Posted by fxckfeelings on November 14, 2011
When you love someone who gets mentally ill and doesn’t recover, you may not only lose that part of their personality you loved the most, but also get stuck with a double dose of what you liked least. After all, it’s one thing to vow to be there in sickness and in health, but sickness and negativity and mania are usually more than most people bargain for. If your spouse’s mental illness makes your marriage unbearable, keep a lid on your negative feelings by respecting the burden life has put on both of you and refusing responsibility for putting things back the way they were. Once you can accept that sad reality, it’s time to figure out whether there’s room in your marriage for you, your spouse and the disease, or if your old vows no longer apply.
–Dr. Lastname
My wife suffers from non-medication responsive depression (we’ve done ECT’s, every med in the book, and she has a psychiatrist). She’s bitter and short to family; she goes off on the kids and then can turn around and be nice. I do all the work around the house, get the kids to activities, etc., and I’m wearing out. She comes home from work and just logs on her lap top and sits in front of the TV while I get dinner and clean up. She shows no affection towards me and I feel like a servant. When I complain or push her, she talks about killing herself and putting herself out of our misery (she’s been hospitalized several times) or just hurting herself (sometimes she cuts on her arms and legs). I’m getting to the point where I don’t like her anymore. She just seems to have given up. Nothing interests her, nothing tastes good…she gets no enjoyment from anything. What can I do? She’s in her forties, now, but she struggled with depression in her twenties and this current bout has been going on for 5 years. Her doctor and therapist are really committed to her, but it seems like she doesn’t care, like she enjoys being miserable. Sometimes I feel like I’m spiraling down with her, but I’m not going to give up. If I just stand by, she seems to just sink lower, but I can’t leave, because she’s said that the kids and I are the only reason she’s still alive.
If you’re like most married people, you become dependent on your spouse for a positive response, no matter how independent you are as an individual. You married her because you respect her opinion and take pleasure in her approval. You make her happy, everyone feels good. You see the problem here.
So it’s normal to feel bitterly disappointed and deflated when depression turns her into a grouchy, nasty, unappreciative, unaffectionate black hole who threatens suicide if you criticize her and never does her share.
It’s not just the lack of approval from her that’s bothering you, it’s the overabundance of disapproval, of you and everything else. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 10, 2011
Depression puts a strain on relationships, as does any illness, but it also acts as a filter through which only the worthiest of friends emerge. After all, one of the great rewards of a good friendship is feeling helpful and supportive to a sick friend, and one of the reddest flags of a bad friendship is someone who isn’t capable of either. So when depression tells you that you’re a burden to your friends, remember that, like most of what depression says, it lies. You’re never a burden to a true friend, particularly when you’re struggling, so if someone can’t be a good friend to you when you need them the most, then good riddance.
–Dr. Lastname
I need to face the fact that I have trouble getting close to people. I recently had a close relationship with a guy I was crazy about, but I often get depressed and, when it happens, I get quiet, and he couldn’t stand it. I’m good at functioning when I’m depressed, it’s never stopped me from getting my work done, and I push myself to hang out with friends, but I can’t help the fact that I don’t have much to say and that I don’t really feel like laughing. I kept telling him it wasn’t personal, but he didn’t really believe me. My goal is to figure out how I can find a partner if I can’t really interact very well.
The biggest negative thought you can have when you break up with someone is to believe it’s because there’s something wrong with you, either because your boyfriend said it or because that’s what your brain is telling you.
Nobody says, “it isn’t you, it’s me,” and means it, so you shouldn’t, either.
Remember, it’s deep human nature to blame ourselves for crap that happens, be it a failed relationship or a failed baseball season. It’s your job, however, as your one and only chief protector, to put this assumption to a logical test. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 24, 2011
We’ve talked before about the myth of “help;” how applying the mantra “you need help” to everyone and anyone with problems isn’t always the right thing, whether you’re on the giving or receiving end of this recommendation. After all, just because someone begs you to get help doesn’t mean that you need it, and just because someone begs you for help doesn’t mean it will do them any good or be worth it. Forget feelings of disloyalty, use your own judgment, and remember, most of the time, the most helpful response to people who want you to be involved in help-giving or help-taking is to let them know when help isn’t the answer.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m a 22-year-old who is coming out of a pretty rough emotional patch. I got into a bad habit of leaning on a male friend, being a complete needy, co-dependent mess with a guy who is a pretty heavy drinker and, you guessed it, a needy, co-dependent mess. Well. Now I’ve sobered up and tried to develop some space between us, and he’s not taking it well. He drunk-dials me at least once a week, and leaves these crazy, rambling, needy voicemails. (I moved away a while back, and he keeps pushing me to make plans to meet up.) I basically want to cut him out of my life altogether, because I really think he’s bad for me. But he was there for me—albeit in a f*cked up way—when I was a mess. Does dropping him make me a bitch?
There are two sides to every sin; for example, murder is evil while manslaughter is just really unfortunate. The same is true for good deeds, and fidelity, while less deadly (hopefully), works much the same way.
There’s a bad kind of fidelity based on feelings and a good one based on what you think is right. The bad one is a gut-level sense of obligation you feel towards anyone you’ve shared a bed or bread or booze with, who cries out to you in need and expects you to respond. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 19, 2011
The purpose of life is not to be found in human connectedness, or at least not the kind that arises from the instant sharing of feelings, food, and/or bodily fluids. RomComs, pop songs and almost every advice source might tell you otherwise, but there’s no reason for people who don’t connect easily to feel or be excluded from the human race. Whether you’re attachment-impaired or dealing with someone who doesn’t know a relationship from a turnip, your job is to build relationships according to your own standards, in your own way. Even if you don’t share, you can still care.
–Dr. Lastname
Even in my 40s, I carry a lot of baggage/resentment from my upbringing. I was born in a foreign country and adopted by an older couple who had already raised two of their own kids before deciding to adopt. They were worn out, emotionally distant–my Mother suffered severe depression—so it was a quiet, lonely, and undirected childhood. I’ve since created what most days feels like a good life but working in a very competitive field, I feel like it can all be taken away from me in a flash (and, like most people since the economy collapsed, I’ve been laid off a number of times). I’ve always managed to find work, but I can’t help but think my shy and quiet demeanor has a lot to do with ending up on the chopping block; slipping through the cracks has been the recurring theme of my life. On some level I know I suffer from attachment disorder–connecting with others has always been a challenge and making idle chit-chat with co-workers and “bragging” about my accomplishments takes extreme effort—but moving forward I’d like to feel more connected to people I work with and form stronger relationships and friendships in my life. I think it would be good for my career and my overall being. How do I make that happen?
Before plumbing your personal history for the cause of your isolation, examining its impact on your resume, or trying to increase your degree of connectedness to other people, there’s a much simpler first step—asking yourself why you’re doing all this in the first place.
You’re not saying you’re lonely or that you wish to be closer to a particular friend or family member, just that, if you were more connected to others in a general, categorical way, you would be less disposable and less easily fired. That may be true.
On the other hand, you’re also saying that your lack of connectedness, like your mother’s lack of connection with you, represents a kind of failure that makes life less meaningful. That’s just plain false. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 15, 2011
As diseases go, mental illness is a doozy to treat; some mentally ill people are too humiliated to ask for help, and others are too crazy to ask. If you want to help them (or yourself), keep in mind that it’s the illness, stupid, which distorts the attitude towards treatment. Use the same logic and moral values for mental health treatment decisions that you would use for other illnesses; there’s nothing humiliating about getting sick, no matter what a sick brain decides.
–Dr. Lastname
I have been wrestling with depression for years now and my maternal side of the family has a history of depression and suicide. I don’t feel that I can do this on my own anymore and need help. I don’t want to just take a medical cocktail of antidepressants. My question to you is how do I go about finding a therapist and/or doctor that will be most helpful to me.
The first step for getting treatment for your depression seems simple– don’t get depressed about treatment for depression. After all, depression’s just another form of pain unless it twists your thoughts into thinking that not getting rid of it is a kind of failure that marks a meaningless life.
As long as you realize depression is a persistent ailment, just like persistent back pain or diabetes, you’ll have an easy time making treatment decisions because you won’t regard using treatment as evidence of weakness. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on September 8, 2011
Getting over a relationship can mean a lot of things—a bad haircut, eating entire pints of ice cream, sex with people you wouldn’t normally make eye contact with, etc.—but what’s most important isn’t how you get over it, but what you get out of it. If you come out the other side with bad feelings but great insight, you’re feeling worse but doing way better than the person who feels great but lacks perspective altogether. Those who don’t learn from relationships are doomed to repeat them, no matter how many bad haircuts it takes.
–Dr. Lastname
I can’t seem to recover from my wife’s infidelity. Six months ago, when I found out, it nearly destroyed me. I stopped sleeping, and started eating compulsively, and felt depressed and anxious all day. I have a demanding job and we have a 2-year-old son and I simply had to keep going. Now, after months of couples therapy and my wife’s promising to stop drinking and then starting up again, I’ve gotten strangely detached. I don’t think our marriage is going to make it and, on some level, I don’t care. I can’t lose the 20 pounds I gained, I don’t exercise the way I used to, and I can’t seem to get my confidence or happiness back. What more should I be doing?
I want to take this opportunity to congratulate you, not for losing a horrible spouse (that seems both insensitive and obvious), but for becoming a fat, lazy mope. Most people consider “letting themselves go” to be a bad thing, but in this instance, it’s a positive side-effect of recovery at work.
After all, the best measurement of how well you’ve recovered from trauma is not how good you feel. This Sunday marks a rather grim anniversary for many Americans, and after 10 years, some of those people still hurt, and some of those in pain are also in shape. Trauma doesn’t factor into it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 22, 2011
[Please Note: Sadly, we haven’t completely fixed up the site glitches, but there should be improvements by the end of the day. We apologize for the delay, but you can still send us your problems at [email protected], linked below.]
People like to think that trusting an inner voice—their gut, their instincts, the force, etc.—will always lead in the right direction. In actuality, instincts and body parts are better known for causing instant urges (a.k.a. “feelings”) that ignore logic and implant convictions that the sky is falling, love occurs at first sight, and advertising never lies. When it comes to major decisions, don’t trust your gut (which, as we’ve pointed out before, is literally full of shit). Find out facts and figure out the odds before doing something that scares you, titillates you, or gives you an enormous Visa bill.
–Dr. Lastname
My brother is a good doctor, and an especially good one given that he’s struggled with depression his whole life. When his own illness needs attention, however, he becomes a terrible patient. He doesn’t get depressed often, but when he does he obsesses about the possible side effects of each medication and so doesn’t take what’s recommended, takes half the prescribed dose, or insists on his doctor giving him something less harmful (and much less effective). The result is that he drives his doctor (and me) crazy and takes a lot longer to get better. When I tell him he’s over-reacting to his fears, he tells me “I’ve learned to listen to my body.” I know he’s a doctor, but I think his body’s lying. What can I do to help him when he’s sick?
It’s a sad fact of mental illness that it often prolongs itself by disabling a person’s ability to seek and select appropriate treatment. Like any smart disease, it knows from self-preservation (in all the ways your brother does not).
That means you can’t necessarily get through to your brother by reasoning or addressing his fears. In your brother’s case, it’s unlikely, not just because you and his doctors have tried and nothing works, but also because he is a doctor, and the side-effect of trying to treat a doctor is a giant pain in the ass.
Recognizing his response as inherently unreasonable and illness-driven, however, can build your confidence in your own opinion to the point where you don’t have to persuade or argue. If he insists on listening to his body, you can serve some truth to his brain. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 28, 2011
If we’re to believe the common wisdom that self-esteem is as important to the human body as insulin, white blood cells, and limbs, then it’s important to remember that too much is a bad thing. True, too little is the one that hurts in the short run, but too much can lead to bad decisions that can be just as harmful as diabetes. What’s important is to manage the self-esteem you’ve got so it doesn’t make you a wimp or a jerk. Maintain a healthy balance, because you need too much self-confidence like you need that extra arm.
–Dr. Lastname
I constantly feel inadequate, though I am socially quite confident and easy-going. I have always been a worrier, and someone that seeks approval from others—mainly because of the relationship I have with my parents, where praise is hard to come by. Ever since graduating (a year ago),my confidence seems to have hit rock bottom. I became very disheartened by the whole application process, and felt like I became reduced to a series of bullet points. As a result, the many rejection emails I received were crushing. I have since found a job I generally enjoy, but cannot shake a feeling of anxiety. I constantly worry that I’m being a bad employee, friend, daughter. I worry about money, about the fact I don’t meet guys that I can make a relationship work with…When a guy I was dating recently treated me undeniably badly, I still found myself questioning my own behavior, worrying it was my fault. I want to make plans for the future, but keep finding reasons why my ambitions will be impossible to achieve. How can I stop giving myself such a hard time, and take my future by the horns?
Yes, there are people who are optimistic, happy, and full of confidence, and their optimism often generates its own good results and gets everyone, including advice-givers, worshiping the “groove” they’re in and telling you how to get it.
What they don’t tell you is that the groove is overvalued; sooner or later, life sucks, and when it does, it won’t shake you nearly as much as someone who has never experienced self-doubt and thinks they’ve got the world by the tail. So one thing you can be optimistic about is that you’re prepared for disaster.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 21, 2011
Talking to a partner about their cancer often leads people to become nervous and tentative. They may feel guilty for being the healthy party, or afraid to say the wrong thing and trigger painful feelings, and it’s that sort of distance that can lead to cancer of the relationship. If your partner has cancer, don’t freeze up; respect your usual shared goals, values, and reasons for making decisions, and treat him or her as your respected friend and not a cancer victim. Take the disease in stride, or the disease will take much, much more.
–Dr. Lastname
My boyfriend went through hell from chemotherapy, but I don’t know what to do with his depression and irritability. We’d been dating about a year and planning to get married when he found out he had a nasty kind of cancer and, since then, he’s been brave about chemo and going on with his life, which has meant working when he’s feeling OK, and our moving in together and being partners. Usually, we get along well, but lately he’s been depressed and telling me he knows he’s a burden, he can’t get much done, and he just wants to be alone. I want him to get help for his depression and stop the negative thinking but I don’t want to attack him or make him feel I don’t respect the fact that he has cancer.
One of the things you always hear from people in pain is that you, the lucky one, “just don’t understand.” It’s the rallying cry of the suffering, whether they’re coping with cancer, or just being between the ages of 10 and 18.
What sick people often fail to realize, at least at first, is that people who aren’t in their position understand things that they can’t; after all, you might have the good luck not know what it’s like to have cancer, but you know what your boyfriend’s like when he’s not depressed, and you know this isn’t it. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on July 14, 2011
Some of us have demons inside, whether we like it or not, for reasons that are always unfair and usually inexplicable. You don’t have to be Buffy to know what demons are like-—full of hate, need, and the power to make you do things that hurt others and yourself. Absent Buffy or a neighborhood exorcist, you’ve got to learn to live with your demon if you have one (or more) sharing your body, and the best way to begin is to remember who you are and what you care about, other than the immediate satisfaction the demon demands. Then you can reach out to other demon-fighters, whom you’ll find are more numerous, available, and courageous than you would ever have imagined when you were fighting your demon alone.
–Dr. Lastname
I discovered this site after reading Emma Forrest’s book, “Your Voice In My Head” [fxckfeelings.com was cited in the acknowledgments –Dr. Lastname]. I am very young (in high school) and have suffered from anorexia/bulimia for 3 years. I never had a calm childhood, and after being obese I lost half of my body weight through anorexia within half a year, but I gained all of it back by bingeing in not even a few months. I feel like I was not even strong enough to ”stay anorexic’,’ so I became bulimic. Everyday I wake up thinking about how I should die or how long I can keep living with myself, because I despise who I am, and it is becoming unbearable. I truly believe I will never see the light at the end of the tunnel, I will never get out of this and will spend the rest of my life with an eating disorder which has ruined my life. I have no more strength to keep fighting, I have had enough, enough of life. Please help, I am ready to hear anything.
As mental illnesses go, eating disorders are the most parasitic; they literally consume their host in order to thrive, but instead of demanding more food, they feed upon your body and self-worth.
Instead of having a moderate, healthy awareness of your own attractiveness, you’re dealing with a leech that is rarely satisfied with how you look and more often intensely disgusted with the ways you fall short. It would rather wipe you out than live with you ugly (and it always thinks you’re ugly). WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
