F*ck Feelings Page 16
Figuring out why someone gets to you is supposed to make you more tolerant, but what you’ll find is that the reason you dislike some of their traits so much is because they’re the same ones you hate in yourself, which, no surprise, is not a valuable insight. It will just make you more irritated with that person, since they now serve the dual purpose of annoying you and making you annoy yourself.
Instead, prepare to live with pent-up irritation, regardless of the number of people who tell you it isn’t good for you, your blood pressure, and your soul, and accept that you can’t let it out or snuff it out. You won’t be out of the woods, but you will be out of the depths of the emotional waterboarding you’re in now.
Here are the self-calming abilities you wish you had but don’t:
• A yoga routine that puts you into such a deep state of relaxation, you can practically float
• The money to build your own soundproof room, house, or estate with guards to keep your annoyer out
• A hypnotist who tricks you into finding all the annoying crap this person does to be Clooney-level charming
• The plans and means to execute the perfect murder
Among the wishes would-be nice guys express are:
• To feel like a good person, not a petty jerk
• To harbor no animosity
• To get through the day (or night) with less internal turmoil
• To make troubled relationships better or find a way to change them
Here are three examples:
I never liked my mother-in-law, but ever since I lost my job, we had to move in with her. She has an opinion about everything, and since it’s her house, we’ve got to listen. She’s not much help with our kids, and she expects my wife to cook for her. I hate coming home and thinking of her, sitting in the big chair, watching her shows with the volume blasting away because she’s deaf, knowing there’s nothing I can say, but oh so much she has to say about so many topics I couldn’t give a shit about. If I complain to my wife, even though she’s the one who bears the brunt of it, she defends her mother, which, while understandable, just makes me madder. My goal is to be less angry every time I come into this house that isn’t my home.
My boss is a nice guy, but he was never cut out to be a boss. Because he’ll do anything to avoid making a decision or taking a stand, he lets the worst jerks in the office walk all over him, and he gives much more to the squeaky wheels who complain to him than he does to people who shut up and work hard. In other words, he’s a giant wuss who rewards dickheads, so no matter how nice he acts, I want to strangle him. I can’t quit because the job pays too well and the benefits are too good, but the problem isn’t so much that I hate him but that I hate hating him and my wife hates hearing about it. My goal is to go to work without having nasty thoughts all day.
Not long after I moved into my new apartment, I met one of my neighbors in the elevator, and thought we had just a pleasant, harmless conversation. Little did I know that I had just signed on to become the best friend/unlicensed therapist to a sixty-something guy with no boundaries, other friends, or ability to take a hint. He comes by at all times of the day and night to tell me about how nobody loves him, how he’ll never find anyone as great as his late partner, what he saw that day on TV. . . . It’s exhausting, and I work from home, so I can’t escape. I’ve talked to other people in the building, and they say the only way to get him to leave you alone is to pretend to be dying or not speak English, but that seems so evil. My goal is to get this guy to leave me alone without having to do something hurtful (or move).
Irritating qualities are a lot like dog whistles; some qualities are universally perceived, and others strike a frequency only certain individuals hear; i.e., one person’s idea of a maddeningly annoying laugh is another person’s charming chuckle.
Once you tune into the frequency, however, it’s nearly impossible to turn it off, and if you can accept that there’s no resolution or way to tune it out, it’s time to embrace your pain and develop a management plan.
The first step, of course, is not to blame yourself for murderous urges and snotty thoughts. Make a list of the statements or situations that really light your fire, and develop scripts for responding briefly and politely, such as “that’s interesting” or “huh, weird” or “sorry I’m not responding, I’ve got to concentrate because I’m memorizing pi.”
A loud mother-in-law who never gets out of the way is going to drive most sons-in-law crazy, even if she has a perfect right to sound off in her own home. It’s important then to develop not just a series of scripts but some mental rules of necessary (dis)engagement. Find a hidey-hole (bathroom, car, Starbucks) to cut you off from having to hear or see your annoyeur or annoyeuse. Develop a script for using it; e.g., that ol’ chestnut “gotta go.” It’s necessary to be polite, respond to medical emergencies, do your share of chores, and provide paid-for services, but this way you never, ever prolong contact because of guilty feelings or forceful demands.
A wussy boss will aggravate hardworking employees who resent the way their whiny, manipulative colleagues always come out ahead, but remember, it’s only a job, and you’re there to make a living, not make the workplace better or fairer. While some may work to please the boss, your goal is to meet your own standards for a good day’s work while staying employed. List your own reasons for being there, then think of the never-ending irritation as a form of industrial pollutant that’s worth putting up with, if the money is right.
Don’t force yourself to be extra nice to the obnoxiously needy to prove you’re not as mean as your urge to avoid him makes you feel. Maybe he can’t help being obnoxious, needy, or lonely, but his problems are not your responsibility. If you don’t limit your exposure—politely, and without evident guilt—your irritation will grow as you open yourself to his passive-aggressive home invasion. Your job is to take credit for politeness, ignore nasty feelings, and give yourself the right to spend time with people whose company you actually enjoy.
No matter who the source of your annoyance is, don’t require validation from like-minded people before telling yourself you’re not a bad person. Maybe you have a bad person inside, or everyone around you is nicer or just tuned out. You’re basically nice if you don’t let the nastiness out. If you overcompensate, or try too hard to find support, you’ll only make things worse.
You can’t change irritation or the irritating, but you can stop taking undue blame for being mean and start taking deserved praise for your restraint. You might not feel like a good person, but it’s a much bigger achievement to act like a good person when the inner evil is ringing in your ears. Remember, very few people are naturally, effortlessly good; we leave that up to dogs.
Quick Diagnosis
Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:
• An ability to change others or get them to see why they should change themselves
• A life with better people or more options
• Escape from the tension
• A less touchy personality
Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:
• Tolerate long periods of wishing you were with other people while going about your business
• Control your mouth even if you can’t control your feelings
• Be proud of what you’ve accomplished even if you’re irritated and unhappy most of the time
• Not let the lack of escape make you despair
Here’s how you can do it:
• Remind yourself regularly of your reasons for putting up with unending annoyance
• Develop practical ways to block annoying people from your perception
• Develop your own rules for doing so and polite ways of defending those rules against objections
• Keep track of, and give yourself credit for, things left unsaid
Your Script
Here’s what to tell someone/yourself when you’re tempted to let an irritating person know exactly what’s on your mind.
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br /> Dear [Self/Person Who Always Ruins My Day for Most of the Day]:
I’ve tried to [like/understand/ignore/accept] the things you do that drive me [insert synonym of “ape shit”] and have discovered it’s not going to happen. Therefore, I want you to know I appreciate our good [working/living/unintentional] relationship. If I sometimes [leave the room/read the paper and refuse to look up/remain in the bathroom for an hour], don’t feel insulted or ignored—I simply like my alone time. I look forward to many years of [collaboration/cohabitation/gritting my teeth, possibly to nubs].
Did You Know . . . How to Deal with a Crazy Person?
Being forced to spend time around people you can’t stand is difficult, but being confronted by someone who’s insane is downright scary. Your stereotypical crazy and confrontational person is some variation of that guy on the subway who always appears to be arguing with the ghost of a burrito (at least until someone accidentally and foolishly makes eye contact). Unfortunately, you don’t need to go underground to find somebody that crazy; you can share an office or even a bloodline with someone just as unstable.
In-laws, especially older ones, are frequently missing marbles, and there’s always that one coworker who smells like socks dipped in milk and looks like he cuts his own hair with safety scissors. You can be trapped on a subway car with an angry, crazy person just as easily as you can be trapped at a Thanksgiving dinner, so it’s important to know how to react if such an encounter presents itself.
Just as we’re told to ease the task of public speaking by imagining the audience in their underwear, it helps to put the behavior of an aggressive crazy person into perspective by just imagining you’re being attacked by a bear. That way, you won’t find yourself tempted to reason with your attacker, or assume that kindness or friendly, calm words will tame the crazy beast; as with a charging grizzly, they do no more than catch his attention and make you a target.
Then, as you would with a bear, get as close as you can to playing dead, and, if need be, get help. Call a cop if you think someone is too crazy to stay out of trouble, or might attack someone, and meanwhile keep your distance, eyes down, and stay close to an exit. If your Good Samaritan instinct kicks in, remember, Good Samaritans are good bear food; you are not failing your fellow man, because your fellow man is not currently in control of his or her words and actions, and you have an obligation to protect yourself.
The basic rule of thumb when being threatened by a crazy person is to accept your lack of control; your best option, as with bears, is to make yourself invisible and survive so you can ride the subway/eat Thanksgiving turkey another day.
Facing Fear
A little bit of fear, in small, controlled doses, can be enjoyable; that’s why people pay money to see scary movies and ride roller coasters instead of just screaming and puking at home for free. Then there’s the opposite kind of fear—random, sometimes inexplicable, debilitating—which isn’t enjoyable, and can cost you your peace of mind.
The unfun kind of fear is the common denominator of anxiety disorders, and those who suffer from them often share, and run into, the same bullshit attitude that depressives have; their emotions must be understandable, like normal anxiety and sadness, so if they just figure out what’s bothering them, confront it, and move on, they’ll be anxious no more.
In the same way most people confuse depression with passing sadness or sulking, anxiety is often mistaken for plain, old horror-movie-style fear. In reality, anxiety can get much worse and appear in many forms.
Some people feel anxious all the time and just can’t shake it, even when they’re wrapped in love and security. Other people experience sudden bursts of fear called panic attacks that can come out of nowhere, last hours, and drive strong, sane people into thinking they’re dying, even when they know they aren’t. And some people can’t stop feeling jumpy and spooked long after they’ve experienced trauma, be it a car accident or time in combat.
Depression and anxiety are basically stepsiblings; one can cause or feed on the other in the same person, they sometimes respond to the same medications, and both can keep coming back, off and on, throughout a person’s lifetime.
People expect to cure those disorders by getting to the root cause or undergoing some kind of corrective experience, from exposing themselves over and over to whatever scares them to finding religion to just willing their minds into health. As with all severe illnesses, mental or otherwise, there is no “cure” (see: cancer, the common cold, that clammy feeling you suffer through after eating a big steak). Therapy sometimes works to some extent, but generally, these syndromes tend to persist and even worsen during one’s middle years, and treatment is no cure.
If you believe in the curability of anxiety (or depression), persistent symptoms just mean you haven’t found the right treatment or done it properly, faced your fears, found Jebus, grown a pair, or let yourself be loved. The more things you try and the longer your symptoms last, the more your sense of failure grows.
What you should do instead, if you’ve made reasonable attempts to cure persistent fear to no avail, is accept that life has simply given you a burden you must learn how to bear. Many good people live with fear, and there’s nothing wrong with having a powerful imagination, a scary past or future, or an anxious brain, other than the pain.
You’re not immature, weak-willed, or lacking in courage; you’re just stuck with a particular kind of chronic pain. You will never enjoy it (or a scary movie ever again), but you can learn to bear it, so no matter how much fear you’re experiencing, you won’t be afraid to face each day as it comes.
Here’s how you’d like to fight fear, but can’t:
• Remember the wise, calming words of your guru
• Breathe (which you’re doing all the time, by the way)
• Take a nonaddictive pill that acts like Drano on fear and clears it right out
• Undergo a tribal initiation ceremony/boot camp/TSA screening so scary it leaves you with no fear of anything else
Among the wishes fear-ridden people express are:
• To grow up and stop being scared
• To find the deeper cause of their anxieties, which has so far eluded them
• To stop being afraid of things they simply shouldn’t be afraid of
• To finally find treatment that works
Here are three examples:
I was violently mugged six months ago, and ever since, I get the jitters every time I’m out after dark. I’ve gotten therapy, learned meditation, taken meds, and I’m still on edge. Sometimes I catch myself avoiding plans and choosing to stay home because I just don’t want to face that anxious feeling that comes with being on the streets alone at night. My goal is to stop living in fear.
I used to take my health for granted, but since I got diagnosed with multiple sclerosis last year I can’t stop thinking about dying. My symptoms aren’t that bad and they’re pretty stable so far, but I feel like death is around the corner. I’ve gone to support groups and talked to counselors, and I’ve become a lot more serious about my health, dedicating a lot of time and energy to researching my disease and changing my diet and exercise, but the fear won’t go away. I know there’s no cure, and I can’t get over feeling helpless, like I’ve got a terminal illness and it’s only a matter of time. My goal is to stop being afraid of death.
Everyone else seems comfortable with the boss, but he gives me the willies. I don’t think he likes me, and he’s not the sort of person who pats you on the back or jokes with you, so I just don’t know where I stand. I dread having a one-on-one meeting with him, partly because I’m afraid my fear shows, and partly because every time he wants to talk to me, I’m convinced I’m about to get fired. I need this job very much—I’ve put in quite a few years at this company, and I think I’m too old at this point to get hired for the same work anywhere else—so the thought of getting fired is terrifying. My goal is to figure out a way to get over it, be myself, and not let anyone terrify me.
Alas, in today’s world, where megabears are long gone and rivals post all their moves in advance on Twitter, such hyperalertness is more of a burden than a gift. That said, it’s not a burden that’s impossible to bear (pun intended).
After all, the reason you have PTSD after being mugged and hate to walk alone on dark streets is that your brain is trying to protect you from ever, ever being in that situation again. It’s the megabear reflex, not just because that’s where its roots are, but because, like a megabear, it’s incredibly powerful. More powerful than your efforts to persuade your brain that you need to go out and the street is safe.
While you may never be able to erase that reflex, there are many treatments to try. Check out cognitive treatments (e.g., talking about the details of the traumatic experience in a controlled, calm manner), biofeedback, and self-hypnosis. Given the fact that fear usually prompts helpless, negative, irrational thoughts—e.g., “this is going nowhere, I’m wasting my money, and I’m going downhill”—cognitive treatment that gets you to recognize and challenge these thoughts is of first importance.
There are nonaddictive medications that help all kinds of anxiety, as well as some addictive medications that pose very little risk if they aren’t taken daily. Many people who suffer from anxiety attacks find that just carrying medication around and knowing it’s there, just in case, provides some relief. It also helps to meet people with PTSD, or whatever anxiety syndrome you experience, who live full lives in spite of their symptoms.