Posted by fxckfeelings on November 10, 2014
If illness is a painful condition that you don’t choose to bring on yourself, then being an Asshole™ is probably an illness, at least for those born with bad tempers, quick impulses, and no ability to see consequences ahead of time. Depression definitely is an illness, and one that often tricks the sufferer into believing he’s an Asshole™, even though real Asshole™s are incapable of self-awareness. Either way, Assholes™ usually blame others for what’s happening to them, whereas depressed people blame themselves, and neither group can get anywhere unless they can see their problem as a condition, rather than a fault. Then they can take responsibility for managing it without blaming themselves or others; a tall order for Asshole™s, a challenging one for depressives, but a worthy move for anyone.
–Dr. Lastname
I think my husband is sick, but he thinks he’s normal. After the last time he got drunk and threw things, he got carted away by the police and hospitalized, but he says the doctors at the psych hospital didn’t think he was depressed and there was nothing they could do to help him. He doesn’t drink every night, and he never hits anyone, but he can be a mean drunk. Even when he’s not drunk, he’s prone to quarrel with authorities, whether it’s a cop giving him a ticket or a waiter. I never know when his evil side will come out, and his mother told me he always had a wicked temper. My goal is to persuade him or his doctors that he has an illness and needs help, before he gets into major trouble.
All too often, either out of fear, denial, or both, people refuse to see symptoms of mental illness for what they are. If someone has wild mood swings, it just means she has an artistic temperament, and crippling phobias means he’s nervous, and hallucinating makes her fun at parties.
Sometimes, however, bad or self-destructive behavior has nothing to do with mental illness, or at least not the kind a doctor can do much about. A lawyer, maybe. Or an exorcist.
Two things might be wrong with your husband, both of which are not his fault, but they differ in the amount of responsibility he can or should take for managing them. It all depends on whether his anger is a symptom of illness, or a sucky part of his personality. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 23, 2014
We’ve said many times that the worst relationships teach the best lessons, from what to look for in your next partner to what you need in a good lawyer. Knowing how much you’ve actually learned from the lessons, however, can sometimes be tricky; sometimes you get so connected with someone that breaking up makes you underestimate how much you’ve learned, and sometimes your connection is so superficial and one-sided that you wind up feeling you’ve learned more than you really have. In any case, don’t judge what you’ve learned from a relationship by your emotional reaction. If you’re honest with yourself and give or take credit where it’s due, you should’ve learned enough to ace the next test.
–Dr. Lastname
I always knew deep down that my relationship with my college boyfriend was never going to work out—he was restless, attractive, and hated the idea of settling down, and I wanted to get married—but I loved him and couldn’t let go. We stuck together for eight years until he finally had an affair, I broke up with him, and now, five years later, I’m happily married. I would have told you I had no complaints until I was recently invited to a big party by an old friend, who told me my old flame would be there, which bothers me more than I thought. I don’t know who he’ll be with or what has happened to him, and I’m afraid to find out, mostly because I’m so eager to find out. I hate the idea of still having feelings for him, particularly since I’m married. My goal is to figure out what’s wrong with me and why I can’t move on and forget about him.
If you’re looking for someone to tell you whether/how/why your feelings for your ex are important or dangerous, you’re obviously looking in the wrong place. You shouldn’t expect to control having feelings, just to control what you do with them, like not obsessing over them in the first place.
You finally did what was necessary after recognizing that your old college boyfriend would never make a good life partner, but only after he had an affair. Still, that affair was a teachable moment, not just about your future together (or lack thereof), but about your tendency to let uncertainty bind you to things for longer than necessary. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 6, 2014
Much is made of the inextricable link between trust and love, but the assumption seems to be that you can’t love someone else unless you can trust them (to listen, keep it in their pants, rescue you from a sinking ship, etc.). Just as important, however, is the ability to trust yourself and your own judgment when entering into a relationship; if you have too little confidence, you can sabotage your relationships, and if you have too much, you’ll make commitments that won’t last and will hurt like hell when they break down. Learn to trust yourself by gathering facts, observing carefully, and using common sense to judge your friendships and make smart decisions. Then, regardless of over or under-confidence, you’ll be able to love someone you trust and have trust in whom you love.
–Dr. Lastname
I am in a good relationship and have been now for a while (around 9 months). But none of my relationships seem to last more than a couple of years (I’m now in my 40s), and I worry that some of them I have sabotaged myself. I am at a point in this relationship where we have acknowledged that we love each other and have started making plans months into the future (nothing like moving in together, but definitely trips and such), and suddenly, I have this fear I’m going to lose him. But not just lose him—lose him to someone, and that someone is my friend. I had a friend when I was younger that flirted with my boyfriends, and even though nothing ever happened, it bothered me that she never understood these boundaries, didn’t have a sense of loyalty towards me, and used her looks and sexuality to get attention from those that should be considered off limits. Now I have a newer friend who is younger than me—she’s very pretty, smart, and single, and she has a tendency to try to connect with my boyfriend in ways that I am unable to by finding the gaps and honing in and I don’t like it. I am acting as though they have already run away together, or have a secret relationship. Is my own insecurity causing me to worry about this? My goal is to alleviate these fears of betrayal.
Having fun friends with fickle boundaries may damage your calm, but you do yourself more damage by letting them distract you from the real issues surrounding your boyfriend and your future together. Instead of worrying about whether your gal pals have good intentions, focus on doing the necessary homework to find out whether your boyfriend is a good match.
Assuming you’re not able to stop yourself from being insecure about your friends and boyfriends, use your insecurity to assess your boyfriend’s trustworthiness. Maybe you can also use it to get better at screening friends in the future, but for now, believe it or not, your best weapon against your paranoia is paranoia itself.
Instead of trying to feel better by talking about your fears and asking for reassurance, use them to review your boyfriend’s history with women and your girlfriend’s history as a femme fatale. Your anxiety will drive you to ask the right questions, and, with any luck, the right answers will allow you to tell that anxiety to shut up. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 29, 2014
Pressuring somebody to care about their self-interest when they’re obsessed with something else is an often foolhardy endeavor, and not just when it comes to trying to rescue people from drugs, bad boyfriends, and Apple products (at least if you’re broke). Whether they’re too absorbed in a dysfunctional marriage or in very functional childrearing, don’t use anger or guilt to break them free. Instead, spell out why it’s necessary, regardless of the discomfort and guilt their self-restraint may cause. They will either find a personal reason for adopting your view or go back to their obsession, no matter how damaging/buggy it is.
–Dr. Lastname
My partner and I have been together more than ten years and were both in unhappy marriages when it began. My husband knew and agreed to divorce, but he only left when I gave an ultimatum. I have now moved in with my partner and his adult children are cool, but civil. It is unfair to blame me for breaking up their family as he had a previous affair and only stayed until the children grew up. I have told him that I will not tolerate being lied to and playing second fiddle to his family any longer and he now puts me first. They are not yet fully divorced but his wife has another partner. My goal is to protect our hard won happiness from the demands of others and trust that he will stay strong.
You know what you need from your fiancé, including fidelity, honesty, and being one another’s top priority, and telling your partner what you require has clearly moved him in the right direction, namely, towards you and a better future.
I assume you write, however, because you wonder if your partner’s future commitment will waver; given the amount of effort it took you to get him on course, you wonder if he’ll actually stay there. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 8, 2014
Thanks to eBay, Antiques Roadshow, and the various fronts of the Storage Wars, it’s fairly easy to put a value on almost any object. When it comes to putting a value on our own skills, however, most of us come up dangerously short; sometimes, we overvalue our services in an unreceptive market or undervalue them in order to make sacrifices for the needs of others. Fortunately, if you pay more attention to your needs and the market than to your emotions, you can assess your professional worth without the need of an expert or auctioneer.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m glad my sons took over the family restaurant, because I really don’t want to work so hard now that I’m in my fifties, but I care about the business and still want to contribute to its success. The trouble is that they’re a bit like my ex-husband—they get very overbearing and negative about any suggestion I have to offer—so even though I’ve got a nice office at the restaurant and go there every day, I feel useless. I have ideas and expertise, but I’m just waiting for my chance to contribute. My goal is to find a way to make my sons feel more comfortable about my suggestions, so they can continue to grow the business and learn to respect their mother’s ideas.
While being of an older generation can get you respect in most families—at least if the younger generation is out of their teens—the opposite is true in business. As in art or music, a successful business-person is more apt to get due praise from the next generation after he or she is gone, not necessarily from this earth, but just from the office.
It’s a shame that your sons can’t take advantage of your restaurant management experience, but like a lot of people new to leadership, they seem determined to prove and distinguish themselves by doing things their own way. Any attempt to impart wisdom may seem less like genuine interest and more like interference. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 4, 2014
For something that’s both incredibly intangible and subjective, potential is remarkably admired. At least money can buy you lunch and loved ones can share dessert; potential is usually only valuable in absentia, when you’re either mourning it’s loss or praying for it’s arrival. Instead of pining for how you could have been, or used to be, a “contender,” stay focused on meeting your daily priorities with the things that have actual value, like work, friendships, and family. Whether your potential was really lost or was never there to lose, you can always respect what you’ve done if it’s worthwhile and ignore what could have been.
–Dr. Lastname
I used to believe in seizing the day and not thinking too much about the future, but now that I’m in my sixties, I find the things that bother me just don’t go away— seizing the day is too hard, and thinking about the future too painful. I’ve got bad knees that make it very hard to climb stairs or get through an airport without a wheelchair and my monthly medications cost serious money. Feeling helpless is the first step to feeling hopeless, so I find myself thinking depressing thoughts and feeling depressed a lot of the time. My goal is to figure out a way to not let pain and negative thinking wear me down.
When you rely on a “seize the day” philosophy to get the most out of life, you often forget that many days have nothing much to seize. On other days, you may be forced to seize moments of eating shit and compromising in order to keep your promises or protect your future security. Crap-e Diem, indeed.
If seizing the day is what really matters, then yes, as you get older, there’s less that’s new and exciting, and your seizing opportunities are fewer. If, on the other hand, you also value the less glorious and not always enjoyable parts of life, like making a living, raising kids, and being a friend, then aging just means there’s less to seize and more to savor. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 24, 2014
All of us suffer from a Cassandra complex at one time or another, where we see something so clearly—from how your brother will regret eating that gas station sushi to why your wife will wish she’d never paid for a year of intensive aerial Pilates up front—but can’t get anyone to heed our vision. Sometimes you can see a disaster looming because people are too angry and agitated, and sometimes it’s because they’re complacent and don’t give a damn. In either case, before you try to sound the alarm, give thought to the reasons for their feelings and the probable impact of your attempts to warn them so that your attempts to change opinions don’t accidentally cement them. Provide wise counsel if you can, but don’t expect anyone to listen until events, even painful sushi-related ones, put them in a more receptive state of mind.
–Dr. Lastname
As long as I avoid certain (mostly political, mostly right wing) topics, I get along with my in-laws pretty well. The problem is that such topics sometimes become unavoidable, usually when they get really wound up about a specific current event, and right now, they’re very vocal about being rabidly pro-Israel. I’m Jewish (they aren’t), so they assume I feel the same way as them and shower me with links and e-mail forwards that are nothing short of anti-Palestinian propaganda, but I don’t agree with them necessarily, and that kind of thing makes my skin crawl. They see the issue as black and white, and let’s just say I just see it as complicated, infuriating and heartbreaking, and their warmongering just angers and depresses me. I want to find a way to respond to them that gets them to see how damaging and foolish their angry rhetoric is, or to at least find some consensus in getting them to agree that killing isn’t answering anything. My goal is to get my in-laws to drop the subject in an enlightening, non-provocative way, even if I can’t change their minds.
One reason it’s hard to stop angry war rhetoric, particularly if it comes from nice people who aren’t particularly angry in non-political situations, is that they feel that aggressive action is necessary to prevent or overcome a dangerous threat. From annoying e-mail forwards to amassing an arsenal, fear rarely leads to thoughtful, positive action.
So if you suggest that your in-laws are advocating useless conflict with and killing of Palestinians, you’re questioning their morality at a time that they’re calling for moral sacrifice. You’re not just spilling blood in front of a shark, but a shark who thinks he’s being chased by a kraken. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 14, 2014
You lose a lot of important things as you get older—hearing, memory, life—but you also lose the ability to give a crap about things that really don’t matter. That’s why, if you’ve suffered from insecurity, either about work performance or the amount of commitment in relationships, being old can give you a more solid perspective and new management opportunities. So, if you’re old enough to have lots of experience, don’t get too worried by old fears. Rely on your own perspective to tell you what you need to do, regardless of what others think and your anxiety tells you. Just don’t rely on your ability to read small print.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m in a very specific line of consulting work—lots of research, long hours—that I’m very good at and enjoy doing, but I also wind up driving myself crazy with anxiety about doing the job just right. I formally retired a few years ago after many years in the business, when I was 55 and didn’t need the money, but I took a contract a few months ago because the specific assignment interested me. After all these years, however, I’m still having panic attacks, tightness in my chest, and shortness of breath. I even had to dig out the valium. I’m just obsessed with doing a perfect job, even though I know this stuff cold and my clients love me. My goal is to figure out what’s wrong with me and stop making myself sick.
Anxiety often causes symptoms that feel like sickness or even a heart attack (chest pain, tightness in your chest, shortness of breath, sweating), but that doesn’t mean that, like those other illnesses, it also shortens your life. A heart attack can kill you; a panic attack just makes you feel like you’re going to die.
So, while it’s natural to think that you’re making yourself sick every time you allow yourself to get anxious, anxiety isn’t deadly, or even totally detrimental; in regular doses, it helps you by making you worry about survival, making a living, and avoiding danger. Anxiety’s a lot like wine; a small amount everyday is helpful, a large amount everyday can make you feel helpless. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on June 30, 2014
Unless your sexual relationship began with a matchmaker, a bet, or a promise to a dead sibling, it probably started out with the spark of mutual attraction. Being wanted by someone you love is part of the high, but when lust becomes love and love becomes the boring reality of commitment—i.e., when people are too tired and/or comfortable to lie about being in the mood—the high turns into a new kind of emotional low. Sexual frustration feels like love is over, and encountering sexual resentment feels like your prince is a whiny brat. If, however, you can put sex into perspective and value what you’ve found in someone beyond the spark, then you can manage those feelings, which is the true test of love.
–Dr. Lastname
I hate the way my husband isn’t interested in sex as much as I am, and doesn’t want to talk about it; it’s as if he has no respect for my needs, doesn’t appreciate all the hard work I’m doing to support the family, and doesn’t find me attractive anymore. I feel like he got me to marry him by pretending to love me and be interested in me but then just changed his mind. I thought he was cheating on me, because what gay man isn’t interested in sex, but even now that I believe him when he says he’s just stressed about a million things right now (he even cries about it sometimes), I still feel like he should put me first once in a while. Of course, sulking doesn’t exactly make me sexy, so I’m aware I’m being stupid, but having an affair seems like justified payback. My goal is to find a constructive way of responding, getting laid, or at least not having to get a divorce.
Nothing lasts forever, but it’s not clear which eventual loss will pain you more: the end of your marriage, or the decrease in your now-rabid sexual desire. Just because your husband is first to lose his sexual appetite doesn’t mean you should be so quick to sacrifice your partnership for your boner.
No matter who you are, libido is fragile and easily affected by a million factors, from age to illness to humidity level. If, like many men, you’re sexually needy, then you can’t allow yourself to think that true love and a marital commitment guarantee sexual availability. People and circumstances change, which is the only thing you can count on. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 15, 2014
Whether it’s wealth, wine, or just white meat chicken, life’s perks are harder to enjoy when they have a dubious source. This is especially true with money that comes from someone else’s generosity, so it’s natural to promote financial independence, either by giving criticism or praise, especially if that generous someone is you. Unfortunately, being financially dependent is a lot like being a caged hen—it’s often beyond your control—so your attempts to promote it may cause or worsen feelings of failure. Instead of trying to change financial dependence when you can’t, ask yourself what people can do to manage it most effectively. Then you’ll be ready to respect what people do with financial dependence, even if it takes a long time for the dependent party to ripen/become free-range.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t stand the sad way things have turned out for my daughter, and my life is no better. She had kids, got depressed, lost her marriage and most custody, and lives a marginal life because she can’t get it together to find work. I help her out as much as I can, but I’m not as good with kids as my late wife was, plus the grandkids have special needs. The result is that my daughter doesn’t have a decent place of her own, the grandkids have all kinds of unsolved problems, and I’m going broke. I feel we’ve all failed to do the only thing that matters, which is to help our kids, and I remind my daughter how badly I think things have turned out, and how much she needs to change if things are ever going to get any better, but it doesn’t seem to make a difference. My goal is to find a way to turn this disaster around.
Depression is a terrible disease that can sap your energy and scramble your brain’s ability to get organized, so it can have a devastating effect on a person’s ability to be a parent or hold a job. While medications, talk therapy, and other treatments don’t necessarily help, too-tough love can actually make things worse.
Through the filter of a depressive mind, your “come to Jesus” talks may be interpreted as “go make a living, loser” lectures.
If she is making an effort—and, since you’ve been trying to help and push her for many years, it’s a safe assumption that she is—focusing on failure isn’t fair, disrespects your contributions, and may interfere with good planning. Nobody wants her to pull herself up by her bootstraps more than she does, but her depression’s opposing pull seems to be stronger. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
