Posted by fxckfeelings on February 6, 2014
Whether you’re eager to get in the game and fall in love or hate the idea of going out, doing what comes naturally leads you nowhere. What you need instead is thoughtful, self-protective awareness and discipline. So take time to think about what you really need from a prospective friend or partner and how to make sure it’s there. Then, whether you need to rein yourself in or push yourself forward, conduct your search at a safe, deliberate pace that’ll keep you reigned in, out of your shell, and ultimately, on top.
–Dr. Lastname
I split up with my boyfriend a while ago. He started the relationship at a time when he didn’t want one (wasn’t really over his ex and was having major work problems). Anyway, we really hit it off—enjoyed each other’s company, had massive sexual chemistry, seemed to have the same values—and then I got really stressed and he got really stressed very soon into our relationship and I couldn’t handle his withdrawal reaction, especially because I didn’t feel that secure in anyway, so I finished it. Months on I’m finding it extremely difficult to get over him even though I’m trying to think it was for the best. I’ve never missed anyone this much and think he was probably the only person I’ve ever really been in love with. I don’t think he feels the same. I think he’s very selfish, thinks he’s the only one with problems, and hasn’t let anyone in since his ex. Or he never liked me that much, which he says is bollocks. No one measures up in a weird kind of way. And the people who are less selfish are boring and I don’t want to spend time with them. How do I get over him when I don’t want to?
Before deciding whether to get over your ex-boyfriend, give more thought to whether or not he was worth having as a boyfriend in the first place. Yes, there was lots of mutual magnetism; given how quick he was to vanish, however, maybe those magnets actually had like poles.
After all, he did a major, painful flip-flop soon after you got together, and two major requirements of most healthy relationships are one, that the other person isn’t prone to flip-flops and two, that he doesn’t tend to flip-flop on you.
That requirement is so important, and so out of your control, that it’s a major reason for going slow, gathering information, and trying to keep from getting too close until you’re confident it’s not going to happen. Everyone preaches safe sex, but less attention is given to the importance of safe love, and this is definitely a case where you left your heart unprotected. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on January 9, 2014
When your kid is a teenager, every decision you make has the potential to cause drama, whether you’re insisting they retake the SATs or refusing to buy them $200 pants. One issue that will have a powder keg quality right into adulthood, however, is whether you think a family relationship should have more together-time or less. More time together may feel like crowding, and less time together may feel like rejection or loss, but either way, be prepared to encounter strong emotions, including your own, when you go to discuss it. First, ask yourself why a change is necessary or beneficial, rather than why your feelings want it. Then prepare to ignore criticism, anger and hurt feelings while you stand by your views and do what’s best, just as you did with the pants.
–Dr. Lastname
I know that my ex and I put the kids through a rough divorce fifteen years ago, and the roughest part, at least from my point of view, was that my ex convinced a judge that the kids shouldn’t see me without supervision. I couldn’t afford that, so the kids basically didn’t see me for about fifteen years, but understanding the problem hasn’t helped me deal with my oldest son now that he’s twenty-one and free to start seeing me again. He’s reached out to me several times, which was wonderful and had me hoping we could rebuild a relationship, but then he’d set up a time to come over for dinner, and I’d cook up something special, and he wouldn’t show up or call for several months. There’s nothing I want more than to re-establish some kind of relationship with him and his younger sister, but I can’t stand setting up times to meet and knocking myself out and then getting stood up. I’m afraid his mother has poisoned his mind against me and I don’t like getting treated like shit. My goal is to be his father, not his doormat.
Whether it’s from a boyfriend, university, or a home loan, rejection is rejection, and even if you know why it’s happening and know there’s nothing you did wrong, it hurts like hell. You could know you’re the most important person in your child’s life, and it would still be hard to be stood up, ignored, disobeyed, and shut out.
When, on top of that, you’re yearning to resume a relationship years after it was stopped by divorce, you’re even more vulnerable and helpless. You already know what your child has discovered; that your need for one another is mutual, as is your ability to hurt one another. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on December 23, 2013
As emotions go, guilt is often the most devious; it’s very good at tricking us into believing we’ve done something wrong, when we know we haven’t. It’s so slick that you can feel guilty for not feeling guilty in the first place. That’s why guilt is a terrible barometer for whether or not you’ve made a good or bad decision; sometimes the right choice makes you feel wrong and the wrong one righteous, at least in the short run. If you think of values and consequences, however, as well as needs, you’ll usually come up with a choice you won’t feel guilty about being proud of.
–Dr. Lastname
Please Note: We’re taking Thursday off, so please have a great Boxing Day without us.
I’m a medical doctor—I graduated three years ago and did extremely well in my school. But then I broke up with my boyfriend, and for a while, I hated myself very much for it. Coupled to it was the death of one of my closest relatives. I turned lethargic, did not want to function, never talked to anyone and was alone. Finally I managed to get into a job not at all related with medicine, but for the past few months, I have been experiencing severe guilt about my decision. At the same time I don’t feel active or ready enough to put in the hard work necessary to go back to medicine. At least this feeling is welcome as I am finally feeling something. I have stopped trusting any guy and don’t want a relationship, but I’m consumed by this feeling of guilt. Unfortunately I also have a bit of narcissism, I feel that I m more intelligent than most of the people I meet, and so did not visit any counselor either. I just want to know if you have any suggestions on how to conquer my guilt and lethargy.
Even with support from a very nice therapist, all the insight in the world, and/or a job in the medical profession, guilt and lethargy often hang around as long as they want. You could find cures for cancer, bad boyfriends, and even depression, but still feel guilty that it took you so long, guilt is that insidious.
The way to conquer those symptoms is to prevent them from affecting your beliefs about yourself and the world. Up until now, it seems the symptoms have been brainwashing you into feeling like a hateful, worthless failure instead of a smart medical school graduate with an unlucky personal life. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 17, 2013
Life is always unfair—kids get sick, dogs don’t live forever, the Real Housewives supply is infinite—but how you react to unfairness is what matters. Some people who are undeniable victims of hard luck never see themselves as helpless, whereas other people feel like victims because life does not always reward good moral choices with good luck. If your luck turns bad, you have a right to hurt, but never expect good luck to reward you for being a good guy. You’ll never feel like a victim if you accept bad luck as part of a shitty, unfair world, and take pride in doing what you think is right, regardless of all the illness, injustice, and Bravo starlets who are out there.
–Dr. Lastname
I’ve been derailed for the last three years after thinking my life was moving along perfectly well. I’d worked for 15 years at a large company, starting out as a clerk, and somehow my warm personal style and hard work—it sure wasn’t my education, because I never did well in school and did just two years of college—kept getting me promoted until I was about to be regional director. I had three sons and a husband I thought I could count on. Then, suddenly, due to what almost everyone agreed was a minor, unintentional accounting error, I was fired because I technically broke company policy and a higher-up had decided to be a hard-ass. And my husband decided, just about the same time, that I was boring and he moved out. The kids are still great, but I feel stopped in my tracks and turned upside down, not just as if I’ve lost everything, but as if life has stopped playing by the rules. I’m doing a job search, but it’s hard to get into it or really take anything that seriously, other than the kids. My goal is to get back my faith in life, because I thought I was doing everything right, but then everything went totally wrong.
If Job, the guy in the Bible story who God screwed royally, basically to make the devil look stupid, was actually a bad guy, he might have had the satisfaction of knowing that his bad luck was for a good reason (besides winning a bet with Satan).
Unfortunately for everyone, he was a good person, just as I assume you are, so all the bad things that happened to him were for no reason and left him feeling he was living in a world where rules don’t count. That’s why his decision to keep on being a good guy was so remarkable and Bible-worthy.
Until several years ago, your life worked by the rules and reaped justifiable rewards, but then life did one of its horrible little twists and you were fucked for absolutely no reason, and from several directions at once. We want a world where the bad guy always gets what he deserves in the end, which reassures us that we’ll get good results if we work hard, act nice, and play by the rules. You’re living proof that life is unfair, which is a hard burden to shoulder. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on October 3, 2013
Whenever the topic of healthy relationships comes up, you’ll inevitably hear about compromise, balance, putting your socks in the hamper and not somewhere on the ground near the hamper, etc. Unfortunately, emphasis is rarely put on the importance of maintaining your own autonomy and remembering not to put your partner’s feelings and judgments ahead of your own. Any strong bond can suck you in—love, sex, and/or fear can do it—and if you’re too far gone, you don’t see your own options, just the way your overly significant other would feel. If you feel trapped then, don’t believe it. You will always find you have more choices than you think if you can create a little breathing room, remember who you are, and think for (and thoughtfully clean up after) yourself.
–Dr. Lastname
My friend has been in a potentially harmful relationship for a long time. I won’t go into details, but the people around her and especially herself could get hurt because there is illegality involved. Somehow, my friend is completely oblivious to the dangers and sheer shady and depraved aspects of it. The two met and started a relationship over text, and that’s how they mainly communicate because he lives in another state. They meet every few months and shack up in a hotel for a weekend in secret. I’ve been conflicted between being her friend and trying to protect her. I feel like I can’t protect her, because she’ll do what she wants, but I tell her I worry about her and when I do, I feel like an asshole. She thinks that when I tell her I worry about her, I’m judging her, and when she thinks that, she lies to me. It’s confusing because I don’t know how to be the “everything’s fine, fuck the law” type because I know it’s wrong and not just because it’s against the law. I just don’t know what to think or do or feel about it at all.
Sometimes you can’t help worrying about someone else’s danger, but expressing your worry can often trigger more risk-taking, probably because you’re making someone else responsible for your feelings, just as you’re taking responsibility for theirs. In other words, when you feel worry, she gets it in her head she doesn’t have to.
So accept the fact that you’re worried for good reason, but shut up about it. Instead, express your concern in a way that’s positive, unemotional, and focused on your friend’s self-management. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on August 29, 2013
Whether you believe in a particular psychotherapy or find the very prospect of head-shrinkery scary, don’t let the emotions that draw you towards or away from the therapist’s couch drive your treatment decisions. Develop your own fact-based procedures for deciding whether you’re fucked-up enough to need therapy and, if so, whether there’s a treatment that isn’t too risky and has a good enough track record. Maybe we’d all like the experts to figure that out and make such decisions for us, but we’re better off picking the brains of experts and then making treatment decisions, pro or con, for ourselves.
–Dr. Lastname
Please note: We’re taking next week off for a long-deserved summer vacation, but look forward to hearing about your back-to-school/work misery when we return.
How long is too long to be in therapy? I have been in therapy for four years now, and it has helped enormously. I went into therapy initially because of a trauma situation, but I don’t want to stop, even though I’ve long worked through that trauma, because I still think I can benefit. Still, now that I reached the four-year mark, I’m wondering, how long is too long?
If you’ve read this blog, you’re probably aware of our belief that the most important goal of mental health treatment is seldom to relieve all your pain; that’s usually an impossible pursuit, or one that just shifts the pain from your head to your wallet and your friends, who are sick of hearing about what you learned in therapy.
The better goal of therapy is to use it to figure out how to prevent that pain from interfering with the way you think about, and lead, your life, and lucky for you (and us), your question reflects this healthy priority. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on May 13, 2013
While it’s said that you only hurt the ones you love, it would be more honest to say that you only hurt the ones who love you. What’s worse, that hurt usually comes from pushing them away when they’re trying too hard to help. Trying to redeem or heal someone, or yourself, through caring and communication usually does less rescuing and more repulsing. After all, if one or both people can’t consistently manage their own responsibilities, honest talk and helpfulness does little but make excuses and turn love into prolonged anguish. Develop a reasonable set of standards about what a person should do to take care of him/herself, before you offer or ask for help. Otherwise, you’ll earn all too well how true the “help until it hurts” saying is.
–Dr. Lastname
My friend and I have feelings for each other, which are no secret to either of us—we had kissed and had even gotten close to having sex but when it came down to being completely honest about our feelings we couldn’t do it. I knew this was unhealthy but I was scared because not only are we both guys but we both had a lot of issues when it came to love. He would say things like, “I don’t know what I want,” and “Don’t fall in love with me.” It was confusing because before that he would be asking me to “make love to him” and had even said, “I love you” twice. I know that part of it was fear of being with another guy. Then, two months ago, I got into a car accident because I was drunk. He was there but, luckily, no one was hurt. Now he says he’s forgiven me, but he has also picked up a girlfriend, which was a shock to me and it hurt. In the beginning we had great chemistry but then we lost that when we stopped being honest with each other. I believe it happened when feelings started getting intense. I want for us to stop hurting each other and start being honest. I’m not sure how to do this and it is breaking my heart. I wouldn’t mind being his friend if he would just stop playing games or whatever this is with me. Is he just confused or being cruel? I can’t make up my mind.
Hollywood wisdom is that women don’t like Sci-Fi and Fantasy, but given how far-fetched your average romantic comedy is, that’s simply untrue. A movie about two people with great chemistry overcoming impossible circumstances by having a heart-to-heart and ending up happily ever after is built on a reality so false, it makes The Hobbit look plausible.
While that good, honest talk solves all romantic problems in TV/movie fantasyland, frustration like what you’re experiencing in real life is more often due to the other things that you’ve mentioned troubling you and your friend: confusion, fear, and uncertainty about who each of you wants to be with and who you want to be. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on April 1, 2013
Since we now live in a mostly-online world where everything is a loss/”fail” or victory/”for the win,” it’s normal to regard death as the ultimate fail since we’d give almost anything to prevent it from happening to ourselves and those we love (although if it happens to our worst enemies, it’s a win situation, even if most of us wouldn’t even admit that in Youtube comments). In reality, we disrespect our humanity by considering ourselves defeatable by something we don’t control, and what we do with ourselves and our family and friends when someone is dying or otherwise afflicted is what makes us great/gives us p0wnage of mortality, at least for a little while.
–Dr. Lastname
After 15 years of homelessness, prison, jails, rehabs, psych meds, medication management, horrific poly substance abuse, and occasional hopeful stints of sobriety, our son overdosed two months ago. He was 30 years old.
All the years of fear, guilt and depravity notwithstanding, his father and I miss him terribly. I won’t go into the efforts (financial, emotional, time) to get/keep him sober that consumed our entire family for the last decade. Lets just say our son’s use of his drug of choice, heroin, has been the 24/7 of our lives. I could write a book about police cars in the driveway, family sessions I’ve sat through with green rehab “counselors” who appeared to be clinging tenuously to not using themselves, and the finer points of being frisked by zealous prison guards.
Some days, like today, all I can remember is what a horrible slog it’s been. Other days I remember my son’s big, kind heart when he was himself, his ability to read a room, and the way he only talked when he had something to say.
I’ve examined our family life over and over, and I had pretty much come to grips with the past, and the present. The future was plainly jails, institutions, or death. I knew all this, and had many sleepless nights to steel myself for the inevitable.
Of course when the inevitable arrives, it is a total sledgehammer to the heart and mind. The worst part is this: his father and I had kicked him out of our home (again) where he was living (again) because he was shooting Xanax. He actually got the Rx for Xanax from the same doctor that prescribed his Suboxone (why heroin addicts should not be prescribed Benzodiazopines is another post). Later that night he died of an overdose from a lethal mix of Xanax and heroin.
So, he is dead, after we pushed him out in an argument. No goodbyes, no “I love you,” just unkind and hurtful words.
In a way I feel this was our son’s final selfish act, leaving me a lifetime of guilt and replaying that night he left over and over in my mind. I feel I’ll go crazy if it doesn’t stop. I don’t want to live this way for the rest of my natural life.
[Please note: We usually edit submissions for length and clarity, but we felt this was so well-written that it should be left almost entirely intact. If the author ever follows through on her threat to write a book, we would read it.]
The usual way we judge ourselves as parents is by the way we help our kids survive and grow, even if we can’t make them happy. That standard is usually fair, unless your child suffers from a disease that nobody and nothing control, from doctors and medication, to the child or the parents who feel responsibility for his/her survival.
The toughest thing in the world then is to judge yourself properly when you still can’t stop your son from dying, unhappily, in the midst of drug abuse and conflict. It’s a mix of every kind of hell, because you feel you’ve failed, that he failed, and that the universe has failed everyone involved.
Unfortunately, we live in a world where nice kids get addicted to horrible drugs, nice parents can’t save them, and part of the illness of addiction is that the kids fuck up again and again, and you can’t keep them at home when they do. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on March 4, 2013
I don’t know who wrote the book of love, but it appears to lack a solid ending; it may lead you through the rules of finding and loving someone, but it’s useless when it comes to telling you how to break up a bad relationship, or even friendship, with someone you simply can’t stop thinking about. While it has been written that you can’t control love, there should at least be an appendix directing you to respect how much toughness love takes, and how much pain you’ll have to bear, in order to move on. Then you would know how to take what you’ve learned from the failed relationship to find someone and make something better, and return to chapter one.
–Dr. Lastname
I have recently let go of a friendship with a narcissist. She meets the standard criteria for being a narcissist and has a Bi-Polar 2 disorder confirmed by a therapist, but it seems I was the last to realize as I was so incredibly caught up in her cycle of “needing” me only to be treated appallingly in between. I am finally in a happy place in my life after a lot of work and therapy and haven’t been able to “help” her as much as I used to as I now have a fulfilling job and support network. She has lashed out at me and I had let go of the friendship, but now I am having types of flashbacks where I can finally see how badly I was treated over the years and I am so disappointed in myself that I put up with it. She has been trying to contact me but I have ignored her, as I read No Contact is best with a narcissist but part of me wants to tell her to get serious help but I know I won’t be heard. I am confused, hurt and feel like I have been living a friendship lie for over twenty years. Please help me to move on.
Though they say that madness is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results, people who compulsively give of themselves to help others, no matter how hopeless the cause or ungrateful the recipient, tend to dodge that age-old observation and be seen less as insane and more as saints.
While you now recognize your former friend’s talent for taking without giving, you need to acknowledge your own help-aholic tendencies and how they got you into this mess in the first place. Otherwise, you might end up in a similar friendship, or worse, driven to try to get this person “serious help” one last time, and either way, it’s nuts. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by fxckfeelings on February 25, 2013
While sappier-types, producers of Lifetime movies, and Twi-hards would disagree, love and sex are, at their core, evolutionary tools that trick us into commitment; as the relationship progresses and the novelty fades, we’re left with something much less fun and sexy, but a lot more secure and important. If you refuse to accept that, however, continually searching for relationships based only on emotion or getting restless at the commitment stage, you’ll end up frustrated, lonely, and watching way more Lifetime movies than anyone should. If evolution gave us romance and love to bring people together, it’s the way relationships evolve beyond feeling that make them lasting and worthwhile.
–Dr. Lastname
I dated a guy for ten years, since junior year of high school. During the time we were dating I never felt like I needed a best friend– I had friends, but not a clique or group to call my own. I never could experiment with anything because he would get mad, so maybe I would have been more wild or fun if I wasn’t with him. He is very social, outgoing, and almost pompous, but never to his friends, just to people who were almost a little uncool. I think he’s a little uncool, because I believe he has a drinking problem, money problem, and low expectations in life, which as his girlfriend bothered me. Now we broke up because I cheated on him, but it’s been six months, and I want him back. He’s having fun hooking up with girls, and I get jealous when he goes somewhere without me. It hurts. I have friends who tell me to forget about him and move on, but I can’t. We hook up and it’s the best feeling when I’m next to him, but when I see him with another girl it feels like when we first broke up all over again. I know that he drinks too much and doesn’t have any ambition, and that it’s because of him that I never got to figure out who I really am or make any close friends, and because of that I don’t know how to cope with being by myself. Lately I’ve felt what I think are panic attacks. I don’t know how to deal without him, but I just want to get over him and be happy.
Like a drug, dating can be exciting and make painful feelings disappear, like loneliness and boredom. It can also make you into a huge Asshole.
Just as being an Asshole isn’t a pre-requisite for being an addict but addiction comes with automatic Asshole-status, dating for the emotional high can make you into an Asshole, even if you weren’t one to begin with.
If you’re hooked on dating the same Asshole over and over again, you’re in even more trouble, since Asshole-ism can be a venereal disease that can’t be stopped by hormones, latex, or the voice in your head telling you to leave this drunk loser for good. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
