Dear Dr. Ding
Dearest Ding,
I am about to unleash my inner Darth Mul but I don’t want to jump the gun. I would like to hear your take on the situation. I am a busy lass-working full time, grad school, and planning a wedding. When I come home after class, work or any other event, my fiance rarely asks how things went. Nary a how was class? How was work? etc. He openly expresses his hatred of his job and does not want to talk about it. However, I like what I do and sometimes would like to talk about how I spend most of my waking hours. I am rarely if ever prompted to talk about my day or anything I do in my life. This frustrates me and when I try to start a conversation about anything going on, I receive a one-word, snippy-ass answer. I want to scream with frustration. The only time I feel we actually ”talk” is when he has had a few beers or we have something serious going on. Am I being ridic about this?? Thanks for your counsel.
I Want To Talk!
Dear I Want to Talk!:
You are not beng ridonculonk. I suspect you’re in a relationship with an unhappy person with whom you’re not well-matched, and who probably resents the fact that you’re actually a) happy and b) going places in life.
When I first read your letter my thought was this: O my gentle GirlJesus™ someone please poke this woman’s fiance with sharp stick to make sure he isn’t in a state of (more…)
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
I am sad to hear of the current lack of inquiries requesting your idiosyncratic psychomological wisdomation on various and sundry issues of the mind, heart, body and soul. I could always use a bit of sarcastic wit directing me to move on, up and forward in the world as you always do.
I have been surfing the web via stumbleupon.com and run across a number of web sites that are dedicated to Scientology. Some of the information that I have found regarding the practitioners of this faith/ideology is a little scary and out there (coo coo for cocoa puffs type stuff), in my opinion.
There is one site in particular that has caught my attention. It is called Ex Scientology Kids. This is a site set up by people who were raised in families that had parents practicing scientology. Some of the stories they write are really amazing to me. Many of them identify that that they have been cut off from contact with all of the family still remaining in the faith because of their choice not to practice the faith.
Do you think this is a real religion? Do you think it is the religion that may be harming these young people or is it the people who are running the churches/organization? I know there have been abusive practices in most religious groups at some time in history because of the person in charge, how they interpret the religious texts and their greed. I know you and I have had discussions about some of the fundamentalist churches in the country that raise huge amounts of money, have gigantic congregations and rich leaders because of it.
Share, oh Dingy purveyor of all that is sarcastic and sardonic. I need to know the GirlJesus interpretation of this situation.
Yours Truely,
Sci-Fi Scared
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
I just wanted to get your opinion. Recently I was scheduled to attend a
large family dinner over the Memorial Day weekend. Along with the dinner a
trip into the country to visit various family graves in small cemetaries
located out in a field was scheduled without my knowledge. I had to travel
several hours to get to this family function and stay with those who still
reside in the home town area. After driving for several hours I then had
to ride around in a car for another four hours. Would it have been
inappropriate for me to excuse myself from this part of the family holiday
plans? Along with the grave site tour we spent a great amount of time
touring down gravel roads stopping to see places where relatives had once
lived. Some of my cousins insisted on getting out of the car at each site
to take pictures of holes in the ground where a house used to stand or
barns leaning to one side with only half a roof. I myself do enjoy things
like studying family history but to me this did not seem to be informative
at all. I would much rather sit at the actual family dinner and listen to
the elders in the family tell stories about each other and what it was like
to live through their experiences. Am I a bad member of the younger
generation?
The BAD Daughter
Dear Dr. Ding
I need you
r wisdom Dr. Ding. I have had a very weird dream this week that
is confusing to me. I shoot myself in the head about 4 times. It
doesn’t hurt and I am fine. The only thing I remember being concerned
about is that one of the wounds was on my forehead and others would see it.
In the dream I was worried about what I would tell others about what had
happened.
I don’t re
member feeling depressed or anything that would
make me want to hurt myself. I don’t think the process of shooting
myself was about killing me becuase that just doesn’t resonate with me.
I can’t figure out what it means. What is your intrepretation?
Hard Headed
Dear Hard Headed:
You think Dr. Ding has actual wisdom? May the Lords of Kobol and GirlJesus™ Herself bless you, but I suspect this assumption explains like 90% of your issues right there. I’ve got plenty of the following things: hair products, black clothing, red thumbtacks, the perfect moue of distaste when confronted with people that don’t think feminism is a good idea, KFC “fixin’s” and withering sarcasm. The whole wisdom thing is debatable and varies according to my mood, the planetary alignments, and whether or not I’m getting my fill of words that haven’t been used since Agatha Christie bought tampons.
Dear Dr. Ding
Ed. note: By the Sacred Silver Go-Go Boots of GirlJesus™, Dr. Ding is delighted to take a break from her strenuous biweekly posting schedule featuring mostly YouTube videos, tiny monkeys, and random pelvic thrusting in order to respond to reader mail.
Dear Dr. Ding:
Why don’t you write some posts about all your interesting (or “clinically significant”) adventures at work, the crazy things your patients do? I know you, girl. You’ve worked in max. security prison, drug treatment, a pain management clinic, private practice, inpatient, outpatient, impatient (see I can be funny too), and now you work in long-term care. I know you must have some really funny stories in there. Dish.
You Know Who
Dear You Know Who:
Le heave. Le sigh. Dr. Ding most assuredly DOES possess a vast reservoir of highly clinically significant and/or hysterically funny anecdotes from her varied career to date. However, this stuff just isn’t cricket for me to offer up here for reader amusement. We can talk about my loathing of paradoxical intent, my delight in rediscovering Ericksonian hypnosis for pain control, and the fact that I find it disproportionately hilarious to call managed care “damaged care”…but I view the confidential bond between shrink and shrinkee as not just an ethical precept, but something inviolable, something actually sacred.
I know, I’m totally harshing your humor buzz, You Know Who. And I know you’re going to be annoyed with me personally, kind of like that time I spat out that hellish swill you call a well-made gin martini. But I just can’t talk about specifics. Can I speak in generalities about some rather uh whimsical social trends I’ve witnessed over the last couple of decades? Sure. Can I reveal the cure for aging in a scabrous yet silly way? Sure. But it ends there.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some go-go boots I must needs attend to fortwith. Chi Chi’s doesn’t take reservations after 7:00 p.m. you know, no matter whose spiritual posse you’re rolling with.
Dear Dr. Ding
Dear Dr. Ding,
I’m very interested to hear your response to a particular issue I’ve been dealing with for quite some time. The few people I’ve shared this info with have very little to say after they hear the whole story which might be because there isn’t anything TO say, but still, I’m feeling the need to do something about it. And unfortunately I’m too tangled up inside of it to determine the best way to handle it.
I am a single mom in my thirties. I’ve been divorced for almost 5 years (the divorce was a positive event for me) and my two school aged kids live with me. I haven’t really dated at all in those 5 years - tried the online thing and after countless failures realized that it just isn’t for me. Also, I haven’t ever really gotten too serious about trying to find someone to date - I appreciate the value of being alone and spending my time focusing on other things like my kids and career - so not being hooked up hasn’t really been a huge issue for me. Sure, I get lonely sometimes but it hasn’t ever consumed me.
Three years ago I met a small group of friends that I subsequently ended up spending a large amount of time with. I really loved these guys for many reasons and just couldn’t get enough of being around them. After a year or so I ended up becoming particularly close to one of the guys in this group. He didn’t seem to stand out when I first met him but the more I learned about him, the more I liked him. And that continued to grow and grow and eventually I realized that I had fallen completely in love with him. It was a wonderful realization and a tragic one at the same time. Wonderful because I believe that I’ve never really experienced romantic love before; my marriage was not about love and I certainly didn’t learn anything about it from my parents, so it was a great feeling that felt true and right for the first time in my life. Tragic because … well, because he’s married.
I know at first glance that seems like a no-brainer, “get away as fast as you can, this isn’t going anywhere and you’re only going to get hurt”, right? But it’s everything else about the situation that makes that *not* seem right. Also, everyone I talk to about this suggests the idea that I feel this way about him because it’s “safe”, and I think by that they mean that since there is no chance for a relationship I can experience these feelings without having to deal with relationship issues. That never feels right to me - I do not feel like I have a fear of commitment, I don’t feel like there is anything bad about relationships, as long as you’re with the right person, and now that I feel very confident in my ability to determine the right person, why would I be trying to sabotage my own chances to experience this? I *know* why my marriage failed, it makes perfect sense. I know I needed the past 5 years to learn a lot about myself and I have. I’m there now. So this reasoning never washes with me although I’m in no position to discount it 100%; apparently something is amiss here and since I don’t know what it is I can’t block out any possibilities.
As far as specifics about my relationship with him are concerned, you should know that we are very close. Here are some facts about us:
* It is definitely a two-way thing. The hardest part for me is that I do not understand WHY. I don’t understand why he shares so much of his life with me. I mean although I’d guess there are probably a few sacred issues just between him and his wife, he tells me pretty much every single thing that happens in his day-to-day life. I do not have any other friends that do this.
* We communicate all day long most days of the week.
* It has been this way for over 2 years
* When possible, we get together in person.
* Sometimes we stay out together until the wee hours of the morning just talking.
* We have long, serious talks about life’s big issues.
* We help each other.
* We listen to each other.
* We joke around with each other.
* People accuse us of “acting married” when they are around us.
* We seem to respect each other.
* He is always there for me.
* We have suggestive conversations - never about each other, but we often talk about sexual things and know exactly what it is that turns the other person on. We do this *a lot*.
* He always makes me feel good and important and … loved. He makes me feel loved, but I have no idea if that is what he feels for me or not. Everything else would suggest that this is a ridiculous notion and that I’m just being wishful - maybe I am, but somehow it just doesn’t seem that simple to me.
* We don’t have sex and we’re not having an affair.
* We never acknowledge or discuss the fact that we have an obviously unique relationship.
* He is a huge part of my life.
* When we haven’t talked for a while (relatively speaking), I sense that he missed me
* My kids know and love him.
* My friends know him. I’m sure most people that know me know how I feel about him, I’m not very adept at hiding my feelings. I’d have to say that *he* probably even knows how I feel about him which is just another layer of the issue that adds to my inability to understand it all - if you’re married and you know another woman has strong feelings for you, should you constantly be encouraging her?
* He seems to love his wife (of 9 years) and seems very dedicated to his marriage. As far as I know, she knows everything about our friendship and is fine with it. Most people find that hard to believe but we don’t hide anything or act any differently when we are around her than we do when we aren’t. She and I get along well.
* He and I never talk about this stuff. I’ve never been able to bring this up with him because I’m terrified of losing him.
* Having been through the unbelievable hell that is divorce, I do not want him to get divorced, but at the same time I want to be with him. I guess I keep fantasizing that when his kids are grown, he could leave his wife and grow old with me. And I know that sounds awful but under the veil of anonymity I might as well be truthful about my feelings. I think for now I’d just be happy to know what I really mean to him. Yeah, I *think*, not sure about that.
* One time he almost completely stopped taking to me for like a month (for his own personal reasons) and I became severely depressed. I was very frightened to realize the profound impact that his temporary absence had on me, and pondered the horror of his permanent absence.
I experience this relationship as if it were a romantic relationship without sex. I have no idea what it means to him. Maybe I’ve just never experienced a true friendship before. Is that all this is? Am I just being completely foolish thinking that there is anything out-of-the-norm going on here? What is the difference between friendship and a romantic relationship without sex? Maybe they are the exact same thing. If so how can I continue to be close friends with someone I wish was a romantic partner? How do I lose the feelings of frustration of not ever being able to make love to him? Would it be better to talk to him about this or to just continue to use his actions as cues to assume how he feels about me?
All I know is that I really don’t want to be without him, which is why I’ve been sitting on my feelings so far. Please let me know what you think.
Sincerely,
Clueless And Confused