I was sexually abused quite a bit by my dad (and am de-repressing memories right now, fun-fun). I am realizing that I am very fearful of the people I love, and avoid them. Honestly, if I didn’t need to bond to keep from going insane, I would never have a close relationship, because anyone I care about enough can destroy me. But I’m in a lot of pain from loneliness as it is.

Many people believe there are tons of benefits to confronting your past, namely that it will teach you something that will bring catharsis to your present. The common notion being that if you can figure out what went wrong then you can avoid being victimized again.

The problem here is that reviving memories of sexual abuse by your dad will also bring back the old feelings of helplessness and having no choice, which, of course, is the opposite of your situation as an adult, so the lessons are the opposite of useful to your life now.

You’re not examining the past to drown yourself in feelings of helplessness, but to assure yourself that you can protect yourself from abuse.

Also, as an adult, your love for your dad may leave you with a dangerous sense of comfort and familiarity with low-boundary, exploitative sleazebags. In other words, your dad may have given you a tendency to be drawn to people who aren’t trustworthy, and who are worth being fearful of. I’m sure there are people in your life who aren’t scumbags, but your history makes you especially vulnerable to them.

It’s hardly surprising then that your world, as you see it as an adult, will seem full of both loneliness and dangerous people who can’t be trusted. Don’t criticize yourself then for being fearful of relationships or lonely; fear is a good protector, until you get strong enough to protect yourself.

So, as you examine your past, a therapist’s support for your pain and trauma may not be enough to counterbalance an ingrained conviction of helplessness. You may need an additional shield against that conviction before awakening the sleeping dragon of your memories.

One way to get stronger is to approach your past with less feeling and more thought. Develop specific standards for screening potential friends and lovers and use them to override any instincts to get together with, or over-involved with, the wrong people. In other words, if you want to remember your father’s worst traits, look for those traits in people before you decide whether or not they’re worthy of your friendship. Once you convince yourself that you’re a reasonably good self-protector, you can approach your memories with less fear of being swept away.

Find a therapist who’s a good relationship coach, or a therapy group whose members have some wisdom with difficult or exploitative relationships. Don’t force yourself to re-experience memories of abuse until you know how you’d manage it as an adult.

Don’t assume, because you’re fearful of the ones you love, that you’re bad at relationships or that they’ll turn out badly. You’re right, relationships are potentially dangerous, but your awareness of that fact and willingness to get some coaching and training can protect you and eventually help you find friends and lovers who deserve your trust.

Learning from/dealing with the past can be helpful, but beware of the risks, particularly if you (and a therapist) focus exclusively on painful emotions for which you still haven’t developed defenses.

If you want to look back, don’t lose sight of your present ability to spot and avoid guys like dear old dad; then you can learn from and use your memories, instead of being haunted by them.

STATEMENT:
“Because of the past, I may never feel secure about relationships. Once I learn how to detect abuse and avoid abusers, however, I can find friends I can trust, even if my fears remain.”

My friends can’t stand my girlfriend because they say she steals from me to feed her habit, but we’ve been together for 3 years and I can’t help feeling she’s the best friend I have. It’s true, she has a drug habit that she can’t control, and money sometimes disappears from my wallet, but it’s an illness and it’s no good to blame her for it. It doesn’t change the fact that we love one another. Aside from her habit, I know I can trust her. I truly believe our love is a positive factor in helping keep her habit from getting worse. My goal is to help her, of course, while getting my friends to see that she’s a real person, not a drug addict.

Relationships can always be dangerous if you focus too much on the other person’s feelings, or your own, without stopping to think about your other priorities in life. She might make you feel like a hero, feel like you’re a healing saint, feel guilty if you can’t do what she asks, etc. If you focus on that instead of whether or not this relationship is ruining your life, you’re doing it wrong. The more sweet, sensitive and generous your temperament, the worse your peril.

The opposite of caring too much for someone isn’t, of course, to be selfish; it’s to be responsible for your other goals, the ones that arise from your values, interests, and other obligations, including your job to take good care of yourself. You need money for your own education or rainy day fund or, simply, survival during hard times. You deserve to be loved for more than your ability to give.

Go back to basics and think about your own standards for a good relationship, as if you were advising a friend. Yes, you’d say, you need love and good chemistry, but you also need someone who can cover your back, take care of things when you’re disabled, help you on your way, and work well with you in a crisis. You’d have to agree that, without those standards, you’ll team up with someone who can suck you dry and undermine your stability in a very unstable world.

Love is a drug and it can addict and ruin your life and other relationships in a way that puts meth to shame. That’s why, rather than getting into a discussion of how wonderful it feels, you’d urge your friend to think about what he wants a relationship for and how it will help him do what matters.

Forget about what your friends think and put aside your desire to help your girlfriend; instead, focus on what you want to make of your own life and trying to be a good person in a crazy world. Remember who you are and then see where this relationship fits. You’re not a saint, you’re a boyfriend, and if you want to do what’s best for both of you, you won’t even be that much longer.

STATEMENT:
“I love my girlfriend and want to save her from drug addiction and I don’t mind her faults, but what comes first are my own standards for being a strong and self-reliant person that are not dependent on any one person’s love or approval.”

Please Note: In responding to suicidal goals, as in the case below, we do not presume to offer emotional support. If you’re at risk of hurting yourself, you should, of course, go to an emergency room, discuss your state of mind with a professional, and decide how much support you need in order to remain safe. In most of the cases we encounter, however, our correspondents are not simply suicidal; they are familiar with treatment and have come to believe that it won’t help. Often, we must agree that their feelings are unlikely to change in the near future. What we try to demonstrate, however, is that negative feelings create falsely negative and hopeless beliefs and that there are ways to recover your strength and perspective, even when the pain won’t let up.

I’m considering suicide. My life is a joke. I am in my late 30s and female and I have never had a relationship with a man. Several men have used me for sex and at least 2 of them begged me not to tell any of their friends they’d had sex with me. I’ve never been loved, been held, been listened to, been cherished. I’ve just been used like a toilet. On the outside I’m pretty. I can hold a conversation and I have a reasonable number of friends. But I hate myself and I don’t feel good enough. I was abandoned by both parents and I was raped for the first time when I was about 2-years-old. It’s like men I meet can smell the self-hate on me and they treat me accordingly. I do not have even one person in my life who cares about me or who I could trust. My friends are there to go for drinks or dinner with me if they can find nothing better to do but they are not there to be supportive ever, in any way. What is the point of me continuing to live?

It’s horrible to feel that you don’t belong to the human race, except for your ability to satisfy the needs and cravings of jerks.

Remember, however, that those feelings almost always beget more falsely negative beliefs, particularly about relationships. Whether or not you’ve done anything wrong, you feel infinitely rejectable, comfortable in the company of jerks, and anxious around people you respect, since you know they will reject you for your anxiety and fundamental worthlessness.

You distrust other people, but it’s your feelings and instincts that are far more suspect. In turn, you can’t trust your feelings to guide you in relationships (even more so than the rest of us).

If you do, you will seek out jerks and excoriate yourself after real or imagined rejection, and of course, life will appear meaningless and full of relationships that always end badly. Being needy strips away the friendship filters that would otherwise keep jerks away and it makes non-jerks look like jerks or, even worse, like people whose rejection would be devastating.

For instance, after starting to trust a potential friend, you might be so hurt after noticing that she was slow to answer your calls, even if that dearth of calls was due to a busy work week or broken phone, that you would feel you could never trust her again and would feel like hurting yourself. It’s hard to make real friends when your own sensitivity is such an enemy.

Don’t give up, because there are other ways to build a more rational, positive set of beliefs that can protect you from dark feelings, even if they can’t ease the pain. They don’t require you to risk a relationship; all you need do is assess your own response to the hardships of your life, using reasonable criteria for judging your effort and the difficulty of your accomplishment.

If, while bearing the scars of neglect and abuse, you’ve picked up skills, earned a living, and treated people decently, you’ve accomplished something you have good reason to admire. Forget whether anyone else knows, understands, or respects what you’ve done. Then forget the fact that you continue to hurt like hell, (when you’re not feeling numb). You know what you know, and it’s your opinion that matters most.

If only therapy could help you make better choices and avoid negative distortions, or at least give you a sense of being respected and valued; but it often doesn’t work that way. Instead, relationships with therapists often fall victim to the same false beliefs that ruin potential friendships.

Because of your age, I’m assuming you’ve tried therapy and it hasn’t worked. You aren’t alone in having that experience, but it is possible to see beyond it. Don’t be surprised if a relationship- or emotion-focused therapy or support group hasn’t helped. Don’t give up hope, because there are other approaches that can help you grow stronger.

DBT (dialectic behavioral therapy) is a kind of cognitive-behavior therapy that can help you maintain your perspective and fight negative thoughts and actions. It’s taught as a course, and discourages participants from sharing strong feelings or engaging in intense relationships. As such, it doesn’t offer relief from loneliness, but it does provide ideas and mental exercises to root your self-worth in your own values and actions and thus protect your beliefs from distortions caused by fear, sensitivity, and loneliness.

When emptiness consumes you, it’s almost impossible not to feel like a disposable loser. If, however, you can make an honest assessment of your accomplishments, and acknowledge that there has also been triumph and survival despite tragedy, you will get stronger and find reasons to live and respect yourself.

If you review the things that you’ve done without the approval or involvement of others, jerks and not, you’ll see that you’re not just a member of the human race, but an exceptional one.

STATEMENT:
“I’ve never found a friend and often feel that life has no meaning; but abuse left me determined to be independent, treat people with respect, and be a good person, and I value what I’ve accomplished, regardless of self-hate or loneliness. I will build self-respect on my own actions, and hope that someday I will have the strength and luck to find a friend.”

My mother only has one sibling, but I’ve never met my uncle because he’s had severe agoraphobia for the past 30 years. My mother says that it started right before he graduated high school (he stopped talking to his friends, stayed in his room more, washed his hands compulsively, etc.), and it’s been going on since then. The only person he regularly communicates with is my grandmother, who also supports him, and while he sometimes talks to my mother, he doesn’t let her see him, and, like I said, I’ve never met him because if I’m in the house he won’t talk to anyone or leave his room (this is how he treats anyone who isn’t my mother or grandmother). My mother says that my uncle’s too macho to admit he has a problem, and “too Italian” to ever leave his mother’s house. I guess my problem is that my grandmother isn’t in the best health, and I know that nobody else in the family has the resources to take care of my uncle when she’s gone. Plus, I mean, he’s sick, so my goal is to get my uncle some help.

If almost every chronic illness is a test of character, agoraphobia is one of the most challenging. The fear goes far beyond anything you’ve experienced; think of it as a migraine headache where, instead of pain, you’re flooded with fear and the only relief is to hide out.

Yes, there are treatments that can dull the fear and help people recover their lives, but they take effort, they’re not a cure, and, somewhere along the line, they require people to leave their caves and endure some additional anxiety. It’s no wonder many people with severe agoraphobia will accept tranquilizers or use alcohol, but will not stick with any other kind of treatment, particularly if they have to leave home to get it.

So don’t blame your grandma or your uncle or put responsibility on anyone, including yourself, to get help. That bird has flown, leaving much pain and helplessness behind. Respect your grandma for carrying an extra load and your mother for bearing the sorrow of losing her brother.

Now that you’ve given up on helping your uncle directly, however, consider an alternative. Ask yourself whether he would accept behavioral treatment if he had no place to stay. Consult with experts and find out what would be available to him if he were flushed out of his hideout.

Obviously, eviction would make him more anxious in the short run, and might make your grandmother and mother guilty and anxious as well. If you believe there’s a positive alternative, however, encourage them to consider offering it to him. Urge them to trust their idea of what would benefit him in the long run and to ignore their gut response to seeing him in pain.

If they’re ready to push him out, good for him. If not, your mother will encounter this option further down the line, after your grandmother dies and the family can no longer afford to keep her house/his prison.

You’re right to fear for your uncle’s health and your family’s future, but as long as fear imprisons your uncle, you are all, to some degree, stuck.

STATEMENT:
“I’m sorry my uncle has a painful mental illness and I don’t want to add to his pain, but his current dependence on the family can’t last forever and he might do more for himself if he had less support and more encouragement to man up and get treatment. There are 2 generations ahead of me with responsibility for his care; but if, after learning more, I think they’re overprotecting him, I’ll let them know I respect them for caring for him, I’m concerned about what will become of him when grandma is dead, and I have a plan that might allow him to get stronger, regardless of his fears or urges to disappear.”

I made the executive decision today to not participate in our airport’s body scan or pat down procedure, and now my whole family is f*cked. I had my “no more than 3oz bottles” in their “official” airline approved baggies, so obviously I arrived at the airport planning to suck it up and be a team player. When we got to the security checkpoint however, I discovered there was not enough scope (or vodka) in my 3oz bottles to get me through the required security procedure. I started having flashbacks dating back to a sexual assault 20+yrs ago, and called off the idea of being a team player. I’m pissed at myself for ruining our plans, and equally pissed that my husband (who knows about my past experience) thinks it’s “silly” that I couldn’t just suck it up and go through it like everyone else. My kid’s are totally confused now as to why we are at home and not at Grandmas. I know from news stories I’m not the only one having a problem with our new security procedures. I know I don’t “owe” anyone an explanation, but it seems avoiding their questions is only making matters worse. How do I explain, without really explaining, why I’m refusing to put myself back in the position that clearly was not in my best interest at the time?

If you’re reactive to your feelings in public, for any reason, life becomes more dramatic, unpredictable and sometimes humiliating. You want your junk, physical and emotional, untouched.

Unfortunately, most times you do end up saying something emotionally, it doesn’t come out cool, leaving you and everyone else feeling a bit violated.

There are, however, some advantages to being emotionally reactive, particularly in the anxious way you describe, even if those advantages don’t involve airports.

For one thing, emotional reactivity is probably the strongest attractive force between people, stronger than sex or a shared political party affiliation. No, seriously, you probably have a gift for connecting with others, which is why you have a family to embarrass in the first place.

For another thing, you panicked rather than blowing up. Chazz Palmentari (and Macchiavelli) say it’s better to be feared than loved, but that’s within Mafia families, not ones that get along.

Among your flesh and blood, it’s better not to have people walking on eggshells for fear that you’re going to explode and then sneaking off to see their shrinks. Chazz may get his way more easily, but people stop sharing things with him, and, after a while, even the Don gets lonely.

You didn’t tell airport security they were creeps, or your family that they didn’t care, or the TSA to say hello to your little friend. You simply said that you can’t take it and requested to go home.

Another positive thing about your reactivity is that you remain realistic. You’re not saying that you hate yourself for being sensitive and can’t stand it anymore; you’re saying that you know feelings of being overwhelmed sometimes come back to haunt you and probably always will, and that you need a way to deal when those moments arise.

So, even though you’re reactive, you’re also accepting your lack of control over your lack of control, which is a huge plus. As positively as you’re dealing with things, there are other steps you can take to make things even better, and the first step is attacking the shame.

Shame is a powerful force in making your anxiety worse; you get afraid you’ll embarrass yourself, which makes you more anxious, which makes you come closer to losing control. Fight it by telling your family that some people get overwhelmingly anxious sometimes, and you’re one of them. You’re good at controlling it, but sometimes it gets the better of you. That don’t make you a bad person, it’s just part of who you are.

Then, if you haven’t done it already, check out the treatments that might improve your control. Begin with cognitive and behavioral treatments, like “CBT,” positive imaging, relaxation training, etc. They don’t have side effects, and if you have insurance, you have nothing to lose but your time. Alternatives, when it comes to a traumatic situation you can anticipate, include taking a tranquilizer an hour before.

For now, congratulate yourself for your realistic outlook, write your representatives about changing TSA regulations, and learn to accept all the emotional junk that comes with who you are.

STATEMENT:
“Knowing why I get anxious doesn’t change the fact that my fear can get triggered at the worst possible times. I accept this fact and take pride in how well I tolerate and recover from anxiety without letting it ruin my life or make me act badly. I’m open to learning new methods for managing anxiety. I don’t apologize for what I can’t control.”

When I was a child, I was sexually abused by a neighbor. It really haunted me for years—totally screwed up my time in high school—but when I got to college, I finally spoke out about it, got into a support group, and met my closest friend there, who experienced something very similar. I’m in my 30s now, and after years of therapy and various support groups, I feel at peace with my past. I have my own family now, I have a job I really enjoy, and while I still get flashbacks and sometimes get overwhelmed by anxiety, I feel like I’m doing OK. My friend, however, along with others in the abuse survivor community, thinks that I’m regressing into denial; she thinks that unless I confront my pain everyday, it’s going to build up and destroy my life again. I care about her a lot, and she’s helped me a great deal, but I have to disagree. If my goal is to feel okay about what happened, should I continue on my own path, or continue with therapy and support?

There are those who believe in pursuing complete “healing” and “recovery” after trauma; no surprise, I’m not among them, but I’m also not insisting you take my opinion as %100 correct. A first, I know.

Instead of accepting my point of view, or your friend’s, ask yourself how you define “complete recovery,” how often you see anyone with severe symptoms of anxiety who is able to control them completely, and whether you can find evidence of a treatment with objectively documented sure-fire results.

While seeking support from fellow victims can be very positive, not every person who experiences trauma recovers in the same way. You can gain from their comfort and advice, but only you can decide what your recovery means.

If you devote yourself to complete recovery and it doesn’t exist, you’re not only wasting time and money, you’re magnifying and prolonging the ability of trauma to define your life. No, Virginia, life doesn’t always offer you closure, but it always offers you the opportunity to make bad things worse.

I think you’ve done the best you can with childhood trauma and deserve credit for bearing the pain without letting it define your life. Yes, you still experience pain, but that’s not a sign of your failure to deal with issues. It’s life and you’re brave.

It’s also positive that you don’t dwell on the evil of the neighbor who traumatized you, or your need to see him punished or exposed. Yes, of course it was evil, and we all know how satisfying it is to see evil punished. Usually, however, evil people are evil because they don’t see the evilness in what they’re doing wrong and never will. The meaning of punishment to them isn’t regret for what they’ve done, but just that they were caught by people who over-react and ignore greater evil, etc.

You’re accepting a world in which evil is a part of life, and you’re not letting it stop you from doing good. It’s our job, not to eradicate evil and find complete peace, but to learn to protect ourselves in a world that will always include creeps and psychopaths.

Respect your goals and perspective, and resist the temptation to defend yourself to your friend. On this issue, insist on your right to stand by your own point of view and not discuss it. True friends will always respect your decision.

STATEMENT:
“I know how much pain can ensue from being abused as a child. I regard the fact that I still experience that pain as an unavoidable fact of life and am proud that I’ve done much to fight shame and prevent trauma from interfering with my life. I manage it well. I use my knowledge to protect my children. I am less interested in punishing people who cause that pain than in preventing them from hurting others. I’ve had time to develop my own views on this subject and those are the ones that matter.”

My old college roommate is one of my closest friends, and he’s always been one of the most generous people I’ve known. When I got laid off and totally broke, he got me a job at his company, and when I first started working there, everything was great. Now he’s my boss and things are very weird. Outside of work, he’s the same old guy—we carpool to work and crack jokes like always. Once we get into the office though, he’s a different guy, not just serious, because that would make sense (he’s my boss, after all), but really nasty with me. He snaps whenever I ask him questions about work stuff, like I’m an idiot who didn’t follow directions and is wasting his time. I really don’t think I’m asking him to do anything above and beyond, just regular employee/boss stuff, but he’s a total jerk about it. I want to stay here because I need the money and like the company as a whole, but I’m afraid that if I do stay, our friendship will fall apart. Then again, if I leave, he might also take that personally. My goal is to keep my job and my friendship intact.

Fortunately, you don’t have to worry about your friend firing you anytime soon. Instead, you have an opportunity to choose whether to lose your friendship or your job.

As Jack Benny once famously said, when a robber barked “Your money or your life,” “I’m thinking, I’m thinking.” And, of course, you could wind up losing both.

There’s no way you could avoid being your boss’s close friend, nor could you predict that working for him would become an exercise in torture, but now the question remains, how to set up boundaries to protect you from this mess.

Before making your choice, remember that there’s always a good way and a bad way to communicate with someone about personal conflict (and thus avoid the choice, if possible).

The bad way, of course, is to rely on the ease and intimacy of your friendship to share your feelings about what a dickhead he’s been. It’s hard to imagine a response that won’t include the word “ingrate” and leave you with a shitload of blame with sugar on top, along with the steaming remains of your relationship.

The good way is to be professional and business-like as you tell him that you want to improve your work relationship so it can be as positive as your friendship, and that you’re wondering about how to do your job better and/or report to him differently. Put aside your hurt and anger to consider the possibility that your learning style may rub him the wrong way (although it may delight him when you’re not on the clock) and that having you report to someone else may ease some of the tension.

However personal his criticism feels, or however personally it’s meant, it’s not really personal as long as you’re doing your best. He’s being mean either because he’s always a bear at work (with other people as well as you) or he has a rage allergy to your work-style. That knowledge won’t ease your pain, but it will help you respond as if you’re trying to work things out with an important client, instead of slamming a raging asshole.

If, in the end there’s no way to ease the personal sting of your work-place humiliation, decide whether it’s more important to avoid hunger and homelessness. In other words, work often requires people to eat shit for a living when times are tough, even if that shit is served up by one of your oldest friends.

If your bank account tells you it’s necessary, remember to smile, take pride in your survival skills, and remember that your friend is still being generous…just with abuse.

STATEMENT:
“I may not be able to avoid the pain of personal humiliation at work, but I’m proud of the way I try to manage it while doing my best to look for my next job. It also hurts to lose my trust and respect for a friend, but there’s nothing I can do about that except not make it worse, which requires a heroic effort, and that’s my challenge.”

I work for a small business run by a husband and wife out of their house. I’m one of a handful of employees, and we’re all pretty close (we have to be, the offices are tiny). I like the wife—we’ve gone shopping together once or twice, and she gives me dating advice—but, weirdly, I’m actually closer to the husband since we’re both from the same town, like the same music and movies, etc. I’m not attracted to him, I swear, but I do like talking to him about our shared interests, and I can tell it’s pissing the wife off. I love this job, and I really like my bosses and co-workers—we’re like a family—but I’m not sure how to keep my job and keep my friendships while keeping the wife happy.

Comparing record collections is fun, but getting calls from collections isn’t. Which will happen when you have no way to pay your bills.

In other words, work is work, and it’s more important than the friendships you’ve described, so stop relying on work for your friendships or you’ll wind up with neither. That’s what happens when you ignore boundaries and follow your feelings.

In the beginning, being friends with the bosses seems like a compound win. You don’t have to worry about losing your job, or being criticized, or not knowing where you stand. They like you, they really like you, and they like your work. No reason to be anxious, and it’s a promotion for the self-esteem.

Nothing that feels so good is good for you, however. Your all-day intimacy can pull the husband away from his wife; after all, they’ve been married awhile and share management responsibilities and a bank account, so there’s got to be some bickering and bruising that will make your sweet, respectful relationship with him seem preferable to his marriage.

His wife should worry, and so should you, because trouble in the home-office is not good for business or your job security, just an increase in production of drama.

So chill and be friendly in a professional way. Stop sharing personal information, keep the chatting short and superficial, and if you need distraction in the workplace, listen to music on your computer via headphones.

STATEMENT:
“It feels nice to be closely involved with a happy, friendly ‘work family,’ and particularly with its leaders, but my overall priority is to hold my job and not interfere with the power structure, even if it requires me to stifle a natural, heart-felt need to be close and valued. I will put my own sense of doing a good job, and my belief in the value of minding my own business while doing business, ahead of my need to be valued by those I respect.”

My husband always saw himself as the righteous protector of our daughter and, after our divorce, he got into the habit of dragging me into court to force me to pay for some super-costly treatment or schooling that was always no more than a little bit better than what was available for free, but he’d look like a hero to our daughter and the court and the social worker, and I’d look like a miserly shit, and I’d complain bitterly, which just got everyone more on his side, and I was screwed. My daughter bought the bullshit, which meant she and her father shared a tight bond based on hating me, the Scrooge. But I thought the court assaults would stop when she turned 18, until yesterday, when I learned he’s suing me, once again, this time to pay for our daughter’s college tuition, even though she never asked me, she’s over 18, and, with her history of alcohol abuse (and no attempt to get sober), paying for her to go to college without going to rehab first is a waste of money. I think they’re both just scraping the barrel for reasons to drag me into court and I’m getting flashbacks about being raped by the judge. I don’t have any illusion about all of us getting along, but I think it’s fair to want this craziness to stop.

Like it or not, it’s your ex’s legal right to haul you into court at his whim, force you to hire a lawyer, and make you look like a creep. As a reward, you get to give him a good chunk of your savings to pay for something you don’t believe in, to someone who’s out to ruin your life.

Say what you will about justice, but most of the time, it isn’t very fair.

There’s no way you can avoid feeling helpless and outraged, and there’s no shower long or hot enough to make the violated feeling walk away. If, however, your goal is to stop this from happening again by repeatedly venting your outrage, you’ll actually make it worse.

You’ve described the process well; when you’re angry, you look like a monster, not a victim. Your ex has got the knack for pushing your buttons down so well, you shouldn’t be surprised that he treats you like an ATM.

Instead of fighting back again and again then, accept the fact that he’s got you nailed, and shut up. (If you don’t like being told that, remember, I’m not the one who told you to marry him.)

Don’t mistake a Jerry Springer shouting match as the best way to stand up to someone. Remember, no matter how cleansing the venting is on Springer, nobody walked away from that show without looking like an asshole. If you can get yourself to shut up and keep your rage to yourself, you can start to work on a more effective defense. You’ve collected lots of good facts and they can speak for themselves…if you don’t drown them out with your feelings.

Put the facts together, forget your ex-husband’s allegations, and respond to the issues like a caring parent. Then sit back, shut up and be patient. Initially, people will believe him because he believes himself, but if the facts don’t check out, they’ll come around to your point of view.

Don’t pursue your daughter or the Tag Team of Educational Virtue will punish you with her silence. Make it clear that you care by taking your parental responsibilities seriously and articulating that it would be better for her to cultivate her own relationship with you. Beyond that, however, you can only respect her choice, and hope those facts, not blustery emotions, lead her to the light.

The legal process isn’t very fair, but as we often point out on this site, not much is, so it’s better to keep your mouth shut. If you don’t want to remain tied up in the courts forever, stay quiet until your ex has enough rope to hang himself.

STATEMENT:
Put your response in writing and edit out your rage. For example: “You and I both want our daughter to get a good education and I am more than willing to help financially if it looks like she is ready. I wish I knew how she’s been doing for the past 6 months, but I can’t say because she hasn’t kept in touch. Before that, as you know, she had several drug-related legal problems and hasn’t finished a course. As much as I share your desire to help, I don’t have any reason, as yet, to believe that she could make use of college. Asking the court to mandate me to pay her tuition does her a disservice and wastes a large portion of my remaining resources in legal fees. I would advise her to get sober first, get some work habits going, take a course or two, and then she’d have a better chance of success. Talking to me herself would also give her an opportunity to let me know what she’s accomplished and benefit from my input.”

I don’t think she beats him up, but my son can’t seem to stand up to his crazy wife, no matter what she does. She gets furious with him over nothing and then anything goes. She’s thrown away his model airplane collection, screamed at him in front of friends, and locked him out of the house. The grandkids are always nervous. She always has to have the last word and insists that he apologize for things he hasn’t done. I wish he could stand up for himself and let her know that she’s got to stop. She wouldn’t act like this if he were stronger. All he does is keep quiet, look sad, and try to make her happy, which allows her to act like a jerk. My goal is to protect him or teach him how to stand up for himself.

If standing up to someone means out-intimidating them, it’s seldom a good goal, particularly when you’re up against someone who seems to believe they’re as infallible as the Pope.

Go toe to toe with her holiness and you’ll get a slugfest that not only scares the kids, but draws police like flies. It’s tempting to believe that toughness will carry the day and straighten out the bad guys, but that’s only in the movies. Everyone wants it to happen, which is why you can sell tickets, because nobody ever sees it off the screen.

On the other hand, you don’t want your son to feel responsible for the anger and unhappiness of his crazy wife. It’s nice that he’s caring and nurturing, but this is the evil flip side of being overly-sensitive.

If you push him to confront her, he’ll feel more responsible for her feelings and you’ll quickly see his backside (as I’m sure you’ve already discovered); you’re actually making him more responsible for her feelings by suggesting that he could get her to act better if he was firmer.

He thinks he’s upset her, you think he hasn’t upset her enough, and you’re both making him responsible for her. The Pope/wife remains without fault. Holy shitstorm.

A better goal is to help your son develop a better boundary, and this doesn’t require confrontation or hostility. By a boundary, I mean not allowing an excessive feeling of responsibility for his wife’s unhappiness to get in the way of his doing what he thinks is right.

He wouldn’t fight back, he just wouldn’t take such a hard hit every time she attacks. Then eventually, please Jesus, he’d also ask for a divorce.

STATEMENT:
Show him how he can reject blame without attacking her. “I think we’ve got a good thing going and that it would be better if you could manage your anger. I want you to be happy but you’re right, after all is said and done, I don’t necessarily agree with you about what you feel I’ve done wrong. If you yell or try to punish me, it makes things worse. I am who I am. So my idea about how to make the best of things is to back away from confrontation. I’ll always listen to new suggestions but I won’t stay in the room with yelling or physical intimidation.”

I’m in my mid-30s, about to have my first child with my husband of about a year. My husband is a solid guy—he’s steady, and very caring—but deep down, I know a big reason I married him is because I wasn’t getting any younger and wanted to start a family. I dated a guy in law school that I was really in love with, but he was a lot older, made it clear he never wanted kids, and was your basic passionate, unavailable nightmare. I admit, I’m hormonal, which means my husband’s been getting on my nerves a lot lately, which just makes me obsess more and more about how I’ve settled for a life without love. My goal is to figure out how to get through the next stage of my life and live with my decision.

Don’t get superficial and compare the Valentine’s Day smiles at the next bistro table to your current mood and nostalgic memories of past lovers. In my experience, finding the love of your life isn’t too difficult, but finding a good partner is a real pain in the ass.

By “good partner,” I don’t mean someone you’re crazy about, under any and all circumstances, forever and ever, amen. I mean someone who is strong, easy to live and work with, accepts you during your weaker and less likeable moments, communicates on your wavelength, and picks up the load when you can’t. As well as someone whom you can put up with most of the time.

If you think two Harvard degrees have made me too selective (or obnoxious) to encounter lots of likely candidates, my patients tell me the same thing, including those with friendly, engaging personalities and dazzling beauty (they still have to see a shrink, after all).

As I’ve said before to other people seeking romantic advice, don’t yearn for someone you can talk to or someone who makes you feel special; those needs can be met by a good hairdresser. You describe your husband as “steady” and “caring,” which is worth more than the best of hair days.

Just as positive feelings can make you lose sight of what’s important in a relationship, negative feelings become dangerous when they cause you to devalue an otherwise good partnership. You can get negative because you’re a grump, or hormonal, or irritated by your partner’s less-than-perfect behavior, or because you ate too many turnips. Having those feelings, however, doesn’t mean you have to take them seriously.

If you think your relationship has become empty and meaningless because you can’t find a twinge of love, then negative feelings have made you forget what’s important. What’s important is not romantic advice, because romance is not what partnership is about. As you begin this next stage of life, that will become abundantly clear.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a reminder to help you fight the love-sick, sick love, Valentine’s Day blues. “As much as I love love, my goal is a family that has emotional and financial security. I’ve chosen carefully and we’re off to a good start. I wish there was more positive feeling and less bickering today, but I think we’ll be good at working and living together and managing the challenges of raising kids and dealing with setbacks, so we’re on the right course.”

I know my girlfriend’s a little unstable, believe me—I’m the one she stabbed twice with a steak knife (seriously). We broke up for a while, but after she came to me a few weeks after the incident full of remorse and apology, I had to take her back, because, even though she can be a freak, I have more fun with her than any other person alive. She’s the most exciting, dynamic woman, so, even though she sometimes flips out, I put up with it for all the times she’s just being a blast and making me stupid happy. I told my mom I was thinking of asking her to marry me, and my mom almost had a heart attack. I know we’re young (I’m 19) and that she really went overboard that one time, but I love the crazy bitch. My goal is to get the girl of my dreams, even if she sort of tried to kill me.

I’m not going to tell you that you’re crazy, or make waking-up-with-missing-anatomy jokes, because that’s what all your friends are doing, and maybe it’s not the way love feels to you.

Love can feel unselfish, like the joy of giving and helping and making a better world and having sex all mixed together, so it may feel meaningful to you, rather than just one big thrill.

On the other hand, I may be overestimating you. You may be the sort of guy who just wants to be stupid happy. That common expression is a most apt term in this case, and boy, will you be both (although more “stupid” than “happy” in the long run.

Maybe you think love will cure her problems. Unfortunately, love’s power is in what it makes people feel, not in changing their characters. It won’t make your girlfriend’s temper go away, at least not for long.

If anything, love makes needy people worse. It’s like heroin; the more they get, the more they need, the more they’re convinced you’ll never give them enough, the more they hate you for controlling them.

Maybe you want to believe that she wouldn’t get crazy if you could be more available, find the right words, and demonstrate your true love. That might be the plot of at least a couple of Drew Barrymore’s mid-career films, but it’s not what’s going to happen to you or any poor sucker in real life.

The good news is that love will make you very happy. The bad news is that you’ll be lucky to get away without third degree burns.

The other good news, while you may not take comfort in it, is that young men like you have been drawn to unstable women for centuries (a few of whom have written in the past). These unions aren’t totally without worth; after all, if it weren’t for gullible male/temperamental female pairings, we wouldn’t have tattoo removal technology, reality television stars, or so many girls named Amber.

Listen to your mom, however, and avoid being a part of that breeding statistic and put aside your wishful thinking. If love makes her crazy, ask yourself whether your love is really doing her a favor, and if this is a favor you want to commit to for the rest of your life.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement you’d be wise to deliver. “Our love feels wonderful and there are times when it brings out the best in both of us, but I think it also stirs up feelings that can’t be controlled and that could ruin our lives. What’s most important to me is not how good it feels to be with you, but what will do you and me the most good in the long run, and that’s why we need to walk away.”

I’m fine now (I’m 14), but I’m trying to figure out how to deal with a crazy father who physically abused me until a couple of years ago—that’s when my mother finally figured out what was happening and had me come live with her. The trouble is, I guess you could say my father doesn’t see reality the way other people do and he never remembers hitting me. In his mind, when he’d hit me, it was because I was trying to destroy him, so what he tells the judge is that he loves me and that my mother is a raging alcoholic who has brainwashed me to hate him (my mother stopped drinking after the divorce, years ago) and he really believes what he says. My goal is to get him to stay away from me and convince others that his version of reality isn’t real.

Kids aren’t the only ones who have trouble accepting the fact that we often can’t protect ourselves from scary crazy boogeymen, particularly when the craziness isn’t obvious, and the boogeymen are family.

We’ve said it here before: certain crazy people are not obviously crazy and are particularly good at persuading other people to see them as injured victims because they truly, truly believe they are, no matter what really happened. It’s a kind of sickness for which no one has the cure, and nobody feels sicker than the victims in the wake of these sickos, who don’t necessarily feel sick at all.

So cops, judges and social workers often can’t figure out who is telling the truth for a long time. Meanwhile, they often make mistakes and put restrictions on kids and families that hurt everyone and cost more money than the family can afford. It’s a sad fact of life, but they’re trying to do the right thing.

The system usually works to try and protect the weakest party, and when you’re aggressive, even if you’re just aggressively trying to get people to see the truth, you make sickos look that much more weak and innocent. It’s unfair, but pushing hard to express the truth will often push it underground.

So Dr. Lastname’s advice for kids is the same as for adults: don’t think that expressing your emotions sincerely and eloquently will solve the problem. If your father is sincere and has a good lawyer, he’ll persuade the judge that you have, possibly, been brainwashed by your mom, and they’ll treat you like a poor, emotional kid who deserves pity but doesn’t really know his own mind. Then everyone will spend lots of time visiting shrinks. Thanks for the business, but no thanks for the bullshit.

First things first, give up on the goal of convincing others, and try instead to make positive sense of this experience and prepare a statement that you could, if necessary, read to your father.

The less anger and fear you put in your statement, the more it will help others get at the truth. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have negative feelings—of course, they are what they are—but the goal of your statement is to keep out the negative feelings without in any way holding back on the facts of what really happened.

You might not make his sickness go away or get people to see the truth, but being clear, honest, and emotionless is the best protection against the boogeyman.

STATEMENT:
Here’s an example. “I think it’s a bad idea for us to spend time together. I know you care about me and want to see me, but I think you forget about the bad things that happen when you get upset and lose your temper. You forget about (put in details, including bruises and dates). I don’t want to hurt you and I want you to be happy but I don’t think we should spend time together until I’m old enough to protect myself from your temper. Sincerely.

I’d like to get help for my wife’s younger sister because she drives the family crazy. Simply put, she’s a lying drug-addict, and my wife’s parents are always trying to help her in a way that ruins things for the rest of us—they give her money, pressure my wife and me to accept her at family events, and then make us feel guilty if we don’t want to see her. She’s totally poisonous as she is, but I know she can’t help herself, and I’d like to get her real help, not just hand-outs and pretending everything’s OK, so we don’t have to continue like this.

Your goal is just as bad as your wife’s parents’ goal, because you’re both assuming that your sister-in-law can be helped when all the evidence points the other way. They’re throwing their money away at her directly, you’d be throwing your money away at “real help” she isn’t ready for. It’s a lose/lose.

Really, everyone wishes your sister-in-law could be helped, but proceeding on that assumption when it’s not true is a good way to make things worse, and that’s exactly what you’re complaining about.

The sad fact is, treatment is often hopeless. You know that’s true for lots of medical problems, from cancer to Crohn’s disease, so why not accept the fact that it’s equally true for everything else.

Instead, stick with the realistic hope that she’ll change someday, and that you (and others) will have an opportunity to help. It might happen, but it’s not something that you can make happen or are responsible for.

In the meantime, don’t blame her, because there’s a good chance she has as little control over the problem as you do, even though it’s her body and her problem. Blame life, it sucks more reliably than anyone or anything else.

Now that you’ve listened to me and given up on your goal of getting help for your sister-in-law, realistic thinking suggests some positive things for you to do. Since you’re not responsible for saving your sister-in-law or protecting your parents-in-law, you can bow out of family events you don’t really want to go to.

Ignore feelings of guilt or responsibility. You’d help if you could, but you can’t, and there are other important priorities, like going on with your life and enjoying time with those you love.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement that responds to the most guilt-provoking accusations you can imagine. “I’m concerned about my sister-in-law and take full responsibility for helping her whenever possible. One thing I’ve learned, though, from watching her parents do a wonderful job of trying to help her is that, for the time being, it’s just not possible. When it’s not possible, we do more good by distancing ourselves from her problems so as to limit their harm and provide her with more incentive to change. Distancing ourselves from her problems does not mean distancing ourselves from her. The better we protect ourselves, the more welcoming we will be if and when she begins recovery.”

I consider myself to be a pretty thoughtful gift-giver—I pay attention to what other people need, things they don’t even know they need, their birthdays, their anniversaries, and I usually get it right. My husband, on the other hand, isn’t sentimental at all about birthdays or anniversaries and doesn’t remember them, so he’s a lousy gift-giver and, I can’t help it, it really gets to me. After I knock myself out to get him a good birthday present, he either forgets mine, or gets flowers at the last moment, or thinks of getting me something and then doesn’t follow through. We have a wonderful marriage but every year around Christmas, his lazy, lousy gifting really gets on my nerves (particularly since I can’t help doing a good job with his gifts). It’s humiliating. My goal is to find a good way to address this problem so I won’t resent him this Christmas.

There’s not one, but two good reasons why it’s a bad idea to address the problem of unequal gift giving with your husband, and the first, it’s a safe bet, is that you’ve done it before and it turned out badly. I’m right, am I not? (It’s important for me to be right, given my Harvard background).

You reproach your husband for neglecting your Christmas needs, he gets defensive, tells you how he knocks himself out for you, maybe goes further and remembers the time you didn’t do your share, and then you have to tell him how he got the facts wrong.

Meanwhile, both of you are drifting further away from any spirit of Christmas giving, other than that old staple of gift-giving everywhere, the Christmas Earful.

If you don’t address this issue, it will fester, but if you do, it will explode. Take your pick, but don’t believe for a moment that there’s any solution that will make your husband a truly satisfying, gift-giving mirror of yourself. For that you don’t a husband, but a wife.

It’s frustrating to need a certain kind of thoughtful attention and know you’re not going to get it from your husband, even if you get lots of other things from him. You have a right to hurt, but that’s life, and there are other, more important kinds of support, like help with money, kids and illness, so keep your priorities straight. A good marriage is not just about feelings.

Then there’s the second reason you shouldn’t address the problem: doing so makes it more personal. I know, the normal human response to being forgotten is to feel unloved, neglected, and disrespected, particularly when you care about a person and give him more than you get.

It’s likely here, however, and in most cases, that the lack of response isn’t personal. Your husband is probably a poor gift-giver by nature and would be that way, given the opportunity, for any of his wives, including ones he loves very much.

So ignore your feelings, and ask yourself whether he’s a good husband, regardless of his low gifting IQ and, if he is, figure out what you want to do with this sad area of congenital weakness.

If it’s worth the trouble, and he’s not truly un-giving, you can get yourself the gift and charge it to him (what you always wanted!). Your goal, however, isn’t to get him to be a good gift-giver or to get a good gift, it’s to prevent his gifting disability from devaluing your relationship.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to deflect disrespect. “You’re a giving husband but you’re not as good as I am with gifts. We have a good marriage because we give to one another but sometimes it’s in different ways, or not exactly what the other person needs, and that sometimes causes hurt and frustration. But what matters is that, regardless of the disappointment, we know we love one another and are good partners to one another.”

My father was a nasty drunk and my mother got so depressed she hardly noticed, so, as the oldest, I ended up raising my younger sister. I’m a dad now, and my parents are long gone, but my wife has always noticed how quiet and sulky I get during the holidays, and she thinks I should deal with all the pent up feelings that come from being raised by alcoholics and being a substitute parent all my life. I don’t really know what my wife means or how to begin going about dealing with all that stuff, but maybe it’s worth it. My goal is to confront those feelings so I can get over them.

You might think that spending time with your childhood sorrows will free you from them, but that’s not what usually happens. Often, the more you remember how sad your past Christmases were, the sadder you get, which makes your family sad and ruins Christmases Present and Yet To Be.

Unlike Scrooge, you probably won’t rediscover memories of good people whose love you rejected. You’ll recall ugly and frightening scenes when everyone was scared and you were obliged to assume adult responsibilities.

You don’t deserve to feel blue and it’s not fair that you do, but between the impact of Christmas trauma and inheriting your mother’s depressive genes, you may not have a choice.

However, there’s a good goal for you after you give up on trying to feel better. It’s to acknowledge the good things that were done when times were hard.

You’ll never know how much choice your parents had over their weaknesses; we like to say that everyone has choices, but that’s bullshit.

Many drunks don’t see the harm they’re doing or, if they do, can’t stop. And many people with depression are too far gone into despair or are simply too symptomatic to carry their load. They were fucked, you were fucked, but look at what you did with it.

Celebrate the strength and courage of the boy who took care of his sister. Perhaps there were times when your parents acted like parents and did tough things in spite of their weaknesses, so take pride in your ability to create a better partnership and do better for your children. You may never feel great; but what you’ve done is all the greater.

STATEMENT:
Compose a statement to wall off sad feelings from proud fact. “My parents were impaired, but I’m proud of the way I carried my load, and perhaps my parents did some good things too, in spite of their impairments. There was seldom a happy holiday, but that didn’t stop me from trying to protect my sister and eventually create a better family of my own. And that’s what I’ve done. So if I can’t feel Christmas joy, too bad. I’ve made a much better Christmas for my wife and kids than I ever had, and that’s what I was always after.”

I have been struggling with depression for most of my adult life, and I do mean struggling. No matter how many times I find myself going through months at a time of feeling hopeless, angry, and miserable, I know it’s a treatable illness—a chemical imbalance— nd that there must be a way to control it. Over the past twenty years, I’ve been through a handful of shrinks and at least a dozen medications, because no matter how bad it gets, I’ve refused to give up looking for the treatment that will allow me to fulfill the promise of my otherwise lucky life. The problem is that, twenty years into this battle, and I’m still not winning. Treatment works for a while, and just when it seems like things are finally working out for me and I’m in the clear, everything falls apart again. My goal is to figure out how—with what treatment, medication, game plan—to get control of this disease and live a normal life, because I’m stronger than this, and I refuse to let depression get the last laugh.

Hold up—did I miss the morning’s headlines that declared depression a curable illness? Up until yesterday, it wasn’t, and when you think about it, the list of truly curable diseases is an adorably short one. Really, unless you’ve got athlete’s foot, you’re probably shit out of luck.

That said, it doesn’t mean you should shoot yourself unless you’re similarly upset by the incurability of hypertension, diabetes, osteoporosis, high cholesterol, and all the other illnesses that most of us get, sooner or later. Even athlete’s foot isn’t worth it.

The issue here is that if you think that beating an illness means getting rid of it, you’ve lost before you’ve begun to fight. And if that illness is depression, then losing means getting more depressed, which means becoming a bigger loser, ad infinitum.

You’ve been watching the TV news where they declare that someone lost his fight with cancer by dying, which is an amazingly cruel thing to say. We don’t lose a fight with illness by dying, but by letting aging, pain, symptoms, and all the other shit that life throws at us slow us down more than absolutely necessary. Relapses aren’t a form of losing, they’re a form of life. C’est la vie. And la vie often sucks.

So take credit for tolerating all those treatment trials, because it sounds like you’ve done a terrific job managing your illness and reducing its impact on your life. I hope, however, that you paid just as much attention to what you were doing while you were depressed as you did to your symptoms, and invested as much in your work and friendships as you did in your treatment.

So don’t make your pain worse by telling yourself you should have been able to cure it. You live in the Home for Incurables, so push the limits and be proud. And, if you use the shower at the gym, wear flip-flops.

STATEMENT:
Pull out a statement you wrote to yourself when you were feeling more positive. “Depression always makes me feel like life’s biggest loser. But it’s just pain, I didn’t create it, and I don’t deserve it. It won’t last forever. I’ve done my best to manage it medically, I know lots of tricks for keeping myself going and distracted from it, and I’m proud of what I’ve been able to do in spite of it. Whatever happens, I’ve done fine so far and I’ll stick with what I’m trying to do. It can kill me. But it can’t change my values or my goals, which will keep me living what I can of my life for as long as I can.”

I see a therapist, but he doesn’t have any good ideas, so I thought I’d get a second opinion. I’m a so-called senior citizen, and while I’m in a wheelchair with now-useless legs, my mind is still quite intact, thank you very much. My husband, who passed away almost ten years ago, was a great man, and he left me in a very financially comfortable situation, which I look forward to passing down to my children. All that said, I’ve struggled with periods of depression ever since the birth of my first child, and so, despite all the good in my life, I’m also in a lot of pain (mostly mental but some physical, in my legs) and am not afraid to tell people, like my family and now the shrink they want me to see, that I’m looking forward to death and am actually quite eager to die. Nobody seems to want to hear it, but I feel like I’ve earned it, and besides, the timing is right. My goal is to either figure out what’s wrong with my wish or get enough ammunition to get everyone off my back.

If your goal is to escape your pain, then suicide is a reasonable option. The trouble is, you’ve got more important goals in life to think about first (with “in life” being the operative words here).

No, you are no longer responsible for caring for children or other dependents, but that really doesn’t change the fact that one of your most important goals, as a parent and person, is to bear pain and live life in spite of it. And now you must ask yourself whether that goal ever changes, regardless of age or mobility.

What suicide means is that your pain becomes more important than anything else. And sometimes that really happens, or you know it’s about to happen, and anyone who knows the truth will understand that you didn’t give up your values by exiting life, you were simply overcome.

Otherwise, your job is to make the best of what you’ve got. You may not be ready to play murderball, but you’ve got a sharp brain, an ability to care, and a wealth of experience. You express yourself well. Your goal is to try to find a way to use your abilities and make life better, regardless of how negatively you feel. Hell, if you’re really at loose ends, you can write a blog.

But don’t talk about being ready to depart unless you want to guilt your relatives into visiting more often. Talking about it gives more power to your pain and boredom, and that’s not good for you.

Don’t talk about your right to die, either. Your goal is to live by your values and encounter death within those values, not as a reward for hard work well done. That’s the same balance sheet rationalization that people use to justify downing a quart of ice cream when they’ve got diabetes, or a liter of vodka when they can’t afford to get drunk.

You’re on a car trip that’s become boring and painful and you want to ask “Are we there yet?” You’re old enough to know better. You’re making the trip longer and even more painful.

STATEMENT:
Reach back to a statement you might have composed in better days, when you knew things would get painful and you didn’t want pain to make you forget your values. “When I’m depressed and disabled, life doesn’t seem like it’s worth living. But it’s easy to forget that my relationships will never stop being important to me and that I have much to contribute, even when it seems like I’m nothing but a burden. There’s value in much that I do, even if I can’t see it, so I will try to do what I’ve always done, and try to contribute, and make the most of my relationships, and that’s how I’ll fight the distortion of depression and continue to be me.”

It’s been a tough year (surprise), and so I’ve been a little more quick to anger than I usually am, and I tend to have a few more beers after work than I would normally have. Things with my wife were kind of rough because of all of this, so she told me to see a therapist, and for the sake of my marriage, I agreed, because losing my wife would be the worst thing that could happen. Six months or so ago, my therapist started asking me about my childhood, and it finally clicked that my dad also had a really bad temper, and was also a pretty lousy drunk, but I’d never really thought of him that way, and I’d never really made the connection to my own behavior. My therapist was really pleased at my breakthrough, but here I am, six months later, and I don’t feel any better, and my wife is ready to leave if I don’t stop yelling at her. My goal is to use what I’ve learned in therapy to solve my problems, but what is it I haven’t figured out, why do I keep acting this way, and why am I spending money on therapy if I’m getting nowhere?

Once psychotherapy helps you figure out where your mean streak comes from, you can write an interesting book about it and, usually, blame it on a brutal ancestor and tell Oprah all about it.

What all that hard-earned knowledge probably won’t help you much with is keeping you in check the next time you get irritable and/or drunk. Bad daddy or no, what will help you a lot more is to get sober and learn how to shut the fuck up.

No one knows why some people have a mean streak, but such a trait is probably one of those things that are both bad for you and good for you; in the right situation it helps you survive (no one messes with the Hulk) and gets passed onto your green children in your genes.

The Darwinian solution provides a good answer to most questions—”no one knows why you do X, but it’s probably not all bad”—because it’s hard to disprove, and carries an implication that you can probably guess by now: you’re probably not going to get rid of your mean streak, unless you’re agreeable to a friendly lobotomy.

Many therapists think they can help you overcome your anger if you work hard with them, and, while they’re sincere, they’re usually wrong. They can help you manage it, but nothing more than that, and, in your case, not until you get sober.

If you wait for your anger to go away before doing anything about it, you’ll be on wife number 5 in no time. This is why certain kinds of therapy can do lots more harm than good unless you’re willing to ask yourself the one question you’d prefer not to: what do I do next if this treatment doesn’t make my anger and dependence go away (just my money and patience).

So your goal isn’t to figure out why you’re angry, or to stop feeling angry, or even to stop feeling thirsty. It’s to accept the feelings and urges that you’ve got, and get better at managing them.

You’ve got to accept the shame of not being able to control a natural and unavoidable tendency to transform into Superasshole (maybe you were bitten as a child by a radioactive rectum).

Once you make that your goal, you’ve got a much better chance of succeeding; not at feeling better—because c’mon, you’re not stupid—but at reacting to life’s misery with fewer tantrums and beers, daddy be damned.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement you can use to keep yourself on track. “I hate being mean and I know that, when I’m mean, it always seems like other people deserve to be put down. But it hurts me and my family more often than not, so regardless of whether people deserve it, I’ve got to improve my self-control and learn to eat shit, rather than become an asshole (there’s a consistent metaphor here). Which means controlling whatever releases my anger (tasteful restraint on the metaphor), like drinking. I will have no shame about admitting my asshole tendencies, as long as I know that, whenever I tighten up (can’t escape the metaphor), I’m strengthening my self-control.”

I’m not a stupid girl, but it took me fifteen years to realize that I always date the same kind of guy, someone who is kind of sad and wild but always turns out to be nasty and unreliable. I don’t know why I’ve always gone for mean sad sacks, but I have, many, many times, and knowing that, I want to avoid my deadbeat curse. The problem is, I don’t know how to start being attracted to different kinds of guys, or even where to find them. And meanwhile, I’m still a deadbeat magnet, so I want to know how I can stop attracting such losers and reel in better quality material. My goal is to get out of my romantic rut and date guys that don’t suck.

If you can find a survival benefit to being mean, (under the appropriate football field or nuclear apocalypse scenarios), you can also find a survival benefit to being attracted to the mean.

For example, your partner’s cruelty will protect your genes, or, maybe you’re so good at nurturing you can’t distinguish between babies and outlaws. Whatever.

Again, the genetic explanation is far from scientific, but fits the fact you’ve already encountered: you, and your tastes, are not likely to change, no matter how much you talk about them.

So tell your friends that you’re tired of hearing them tell you they told you so–almost as tired as they are!—and that you want to change your ways and are open to suggestions.

The usual ones that come up, like drawing up a list of negative screen-outs for your dates and sticking with them (e.g., no guys who had nasty fights with prior girlfriends unless the girlfriend was clearly nastier and crazier). Have your friends screen your dates.

Don’t be discouraged if you’re not attracted to nice guys. Remember, there are some songs you dislike the first time around, but wind up liking a lot in the end. You can’t force yourself, but give yourself time and you’ll probably wind up liking a nice guy well enough.

Sure, you may not get as hot about a nice guy as you would about an outlaw. But if your primary goal is to get turned on, stick with outlaws and get a good, solid humiliation at the same time. And if you yearn to nurture and live with a nasty, vicious, out-of-control criminal, get a Jack Russell terrier.

STATEMENT:
Announce your policy with a statement. “I may want to tame a beast, or beastly guy, who’s in pain, but I don’t have the touch, the whip, the chair, the whispering technique, whatever, and meanwhile I need a friend and partner I can trust. So I’ve got to watch out for my sick yearnings, stick with better ways of screening out the ones I want, and stay single, lonely, and unsatisfied until I find the one I really need.”