Posted by fxckfeelings on July 29, 2010
Fear isn’t all bad (e.g., fearing snakes goes a long way towards keeping you from poison venom). On the other hand, fear itself is stressful and painful, so our first instinct is to avoid it, no matter what…which is, of course, when things start getting really frightening. No matter how much we want to protect ourselves or those we love, it’s not gonna happen, so we have to accept the unavoidable scariness of life (and anacondas). It won’t necessarily calm you down, but it will give you the strength to do what matters, fear or no.
-Dr. Lastname
My wife and I liked to party when we first met (nothing too crazy, we just went out a lot), but we just had our first kid, so we now spend a lot more time at home. My wife used to be a fun, bubbly person, and she still sort of is, but ever since the baby was born she’s been really stressed out, worrying that something bad will happen and the baby will die. Not stuff she could possibly prevent, just a random act that would kill our child, and the stress is so bad she is haunted by visions of our son in a casket. I think she’s dealing with this stress by drinking a bunch of wine with dinner and getting a little more than tipsy. I’ve told her to relax about stuff she can’t prevent, but she says she can’t help it, and I don’t like that she’s drinking too much, and where that’s going to go. I want to see my wife get some treatment that will relieve her stress so she can stop drinking too much.
You might wonder how wanting to help someone could be bad, and it’s because, as goals go, it’s often one you can’t reach. If you don’t accept that fact before making your plans, you’ll make things worse.
Here, for instance, there’s a good chance she’s too busy drinking and/or avoiding her problem to heed your good advice and, at least at first, she may not be able to stop herself (and if she could stop herself, you probably wouldn’t be writing me in the first place).
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 22, 2010
Ignoring problems is supposed to be bad for you; the only thing we love more in this society than money and fried foods is unbridled confrontation. Sometimes, however, not paying attention to life’s annoyances is the best option for dealing with the nasty little tricks your mind likes to play with you. Until life’s problems go away—which they won’t—you can train your self to stop paying attention to them (and the over-reactive voices in your head). Instead, focus on other important things, like getting paid and eating onion rings.
-Dr. Lastname
My biggest frustration on a daily basis is having someone ask me a question and then either get angry in response to the answer or the fact that a decision has already been made and then ignore the answer they asked for. My wife will ask “do you mind if I do/go/be “x,” and if I answer “yes I mind” then she’s angry and usually proceeds with what she’d already scheduled anyway. Just today my sister asked if the coffee I was holding was warm enough. I said yes, and she then proceeded to take the cup from my hand and run to the microwave with it. OK, so maybe her intentions were good…but why the hell did she ask me, when my answer didn’t matter? Because this seems to happen to me ALL the time, by MANY different people, I’m getting to the point that I don’t even want to be around other people. Should I just shut up and quit even answering questions, or start answering with what I know they want to hear? Giving honest answers is clearly NOT working for me. Can you shed some light on what I’m doing wrong here? And more importantly, what do I do about it?
Nobody likes to feel ignored—at least by people we like and particularly by the ones we love—but some people are particularly sensitive to it.
They feel it as a kind of peace-destroying personal injury that injects them with a festering dislike of their fellow human beings. This leads to a desire to learn wilderness skills or get a solo gig on a space station.
You’re the kind of person whom being ignored gets to, and if I asked you to change, you couldn’t help but ignore my request, even if you tried not to.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on July 1, 2010
When a relationship fails, you can either accept that you can’t really accept them, or accept that, no matter what you do, they can’t accept you. After all that acceptance, you think it would be easy to not let that person aggravate you, but the temptation to speak your mind will stick around as long as the other person does. Your last bit of acceptance is that you need to keep your mouth shut until you make up your own mind about how to go forward, then accept your decision and politely speak your peace. No exceptions.
-Dr. Lastname
My husband quit drinking four years ago. I supported his decision to get sober, but I’m disappointed with the result. He used to be a fun goofball, but now he’s a dull grump, and I don’t like his company (and he doesn’t seem to like mine, either). We’ve started to go our separate ways but he’s not interested in talking about it. My goal is to restore the chemistry of our marriage and the good parts of his character without driving him back to drink.
Having fun with your husband is not your top measure of a partner. If you want fun, go out and have a drink.
Acceptance, rather than fun or passion, is the most essential requirement for a long-term relationship, and now you know it. Oh, first marriages have so much to teach you.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on June 28, 2010
Our deepest instincts tell us that there’s nothing more important than saving the lives of those we love; it’s like the mama bear instinct, except it extends to all those closest to us, and has less hair. Unfortunately, there’s no off switch to that drive, and most of the things that threaten our lives don’t respond to sacrifice, no matter how sincere, extreme, or persistent. That’s where nagging ends and plan B begins (and B doesn’t stand for bear).
-Dr. Lastname
I’ve been getting increasingly nervous about my aging parents, particularly because my mother, who’s a very vigorous near-90, likes to ignore the real risks of continuing to vacation in their old, 2 story, roughing-it country home. She loves to garden, take vigorous walks, build fires, and keep to the same routine she had when she was 40. I know I’m a nervous person—I’m a nurse, and I’ve had to deal with an injured leg since childhood—but I’m haunted about what could happen to her if she fell down and it’s no place for my dad, who’s very frail after a stroke. When I said something to her yesterday about how she should hold onto my father’s arm when he walks, she told me to mind my own business. I’m the only one of the kids who lives nearby, so their safety is my business. How do I get her to understand she needs to be more careful?
It’s understandable that you worry about your parents, but even if they were both freakishly healthy and lived in a hermetically sealed bubble, the sad fact is, they’re both going to die.
[Moment to process.]
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 24, 2010
Parent/child conflicts can get particularly brutal when people are scared for and determined to save one another. Emotions run stronger, stakes are higher, and the gloves are never on. Instinctively, kids and parents fight for control and submission, and regard it as defeat to accept a new reality and get over it. The reason the instinct is so foolish is because control is impossible, so the battle becomes endless. Conflicts like these need to be handled with great care; they must call them kid gloves for a reason.
-Dr. Lastname
When my mother starting dating my soon-to-be-step-father, I was upset. It’s not just that my father had only died six months earlier, but that this guy was clearly a user and a nowhere near good enough for her. I’m in college, so at least I didn’t have to live under the same roof as this jerk, but I’ve already gone out of my way to avoid him and it’s really annoyed my mom that I haven’t tried to get along with him. Plus it means I’ve spent last time with her, and we used to be really close. When she told me they were going to get married, I freaked out, and now she’s says that if that’s how I feel then I’m not invited to the wedding. I think what my mom and I need is a face-off to get everything on the table and sort out this mess. My goal is to get my mom back.
You’ve got every reason to worry about your mother’s taste in men and its impact on your relationship; after all, her choice has the potential to cause you (and possibly her) great pain, at a time when you’re grieving your father’s death.
Unfortunately, however, all you can do is worry, and after that, you’re fucked. There’s nothing you can do to make things better and lots to make things worse.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on May 10, 2010
Everyone wants a feel-good, look-good family, but most of us relate to the more familiar feel-bad families on TV (which look good, and feel better by the end of the show). Still, there’s a difference between your average dysfunctional family unit and your genetic/step-parent clusterfuck. When your family situation is in truly bad shape, you’ve got to be tough enough to accept what you’ve got, then focus on making the best of those impossible relationships, outsider opinions be damned. Unlike those TV families, real problems don’t get solved after a half-hour, not everybody’s pretty, and you have to ignore your ratings with the audience.
-Dr. Lastname
I need to stay married because, while I work a pretty demanding job, my wife stays at home and watches our two kids, whom she adores. The problems are, however, (and there are many): she doesn’t work because of a migraine disorder that’s so debilitating that she’s on disability, and she takes too many non-prescription pain pills for those headaches, and, while they don’t make her a bad parent (I know the kids are safe), they often make her, in your words, a really needy, grumpy asshole and an impossible woman to be married to. I never know when she’s going to kick me out of the bedroom, scream at me in front of friends, or nod off after dinner. Needless to say, she won’t try marriage counseling or cutting back on the pills and thinks I’m bullying her if I suggest we have a problem. I can’t leave her, because it’d break the kids’ hearts, plus, like I said, she provides childcare, which is not something I could afford on my salary, and if I lost custody of the kids, I’d be in a worse hell than I am now. I know I can’t leave, but I don’t think I can live like this much longer. My goal is to find a better way to survive.
You’ve got good marital reasons for staying vs. leaving (the kids, the kids, the kids, and money, but also, the kids). There’s no escaping the fact, however, that her headache is infectious, and you’ve got it, too.
You’ve obviously built up a good, solid tolerance for living with your wife’s problems without fighting all the time, and your values and perspective are great. Which is why you probably already know that your goal is impossible.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 29, 2010
All parents worry that they’re going to do something, from letting the kids watch too much TV to getting them bad haircuts, that will screw up their children for life. Worse is watching your co-parent, whether or not you’re still together, do the child-dooming while you have to watch. Your instinct is to protect the brood at all costs, but think twice, because doing so will probably cause way more damage than a mullet ever could.
-Dr. Lastname
My ex-wife was never that solid, but even I was surprised when she left me for her yoga instructor, who’s also a total fuck-up. I agreed to joint custody because our daughter deserves to know her mother, no matter how stupid her mother is, but my wife’s visitation falls on the same days as our daughter’s ballet classes, and, wouldn’t you know, my ex- doesn’t have a car (her boyfriend crashed the one she got from me), so she tells me, in front of our daughter, that I’m selfish if I don’t drive the two of them to ballet and back, on her visitation day. It makes me nuts, because I can’t figure out a way to say “no” without disappointing my daughter and looking like a meanie. My goal is to stop my ex-wife from using our daughter to manipulate me.
Attempting to stop your ex-wife’s visitation blackmail is never a good goal; it makes you reactive to her ability to make you feel guilty and/or look bad, rather than to your own ideas about what constitutes an appropriate sacrifice for your child’s welfare.
Besides, you can’t stop her from using your worries about your daughter to push you around. Basically, your ex-wife can fart in your face whenever she wants, even when you’re behind the wheel. She’s already stunk up your marriage.
If you accept and ignore humiliation (and bad smells), however, you can focus on the more important goal you’ve already embraced, which is doing what’s necessary for your daughter’s well-being.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 12, 2010
Discovery Channel always does well with its sharks, so this week, we’re going to try cases that are variations of the theme of “Shut up!” In many ways, sharks and “shut up” have the same effect on people, be they swimming in actual water or metaphorical self-pity; it’s painful and humbling, but if you come through your confrontation intact, you feel indestructable. Now, if you please, shut up and read.
-Dr. Lastname
I’m a 58-year-old gay man and it’s a long time since life has been any fun. I’ve been single for some time (with no real prospects of a relationship), my friends don’t seem to have time for me, and at the end of a hard day’s work running my own business, I’ve barely broken even and have nothing to look forward to but spending the evening alone. That’s when the depression closes in and I can’t stand living. I write all this because I know that I’m a miserable failure, and that facts, not depression or any other mental illness, are behind my reasoning. I mean, when I tell my few close friends how I feel, they tell me I’m being too hard on myself, but if you’re almost 60, alone, and a financial mess, doesn’t that mean you’re a loser? My goal is to be real about myself.
Sounds like your goal isn’t to be real about yourself, it’s to be mean to yourself because you’re in a bad mood. If you were to reread the above paragraph when your mood wasn’t so shitty, you’d see your treating “facts” with the same care as Bill O’Reilly.
So, to quote Bill, Shut up, I don’t want to hear it. You wouldn’t talk like that to a friend, or even probably your worst enemy, so don’t do it to yourself.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on April 1, 2010
We began this week with people paralyzed by fear of the unknown. We now end it with people who get stuck, not due to fear of the unknown, but rather fear of the untenable; their lives are blocked by the effects, or even just the possibility, of mental illness. Everyone’s lives, even for the few of us who are sane, are fraught with danger, so there’s no point in letting any illness ruin you, at least not without a fight.
-Dr. Lastname
I know that my depression is one of the main obstacles keeping me from getting a new job; I got laid off three months ago, and even though my meds had stopped working way before that, I had enough discipline to push through. Now I don’t have a workplace to go to, I have trouble getting motivated enough to do anything, so between my inability to get out of bed and the fact I look like a mess, interviews aren’t happening. My wife is pissed because I’m not motivated to get new work and I won’t go back to see the psychiatrist, but I don’t see the point in trying this new prescription, because it’s my fourth medication so far, and I don’t understand why the first medication I took, which worked the best, stopped working, and why none of the others since has done the job. I don’t see why I should waste my time getting treatment if it isn’t going to work, but my wife thinks I’m being complacent and lazy. My goal is to find some way to get better or at least get her off my back.
You’re reinforcing something I’ve been telling my children their whole lives; life is unfair.
It was unfair for them when I wouldn’t by them a Happy Meal or the latest Nintendo game, even when they deserved it, and it’s unfair for you now that you’ve lost your job and can’t find the right meds. Unfair is unfair, as they say (or at least as I say).
The trouble is, it isn’t a fair world for anyone, young or old, and you won’t survive if you can’t take your lumps and keep on going.
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Posted by fxckfeelings on March 29, 2010
For our 100th post, we address a problem that causes loads of people useless worry, and that is…useless worry. Just because horrible things may happen to you or someone you love (or because of someone you love), life shouldn’t end. Prepare yourself the best you can for whatever trouble you think you see coming, and then continue your regularly scheduled, useful life.
-Dr. Lastname
Living with my mentally ill 30-year-old daughter is wearing me out. My wife and I can never leave her alone, but we also can’t take her with us because she gets uncomfortable when she’s around people she doesn’t know and says inappropriate things in a loud voice and has to get up and leave. The problem isn’t her, though, it’s my wife, who is so worried about what will happen if we put her in a half-way house with other sick people that she can’t think clearly about it. We’ve got some money, but if we paid for my daughter to have her own condo and a nurse to keep an eye on her, the money wouldn’t last long. Then again, if she continues to live with us, we won’t last long. My goal is to get my wife to see that we have to get her into a state-supported program, for her sake and ours.
You hope to get your wife to see that your mentally ill daughter needs to live independently, but if you were making any progress in that direction, you wouldn’t be writing.
Let’s assume then, at least for the moment, that your hopes are false and your wife can’t let go, and if she can’t let go, she’ll always be thinking of new ways to make your daughter feel more comfortable and better understood. Which makes your goal a more and more distant dream.
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