Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 215 Editor's Choice: 15
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First Stop Drinking, Then Find a Therapist
[Read the article: I'm so anxious I can't think straight]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Because whether or not you should be drinking in the future, the reality is that the "nearly daily" drinking doesn't help your anxiety ONE little bit.
Dealing with anxiety by depressing one's central nervous system has a rebound affect that leads to .....more anxiety. And if your dad has dealt with anxiety by drinking, then HE isn't exactly the source of excellent role models, is he?
My FIL, whom I love dearly, has a basically negative POV of the world. I stll laugh at his comments after he first saw our recently completed, brand new house, "Well, it's a beautiful house, and if the economy doesn't go bad and you keep your jobs...." To him, that was just life: watch out for the worst!
So, if, in addition to dealing with anxiety by drinking, your dad's basic POV was that disaster was just around the corner, how could you NOT feel that way? DH has, slowly, with a lot of effort, started to realize just how frequently he, himself, says and thinks, like HIS dad, that disaster is just around the corner, and to make efforts to stop DOING that.
Because really? It's not. And even if it is, what good does it do to worry about it? You can neither hasten nor prevent the illness and death of those you love. All you can do is to enjoy the time that you have together. You have cancer in your family? Name ONE family that doesn't. I have mental illness in my family; two first degree relatives and many second and third degree ones with bipolar disorder. I would be willing to bet that there isn't a family tree in the world that one could shake without finding some cancer, some heart disease, some mental illness of one sort or another.
But when we spend our lives WORRYING about what is wrong, what can go wrong and what will go wrong, we lose out on the time that we could spend LIVING.
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Why the FUCK Would You Tell Her?
[Read the article: Should I tell my daughter about her mother's two abortions?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]That's all. Selfish desire to hurt your ex parading as concern for your daughter. NICE.
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First Off The LW IS the Husband
[Read the article: Should I stay in my marriage?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Poor ittle artist him.
Dear Cary,
I am an artistic soul. I can't earn from shit with my art, so I'm forced, FORCED to earn a living doing something else so that my kids (who were born with NO participation from me) can eat, have a roof over their heads and clothes to wear.
Woe is me. With all my resentments about having to suppress my artistic soul, I don't know for sure if I really love my wife, or ever did. What to do, what to do?
Woe is me.
GAG ME.
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There Used to Be a Name for People Who Want to Tell Other People Things for Their Own Good
[Read the article: My husband has Chinese ancestry but his son wants to keep it secret]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It was: busybody.
As in, That busybody told my daughter that I adopted her!
First off, "Chinese ancestry" seems shorthand for: "I am ignorant of the limitations of ancestral DNA testing."
Second off, if Delores suspects that something's up, she is TWENTY TWO YEARS OLD. She has ample opportunity to ask her parents herself.
And thirdly, aside from the possible medical issues from the disappeared bio-dad, she DOES have access to the medical history of her mother's family. My dad was not adopted, he was born in England, where accurate birth records have been kept for nearly two centuries, and I STILL know next to nothing about the medical history of his family. Most people don't, because most families are as ignorant of those things as LW is of boundaries.
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Fer Cryin Out Loud
[Read the article: My sister is having an illicit affair]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Don't tell ON her, tell HER. It is not judgmental to tell someone you love that you think that she is harming herself. It is not wrong to tell her that your heart is breaking, watching her in pain over a relationship that she knows is immoral at its core, and damaging to her.
It is, in fact, all about being a loving, caring sister, to let her know that you see her withering from within, as she constantly deals with men who treat her badly, and if she would seek some help for her series of really bad decisions in men, then you will support her 100%.
Sounds like a whole lot of bad family dynamics going on, and some really strange belief systems. The LW, at first, just thought that sis was "having fun?" She was sleeping with a man who is married and has small children. Sis got herpes from some dude who gave her wine? Yeah, because one glass of wine, boy, and I would drop my panties for someone without insisting that he use a condom. LW, herself, has a past. As what? A heroin addict? A street walker? Or maybe just somebody who dropped out of college and went roaming and missed her mom's birthday a few times.
You know, the mom who believes in the sanctity of marriage. Because THAT is really out there, SOOO few of us believe that.
One more time. If you think that someone is doing something wrong, something harmful to themself, tell THEM. And then, difficult as it may be, step back and shut up. If Sis, for all her stupid choices in men, is basically of sound mind, then you don't get to decide for her, or put pressure on her by rallying the family equivalent of the Moral Majority.