Posted by fxckfeelings on March 11, 2010
Virtually all mammals resent being told what to do (don’t think your cat doesn’t understand you, he just doesn’t care what you think). Unfortunately, most of us with opposable thumbs have to earn a living and/or share a roof, which means learning to live with authority. You might not like your given overlord’s opinion, but, while both parents and bosses are often full of shit, your role remains the same; be respectful, mind your boundaries, and take their words just seriously enough so you don’t get fired. And, like any good, domesticated mammal, don’t pee on the floor.
–Dr. Lastname
My father’s always been a heavy drinker (if he is an alcoholic, he’s “high functioning”), but I love him, and I’ve always tried to make him proud. When he’s really sloshed, however, he tends to go on a lot about how much he loves my older brother, who’s a lawyer, and how impressed he is with him, and how great that brother is, and on and on until everyone else around him feels awkward (and any siblings that are around are pissed). It really gets under my skin, particularly when we’ve been matching one another drink for drink, but then I just feel guilty for being angry at my father when, after all, I’m a grown up who should be too old for this kind of thing, and, really, he’s a nice guy. My goal is to get myself to be less sensitive to the fact that I’m not Dad’s favorite.
There’s good news and bad news here; you’re right not to let fly with your resentment, but you’re wrong to expect your hurt feelings to go away.
If you’re a sensitive person, then you can’t stop the hurt, but you can stop it from hurting yourself or others. The trick is to shut your mouth, because, that way, you don’t let anger out, or alcohol in.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 25, 2010
One of the worst parts of looking for work, either when your self-employed or unemployed, is putting yourself out there and hustling for work; ex-drug dealers have written scores of hip-hop records about the subject, and the product they were pushing sells itself. It’s hard to network with employers or push clients to pay up, but you don’t have to feel good about it in order to do it. Just ask Jay-Z.
-Dr. Lastname
My partner and I are interior decorators (the ultimate gay cliché, I know), and while we love what we do, we also love getting paid. That’s why it’s rough when friends and family ask us to come take a look at a room or their whole house and give them advice, because what they’re really asking for us for is free services, and as much as we love those we love…well, we also love getting paid and being able to eat. The two of us have talked about how it makes us feel like our loved ones don’t appreciate what we do, or think so little of it that they figure they should get it for nada, but at the same time neither one of us has the heart to turn anyone down and we’re afraid that if we charge them for what we do, they’ll feel hurt and insulted. My shrink says I don’t value my work highly enough because I have a problem with self-esteem. My goal—our goal—is to figure out a way to get enough self-esteem to persuade our friends, and ourselves, that they should pay us for our work.
If it were necessary to improve your self-esteem before being able to ask friends to pay for your services, you’d be in trouble; most self-doubting, sensitive, I’m-afraid-to-impose-on-friends wusses don’t change their personalities, even with deep, deep therapy and a dollop of Dr. Phil.
Unfortunately, as you know, your reluctance to mention fees to friends can spiral into paralysis and frustration. If you respond to your friend’s request for professional help by sliding into an informal, glad-to-help, enjoying-your-company mode, your friend will shoot the breeze for the sheer pleasure of friendship.
Before you know it, you’ve lost a huge number of billable hours and can only blame yourself, because your friend didn’t know that you have no time for this shit (or that your quality time in the friend world was “shit” to you professionally).
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 22, 2010
Very few people leave their jobs everyday feeling great—it is called “work” for a reason, after all—but it’s extra difficult to accept when a boss or business partner leaves you feeling betrayed, used and screwed (unless you’re in the actual sex trade, where upon, it’s just another day at the office). Ultimately, even for sex workers, the job isn’t personal, and it’s not worth taking it that way.
–Dr. Lastname
For a long time, I truly believed that my boss was my mentor, if not a father figure; he seemed to look out for me, take a special interest in my career, and generally groom me for promotion within his company. After I did well with responsibility, he’d come through with reasonable raises and he liked to tell people that he believes in promoting women. Recently, though, I’ve noticed that he does little more than flatter me now that he has me doing all the dirty jobs and he keeps all the interesting stuff for himself and two of his favorite “old boys.” He gets irritated whenever I suggest I could do more and likes to bask in the gratitude of his new favorite girl, a secretary with big tits and not much else. I’ve worked hard here over the years, and I don’t really want to find a new job, but I feel like I’ve been used and misled, and generally wasted my time under false pretenses. My goal is to get the recognition I deserve, even if it’s not from the mentor I thought I had.
Wanting recognition at work is a reasonable wish and, if it was just a problem of your learning how to speak up, dress up, and get rid of your braces, then more power to you.
Many people are familiar with the usual fairy stories, and have pushed themselves to be more assertive and reach their dreams. Not only hasn’t it worked, but it brought down crap on their heads to insure an unhappily ever after-style result.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 8, 2010
It’s tough not to feel like chopped liver when your partner is more afraid of someone else’s reaction than yours. Odds are, if that’s what you feel, it often doesn’t reflect on how much they love you, but how much they fear someone else, and pushing them too hard will make the fear worse. Instead of countering their fear with your own need, try to show them that they don’t need to be afraid if they’ve done what’s right.
–Dr. Lastname
My girlfriend and I work together, so, in the interest of not causing too much of a stir, we’re keeping our relationship quiet. I’m OK with that, at least in terms of our jobs, but she also hasn’t told her ex-husband about me yet, after a year of our being together, and keeping our relationship a secret for his sake is not something I’m OK with. She’s not afraid of hurting him—he’s remarried—but of unleashing his wrath, because he’s a bully who revels in punishing her whenever she makes any progress towards moving on in her life. They have a son together, and she’s afraid that, if her ex finds out about us, he’ll go on a rampage to get full custody. He’s very emotional and can easily afford a good lawyer and so far he’s always been able to get the court’s sympathy. It’s not like I want to parade our relationship around in everyone’s faces, but there’s only so much secrecy that I can stand and I feel it puts a limit on our future and makes it impossible for her to make decisions or be held accountable for them. My goal is to get my girlfriend to stand up to her ex so I can know where I stand and we can build a life together.
One of the worst and often unexpected obstacles that get in the way of this kind of second partnership is the other person’s boundaries, or lack of them, with her/his first family. Negotiating those boundaries can make check-points in warzones seem like a breeze.
You start out respecting her unselfishness and love for her son, and feel a need to protect her from bullying and unfair treatment, so you put up with the secrets. Eventually, however, you discover that, if she can’t stand up to her former husband’s bullying, you’re always playing second fiddle to her fear of rocking the SS Ex-Monster.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on February 1, 2010
Nobody likes to see their partner suffer (well, some people do, but that’s their own perversion), especially when that suffering isn’t just out of your control, but their control, as well. We all want the people we care the most about to be happy, but, as we’ve said many times, ensuring happiness of any kind is impossible, no matter where you live, how likeable you are, or where you went to college. In the almost-words of another (recently departed) Harvard alum, “love means never having to say I’m sorry (that you feel like shit, leave it to me to fix it).”
–Dr. Lastname
About 10 years into our marriage, my husband and I got inspired by a trip down the Snake River in Idaho and decided we should move there as soon as we could afford it. Something about the wilderness eased our hearts and made us feel safer and more grounded than we ever did in the city. Well, now it’s 15 years later, and we made the move to a beautiful house with a breath-taking view and no visible neighbors, and I found a way to telecommute to a job, but my husband still has to fly back and forth every couple weeks and spend at least half his time in our old city. The problem is that I can tell my husband’s not doing so well; he complains about feeling lonely when he’s on his own, and he’s restless when he’s with us, and then he blames me and claims the marriage lacks “spark,” and I can see the wheels going in his head, wondering whether he’s ever going to be happy. My goal is to get my husband to enjoy our new life as much as the rest of the family does.
The danger of any moment of happiness or inspiration is feeling responsible for making it happen again.
You got inspired by going to Idaho, so you think it’s yours to recapture whenever you want, forgetting about all the usual shit that you don’t control. So you plan for years and finally make the big move, and your husband’s “inspired” to wonder what happened to the big pay-off.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 28, 2010
For some people, every conversation is an argument to be won or lost. Some of those people are smart enough to go to law school and make money off their bad habits, but the rest have to learn to contain their competitive conversational spirit and look at the bigger picture. When it comes to wars of words, losing the battle helps you do more than win, it calls a truce.
–Dr. Lastname
My husband gets on me a lot about being irritable and negative sometimes (like when I’m tired, which is often, because I work a very stressful job in sales). I’m not saying he’s 100% wrong, but he also knows that, as someone who spends all day behind a desk putting deals together, my instinct is to get agreement at the end of every conversation and find an argument to smooth away every objection or accusation. I’m a closer, so my job is to never let go until I wear ‘em down and get the sale, but he treats every argument I put forward as if I’m being obnoxious and not listening. My goal is to persuade him that I’m not all that irritable and understand that, when I am, I’ve got good reason.
The hard sell may work at work, but if it works at home, it’s because you married a wimp, so be glad you didn’t.
It’s sad that letting out your irritability at home gets you in trouble, especially since you might think that home is the one place you can let fly. What’s true for flatulence, alas, isn’t true for speech.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 18, 2010
People get demoralized when they feel they’re not getting what they deserve, be it pain relief or respect. It’s natural to go on strike and either A, start raging against the machine of injustice, or B, go the other way and surrender to a life on the couch in sweatpants and a snuggie. Of course, the resulting fall-out will feel like a side-effect of the original injustice, not a direct result of your tantrum, but you’ll be too high on rage/comforted by your snuggie to understand. Understand this now, before you protest; better to suffer the original injustice in peace than the further demoralization of unemployment, stiff drinks and a blanket with sleeves.
–Dr. Lastname
I have a dedicated husband, three teenagers, a nice house, a well-behaved dog—it’s not a bad life—but I’ve had a nagging sadness my entire life, and I still do, despite all the good things I’ve got. I deal with it, admittedly, by drinking a bit. I wouldn’t say I’m a drunk, and my drinking doesn’t interfere with my parenting or my marriage anymore than my mood does, but I know that what I’m doing is self-medicating. My husband wants me to see a shrink because he thinks I should take real medication for depression, but if my drinking doesn’t mess up my life, and if, despite all I have, I can’t be happy, anyway, then I don’t understand what makes one medication better than the other. My goal isn’t to be happy, just to withstand my misery, my way, right or wrong.
I understand that chronic depression, which is what we call “nagging sadness” in the biz, isn’t fun. It can make you grumpy, negative, unmotivated, scattered, and lousy at whatever you’re trying to accomplish.
All that’s excluding the pain, so no wonder it can demoralize you into seeing a negative future for yourself. It’s enough to make you want to turn “what the fuck” into words to live by.
If there was some way to relieve your pain that was risk-free and didn’t affect your other life priorities, that would be wonderful (for you—the aforementioned biz would probably dry up).
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 14, 2010
Changing your habits is a lot like changing your physique; it takes a lot of hard work and effort, and after a while, most of us revert to our old selves, which means our habits/fat pants reenter our lives. Still, wanting to change or help someone change is not an entirely dismissable goal, it just requires a lot of will power, patience, and the right degree of responsibility for what you can and cannot control. In either situation, try to eat less fast food.
–Dr. Lastname
I love my girlfriend, but I noticed that she drank like a fish at parties and carried lots of credit card debt, so when we began to think seriously about getting married, I told her I needed her to cut way back on her drinking, stick to a budget, and pay down her debt. She was hurt, but since then she’s been doing what I asked, and we’ve been getting along well. What I’ve noticed since then, though, is that she’s lost some of her spark and generally seems less happy. I wanted to help her, not hurt her, but at the same time, I don’t know how we can finally get married if she still wants to act like an irresponsible kid. My goal is to help my girlfriend (or really both of us) without making her miserable.
It’s natural to feel responsible when your words do, indeed, wipe the smile off her face—instead of a diamond, you gave her an earful—but it’s a dangerous way to think because your words are also her best warning against greater pain to come.
So you’re right, there’s no way your marriage will work if she can’t control her drinking and spending, so your real goal isn’t to avoid hurting her feelings. Instead, it’s to protect both of you from creating a family just to watch it fall apart.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on January 11, 2010
We’ve often made the point that shrinks are doctors, not magicians, but we got a couple of cases this week take that point even further; not only aren’t shrinks magicians, they’re also people (and it turns out that surgeons are doctors and people, but really don’t want to be confused with shrinks). Not surprisingly, even doctors need a doctor once in a while, even if it’s an e-MD…with no magical powers.
–Dr. Lastname
I’m a therapist who takes great pride in being available and supportive to my patients, but I’ve got one who’s driving me crazy. At first, he thought I was great at helping him get more confident and functional, but lately he’s been slipping and drinking too much and fighting with his wife, and, instead of seeing me as a supporter who wants to help him control behavior that’s hurting him, he blames me for giving bad advice and being critical. I asked if he’d like to see a different therapist but he said he wants me to apologize and listen to him more carefully so I can make up for the pain I’ve caused. I’ve listened, and all he does is give me an endless earful about how badly I and other people have treated him and how I’ve made him feel worse, not better. I want to refer him elsewhere, but I can’t, because I wouldn’t wish this guy on my worst enemy but I can’t abandon him, and I don’t want to get sued or burn any bridges in what’s a pretty small professional community in this area. My goal is to get rid of this guy without feeling like I’ve abandoned him or triggering a malpractice suit.
If your goal as a therapist is to make people feel better, then it’s no wonder you’re fucked; as such, you’ll have no defense against the kind of asshole who feels you (or really, anyone but them) is responsible for their happiness and pain (mostly pain) and therefore deserves punishment when things go bad.
Under your rational exterior, you seem to agree that you’re responsible, Dr. Feelgood, so he’s got you, and he knows you speak his language. Asshole 1, Therapist 0.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on December 17, 2009
We keep saying that Christmas is hard on everyone, but that’s because religion is hard on everyone, no matter who or what you believe in, and religion is around all year long. Just because religion is hard, however, doesn’t mean it’s bad. It’s good, actually, because it expresses essential differences and gets people upset, confused, and heading towards my office.
–Dr. Lastname
I recently had to relocate my family for work, so we were forced to move from a fairly large east coast city to a small town nowhere near water (unless you count the great lakes). My wife and I are Jewish, and we’re raising our kids in the religion, but that was much easier where we used to live than where we are now, where our 12-year-old son, who was always a bit of an outsider, is now facing a lot of teasing at school for all the ways he’s different, which includes his religion. It’s been especially bad for him lately, given that the town is very Christian, with prayers before high school football games and lots of school-centered Christmas activities, and he’s even further on the outside of what the other kids are doing. As you may or may not know, Channukah isn’t Christmas—it’s a minor holiday—and we don’t try to pretend otherwise by giving smaller gifts and not playing it up so much. My son is younger than his age, though, and he likes to tell everyone he’s not interested in Christmas and then they pick on him and he accuses them of anti-Semitism and it’s a mess. My goal is that he should be proud of being a Jew while getting along better with people at school.
It’s painful to watch your kid get picked on and called a dork, particularly when he is a dork and does dorky things that you know are going to make his troubles worse.
If you tell him to shut up and keep his opinions to himself, you may be destroying the paltry remains of his self-esteem. If you try to get his tormentors to stop, you may stir up additional trouble.
You could argue that it’s your job, and society’s, to give him a positive school experience that supports differences in religion and personal style. I would argue that’s bullshit. It’s not in your power and idealistic expectations will often make things worse.
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