{"id":749,"date":"2010-10-04T00:01:01","date_gmt":"2010-10-04T04:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fxckfeelings.com\/?p=749"},"modified":"2010-10-03T21:52:26","modified_gmt":"2010-10-04T01:52:26","slug":"familial-fire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/2010\/10\/04\/familial-fire\/","title":{"rendered":"Familial Fire"},"content":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re hardest on family because, unlike those we\u2019re not bound to by blood, family is stuck with us forever. Then again, being stuck together often forces the released negativity to bounce back and forth, like light in a laser, until it gets strong enough to zap your perspective and make you feel like a loser. Getting out of that mindset requires looking outside of the family circle and unsticking yourself from your nearest, dearest and harshest.
\n–Dr. Lastname<\/a><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t consider myself a lazy person\u2014I take care of the kids and sell some of my paintings\u2014but my husband isn\u2019t crazy about selling cars and would really like to stay home and take care of the kids himself, so he\u2019s always making remarks about having to carry the harder load and asking me if I could find a way to make more money. I\u2019ve tried to find better-paying work, but I\u2019m dyslexic, and what I\u2019m doing is probably about as good as it gets, given my skills and the flexibility I need for the kids. Anyway, he\u2019s been nastier lately because car sales are down and it\u2019s getting to me. My goal is to get him to stop putting me down.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You can\u2019t stop someone from putting you down\u2014haters gotta hate, as the kids say, even if the hater is your husband, and most husbands are haters, at one time or another. <\/p>\n

On the other hand, just because someone you love is trying to put you down doesn\u2019t mean you have to take their criticism to heart and sink, doomed unless you can get them to take it back and promise never to do it again.<\/p>\n

There are usually two obstacles to staying buoyant. The first is the emotional impact of being put down, which causes you to act like a slacker or a jerk, which loses you your self-respect and makes it impossible to stand up for yourself to yourself. When you don\u2019t even have your own back, you\u2019re in trouble.<\/p>\n

The other problem is that, as with most people, the pain of a partnership besieged by too little money and too much childcare has its own illogical power to make you feel like a failure, even when you\u2019ve done nothing wrong and everything right. To further paraphrase the kids (in a dated way)\u2014no money, most problems.<\/p>\n

You assume that, if you were successful, you\u2019d be happy and your spouse would be happy with you, which is bullshit, of course, but that\u2019s what happens when you use happiness as your rating system.<\/p>\n

One good thing you\u2019re telling me is that you haven\u2019t let feelings of failure or anger slow you down\u2014you take care of the kids and do your work, regardless\u2014so now all you need to do is get used to the idea that successful parents often feel unhappy and get no respect from their spouses. See: Homer, Marge, Hillary, etc.<\/p>\n

Forget about happiness and your husband, and judge yourself the same way you would judge a friend, by whether you\u2019re doing a good enough job with what you\u2019ve got. Don\u2019t hold yourself responsible for doing things that your brain isn\u2019t equipped to do. <\/p>\n

Remember the dyslexia\u2014you can\u2019t cure it and there are certain jobs it won\u2019t let you do. Don\u2019t pay too much attention to the outcome, which you don\u2019t control, but to the process, which you do.<\/p>\n

Finally, give yourself a bonus. Assuming you\u2019re doing a reasonable job as a partner, you should also pat yourself on the back for carrying another burden: putting up with your husband\u2019s complaints. You deserve, as the kids say, mad props for staying afloat. <\/p>\n

STATEMENT<\/strong>:
\n\u201cI know you feel you bear an unfair load in this family, particularly when we\u2019re short of cash, but I\u2019m proud of what I do, and I think you\u2019re doing a good job, and the only thing that\u2019s isn\u2019t so hot is your focusing on what I can do better when I\u2019ve already told you I\u2019ve considered your advice and disagree with it and don\u2019t expect us to agree. So I think I\u2019m doing both of us a favor by insisting that we respect ourselves for the work we\u2019re doing and let the other matter drop.\u201d<\/p>\n

I know I always feel super-responsible for my brothers and sisters, maybe because our parents died when we were young, but we\u2019re all pretty close and, and, at the same time, independent, except for one sister with Downs Syndrome who lives in a group home. I\u2019ve never minded bringing her to stay with me for the weekends, but lately she\u2019s becoming demented and it\u2019s getting me down, because she\u2019s irritable and sleepy and it\u2019s hard to get her to participate in things and I hate feeling angry at her. My goal is to find the patience to take good care of her.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The more you love someone who is now dementing, (which happens early and rapidly with people with Downs Syndrome), the more impossible it is to feel kind, gentle, supportive, and, in the end, like you\u2019ve ever done a good enough job. <\/p>\n

For one thing, the more demented they get, the more they complain, show their unhappiness, and expect you do take care of them, even if, when they were strong and in possession of their strength, they encouraged you to live your own life. <\/p>\n

To whatever degree your nurturing instincts drive you nuts until you can make the crying baby stop crying, you\u2019ll feel terrible, and that\u2019s on top of the terrible you feel for watching a loved one decline. It\u2019s an emotional car crash.<\/p>\n

For another thing, few people are comfortable with how irritated they get or how well they control their irritation; you can understand how elder abuse can take place. Most of us don\u2019t abuse our elderly relatives, or come close, but we can\u2019t keep our irritation totally hidden and the guilt is hard to bear.<\/p>\n

The biggest danger is that, between your guilt and inability to ever feel you\u2019ve given enough, you keep giving, more and more, until you\u2019re drained dry and not taking care of yourself and your other family members are criticizing you for being a grump whenever you see them, if you ever do. That\u2019s the point when people are often referred for treatment.<\/p>\n

The answer, as usual, is to ignore your feelings and rate yourself reasonably. In this case, reasonably means helping your sister to the degree that helping her really has a positive impact, while keeping in mind your other obligations, both to yourself and others. <\/p>\n

Forget about whether you can make your sister happy or whether you need to prove your love by knocking yourself out. Given her circumstances and your own, the best outcome isn\u2019t good. If you can achieve mediocre results, however, while doing things the way they ought to be done, you\u2019re in the running for brother of the year. <\/p>\n

STATEMENT<\/strong>:
\nIt\u2019s hard to feel like I\u2019ve honored my love for my sister, and taken good care of her, when she\u2019s never happy and so often irritating; but I see to her safety and I make her happy when I can and, to do so when the process is painful and thankless is an achievement to be proud of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We\u2019re hardest on family because, unlike those we\u2019re not bound to by blood, family is stuck with us forever. Then again, being stuck together often forces the released negativity to bounce back and forth, like light in a laser, until it gets strong enough to zap your perspective and make you feel like a loser. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[85,67,41,58,29,89,90,54,64,91,92,93,33,46,47,25,52],"tags":[13,127,100,30,97,3,111,11,6,104,105,31,95,109],"class_list":["post-749","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-acceptance","category-aging","category-anxiety","category-boundries","category-fairness","category-ffamily","category-fear","category-finances","category-grief","category-guilt","category-health","category-improving-others","category-just-fcked","category-marriage","category-mortality","category-relationships","category-work","tag-acceptance","tag-aging","tag-anxiety","tag-divorce","tag-fairness","tag-ffamily","tag-finances","tag-guilt","tag-improving-others","tag-just-fcked","tag-marriage","tag-misery","tag-relationships","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=749"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":751,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/749\/revisions\/751"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=749"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=749"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fxckfeelings.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=749"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}