need to learn the business, and fast.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve been a teacher in the public school system for a long time, but in recent years, with this “teaching the test” nonsense, I’ve felt less and less appreciated for what I do. Now that an administrative shake-up has replaced anyone knowledgeable about education with empty bureaucrats who treat me like some uncertified graduate student, I’m desperate to retire and save myself from what’s become a daily indignity. My husband knows how much I want to stop teaching—he’s heard about my deteriorating job for a while now—but he’s facing a lot of restructuring at his own job, so he’s not very supportive of my decision because he’s worried about where that will leave us financially. I know that’s a reasonable response given he might see his salary get reduced (or disappear), but no matter how rationally I assess the situation, I still resent him for not supporting me, and then I feel guilty for expecting his support when he has worries of his own. My goal then, as I see it, is to get him to understand that I’ve really, really had it with this job and that I need to get out and that he should be giving me emotional support right now, because I’m about to lose my mind.
Look at the disaster you’re setting up by going after your husband’s understanding, but, at the same time, scaring the shit out of him about your economic security. There’s the concept of the carrot and the stick—this is the stick and the mace.
Let’s assume he’s much kinder and smarter than the usual hubby, and doesn’t lay a guilt trip on you about who’s been working harder/who most deserves a rest right now/why the hell do you think you can start to ease off when he has to double his pace just to break even, blah blah blah.
Even then, it would take an inhuman saint to be so calm about your troubles (and their impact on your mortgage payments) not to respond with, “well, dear, we need to think this through,” rather than “I’ll do whatever it takes to make you feel safe.” Not the way you’re framing the argument.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 20, 2009
Lots of men may be drawn to long legs and big boobs, but there’s nothing sexier to most guys than a severely unstable female. You can marry these women or try to help them, as the people in these cases have tried to do, but when it comes to semi-sane drama queens, there’s only one good bit of advice: run for your life.
–Dr. Lastname
My mother was crazy (bipolar or schizo, it was never clear), and as her youngest, I was the one who took care of her and eventually found a way to get her into the hospital where the state took care of her until she died. I was a crazy kid, but not technically crazy like my mom—I drank too much, got high a lot (too much), crashed a car or two. I met a girl who was crazier even than me, she got pregnant, and so we got clean together to start our family. I’ve stayed clean, but the mother of my kids—now my ex-wife—didn’t. She held it together when she was pregnant all four times, but otherwise, she’d fall off, and now that she and I are finally through, I’ve got the kids and she’s got a nasty drug problem which she funds through alimony, boyfriends, and money she wins from taking me to court for one bullshit reason or another. As for the kids, one has gone through rehab, one is a mom at 18, one’s on tons of medication, and one was killed earlier this year when he was driving drunk. This is a long way of asking a simple question: what the fuck is wrong with me, after the way I was raised, that I can’t stay away from crazy women? Now I’ve passed this curse on to my kids, and now one of them has died because he was unlucky enough to be born to a former-drug addict and a current psychotic crack whore. My goal is to get crazy out of my life for good.
It doesn’t take a Harvard degree (or two) or even a passing familiarity with Sigmund Freud to know that you tend to feel attracted by people who are like your parents, whether you like your parents or not, whether your parents were certifiable or not.
If you expect that feeling to go away, and meanwhile keep dating the people you feel like dating, you’ll keep on getting into trouble, because, surprise, that feeling doesn’t usually go away. And don’t expect therapy to take it away, either.
Like it or not, that feeling—that attraction—is stronger than whatever most therapists have to offer, so if your goal is to stop wanting crazy, forget it. You’re crazy for thinking you can help yourself. (That sounds like it might make a good country-and-western lament).
You’re right to think about the kids, but wrong to think about what your crazy-loving has done to them. The past is past and remorse will do no more than get in your way now. Instead, you should be thinking about how to help them handle their own crazy-loving urges.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 16, 2009
After our last post’s fun foray into terlet humor, we return to the more somber world of family dynamics. In this cases, two people learn that, while it’s always hard for parents to set limits for their kids, it’s even harder for kids to set limits for their parents.
–Dr. Lastname
I didn’t have a lot of money growing up, so I got a job at the local coffee chain when I was in high school so I didn’t have to rely on them. But I needed their help to go to college, so my dad sold some property to pay my tuition, and told me he was sure I’d succeed and he would expect me to help him out someday. After college, I went back to the coffee shop and became manager, and since then, I’ve actually moved up to a fairly high position in our regional office. I used to make lattes, and now I have a corner office and a car I paid for outright. At the same time, I became aware of how poorly my parents manage their money. They buy things they can’t afford and never say “no” to the other kids, no matter how stupid their requests. Then my father comes to me for money, always for specific bills he can’t pay, like the mortgage, or car insurance. But at the same time, he’s spending money he can’t afford, so I feel like I’m bailing out a sinking ship and my efforts are a total waste. My goal is to get my dad to understand that he has to budget his money and learn to say “no” and that I can’t continue to support him like this without going broke myself. But I can’t stop feeling responsible for saving my family from the mess they’re in.
If your dad could understand and accept the need for budgetary controls, it would have happened three major impulse buys/maxed out credit cards ago, so your goal as it stands now is useless.
Worse than that, even suggesting a budget to him will bite you in the ass, because he probably blames his problems on bad luck, not getting enough help, being too nice a guy, etc. So when you suggest, in the kindest way possible, that he’s a financial fuck-up, you’ll become the scapegoat. You’ll go from being the solution to being the problem so quickly, you’ll get whiplash.
He’ll see you as the ungrateful son who benefited most from his generosity, and now is too selfish to give back. You’ll get angry and pull away, which will unite the rest of family behind him, and leave you shunned, alone, and unable to give them help when they really need it. Your goal isn’t just useless, it’s the perfect shit-storm.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 13, 2009
This post might not be for the faint of heart, but then again, life rarely is. After all, shit is inescapable, not just as metaphor but as reality, thus, it’s worth exploring those issues that deal not just with emotional crap, but with crap, period. Here at fxckfeelings.com, we take your shit seriously. Literally.
–Dr. Lastname
OK, I’m having an issue with a guy at work, and it’s pretty gross, but it’s also driving me crazy and nobody will take me seriously. I can’t say exactly where I work, but it’s the kind of bureaucratic place where nobody ever gets fired. Like you’d have to murder someone in the office, and even then, vacation without pay. This guy recently got kicked down to my office, which is pretty small and windowless (it’s a filing sort of thing), and I’m not sure what landed him here—he’s nice enough, although he’s a little creepy around girls—but all I do know is that he farts. All the time. And I know, it’s funny, ha ha, but it’s not funny when you have to spend all day with him and he occasionally bends over to file something and lets one rip in your fucking face. Normally, I’d just bust his balls about it, but he has zero sense of humor, and I think he’d just stare at his feet and say nothing and avoid me in the future. Which would be great, except our desks are right next to one another. My boss thinks it’s a joke and told me to deal with it. But it’s not a joke, it’s fucking gross, and working with him makes my sick, literally. So my goal is to get someone to take me seriously and help me deal with this guy.
Congratulations! You’ve come to the right doctor because, while I rarely care about your feelings, I always take farts seriously. After all, is it possible to feel happy without happy bowels? Of course not.
I’ve often theorized, (if not in scientific meetings, at least at family get-togethers), that farts were the first form of pheromonic communication, before people learned to lie by making sounds with their vocal cords. After all, while assholes often lie, farts do not.
Then the brain routes their message directly to the amygdala, (I’m sure that’s what brain imagists will discover, when they do the necessary experiments), which is, on the higher level, very similar to what happens when you touch a hot skillet and jump back before you realize what’s happened.
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