5 Things To Remember Before Getting Sucked Into Family Drama

Posted by fxckfeelings on July 22, 2021

When close family members are fighting, it’s natural to want to step in and make it stop. After all, you care about these people and don’t want to see them hurt or have them angry at you. But, as we always say, unless you’re a drill sergeant, judge or magician, making people do things isn’t an option. So before you try to get between to warring parties, even if you love/are related to them, here are five things to remind yourself of before getting sucked into family drama.

1)Examine The Previous Effect of Expressing Your Feelings 

While speaking your piece has probably given you relief in the past and, if you were speaking to someone who cared about you but was uninvolved with the drama, it might’ve helped to clear the air and organize you thoughts. But if you’re speaking to someone who is involved, then you’re less “clearing the air” than “giving the fire oxygen,” all without providing any insight or argument that will actually clear the conflict up. Experience should tell you that self-expression is out.

2) Ponder Past Attempts To Be A Protector

When close family members are fighting, it’s natural to want to step in and make it stop. After all, you care about these people and don’t want to see them hurt or have them angry at you. But, as we always say, unless you’re a drill sergeant, judge, or magician, making people do things isn’t an option. So before you try to get between warring parties, even if you love/are related to them, here are five things to remind yourself of before getting sucked into family drama.

3) Assess Who the Real Assholes Are

Most families have at least one and, very much like the actual kind, s/he can be counted on to produce shit regularly, no matter how nice, thoughtful, and constructive you may be. Remembering how they are and their history of assholery, be careful not to share too much time or intimate information with them, as it only gives them material to “digest.” And be ready with polite scripts that will allow you to disagree and disengage whenever necessary (see below).

4) Stick to the Script

Rehearse some scripted lines, crafted from your experience of past conflicts, that will help you assert yourself when necessary, i.e., when you have to calmly refute an accusation, provocation, or invitation to feel guilty, without provoking conflict. Tell them that you’ve given [their statement/horseshit] a lot of thought because it’s an important point and you respect their opinion, etc., but that you disagree and prefer not to get into why at this time. If they won’t let it go, then it’s time to express dismay to let them know you have somewhere you need to be that you also can’t get into and will be in touch soon.

5) Craft Constructive, Controllable Goals 

Now that you’ve accepted that the smart choice is staying out of it and made that clear to the warring parties involved, that doesn’t mean that you can or should have to cut these people out of your life entirely. You can still figure out safe, positive, neutral things you can do to stay involved, like benignly checking on their welfare, expressing good wishes, and acting decently when insulted or mistreated (then getting the fuck out as soon as your mission is complete). Now that you know what you can’t do to help, be proud of the good things you offer, whether they’re appreciated or not.

Mayhem In The Middle

Posted by fxckfeelings on July 8, 2021

Just as it is with Oreos and interneting, selflessness is best enjoyed in moderation. Too little, and you’re mean, selfish and approaching asshole territory; too much and you’re mean, guilty, and in need of a shrink. That’s because trying to help people, especially the ones you love is often impossible. It can drain you, open you to exploitation, and make you angry, which then makes you feel guilty and like you need to be even nicer, and on it goes down the toilet. It’s worth examining ways of helping those you love, but only if you can find a middle ground; your goal isn’t to solve their problems but to see if, with your encouragement, they can do better at making things better themselves.
-Dr. Lastname

My tween, much-younger sister is acting out, causing my (widowed) mother a great deal of stress and impacting her ability to make a living. I’m in my late 20s, living with my partner, and at a loss as to how to help manage my sister’s behavior going forward. When I have her stay with me she is polite, understanding, rational, and accepting of consequences. My love of routine seems to have a lot to do with this. As soon as she returns home, however, she falls back into negative patterns of behavior. I often have to leave work in order to negotiate their disagreements or to give my mother a “break,” which isn’t easy to do. Throw into the mix my current emotional state—questioning my life/career choices while trying to plan for the future—and I am feeling incredibly overwhelmed and completely out of my depth! My goal is to feel less overwhelmed and ultimately give my sister the best possible care and guidance. 

5 Ways To Get Over Bitterness

Posted by fxckfeelings on June 24, 2021

If, like your reader from earlier, you’re trying to stay positive about finding someone worthwhile after finding yourself with a string of assholes, moving forward can be tricky. Instead of trying to let go of the past, use it; mine it for lessons that can keep you from repeating your mistakes and becoming even more discouraged. So if you don’t want to let your bad experiences keep you from having the will to find something good, here are five ways of overcoming bitterness in relationships.

1) Forget Feelings of Betrayal 

Having good times together, making promises of fidelity, and getting matching tattoos may make you feel as if you have a right to a good, long-lasting relationship, but you don’t. What controls a relationship, besides luck, is character, including how solid someone is and how well you work together when the times are pretty bad, the promises don’t come as easy and the tattoos get infected. Some people are deceivers—both of others and themselves—but it’s your job to look out for them, and now you know what to look for and when to run.

2) Work Past Feeling Weak 

You can’t help feeling helpless when a relationship goes bad, and you’re certainly helpless when it comes to putting it back together or making yourself feel happy. In truth, however, you have a good way forward and you do know what to do, even if it doesn’t involve making your relationship, or your feelings better; you need to learn from the relationship, focus on doing everything else that makes your life meaningful, and ignore the pain until it goes away.

3) Ditch Further Discussions

Don’t expect talking about your post-breakup feelings to lead to any breakthroughs, mend any fences, or generally sort out what’s wrong. If a relationship has gone bad, you’ve already tried to express your feelings and it hasn’t worked. At a certain point, your feelings just keep getting more negative and the discussions more destructive. Shut up, restore your privacy, and communicate only what you feel is necessary and positive if you have ongoing matters together (e.g., work, kids, shared cat) that must continue.

4) Cut the Complaining

Yes, a little support from/venting to friends is helpful, but at a certain point, your friends will be sick of hearing about it and upset at how powerless they are to do anything. Plus the more you talk about it, the harder it gets for the wound to heal; your friends want to help you, but they’re not helping you if they let you keep going on about your ex and letting them live rent-free in your skull. Acknowledge your sorrow, but then invest in spending good time with your friends, not rehashing your misery fishing for good advice that doesn’t exist.

5) Get Back Out There, Whether Or Not You’ve Gotten Over It

At this point, you can’t trust your feelings, so it’s impossible to tell whether you’re still grieving or you’ve got the same dumb urges you always did. Instead, figure out what you should be looking for and go looking for it while exercising a much higher degree of caution and restraint. Use your pain as a reminder to slow down, be careful, and avoid emotional involvement until you’ve gotten to know someone and think they really check out. The best way to avoid becoming bitter about love is to keep moving; don’t dwell on past disappointment or let it define you, but do let it define the kind of person whom you think will be good for you so your next relationship will be less bitter, more sweet. 

The Ladies’ Bitter Club

Posted by fxckfeelings on June 10, 2021

Since loneliness and a string of bad relationships can make you feel like a loser, it’s not surprising that most people assume finding someone new is the path to victory. And if you could order a perfect new partner through an app with free delivery, that would be fine. Instead, the search for someone new mostly requires luck—also not available to order—so making a good relationship your goal just makes you unfairly responsible for achieving the uncontrollable while pushing you to make bad compromises to avoid loserdom/loneliness. Instead, remind yourself that you’re never a loser if you do your best to be a good person and live independently with whatever loneliness is unavoidable. If you can do that, celebrate by ordering yourself something nice. 
-Dr. Lastname

After a nightmare divorce and a shitty abusive relationship following that, I’ve been alone for three years now. I want a companion but I don’t know how to find one, or at least know how to find one that sucks less than the last two (I also don’t know how to change my attitude). By the way, I have three kids, which makes finding someone that much harder since single moms are, well, an acquired taste. My goal is to figure out how to overcome my past and, in some ways, my present in order to find a good partner. 

5 Ways To Tell Whether A Flawed Relationship Is Worth Keeping

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 22, 2020

Too often, when it comes to choosing whether to be, stay, or break-up with someone, we let our hearts be our guides. But when it comes to a committed partnership, feelings are a false guide; there’s no way to share a house, family, life, savings account, and/or bathroom with someone for eternity and not feel some sort of bad a lot of the time. So, if like our reader from earlier, you can’t decide whether you can put up with your partner anymore, here are five ways to tell whether a flawed relationship is worth keeping.

1)Ask Yourself If You Were Better Off Before

Remember what your life was like back when you were single and how you hoped a relationship would make things better. Then assess whether this relationship does or doesn’t fulfill those needs, consulting friends if necessary to recall how you were living then and what your goals were. Don’t get distracted by how you wanted to feel, but on what you wanted to achieve; ask if your relationship helped you meet major life goals, like starting a family, getting an education, taking a job or living somewhere you couldn’t otherwise afford, etc.  Make sure you include your need (if any) for a relationship that would offer you support and security in case of illness or possible unemployment. If your relationship hasn’t helped you achieve any those things or has even made reaching those goals harder, that’s important to know.

2) Ask If Acceptance Is Mutual

Determine how well you can accept your partner as he is and how well he accepts you. If, in spite of your best efforts to take him as he is, you find yourself cringing and criticizing, you should move on before you both become mean and awful. And, likewise, if you feel he can never really let go of wanting you to change and you often feel like you have to defend or explain yourself, you’re better off with your own company until you can find someone better. Remember, sometimes there are things about those close to us that make us nuts even if they don’t bother others, but figuring out why they’re annoying won’t make them more bearable or easier for your partner to change. If, despite your best efforts, the acceptance can’t come, then it’s time for you to go. 

3) Do a Budget For Being Alone

Review your income, expenses, savings and debt and ask how breaking up would affect your finances. It’s possible that ending things, at least doing so immediately, would force you to make big sacrifices that would make it hard to connect with family and friends, live in your chosen neighborhood, create a nest-egg or just plain survive. If the immediate financial hit is too hard, you’re not trapped forever; you’ll just have to wait while you save up and create a financial plan that makes the separation financially feasible. 

4) Review Possible Red Flags

Consider whether there are any “red flag” behaviors that make your or any relationship burdensome, unequal, or even dangerous. These behaviors include addictions, lying, overspending, impulsivity, and/or violent behavior. If there are no such flags, you should nevertheless ask yourself whether the relationship is too one-sided and you don’t get as much as you give. Then, if you do recognize red flags or inequality, ask a friend or therapist to help you find the strength to make a plan to move on. If you realize that you might be in danger, move quickly to get yourself and your children to safety. 

5) When You Do Figure it Out, Keep Feelings Out of It

If you’re going to do a smart, factual assessment of the pros and cons of a relationship, you can do it when you’re still feeling angry, hurt, or generally upset. And in order to have a clear head, you have to figure things out when you’re calm, not moments after a fight or reconciliation. If you leave, you should believe that you’d be better off without him for objective reasons, regardless of heartbreak and the loss of whatever he added to your life. If you stay, it should be with the conviction that he makes your life better and doesn’t make it harder for you to be safe or be you. Whatever you decide, if you’ve done a good review of (over)due diligence, you’ll know you’re doing the right thing, even if it feels a little wrong.

Relationshift

Posted by fxckfeelings on October 5, 2020

A conflict-free relationship that hasn’t gone through hard times is like a rare, expensive sports car; just having it and occasionally driving it around the block makes you feel good and special, but if you suddenly need it for regular use it becomes a tiresome burden. So if you’re in a feel-good, low-stress relationship that suddenly becomes somewhat feel-bad, it’s up to you to decide whether what you have is worth working on and keeping, flaws and all, or whether it’s time to let it go and find something more along the lines of a human minivan. 
– Dr. Lastname

My partner of some years has mild Aspergers and an anxiety disorder, and we’ve been in a long-distance relationship for most of those years (seeing each other every other weekend or so). We share the same values and enjoy doing most of the same things. Although he’s a good learner and he’s gotten better in these years, he has a lot of quirks that make me have to do more work (like saying “ok” instead of helping me to continue a conversation or accidentally teasing me in a way that hurts my feelings). Still, when I bring them up, which generally happens when I visit him, it often ends up with him not talking and shutting down, rolled in a ball, saying he’s a monster, and then I get upset because he’s not talking to me and I hate that I caused conflict. Still, when I don’t bring them up I feel resentful. It’s gotten to a point that we feel somewhat anxious around each other (though at the same time we enjoy being together). My goal is to find a way to bring up issues with him that’s constructive without being upsetting.

5 Ways To Assess Whether You Can and Should Leave Your Shitty Job

Posted by fxckfeelings on September 17, 2020

The only thing worse than getting stuck working for decades in a field or job we hate is getting stuck in unemployment, poverty, and having to use take-out containers as toilets. So, if like our reader from earlier, you’re unsure about whether it’s worth trying to find new work, here are five ways to assess whether you can and should leave your shitty job.

1)Define What Makes Work Worth It

Become your own reverse HR department and make a list of the important things you need for a potential job; a certain amount of money is obviously important, but you may also require anything from a time-limited commute to flexible hours to a clear path to promotion. Don’t forget possible worst-case scenarios, like the likelihood that you’ll need a rainy day fund for an illness or disability. It’s not what you feel you need, like respect; it’s what you know you need to survive and make your hard work worth it.

2) Identify The Downsides

Once you do your objective assessment of what you want from a job, identify the things you dislike most about your current job and would never want again. Evaluate their impact, not in terms of negative emotions like anger or hurt but in business-like measures. For instance, consider whether the job makes it too hard for you to spend time with your family, exposes you to risk of harm or violence (from handsy bosses to unsafe equipment), or prevents you from gathering the experience and skills you need for your next job.

3) Explore Available Alternatives

Now that you know exactly what you do and don’t want, start looking at what’s out there in terms of better alternatives or even a job that will pay enough and meet all your absolute and/or have an additional something that makes it worthwhile to possibly move. Don’t hesitate to network or get informational interviews to figure out whether realistic alternatives exist. 

4) Ponder Possible Improvements

Since finding a new job, let alone one that checks all your boxes, is never a guarantee, consider possibilities for improving your current job. It’s possible that just by faking happiness and a better attitude–by keeping negative feelings out of your voice and choosing your words more carefully—you might be able to reduce tension and criticism and improve your current situation as well as your possible future ones. Get coaching on your communication if you think it will help.

5) Make An Unemotional Choice

If you review your scorecard, you’ll be able to decide whether to leave based on objective criteria, not overwhelming hatred for your co-workers or your boss. Determine which essentials your job does and doesn’t provide, which irritants really threaten your family life, safety, or future, and what alternatives exist in your community that might justify a job search. Then, whether you enjoy your job or not, you’ll know you’re doing your best to make a living, using whatever opportunities life offers at this time.

Professional Irritations

Posted by fxckfeelings on September 3, 2020

Loving your work is nice when it happens, but when it comes to professional labor, the intended fulfillment is financial, not spiritual, or emotional; if it were always fun, worthy, and challenge-free, they wouldn’t call it work. There are a lot more important things than loving your work, like feeding your family and keeping the lights on. So if you really hate your job and want to leave, think hard about what you hate exactly and how/whether it could truly be better elsewhere. It’s all-too-normal to hate your job, but before you leave make sure it’s the job you hate and not work in general. 
-Dr. Lastname

I’m in my 20s and have started to loathe my job at a very big company. My negative feelings aren’t arbitrary; my job has become very clerical and is dedicated to trying to influence a large bureaucracy with regards to projects I consider unambitious, in which I have little ownership or personal interest. I have nothing against making money or large organizations but want to work on problems that I find interesting and potentially meaningful. I think I appreciate that every path in life has some dirty work. But my sense is that my current path has more dirty work than it makes sense to accept and that the end of my current path is not one I care to reach. Even though I believe that I have logical reasons for wanting out and have made practical yet worthy plans for the next stage in my life, however, I still worry that I’m making an overly emotional decision fueled by frustration and unreasonable expectations. I don’t want to have to quit because I bought too much into feelings, or because I was a dumb millennial who thought the world would be handed to them on a silver plate after graduating from an elite college. My goal is to know that I’m making the right choice for the right (unemotional) reasons. 

5 Ways To Find a Goal To Feel Better

Posted by fxckfeelings on August 20, 2020

When you feel like crap, an obvious goal is to feel like not-crap, but just because it’s obvious doesn’t mean it’s simple. If, like our reader from earlier, you need a better goal than “feeling better,” here are five ways to find that goal.

1) Focus On Action Over Emotions

Since “feeling good” is often out of your control—the determination to have a good day is no match for rainclouds, incontinent birds, and/or current events—focus instead on what it takes to make you feel like a good person. Define for yourself the actions that define good person-hood, e.g., being a good friend, supporting yourself, delivering good work, being a good partner or parent, not being an asshole. Ignore the things that make you happy, like love, sex, money, and admiration. Being a good person isn’t always a feel-good endeavor. 

2) Approach your Assessment

After making your list of good person traits, rate yourself realistically in those areas above that you think are important and meaningful. Don’t get perfectionistic or overly self-judgmental (an easy thing to do if you’re miserable and depressed), but don’t shy away from judgment. Rate yourself as you would rate a friend, looking at the facts as you know them. Good enough is a good grade because it’s not easy for most of us to be a good person, especially when we feel terrible.

3) Witness Your Weak Spots

Ask yourself whether there’s anything you really need to improve, in order to think of yourself as a reasonably good person—i.e., not an asshole—or whether you’re OK with yourself. Unlike trying to feel good, which is broad, ambiguous, and can often be achieved by destructive behaviors (e.g., lots of spending, sleeping, and/or opiates), trying to be good isn’t as complicated. If you’ve assessed where your weaknesses are then you know exactly where your attention should go. 

4) Address Areas of Improvement

So now that you’ve figured out what, if anything, you really need to improve in order to be a good person, you’ve figured out your goal. Rate the probability, if you try to become a reasonably good person, that you’ll become more unhappy than you are now. For instance, if you need to control your temper, your drinking, or your spending, you may feel worse before you feel better. But understanding that, and the long-term rewards can go a long way towards making the work and discomfort more bearable. It also helps to find people, like family and friends, a therapist, or even a support group, who can offer you advice and encouragement. 

5) Redefine Failure

If, on the other hand, you’re really doing OK in all the areas of being a good person that matters most to you, then ask yourself whether you consider yourself a failure because you haven’t been able to overcome your unhappiness. If so, correct your thinking. By your own standards, you’re a reasonably good person in spite of feeling a great deal of chronic unhappiness. That’s hard to do. Nobody can control how you feel; despite feeling awful, however, you haven’t given up on being your best. So give yourself the respect you deserve for achieving what’s arguably the most important goal there is under some of the most unpleasant circumstances.

The Not-So-Great Depression

Posted by fxckfeelings on August 6, 2020

The Declaration of Independence guarantees all American citizens the right to pursue happiness, and sure, that’s the dream, but if you’ve ever watched auditions for TV talent competitions then you know not everyone pursuing their dream can or should ever get it. So if you’re unhappy, feeling sorry for yourself is unavoidable, but blaming yourself isn’t allowed; no matter who you are or where you’re from, feelings are not something you can control. As we always say, feeling bad shouldn’t prevent you from trying to be a good person, which—no offense, founders—is the pursuit that really matters.    
-Dr. Lastname

I have been dealing with a lot of issues for about five years but I can’t seem to work through them and it angers me. There are times where I can be OK and even happy, but then it changes to where I’m so sad or angry and can’t that I can’t do normal daily activities like eating or getting up. Recently I’ve been sleeping way too much but then I always seem to wake up more tired then I was before. My goal is to figure out how to manage these problems and get back to my normal life.