Dear Liz,
I am really concerned with where I am going from here. While I have a year left of undergrad, I don’t know what I want to do. I have thought about joining AmeriCorps or the Peace Corps, but there’s something that tells me that no matter where I go, I will not be doing the right thing, which makes me feel so incredibly lost and I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what path to pursue and I don’t know where to go. Continue reading
Hi Liz,
I have been wanting to ask you this for some time. My father died four years ago. I feel as though my mother resents me. She forbids me from seeing his family (I do anyway). She has not talked to me in five months. I know people grieve differently, but do you have any advice for me? Continue reading
Dear Liz,
Recently, I am struggling with the fact that I don’t feel as though I belong, not only among my peers, but in all aspects of my life. Along with this, I am afraid that I am battling severe depression, but I don’t know where in myself I can find the courage to get help. I have a hard time getting out of bed every morning, because I know that when I do, I am just going to be dealing with the same demons that create my life and make it hard for me to go to class, or to go home, or to work. I have no idea how to find what I need to feel better, because no matter what I do I am so unhappy. I want to go home and want to take a leave of absence from school, but I don’t want to be with my abusive mother and I don’t want to fall behind in school because I only have the next year to finish. I use that goal to get myself through because for some reason when I think about finishing school, I think that all of these problems and feelings will go away. But at the end of the day, I’m up all night dreading all of these things. What do I do to make it through this? Continue reading
A student came into my office to talk about life with a particular suite-mate in his dorm, someone he was not getting along with at all. His question: what makes someone an a–hole? I told him I’d need a few details, a few examples, of this person’s “a–hole” like behavior, and he offered this for starters: “I have a friend, a young woman, who is very overweight, and anytime she comes around, he makes whale noises, refers to her as a whale, etc.” I stopped him right there, and suggested that “a–hole” was far too gracious a description—there are a–holes (they grab your parking space when you’ve been patiently waiting with your blinker on, they act rude to servers at dining establishments, they gossip behind your back…) and then there are cruel and abusive individuals who have deep and profound emotional/psychological challenges. Continue reading
One of my closest friends has been in an incredibly emotionally and mentally abusive relationship for over three years. This person essentially controls every single aspect of her life–from how she spends her time, to who her friends are, to the way in which she views her own self-worth.
It’s heartbreaking to see someone I care about go through this, and I feel as though our other friends and I have done everything we can to help her, but nothing is working. I know that the want to leave has to come from her, but my greatest fear at this point is that before she finds the strength to leave, they’ll move in together and eventually get married. I can see her hurting and suffering, but I just don’t know what to do. How can I help her??? Continue reading
Dear Liz,
They say home is where the heart is. But I don’t know where my heart is…
My life has been one of inconsistency. I am 21 years old and already I have lived in 15 different “homes” (houses). That number doesn’t include the two separate places where both of my parents currently reside while I attend school (also not counted) on the opposite side of the country. I see them for a few weeks every 6 months, the case for the last 3 years. If I define a place I’ve lived as a place where I have a permanent bed I can call my own, the number is nearly 20. Almost one for every year that I have walked this earth. This doesn’t bother me, except the inconvenience of travel (I’ve had to drive cross-country about 4 times now, once by myself which was fun). I like to be independent. Soon I will be faced with a strange predicament where I could choose Oregon, Nevada or New Hampshire as my state of residence. This is not where my struggle lies, though.
Small talk with peers always includes my least favorite question: So where are you from? Sometimes I say California, sometimes New Hampshire, other times I just say it’s complicated and that I’m from nowhere and everywhere. I have discovered a very interesting form of homelessness. While I am not living on the streets, I feel as though I have no real home. There is Continue reading
Dear Readers: The person who submitted this question is a young woman—as such, I’ve decided to engage the topic of sexual abuse as it pertains to girls/women. I am very aware that boys/young men are also victims, and I in no way intend to marginalize their experience by speaking solely about girls/women—I am simply tailoring my response to the circumstances presented to me by this questioner.
Dear Liz,
I had a horrible relationship with my mother in high school because she was dealing with her newly diagnosed bi-polar disorder. We would always clash because I didn’t know what she was going through, but now I fear I am turning into her. I see myself lashing out sometimes and getting upset over things that seem to have no substance, and when I do calm down I realize that I shouldn’t have gotten angry. Most of the time I take it out on my boyfriend, and that’s what I fear the most. I don’t want to upset him over tiny fights and push him away. It’s like I have in my head this “self-fulfilling prophecy” that of course I’m going to turn into my mother—I feel like I’m making that fear come true. My boyfriend is very supportive of me trying to deal with this situation. He never gets mad at me in return—when I am angry he tries to solve where it is coming from and why. My worst fear is pushing him away while trying to figure this out.
I don’t know if this aggression I have is stemming from me thinking I am turning into my mother, or from the sexual abuse I suffered in high school from my first boyfriend at the age of 14. My boyfriend would hit me, cheat on me, and sexually assault me—this was all very frequent for 9 months. I was so young and sensitive and he was 17 and I didn’t know what to do, so I put up with it. When I’d tell him I wanted to end it, he would threaten to kill himself. He finally hit me in public once, and my best friend and her boyfriend saw, which gave me a way out because he got scared that I wasn’t the only one to know anymore.
While all this was going on with my boyfriend, my mother was dealing with her anger over being raped by her cousin. When she returned home for a wedding, she saw him and he hugged her as if nothing happened. It brought up so many emotions for her and she ended up taking it out on me—she would lash out and hit me—it got so bad that my dad and I had to move out for a few months. I went to a therapist for a while and I thought I had dealt with my pain, but with all these emotions now I’m not sure what to think. I get so angry at little things, like my personal short comings and when things don’t go as planned—it’s starting to affect my life. I just want to get my anger or whatever seems to be happening to me under control before I turn into my ex or my mom. I’m lashing out like I did before I went to my counselor in high school. I’m not sure where to go from here. I don’t know if you have any insight for me, but I’ll wait to hear back. Continue reading
Dear Liz,
I feel as though my need to be “perfect” all the time is truly starting to have a significant negative impact on my life. It has a huge impact on how I feel about myself which is probably why I view myself in such a negative way. Logically, I know that these thoughts are all silly, but I still can’t help but to let them control my life in a lot of ways. Are there any “cures” for perfectionism, or is it just part of who I am as a person? Thank you in advance for your help.
Dear Liz,
I think I might be a sex-positive asexual (which means that while I enjoy sex, I don’t experience sexual attraction). I’ve identified as bisexual in the past, because I am generally attracted to both men and women, but I’ve only had one relationship before. During that relationship, my ex would often tell me that she didn’t feel like I was sexually attracted to her. I think she might have been right? I don’t feel what I assume is some kind of want for sex with celebrity crushes, and I don’t feel it for people who I find aesthetically pleasing and who I know I should, logically, find sexually attractive. But I don’t know if this lack of feeling is truly asexuality, or if I just don’t know that what I am feeling counts as sexual attraction? I feel physically/aesthetically drawn to people, as well as Continue reading
Dear Liz,
So over the past few months I haven’t felt like myself. I’ve realized I’m not the happy, outgoing girl I used to be. I barely ever hang out with friends, and when it comes to making a decision on something simple, I tend to get overly frustrated and break down. I’m afraid to talk to my mom about this because it may not even be a big deal to her. And in the past when I have struggled with my weight, both my parents would tell me I’m too skinny and yell at me to eat more. I don’t know if that plays a role in this situation, and my happiness—I just want this feeling of helplessness to go away. I don’t know how to tell my mom, and need some advice.
Continue reading
Dear Liz 