fuck serenity - F*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All Life's Impossible Problems (2015)

F*ck Feelings: One Shrink's Practical Advice for Managing All Life's Impossible Problems (2015)

chapter five

fuck serenity

For those not in the medical field, knowledge of what’s good and bad for our health can usually be found in the center of a Venn diagram involving “factual scientific knowledge,” “pop culture,” and “total bullshit.” That’s where you’ll find such statements as “kale is God’s personal salad,” “deodorant gives you Alzheimer’s (or something),” and in bold letters “stress KILLS.”

Therefore, many people feel they should be able to reduce or eliminate stress, along with anger and fear, and achieve more serenity in their lives, both as an end in itself and to promote physical and mental wellness. They regard anger and fear as feelings that can be cleansed through meditation, or the practice of peaceful, giving philosophies, or sweaty yoga, or drinking vegetables, etc.

Unfortunately, like all of life’s unpleasantries, stress, fear, and anger are unavoidable, at least sometimes. In some ways, they’re beneficial—fear and aggression are basic primal defenses—but whether stress is a force for good or bad in your life, or even both, trying to do away with it is futile, harmful, and a way to set yourself against your basic nature.

If you really want to dedicate yourself to a serene existence, then accept a life absorbed in therapeutic and religious exercises while you either succeed in self-lobotomy or feel like a failure because you can’t. The model of such laid-back living is probably Jeffery “The Dude” Lebowski, the fictional character from the Coen brothers’ 1998 film, whose keys to a carefree lifestyle appear to be lots of weed, no self-awareness, and not bathing with marmots.

Certainly, you can and should avoid stress if you’re not also avoiding your responsibilities; it’s good to avoid conflict when you can and hang out with people you get along with, rather than with those who set you on edge. We assume, however, that there are lots of conflicts and relationships that life dumps on you (or in your bathtub) without giving you a choice. Likewise, your temperament dumps feelings on you, like anger and anxiety, without asking your permission or necessarily responding to meditation, exercises, medication, and intensive psychotherapy.

Remember that the actual Serenity Prayer, which is central to twelve-step methodology, isn’t a prayer to end stress and anger, but for the clarity of mind and the humility to deal with whatever life inevitably throws at you. You can usually tell when conflict, fear, and negative feelings are unavoidable; that’s when you’ve honestly tried everything, asked for advice, and still feel stuck. And when you start looking for your second therapy and third medication.

Self magazine may tell you that stress is deadly, but dedicating yourself to eliminating it will make you feel like you’re not really living at all. Accept that peace of mind is rare, and that, without learning proper management of stress and fear, you can lose your mind entirely.

Stop Hating the Ones You Love

It’s easier than most people think not to fall in love with the wrong person; Woody Allen’s excuse was “the heart wants what it wants,” but so do toddlers, and you don’t give every four-year-old a pony.

On the other hand, it’s almost impossible to stop loving someone, no matter how awful they are, when that someone is family, practically family, or a fellow survivor of hard times. They’re not just friends or partners; they’re part of your life.

Certain connections and experiences bond you to a person, so your love isn’t a matter of choice and you can’t turn it off. Unfortunately, you may also find yourself hating them or hating yourself for the way you respond to them. That, too, is seldom deliberate or easy to stop.

If you’re lucky, your reasons for hate are temporary or hinge on a grudge you can give up or neutralize by lowering your expectations; for example, you may hate your parents until you’re old enough to see their side of things or realize they couldn’t help many of their faults and mistakes. Occasionally, other realizations can also put an end to hatred, like seeing that you have the right to decline an impossible responsibility and thus no longer have to hate the person you formerly felt responsible for or to.

These are the kind of hate-to-love transformations we celebrate and relive in stories because it feels so good to stop hating someone you love and stop feeling like a hateful person. Unfortunately, we also love to relive such moments because they are far too rare.

Most often, it’s not in your power to stop hating someone you love, and your efforts to stop hating are likely to make hatred worse. You’ll try to talk out issues that can’t be resolved, or change character traits (yours and/or theirs), which is the best way to start a fight. You’ll feel like a failure, which will make your hatred more acute and harder to keep inside, where it belongs.

If after much effort to resolve your negative feelings, you come to the conclusion that you can’t stop hating someone you love, don’t despair, because if it’s really not in your power to stop hating, there’s no point in blaming or hating yourself. Once you accept that anger is there to stay (and only bound to get worse the more you rage against it), you’re now ready to think of ways to manage your perma-hate.

Please note, however, that accepting hate is not the same as accepting hateful behavior. It’s a sad fact of life that many people can’t help loving people they’re also bound to hate, but if you can live with hate without acting hateful, you’re doing a good job.

Living with hate will never feel good, but anyone who knows how much combustible anger you’re currently storing in your brain recognizes how much respect you deserve for your decent behavior. The heart wants what it wants, but the hate wants everything, and if you hate someone you also care about, you need our advice.

Here are some powers you’d like to have to take the hate out of love-hate, but lack:

✵ A Jesus-like ability to love shitheads and bathe the feet of Assholes

✵ A sweet temperament like your beloved kindergarten teacher, who never, ever got angry at anyone (but, in retrospect, was probably high)

✵ The ability to just ignore people who should definitely shut the fuck up

✵ Access to a family therapist whose judgment and direction are accepted by all as gospel (see: Jesus, above)

Among the wishes people express are:

✵ To feel less angry

✵ To get loved ones to stop the behavior they hate

✵ To figure out why they’re so angry

✵ To discover the secret that allows them to love everyone, even the ones they love-hate

Here are three examples:

My seventeen-year-old kid is a fuckup, a liar, and generally an asshole, so even though I know it’s my job to support him, I can’t help but become infuriated by his bullshit, and then my anger helps no one. He’s gotten expelled from school and he’s not working, so you can guess where the money comes from when he buys drugs, which he’s obviously using. Not that he always uses the money I have to give him, because every now and then something disappears from the house. Of course, he admits to nothing and lies about everything. I yell at him, and he either looks defiant or scared, but it obviously does no good, and then my wife tells me it’s all my fault. My goal is to help my son grow up and get off drugs, but I can’t help him if I’m so angry—my wife is right about that—and that’s what I need to stop first.

I hate the way my husband gets bossy with our kids. He’s not abusive, but he’s overbearing and it reminds me of what I disliked most about my father. He’s usually a reasonable, responsible guy, and we get along fine when the kids aren’t around, but alone time is rare and they won’t be leaving home for at least five years. I’ve tried getting him to change his style, but it doesn’t work and the kids don’t like to see us argue. So I sit there, feeling resentful, with a sour look on my face, always angry at the partner I have to live with. My goal is not to be so pissed at him all the time.

I believe in honoring my parents, and I certainly love my mother, but she often gets very mean and is really nasty to my father, who is too old and hard of hearing to defend himself. He just gets on her nerves—partially understandable, since he can’t hear a word she says—and she lets him have it when he doesn’t even know what he did wrong. She is wonderful at justifying her actions to herself. I believe in accepting her, but I can’t stop being angry whenever I see her, and that’s not who I want to be. My goal is to be able to be around her and my father without always feeling nervous or enraged.

Since the last thing anyone wants to do is hate someone they really care about, it’s important to recognize hate is often acquired only after a clusterfuck of bad behavior. If someone’s inability to stop doing wrong makes you furious, then feeling less anger may only be possible when she improves her behavior, which is to say, never.

Even after analyzing the reasons for your anger, lowering your expectations, and trying to forgive, you’ll probably find your feelings unchanged. It’s a Clusterfuck-22, so if your goal is to stop hating and feeling guilty about your emotions, then you know where that leaves you.

Your first job, in these situations, is to try to understand, forget, and forgive, but once that proves impossible, accept your feelings as unavoidable facts and use your common sense to limit the damage. Speak softly but use your big (Roosevelt, not phallic) stick, if you have one, to limit hateful behavior.

Addicts are always selfish Assholes (see chapter 9), but if your son ever gets clean, he might return to his old, not-unbearable self. Until then, declare a list of bad behaviors—like stealing the TV or failing a store-bought drug test—that will require a young adult to spend a night or more elsewhere. You have to accept him as he is without anger, but if he can’t accept your rules, then it’s his turn to be angry, not yours.

If parenting leaves you angry with your spouse’s style, split up your responsibilities, maximize the tasks you do separately, and schedule regular childless time together. If you express your anger, you will probably find it harder to set limits. If you set limits, you’ll often find yourself feeling less angry.

If you can’t protect one of your parents from the other’s meanness, find ways to see them separately, e.g., lunch with mom and hog racing with dad. Whether you’re all together or one-on-one, keep the conversation light and steer away from contentious subjects. Withdraw from offensive conversation if you have a nearby locked bathroom you can retreat to and think it will help protect you and/or reduce the nastiness. Don’t discuss your feelings. Let your actions reflect your most constructive response to bad behavior.

Never lament hateful behavior or hate-filled chemistry as unnecessary or evidence of a dysfunctional family. Instead, celebrate the success of your ability to manage difficult relationships while avoiding open conflict.

You can’t help having hate in your close relationships, but you should respect your ability to make them work, even if it’s in a difficult, entirely fucked-up way.

Quick Diagnosis

Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

✵ A heart untainted by hate

✵ A family with no Assholes

✵ A new temperament

✵ A spouse with no traits you dislike

Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

✵ Control your mouth

✵ Be confident in penalizing bad behavior

✵ Live with hate without hating yourself

Here’s how you can do it:

✵ Use standard methods for chilling your anger

✵ Accept managing love-hate as part of a good person’s job

✵ Use all opportunities to stop bad behavior and/or reduce your exposure to it

✵ Never get discouraged by having hateful people in your life or hate in your heart

✵ Respect good hate management

Your Script

Here’s what to tell someone/yourself when you’re tortured by hate for those you love.

Dear [Me/Family Member/Intimate Enemy],

I wish I wasn’t so angry at my [parent/spouse/kid] but I’ve tried [family therapy/exorcism/high colonics] and I can’t get rid of the [anger/filth/evil thoughts/inner tension]. I will not take responsibility for the [insert synonym of “excruciating psychic pain or those who cause it”] but I will become amazingly good at managing difficult people and keeping them working together.

Accepting the Inescapably Annoying

Unless you find yourself in Guantánamo or a North Korean labor camp, the worst kind of torture you can expect is being obliged to spend time with someone, due to family, work, or just geography, whom you hate enough to murder with your bare hands. Even Dick Cheney would admit that the experience is more painful than an “enhanced interrogation technique.”

It’s one thing if the person you’re stuck with is an Asshole (see chapter 9), but it’s even worse if you find yourself annoyed by someone’s harmless habits and wanting to do violent things to the perfectly innocent. That’s when you’ll feel like you’re locked in an interrogation room with Dick Cheney himself.

You want to feel like a nice person who wishes people well, not a stressed, irritable, and hypertensive jerk, but when you’re around that special someone—and, alas, you often have to be—darkness fills your soul. You can’t change him, but you feel there should be a way to change yourself.

It’s true, some kinds of intolerance and irritability may be resolved with insight or self-acceptance. If you find yourself irritable about everything, you may be depressed, and treatment can help you get the symptoms under control.

At some point, however, you’ll have exposed yourself to all the insight your psyche can bear and found that most focused annoyances are both part of who you are and whom you’re forced to sit next to for long periods of your life. Trying to find a way to immunize yourself against petty or even grand annoyance is just one more way to force yourself into being someone you’re not.

Asking people to be less annoying, of course, usually backfires, because they don’t believe they’re doing anything wrong. Asking people to change isn’t always futile, but if their annoying habits are part of their personality, it can be one of the best ways to start a bad fight and cause hurt feelings. Improving communication is good for cellular companies, not for people looking for a good technique for reducing irritation.

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.

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.

If people who suffer from anxiety are guilty of anything, it’s being born at the wrong time; there was a time when being hyperalert and quick to fear was the best way to keep from being eaten by a prehistoric megabear or stay prepared for an attack by a rival warlord.

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.

If facing a life-threatening illness triggers obsessive ruminations about death, you may find yourself stuck with them for a long time, like with PTSD; once an external event triggers repeated symptoms, they tend to last. It’s as if fear has worn a path in a brain that was a bit soggy to begin with.

Yes, it’s tough to be terrified of dying and have people trying to comfort you by reminding you that we’re all going to die, because they don’t have the burden of knowing exactly how and feeling like they should be able to do something about it. That said, talking about your fear repeatedly and thinking about medical solutions will only make you worse.

So stop focusing on the importance of a clean or not-so-clean bill of health, and instead block behaviors that make fear stronger, like oversharing and giving up regular life activities that might otherwise distract you. Look at a fear of death as a bizarre brain symptom, not evidence that you’re a deep admirer of Woody Allen and Ingmar Bergman.

It may help you to hang out with other people living with MS who share your fears and nevertheless live fully, much as it helps an alcoholic to spend time with those who are in recovery but still feel vulnerable. The need for reassurance, like the need for alcohol, however, is simply a drive for unhealthy behavior that you’re not responsible for having, just for blocking.

If you get terrified in anticipation of a social or work situation or performance, your anxiety will get better, to some degree, if you do the same scary thing over and over, but it won’t necessarily disappear. It’s amplified by thoughts about being afraid “for no good reason” and wondering if fear will cause you to stutter, blush, fart, and thus embarrass yourself further. Fear is amazingly good at causing fear; it’s the mind’s best perpetual motion machine.

A cognitive technique that helps with fear of embarrassment is to spend time every day defining your own goal for pushing yourself into the danger zone. Keep reminding yourself that you’re at work because you’re there to make a living, and you have your own definition of a good presentation. Then define goals that derive from your own standards and needs, not the response of others, and applaud yourself for pursuing those goals in spite of persistent fears.

What’s most important, assuming you accept the unfairness of having to live with fear, is respecting what you do every day to limit its reach. Challenge fear-driven thoughts about what you should have done to avoid anxiety, or about the horrible effect it will have on your life and relationships. Every time you stop yourself from seeking relief in avoidance, substances, or other behavior that interferes with your goals, give yourself a cheer.

Although relaxation may be good for your blood pressure, remember, it’s that good ol’ fear reflex that made your life possible, since it kept your ancestors alive long enough to have kids. Like your pelt-wearing forebears, you’re never going to relax for very long, so take pride in what you do with your fear. If you can tolerate it without letting it take over your life entirely, use it for self-protection so you, too, can stay alive.

Quick Diagnosis

Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

✵ A cure for attacks of irrational fear

✵ Total, quick control of fear without risk, side effects, or possible relapse

✵ Elimination of the stupid, irrational fear-inducing thoughts you get when you’re afraid

✵ Freedom from urges to do unhealthy things when you’re afraid

Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

✵ Develop an ability to assess realistic risk

✵ Form habits and procedures for doing what you intended to do, in spite of persistent symptoms

✵ Find treatments that provide partial relief some of the time

✵ Control fear-driven behaviors

✵ Respect what it requires to live with fear

Here’s how you can do it:

✵ When common methods for fear relief fail, accept that you’re fucked

✵ Learn how to tell when a negative thought is lying to you and how to challenge it

✵ Survey the many treatments for fear management and try out any that seem helpful

✵ Don’t avoid treatments that carry risks if your risk of not doing them is greater

✵ Remember alcohol is a treatment with high risk and brief benefit that breeds dependency and could make you into an Asshole

✵ Learn to talk calmly and humorously about fearful things so that other people won’t get spooked by your fear

✵ Respect yourself as a fear manager

Your Script

Here’s what to say when you’re fed up with being afraid.

Dear [Self/Quivering Wimp/Fragile Phobic],

I hate living in [fear/dread/retreat], but so far I haven’t been able to figure out [why I’m scared of nothing/can’t get the help I need/have these weird moments where I’m fine one second and the next can’t breathe and feel like my heart’s going to explode]. Having failed to find happiness, I will now [give up the chase/learn meditation/get back to business] and ignore thoughts about getting relief from [insert illegal controlled substance here] or [avoiding people/discussing my anxiety constantly so that people avoid me/seeking a magic cure]. I will run my life as if I wasn’t scared, no matter how much work it takes.

Realistic Mantras to Try If You Feel an Anxiety Attack Coming On

This too shall pass, and shall pass quicker if I take the special pill I always carry in my pocket

Life is a journey, not a destination, and anxiety isn’t fatal according to the Internet

Remember to breathe (although if breathing didn’t come naturally, I’d be in deep trouble since I often don’t remember where my keys are)

I can find my center and endure this day, or I can find my boss, tell him I have diarrhea, and deal with this at home

I am a leaf on the wind, watch how I soar, listening to anything but my brain

Healing Heartache

It’s hard to discuss heartache without sounding sappy or using purple prose, but the fact is, if your heart gets attached to something or someone, and you take that something away, the heart responds to the loss of the loved person with pain.

If you want to know what depression feels like, or even what being an actual zombie feels like, have your heart broken; it’s the same rare, poisonous cocktail of grief and sadness accompanied by hopelessness, anger, self-reproach, and an inability to experience pleasure or feel engaged in life. With grief, though, you know why you’re sad, can expect an eventual full recovery, and don’t crave brains.

In most cases, people recover by accepting support from friends, keeping busy with work and friendships, and taking good care of themselves. Like depression, however, the grief of heartbreak can be destructive, even fatally so.

If you believe that healing from loss is always possible—as do many therapists, most owners of scented candles, and all screenwriters—then you’re sure to feel like a loser if your grieving doesn’t end. It means you didn’t succeed in moving on, letting go, getting help, facing your feelings, or whatever.

Unfortunately, some people don’t recover from loss, even when they get lots of support and work hard to move on. It may be that loss triggers an innate vulnerability to depression, their personalities are unusually loss-sensitive, or they lack the ability to control destructive impulses. Again, it sounds sappy, but not every broken bone or heart is guaranteed to mend.

If you are living with a broken heart, your pain doesn’t go away, and neither does your hopelessness about life’s ever having meaning again or your anger at anyone whose behavior might have prevented the loss, including yourself.

If you recognize the sad truth that some people never stop hurting from a loss, then you’re ready to find ways to live a meaningful life, even when grieving seems like it’s never going away, and perhaps never will.

Since getting over loss is not always within our power, living with grief is a failure only if you let it prevent you from living a good, productive life. Living with a broken heart is hard, but it can never doom you to be a broken person.

Here are some heart-healing abilities you’d like to have but don’t:

✵ The gift to weep so intensely that you purge yourself of grief even if you become dangerously dehydrated

✵ The kind of faith that allows you to believe that every loss, betrayal, and disappointment is part of God’s/Xenu’s/Satan’s greater plan

✵ A surgery that removes the grief-affected part of your brain while leaving the part that knows song lyrics and how to walk

✵ An insight into persistent grieving that actually makes a difference, like “time heals all wounds,” but helpful

Among the wishes people express are:

✵ To stop hurting and feel like living again

✵ To stop obsessing about why they weren’t there and what they didn’t do to help

✵ To get back to where they were before

✵ To find something to care about again

Here are three examples:

I loved my wife and family, so when she said it was over, I hadn’t seen the divorce coming. She said I hadn’t done anything wrong; she just stopped loving me. We’ve remained friendly and we co-parent well, but I felt like home was where we lived and now I’m in exile, getting a glimpse of the woman I loved as she’s moved on to her next husband, who, of course, my son really likes. I can’t stop pining for someone who is no longer attached to me. When I see her and we chat briefly every two weeks when I pick him up, my heart still breaks. My goal is to get over her.

My mother died after a long illness, so I’m glad she’s no longer in pain and that I got so many wonderful years with her, but she was the best friend I had and I still miss her so much. Every day I miss talking to her on the phone, and every time I see a good movie or hear a funny joke, I can’t enjoy it because I realize I can’t tell her about it. There’s almost nothing that doesn’t remind me of her or something we used to talk about. It’s been two years, and I can’t seem to stop crying. She would never want me to be unhappy, but I can’t help myself. My goal is to get over my grief.

After so many years of putting up with my wife’s drinking and untreated depression, I’d had enough (and couldn’t put the kids through any more), so I filed for divorce. As I feared, she went downhill after that and unfortunately never really recovered. A few months after the divorce was final, she started calling me when she was drunk and suicidal to tell me the divorce had killed her and there was no point in living. After I stopped answering her calls, she overdosed and was taken to the hospital. After that I got full custody of the kids, so I still hear from her regularly because of them, and she always sounds reproachful. My goal is to stop having to worry about her and feel tortured by guilt over this unending misery.

When grief seems to go on forever, you want to ask your friends, your cat, and your god why the suffering won’t end. Instead, ask yourself (and maybe a therapist) whether you’re doing something to prevent yourself from recovering.

When it comes to endless heartache, there’s a good chance you’re not doomed, just doing it wrong. Pain-driven behaviors, like drug using, stalking, or immersing yourself in the past, may all set you back.

If you’re not doing anything wrong, however, the bad news is that persistent grieving is not under your control, recovery is not a sure thing, and your cat has no healing powers. The good news is that there are lots of ways to help yourself once you stop looking everywhere for a cure and start looking at how to live life under new, less-than-ideal circumstances.

Continuing to stay in contact with someone you’ve loved and actually lost, while necessary in a co-parenting or workplace situation, may be misused to prolong the pain of grief; the more you seek a connection, the more powerful it gets. You may even fool yourself into thinking there’s nothing wrong with being friendly, chatting, and making lots of eye contact when you drop by your ex’s for visitation. What you need to do to break the connection is avoid direct contact and instead communicate by any of the cold, twenty-first-century methods—email, text, emoji, whatever.

Like an alcoholic, you may think you don’t need to stop reaching out until the pain’s lessened enough that it no longer requires drowning, but in truth, the pain will stop only when you dry out. Test this assumption by breaking off face-to-face contact and see what happens; if you find yourself jonesing for some eye contact, you know you’re on the right track. Then perhaps you’ll find the strength to examine and control your grief-stalling behavior.

When sorrow doesn’t stop and you’re sure you’ve done nothing to hang on to the past and everything to live in the present, then get the kinds of treatment that help chronic depression, such as cognitive therapy, exercise, and medication. Get help from friends and therapists who can tolerate your pain, not be overly affected by it, and continue to give positive encouragement.

Don’t tell yourself that time heals all wounds or that all things pass, because somebody has to be the exception to those truths, and alas, it’s you. Instead, continue to look for positive meanings in your loss, using ideas you glean from books, religion, therapists, and friends. Avoid therapists who are interested in talking about your feelings of loss if you’ve already gone that route and it hasn’t worked. Instead, look for a positive coach who honors your relationship with your late parent, regardless of how empty its loss has left you, and respects your efforts to keep moving in spite of feelings of emptiness.

Sometimes you can get as paralyzed by someone else’s grief as by your own. If your ex can’t get over you and tells you she’ll die if you don’t take her back, don’t feel guilty until you’ve decided for yourself whether you tried hard to make the relationship work and whether you can ever, ever accept responsibility for the life of someone else who isn’t a minor, a soldier in your platoon, or a patient on whom you’re doing open-heart surgery.

Certain people are very vulnerable to rejection, and if you didn’t know it before you got together, you sure know it now. You probably know that this isn’t her first rejection, and if you don’t, ten seconds of googling will make it clear.

Don’t bend over backward and offer support, or you may find yourself intensifying contact that needs to stop. Get advice from a therapist or moral adviser for your right to end the relationship and do what will cause the least pain in the long run. Then declare your intentions without showing guilt or fear, keep your distance, and hope that your ex can find a way to survive.

Just because loss precedes a long period of misery doesn’t mean that you or another person or pet have it in their power to stop the pain, and even when your behavior is part of the problem, you may not have the vision or strength to control it. What you can do in the face of endless grief is to accept that fact and respect whatever efforts you make to go on with life instead of waiting for heartache to end.

Quick Diagnosis

Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

✵ An end to heartache, daily sadness, and negative thoughts

✵ An ability to control your heart

✵ A time machine

✵ Certainty that you’ll feel better

Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

✵ Stop grief-prolonging behaviors

✵ Challenge despairing thoughts

✵ Don’t link grief and responsibility without careful thought

✵ Live a meaningful life

Here’s how you can do it:

✵ Don’t hurt yourself to flee grief

✵ Seek ideas, friends, and advisers that fight despair

✵ Try treatments for symptoms

✵ Don’t hold others responsible for your grief or accept responsibility for theirs

✵ Continue to do what’s meaningful, regardless of how you feel

Your Script

Here’s what to say about grief that doesn’t heal.

Dear [Grieving Self/Frustrated Friend/Long-Aggrieved Other],

I don’t know why I can’t seem to get over this [loss/death/divorce/playoff defeat] but I’m proud I’ve stopped [insert bad, health-endangering, money-losing habit] and have started [keeping busy/working hard to think positively/compulsively checking Petfinder for a high-maintenance animal to adopt and take over my life]. I’m ready to accept that I may never feel [insert adjective for “not-shitty”], but that won’t change my approach to life or my belief in what’s important.

Accepting Enmity

There are people who seem to thrive on being hated, but besides assorted YouTube commenters, professional wrestlers, and one Donald Trump, most people in the world hate being hated, especially when the person who’s angrily cut you off is somebody you were once close to.

Usually, the hate is not active and violent, but more silent and passive-aggressive. Still, it’s hard to find inner peace when someone you care about is shunning you, as happens in families and small communities. It’s harder still when there’s nothing you can do about it, including apologizing, humbling yourself, accepting doctrine, or kissing the ring/something else.

If you’re an introspective self-doubter, you keep wondering what you could have done differently to head off or mend trouble. You’re not afraid of admitting you did something wrong; you either can’t figure out what it was or what’s wrong with your apology.

It doesn’t help to be assertive, silver-tongued, or sorry. You can be a great defense lawyer who makes juries weep, and you’ve got no one to plead your case to. You get the feeling that, the louder your protests, the more satisfaction you may be giving to your enemies.

When you hear false rumors about your alleged wrongdoing, you can protest sincerely, but the more time you give it, the more attention it gets; it’s often impossible to prove that you didn’t do something negative. As was famously asserted at the 15th International Conference on Agile Software Development, “The amount of energy necessary to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.”

You may miss your shunner and want to reconcile, or you may be afraid of them and want to move behind a security fence. In any case, you never know, day to day, whether you’re going to run into them and be reminded of enmity you just can’t stop.

If you expect eventually to find a solution, you won’t stop trying to find an effective answer, and everything you do will make things worse. If you accept the fact that life sometimes imposes indefinite enmity on you, then you’re ready to learn how to endure it for as long as necessary without breaking, feeling you’ve failed, or becoming a heel/Trump and learning to love it too much.

Here are telltale signs that reconciliation is highly improbable:

✵ A call to ask what you did wrong leads you to discover that the number’s been changed (as has their address, and legal name)

✵ An attempt to just talk it all out leads to an attempt on your life

✵ An apology bought you five weeks of peace (better than the last one, which only bought five days)

✵ The declaration that you don’t want to pick sides has landed you outside, and the door is locked

Among the wishes people express are:

✵ To get their ex-best friend to see they did nothing wrong

✵ To get someone they love to listen

✵ To stop a personal war they have no interest in continuing

✵ To stop the pain of being hated by someone they love

Here are three examples:

When my brother stopped talking to me, it felt like I lost my best friend. His decision was unexpected and I think it was because his wife decided she hated me. I can’t think of him without wanting to pick up the phone and find some way to resolve the problem, even if I don’t know what I’d be apologizing for, and we can probably never be close friends again. I wish he’d just tell me what this is about, but he never explained and he won’t answer my calls. My goal is to find a way to restore contact since I’ve got absolutely no hostility and every wish to get my brother back.

I know I had to divorce my husband because he was a mean drug addict, but that didn’t stop the trouble. Periodically he tells the police I’ve violated our divorce agreement and sounds so convincing that I have to answer in court, and even though the cases get thrown out again and again, he won’t stop trying. Every time I’ve just about stopped thinking about him, he does something to make me hate him again, which is the opposite of what I need. My goal is to get him to stop picking fights with me, because until he does, I can’t get on with my life.

For ten years, I had a book club with a group of my closest friends from college, since we all ended up in the same city. I always looked forward to our meetings, which were basically just excuses to drink wine, gossip, and laugh. Then, a few months ago, I don’t know what happened or who offended whom, but suddenly there were two groups who hated one another, and I had to take sides. I want war with no one—these women are all friends with me, even if some of them aren’t friends with each other anymore—but the group won’t allow neutrality. My goal is to stay at peace and not lose one or both groups of my closest friends.

Most people know that if you find out you’re the object of someone’s romantic interest, it’s important to stop and consider whether the feelings of your newfound sweetie are worth taking seriously. After all, it’s nice if somebody is into you, but not if they’re really just interested in your car, tush, or bank account.

What fewer people realize, however, is that you have to stop and apply the same level of skepticism to angry overtures as you do to affectionate ones. Whether someone has the hots for you or has it out for you, an initial assessment is required.

So before you leap to react to somebody’s grudge, judge your behavior by your own standards. Form your own opinion about whether you really did something wrong before you decide whether you deserve his anger, and what response he deserves in kind, whether it be a slew of apology bouquets or a silent shrug.

Then, regardless of what others say (or don’t say, if they freeze you out), you know whether somebody’s anger is something you can or should do anything about, without needing to argue, change a mind, or feel validated.

If you failed to live up to your values, make amends. If, however, you know you haven’t done anything wrong, then make peace with the fact you’re screwed; if somebody decides seemingly arbitrarily to dislike you, even if that person is your brother, then you just have to wait for them to arbitrarily decide not to dislike you anymore. In other words, if you had no direct influence on changing his mind in the first place, then don’t expect to have any influence on changing it back.

Sure, your brother’s silence may be due to pressure from his wife, but it also may be due to a head injury or his zodiac sign; what’s important is that you know his decision isn’t really personal or deserved, so accept his behavior and decide whether you wish to leave open the far distant possibility of a relationship. If so, keep texting him when your team wins, or forward him occasional funny emails, as long as there’s no expectation of a reply, no mention of strong feelings, and no political humor emails, because that’s asking for trouble.

If it’s not him but his wife who hates you, and you’re careful to stop addressing issues or expressing pain, distress, or anguish, he may be glad, eventually, to say hello at neutral gatherings. Sometime down the line, events and positive feelings will push you back into casual contact, but be aware that hatred could return just as randomly as it went away.

Then there are enemies, usually exes who are often into harmful substances, who feel they have very good reasons for punishing you and yearn to know how much their hatred hurts you, so they know you care. They don’t want to get even with you so much as they want a response, because their new addiction is your strong emotion; if you fight back and let them have it with all guns blazing, they’re getting what they need.

Before spending money on a therapist to help you deal with your rage or trying to have a heart-to-heart with your ex to resolve things, get a lawyer, preferably one who will tell you to get your head out of your ass (or get a restraining order). Once you change your perspective, then change your locks, and stop answering your phone.

Know what challenges you’re legally obliged to respond to—e.g., about kids and alimony—and respond only when necessary, briefly, and politely, using both email and restraint when it comes to sharing anything but basic information. Then, if you have money left over, ask a therapist to help you develop scripted responses to your ex, so you can fulfill the basic requirements for communication but not his need to feed on your emotional blood.

If it’s a group of friends who are freezing you out, you’ve got the bad luck to have friends who are part of a close, mutually connected group. Whether it’s at a club or workplace, you’re in big trouble if the politics go nuclear; nobody wants to hurt you, but everyone will cut you out (and hurt you) if you don’t take their side for seemingly no reason.

That’s when you find out who your true friends are (they’re the ones who still speak to you, because the bar gets set pretty low). In any case, you need new friends, because unless you’re living in a full-time, adult summer camp, this behavior is not okay.

Since neutrality is your only option—again, if you didn’t directly cause the rift, you can’t do anything to repair it—be prepared for your Swiss status to leave you isolated and unannexed as the war continues. However sad your loss is, it teaches you why it’s good to move on from high school cliques, even if it takes a while, and make friends one at a time.

When you realize a relationship can’t be repaired, don’t torture yourself by trying to figure out why or finding a new approach. Make sure you’re clear with your own conscience, and then learn to live with a broken bond.

Don’t expect to end the pain of not being at peace with those who’ve become your enemies. If you can accept rejection, however, and wait for those who love you for the right reasons and don’t hate you for the wrong ones, you can be at peace with yourself.

Quick Diagnosis

Here’s what you wish for and can’t have:

✵ A chance to communicate

✵ A good response from negotiation

✵ A way to reclaim your old relationship

✵ Relief from feeling dumped, shunned, or worse

Here’s what you can aim for and actually achieve:

✵ A belief in your own conduct

✵ Behavior that doesn’t make conflict worse

✵ Protection from additional damage

✵ A policy that allows reconciliation but doesn’t beg for it

Here’s how you can do it:

✵ Judge your behavior by your own standards

✵ Don’t keep trying what clearly hasn’t worked

✵ Accept enmity if you must and start to protect yourself

✵ Stop emotional communication but keep the door open if you decide it’s worthwhile

✵ Remind yourself that rejection is never a punishment if you don’t deserve it

✵ Respect the effort it takes to force yourself to move on

Your Script

Here’s what to say about being unavoidably rejected.

Dear [Self/Remaining Friends/Rejecters (If They’re Listening and Not Just Heckling What I Have to Say)],

I have tried to reconcile by [trying to understand/explaining/groveling/keeping my temper/truly giving a damn] and it clearly hasn’t worked. I will not make myself responsible for doing things I don’t consider [wrong/harmful/in poor taste], regardless of whether they cause a permanent [insert synonym for “deep chasm”], I will accept a loss I can’t help, and I will learn to protect myself by [not begging/not sharing/not making significant eye or voice contact]. I will respect myself for retaining my self-respect in the face of rejection.

Did You Know … That There’s a (Relatively) Nice Way to Cut Someone Out of Your Life?

While being shunned or spurned by someone you care about is always painful, there are ways to push someone out of your life that aren’t dramatic or traumatic. It’s like the difference between having an appendectomy in a hospital, and having someone cut your gut open with the neck of a malt liquor bottle in the garden shed; you can get the same result with a fraction of the suffering.

Besides, dramatic shunnings are usually mean and ill-intentioned; it’s much easier to push someone out of your life, and find nice ways of doing it, if your reasons are well thought out and benign.

For example, you may decide a friend is too high maintenance, or discover that, as much as you like her, you can’t trust her. Assuming you’re wise enough to realize she’s not going to change and that talking about the issue will do nothing but cause hurt, your only option is to back away while doing your best to be respectful.

So instead of planning a grand confrontation (or letting yourself get so irritated you have one by accident), do a slow fade and gradually make yourself less available, claiming it’s due to pressing business, not a personal beef. Don’t assume it’s good to have a talk unless it’s unavoidable; your goal is to painlessly downgrade your friendship without calling attention or causing hurt.

If confronted, be truthful but not emotional. You can tell her she’s right, you’ve put other priorities higher, and as much as you wish you could give your relationship the same time as you used to, you can’t, not because you’re angry or hurt but because it’s unavoidable.

Keep to yourself the fact that, in this case, events are also driven by a decision for which you take responsibility, because sharing your reasons will open up an impossible discussion and cause unnecessary hurt. Just because you’ve made a conscious decision doesn’t mean that any one person is to blame; you’re ending things because you believe it’s best for you both. Eventually, your former friend will call and email less, and while she may harbor some resentment, you have no reason to fear running into her, or she you.

If you keep the separation impersonal, you’re rejecting the friendship, not the friend. As far as cutting someone out of your life goes, it’s the safest, most sterile technique, and it leaves the smallest scar.

As pleasant as serenity feels—if you ever have the good luck to experience it—don’t seek it too hard. There are so many situations in which it’s a false, unrealistic, impossible goal that will give you a headache and drive you to ever-more-strenuous and prolonged efforts to still your mind and improve your spirit. Once you accept your inability to feel serene, as well as the fears, stresses, and difficult relationships that you can’t escape, you’ll become more effective at dealing with them and proud of how well you do it. Better to give up on peace of mind and focus on the small piece of your mind that still works.