Posted by fxckfeelings on December 23, 2010
When you do something truly stupid, the punishment is twofold; first, you have the knowledge of your stupidity, and then, you have living with the results of said stupidity, or making someone you love live with your stupidity, which makes you feel guilty and makes them feel stupid for loving you in the first place. Unfortunately, stupid is an incurable part of being human—some of us have a more dominant stupid gene than others—and remorse makes it worse. If you want to get smart, begin by accepting your inner stupid and getting to know its habits. Then, maybe next time stupidity calls, you’ll have a better answer and skip the punishing results.
–Dr. Lastname
PLEASE NOTE: We will have a new post on Monday, 12/27, but we’re taking a week off after that for family’ing. If you have angst, holiday related or no, that you need to share, speak now or wait until 2011.
Every now and then my husband, who is a sweet soul and mostly very smart, does something so mind-bogglingly stupid that it puts the whole family in danger. The latest incident happened when he was hanging out at a bar after work and, deeply (into drinking and) moved by the hard luck story of the guy on the stool next to him, he offered, without asking me, to guarantee the guy’s car loan. The next thing we knew, the bank was after our savings because his ex-best-bar-buddy had stopped paying the loan and the car was nowhere to be found. I admit it, I did a lot of screaming and feel like I was a saint for not killing him, but the real goal here is, how do I prevent him from doing it again.
You’re asking a mental health clinician to help you understand and/or change your husband’s behavior. Instead, you should be talking to a lawyer.
You want to stop him from doing it again, but what you really need is to protect yourself from the sure-to-happen next time his impulsive, besotted generosity imperils the family treasury.
You probably expect me, as a mental health clinician, to support the humanistic, liberal, uplifting belief that therapy can help people can change. Sadly, you don’t need a professional of any kind to tell you what you already know: that therapy doesn’t have that kind of power WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 20, 2010
Whenever people are hurting at work, management will try to boost productivity by easing pain, which makes them feel both competent and compassionate. Trouble is, most such efforts piss everyone off by trivializing pain and suggesting things can be better when they can’t. Instead of trying to coddle your workforce or push up your company morale, both the employee and the employed would probably do better if they respected the fact that work is often painful, kept the personal bullshit to a minimum, and just got back to work.
–Dr. Lastname
[Adapted from a reader’s comment.]
Our boss tried to improve sagging morale by having us meet regularly in small groups led by a psychologist. I wish I could figure out what she’s trying to do and not be so annoyed by the way she’s doing it. She asks us to think of a wish-list of how to improve the way the organization functions, and then asks if that’s alright, and then, when someone describes something they’d like to see, like making people feel special by recognizing their birthdays, she praises them for having a great idea and makes them think of ways they could implement it, and then asks us if that’s alright, and then tells us we’re doing great and asks for more and is that alright. She sounds like Hal in 2001 and acts like a computer reinforcing people for contributions that will lift the group. Frankly, she creeps me out and the reason morale is bad is because we’re working too hard and not getting paid enough. My goal is to figure out what to do about someone who is being false and unhelpful.
Your work colleagues are not your family, regardless of what the boss and the boss’s psychologist tell you. When they start holding “sharing” sessions like this, the office becomes “The Office.”
Positive recognition and communication are not the answer to your work troubles, if only because work often sucks, which is why you get paid to do it. If you’re unhappy about doing too much for too little, it sucks even more.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 16, 2010
It’s easy to feel like a success when you’re given a gold medal; and when you’re just another schmuck getting lapped at the local track, it’s hard to take much joy from your efforts. If success is subjective, so is failure. If, however, we look at our accomplishments objectively, our lives are actually Special Olympics, and many of us who feel like losers are really champions.
–Dr. Lastname
My son makes a living and he’s a nice guy, but I don’t think he’s ever really pushed himself or lived up to his smarts. He works in a pet shop and lives with a nice girlfriend, but he’s 30 already. All his friends are professionals who own their own homes, and he cleans animal cages and rents an apartment. I wish I knew how to motivate him to do more with his life. Maybe if he went into therapy he’d discover that he’s afraid of success.
To paraphrase Fran Lebowitz, if you’re an American white Christian male and you’re not President of the United States, to some degree, you blew it.
It seems logical to say, about any bright, well-educated kid, that he could do anything if he really wanted to, particularly in this country, and that it’s a shame if he didn’t seize his opportunities.
If you truly agree with this statement or Fran’s, however, your thinking is wishful and potentially dangerous.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 13, 2010
Emotional blackmail, just like the unemotional kind, can’t be fought back against easily. Normally, blackmail leaves you broke, but when it’s emotional, you’re less broke and more broken, since you end up spending all your energy caring too much about the other person’s feelings. At that point, it doesn’t matter who has the last word; you’ll wind up exhausted and distanced both from the blackmailer and who you really are. To shield yourself from blackmail, know where you stand and why you stand there. After all, if you can hold your head up, they’ve got nothing to hold against you.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband always complains that I’m neglecting him and making him worry when I do what I really like, which is hiking and swimming, because he’s an indoor sort who worries a lot and doesn’t like to be alone. Now that we’re retired and the kids are well on their way in life, we’ve got plenty of time, and I wish he’d come along, but that’s not his nature. I’m not a daredevil, but after I took a serious tumble two years ago while hiking, he forced me to promise I’d never do it alone. Actually, I like company, but the pressure of worrying about when he’s going to go off on me about my selfishness and what I put him through and my lack of respect for his feelings makes me wonder if we’d be better off apart. My goal is to reach a decision about our marriage.
Going into this marriage, you must have known that it would be hard for your “indoor worrier” spouse to find middle ground with a weekend warrior like yourself. Now you’re wondering if you should call off the search.
It’s hard to stay unemotional about choices like this, but the best way to prepare for a decision about ending a marriage is to build up your independence and re-examine any concessions that are wearing you down.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 6, 2010
Everyone from Mariah Carey to Charlie Brown has told us that what Christmas means is a happy, if not the happiest, time, and that you’re supposed to spread that happy to your neighbors, parents, and children. Most of us learn at an early age that Christmas is a mixed bag, and that the unhappy spreads faster than the happy, mostly among family members. Instead of focusing on good cheer, decide how best to use the holiday to express the Christmas spirit which, for those of you with some dysfunction in your families, means finding the best compromise between sharing a holiday together, protecting yourself from bad behavior, and avoiding the songmanship of Mariah Carey.
–Dr. Lastname
My 16-year-old daughter is a good kid, but she’s always been hell on wheels about breaking the rules. I always worry about her, because her father was sick and school is hard for her (she’s very ADD) and it would take very little to get her to drop out. The more I do to make sure she gets up on time, however, like driving her to school when she’s late, the more she misses the boat by always getting one absence more than whatever the school allows, so now I’ve got regular meetings with the principal (she refuses to show up) and neverending special ed plans. She’s really a nice kid and behaves well when she’s staying with her friends, but with me she’s often mean and nasty and swears all the time, and I just laugh it off. Now Christmas is coming, and I’d like her to be able to visit Mexico with a friend’s family, if she can just keep out of additional trouble. My goal is to avoid provoking her into doing more dumb things, dropping out of school, and getting into major trouble.
It’s clear that you love and accept your bad-ass kid, and that’s probably the most important part of any relationship, because non-acceptance is deadly.
You accept her, she accepts that you love her. She just can’t accept being told what to do.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 22, 2010
We often have to remind readers to follow their minds, as well as their hearts or groins, when choosing a steady partner; consider whether your beloved has some stability, not whether s/he’s good looking in the face. Still, even when all the basic qualities check out, remember that some seemingly-easy-to-get-along-with people have impossible ways of dealing with shared responsibility. Unfortunately, they don’t necessarily reveal themselves until you’ve been through a few messy crises together, which is why getting-to-know-you requires patience, toughness, and good detective instincts. Plus you need a willingness to bow out if your dreams collide with a deal-breaking discovery, no matter how last minute it is, or how pretty the face of the partner.
–Dr. Lastname
PS: Yes, we’re taking Thursday off for Thanksgiving, and as always, we hope your holiday has turkey for you and material for us.
I’ve met a divorced woman who seems crazy about me, and I think she’s a little impulsive but basically a terrific person and I could easily fall for her. She checks out in almost every way; she’s nice, solid, and good with her 2 kids and makes a reasonable income running a small business. She tried hard to make her marriage work and seems to stick by her friends. The only thing that worries me is the way she recently bought a new car after telling me we would buy it together. I mean, we dropped by dealerships and discussed styles and motors; and then, suddenly, she bought one we hadn’t looked at, made all the arrangements, and ta-da, there it was. She was very apologetic and told me she’d trade it in if I didn’t like it, but the truth is, it was fine and it’s not my car and I don’t feel hurt. What shook me up is that, here we are talking every day about getting married and making decisions together, and buying a car is a pain in the ass that requires time and attention to lots of details, and she kept it a secret. My goal is to get her to understand that I’m not hurt, but I’d like to understand what happened.
At this point in a relationship, what you’d like is a re-assuring explanation that would smooth away your doubts and allow your intimacy to move on.
What you need, however, is to figure out the worst-case meaning of her behavior and decide what it means for your future together (if you have one).
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 15, 2010
Working hard at school usually gets you a well deserved A (and, if you’re a certain advice-giving psychiatrist, a Harvard degree). Working hard at relationships, however, never guarantees success; it doesn’t necessarily get you what you deserve, whether it’s a good mate or a better relationship with a parent. Your efforts and motivations may be pure, but too much that you don’t control is always there to get in the way. Don’t take it as a failure then if you’re lonely and have mixed feelings about going home for Thanksgiving. The biggest success, for many of us, isn’t a frequently-mentioned set of Harvard degrees, but preventing sorrow from making us do something stupid.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m a 47-year-old woman who has never been married. My goal is to find out if circumstances have simply kept me from meeting a suitable partner, or if there’s something I’m doing or something about me that has kept me from finding/recognizing someone who might have been the right choice. I’m attractive, extremely bright, I have a great sense of humor, and am warm and open. I have wonderful friends of both sexes. The downside is I’ve had some serious health issues, including one chronic illness that has directly and indirectly undercut my most important career and personal goals and, to some extent, my sense of myself as the kind of person I wanted to be (accomplished and desirable). I’m under a kind of chronic stress and I don’t feel I’m living my life fully. To restate my goal, how do I figure out what, if anything, has kept me from having a successful relationship?
Don’t disrespect yourself by assuming that being single means you’ve done something wrong. If your problem finding a partner were anything obvious, like a stupid compulsion to dump good guys or an aversion to bathing, you probably would’ve figured it out at some point in the past 47 years.
Also, don’t disrespect yourself by giving illness and bad luck the power to define your self-worth. Yes, it’s nice to be healthy, rich and thin and it feels like success. Real success, however, is knowing you did your best when things turned out badly and left you hurting; it comes from pride in the effort, not pride in the outcome.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on November 4, 2010
Rebuilding anything, from a family post-separation to the entire Gulf coast, is an arduous, often painful process. Strong leadership goes a long way towards aiding the operation, and in the case of divorce, a leadership duo is potentially stronger and has a lot more to offer the kids. Yes, there’s pain, but if you can ignore it as you try to figure out old relationships and make new ones, you can make the repairs without losing the foundation (or wetlands) altogether.
–Dr. Lastname
I don’t hate my stepbrother, but the fact is, he’s kind of a loser. He doesn’t work hard in school, he doesn’t play sports, and all he really seems to do is play video games and hang out with the stoners doing what stoners do. I take 3 AP classes and I’m on the basketball team, and I’m not saying that to brag, but because that means I’m always busy at practice or with homework (I’m trying to get a scholarship). Still, my stepfather is always asking me to do more chores in the house and help out, and never asking his own son, who doesn’t seem to be doing jack shit. I think my stepfather doesn’t like me all that much, and that, when he’s stressed, he takes it out on me, and if I tell him he’s not being fair, he gets more pissed off. My goal is to get my stepfather to see that he needs to chill and take a closer look at what he’s doing.
It’s hard, at any age, not to focus on the unfairness of authority, and it’s worse when you’re a kid, solider, or inmate. Remember, fair is the worst four letter f-word you’ll ever encounter.
The more absolute your stepfather’s power, the more you simmer when you feel his favoritism has screwed you. The trouble is, if he perceives that you’re angry and doesn’t enjoy his authority questioned, your troubles will only get worse.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
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.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
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.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
