Posted by fxckfeelings on October 25, 2010
No matter how much you love someone, you might not be able to read them that well; signals get crossed, personalities clash, pissyness abounds. You can try to improve “communication” through several years/thousand dollars on relationship therapies, but you can never change your personality or the personality of the person you happen to love who also happens to drive you crazy. If you can never perfectly read someone, you can learn to recognize the warning signs of unavoidable conflict and accept the pain as the necessary price of making things work. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s cheaper than therapy, and cheaper still than divorce.
–Dr. Lastname
My 18-year-old nephew moved in with me and my boyfriend this summer to be close to the internship program he’s doing this year. I love my nephew, and he’s very smart about computers, but he’s a really geeky kid and never very quick to notice how people are reacting; when monopolizes the TV or leaves a mess in the kitchen, my boyfriend tries to make it clear he’s annoyed, but it goes straight over my nephew’s head. My boyfriend’s about had it and wants my nephew out because he thinks the kid’s a selfish jerk (instead of just a nerdy dork). My boyfriend, needless to say, hasn’t lived with kids in many years and tends to take things personally. My goal is to get my boyfriend to back off and/or my nephew to tune in.
Cursed be the peacemaker, because the only agreement that peacemakers are certain to create between warring parties is that they both hate the peacemaker.
If you press your boyfriend to be nicer, he’ll wonder why you’re more sympathetic to a self-absorbed, snotty kid than to your long-term, adult partner.
Your nephew, if he notices the tension at all, will wonder why his aunt can’t protect him from being picked on (and why nobody can protect him, since this probably happens all the time). Good intentions are dangerous, in a situation like this, unless you’re careful about your goals.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 21, 2010
When life spins out of control, so does morale. When it feels like you’re living in a flaming, crowded theater, it’s more normal to issue dire warnings, cast blame, and look for desperate solutions. If, however, after reviewing your options realistically, you can assure yourself that you’ve done whatever it is you could do, you can retain your pride and helps others retain theirs. That won’t give you control, but it will decrease the panic and put the fires out.
–Dr. Lastname
My 25-year-old daughter barely talks to me because I’m the one who reminds her that she’s bipolar. She gets mad at me whenever I bring it up, but I’ve got to say something, because someone needs to tell her to take her medication and stay away from her drinking buddies. She’s such a good kid, and it’s awful to watch her lose control and then have everyone take advantage of her. The trouble is, I know how bad the prognosis is for her illness, and after four hospital admissions and no job held for more than a month, I fear for her. My goal is to help her and have a better relationship with her.
If you want to express negative emotions about your kid’s mental illness, tell your shrink, hairdresser, crossing-guard, whomever. Anyone but the kid herself.
Mental illness is scary and depressing, but for the parent of a mentally ill child, make like your home is on the range: never should be heard a discouraging word. Expressing negative emotions almost always makes things worse.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on October 18, 2010
To paraphrase Homer Simpson’s thoughts on alcohol; for the depression-prone especially, fear is the cause of, and result of, all of life’s problems. When you’re afraid, it seems like you’re losing control, and nothing will work unless you get it back, which will just dig you deeper. Life can and will always take away your control, so your job is to forget control and preserve your values using whatever you have, regardless of result. You may not be able to cure yourself of depression, alcoholism, or anything else that ails you, but you shouldn’t hide and give up. Remember, to further paraphrase Homer Simpson, the answers to life’s problems aren’t found through control, they’re found on the internet.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve been so depressed I can barely get out of bed, so at this point, I’m willing to try medication. The problem is, none of the pills I try seem to work for me, and some of them make me feel worse. One antidepressant made me dizzy, and another one my doctor recommended is said to cause weight gain, and another sometimes causes a severe rash. I’m desperate, but there’s got to be a way to feel better without a fucking rash. I need something that will work without doing me serious harm.
If you’re looking for an antidepressant that’s sure to help and has never caused harm, stop your search now. Like cold fusion, unicorns, and a good Joel Schumacher movie, such a pill doesn’t exist.
Refusing a medication because it makes you gain weight is like skipping chemotherapy because of possible hair loss. Expecting too much from antidepressants, or any medication, can paralyze you and prevent you from getting the actual help they might be able to provide.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 30, 2010
There’s something about the decision to take or not take medication that makes people very reactive to feelings, both theirs and others, instead of just weighing the important stuff, like the risks, their symptoms, etc. The only good way to make medication decisions is to think about what will happen to you without them and decide for yourself what will do you the most good. Until the day others can feel sick on your behalf, their reactions to your own carefully thought out medical choices shouldn’t come first.
–Dr. Lastname
Given all my issues, I’m not doing so badly, although it’s true I have a $400/week speed habit. Even with that though, I’m doing well at a demanding, high-powered job, meeting all the overtime demands, and then, at quitting time, when I’ve gotten paid and don’t want to feel bored or alone, that’s where speed comes in. A few years ago, I had a crazy, manic mental breakdown and they started me on medication, which I’ve taken regularly, but I’ve been doing fine ever since, my mood is great, the speed hasn’t bothered me, so I don’t see why I can’t start cutting back on the meds. That’s my goal: to feel OK without meds.
Whether it’s bad for you to use speed or stop your bipolar medications depends a lot on what you believe you need for your future survival, assuming that you care about it.
Since I don’t think that’s a safe assumption, let’s assume you’ll at least consider caring about it after you read my response.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 16, 2010
Everything about having a kid, from the “birth plan” to the child’s name to the choice to procreate itself, is fraught and complicated. If you choose to have a kid, you feel responsible for making the experience perfect, and if you choose not to, you’ve failed to take a responsibility that many people believe you should. So, if you’re feeling guilt or regret, learn what triggers that guilt-reflex and how to disregard it when your own moral judgment clears you of wrong-doing. And if you could avoid naming your child any derivation of Aiden, all the better.
–Dr. Lastname
My younger brother and his wife just had a baby. While I’m thrilled for them and love my baby nephew to death, it’s been harder for me than I thought it would be. While I’m in my early 30s and don’t have any children of my own (but I do have a great husband), I’m not jealous. Actually, I feel guilty for not being jealous, or not holding my nephew and wishing I had a child of my own. I don’t understand why I don’t want kids, but I really don’t. When I married my husband, he felt the same way, but now he’s started talking about starting a family and I feel awful that I can’t get on the same page, or just can’t be normal and want a baby as much as I think I should. I want a second dog way more than I want a baby, and that I feel that way makes me feel terrible. My goal is to figure out what’s wrong with me and why I can’t be a mom.
If you and your husband agreed in advance to live in the country and he later decided he preferred Manhattan, you probably wouldn’t feel guilty about thwarting his desires by keeping him in the sticks, even if it made him unhappy.
So, while you wouldn’t like to deprive him of his dream, you wouldn’t feel guilty about it, either. Ask yourself then why having children should be such a different issue.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on September 9, 2010
It’s hard not to judge yourself by how people say you’re doing, particularly when those people are family or family-equivalent; a family or relationship can turn anyone into a version of Ed Koch. We assume that peace of mind begins with being forgiven and accepted, but that’s bullshit (or dogshit if you’d like to keep the Koch analogy going). Just because you love people doesn’t mean that they can stop themselves from giving you shit you don’t deserve or not giving you attention you do, and never being able to see what they’re doing. So be prepared to pursue your own investigation and consult your own conscience before seeking peace, reconciliation, and another term as a well-liked human being.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t get my ex to forgive me, even though I had good reason for doing the things he’s mad about. He’s the one who said we should just be friends (no sex) after we’d been living together for years, which was OK with me, but then when he found out, by accident, that I had a discreet fling (I like sex), he flipped out and told all our friends I’d betrayed him, and walked out. I can’t get him to see I care or that he really has no grounds to be pissed, and it’s an awful way to end things. I now know what his parents meant when they told me years ago he was difficult. My goal is to get him and others to see that I wasn’t a slut and that our relationship wasn’t a farce.
Even before the existence of cable news, gossip websites, and Stephen Colbert, opinion has come more from feelings than facts.
Your hyper-emotional ex sees the past through the “veil of truthiness,” so determining the meaning of what happened is something you’ll have to do on your own.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 12, 2010
In this “Intervention”-happy society, we tend to believe that bluntly confronting friends about their problems is the ultimate solution. In reality, if you really want to warn a friend about worrisome behavior, it’s better to discuss risk without expressing worried feelings/”your behavior affects me in the following ways.” Worried feelings say you think people don’t know what they’re doing and you do, whereas discussing risk says you’re interested in how they value the cards in their hand and what they’re going to do with the losers. Don’t worry that your calm demeanor will fail to get across the depth of your concern. An in-your-face approach often fails to do much of anything.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve done some research, and I think my girlfriend is bipolar. She gets into these very good moods for no particular reason, and when she’s in this mood she can’t stop talking and seems high and silly (and that’s when she sometimes drinks too much). When she’s like that, she’s more obnoxious-funny than really funny, but she thinks she’s a riot. I’m not crazy about her up times, but what I really dread is the crash that follows; it’s hell for her and everyone around her. I know she sees a shrink, so I told her what I was worried about, but she acted like I was insulting her and then she said she was sorry, maybe I was right, but she likes feeling happy and doesn’t see anything wrong with it and why should it bother me. My goal isn’t to take away her joy, but I wonder if it’s bad for her to be bipolar and, if so, what she should do about it.
You’re right to worry about your girlfriend’s highs, but getting through to her may not be easy. Manic people aren’t exactly perceptive, unless by perceptive, you mean frighteningly giddy and overwhelming obnoxious.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on August 5, 2010
We’ve talked many times on this site about how controlling other people is essentially impossible (at least in the long run, but you’d be surprised how obedient people are short-term when you have cake). That’s why pushing for someone else’s acceptance isn’t just hopeless, but when we put that need ahead of our own convictions and priorities, it’s downright dangerous. People in AA are taught right off the bat to accept what they can’t change, which is a valuable lesson to anyone, with or without booze (or cake).
–Dr. Lastname
My husband worries a lot about my drinking and depression but, to my mind, I don’t think my drinking is a problem and I don’t think I’d be depressed if I wasn’t worried that he’d leave me. For the sake of our marriage, I’ve agreed to stop drinking for a while and go to AA, but I really feel that my drinking wasn’t causing me any problems and that I’m doing this to make him happy, which makes me feel weak and angry. I want to get him to accept me the way I am before I can’t take it anymore.
You’re in a tough spot, because partnership really can’t work without acceptance, and acceptance is not something you can control. The more you force acceptance, the harder it is to achieve. Accept that, buddy.
If you try too hard to get his acceptance, you’ll hide whatever you think he won’t accept, which means putting your drinking in the closet and going to the mall instead of AA meetings.
On his end, if he tries too hard to make the relationship work, he’ll pretend you’re not really drinking or that you’re going to change, which also means no real acceptance.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 24, 2010
For those over-endowed with emotion, reacting without thought is dangerous, whether the extra burst of feeeeeeling comes from present love or past trauma. Flying off the handle isn’t good for anybody, so take time before booking your flight to remember that you’ve got better goals than to open your mouth and make yourself more miserable.
–Dr. Lastname
My ex and I had a drama-filled relationship and a rough break-up. Drama because I was drinking, which meant I was sometimes out of my mind, and rough because I got my shit together and tried to make it right with her but she dumped me anyway. The problem is that we work for the same boss, and now that we’re not together anymore, but I’m sober and sane, I’m wondering how to act towards her. Be friendly and normal? Are hugs in bounds? I can’t just ignore her, and I don’t want to, but things are strange. I want to show her that I’m cool, not nuts, and want things between us to be normal (whatever that means).
Be you an alcoholic or a Mormon, you have zero chance of instantly re-establishing friendship with someone you’ve just broken up with. Like cold fusion or a 2010 World Cup game without vuvuzelas, it’s never going to happen.
Since you are an ex-drinker, however, you should know that self-control is something you can never count on, particularly when your feelings for an ex-love are intense and her actions unpredictable.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 14, 2010
While most people have multifaceted personalities (or should), there are an unlucky group whose personalities aren’t so much nuanced as they are binary; fewer shades of grey, more Jeckyll and Hyde. If you’re dealing with someone who’s double sided, or trying to hide a part of yourself from the world, it can feel like a never ending battle to reconcile and/or expose both halves. Occasionally, it’s worth exposing your secret side to end your own torment. Other times, it’s better to let people keep their Mr. Hydes to themselves if it means keeping their drama out of your own life.
–Dr. Lastname
Most people thing my mom is really fun, if a little flaky and emo, but they don’t see how crazy and mean she gets when there’s no one around but my brother and me (my parents are divorced). When she’s in a bad mood, she tells us we’ve been mean to her, and reminds us of things we’ve said that hurt her, and tells us how bad we are until we’ve apologized, and then she forgets it ever happened. There’s one cousin who’s seen what she gets like and I rely on him to remind me that it’s OK, she’s crazy, but the other day he seemed charmed by her and then, when I complained, he told me I had to get over her and not be so angry, and now I feel totally unsupported. My goal is to get someone to understand what’s going on.
Nothing gets people more stirred up than dramatically pitched false accusations and punishments by a powerful, inescapable, totally two-faced authority, like your mama.
The good news is that, while you’ve got the makings of a perfect soap opera, it sounds like you’re not getting swept away by it.
The trouble with soap operas, of course, is that they trap the good guys into endless rounds of angry, hurt reactions to crazy bad guys. In the process, they take up huge amounts of time and energy for tears and talk, talk, talk before, finally, there’s a glimmer of comfort and validation…before the cycle starts all over again.
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