Just out of curiosity here… How do you think you’re going to feel when it turns out there is a God, and a heaven, and a hell. I find the idea of atheism more amusing with each atheist I meet (only two so far), especially being a muslim. No judgment or anything, but seriously… How awesomely fucked up will that be for you?
I know how secretly terrified you are of your own death. No judgment or anything, but seriously… how awesomely fucked up will that be for you?
I think I visit your page so often and read through all of the posts because I want to have some magical revelation that’ll grow me up through your words. It’ll make the world all fluffy and nice again, and my problems will go away.
But that’s not the point, is it? The point is, the world ISN’T all fluffy and nice, and if I can get used to that, and even take solace in it, then I’ll be alright, even when everything’s fucked three ways from Sunday. That’s what you’re trying to say, isn’t it?
Yup.
Dear Coquette,
My mother homeschooled me, but had no idea what she was doing. As a result, I never had any education, period, and no social skills because we lived in the middle of nowhere with no kids my age and she didn’t get along with any other moms. I didn’t realize what a problem this was until I got to college, and now have zero study skills and no self-esteem. I feel like I don’t even deserve to be here because of my cop-out upbringing. She was absent and mentally unstable, and I was left to my own devices and learned nothing that would help me in the real world. That’s my past, which is my responsibility to work on, but what I haven’t been able to do is forgive my mother. She takes credit for all of my successes and then blocks me out when I try to explain how much her decisions screwed me up. I know it’s in the past and nothing can be done; I just want her to even feel a little bit bad, to even acknowledge that she messed up. I’m prepared to work on all my issues alone, it would just be better if my mom was there to help me. Is this selfish of me? Should I just soldier on without her?
Your mother did what she thought was best for you at the time. Is she a bit of a nutball for sequestering you throughout your adolescence? Probably. Did she screw you up? Sure. All parents screw up their kids, but you’re a lot less screwed up than you think.
You’re in college now. Everyone is freaked out by their lack of study skills and self-esteem. Everyone is going through bouts of existential angst and crushing anxiety. Yes, everyone. That’s just the way it goes. You’ve got no choice but to buck up and get over it.
Start by recognizing that what you’re experiencing are very normal freshman anxieties, and while it’s perfectly understandable for you to project all that crap onto your mother, you need to realize that she’s just a very convenient scapegoat.
No doubt your mom is half a lunatic, and yes, you had quite the unconventional upbringing, but so what? Those were the cards you were dealt. Wanting your mother to feel bad about it is a waste of negative emotion, and if she did, I promise it wouldn’t feel as gratifying as you think it would.
You need to forgive your mother, and you need to get cozy with the reality that you’re not a kid anymore. You’re on your own now. The training wheels are off, and that can be a little scary at first. That’s OK, though. It’s supposed to go down like this. Coming to terms with your parents’ flaws is that first big step down the path of contemporary American adulthood.
The whole point of going off to college is for you to learn how to cope without your mom there to help you. She’ll always be your mother, but you still have to soldier on without her.
It’s clear from your blogs that you don’t like Scientology. Why? As someone with a family friend who is a Scientologist, I’ve stood my ground with anyone who’s questioned this as a lifestyle or religion and said people are free to practice what they will. Granted, it might have some “crazy” beliefs, but no crazier than other, more popular religions. And yes, there might have been some coercion, misuse of power, intimidation, etc, but, as I said, no worse than other religions. I respect you and your opinions so I’d love to hear what you have to say on the matter.
Yes, by all means, stand your ground for people’s freedom to be gullible idiots. Use faulty logic to defend ridiculous and damaging belief systems because your family happens to be friends with a cult member.
Keep fighting the good fight. The world needs more religious apologists to spread ignorance on the backs of their own principles.
You can really come off as racist sometimes, a culture racist.
A culture racist? Ugh. Your skin is thinner than your vocabulary.
The word you’re looking for is ethnocentrist, and if you had the slightest clue, you’d realize that I’m actually more of a cultural relativist.
I’m also an asshole, but since it’s easier for you to get offended than it is to get educated, you can’t tell the difference.
That video you posted, it had blackface in it. I don’t think that’s right, even for “artistic” purposes.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and deeply nuanced observation that despite any artistic merit or cultural context, satirical performances utilizing racially transgressive imagery might be offensive to those with delicate sensibilities.
Clearly, you have the moral high ground. Feel free to hang out there with your thumb up your cunt. We wouldn’t want any of your smug sense of self-righteousness leaking out onto the dance floor, because the rest of us are gonna be down here rocking out to those sick beats.
I’ve just recently come to the realization of my own mortality. In the time before I fall asleep, it absolutely terrifies me thinking not about how it will end, but that it ends, period. I know you’ve given this sort of advice before, but I can’t even get past this fear to the part where you realize, “This is it, enjoy it while it lasts.” I feel trapped by the inevitable, and I’ve been trying so hard to channel you, Coquette, so I just have to ask, will the fear subside? Will I eventually be able to fall asleep without having a near panic attack over my mortality?
When your head hits the pillow, your mind begins the process of winding down after a long day of nonstop thinking. It’s dark. It’s quiet. The day is over, and suddenly it doesn’t have anything left to grind and chew.
Of course, your mind is built to grind and chew, and it isn’t ready to stop processing thoughts for the day, so what does it do? It reaches back into the dark and sticky parts of your brain to pull out whatever low-level anxiety it can find.
Your mind doesn’t know any better. It just wants to think, so you go ahead and let it gnaw away on your basic fears. That’s when your spine turns to glass and your ears become refrigerator coils and your guts squeeze dry and you’re filled with the warm oily horror that one day, yes, in fact, you are going to die.
We’ve all been there. It’s terrifying.
You allowed your mind to trigger what is essentially a fight-or-flight survival response when there isn’t any actual danger. It just wanted to play a game of chess, but instead, your mind started playing a game of global thermonuclear war.
If you don’t have a Xanax prescription handy, the best way to handle this kind of situation is to give your mind something to do while the rest of your sympathetic nervous system ratchets back down from Defcon 1.
Read a book. Turn on the television. Find an activity, and do a little deep breathing. Don’t worry, it doesn’t take much to distract your mind.
Once you’re done freaking out and you’ve relaxed enough to fall back asleep, stay aware of your mind’s tendency to grab on and chew inappropriate anxieties. Stay apart from it, and don’t let it keep chewing.
The trick is in separating yourself from your own mind. Allow yourself to stop thinking, and you’ll fall asleep peacefully every time.
Going through bad break-ups, my roommate/co-worker/close friend and I slept together. This happened several months ago and it’s gotten messy. He was sad and wanted company so he said some things that sounded more intimate than they were, and I was sad and wanted company and believed him for awhile. It stopped abruptly, and we went back to being friends.
Over time, I developed feelings for him. Recently, I shared this with him and he essentially told me he wasn’t interested. Okay, so that’s done. I know how the saying goes, don’t shit where you sleep, but we still have to live together, work together, and share the same group of friends for another six months, and although we don’t talk about it with each other I know he’s seeing other people, spending the night at their place, etc. and this is all going on three feet from each other.
It shouldn’t get to me, but it still kind of hurts. I think we’re trying to be friends now, but I don’t know how to be his friend or if I even want to try. What’s done is done, and I guess what I’m asking is not so much anything else except how do I let it go? I feel so angry with him all the time and I’m not even sure why anymore.
You seem pretty rational about this, and it sounds like you’ve processed most of your emotions already, which is why I’m surprised you don’t recognize that you’re not actually angry with him. The person you’re really angry with is yourself. You’re merely projecting your anger onto him, and it’s turning into resentment because of the close quarters.
Anytime you catch yourself saying things like, “It shouldn’t get to me, but…” that should be a big red flag. It means you aren’t giving yourself permission to feel your own emotions. It means you’re trying to rationalize your way out of emotional pain. That kind of thing never works.
You were rejected. Of course that hurts. It’s perfectly okay for it to hurt. Go ahead and let it get to you. Feel that pain, process it, and then move on. Whatever you do, don’t keep dismissing your feelings because your rational mind supposedly knows better than to shit where you sleep.
This guy represents a rejection after a bad break-up. That’s adding insult to injury. Acknowledge how that makes you feel, and then take a step back and re-assess your entire situation. I think you’ll start to recognize that it’s not even about him, really. It’s about how you allowed yourself to be vulnerable in the first place.
You’ve been angry at yourself for that vulnerability, and it’s been poisoning your friendship this whole time. The next step is to quit being so damned hard on yourself.
There’s nothing wrong with being vulnerable, so forgive yourself.
If you can do that, the anger will go away, and you’ll truly be over this.
My goal for this year is to break out of the cycle of keeping things I do not need. I find it very difficult to throw away my old clothes, childhood toys, old school work, and textbooks. I have come to terms in accepting that it is a problem. So far, I’ve made progress, but I’ve left aside a significant amount of items that still have sentimental value. Do you have any advice for a hoarder like me?
Let go of the past.
(Yes, you can.)
My dad left my mother for a difficult woman when I was 21. At first, I tried to make nice with the lady, which proved complicated, seeing as she repeatedly put down my father in front of me and the rest of his family. He allowed it and I decided that however painful it was to watch him shrink like that, it was his business, not mine.
One night, she got a bit drunk and began to attack my then-boyfriend at dinner, mocking him in a language he did not speak. I stood up for him. She then turned on me. I stood up for myself. She proceeded to shout that I was a spoiled brat (I was 25), that my father didn’t need me in his life, and that she wanted me out of it. When I turned to my dad in disbelief, he cowered and sided with her. That was in 2005.
My dad and I resumed a relationship a year later, but he was not there for my wedding in 2010, arguing that his new wife had not been invited and that she was expecting an apology from me. He said he wanted me to have a relationship with her, and I said I gladly would, but that he shouldn’t expect me to roll over if she becomes aggressive with me. He said he didn’t want any conflict, and so he’d rather we left it at that. I love my dad, so it still hurts. It’s taken me the better part of the decade to accept that my father has no courage.
Here’s my issue: I want my future children to have a granddad. While he’s made huge efforts to mend the relationship, things with his wife are the same. My husband and I sometimes fantasize about showing up at their doorstep and acting like nothing happened, actively ignoring their bullshit and enjoying my father full-time again. Is that a bad idea? If so, what else can I do?
It takes a certain kind of soul-stained bitch to seek out married men as potential husbands, especially married men with children. People like that don’t change, and even though it’s been a decade, your stepmother still sees you as a potential threat to her marriage.
You will always be the strong-willed stepdaughter that she can’t control, and therefore, you will always be an enemy, just as she considered your mother to be an enemy 10 years ago when she was pulling her textbook homewrecking maneuver on your family.
It’s an ugly way to go through life, one that I doubt she would even admit to herself, but one that nonetheless is affecting your family dynamic to this very day. You need to start acknowledging this. I’m not suggesting you take her on as your enemy. That’s a waste of negative emotion. Instead, you should simply recognize that she considers you to be her enemy, and wherever possible, use it to your advantage.
You will always be your father’s daughter. Nothing will ever change that. On the other hand, your stepmother might lose her edge one day or your dad might grow some balls, and suddenly she could be out of the picture for good. That is the source of your power. Never forget it.
Of course, your instincts are correct. You’re the one with the power, but the best use of your power is in not having to wield it at all. Simply ignore her. Show up at their door and act like nothing ever happened. Let your stepmother be of no consequence to you whatsoever.
Remember, if you don’t let her under your skin, she can’t interfere with your relationship with your father.