down lunch, can’t sleep for three days before every presentation, and is always obsessing about the stupid things I just said and wish I could take back. I’m a mental case who just pretends to have it together, which makes me feel even more out of control. My goal is to have a life that doesn’t feel like a train wreck.
It’s hard to believe there are ways to classify chaos, but when it comes to losing control of your life, there are different kinds of feeling fucked. Some people get sucked into a bad-luck, no-fault meltdown that, if taken personally, can destroy a good person’s belief in his values and motivation. Other people become helpless by proxy, usually by watching a loved one who’s unable to get themselves straight, while others feel like they’re living on the verge of a meltdown without realizing just how effective they are at staying away from the edge.
In any case, just because you feel out of control doesn’t mean you should have been able to prevent it. Instead of searching for mistakes or weaknesses, judge yourself realistically, in terms of what a good person can actually do in a bad situation. Even if your situation is due to a foolish mistake, learn from it and stop blaming yourself for bad results you don’t control, whether they involve your job, kids, or mental condition.
If you do blame yourself for the mess you’re in, simply because it happened on your watch, you’ll weaken and distract yourself at a time you need to be stronger. If you dwell on second-guessing yourself and believing you deserve punishment, you’ll have more trouble figuring out the smart thing to do, giving strength to others, and tolerating painful feelings without panicking.
Once you’ve separated your overwhelmed feelings from a realistic assessment of your own performance, however, you can build self-respect and get to work on managing life. You’ll have more strength for rebuilding your work and relationships, setting limits on out-of-control kids, and tolerating anxious feelings without doubting your capacity to ignore them when necessary. In the end, you’ll have more respect for the times you kept trucking through a meltdown than the times you were confidently cruising along because everything was going your way.
Quick Diagnosis
Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:
• The praise, salary, or family you deserve
• Peace, love, and happiness (aka, financial security)
• The knowledge that your present is right on track
• Confidence in your ability to keep it there
Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:
• Create reasonable standards for what you can actually do, given your Muggle status
• Respect yourself for meeting your standards
• Survive pain, fear, and distress and give yourself credit for doing so
• Not let pain change your values, basic course, or determination
Here’s how you can do it:
• Look for pre-meltdown red flags that might have warned you in the past and could warn you next time
• Ask yourself whether you could reasonably be expected to do anything different
• Rate yourself for work effort, honesty, and the value of your priorities
• Assuming you deserve better, find a friend or therapist who can remind you that you’ve lived up to your values and that the helplessness and humiliations have nothing to do with you, regardless of how you feel
• Check with a psychiatrist or therapist to see whether there are behavioral techniques and/or medications that might reduce anxiety or depression, if they’re extreme
Your Script
Here’s what to tell someone or yourself while you’re feeling hopelessly fucked-up.
Dear [Me/Family Member/Fuckup I Can’t Help But Care About],
I know you feel like [the royal “we”/you/our fuckup son] is on the verge of [insert mistake or potential tragic experience], and life feels like an unholy disaster. The truth is, however, that life often sucks and sometimes I can’t expect to feel other than [insert classier, more dire synonym for “shitty”], especially given issues in the past regarding [bad luck/anxiety/your many addictions and world-record unemployment]. So don’t take it personally and do take credit for whatever good things you were doing, even if they were totally ineffective at fending off this mess. Take pride in doing a good job, regardless of bad [luck/genes/associates/mental pain] and don’t stop.
Did You Know . . . What Is the Real Secret of The Secret?
The Secret, by Rhonda Byrne, is a self-help tome in which the essential thesis is: if you put your desires “out into the universe” (which is to say, if you think about what you want), then the universe will give you what you want.
The Secret says, if you’re fat and poor, it’s not because you have a crappy job in a terrible economy, or because, after another day working a job you hate, you treat yourself to a deluxe cheeseburger with an extra side of Crisco. It’s because when you stand on the scale in your efficiency apartment, you’re thinking, This sucks, I am fat and poor, not, Hey, universe, I am thin, rich, and wonderful. Oprah’s a huge fan of The Secret, as are those out there who credit it for doing everything from getting them better jobs to ridding them of cancer.
In reality, notions like the one put forth in The Secret have come up over and over through the ages, often claiming to be extensions of spiritual ideas that are exactly the opposite. The real secret, of course, is one that you don’t want to hear and would never shell out your money to learn because it doesn’t feel good, which is exactly why you’re better off hearing it: whatever good or focused thoughts, wishes, or prayers you put out there, shit happens and it won’t be fair, no matter how many collages you make.
The more you project your wishes, the more futile life seems while you continue to wait. The worst thing that can happen is that your wish actually comes true, because that’s when you think you’ve discovered The Secret, but haven’t. Then, since it’s your nature to have more wishes, it’s only a matter of time until you run into a brick wall of disappointment, which is now your fault, because you’ve failed to do The Secret properly. No matter how much you deserve it, you can’t always get what you want, and that’s life (unless you’re Oprah).
Go ahead and wish, pray, and focus—they help you to know what you want, particularly if it guides you toward keeping your priorities straight and working hard—just don’t take it personally when you don’t get your reward. And watch your Crisco intake.
Getting to the Root of Your Problem . . . and Tearing It Out
It’s not clear when people started equating solving emotional issues with retracing your steps in order to find your car keys, but if you retrace your steps to uncover the ultimate source of your problems, you won’t usually find it. On the plus side, you might find your sunglasses.
What
