What I would like to share with you, and in turn, hear you share your thoughts about, is chronic unhappiness. Is there ever an end to depression and its shadow? Is there a way to “get over it’? My goal is to be able to live beyond depression and to actually grow from it. Sure, I hate those books where people claim to be grateful to their depression… but I hate it mainly because I resent their ability to feel that way! What do you think?

There’s no way to “get over” problems you have no control of in the first place and, no matter what form it comes in (shitty in-law, brain tumor, Hurricane Earl, etc). Chronic unhappiness is high on that “uncontrollable” list.

So now you have to ask yourself what it means to “get over” an uncontrollable problem. Usually, it means you’ve asked yourself to do the impossible and thus given yourself a chronic headache to top off your chronic unhappiness.

Know your exact strain of chronic unhappiness so you can figure out what you can and can’t do with each one. Depression is unique in being a thought-distorting illness: it’s more than a poor outlook or a bad mood caused by bad luck or a rough divorce (or both at once). It’s a bad mood that goes on and on, even when you win the lottery or hit your 50th anniversary.

As an illness, it hits you with a variety of complicated, brain-related symptoms, like messed-up sleep, appetite, focus, energy, social urges, and sexual reflexes, and that’s not counting the storms of anger and/or anxiety. It’s a bad mood on steroids.

Having an unhappy life, on the other hand, can make you depressed, but not necessarily. Some people with happy lives can get very depressed, and some people with grumpy personalities aren’t depressed, although other people may wish they were. In each case, figure out, through trial and error, what you can and can’t do. Each strain is unique.

To “get over” your “getting over,” try cognitive therapy. It protects you from negative thinking by attacking the plausible, idiot assumptions you make without thinking, the most dangerous of which is that you should be able to get over chronic unhappiness.

Once you’ve done what you can do with your particular flavor, whatever that is, give up and chill out. It’s time to go on with work and relationships, however much your chronic unhappiness hurts or slows you down. The better you do that, the more you’ll grow.

No, no one should be grateful to aging, loss, and chronic pain—I think we’d all be happier with fewer “growth opportunities”—but there’s no choice. This is the life we’ve been given, so take pride in what you do with it, with or without depression (or a brain tumor).

STATEMENT:
“I don’t know why these blues won’t leave me alone. Maybe I inherited them as part of a gene-package deal from my creative, reach-out-and-connect-with-people ancestors. In any case, I’ve done what I can to manage them and I haven’t let them make me lazy or isolated or self-absorbed, and that’s a major accomplishment (which I’d be happy to do without).”

My younger brother is four years younger than me—that makes him 26, but you’d never know it because he acts like a freaking toddler. He’s not mentally impaired, he’s responsibility impaired. He dropped out of college to “find himself,” and he’s still searching, sometimes getting crappy jobs but mostly going on “adventures” and landing our parents with the bill (and sometimes the bail). I love him, but the older we get, the more I worry, because our parents won’t be around forever and I can’t be the one to clean up his messes—I’m not rich and I have my own kids to care for. Is there anyway to get him to take life a little more seriously?

Sorry for the obvious response, but the real question is, are you serious?

I’m sure your brother would say he’s serious about experiencing joy and living in the moment and that you ruin your chance of present happiness by worrying too much about things that aren’t going to happen. In other words, he’s not going to change.

Even thinking about trying to reform him will backfire and trigger conflict. You’ll give your brother a worried look, he’ll return that with a look of tolerant condescension, and your parents will accuse you of undermining his confidence. This will all leave you stewing about good deeds, their punishment, and his bullshit.

Forget about your responsible feelings and figure out what a good sibling should do to help one not-so-good. Your parents have shown you that rescuing him does no good, so rejoice. Since they’ve proven there’s not much you or anyone can do that will actually help him, there’s nothing much that you have to do, period.

When he makes a mess, help him help only when you think it will do good and it’s not someone else’s job; that won’t be often and it won’t drain you dry. The rest of the time, give him your best wishes, condolences, and directions on what he can do if he can get it together.

Don’t expect to feel comfortable, at least not at first. Your guilty, responsible feelings will be stirred up, but if you don’t keep those feelings hidden, other people will stir the pot. If experience and logic tell you that you’re not responsible, believe them and act accordingly, regardless of how you feel or what the rest of the family has to say.

Announce, don’t communicate. Let him know what you think is best without paying much attention to his response. Yes, it would feel better if you could get him to agree, but your need for agreement opens a door you want to keep closed.

He’ll keep his carpe diem attitude, and all you have to do is keep your end of the bargain, on your terms. He can go find himself, and you can find some peace.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to keep you from trying to change him or win him over. “As much as I want to protect my brother and parents from his irresponsibility, I know I can’t. He will wind up in horrible messes. I will not stop loving him, caring for him, or doing for him if there’s a real chance to help. Most times, it will hurt to watch him suffer, but I will not turn away.”

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.

Unfortunately, as you’ve noticed, people ignore one another all the time because that’s the way they are. They ask your opinion when what they really want is your OK, they ask how you’re doing when they really want nothing more than to avoid enmity, and they don’t actually care if you drive safe.

Some people who ignore you are, nevertheless, nice and reasonably respectful when they aren’t tired, distracted or irritable. If you’re lucky, and that’s whom you’ve got in your family, then you don’t want to fight over an irritation you can’t possibly change. Even if you’re rich and powerful or order a third-world wife, your family will always, eventually, tend to treat you like chopped liver.

Trying to eliminate the irritation of being ignored usually makes things worse, as I’m sure you’ve noticed. Make a fuss, and they’ll consider you a temperamental grump or autocrat. You’ll get more irritated and feel less respected, they’ll see it as your problem, and everything will get worse.

So don’t make it your goal, like the late, great Rodney Dangerfield, to get respect. The only way to avoid feeling disrespect is to become mean, insanely rich, and/or live in total quarantine from the human race.

Instead, make it your goal to do and be a person you can respect. If you’re not getting respect when you feel it’s deserved, do your best to, you guessed it, ignore it.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement for motivating yourself to eat the shit of feeling ignored and proclaim its tastiness when necessary. “I’ll never like being ignored, but I know when it’s an unavoidable part of a worthwhile relationship, so I’m proud of the way I tolerate it when I have to.”

I’m a pretty miserable person sometimes because I get mired in regret. For example, my biggest hang-up to this day is the “traditional” college experience (good friends, staying up all night studying or watching movies with members of the opposite sex, getting top-/transformative academic experiences). I graduated college three years ago and still wonder why things hadn’t gone, well, my way. Whining and pining over past/imaginary circumstances keeps me focused on my own perceived setbacks and flaws instead of moving forward. How do I stop sighing and lamenting, and start valuing and appreciating what I do have? Also, how can I identify what I really want to do in life? Should I learn to be content with doing something, anything, rather than searching for that something? I’m sure I must possess some innate fear of something, as implicit in this message.

Some people tend to ruminate about the contenders they could have been, just as some dogs tend to chase their tails. If your goal is to be happy—which is never a good goal in the first place—stop now, because, like those determined dogs, your tail will always remain out of reach.

Unfortunately, like many people, you’re not the happy type. Of course I don’t mean that you can’t be happy—bring a chocolate cake out after dinner, and everybody’s ecstatic—but anyone who obsesses as much about the difference between what was and what might have been is always going to have a shitload of unhappiness on his plate, which will cause more rumination about what a bad state of mind that is, in infinite regression.

Begin then by accepting the fact that, as a person, you’re a happiness-impaired ruminator. Unlike most shrinks, I don’t want you to ask yourself why you’re a ruminator, not just because I don’t care, but because I don’t think it’s good for you. Figuring out why will ignite yet more rumination and delay the day when you decide you just have to ignore yourself.

Now that you know you ruminate excessively, try to block off the ruminative chatter in your head and prevent it from influencing your actions. In other words, instead of sitting and thinking and fretting, keep doing.

If that seems easier said than done, therapy is an option. Good therapy will help you ignore your ruminations, focus on the here-and-now of your life, and keep moving (or they’ll gain on you). On the other hand, bad therapy will help you ruminate about why you ruminate and keep you so firmly ensconced in your navel you’ll forget what daylight looks like.

Yes, it can be helpful to identify the shortcomings or weaknesses that prevented you from being a college all-star, but the point in knowing your shortcomings is to do the best with them. If college was a bust, then fuck it, and thank goodness you don’t have to stay in college; there’s a world out there where your strengths may serve you well.

So, once you accept that you over-think/under-enjoy, stop over-analyzing your past and start focusing on making a living and creating a social life. It’s not easy, and you might not end up happy, but at least you’ll stop spinning in circles and start moving in a straight line.

STATEMENT:
Meanwhile, here’s a positive way of thinking of college that will protect you from ruminative “might-have-beens.” “I’ve always had ideals and dreams about the college guy I wish I could have been, and the tough side of those perfect superhero dreams is feeling how often and in how many ways I fell short. I did my best and, despite having had no great social or academic triumphs, I learned enough to get my money’s worth and was a decent guy (to whatever dweebs wanted to be my friend). I believe life can get better if I find my niche; meanwhile, I’m proud of what I did with what I had.”

I hate life. What is the most reliable and painless way to commit suicide?

You hate life, and I hate the kind of dangerous, self-lacerating whining that makes a painful life seem meaningless, when it isn’t.

Hating life is an understandable feeling, whether the problem is a hateful life or your own, reflexive intolerance of life’s general hatefulness. There’s no doubt that life is sometimes hateful, some people’s lives are more hateful than most, and some good people are more sensitive to its hatefulness.

There’s more than enough hate to go around, and you can’t help how you feel.

Any time you let hateful feelings shape your goals, however, you’ll make life more hateful (after a brief burst of genuine satisfaction) and destroy what’s left of your self-esteem.

Yes, taking your hate out on yourself may give you the satisfaction of protesting life’s unfairness and heaping guilt and contempt on your so-called friends. What it also does, if you think about it or survive to see what happens next, is define your life as a reaction to your hurts and the people you value least. It both fuels and destroys, hateful little fucker that it is.

What you really want (and what your survivors will try to do) is to remember the times you did better things and followed your own values. It’s not as exhilarating as being a nihilist, but exhilaration is, by its nature, short-lived. You shouldn’t be.

During its short run, hate is a lot more attractive and satisfying than reminding yourself about what you stand for and thinking about values and consequences. That’s why you need to work on building a philosophy and preparing for hate before it arrives, instead of boarding the hate train and then finding the will to get off.

You can do that by going to the right church or temple (one that doesn’t waste too much time on holy this or ecstatic that), hanging out or reading about people who’ve made the same journey, or getting the right kind of therapy. DBT (dialectic behavioral therapy), which borrows heavily from Jewish, Christian, Buddhist and 12-step ideas about living with anger, can be particularly helpful.

Therapy or no, you can find ways to keep your hate (and my hate for your hate) under control.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement for taking pride in good hate management. “I know what it’s like to hate life, but I won’t let myself forget what I value about life and my own ability to make it better. I can’t escape hate; but I will make myself strong enough to protect myself from its destructiveness and use its energy for my own goals.”

I feel like it’s finally time to confront a serious problem I’ve had for years; when I drive, I become filled with rage. My mother was the same way, and it was scary. She was never violent and neither am I, but the amount of anger I feel can’t be healthy, and I don’t want my daughter to do the same thing. I want to feel less furious.

I hope you’re not expecting therapy, a pill, or some Tibetan meditative experience to take away your anger, because it probably won’t.

Whatever causes anger—mommy’s genes, bullying by your older brother, or one rotation too many around a Boston-style rotary—it’s usually yours for life by the time you’re old enough to write me a letter.

Sure, psychotherapy may help, but my rule of therapy thumb is, if it hasn’t helped in a few months, move on. Therapy just isn’t that powerful (not even in my Harvard hands), and sticking with it when you’ve got anger to control delays your acceptance of the red-hazed reality you need to start managing.

What I’m really advocating isn’t to give up on therapy, but to give up on the idea that it will make you feel better by taking your anger away. Instead, use therapy (like DBT, see above) to help you manage anger.

I know you’ve probably seen kung fu monks master their anger by thinking pacifist thoughts while smashing bricks, and maybe you think channeling your rage into big muscles and loud thuds will improve your control while intimidating your tormentors into not cutting you off you in the first place.

Wrong, young grasshopper. The only reason martial monks don’t get sued for everything they own by everyone they lay a finger on is that they’re monks and own nothing. For the rest of us, the slightest adult physical altercation, combined with martial training, is as bad as a car-crash without insurance or witnesses: an endless goldmine for lawyers (and shrinks) at your expense.

So now that you’ve abandoned all hope of ever getting rid of your anger, you’re ready to improve your ability to manage it. Instead of tailgating those who dare offend your road-warrior sensibilities, learn to shut up and back off until you have a chance to think and decide whether a battle is worth fighting (almost never) and, if so, how to do it most effectively (by never appearing angry).

Feeling angry is unhealthy because it raises your blood pressure, but expressing it is even more unhealthy because it causes you endless misery that raises your blood pressure higher for longer.

You can’t control the former, but you can learn to get a handle on the latter (even if you can’t break a brick with your fist).

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement for taking pride in frustrated rage. “I hate the way other drivers ignore the road rules, put my life in danger, and never get punished. Teaching them a lesson would make them think twice about driving like assholes. My goal in driving, however, is to get from one place to another as safely as possible, without being endangered or diverted by people whom I least respect. I’m proud of my ability to eat my anger and never, ever fight.”

I’ve been a complete, stinking failure since I graduated from college. My job pays well, but I hate it with a passion because I’m treated like shit. Then again, I don’t have the skills to find anything better, though I’ve tried. My drinking has kept my girlfriend from moving in, and, since I’ve never loved anyone else, that means I’ve never had a relationship that works. I don’t really have friends because I’m too nervous to let anyone really know me and I work too hard to meet anyone (at that job that sucks). Now I wonder whether I’m being honest with you, or just whining and slinging bullshit. My goal is to be someone else.

It never ceases to amaze me how people who launch into the most brutal monologues of self-criticism would never allow their friends to talk such shit about themselves in their presence. The only thing they truly fail at is holding themselves to the same standards they hold others.

Your tirade makes you sound like the Yankees fans who can’t stand it when their team isn’t number one. When the Yankees are losing, they always find someone to blame: the owner for paying too much for bad players, or the slumping batter for not caring enough about the game to deliver value for his multimillion dollar salary.

In reality, sometimes other teams are better and hard-driving players slump, and it’s better to ride it out than to rage. The same goes for life in general, because blaming yourself and cursing your performance isn’t going to make it any better, and, unlike the Yankees, you can’t afford the reinforcements.

If you succeeded in hating yourself like this in front of a friend, he’d not just tell you to shut up, but express respect for the strength and courage it takes to work hard at a job you hate so that you can be independent and have some money.

He’d credit your persisting in a job search despite rejection and a bad economy, and express hope for a girl-friendship that has so far survived your drinking problem. He’d admire the other friendships you’ve started, despite your shyness.

Well, I’m not your friend, so I’m going to skip straight to telling you to shut up. I don’t like to hear people be mean to themselves. Don’t do it in my presence. Besides, I’m a Sox fan.

Your goal is not to indulge self-loathing, but to bottle it up and treat yourself with respect. No, I don’t know why you feel that way and I’m not too interested in exploring that question unless you’re willing to stop, now.

Not wait until you feel like stopping, because you can guess how much regard I hold for feelings and the fallacy that bottling them up can kill you. If Girardi had kept his feelings bottled up on Monday, he wouldn’t have gotten tossed from the game (and surely he wouldn’t have dropped dead from a feelings attack).

Thinking like a Red Sox fan—enjoying a losing team on a good streak—is usually more healthy. When the drive for dominance doesn’t trump loyalty, be it to a sports team or to yourself and your values, then losing sucks less, winning feels better, and more fun is had.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement. “I can’t help feeling self-critical, but I will use objective measures to judge how well I’m doing. I will deny expression to self-hate, even if it makes me turn red and develop acne. I will respect myself for legitimate achievements, whether or not they make me happy or rich. I’ll be positive about what I need to do to improve.

I love all my kids, but I don’t know where I went wrong with my youngest son. His older siblings are all accomplished and ambitious; two are married with kids, and one hasn’t had time because he’s finishing his medical training, but he and his girlfriend seem serious. Meanwhile, my youngest hasn’t lived in one place for more than two years, let alone held a job for more than a month, and all he seems to excel at is spending my money and wasting time. I don’t think he’s drinking or using drugs; he just isn’t successful at anything but fucking around. My goal is to get my son’s head out of his ass.

You’re entitled to worry about unlaunched kids who can’t (yet) make a living or misfits who haven’t found their way in life. You can worry, be impatient, or feel resentful; but, as a parent, you are never, ever entitled to get nasty.

Remember (and if you don’t remember, look it up), Archie Bunker was an asshole who made it harder, not easier, for the younger generation to get started by constantly expressing criticism and contempt. He enjoyed venting, and vented poison, so don’t follow in his reclining footsteps.

If your values—self-reliance and hard work— are worthwhile, you will do a much better job of pushing your son in a good direction by praising his strengths and supporting whatever you think will carry him forward. Let life teach him that bad directions take him nowhere. If you tell him, he has to prove you wrong, so let life carry the bad news.

I know, I know, the “real” problem with fucked-up kids is that their precious, testicularly underweight liberal parents never told them they were fuck-ups. Well, that sounds an awful lot like whining to me.

Like one of them liberals, you’ve shared your feelings with your son, and all they’ve done is make things worse. You’re too angry to stop yourself, so let me; Shut up.

He might be a fuck-up, but he’s your fuck-up, so stop cutting him down and start to actually help. Your words will carry much more weight if they make you sound like you’re on his side, which is where you’re supposed to be.

STATEMENT:
“You’ve got imagination and I admire the way you stay clear of drugs. I’m not one of those parents who wants you to do anything that will make you happy, because I think there are bigger issues, like having enough money to support yourself and fight off the crap that life will throw at you, particularly after I’m dead and there’s no financial umbrella. Even now, we can’t support you except in emergencies. So, as much as I hope you will find a happy career, I’m more interested in your developing the strength to make money from shoveling shit, if necessary, because you’re a good person and I want you to be strong and independent.”

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.

Sure, the pain in your life is real, but there’s a monster in most of us that speaks up when we’re hungry or poor or lonely and says, “Look what a mess you got yourself into, you worthless piece of shit.”

If you’re smart and have high standards and a well-developed sense of style, the monster will comment on the bad clothes, dull conversation, and depressing colors; it’s very specific and discerning, because it’s the meanest side of yourself. It will give meaning to your pain, alright, by telling you that it means a lot and it’s your fault.

It’s your job to keep that monster from influencing your values. I assume you’re working hard on your own business, because you care about being independent and self-supporting.

I also assume you have old friends, because you care about friendship and maintaining relationships, regardless of whether someone is wealthy, clever, or stylish. You haven’t mentioned doing anything wrong; you’ve just described the kind of bad luck that often happens to everyone at one time or another, with or without depression, or a partner, or a great job.

If you have good values, be prepared to use them. If you want to talk “facts,” remind yourself how hard you work at your job and your friendships. Your goal isn’t to get me or anyone else to confirm that you deserve to feel bad; it’s to keep your perspective and not let the negative thinking of loneliness and bad luck undermine your sense of pride.

STATEMENT:
“My life sucks right now, but I respect what I’m doing. I work hard and stand by my friends when all my efforts are relatively unrewarding and, on top of that, I’m fuckin’ depressed. I can’t wait for my luck to turn but, until it does, I wouldn’t want to do anything differently, and that’s what counts.”

I have struggled with bipolar disorder for almost ten years now, but sometimes I can’t see the point. The last time I was admitted to a hospital, I was actually raped by another patient, and the whole experience left me with fears and nightmares I just can’t get over. I’ll never let my family or a psychiatrist put me in a hospital again. My goal is to find a psychiatrist who will give me the support I need so that I will never, ever have to go into a hospital.

If you had diabetes and got the best possible supportive care from the best physician in the world—you could even marry her—you might still need hospital treatment if you got an infection, overdosed on peeps, or just fell into a manhole.

So, while you have every right to feel traumatized by your assault, don’t paint yourself into a corner because of it. When it comes to this anti-hospital stance, (or pro I-need-to-be-nurtured-very-carefully-or-else), you have to shut yourself up.

Thinking about the risks logically, it becomes clear that you probably wouldn’t get raped a second time, and there would be steps you could take to make it more unlikely. So, in reality, you aren’t facing a choice of rape vs. death, but rather terror vs. death.

Terror or death is a decision most of us face every morning before we get on the subway; that’s life. There would be no other choice.

Unfortunately, you can’t change the way rape gave you nightmares, and you can’t avoid the possibility that you’ll find yourself in the same neighborhood. What you can do, however, is bear the terror—the fear of fear—so that you can promise yourself the best possible care and manage yourself as carefully and respectfully as possible.

Your goal shouldn’t depend on finding the kindest or most available psychiatrist, or extracting promises about what he or she would never allow to happen. Your goal should depend instead on your own ability to ignore fear while benefiting from your bad experiences to make good treatment decisions.

Yes, bad things might still happen, but you can be sure you will have done everything to protect yourself while taking the risks necessary to manage a bad illness. If you go to the hospital, something bad might happen, but if you need care and you don’t go, something bad is guaranteed.

STATEMENT:
I may never be able to shake the rape nightmares or promise myself that a mood swing won’t become catastrophic and push me into a loony bin. I can swear, however, that I’ll take reasonable care of myself and that, when I’m well, I’ll try to focus on living life, caring about friends, and ignoring pain, regardless of whether I can get it to go away.

About 10 years into our marriage, my husband and I got inspired by a trip down the Snake River in Idaho and decided we should move there as soon as we could afford it. Something about the wilderness eased our hearts and made us feel safer and more grounded than we ever did in the city. Well, now it’s 15 years later, and we made the move to a beautiful house with a breath-taking view and no visible neighbors, and I found a way to telecommute to a job, but my husband still has to fly back and forth every couple weeks and spend at least half his time in our old city. The problem is that I can tell my husband’s not doing so well; he complains about feeling lonely when he’s on his own, and he’s restless when he’s with us, and then he blames me and claims the marriage lacks “spark,” and I can see the wheels going in his head, wondering whether he’s ever going to be happy. My goal is to get my husband to enjoy our new life as much as the rest of the family does.

The danger of any moment of happiness or inspiration is feeling responsible for making it happen again.

You got inspired by going to Idaho, so you think it’s yours to recapture whenever you want, forgetting about all the usual shit that you don’t control. So you plan for years and finally make the big move, and your husband’s “inspired” to wonder what happened to the big pay-off.

His mistake is making it his goal to be happy; be it from buying a house in a natural heaven or adopting as many cats as your house can hold, this goal will mess you up every time. Nature is just the setting; there’s too much he doesn’t control about what really counts, which is what always counts.

Remember, nature really isn’t any more meaningful than the rest of life’s shit. One day, you’ve got beautiful sunshine, steaks on the fire, and thrilling sex in a tent. The next you’ve got rain, insects, and accusations about who lost the toilet paper.

On a good day, there’s nothing like nature, but after a couple years, the kids have gone and it’s you and your husband trying to make a living, keep busy, and get along with one another, same as usual, but with a beautiful view.

Except now, you and he have the same control over these things; if anything, you have less control, because you’re aging and you don’t know whether your kids and their spouses will have the time to visit your off-the-beaten-air-routes hideaway.

So encourage your husband (and yourself) to take no unrealistic responsibility for your move-related happiness. You moved for good reason and did it well, but you knew there were many things, including his work-transition, that might ruin it for one or both of you, at least temporarily.

Remind him, and yourself, that it can never be a failure because you’ve done a good job, and that’s true whether or not it works out. Human nature, like any other kind of nature, is unreliable. And the view isn’t nearly as good.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to support good migrations regardless of their results. “I love this place and think moving here will be worth the sacrifice, but I know you’re making the bigger sacrifice by commuting. I respect the unhappiness and loneliness that you’re putting up with to try to make this experiment work. Whether it works or not, we’re doing a good job of trying.”

My wife and I are a little odd; being nerds is a big part of our connection. When she had our first son, she stopped working, and hasn’t gone back (and hasn’t needed to, because my tech job supports us quite well, and she never liked her job that much, anyway). She loves being a mother, but, without a workplace to socialize in, most of the adults she meets are our sons’ mothers, and, seeing as my wife is a nerd like me, a lot of them don’t really get her, and so I can tell she’s feeling a little isolated. Recently, though, she’s had a rough time because the group of fashionable PTA mothers who thought she was cool and befriended her decided she was too standoffish and dumped her, and now she’s feeling like a social failure. She’s really a polite and thoughtful person, and there’s nothing wrong with her social skills other than that she’s an intellectual weirdo, like me, and her erstwhile friends are like a nasty high school clique. I know that she’s lonely and easily depressed, and I don’t want her to feel so alone. My goal is to help my wife find friends and happiness outside our home.

When you’re a weirdo, as you probably know, you gotta get used to a certain amount of loneliness (which you might remember as, the years before you met your wife).

The alternative is worse: trying to fit in with people who aren’t really your friends and then feeling like a bigger loser.

It’s not a choice, it’s not a calling; if you’re weird, you’re weird, and sometimes that means you can’t be happy. Not that “normal” people are happy all the time. But sometimes, they’re happier than you are, for no particular reason, and that’s the way it is.

For the time being, she can’t be happy and you can’t make her so, and expecting otherwise will make you both feel like failures. Just feeling like a geek is so much easier. Geek comes from the Inuit word meaning “he who eats different fish and is unpopular and unhappy but does nothing wrong.”

So remind her that it’s not easy being different, or green. But you like her that way and think that her weirdness, and yours, are part of what make you good friends and parents, even if you sometimes feel isolated.

Remind her how much you respect the way you are. Recite “Monty Python” lines to each other, reread some Terry Pratchett, and find comfort in nerd pride and each other.

STATEMENT:
Write a proud statement. “I love your weird style and think it’s a big part of our being a good, solid family, but it’s not a style that everyone will like or understand, so there will always be some lonely times and rejections, just as there have been in the past, that will have nothing to do with making mistakes or saying the wrong thing. The good news is that you’ve done nothing wrong. The bad news is that there’s no mistake to correct, so this pain is unavoidable. Bummer.”

I have a dedicated husband, three teenagers, a nice house, a well-behaved dog—it’s not a bad life—but I’ve had a nagging sadness my entire life, and I still do, despite all the good things I’ve got. I deal with it, admittedly, by drinking a bit. I wouldn’t say I’m a drunk, and my drinking doesn’t interfere with my parenting or my marriage anymore than my mood does, but I know that what I’m doing is self-medicating. My husband wants me to see a shrink because he thinks I should take real medication for depression, but if my drinking doesn’t mess up my life, and if, despite all I have, I can’t be happy, anyway, then I don’t understand what makes one medication better than the other. My goal isn’t to be happy, just to withstand my misery, my way, right or wrong.

I understand that chronic depression, which is what we call “nagging sadness” in the biz, isn’t fun. It can make you grumpy, negative, unmotivated, scattered, and lousy at whatever you’re trying to accomplish.

All that’s excluding the pain, so no wonder it can demoralize you into seeing a negative future for yourself. It’s enough to make you want to turn “what the fuck” into words to live by.

If there was some way to relieve your pain that was risk-free and didn’t affect your other life priorities, that would be wonderful (for you—the aforementioned biz would probably dry up).

Sadly, said riskless, perfect painkiller, psychic or otherwise, hasn’t been invented yet, which is why depression relief requires hard choices and can’t be your only goal.

Clearly, you’ve got other goals than depression relief, or you wouldn’t have the good family you do. Good families take lots of work, so I suspect you’re good at putting the goals of work and family-raising first. Being strong about these goals can’t make your depression go away, but it can keep depression from affecting what’s important, and that’s an accomplishment to be proud of.

Drinking hasn’t done you any apparent harm, but your decision-making method is dangerous. You didn’t weigh risks and benefits, and you didn’t mention the fact that drinking, in the long run, tends to make depression and anxiety worse, and doesn’t protect your brain from the risk of long term damage that depression is now known to cause.

Don’t tell yourself there’s no point in giving up your only source of happiness for the sake of a future that will never be happy. You don’t make most of your decisions that way, and it’s a bad example for your kids.

Do what’s right in the long run, even when there’s no light at the end of the tunnel, or at least consider doing what’s right, even when the long run doesn’t feel worth it, but you know it is.

You might feel like you’re damned if you do, damned if you don’t, but that’s your damned feelings talking, not your values.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement to guide your drinking decisions. “Alcohol gives me relief from depression and hasn’t done me any harm. But I know the risks from using alcohol increase over time and my future matters, (even if I don’t feel like it does), so I will keep looking for and considering lower-risk alternatives and try to make whatever decision is best for me and my family.”

I’m conscientious and hard-working and I don’t need a lot of praise from the boss—I’ve been in my line of work for a long time—but the thing that’s gotten me in trouble in the past, and what’s threatening my position at my current office, is that I hate it when someone acts like they’re doing more work than I do and the boss agrees. I need this job and I’m good at it, but I don’t want to lie down and roll over when someone says I’m a slacker and deprives me of respect I deserve. My goal is to keep my job and that means not letting anyone ruin my good reputation.

In a fair world, we’d all get respected for the hard work we do. The need to get respected is basic: most large companies do elaborate reviews, wasting tons of time, to make sure it happens; it gets most married couples fighting, sooner or later; it got Rodney Dangerfield to stretch his collar for decades.

So of course you know that the right to get the respect you deserve…doesn’t actually exist. That’s a fact of life, and it really hurts, but the best thing you can do is do what you think is right and hope that someone notices. That, and maybe hire someone good at PR (and acquire a taste for shit, since, sooner or later, at some point in your career, you’re going to be eating it, buffet-style).

I know, your friends tell you to stand up for yourself, and your company assures you that their HR department is there to help anyone who has been treated unfairly.

As your e-doctor, however, I’m telling you, bullshit. If you’re complaining to me, chances are that you’ve tried to speak up and it hasn’t worked. Worse, it’s drawing fire.

Yup, that’s what often happens, and it’s not because bosses and HR staff are insincere and evil, or at least not usually. People aren’t evil, they’re stupid; they speak different languages, then look at the same thing and come to opposite conclusions neither side can understand.

If you’re really good at describing someone else’s evil abuse of power and your abuser can’t see the abuse, but understands how you see him, you know what will happen—it’s the law of conservation of victimhood—it will come right back at you.

He’ll work harder to compile new instances of your slacking and you’ll have new fodder for outrage, less job security, and more reason to see a lawyer, thus making worker-boss divorce almost inevitable.

You want justice, you’ll get unemployment. The real injustice is that conscientious people often hurt the most over this issue, while a real slacker wouldn’t care.

Your goal should never be justice, but making the best of a shitty situation and keeping your job, if you have to, for as long as necessary. That means eating shit, smiling, and not letting moral outrage and helplessness stop you from searching for better work (or gathering evidence of mistreatment in case you can use it some day).

See a lawyer, by all means, to see what it takes to make a good case. Your goal, though, is to maintain your steady diet of shit and smile until the legal case is in place, if it ever is. In the meantime, stay strong, quiet, and well-stocked with tic-tacs.

STATEMENT:
Here’s a statement for quittin’ time. “I do a good day’s work for no respect and it hurts. I can’t change it and I can’t find another job. But the reason I work isn’t to get respect, but to make a living, and if I do that under difficult circumstances, I deserve more respect from the person who knows what’s going on, and that’s me.”

I just started at college, and I like my roommate, but she’s bulimic and hard to be around. Not just because she’s sick (and everybody on the floor knows about her problem, it’s hard not to), but because when she binges, it’s on my food because that’s what’s closest, and she always feels really bad about it and cries that she wishes she could stop, but then she doesn’t offer to pay for it and it’s costing me a lot of money. Part of me just feels bad for her, because she’s clearly really messed up, but another part of me is pissed because I’ve lost a lot of money this year on food that she’s eaten and thrown up, and that just makes me feel guilty like I’m a bad person for putting my lost money above her health. I want to move after the break, but I don’t want her to feel abandoned. My goal is to help her and myself.

Welcome to that other part of college, Hard Knocks University, where the class Helplessness 101—what to do when you can’t help both someone and yourself, and sometimes you can’t help at all—is a frosh requirement.

The tough part is not the decision, but accepting the shitty nature of your options. Bulimia, like any chronic condition (depression, addiction, etc.) is not completely curable, not by you or certainly the patient herself.

If you buy into the psychobabble about body image and low self-esteem, you might think you could help her by praising her strengths, noticing her attractive qualities, or getting her to think about the superficiality and limitations of attractiveness. Ha!

Whether it’s coming from you or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir of Therapists, your therapeutic support is not going to change those mysterious urges to binge and puke. Buying into that notion will waste you even more time and money than all the cash you’ve already flushed away at the supermarket.

Bulimia, like all addictions, can turn people into assholes. Don’t get me wrong, they don’t choose to be assholes, but when you’re more interested in binging and purging than in anything else, including other people’s feelings and squaring your debts, you’re an asshole. Or really, you’re a normal, possibly good person suffering from a bad case of asshole-itis.

It’s a humiliating thing to say about ourselves, but what helps most in controlling dangerous behavior, when all else fails, is to be treated like a soldier or dog-in-training in a program where our every movement is controlled. That’s the kind of treatment that saves lives when bulimia gets dangerous.

Obviously, it doesn’t cure it, but it stops us from going over the cliff until we can get enough control back to keep it down to a barf or two a day.

So the most you can do is let her and others know if you think her life’s in danger. Otherwise, you’ve got little influence over her for good or ill, and you’re living with an asshole you can’t cure who’s costing you a bundle.

You may wish you could help her, ease her pain, and not make yourself feel guilty by locking the refrigerator if you don’t get a check. Well, I hate to say this, but fuck you. That’s a goal of feeling good, which is much like her goal.

If, however, your goal is to make the best of this situation, it’s not to feel good but to do what’s right by helping her if you can and otherwise preserving your resources for worthwhile causes.

That means bearing the pain of watching her in pain, feeling helpless, and ignoring the guilt of receiving a look that accuses you of adding to her misery. It also means letting her know you’re there if she wants to get real help, establishing your refrigerator perimeter, and getting to eat your own damned ice cream.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a mission statement that protects yourself from false guilt. “I can’t help my roommate feel better or control her eating behavior, but I can watch out for her if her life is in danger and I can encourage her to be a stronger obsession manager by requiring her to pay for what she eats. In doing so, I may temporarily make us both feel unhappy; but that’s an unavoidable part of her recovery and my self-protection. It’s the work we both must do to pass this course in making the best of a bad situation.”

Since there’s no easy way to say it, I’ll just put it out there that I have a problem with my anal sphincter (a botched surgery when I was a kid that left me with very little control). Like everyone since then, my co-workers notice that I sometimes smell bad and like to joke about it, usually but not always behind my back. I do my best to control it, and I’ve seen specialists about it, but what it comes down to is that everyone is happier when I keep my distance and I just wish I could find a job I could do from home. I even avoid attending family events and leave early when I go because I don’t want to embarrass my parents (and I obviously avoid women and people in general). I just transfered to another branch, and now I’m terrified about the reaction of my new co-workers. I know this sounds like a joke, but it isn’t. My goal is to find a treatment that can control this problem or a lifestyle that is less full of humiliation.

By now you should know that you can’t have what you want, either a sweet-smelling body or a solitary, well-stocked bat cave to retreat to. Forgive the pun, but tough shit.

You’re fucked, and if you keep trying to eliminate the problem you’ll never live your life and your parents will die and you’ll regret the things you didn’t do with them or the other things you want to do with yourself like make more money.

Now that that’s cleared up, ask yourself what your goal is when the goals you’ve been chasing are unattainable and there’s no way to avoid a shit-load of pain (last sly double-entendre, I swear).

The obvious answer is to try to reduce your sensitivity to humiliation so that you can live life as fully as possible. It would be nice if you were a natural-born comedian who could deflect nasty jokes, or an insensitive clod who never understood them in the first place; but you’re not. Now that you’re an adult, however, and no longer a school-kid, there are lots of other things you can do.

First, confront the Madison Avenue notion that your self-esteem depends on attractiveness. Your goal isn’t to be attractive, but to make people feel as comfortable as possible with your ugly side while you pursue your other goals.

So pretend you’ve got a colostomy and that’s the way it is and learn how to be shameless. Wear a diaper if it will help, just learn how to not take shit personally and put together a list of what you want to do with yourself and do it. That’s your goal.

Make people more comfortable by telling them, frankly, that you have a GI problem that sometimes causes bad smells and you can’t stop it but that you’re pretty good at managing it. That’s why you, for instance, use incense and deodorizers, and sometimes have to leave meetings unexpectedly. If your smell is a problem and you don’t notice it, you don’t mind having it pointed out to you.

Keep a candle burning on your desk. Be the first to let them know when you’re having a bad day. Read a book of bathroom jokes beginning with “What died in here?”

Your goal isn’t to control your colleagues; that’s impossible with heaps of cash or hypnosis, so accept that they’ll be nice or nasty, as they are. Instead, create a wall between you and your problem and invite them to see your problem as something apart from you. Lots won’t, but a few will.

After all, you’re not a bad smell, just a guy who’s trying to do a good job despite a tough, humiliating handicap. That’s something to be proud of, a much bigger accomplishment than being sweet-smelling and attractive. Fuck advertising.

Give your parents similar directions, letting them know that you’re happy to attend family events, but you’ll let them know if you’re having a bad day and you won’t take it personally if they’re planning a big event in a poorly ventilated space and don’t want you to come.

You can’t control your problem or how people react to it, but you can’t let those factors take over your life completely. After all, even for those of us with cooperative anuses, life often stinks. You just arm yourself with Fabreze and carry onward.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a manifesto that keeps you focused on your own priorities rather than the reactions of idiots. “My job is to lead my life and try to make a living and find friends, and I’m not responsible for my bad smell. I manage it well by protecting others and making it easy for them to protect themselves. My bad smell may humiliate me; but it can never outweigh my pride in not letting it stop me.”

My father, a Holocaust survivor, is dying of cancer. I’m his only child, and while my mother is doing the best she can, I feel overwhelmed with responsibility and grief. I don’t know how to stop feeling so helpless, not just because I love him and can’t save him, but because he overcame so much to make life possible for me, and now all I can do is watch him die. My goal is to figure out what I can do for him since he’s done so much for me.

Don’t fall for the common misconception that you fulfill your duty to your parents by taking care of them and keeping them safe when they’re old. As a genuine geezer, Dr. Lastname can tell you with authority: you can’t, and it’s not your duty anyway.

No, I’m not telling you to push your dad out on an ice flow or forget about him, not for a moment. I am telling you to think about two things: what your goal will be for your kids when you get old and need their help, and how little you can do for anyone when they’re suffering from old age.

If you’ve made sacrifices for your kids, it’s for the future of your family, and you want your kids to do the same for their kids. The last thing you want is to deplete their resources, disrupt the stability of their marriages, or take them away from your grandkids.

My guess is that your father didn’t have a child after surviving the Holocaust simply because he wanted care during old age or revenge on the enemies of the Jews. If he’s like most survivors, his main goal was to do what he started out doing before the earthquake happened, which was to give love to the next generation, pass on good moral values, and not let unavoidable sorrow or anger interfere.

Perhaps the intensity of your sorrow is part of your inheritance as the only child of a survivor. Your goal is not to make it go away by holding on to him, but to bear it, as your parents did, while living a full life.

So your goal isn’t to devote yourself to your father’s care; it’s to help him if there’s something you can do that will make a substantial difference and meanwhile continue with your normal life priorities.

No, it’s not a process that will make you feel good; tearing yourself away from his care, even though you know you can’t do more, never feels good and you’ll be tempted to keep on doing more and more and more.

If you let your loving, protective feelings take over, however, you’ll wear yourself out, do him no good, and damage the life your father wants you to build for yourself and others. Your father survived impossible hardship; honor him by surviving his illness with your sanity and priorities intact.

STATEMENT:
Prepare a statement to protect yourself from irrational guilt and responsibility. “In my family, we are committed to caring for one another, but we are also committed to carrying on with life and we know there is only so much we can do when faced with life’s worst problems, like aging, death, and loss. I will do anything for my father that will really help. And I will try to bear the pain of losing him without faltering in my other responsibilities, as he did with his losses throughout his life.”

I know it’s a cliché, but I am a gay man with a cat I love more than anything in the world. The problem is that she’s 15, she’s having serious problems with arthritis (and general old age), and the vet has made it clear that there are ways to prolong her life but not without some suffering on her part. The last thing I want is for my girl to suffer, but when I think about living without her, it’s like my heart stops. My goal is to make a responsible decision even though just thinking about making the decision tears me up inside.

Responsible decisions about unhappy dilemmas will almost always make you feel worse, because the only choice you have is between less-pain-now-and-feeling-like-a-shit-later and gagging-on-the-bitten-shit-bullet-now-but-knowing-you’ve-done-the-right-thing-later. Be a shit, or eat shit. Viva life.

So if your goal is to feel happy about your beloved cat’s death, forget it. On the other hand, if your goal is to do right by your old friend, then prepare to suck it up and bear your sorrow proudly.

It’s dangerous to want to feel less pain, because in order to do that, you’ll need to stop being a sensitive gay guy. You’ll need to get tough, brag about your sports injuries, and trade in your cat for an iguana.

Furthermore, you’ll need sign up for my cut-rate lobotomy service. Don’t worry, I promise to keep my charges down until I’ve completed 5 and gained the experience necessary to put myself in the upper ranks of brain surgeons. It’s all in the wrist.

If you insist on being gay and staying true to yourself, however, you must accept your pain. In all fairness, you wouldn’t want to get over the loss of a close friend in 2 weeks. Feeling pain is part of honoring her importance. There’s no shame in that, or the cliche.

STATEMENT:
So give yourself a pep talk to remember that pain can have positive meaning if you make it so. “I’ve been lucky to share my life with a wonderful cat, who gave me the kind of conditional non-acceptance that only a cat can provide. She saw me through tough times and taught me that the only thing of real importance was seeing to her needs. I’ll do right by her and cherish her memory.”

Lately, I’ve been trying to get my life together, and part of that is quitting drinking; my fiancé and I are actually getting sober together. The problem in all this is my mother; she lives nearby and comes over often (believing she is providing “moral support” for turning my life around), and, for whatever reason, no matter what the occasion, she brings a bottle of wine as a gift and makes a really big deal about the vintage and how refined it is and all this nonsense. I guess she doesn’t really understand that drinking is a big source of my problems, and both my fiancé and I have dropped hints to that effect, but it’s not getting through, and so, surprise, it’s messing with our sobriety. My goal is to get through to my mother that, while I appreciate her kindness, she’s actually being kind of cruel.

When you decide it’s necessary to get a grip on any powerful hard-to-control behavior, your goal is not to get people to take the hint that they should avoid tempting you. (Hint, hint—you’re being a wuss).

If you’re hinting, it’s because you’re afraid to tell people, straight out, that you’re trying to get sober, and that means that you’re more worried about what they think than about your reasons for not drinking. Your sobriety doesn’t stand a chance; you’re not strong enough.

To get sober, you need to build up your own belief that sobriety is right for you and that it’s worth fighting for by ignoring cravings, habit, peer pressure, and the fear of humiliating yourself or damaging important relationships.

You need to be shameless, not because you don’t have a sense of shame, but because you believe that trying to get sober is something to be proud of, particularly because doing so involves uncertainty and possible humiliation.

Remember, gaining the strength to make this kind of decision is particularly important for a woman. For whatever reason of nature or nurture, women are often more averse to making waves, causing pain, and arousing disapproval.

As is usually the case, the main enemy is within (no matter who was responsible for its placement and armaments), so making decisions of this kind is an opportunity for you to overcome that enemy and reduce its power.

So hang out with ex-drunks who are proud because they know how painful it can be to be in recovery. That’s a major reason you should look for an AA group attended by strong, well-recovered alcoholics.

Forget about whether you or your mother will feel bad if she knows about and comments on your alcoholism—wanting to feel good is what got you into this mess in the first place. Think instead about the independence, strength and self-control that you and your mother value more than feeling good.

Your goal isn’t to get her to take the hint or recognize her unconscious cruelty. It’s to strengthen your sobriety by giving it a priority over your fears and, in doing so, attract more support. Besides, your mother may surprise you (and start bringing you fancy cheese instead).

STATEMENT:
Prepare a coming-out statement to strengthen your sense of purpose. “I need to be sober but I don’t know if I can do it. I fear that knowledge of my alcoholism will upset my mother and lower her respect for me, particularly if I start drinking again. But if I’m to succeed, I need to bear pain and fear, so I might as well start now.”

My youngest daughter just got divorced, so she’s moved back home with me and her mother. I love having her around, but my wife is a little more high strung, so having our daughter around, moping and making a mess, has caused a lot of tension and my wife is always on her back. I try not to say anything, because I don’t want to make things even worse, but when I do end up saying something, which isn’t often, I usually snap and lose it entirely. I hate conflict, but my wife’s endless sniping is making everyone nuts, and my goal is to get it to stop.

Sorry, but you’re not going to stop a mother and unhappy daughter from bickering by begging or bullying them, so trying to stop them will just add to your trouble. You’re up against forces that are bigger than you are, as I’m sure you already know.

Your daughter may be an independent roommate when she’s away from home, but her parents’ presence, at a time when she’s unhappy, makes her feel like letting go, letting down, expressing her pain, and being taken care of.

Your wife may be a loving mother, but she can’t stand to see your daughter turn into a passive, whiny blob without lighting a fire under her ass. So she attacks her, your daughter feels and acts like a wounded victim, and your wife feels more helpless and attacks harder. Then I end up with a very full schedule.

Too bad you can’t stop the fight, but now you can at least be sure it’s not your problem. That means you’re free to give them good ideas for stopping the conflict themselves, since you obviously can’t.

The best tools you can offer them are the day-to-day tools of business. If your daughter moved in with a roommate, she would take care to ask about her responsibilities and show that she could hold up her end. If your wife accepted a roommate, she’d spell out rent, chores, and other responsibilities.

If they tell you they want the other to understand something, tell them to forget it, it’s not going to happen. If they tell you what’s wrong with the other, tell them you don’t want to hear it because it’s a bad direction to go in.

If they believe it’s good to communicate, tell them they’re crazy. If they think honesty is good for the relationship, tell them they’re stupid. If they both get annoyed at being called crazy and stupid, at least they’re agreeing on a common enemy.

When you need to live with someone, it’s dangerous to dwell on their faults, even when complaining to a friend. If they tell you that they’re doing a great deal by shutting up, tell them that they’ve made a great start but it’s not enough. They need to do more, so you’ll need to do less.

STATEMENT(S):
Prepare statements that show them how to address their issues while avoiding negative feelings.

To my daughter. I’m proud of your accomplishments and respect your independence. I know you can’t help but feel unhappy right now, but you’re learning about relationships, loss, and unemployment, and pain is your tuition, so it has value, and it will pass. Home should be a refuge, but sharing painful feelings doesn’t work. Try instead to manage this situation as you would with other roommates, by exploring our expectations, negotiating, and avoiding negative feelings. It will be hard in the short run and better in the long run. And it will advance your goals of being independent and avoiding fights.

To my wife. I know how much you want our daughter to succeed and how hard you’re trying to push her in a good direction, but it’s not working. You’ll be more effective if you stay cool and choose your battles. Select the most important things she should do for her own mental health and yours and then spell out your expectations. You can’t get her to see what you mean or understand how you feel; but you can incentivise her to do the things you think are most important for her success and your sanity.