The Vine: August 1, 2003
Dear Sars,
I know that you get tons of letters, and the chance that you’ll respond is slim, but I think I need to at least say this to someone more than anything else. I am a law student at the largest university in the country; I’m always stressed out and constantly feeling like a number and not a person. It’s the nature of law school, it’s the nature of being at a school of fifty thousand plus. I have depression, and I think it is so apt that we say that someone “suffers” from depression because that’s what it’s like — I suffer every day. In high school, I was suicidal, and I am so proud of that fact that now, no matter how bad it gets, I will never go back to that point. Still, it’s debilitating. Especially now since I specifically have SAD — the winter months are pretty brutal. My usual coping skill was to eat — I have never gotten through a winter where I didn’t gain at least twenty pounds.
In the past year, I have lost nearly ninety pounds, which is good because I was morbidly obese. Wendy’s site was a real inspiration for me over the summer — I was always so jealous of her for “doing it,” and I suddenly woke up one day in January and thought, God, I’m doing it! I’m losing weight! But every day, I think about how fat I still am, how ugly I still am, how nobody wants me when I’m so fat as a friend or as a girlfriend. Back in December, I slowly began to turn to bulimia; now, it’s my regular coping mechanism. Sars, I’m out of control. I am hideously stressed from school, trying to find a clerkship in a flailing economy, all of the extra-curriculars I do to supplement my average grades, and I am terrified as to how automatic it is becoming to binge and purge. I tell myself, “This is the day I STOP this.” And I end up turning to food again. And because I can’t bear to gain even more weight, become even fatter and uglier and repulsive, I throw most of it up.
Due to my student health insurance, it is free for me to go to my university’s psych services, but I haven’t clicked with any of the therapists I have tried. My question to you is, is it better to go to a therapist that I am not exactly comfortable with in the hopes that s/he can help me fight this overwhelming depression, or just get some self-help books from Amazon? I am failing on my own — I can’t say that I’m successful because I haven’t gained weight this winter because, hello, I’m constantly on the bulimia train to Screwed-Upville — but maybe there’s something I haven’t tried, or a book I haven’t read…I just am very uncomfortable sharing my demons with someone I don’t completely trust. Maybe I’m just spoiled; I had a great therapist in high school, and I guess I want that same great relationship. But mediocre therapy is better than no therapy…right? Wrong?
When the sun comes back on a regular basis, I will start to feel better and perhaps regain the clarity to control my life again. (And I swear, when I graduate, I will be moving to somewhere warm and year-round sunny.) I guess I’m just really lost, really confused, and I just feel broken. Thank you for any help you can give, but just writing this out and knowing that someone is hearing me does make it a bit better. Your column is always wonderful to read — much better than my evidence assignments!
Sincerely,
Mens Rea
Dear Rea,
If you haven’t felt improvement on any of those fronts, yes, you might want to change therapists — but on the other hand, it takes time to build a rapport with a counselor, so changing doctors might prove more disruptive than staying put.
With that in mind, I would hang in there with your current therapist if you can tolerate her at all. Here’s why, and please don’t take any of this as a criticism, because it isn’t one, but the problem probably isn’t the therapist per se — it’s your resistance to the treatment. We don’t generally develop neurotic, self-destructive behaviors in a vacuum; we do it as a response to something, as a way of dealing with an issue unconsciously, and even when we know intellectually that we “should” stop, those behaviors give us something we need on some level and we don’t want to give them up. You get something out of the binge/purge cycle — control, confirmation of your beliefs about yourself — or you wouldn’t keep doing it.
I probably don’t need to tell you that; you’ve gone through therapy before. And it’s totally natural. Eeeeeveryone has resistance. It’s why therapy can take so long to “work.” But on some level, you do want to live this way, stressed and miserable, hating yourself — it protects you from something, comforts you in some way emotionally, no matter how absurd it might sound intellectually. Again, I don’t say this to criticize you, but you asked me specifically about the prospects for your therapy, and I don’t think you’ve quite committed to letting it help you. You think you want help, but you also want to believe that a sunny climate will “fix” you…and it just won’t.
So, just keep that in mind as you continue your counseling. Try to force yourself to address the resistance, but understand that these things just take time to get to the bottom of. Discuss the issue with your counselor — that you don’t feel comfortable, that you don’t trust her yet. A good counselor will happily respond to that and will try to help you figure out the role your resistance plays — and you will figure it out, but you have to give it enough time.
You might also consider dialing back your schedule a bit. I suspect you would view that as a failure, but the enormous stress you’ve put on yourself isn’t paying off in any meaningful way here.
Okay, so I’ve read The Vine a few times, and your advice seems to be pretty accurate, reasonable, and thoughtful, which is why I’m writing you with the problem I can’t quite handle.
I’m 16, and all my friends are 16; we live in The Land of Preppiedom (Connecticut) and pretty much conform to all the stereotypes that go along with our state. None of us is responsible, especially myself, and we all, admittedly, suffer from Too Much Money Not Enough Common Sense Syndrome; but at this point, I feel it has gotten out of control.
The problem lies with one of the members of my co-ed group of friends, “J.” While all of our friends drink alcohol, and use some drugs, we are all pretty much mature enough to handle ourselves. Our decision to use these substances, whether right or wrong, is not the problem, however — I’m unsure as to when a friend should intervene when another friend seems to be in over her head.
J has been drinking more and more lately, but still has a relatively low tolerance. When she gets drunk, she gets horny, and this has resulted in her hooking up (but not having sex) with most of our guy friends, including me. This behavior, while a little questionable, used to be simply fodder for jokes. Last Saturday night, however, the proverbial shit hit the fan.
After she got drunk with our friend K, they, myself, J’s friend R, my friend S, and our friend A went out to one of the CT casinos to hang out. K and J went off on their own while the rest of us ate dinner; they were meeting J’s friend’s twenty-year-old brother. R, S, A, and I waited for them for what seemed like forever — they showed up forty minutes late. When J and K did show up, they said they were late because the elevators were slow. We knew that was B.S., and the truth soon came out — the guy they met had gotten them drunker, and J had subsequently hooked up with him, and two other complete and total strangers, all at least 20 or 25, throughout the casino. We all pretty much let J have it, but by the time we got back to our homestead we decided to just let it be until the next day and enjoy the night.
It was a little before one, so the night was still young; we parked near our downtown area, and as we were walking down, we saw a group of older guys standing around. J proceeded to jump and straddle the nearest guy (who, we found out, was 30), and began making out with him and grabbing his crotch, and subsequently shoved his hand into her pants. S tried to pull her off, and I let the guy’s friends know she was 16 — but she wouldn’t get off, and the guy wouldn’t stop. Finally, after a lot of pulling and yelling about “statutory rape,” we got her to come with us. After a ill-timed “beer slut” comment by S, however, J proceeded to have a full-on hysterical breakdown. Cue crying, screaming, running around, and collapsing in a storefront. Luckily, since it was late, there was no one around to see her. K convinced the rest of us to drive around for a half hour while she and J walked home — I insisted, however, that K look after J and keep her away from that guy.
After a half hour we were supposed to drive to K’s house and drop off R, who was spending the night. After a half hour of bitching about J, the three of us headed back towards K’s house. In transit, however, we saw K talking with one of Random Twenty-Five-Year-Old Cradle-Robber’s friends in a parking lot. We pulled in, and K got in the car. We asked her where J was, and she finally admitted she was in a car in that very parking lot with RTFYOCR. I basically flipped out, and took K to task for letting J hook up with the guy again. She, on the other hand, said “she isn’t J’s mother and can’t tell her what to do because [she] herself drinks.”
So here’s the question — when is it appropriate for a friend to intervene in another friend’s actions? K believes that there’s nothing she can do, because she is only a friend and has no authority over J — especially because all of us indulge in the substances that trigger J’s disgusting behavior. Although I do feel that, as a whole, my friends and I are fairly mature and can handle ourselves, I think K should have stepped in, and feel that someone needs to say or do something to stop J’s self-destructive behavior. Not only did she come off as a complete skank, she also could have gotten an STD, or been date-raped — plus, her giving the guy head (which she did while in the car) is against Connecticut statutory rape laws.
Was I wrong to get amd at K for not stopping J? Most importantly, is there anything that we should to to help J? This all feels just a little hypocritical, and I’m being pulled between my own sense of responsibility as a friend to J and the fact that I can’t, and shouldn’t, act like her father.
Thanks,
Feeling Like A Parent At 16
Dear 16,
Why didn’t you go over to the guy’s car and put a stop to the shenanigans with J yourself if you felt so strongly about it? Just something to think about. And I don’t think you care that much about the hypocrisy, either; you just don’t want her to get angry at you, so instead of mentioning it to her directly, you talk shit behind her back because she’s embarrassing you.
That strategy is going to blow up in your face just like it’s blown up in mine more than once, so you’ll have to talk to J. Her sex-bomb act has very little to do with “horny” — more power to her if it did, of course, but when you put that behavior together with the booze and the sobbing and the seemingly desperate determination with which she seeks out these encounters, it’s reading to me like “deeply unhappy, and willing to get attention by whatever means necessary as a result.” Say so. She’s out of control, she’s going to pay a physical price for it soon, and she’s miserable. If you care about her as a friend, you need to speak up and let her know that you don’t judge her, but you do worry about her, and you think she needs to slow down a little.
“Handling yourself” in a “mature” manner doesn’t just mean holding your liquor. It means doing the hard thing in situations like this.
O Great Wise and Wonderful Sars —
You will forever be my hero if you can clear something up for me. I’ve noticed the phrase “chewing scenery” (or some variation) used both on your site and the TWoP site many many times, and I’m beginning to feel like I’m the only one who has no idea what it is.
What, exactly, is an actor doing when they’re “chewing scenery”?
Thanks bunches!
Didn’t Get The Memo
Dear Memo,
“Chewing scenery” means “overacting.” I don’t know the derivation of the expression, but William Shatner is the patron saint of scenery-chewing, and his scenes with Ricardo Montalban in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan are the thespian equivalent of a pie-eating contest.
Other notorious set-chompers include David Hasselhoff, Shannen Doherty, Judd Nelson, Laurence Olivier late in his career, most of the cast of Showgirls, and — in a performance so over the top that it sucked most of Burbank into an alternate dimension — John Lazar in Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls.
Sars:
Any advice on how to stop crushing on a girl, short of cutting her completely out of your life?
See, I suddenly found myself hit with this stupid crush like a ton of bricks. Met her online and became friends. Found her delightful then, and when we met IRL, found her equally delightful then. But that’s all it was. Friends! Nice.
Recently, I haven’t been able to get her out of my head, though, and it finally dawned on me that I was nursing a serious crush. Sars, she’s totally unavailable to me. She’s completely head-over-heels in love with someone else. She sees me as a friend, always has, always will.
I’ve been through crushes before, but this one is harder to get away from. Any advice? Or do I just have to grimly roll along and wait for my heart to catch up with my brain and let this stupidity fade? I’d hate to have to cut her completely out of my life, as it would raise questions and cause disruptions for her (at least to a degree). I feel like this is my own stupid problem; doing or saying things that would make her uncomfortable just to ease my own inner turmoil seems very selfish. It’s not like any of this is her fault! (Other than being a lovely person, of course.)
Can you at least administer a well-needed mental slap to the head? Thanks.
Crushed
Dear Crushed,
Give it a little more time. Wait for something or someone else to come along to distract you. If she’s truly unavailable — and perhaps that’s part of her appeal, but that’s secondary — and you truly understand that, the crush will probably pass on its own.
If another month or two goes by and it’s still affecting you, you need to spend less (or no) time with her. Tell her why and take time off; no, it’s not her fault, but it’s going to start affecting the friendship in subtle ways whether you acknowledge it or not, so you might as well acknowledge it.
You don’t have to do that yet, though. Just crush on her, keep it to yourself, and see if it doesn’t fade by itself.
All right, Sars, please help me out. Hopefully this is a simple, straightforward question. My friends and I can’t seem to agree, and we’re not after the Dr. Ruth answer here, just the basic, commonsense response of a regular twentysomething gal like us. Which is where you come in (I hope).
What do you think of men in relationships who use pornography? Not the bordering-on-illegal stuff, but your run-of-the-mill, nekkid, girl-on-girl action. The average straight man’s porn, you might say. One of my friends considers it cheating. I don’t consider it cheating, but I do agree with her that it could indicate a man finds something lacking in the relationship. Maybe he wants more sex, or a different kind of it; maybe he wants a different body type. Maybe he just wants some of that girl-on-girl action and knows his particular girl won’t oblige.
But what do you think? Do you agree with her that it’s cheating? Do you agree with the consensus of my friends and me, which says that at the very least, it means he wants something you can’t provide? And maybe most importantly, should a woman find it insulting? For example, if the guy you’re with raves about your size-14 body, but you find he’s got a plethora of beautiful buxom, slender babes saved on his hard drives — is he lying?
Luckily this is not a worry I currently have, as I’m boyfriendless, and I find it best not to borrow trouble even when I am…but after discussing it with my friends, I’m curious as to a more practical take on it, and thought I’d ask the fount of common sense and wisdom.
Copious thanks,
No Clever Signature, Just Wondering Here
Dear Wondering,
I no longer belong to the twentysomething demographic, but I can still see it from here, so I’ll take a crack at this.
I don’t consider it cheating if a man in a relationship uses pornography, as long as he’s not using it as a substitute for real-life sex, or as an enhancement to that sex that he can’t perform without — but even that isn’t cheating, exactly, although it does indicate serious problems with communication and compatibility. If he’s into the goats or the little kids, or he’s blowing me off to sit in front of a Gordian knot of writhing blondes instead, yeah, we’ve got a problem — but garden-variety Boarding School III-type stuff, on his own time, if it doesn’t affect our shared sex life? Not a big deal.
Does it mean he wants something you can’t provide? Well, yeah — that’s pretty much the point of porn. It’s fantasy; it’s wish fulfillment. But that doesn’t necessarily mean in turn that he’s dissatisfied with you or with your body, or wants you to change anything. It means that he’d like to see six girls naked and moaning all in one place, and he’s realistic about the chances of that happening for him in real life.
A lot of guys use porn, and strictly from a practical “don’t sweat the small stuff” standpoint, it’s a waste of time to take a harder line on it than you need to — because, to him, it’s not a comment on or an indictment of you, at all. If you really feel that it’s an infidelity, well, that’s how you feel, but nine times out of ten, that’s not how he sees it, and if he’s hiding it from you, it’s because he thinks that’s how you’ll see it and he doesn’t want to get into a big teary “so my boobs are too small for you, IS THAT IT?” fight about it.
Let me put it another way. Would I like Goran Visnjic to come over, strip down, and rock my world? Sure. Do I have a satisfying series of daydreams to that effect? You bet. It doesn’t mean I want my boyfriend to dye his hair black and perfect a Croatian accent. One has nothing to do with the other.
[8/1/03]
Tags: boys (and girls) friendships grammar health and beauty
