I’m in a very loving and healthy relationship with a divorced father of a 5-year-old. I feel we are deeply in love and we plan to marry, however, when he has his son I feel like nothing more than an outsider. Although he is very fond of me, I can’t help but be overcome with jealousy at the attention my boyfriend gives him and I distance myself in order to hide my feelings. I end up feeling isolated and alone which ends with tears if he asks me what’s wrong. I’ve tried to separate my feelings from reality, because his son deserves his attention and time. I see him light up when his kid’s around, but it’s hard for me to understand their relationship since my own father is a deadbeat and I’ve been dealing with abandonment issues my entire life. I don’t want him to feel guilty because he’s such a great dad and misses his kid and I don’t want his son to feel that I’m indifferent to him and ignore him, but I can’t help but feel like the jealous older sister. My goal is to remove myself from these emotions and learn to appreciate our unique family blend.

Don’t feel guilty for your thoughts or feelings, particularly when your actions don’t reflect those feelings. You can feel wrong as long as you do right.

And you must be doing a good job with managing your bad feelings, because, regardless of how jealous or bummed you feel when you behold your fiancé’s warm father-son relationship, you’ve done a great job of keeping them to yourself. You’ve succeeded in protecting your most important relationships from the negativity.

One definition of professionalism is behaving in a benevolent, job-oriented way without letting negative feelings show or interfere. You’re obviously a pro, particularly since you’re doing it while managing a shitload of pain.

You’re entitled to ask yourself whether you can put up with the painful feelings, and keep yourself under pretty good control, once you’re married. A better way to put that question is, are the advantages of the relationship worth it, assuming that your control is good enough. My guess is that it is, and it is.

There’s also the possibility that, after enough time goes by, your painful feelings will ease up, particularly if you and your fiance’s son have a chance to hang out and develop your own relationship, creating your own unique bond so you have nothing to be jealous of.

What you don’t want to happen is to let your disgust at your negative feelings destroy your confidence or make you feel guilty. If you feel you’ve got to purge yourself of those ugly feelings, or confess them, you’ll make them worse.

Forget the exorcism then; you’ve got a demon, but disowning her entirely will only increase her power to terrorize you. You came by her honestly, you’ve done a good job of stopping her from running your life, and accepting her will let you re-affirm your solid self-control.

If your fiancé asks why you sometimes seem unhappy, tell him a positive version of the truth; that, because of your background, you sometimes feel painfully needy, plus he’s much nicer than anyone you knew growing up. You’re also confident that the feeling will pass because you love them both so much.

As you settle into your new life and new family, the feelings will settle as well.

STATEMENT:
“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child, which is to say hollow and mean, but I keep this problem to myself and, as a result, I’ve got a great fiancé. I expect to feel needier in some ways as we get closer, but it’s worth it, and I think we’ll be OK.”

I’ve got an evil father-in-law who is always ready to say something nasty about me, and my wife never really supports me. Right after I set up a rule or schedule for our family, my father-in-law will go out of his way to defy it, and then ask my wife to bring our daughter over for a visit. Instead of standing with me and telling her father that he has to respect our rules and that I’m a part of the package, she goes over there by herself and acts as if nothing happened. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to trust my wife again and, if that’s the case, I don’t see how we can stay married. My goal is to do my best to get her to see what her father is doing.

It’s infuriating, when you’re trying to manage a family, to have someone sabotage your arrangements and make you look like a dictator instead of a parent and husband. Still, it happens, and it’s hard to stop, even when your partner is in total agreement with your every move.

On the other hand, many of your not-so-distant, not-so-wealthy ancestors may have had to live together in close quarters and couldn’t escape. As a result, they probably checked out their in-laws very carefully before deciding to marry, because they knew, once things got started, they were stuck.

If you can bear the humiliation for a minute, stop and consider what’s best for you. Put aside your fury at your wishy-washy wife and meddling father-in-law and ask yourself whether she’s a good partner in other ways—as mother, manager of time and money, and loyal companion (in every non-paternal relationship).

No, this is not an attempt to change your feelings for her; it’s to get you to think about whether getting rid of the feeling of betrayal will be worth the loss of her partnership and the impact of divorce on your daughter, which will push her into your father-in-law’s arms. Your feelings are about betrayal, but if you let them run loose, you may expose yourself to a much greater betrayal with more dire consequences.

If, feelings aside, you believe you’ll have a better life and stronger influence on your daughter by avoiding divorce, then ask yourself whether you can learn to live with anger and bitter mistrust while keeping your feelings to yourself. It’s possible (see case above), but admittedly difficult. If you decide to go that route, seek coaching and a good support group.

If you can’t imagine living with those feelings within a marriage, then you can’t, but don’t expect divorce to provide you with rapid relief. On the other hand, if you stay married, you’ll probably have many opportunities to run the family circus, just not all the time and not with your wife’s full cooperation/compliance.

Your goal, if you choose the trial of living with your Judas wife, won’t be to regain a feeling of marital comfort and trust, but to learn how to live without those feelings, knowing that, on some rational level, the value of your wife’s strengths as a partner outweighs the pain that your father-in-law has stirred up. If you want to remain a full-time parent and husband, you don’t have a choice.

STATEMENT:
“I’ll never feel that I can fully control my household or trust my wife until my father-in-law is dead. Nevertheless, she and I are a good team and my ability to keep our daughter from over-bonding with her grandpa is better if I’m around full-time rather than during visitation only, so I’ll try to stay married and set quiet limits on an intrusion I can’t always control.

My ex-wife became the victim from hell after our divorce, which she and the kids blamed on my messing around with another woman. The truth is, I’d been eager to get divorced for the past 10 years, particularly because my ex was so good at messing up and then acting like a victim. I didn’t have that or any affair until I had almost put the divorce in motion and the youngest was about ready for college, and my not-mistress has subsequently become my wife. I felt guilty, however, and the kids see me as guilty, so they punish me with silence, or worse, extend an invitation to have a talk so they can hit me with a blast of endless recrimination before returning to silence again. Needless to say, explaining doesn’t help—their anger is endless—so when they call me up, I wonder what to say. My goal is to help them with their pain and restore a normal relationship.

Most good people feel guilty about leaving a marriage, whether or not they’ve done anything wrong. Guilt the emotion, as opposed to guilt the legal state, is never necessarily caused by bad behavior.

You feel guilty because those you love are hurt and disappointed, and happen to blame you. Given the fact that one of the most important reasons that people marry—perhaps the most important—is to have someone to blame, guilt is an unavoidable part of both marriage and divorce that should never, ever be considered proof of criminality.

As natural as your guilt is, it’s dangerous to let it guide you when you’re managing seriously angry kids (or adults, especially when they’re acting like kids). It’s like showing fear to a tiger, or blood to a vampire, or low-hanging comedic fruit to Ricky Gervais. They’ll just keep coming.

Your first job is not to respond to the kids before you’ve decided for yourself whether you’re guilty, and what for. Begin by listing your standards, which should probably include trying hard to make marriage work, giving priority to the needs of the kids, and behaving well in a difficult situation.

They should probably not include being happy or keeping your family happy, because life is often unavoidably unhappy, and looking for marriage to make you happy, though nice when it does happen, is ridiculous.

The question is how dysfunctional your wife’s behavior was and how badly it affected your partnership, as well as your mood and behavior. My guess, from what you say, is that you tried hard, put great importance on raising the kids, but found yourself hating your marriage. If you believe that’s reasonable grounds for divorce (if you were judging a friend), then it’s time to stop apologizing. If not, then figure out what you did wrong (excluding everything that you didn’t control), apologize, and then don’t apologize anymore.

Once you’ve prepared your statement (see sample below), you’re ready to draw the line on receiving punishment you don’t deserve. You and the kids deserve a better relationship, and from your point of view, their anger is the main obstacle. You hope they can stop it, and the first step is allowing yourself to stop feeling perpetually guilty for doing what you believe was necessary.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I failed my first marriage since I’m the one who was unhappy and broke it up, and my kids blame me. After thinking it through, I see my responsibility as limited. If this response doesn’t satisfy the kids, I’m sorry, but I’ve heard their views and accepted their feelings and it’s no good for negative conversations to continue indefinitely. I love them and believe we can have a positive relationship, if and when they’re ready.”

The main thing wrong with my marriage is that we lost the incredible love and closeness we had for the first few years, and a major reason is that my husband keeps his distance. No, I don’t think he’s having affairs, and we still get along very well as partners and parents, but he says he just hasn’t felt comfortable with me since I went through a depressed, nasty period, so he avoids kissing and sex. I’ve told him I can’t go on like this, but I’m not going to beg for sex if he’s not going to give it to me. I don’t mention it most of the time, but it hurts. My goal is to figure out how to get the old love back or decide whether the current situation is good enough for me to want to stay married.

The trouble with mixing sex and love in a marriage is that sexual withholding feels like a loss of love, and a loss of love causes deep pain, which causes sexual withholding, and around it goes, flushed down the marital toilet.

If you think sex might bridge the gulf between you, then don’t request it as evidence of his love, or as satisfaction of your needs. To do so is to make the issue more wrought, personal and emotionally explosive. Of course you have those feelings, but expressing them won’t clear them up—it will make them worse.

Instead, propose sex as an activity that might reduce the distance between you by having a positive effect on your emotions. Now that your nasty period is over, you’re confident it will be a good experience, and, if repeated, it might build trust, as well as reducing an issue between you. As long as you don’t emotionalize sex in terms of love and intimacy, you reduce the risk of failure. Market it as nerve tonic, not as proof of his dedication or your personal worth.

If he doesn’t respond, then you know you haven’t scared him away; he’s simply stuck. You haven’t let your hurt feelings make you passive; you’ve done what you can, and your actions haven’t added to your pain by expressing it.

I assume you’ve apologized for the past (see above) to the extent that you could have controlled your nasty behavior, so it’s time to stop apologizing. Propose a better way forward and see if your husband can join you. Having sex, if he can do it, is a way of putting negative feelings to one side. The love issue will have to wait.

STATEMENT:
“The lack of a sex life leaves me feeling guilty, sad, and punished, as well as horny and needy, but I know I’ve been a good partner for a long time and don’t deserve punishment. I believe it would help my husband, and our relationship, if he could put a lid on his anxieties and just do it. It’s his job to try. What he does with it will tell me whether he can.”

While most mental health clinicians would feel guilty admitting this, I’ve been in the biz for long enough that I don’t give a shit and I need to vent. Most of the crisis calls I get from my psychotherapy practice are senseless and irritating; they’re from patients who feel bad because they forgot to take their medications, or drank too much or when they shouldn’t, or allowed their demons to wreak vengeance on their enemies, the nearer the better, self best of all. A few call me because they’re feeling suicidal (but won’t go to the hospital) and just want me to make them feel better, which is hard when it’s late and I’m tired, and often impossible just because I don’t have that kind of power. I try to be civil, but their calls leave me feeling helpless and wondering whether I’m doing any good. Discussing their responsibility for their behavior is useless, because it usually makes them mad or apologetic. My goal is to figure out what to do with crisis calls that are really a useless pain in the ass.

Many crisis calls you receive as a shrink do a good job of showing off a patient’s worst behavior. It’s like having partial custody of a colicky child.

It’s not that their distress isn’t real and severe—it is, almost always—it’s that it causes self-defeating behavior, like drinking or mouthing off or retreating from the world, which creates a jam that is extra hard to get out of.

Bad feelings cause bad behavior, bad listening skills and bad regrets about going into the therapy business instead of owning a Toyota dealership.

You’re right to wonder whether your response to crisis calls is helpful. Whether you realize it or not—and you seem to realize it—your words sound moralistic and angry, though for good reason. The more you care about your patients’ welfare, the more upset you get about what they’re doing to themselves and how it undoes all those good talks (and/or medications) that seemed to help. As you say, their negative feelings become contagious as you wrestle with your own fatigue, doubts, and fears about more calls to come.

Unfortunately, a moralistic tone usually makes people who’ve messed up feel more messed up. You judge them as having made bad choices, whereas they experience a rush of emotions and habits that sweep all choice away. Your intentions are good, but labeling your bad-behaving patients as irresponsible bad-choosers will usually make them feel like losers talking to their dads.

The good side is that you’ve given them a focus for their anger and disappointment that isn’t themselves. The bad side is that you may get an honorable mention in a suicide note.

If you truly believe in your observations, however, assure yourself that you’re not responsible for making the crisis caller less destructive. The threat to you isn’t the intrusion on your time, it’s feeling responsible for the mess they’re in, which you’re not. Their mess is out of your control, and theirs. Your only responsibility is to give them good advice and do what you can if they’re not safe.

Tell them what you think they eventually need to be able to tell themselves; it will pass, there are good things to do meanwhile, and they’ll sort out the cleanup when they’re better rested. If they’re not safe, they should take themselves to an emergency room.

Assure them you’ll work with them on increasing their self-control over anything they think they’re doing wrong, but it can’t happen now. Good night and good luck to them, and I hope it felt good for you to vent.

STATEMENT:
“It’s hard to stay calm when I see my patients fucking up their lives and then wanting me to make them feel better during my spare time, but my feelings are just a reflection of their feelings, and don’t have to get in my way. When I can’t help them, it’s too bad, but it doesn’t help to blame them, and we can make good use of the experience later, when we talk during work hours.”

As a therapist, I assume that my strongest weapons are kindness and empathy, but sometimes the process is exhausting and my family does not appreciate the amount of time I spend fielding patient phone calls off-hours. When I get desperate calls at dinnertime or late at night, they interfere with my family life, but I don’t believe in hanging up until my patients feel better. Many have been traumatized and go through terrible periods of emptiness and they need to know that someone cares. My family jokes, somewhat bitterly, that my patients have more access to me than they do. I feel unappreciated, tired, and torn in many directions. At least my patients feel that I care. My goal is to help my family see that I also care about them.

If empathy and kindness were as powerful as some therapists and Christians believe, the world would be a lot better than it is. As your family correctly observes, however, the calls keep coming, there are no cures, and What About Bob is coming down the road.

Ask yourself whether your patients are actually getting better, or just feel better because they’ve found someone nice to take their calls. If they are feeling better, figure out if it’s because they’re better at managing their own crises, or because you’ve confirmed their right to have a nice response whenever they need it. If it’s the latter, heaven help them when you’re not there (and help your family when you are).

It’s good that you’re kind and empathic; that’s why your family and patients like to spend time with you. What’s wrong, however, is that, in over-valuing the therapeutic impact of those qualities, you’re putting too much responsibility on yourself for your patients’ problems (see above). Realistic experience should tell you that kindness doesn’t cure. Neither (see above) does moralistic confrontation.

That is sad, and limits your powers considerably, but it also means you should keep calls short and treat them as evidence of your patients’ need for better self-management. If a patient is willing to try improving his/her self-management, that’s a great focus for treatment and the calls are grist for the mill.

If, on the other hand, a patient can’t see any possibilities for better self-regulation and wants nothing other than better treatment from others, your therapy won’t do any good other than providing him/her with a short-term fix and your family with an empty seat at the table. In that case, Forget Bob and return to the family fold.

STATEMENT:
“It feels right to soothe those who are in despair, and to help them carry their load, but I know that I can’t really carry anyone else’s load and that responding to repeated off-hours calls doesn’t help patients appreciate and make best use of their own resources. Without sacrificing my kindness, I will offer them ideas about how to manage their moments of disorganization and despair, and I will do that most effectively during treatment hours and not at other times.”

Like a lot of artists, I don’t think I’m good at anything else. I’ve been “the arty one” since I can remember, I went to art school on a scholarship, and I’ve gotten illustration work pretty steadily since then. Ever since my last job, however, I’ve started to wonder if I’ve lost it somehow. I got a steady gig in a graphic design department, and at first, I totally got along with my co-workers and we seemed to share a sensibility. Then, for some reason—maybe it’s my age (I was the youngest one), the new department head, an off-the-mark project I completed, I don’t know—the group consensus turned on me and I was treated like an untalented hack for the first time in my life. I’ve never dealt with this before, and I still don’t get it, because the higher-ups were still pleased with my work even if my peers decided it sucked, and I was always nice to everyone. The only thing that did happen was that I started to doubt my ideas more, because every time I’d come up with something I’d immediately think of all the reasons my co-workers would hate it. After a few months of this, I couldn’t take it anymore, so when a college friend told me there was an opening at his work, I jumped on it. The problem is that I still can’t get that negativity and doubt out of my head—maybe I am a hack, after all—and I’m terrified of starting this new job and either not coming up with anything good or not coming up with anything period until eventually I can’t get a job at all. I’m not good at anything else, but what if I’m not good at design anymore, either? My goal is to get my mojo back (or at least get these assholes out of my brain).

One of the curses of being talented, in arts or sports, is that talent becomes the heart of your self-esteem. Talent and ego have a flawed-yet-symbiotic relationship.

It’s particularly true if, like many talented people, you’re actually not so hot at doing other things. It’s as if your talent takes up extra brain-space, crowding out room for the basics and leaving you both gifted and klutzy, brilliant and ADD, hyper-capable and totally incompetent.

Other people might tell you that you’re good at other things, but those other people are wrong; they don’t have or understand an artistic mind. They had to decide on a career, whereas you probably felt like you didn’t have a choice. They also probably have health insurance.

What you’re “good at” is what you and others respect until you come to believe that nothing but hard work stands between you, success, and being a somebody. That’s when ego starts to assume you’ve got control over your artistic career when, in truth, no one controls art.

Even with all the hard work in the world, art is outside of your control. Sooner or later, you’ll perform poorly, perform well but meet an unresponsive audience, and/or get ill, injured, or misunderstood. And that’s when, if you rate yourself by performance, you’ll start to fear failure, and then fear the fear of failure, which is the fear of losing your mojo.

The feelings are awful and there’s no avoiding them. You can sense the rejection and feel your creative juices drying up, like you’ve lost your gift and can’t get it back. Meanwhile, you feel like there’s nothing good you’re good at. Without talent, ego feels like a total failure.

So here’s the hard part for people who want to do well at what they’re good at (and everyone else): develop a deeper set of values. You’ve already got the hard-work ethic for managing the controllable part of your gift—no need for improvement there. Now, learn to respect yourself for dealing with shit, which is just a technical term for that part of life that you don’t control.

Counter those fucked-up feelings with your beliefs; that you’ve done your best, and if you can’t do what you’re good at, you’ll do your best with other things. You’ll try to make a living and be a good friend. You’ll do what matters with what you’ve got.

Remember, what you admire most in others is not their ability to do great things, but to eat shit and still be a good person (unless, of course, you’re one of those shallow people who admire nothing but good performance, and then you don’t really have any friends and you’re probably an entertainment executive). Suck up the pain and remember who you are.

That’s the antidote to losing your mojo: redefining what you value. When you decide that mojo doesn’t matter, it comes back. When you care more about trying and less about results, results improve.

No one can stop the agony of unfulfilled talents, but the real challenge is to bear that pain, remember what you’re here for, and do what you can with what you’ve got until your ego’s healthy enough for talent to return.

That’s not easy to do—it’s a lot harder than being lucky and performing well—but it’s an art in itself, and a much higher achievement.

STATEMENT:
“I’m stuck with excruciating feelings of failure and self-doubt, but I have no doubts about my hard work or my ability to do whatever is necessary when I think it’s worth doing. I have no doubts about my ability to be a good friend. I will not let my feelings touch my self-respect.”

I can’t deny that I’ve had success as a musician—I’m well known in the area—but fashions have changed over the last few years and now gigs are far from plentiful. Financially, though I have a day job, I’m just getting by. I do my best to schmooze and talk up producers, but I’m basically a shy person who’s happiest to be alone, practicing. I know the economy is bad and every performing artist is having a hard time, but I can name at least 3 other musicians of my generation who are doing much better than I am because they’re more energetic and sociable and maybe more talented. I feel like a failure who’s wasted his life and watched his professional reputation ebb away and now I’m facing a sad end in a lonely rooming house. My goal is to turn this situation around.

As noted above, it doesn’t matter whether you’ve proven yourself as an artist; sooner or later, the pursuit of an artistic career exposes you to an unusual amount of shit you don’t control and, when that happens, it feels personal.

Fortunately, you’re too old and well-established to worry about the negative impact of your feelings on your music, and thus on your career, and thus on your music, etc. It’s good not to worry about the losing-your-mojo whirlpool.

It’s not much better, however, to fear that no one cares about your mojo, you’re facing a sad and lonely decline, and you’re sure it’s your own fault, as proven by the fact that your peers are doing better.

That kind of proof, however, is one of the nastier tricks the human mind plays on itself in the name of so-called reason. You know you’ve managed a good career for many years, in spite of a shy temperament, and you’ve never neglected the business side of music-making. You also know that other people’s gifts, both musical and non-, are different than yours. So real logic tells you that the only thing that deserves criticism is your luck.

If you believe in making music, you also know it’s a meaningful thing to do with your life, whether or not it pays. Remind yourself that no artist in his or her right mind expects to get rich and that living with poverty is part of your job description (though one you hope to escape).

Be proud of your choices and the good music that resulted. Keep with your successful formula, playing when you can and paying your bills when you’re able. Don’t doubt that you chose a tough life…and did well with it.

STATEMENT:
“When I’m poor, old, and gig-less, it’s hard not to feel miserable; but music is important, I worked hard at it, and I will not regret past or future sacrifices. Life is hard, but good music is forever.”

I am in the fourth year of a partnership with a great guy—smart, athletic, caring, fair, trustworthy, all of it—but I am bored out of my mind. Although he loves outdoor activities like biking and skiing by day, his only hobby in the evenings is watching TV. I am a musician, artist, craftsperson, not an outdoor whiz, and I feel like I am completely uninspired in this situation. I have talked with him about at least not watching TV every night, and we try for a while, but it always ends up back where we started, with him watching TV, and me in another room reading or doing something somewhat productive, or just giving in and watching with him (I hate TV, wish we didn’t have one). I want to do things together but he is not interested in any of the things that I am interested in. Maybe this is just the most a person can hope for in life and I’m spoiled for wanting more than loyalty and love from someone, but I feel guilty all the time for hiding these thoughts from him. Maybe he would be better off without me, too, you know? Maybe I should let him go so he can find a girl who is really IN LOVE with him.

How much you love someone depends, in part, on the effect of partnership on the necessities of your life, as well as your interests. In your case, however, you don’t seem to see partnership as necessary for the necessities, so the difference between what you two want may be be more than television.

If you’ve been struggling to make ends meet and/or raise kids and someone enters your life who’s decent and willing to share the load, you’re probably going to wind up loving him, even if you don’t love everything you do together.

On the other hand, if you’re a fairly self-sufficient person who doesn’t need a partner in order to have a decent standard of living and raise kids, then there’s no reason to live with anyone who doesn’t ring your bells or leave the couch.

You didn’t mention kids or finances, so I assume you’re kid-less, and, despite being an artist and musician, miraculously not broke. If that’s true, then what do you need this guy for? If you haven’t grown to depend on him after four years of living together, and you’re not eager to have a family, then it’s hard to see him as a better off with you since you don’t really sound better off with him.

Be careful not to get paralyzed by guilt. You can’t control your feelings about him, and what you’re going to do next isn’t about failing or lacking, it’s about evaluating how well the two of you match up and deciding whether that match suits your goals. So add up what life would be without him (the effect on your time, bank account, plans, etc.). You sound as if you’ve done this, but sometimes, feeling guilty can prevent you from doing routine accounting.

If, as you suggest, you can do better without him, don’t feel defensive about letting him go. You both made a good effort to make it work, and you have many good things to say about his character and can be sure he’ll do well with someone else. You’ve just seen many big differences in your interests and activities and have gained a healthy respect for their importance in making a relationship work. Neither of you were stupid to try this relationship, but, despite being a good idea, it was a near miss you can both learn from. You’re doing the right thing for both of you by moving on.

If the pain of breaking up is more his than yours, that’s not as important as the other stuff you evaluated. As a matter of fact, you suspect he may well have an easier time finding his next match than you will.

If this experience has taught you about your needs and you respect what you’ve learned, you’ll become better at screening out your dates and ensuring that you don’t compromise your independence again unless you encounter a more compatible candidate.

If you aren’t happy with someone who’s “perfect” for you, then they probably aren’t. And if you don’t need a someone, period, give them the chance to find someone new (or spend more quality time with the TV).

STATEMENT:
“I wish I could like my boyfriend better and I don’t want to hurt him, but I think I’m better off without him and vice versa. I won’t let fears about negative feelings stop me from doing what’s necessary and remembering that break-ups are part of the learning process.”

Now that I’m 35 and looking around for a wife, I can’t help feeling that I destroyed my future by not marrying my college sweetheart. She’s a terrific person and we had a great relationship, but I wasn’t ready to settle down back then. So I dumped her, she found someone else, and now she’s happily married with kids and I’m a successfully executive who can’t find anyone to compare with her. The women I meet always have something wrong with them and I think my mistake has doomed me to die single and alone.

The biggest danger you face is not dying single, but dying defeated. Well, the biggest danger you face after death itself.

Some good people are single because they aren’t lucky about finding a mate—their lives are too complicated or, for various good reasons, they don’t meet someone who’s both available and on their wavelength—but that doesn’t mean they’re sad, lonely failures. They’re simply dealing with a mixed bag of luck, like everyone else.

As Christ might have said, if he hadn’t been so busy telling parables, what’s important is not whether you find riches or happiness, it’s how you deal with it when you can’t find riches and happiness. And, despite dying penniless, single and alone, he seems to have done alright for himself.

In addition, your negative attitude may be damaging your mate-search technique. While your college relationship taught you that you have a good capacity for friendship and partnership, it’s the timing that was wrong; your personal equipment—the size of your heart, and size is everything—has proven itself. So instead of feeling sad and defeated when you think of your old flame, be proud of your relationship and determined not to give up your independence unless you find someone just as good.

Assess the efficiency of your mate-search. Like any kind of search, it needs to be done efficiently or you’ll wear yourself out and then, see above, feel tired and defeated. That’s often a sign that you’re spending too much time on unsuitable candidates and losing your focus. Ask yourself whether guilt, horniness, or sentimentality are causing you to prolong pseudo-friendships that drain energy, reduce availability, and leave you yearning for solitude. If so, get a coach and learn how to do a good, tight search and a rapid, polite exit.

You can’t make yourself lucky, but you can be sure that there’s nothing wrong with your ability to be a good partner. If you’ve also given yourself the benefit of a good mate-search, you also know you’ve done your best. You may be sad about being single, but it’s not personal and it’s not failure. It’s just life, which, as always, is preferable to the alternative, no matter what your relationship status is when you enter it.

STATEMENT:
“I can’t avoid feeling that I fell off the deck of the love-boat after having been given a choice cabin for two, but I’ve made reasonable choices, I’m a good candidate, and I know what I’m looking for, so I will pursue my search with patience, I will not doubt myself, and I will never give up. “

I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anorexia nervosa purging type a few years ago. Both of these issues had pretty much consumed my life during the years leading up to that diagnosis and have continued to be impairing ever since. I started cutting myself two years ago (it has become more frequent this past year), and I’ve had several panic attacks in the past several months. Fortunately, my overwhelming desire to commit suicide has subsided, although I still think of suicide and my death in general fairly often. In addition to my own issues, I have watched my mom slip into a state of psychosis during the past two years, triggered by the death of her father. She has become so depressed, delusional, and violent that my parents separated and sometimes I don’t even feel safe staying in the house with her—a few weeks ago my dad and I had to stop her from going through with a suicide attempt. The police were called, and I had to hold her arms down while she was clearly in a psychotic rage. At one point, she tried to stab my hand to make me let go. She was taken to a mental health facility where she stayed for a week, and now she’s furious at us for making her go there and hasn’t been much better since then. I feel like I never get anywhere with therapists because they just prescribe medicines that make me feel numb to any emotions or focus on my eating disorder so much that I never get to work through these other issues. I feel like my life is unraveling and it’s gotten so bad that, honestly, I don’t feel like I even want to fix it. My goal in telling you this is to figure out a way to help my mom and how to get through school while I’m dealing with this.

It may seem strange to hear this, for someone who suffers as much as you do from depression, anorexia, and the burdens of taking care of a very sick mother, but I think you’re doing an amazing job.

Yes, you’re chin-deep in shit, but you haven’t drowned, and that’s a remarkable accomplishment.

Your depression hasn’t made you hate people or blame them, and your anorexia hasn’t caused you to pretend you’re not sick, so you must have a solid hold on reality. There you are, with all your pain, finding the love to help your mother and the energy to go on with your studies. You’ve got good values and a big soul.

So you feel hopeless because treatment hasn’t done you much good, or, I should say, hasn’t done your symptoms much good. It sucks, but that’s the way it usually is when symptoms are as severe as yours. That doesn’t mean they won’t get better by themselves, or that a better treatment won’t come along. It does mean that, at least for the time being, you’re stuck with heavy-duty pain.

That’s not important, however, or at least not nearly as important as what you’re doing with that pain, which is, as I said, amazing, and there’s treatment that can help you distinguish between you and your symptoms. Any good cognitive treatment will help, whether it comes from a cognitive therapist, a good coach, or a friend with a positive attitude. One treatment that is aimed specifically at helping people with this much pain keep a positive attitude is Dialectic Behavioral Therapy, or DBT.

The inventor of this treatment, Marsha Linehan [link: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/23/health/23lives.html], suffered similar symptoms and, like you, managed to stay focused on the value of helping people and improving her own skills. She wound up inventing a kind of treatment that helps others do what she did for herself, and, like you, she found that helping others was a great way to keep her own demons in check.

It’s normal for you to feel that your life is unraveling, but trust me, it isn’t; your pain is a mess, but you’re doing a good job of bearing it and doing good things with it.

You are not your pain; you’re dealing with a lot of shit, but you are anything but. You’re the person who’s managing it while leading a good and meaningful life, and that’s not someone you should give up on.

STATEMENT:
“I may feel like a hopeless, deteriorating mess, but I love my mother and care about my education and I’m doing good things about both. I may not be able to stop my symptoms or save my mother, but life sucks and that’s not a personal failure. I haven’t let my symptoms stop me, however, and that’s why I’m doing well, even if my pain and my mother are doing badly.”

I have a great life and there’s nothing I care about more than my family, so I became really worried when, out of nowhere, I started to have horrible thoughts about murdering my children. I’m too ashamed to tell my husband. I’m not an angry person, and I love my kids and get along well with them, and I’ve never needed a shrink, but the thoughts keep me up at night. If there’s the slightest chance I could hurt my kids, I’ve got to do something about it, but I don’t know what to do. Please help.

Before you get crazy about having crazy, murderous thoughts, check out the risk factors for crazy murders. It’s not hard to do. What you’ll find out is that crazy murderers don’t just have intrusive murderous thoughts; they’re crazy as well.

By that, I mean they’re very detached, or they have strange ideas about their kids that they actually believe in, or they’re hearing voices, or going through extreme mood swings.

Ask yourself whether you fit the picture of people who really run amok. While I don’t know you, of course, my guess is that you don’t fit the picture at all, which means you run the same finite-but-small risk as your average Joe.

Trouble is, everyone who has intrusive, horrible thoughts without other symptoms of craziness is nevertheless terrified of losing control, so reassuring yourself is hard to do. What you want, of course, is total reassurance that the horrible thoughts will go away and that you’ll never, ever lose control; as you say, if there’s the slightest chance that you might hurt your family, you feel obliged to take definitive action. Unfortunately, you can’t. No one controls such thoughts, and trying to control them will just add to your helplessness.

Your goal then isn’t total reassurance or freedom from fear, but reasonable self-control and an ability to go ahead with your life in spite of fear. Assess the real risk you pose to your family and take steps to protect them if you think it’s necessary. Having done that (and realizing that your family is better off with you just the way you are, crazy thoughts and all), learn to bear your fear and go about your business, which isn’t easy to do.

If you want to tell your family about your symptoms, that’s the story you’d tell. You’ve got these crazy thoughts, but you’ve checked on the internet, and probably seen a shrink, and discovered you’re at no particular risk of doing harm, you’re just at risk of suffering from creepy thoughts. Reassure them that you have no intention of letting the crazy thoughts interfere with your normal activities and that, if you thought you were dangerous, you’d do whatever’s necessary to protect them.

As with the woman above, you are not your symptoms; a good mom can have crazy thoughts, and a great mom can carry on despite them.

STATEMENT:
“I feel like I’ve got crazy thoughts and might lose my mind but the truth is that I’ve checked out my symptoms and the part of my mind I’m losing is pretty small and insubstantial (although the process is scary and painful). Whether or not I can make my symptoms go away, I’m competent to manage them, keep everyone safe, and go on with my life, and that’s all I need to do.”

I have suffered from anxiety and depression much of my life. My most recent (and most devastating) bout was a couple of years ago, when I worked with a therapist and managed to heave myself out of it without the use of antidepressants (which I had been on in the past and want to learn to live without.) Now I find myself slipping back in. My biggest issue seems to be that I put too much stock in what others think of me or might think of me (I’m really good at fabricating things people might be saying about me.) I also had a baby last year, which has prevented me from pursuing my career fully, so when I hear of the successes of others (or see them on Facebook) I get very anxious and feel that the universe is unjust. I want to be a good mom, and I want to be good at my job, but I feel I am failing at both and resenting others who are great at either. I was made fun of a lot when I was a kid and I think I still carry some of this baggage around, like whatever decision I make is the wrong one because I’m basically a loser. How can I focus on myself and my own life without worrying about what everyone else is up to or what they may think about me?

While you already have a good idea of what to do about your negative thinking, you still need to protect yourself from two bad ideas that you express here. Unfortunately, those two ideas are also your “goals.”

First, disavow yourself of the notions that you should be able to stop depression without using medication and that you should find a way to be less, for lack of a better word, insecure. In doing so, you won’t be giving up—you’ll be giving yourself some relief.

The good idea, and better goal, is to train yourself to fight negative thinking, and there are lots of ways to do that. A therapist can help, but so can the right kind of friends, readings, church, and/or spouse. Though you can’t make the negative thoughts go away, you can assemble a strategy (and maybe team) to help you handle them.

Develop a routine for reminding yourself that you’re the one who’s managing your life and working with your unique gifts and disabilities, and that you’re the only one who can judge whether you’re doing your best. Then, when you start to compare yourself to the better gifted, give yourself a dose of positive reality. Nobody else can judge you, not even Facebook.

The sad truth is that depression could sweep you away, regardless of what treatment you use and how motivated you are in pursuing it. It’s scary, but it’s also liberating; you’re responsible for doing your best with depression, not making it go away. Cancer patients don’t set performance goals, and neither should you.

Instead, set your goals in terms of the process of managing, rather than the outcome, of recovery, using non-medical and other minimal risk treatments whenever possible. Then go ahead and choose riskier treatments if and only if you think they’re necessary. Don’t let fear or guilt prevent you from choosing what’s best for you.

Don’t always listen to your doctor, because your doctor doesn’t know how much pain your depression is causing or how much it has disrupted your work and relationships, so it’s your tough decision. All the doctor can do is tell you the relative risk of the treatment, compared to your symptoms, and what he or she would do in your place.

Embrace the fact that every parent with a career has to contend with bad feelings about difficult compromises. The challenge for you is to accept those bad feelings and the fact that there’s always someone out there who can do things better than you, then learn how to manage yourself positively and tell Facebook to go fuck itself.

STATEMENT:
“I don’t often feel good about my performance at home or at work, but that’s my nature. I’m proud I’ve taken on parenthood and that I’m doing OK, whatever my insecurities tell me. I know I try hard and that I’ve made good decisions and I will use those facts to lift myself up when depression tries to tear me down.”

I shouldn’t be writing you about my depression because I have no reason to be depressed. I’m a lucky person with a good job and great boyfriend. I eat a healthy diet, exercise every day, and work hard to stay healthy, mentally as much as physically. I had a severe depression as a teenager but I worked hard in therapy (and still do all I can to keep those negative thoughts at bay), took my medications as directed, and have been much better since. So now, 10 years later, there’s no reason I should be unhappy, tearful, and unmotivated to do anything but go back to bed, but no matter how much I exercise or try to stay positive, I can’t get ahead of this thing. I must have missed something. My goal is to figure out what.

The one big thing you’ve failed to understand is that depression, like most illnesses, can’t be controlled. You can be careful, do everything right, avoid giving into negative thoughts and actions, but still feel like shit. It’s not fair, but it’s the nature of the beast.

Just in case this sad fact depresses you, think about how, just like the person above, you’re depressing yourself even more by holding yourself responsible for staying healthy. Maybe you want to assume that awesome responsibility because you wish you had the power to stay healthy, but you don’t, because nobody does. Even those people who follow all the rules and work their butts off.

Luckily, staying healthy is not part of your job description; coping with illness is, so stop telling yourself you shouldn’t be depressed. What you should be doing is reviewing what you need to do to cope with depression, and realizing that you’re probably doing most of those things.

You sound like the kind of person who tries hard to keep working, relating, and parenting regardless of how you feel. If that’s true, you’re doing most of what you need to do already. You’ve probably talked things over and tried to figure out whether something’s getting you down that you don’t know about, which takes care of another basic self-management task.

Decide whether to try any new medications (see above case), using the same procedure you would use for weighing the risks and management of any treatment. Don’t be a sissy about your dislike for treatment—no one likes treatment—so just add up the risks and benefits, and don’t let fear make your decision for you.

Finally, keep working on how to think positively, beginning with the most positive statement of all: you aren’t responsible for your illness, and despite bad results, you’re doing your best. You’ll quickly discover you’re doing a much better job of coping with depression than you realize, and while the situation may still seem unfair, your efforts are all that matter.

STATEMENT:
“I never expected to get depressed again, but I realize now that I didn’t fail to prevent depression, I failed to give myself reasonable expectations and responsibilities. Now that I know what to do, I have little to fault myself for and I can be legitimately hopeful about finding new tools for managing depression.”

Please Note: Monday is also a fxckfeelings.com holiday. Happy New Year (and again, if/when it’s unhappy, you know the drill).

I’m a current student and I’ve sort of self-diagnosed myself as having an unusual kind of OCD. It started out four years ago when I was studying for an upcoming major exam. I had always been one of the few top students, but at one point in time in the midst of hours of straight studying, I couldn’t absorb any more info, and in a fit of frustration, a ball of emotions welled up and I actually said harshly in my mind to myself, “you shall FAIL!”, even though I’ve always tried to avoid such negative thinking. What came next was an unshakable, unexplainable, and annoying-yet-scary series of feelings, thoughts and emotions for the next few days and weeks. After that episode, I developed an irrational apprehension about me having “ruined” myself and my academic ability. To get myself back to my normal, anxiety-free mind when studying or doing anything related to studies, I imagined “transferring” the whole chunk of this mental mess on other stuff, whether it is the faces of people who did badly in academics in my field, to those I don’t like, etc. Still, my mind would automatically be inclined to have these random obsessions appear in my mind while studying, and it’s really prevented me from fully unleashing my full academic ability in subsequent grades. I really felt restrained and trapped by this, and my goal is to eliminate this strong-rooted (it’s been 4 years) mental condition that happens whenever I study and then makes it almost impossible.

Some OCD thoughts are crippling but come out of nowhere, like fear of contamination or making a mistake. While they often lead to compulsive rituals, like repeated hand-washing and fact-checking, you manage to keep studying. So, while you’re suffering, you’re still lucky.

The fact that your obsessive fears are tied to school may make them easier to deal with, because, unlike germs, school (usually) doesn’t go on forever.

School is built on mental constructs that attract obsessions like lint to a dryer vent; it’s got grades, grade-points, and exams that hinge on a word or the instructor’s interpretation of same. It invites obsession and obsessive argument, which can be torture, but at least it has an end date.

After school is over, you can find branches of almost every major profession that thrive on obsessional thinking, but you can also avoid them if you want; you’ll have choices beyond what courses you can take and how much to put on your meal card.

Also, the mental activity that sticks words in your mind as if they’re big, significant boulders is probably good for certain kinds of learning, and it’s not uncommon. Respected psychiatrist John Nemiah liked to point out that Martin Luther had a similar problem, and went on to start Protestantism (although his Catholic colleagues might not see this as a success).

The bad news, I guess, is that you’ll probably never “eliminate” your fear of certain intrusive thoughts. What you can do, however, apart from putting school behind you, is develop techniques for breaking into the vicious circle that enhances the power of whatever you’re afraid of.

In other words, if you’re afraid to think about something, you’ll think about it, and your fear will probably have a small negative effect on your performance, which will prove you’re right to fear the intrusive thoughts, which scares you even more. What a good cognitive therapist can offer you is a bunch of mental and physical exercises that either distract you from the vicious circle or remind you of your ability to deal with fearful events as they occur.

Get used to the idea that, like many people for whom ideas and words have a life of their own, you can be troubled by obsessive thoughts. You can’t get rid of them, or always prevent them from distracting you, but you can always stop them from changing your goals or failing to try your best and reach the finish line of graduation.

STATEMENT:
“I’m afraid that intrusive thoughts will prevent me from ever living up to my potential, but, if I have to live with them, I can do it. I will regard them as just one more weakness that I can learn to deal with as I go about pursuing my interests and trying to graduate and make a living.”

I do pretty well as project director at work, but I’ve always been troubled by thoughts that get in my head and just won’t quit. During the last year, I’d get haunted over and over again by the thought that I’d said the wrong thing to one of my colleagues and offended them. What I’d want to do was ask them if I had in fact offended them, but if they said no, I’d probably worry that my asking them had offended them, and I’d want reassurance about that, thus making it worse. Instead, I ask my wife, who listens carefully and reassures me…but then I think of something I left out of the story and ask her again, and make it worse at home instead of at the job. She’s a kind woman and understands I can’t help it, but, after a while, her patience wears thin, and then I worry about my marriage. My goal is to figure a way out of this trap.

A couple good things about your obsessive thoughts are that you’re used to them and they haven’t stopped you from succeeding at a tough, challenging job. The bad thing is that your technique for diminishing painful self-doubts has gained a hold on you and, if unchecked, could trap you in a dangerous vicious circle. Instead of washing your hands, you’re using the Purell of reassurance to wash your mind of guilt.

If you read up on obsessive compulsive disorder, you’ll learn that the behaviors for reducing painful thoughts (like your reassurance technique) are called “rituals” and they can get out of hand. The treatments for controlling them are a lot like the one invented by Mel Brooks’ comic alter ego, Dr. Haldanish, who cured a young boy of a paper-tearing habit by yelling at him not to tear paper. Which is to say, an absurd-seeming disorder has a similar therapeutic approach.

The goal of these treatments is, simply, to help you stop the ritual, even if this causes more short-term pain and doubt. The therapist may give you reassuring thoughts to repeat or exercises you can use to distract or calm yourself. In extreme cases, the therapist may actually accompany you and directly encourage you to refrain from the ritual (alas, Mr. Brooks doesn’t do house calls).

If you think there’s an element of truth in your concerns and that your speech with colleagues is too negative when you’re stressed or find yourself worried, angry, or unhappy, coaching would also be helpful. You may discover new ways to keep your statements positive, while being direct about tasks and responsibilities.

If you were really offensive, however, you’d be getting more criticism at work and at home, and you aren’t. On a professional level, that’s really your standard and it’s one you want to think about and reinforce as much as possible.

Your goal isn’t to make your doubts go away, though that would be nice; it’s to have respectful conversations at work, even when you’re stressed, and feel confident about your ability to have those conversations. And to keep all paper intact.

STATEMENT:
“It’s hard not to ask for reassurance when I’m haunted by doubts, but I have my own good standards for professional behavior and, so far, I know I’m meeting them. My job is to make them stronger while I tolerate the doubt that seems to be part of my brain chemistry.”

Please Note: Our next post will be a week from today. Happy holidays, everyone! As always, we look forward to hearing from you if/when they aren’t.

I’m having a hard time since the death of my father. I was expecting the grief to be rough, but I thought I’d reached the acceptance stage and was starting to feel better. Then I noticed that my two sisters were able to talk and share memories much more easily with one another than they could with me, and suddenly I felt more alone than ever before. My wife is supportive, but I don’t want her to feel I don’t love her by telling her I feel alone. My goal is to get over this grief.

You probably were starting to recover from losing your father, but that’s when you experienced another loss—a broken connection with the people who should be the most understanding.

When you grieve the loss of parents with your siblings, a major source of comfort is knowing that, whatever your differences, you’re the only ones who remember the world of your family home and share the experience of growing up there. With that missing, you’ve got a double source of grief.

Pain always causes vicious circles, so the biggest danger here is that your feeling of isolation will cause you to withdraw, which will confirm your isolation. Your job with grief then is to fight to keep your perspective, rather than letting pain shape it for you.

Currently, your perspective is that there were good, meaningful times growing up with your father and sisters, and there were memories worth sharing and preserving. Instead of letting hurt stop you, figure out what you want to say, interrupt your sisters, and see if they can respond. After all, you’re the only guy who remembers that time and they need you as much as you need them.

If they can’t listen, talk to your wife, and if your wife’s not available, a pet’s always a good captive audience. You have eulogies to compose for yourself about your father’s contributions and values and what you wish to carry on, and delivering them to anyone or thing willing to listen will do you a lot of good. Of course, you’re the most important listener but there are others who would benefit from hearing your words.

You can’t shorten the grief or change your sibling relationships. What you can do, however, is respect the strength it takes to live with pain and not let it push you to the sidelines or shade your memories of your dad. With all the loss in your life, you should never lose your right to grieve.

STATEMENT:
“I wish I could share memories with my sisters, but that’s not the measure of how well I’m dealing with grief or of how much I took away from my relationship with my father. I’ll continue to treasure my memories and look for ways to share them, and not expect the grief to go away until it does.”

After my mother died, there were an amazing number of people who came to her funeral and told wonderful stories about their friendships and how much they loved her. It made me feel bad, however, because she and I never really got along. We loved one another, but we really didn’t understand one another, and now we never will. The more I saw the closeness other people had with her, the more I wondered what was wrong with me. I miss her, but what I feel most sad about is never being able to have a good relationship and not being able to mourn her as well or as much as her friends do.

Don’t assume that you could have or should have improved your relationship with your mother without first looking at the evidence. After all, you know that many close relationships can’t be improved because whatever is bad about them comes from character rather than things you can change. They are what they are, or they were what they were.

If your relationship with your mother was sub-par because you didn’t try hard enough, then yes, you’ve learned a sad lesson about not waiting until it’s too late. For most people, however, the problem isn’t a lack of trying or an overdose of waiting; it’s blaming themselves for a lack of good results after lots of trying and still assuming they could have done better if they’d tried harder.

Don’t assume that, because other people didn’t have your problem with your mother, you shouldn’t have had it either. You’ll probably find evidence that you tried hard and that many, if not all, of the reasons for your distance were not under her control or yours.

Like the person above, you have a double grief. You miss the mother you had and you also grieve the mother you could never have. It’s a grief you can’t share, because others, especially those who really connected with your mother, don’t understand.

Don’t feel bad then about not feeling bad the way they do. Your grief for her, like your relationship, is what it is. Instead of examining what was wrong, try to remember what worked. Hopefully, in spite of her disappointment with you, she did you some good and tried to be a good mother, and, hopefully, in spite of your frustration with her, you kept your life on track and spared her your anger. These are major accomplishments that need to be celebrated, particularly since they lead more often to tooth-grinding than to pleasure.

Celebrate the strength it takes to make the best of a bad relationship. Hopefully, some of that strength was hers, as well as yours.

STATEMENT:
“I often felt like a failure because I didn’t feel as positively about my mother as other people did, but I’ve come to accept that those feelings are not under my control and to respect what I’ve done with them. My job, now that she’s dead, is to do more of the same.”

Helping my daughter pay the rent on a bigger apartment seems to have lifted her out of her depression and she’s much more active at her job, but she’s still not making enough money and I’m running out of cash. If I tell her that she has to take a roommate, I’m afraid she’ll just crawl under the covers again and we’ll be back where we started. It shouldn’t be that hard for her to make enough money, but it is. I’m mad and I’m stuck. My goal is to get her to make more money and/or understand that I can’t keep supporting her like this.

While you may think you’re giving your daughter money out of love, you’re actually doing it out of fear. That’s trouble, because when you give money out of fear, you’re usually being mugged.

Fear makes you forget long-term risks, like what you’ll do after you run out of money and the consequences for you, her, and other people who depend on you. Your love is infinite, but your finances aren’t.

You’ll also forget that your daughter may be able to do more for herself now than she could before. She may be able to tolerate more stress and access other resources if yours are less available.

Finally, your fear amplifies her fear and vice versa, until you both doubt that she’ll be able to survive without your current level of support, without there being any evidence of that, other than fear itself.

If you want to manage her disability, rather than be managed by it, you must continually test out what she’s capable of. If she’s stressed by looking for a roommate, coach her on how to do it or how to find a coach. If the roommate is hard to live with, advise her on ways to protect herself. If you protect her more than absolutely necessary, you’re just stifling her growth in the long run.

After all, you’re not responsible for relieving her stress, but for teaching her how to live with it. You’re trying to ensure her basic safety and security, and while you wish she could be happy, that’s not something you or she control.

If she’s afraid of slipping back into depression, point out the constructive things she’s doing to prevent it. Stress may make her feel overwhelmed, but that doesn’t necessarily cause depression or mean that she’s slipping back. It just that means life is hard.

Don’t let her panic incite yours. Instead, think up an emergency, affordable bail-out plan in case she has a bad relapse. Don’t share it with her, just remind yourself that you know what to do for her safety and that the pain she may experience as you cut her funding is an unavoidable part of her recovery and your solvency.

By giving no more than you think is necessary, you become a strong fear-manager and learn self-defense against an emotional hostage situation. Ultimately, that’s the skill you want to give her.

STATEMENT:
“I’m terrified of the stress my daughter will experience if I cut back on the money I’m giving her, but I’ve thought carefully about what she needs and I’m sure she’ll be stronger if she can cope with the stress and do more with less.”

My 22-year-old daughter is mildly retarded, but she’s pretty well taken care of. She’s not unhappy—she worries about things much less than I do—but I’m unhappy, because I’ve never felt comfortable with her. Most people think she’s sweet and docile, but my daughter very much has a will of her own; she doesn’t like to shower, she doesn’t care about other people’s feelings, and she has no idea of how people are reacting to her, or anyone else. I’ve tried hard to find a point of positive connection, and failed. Other people think I’m a great father, but I can’t get over the feeling that I never met this challenge and that there’s unfinished business between my daughter and me.

Regardless of whether your daughter is retarded, super-powered or “normal,” you can never be sure that you’ll like her. It’s so much easier to be her father if you do, but that’s never a guarantee.

It may be that no one would like her if they really knew her, but that doesn’t matter. It sounds like you’ve tried hard to like her, but you don’t, and it’s not in your control.

Given the lack of good chemistry, however, you should appreciate your achievement all the more. You haven’t punished your daughter or told her she’s a failure; on the contrary, you’ve taken good care of her. You’ve done your job under much tougher conditions than most parents have to deal with, and I don’t mean because she’s retarded, but because of your negative feelings for her.

The test of a good teacher isn’t how well she teaches the kids she likes, but how well she does with the kids she doesn’t like and how well she hides that fact.

If this were the movies, your business wouldn’t be finished until the two of you have a good hug. Since this is real life, it’s never finished, so every day, do your best to treat her with respect and friendliness. If you slip and get nasty, apologize. It’s one day at a time.

It’s certainly sad that you couldn’t like her more, but it’s not a failure. It’s a success that, in spite of that, you treat her right, and one that only a great father could achieve.

STATEMENT:
“I will never feel comfortable with my daughter and I will always suspect that, if I were a better person, I would; but I am who I am and she is who she is and I’ve done the best job possible given that simple fact of life.”