DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So, I grew up in what did not seem at the time like an abusive household (there wasn’t any hitting! and not that much yelling!), but in retrospect, hooo boy. My mother (among other things) systematically cut my father and me off from having any sort of outside relationships – friends, family, clubs, or acquaintances – under the guise that we had to get *all* of our homework/job/household responsibilities out of the way before we could go out or spend any time with friends. And, Doc, would you be surprised to know that there was never any way a person could possibly hope to fulfill those requirements? Not when they included things like “clean the entire house, which hasn’t been touched since the last holiday party, and whose carpets have never in 20 years been steam-cleaned” or “repair the car’s engine.”

Fast forward to today. I have escaped! I have a lovely boyfriend! One who is very gregarious and very much has a social life, and I literally have no idea how to deal with this. Intellectually, and also emotionally, I like his friends, who range from “absolutely my kind of people, would hang out with them even if my BF wasn’t involved,” to “whatever, they’re fine, not my thing.” I want him to keep spending time with them and having a nice relationship with them! On the other hand, the entire pattern of my life has been that every evening is spent at home and not doing so is DISLOYALTY.

Sometimes I start feeling really neglected and worried that he doesn’t love me or take the household responsibilities seriously when he’s spending a night out with friends. (Note: I’m not counting days when I legit have some mini-crisis I want him there for, like, I’m too sick to cook myself dinner or we’ve got to get some urgent paperwork sorted or whatnot. This is just…me.) 

I’m usually free to come along (assuming it’s not something sensitive between them) and I often do, and I have no general complaints about the amount of time we spend together, but… the anxiety weasels, doc. The anxiety weasels.

I don’t want to become my mother! How do I re-train myself to a normal that I’ve never had?

Thanks,

Breaking The Wheel

DEAR BREAKING THE WHEEL: I want to start off by pointing something out important: you’re feeling things, BTW, you’re not doingthem. You’re not cutting your boyfriend off from his friends or family, you’re just experiencing something you’ve been trained into feeling. That’s very different than perpetuating the cycle, and it’s important to recognize this. The fact that you’re having these feelings isn’t the same as acting on them. You may be afraid of becoming your mother, but you’re not doing the things your mother did. Quite the opposite, honestly. Which is why being upset at yourself for having these feelings – as though it were as bad – isn’t helpful for you.

It also ain’t easy to live with. Let’s be honest, BTW: habituation is a motherf--ker. One of the greatest strengths of humanity is, ironically, also one of our greatest flaws: we can get adapt to literally anything. Is this a location so desolate that creatures evolved new and exciting ways to ensure they are able to get the nutrients they need because those nutrients sure as hell aren’t available in any easily obtainable form? Sounds like a place for a bunch of go-getters to set up a community! Is there a climate that kills people dead and their bleached bones should, by all rights, be left as a warning to others? Is trying to live there is like living in defiance of God and sanity? Cool, let’s post up in the worst part of it and make living under the heat of the Devil’s smile a point of pride!

The problem is, that adaptability and capacity to get used to even the most hellish living conditions applies just as much to our emotional connections and associations as well. If you grow up in an environment where emotional abuse, manipulation and arbitrary punishment is constant and unending… well, that’s often your “normal”, and many times you may not realize just how not “normal” it is to others until you see the dawning looks of horrors on their faces as you try to tell an amusing anecdote from your childhood. It’s the “fish don’t have a word for water” situation; until a certain point, this is just How Things Are, and you had no reason to question it or even any reason to suspect that there were other ways of living.

But that’s precisely where the heinous motherf--kery of habitation comes in; you may recognize intellectually that this was – to use the clinical term – profoundly f--ked up beyond all rational belief, but it’s still what you grew up in. You spent years being told that this was Right and Good and How Things Work, and that’s carved a hell of a groove in your brain like a pit in the road. You may want to travel in one direction, but your wheels get caught in that groove and you find yourself being pushed in a different direction altogether. Now, if you want to go in the direction you originally wanted, you have to do all sorts of work to force your wheel out of that groove and back onto the asphalt.

Of course, this gets hindered by the fact that our brains are inherently lazy efficient and don’t want to expend the energy and effort it takes to get out of that groove. It’s so much easier to just follow the groove, even if that groove is leading away from where you need to go! In fact, it’s so easy, that if you aren’t paying attention, you end up stuck in that groove without even realizing it until you’re miles off course and hours out of your way in the wrong direction. So, climbing out of that groove, avoiding it and carving a new one – one that takes you in more positive, helpful directions – takes not just effort but attention and reinforcement. You have to invest an absurd amount of energy to retrain your brain, fill in the old groove and carve a new one. It’s a task that’s almost Sisyphean in its frustration.

This is why the first step you need to take is be kinder to yourself when you feel the anxiety weasels start to spin up. Sure, it’s hard to feel any grace or compassion for yourself when your Spidey-sense is going off like you’re in the middle of Murderworld, but that’s when you need it the most. Recognizing that what you’re feeling is irrational and unfair and incorrect is one thing; not beating yourself up about it is another. It’s hard enough to muster the energy to make the weasels quiet down after they’ve had paint-thinner dabbed on their nipples; being upset at yourself for “letting” it happen just saps even more of your energy. Especially when you know damn good and well that you’re not “letting” anything happen.

This is why it’s important to recognize and acknowledge those moments for what they are – the residual echoes of your abuser telling you that this is real and true. Noting them and giving them a name helps you separate it from yourself – “right, this is just the pattern of my mom’s abuse trying to assert itself.” It reminds you that this isn’t you, it’s a feeling that you’re having and feelings are just that: feelings. They aren’t definitional. They may be real – you’re definitely experiencing it – but that doesn’t mean that they’re true. Calling them out for what they are makes it easier to remember that this isn’t something you’re doing by choice or because you’re a bad person; you’re doing it because you’ve been trained into it by someone who harmed you and you’re trying to break this pattern.

The second step that you need is to remember that emotions and thoughts have their own laws of physics, and that can inform how we relate to them as well. In this case, the relevant information is that it takes a lot of energy to overcome inertia and momentum; you need to match it with equal force in order to stop it in its tracks. However, it takes a hell of a lot less energy to redirect an emotion. Instead of trying to force it to stop, you simply move it in a different direction and allow metaphorical friction to slow it down on its own, without effort from you.

To strip away the poetic language for a moment, what this means is that when you have noted that you’re experiencing this emotion and you’ve named it, you don’t try to force yourself to stop feeling it. Instead, you redirect your conscious attention elsewhere – whether that’s on a task that you need to accomplish or something that’ll bring you more satisfaction and contentment than flinging weasel chow at the rampaging emotional mustelids. The benefit of turning your attention elsewhere is that you don’t have to expend energy changing how you feel; you just take advantage of the fact that our brains have very limited bandwidth, and you’re using more of it on something you want to think about, something that’s easy to think about instead. While you’re doing that, your trained anxiety reaction starts to slow down and peter out because it takes a lot of energy to maintain that reaction. It’s similar to a wheel rolling on a flat surface; without an external force exerting effort on it, the friction between the wheel and the surface bleeds away the momentum until it comes to a halt. If you don’t give it energy, that emotion tends to fade – often within minutes at most.

(This, incidentally, is part of why when you don’t want to lose your cool, you focus on controlling your breathing and count to 10; it’s giving yourself time to let the anger or frustration bleed away into nothing.)

Giving yourself something useful and satisfying – and satisfaction is useful, especially at times like this – will help occupy your mind so that you don’t have the capacity to pay attention to the anxiety weasels. And without that attention to motivate them, the weasels calm down and fade back into the background, which lets your rational side kick back in.

The third step is… well, honestly, it’s to return to the first step and repeat it. Because here’s the thing: you’re trying to replace an old habit with a new one – and yes, not worrying or not seeing this behavior as BETRAYAL!!!!! is a habit. A habit is simply something you do without thinking that you’ve trained yourself through repetition. If you fight with those anxiety weasels over and over again, you’re creating a habit of unleashing them and fighting them whenever your boyfriend spends time away from you. If you simply let the feeling fade while you do something more important or engaging, then you’re getting in the habit of not unleashing them. It’s hard to imagine not doing something as being a habit, but the repetition is how you carve that groove.

And the nice thing is that this repetition eventually becomes self-sustaining. As I said: our brains are lazy. Once you’ve gotten your train of thought out of that one groove and you’ve started to carve the new groove, it becomes easier and easier to keep your train of thought there. The amount of energy it takes to fall back into the old pattern becomes greater than the amount of energy that it takes to develop and deepen the new one.

Now, the tricky thing is: your brain will fight back. It’s a weird and perverse part of the human experience, but trying to break an old habit, even one that’s causing you harm, will often trigger what’s known as an “extinction burst”. Like I said: our brains don’t like change, and will fight tooth and nail to prevent it. The extinction burst is the Wave Motion Cannon of holding on to old patterns; when you’re reaching the point where this change is going to shift into the new pattern, your brain will fire off a veritable explosion of feelings to draw you back to that old pattern. So don’t be surprised if there’s a point where you feel like you’ve been making progress and then suddenly the number of anxiety weasels multiplies like one of them just heard someone say “on your left”. So, be aware that this is a completely normal thing that happens and just be ready to grit your teeth and white-knuckle your way through when it does.

Now there’re are a couple of things that can help support your ability to quiet those anxiety weasels down. As silly as it may sound, having a prop like a chore list that you could point to when the anxiety spins up can be helpful. Being able to look over and see that yes, the dishes have been done or the garbage has been taken out can help you ignore the weasel’s whispers. So too can an occasional “just thinking of you!” text or little note before he goes out. But I’d recommend keeping those as occasional boosts in the early days of this new habit, rather than folding them into how you avoid those anxiety thoughts; you don’t want to let it morph into a “you must text me every X hours when you’re out” situation.

But as I said: the most important thing to remember is that your worry is understandable, but not necessarily reasonable. The thing you’re most worried about is the very thing you’re not doing. Worries and feelings are inherently neutral; they don’t mean you’re a bad person for having them or experiencing them. They’re just feelings. Giving yourself grace and compassion for how difficult it is to break these patterns is a big part of making sure you have the strength and endurance to do so.

You’ve got this.   

All will be well.  

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: Longtime reader here, howdy’do and all that, and this is definitely not the letter I ever thought I would write.

I have a feeling that my question is essentially going to parse out to be a spin on one you have answered in many forms before, but this year has been a *gauntlet* for me and I’m certain you haven’t seen this exact combination of circumstances yet. So, at a minimum, for the sheer thrill of potentially presenting you with a query that contains an element of novelty, here we go:

The craziness of my year started just three days into 2025 with a total hysterectomy.

(While that was the start to my year, it also marked the culmination of a very long line of medical issues that have plagued me since adolescence. We all know the drill: chronic illness, classic case of women having their symptoms dismissed, multiplied exponentially for BIPOC non-femme people with uteruses, etc. I’m sure I don’t need to spell out for you that there’s years of both personal and systemic injustices and trauma to unpack there.)

As a result of how my parents chose to treat me throughout the medical process, and after many painstaking years of trying to have a genuine relationship with them, I finally decided to go fully no-contact with them. I don’t want to go into a whole lot of depth with this because it was painful, but among other things, I was accused of having severe mental illness and threatened with disinheritance. *While* I was stitched up, laid up, in recovery, with next to no support system.

Because the only in-person support I had throughout this was my partner. He drove me to my surgery, and while he was likely the best person to do so, he was also the only person who could. And while I forever owe him my gratitude for this…

…We broke up a couple months after I recovered from the surgery. After five and a half years together. What’s amazing and incredible is that we’ve remained great friends throughout, and have successfully de-escalated what was once a romantic partnership to a happily domestic one. We even managed to go through our breakup in a way that left our D&D group intact…

And then the D&D group disbanded after over four years of long-distance friendship together. Because…

…During my difficult health issues, myself and one of the other members of the group bonded even more than we had in previous years. Over several months we became so close that we fell in love, which I mean to say that we developed romantic feelings. Which is great and amazing and wonderful AND he was also in a several-year, very traditionally monogamous commitment with his fiancée.

This was actually fine with me. Going back a step for just a moment – you’ll notice I didn’t give a reason why my ex-partner and I broke up, and that’s because one of the major causes was that I’d started to realize that I do not experience love in a traditionally monogamous way, and through no fault or dishonesty of either party, we could not move forward in the same relationship structure we had been in previously. This is also why we work so great as friends and roommates now; there is truly no ill will or wrongdoing, simply a gut-wrenchingly honest realization, on both parts, that we do not fulfill one another romantically. And being so soon after my surgery, and many major life upheavals, including a major breakup (no matter how lacking in wrongdoing or blame), I was not at all desirous to jump into another committed relationship. At all. So, falling in love with someone who couldn’t commit to me romantically was not necessarily a bad thing for me. It was just a thing that happened. I strongly believe that not all feelings need to be acted upon, and in this case, I did not want to act on my romantic feelings for my friend.

I was explicit in all of this with my friend: the presence of romantic feels did not mean I in any way wanted or intended to pursue those romantic feels. First and foremost, he was my best friend, and while I did want to elevate our relationship, I explicitly, expressly, specifically, wanted to elevate it to something much more like a queerplatonic relationship than a romantic one, and we had many thorough conversations about what that could look like without encroaching on his existing commitments.

My ex, my therapist (yes, I definitely have a therapist on board through all this!), and the other former members of the D&D group all have unanimously reinforced to me that I am not at fault for what happened next, and that there was no shortcoming in my communication, and at times when I really want to blame myself, I hold onto that because I think they are all the next best judges of this. It’s also hard to explain in any concise way, but my friend gradually became more and more of an asshole. Especially as I became single and started to have more and more of a post-surgical social life, he started pressuring both me and his fiancée into a bizarre distance throuple that neither she nor I wanted, much less consented to, while simultaneously flaking on me, at first just here and there but eventually bailing on me anytime we were supposed to hang out, either individually or with the group (online hangouts for anyone wondering, though we had all had in-person friendships at various points in time). I said many times to my friend, “I explicitly do not consent to your fiancée as a metamour. That will not be healthy for me or for her.” I said many times, “This is not what I want. I do not want a romantic relationship with you. I do not want a polyamorous relationship with you or anyone. I do not identify as polyamorous and I do not want to be in a relationship that you are labeling as polyamory. What I want is for us to be friends. Here are examples of friendship to me, which we do not currently do, that would that are actionable,” such as literally hang out, ever (play games, shoot the s--t, etc. *like friends do*). When he responded by going to his fiancée with an ultimatum to “open up the relationship or else break up,” I ended the friendship.

Then I quit my job. That was a long time coming. I’d taken a promotion, before my diagnosis, at a time when I’d been optimistic that the answer to all my fatigue would be a CPAP machine, not major surgery. Two sleep studies and three doctors later, the job turned out to me too much for what I was working with medically, but was also just a not great job period. I’d been having problems since before my medical leave, and I’d done all my due diligence of communicating with managers, and managers’ managers, and HR, and documenting, and documenting, and documenting, the things that needed to change, and the ways in which I needed more support to continue in the job. When I came back from leave, I made it clear in no uncertain circumstances (but also professionally) that I did so begrudgingly and only because *waves vaguely at the preceding paragraphs* I was not ready to add “find new health insurance” to my list of things. But the job continued to suck, I continued not to receive support even though I was supposedly asking for it in all the correct ways, and so then finally I did add “find new health insurance” to my list of things. So, while technically, I did in fact ragequit, I am still great friends with my colleagues (not the ones directly responsible for my crummy lack of support, of course) and we’ve even gone camping together since then.

In the meantime, I found a relationship. Seriously, I wasn’t trying to. Throughout all this chaos, I knew that what I really needed was human affection and intimacy, and so I started attending cuddle workshops in my area. Through the workshops, I’ve met so many cuddly kindred spirits who like to engage in platonic touch and practicing consent in a safe container. (The consent work is honestly even better than the cuddling – I love practicing clear yes’s and no’s, which for those unfamiliar with cuddle events, are very standard procedures in order to ensure everyone’s emotional and physical safety.) The was one especially lovely person I bonded with in particular. We started meeting up outside the workshops, and were both honest with where we were in life – and as neither of us were up for a serious, long-term thing, but very much up for a summertime crush with lots of fun outings and social activities, it seemed perfect.

And it really, really was perfect. Doc, we *really* clicked. On a whole ‘nother level. Things ended up being more than just fun; they also ended up being incredibly, deeply meaningful. We were super into one another, and just like that, my short-term summer fling became a full-blown super sexy summer romance. And that’s awesome, except…

One of the reasons why we both agreed to a short-term affair is because he was intending to relocate by the end of the year. And after five glorious months of seeing just what my post-surgical body is capable of (I do mean the obvious, yes sexually, but even more importantly to me, also socially – as my disorder for which I had the hysterectomy kept me oftentimes housebound. People have long pegged me as an introvert when I was just chronically ill but in no less need of companionship) – he has moved. A whole coast and three time zones away. And we agreed that it is for the best not to maintain a relationship over long distance; it simply would not meet either of our needs. And while we’ve agreed to be friends, we also agreed that it makes sense to let things settle, and adjust to our respective new senses of normalcy before we start trying to adapt what was once a very passionate, emotional dynamic to a distanced friendship.

That was a month ago. Initially, I’d made plans to continue hanging out with some of his friends after he moved away, but that fell apart literally a week after he moved (the hosts cancelled due to some unforeseen life circumstances of their own). I then also had a resurgence of some very bad symptoms that I thought the surgery had cured; luckily, I do finally have a doctor that I trust and who listens, and we were able to resolve it once and for all, but it was still harrowing nonetheless. Despite these setbacks, I’m taking good care of myself. I’ve got a good balance of social activities so that I do not feel overwhelmed, but not lonely. While I don’t talk to my parents, I’ve gotten close to some long-distanced aunts that I did not know very well in my childhood, which has been healing in its own way. I have my therapist (though that is also not an in-person relationship, as we work through video conferencing/calls). I have my roommate, who was once my partner, and still a very close confidante in my life. The former-colleagues-to-besties saga continues as our next camping trip is already planned, and the next cuddle workshop is already booked. Like most people, I will need to think about earning income again at some point, but my budget is solid, my exit strategy benefitted greatly from the extra months I stuck it out at a job I hated, and I am not in any risk of immediate financial harm. Even after a surprise second surgery this year (my wisdom teeth this time, just a couple months ago – which is apparently no joke at my age, and costly with the complications involved), I can still take the time that is needed for me to heal mentally from all the other things, and then start my job search when I feel ready to start trawling Ask A Manager for tips lol. I am also taking alone time when I need it; letting people know that I’m feeling raw, and what kind of support would be helpful to me right now; and crying a lot while watching period dramas and reading sappy romance novels.

In other words, I’m using my resources; leaning on my support system; putting to work all the skills that I have gained in therapy, life, and frankly, from not having a major medical issue interfering with my basal metabolic functions any longer. At the same time, while I am very much a chronic overdoer and planner, I feel confident that I have also employed the skill of not overdoing; that this is not “too much” for me, but that rather I have calibrated my activity level to just the right amount to get myself out of the house and be amongst supportive people while still giving myself the proper space to grieve for…literally all the things.

But Doc, it doesn’t feel good. And at this point, you’re hopefully thinking, “Well, no s--t it doesn’t feel good, that’s awful.” And that’s kind of just it. No matter how good I take care of myself, it isn’t the same as being taken care of. I’ve gone through the wringer to build a good life for myself with solid, supportive relationships, and I have that. But the thing is, every support system I described just now, all the bonds I have, these are what I would think of as intermediate relationships. None of these relationships take the place of a parent, intimate partner, or best friend/QPP, nor are any of my current relationships in the place to step up or change the status quo just now. Grocery shopping with the roomie isn’t having someone who knows me well cook the comfort foods that won’t upset my stomach when I’m feeling sad; trying to explain all of this to my therapist isn’t having someone who loves me bundle me up in to their arms and give me explicit permission to stop talking and not have to explain myself so exhaustively all the time. It’s not that grocery shopping with the roomie isn’t great bonding time. It’s not that therapy doesn’t add incredible utility to my life. It’s just also not what I necessarily need *more* of right now.

But, Doc? I must repeat: it really doesn’t feel good. And when I say that it doesn’t feel good, what I’m actually saying is that it feels hopeless and futile and I’ve been watching “It’s a Wonderful Life” (which is an incredible commentary on affordable housing that holds up well in the modern sphere, just sayin’) just to remind myself to keep holding on, that I matter. And sure, that gets me through, to a point. But the truth is, what I’m really missing are intimate bonds. It’s not about coping mechanisms or skill work for me anymore, even if there was definitely a time before my surgery when it was. It doesn’t matter how self-sufficient we become, there will always be times where we need to rely on our close bonds with others to help ourselves through the toughest times. That’s how being human works.

I have talked with my therapist about this, but I feel strongly that therapy does not provide the kind of support I desperately need in this specific context (and my therapist agrees). It seems that the options are, essentially to keep trying variations on what I have already been doing, but I really do not think I need to be doing more or adapting what I am already doing. I’m quite certain, for possibly the first time in my life, that I’m not doing anything *wrong*. That I don’t need to change anything or fix anything. I’m pretty sure I’ve done all the hard work, going through two surgeries this year included, and that I need to just be, for a little while, until things pass. I think that I am doing well from an objective standpoint even if not from an emotional one, and I just need to be maintaining what I have, until life moves to a different stage on its own. I can’t snap my fingers and have the strong bond I want with someone – something akin to a parent, partner, or QPP bond takes time and has to happen organically. I have many strong relationships even if they aren’t intimate, and even my relationships that end or substantially change, I end them with intention and on generally good terms. I’m not worried about eventually finding the close, affectionate types of bonds that I would like to form – someday. But that is cold comfort in the here and now. It feels like I am in need of some variant of “this too shall pass,” but I don’t know what that looks like, or how to get through it, when I can’t get what I need (intimate care and affection), and getting more of the other supports I do have (primarily distance relationships of all kinds, and some limited in-person relationships that are not as intimate as I need) is starting to feel like I’m using water to douse an oil fire: it just isn’t going to work, and at some point will make things worse by stressing me out and overwhelming me.

I hope all this made some semblance of sense. And if you don’t have any advice, that’s cool, because this was a lot, but I’d be very thankful if you could orient a good vibe or two in my direction. I need a Clarence. Thanks, Doc.

Best,

G. Bailey

DEAR G. BAILEY: Would I be falling down as an advice columnist if I mention that I always thought Pottersville was kinda awesome? I mean, there was the cool downtown bar scene, hot jazz… it had culture and a nightlife that Bedford Falls was lacking…

Ok sorry, not really the point.

Here’s the point: I think you’re framing things completely wrong in your head, and that’s part of the problem. You’re looking at the struggles you’re having, the social and emotional (and physical) aches and pains and changes and transformations as some sort of failure to thrive or lingering problems or coping in the wrong way, when it’s more of a case of “WELL OF COURSE YOU’RE GOING TO FEEL LIKE BRUISED S--T AFTER ALL OF THIS.”

I mean, Lucifer, bright star of the morning, first and greatest amongst the angels needed a moment to lay there and just mutter “well… f--k” after crash-landing in Hell. You’ve been through massive changes that were just as total, just as momentous and you haven’t had your chance to just lay there for a moment and say “Ow, f--k, ow”.

You don’t need a Clarence to walk you through this, what you need is a moment to recognize the momentous import what it is that you’ve done. You’ve shed so much of your old life – from literal parts of your body, to understanding how your emotional connections to others work, to relationships that no longer meet your needs, to other relationships that needed to end – that you are, for all functionally a completely different person. You have, for all intents and purposes, been reborn and birth is goddamn traumatic. Rebirth – after shedding your past self – is even more so, because you have spent a human lifetime in one sense of self and now you have to adjust to a brand new one.

The chaotic, terrifying, painful and transformative act of rebirth is one that almost all cultures recognize as being one that entails almost total destruction and recreation, and one that always comes with a price tag of pain in the process and the aftermath. If we look to folklore and fairy tales, we see it all the time – the phoenix must immolate itself in a pyre until it reduces itself to ashes, only to be reborn the next day. The lycanthrope breaks its bones and rips through its own skin to reveal the beast that lives inside. The mermaid must split her tail and flukes or fins to create legs, and not only endure the pain of the transformation, but every step is like walking on a perpetual bed of broken glass and razor blades. Rebirth and transformation never comes easily.

Even in nature, transformation and rebirth is painful to the extreme. The snakes and lizards in the process of shedding their skin are at their most aggressive and angry because of the discomfort. Mantises trying to molt a shell that’s become too small and too tight are in danger of a bad molt, failing to break through and dying in the process. When the humble caterpillar secrets itself in its chrysalis, its entire body dissolves into goo before recreating itself into its new, glorious form, before having to break out of its literal shell and stretch its wings into the sun for the very first time and adjust to its new existence.

Over the course of the past year, you have gone through a transformation no less dramatic, no less total and no less complete than a phoenix rising from the ashes or a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis. There wasn’t one moment – from your hysterectomy to your break ups, to your wisdom teeth – that marked the moment of transformation, it was all of it. Every change, every loss, every step has been part of the process. You have been shedding old relationships, leaving jobs that were a poor fit and poorer environment, casting away people whose love was incomplete, conditional or barely even love. You have been pushing away from people who refused to take your pain seriously, who insisted they knew your body better than you did, and finally being treated for conditions that they all insisted you never had. You have reached into yourself and learned more about who you truly are when you aren’t confined by those old limitations, the old shape that was never your true or final self. You burned yourself to ash, you dissolved into protoplasm, you shattered your exoskeleton when it became too small and too constrictive to contain you.

Of goddamn course you feel awkward and unsure. Of course your current relationships are at an intermediate level, not as deep or as close as you would like. You are only, just now, starting to emerge, soaked, tremble-legged and blinking in the sun. You are a new and different person from who you were before. You are only just now learning who you are and what your new self is capable of – as you said, simply the act of discovering what you can do sexually and socially. You are still like that butterfly, stretching wings it never had before, letting them unfurl and dry in the warmth of the sun. You are getting used to senses you never had, a body that operates differently from what you’ve known, realizing you have opportunities and options available to you that were never open before.

It’s going to take time to become familiar with this new life, to understand your needs and how best to fill them. It’s going to be a while to come to terms with how much things have changed and how many things you learned through necessity that you will have to unlearn. So much of your life has been defined by adapting to limitations and restrictions that no longer exist. It’s liberating and terrifying at the same time because even though your past life was hobbled by pain and restraints, it was what you knew. The unknown is always terrifying, even when it’s demonstrably better; the devil you know is less frightening than the angel you have never seen before.

But the devil you know is still a devil.

What you’re feeling are the aches and pains and residual trauma of a rebirth and new life – the bruises and contusions of the birth process, the adjustment to a world simultaneously new and familiar, but also re-experiencing things you didn’t know you would ever experience again. It’s perfectly understandable, even reasonable to feel sad and disappointed that one of the first people you connected with as part of this new you couldn’t last; our first relationships rarely do and that’s ok. And this was a true first relationship – the first relationship you had as your new, true self. Feeling disappointed that you had something so amazing that eventually came to a natural conclusion is the most natural and relatable feeling in the world. You just happened to be in the rare position of experiencing it a second time, when you never realized that this was even possible.

It’s entirely understandable to feel sad that, while you have people who care for you and do their best to help you, they don’t know you as well as you wish. That’s ok! You are still getting to know you! It’s going to be a learning experience for you and the people who are in your life – whether they’re only in it for now, or whether they will become a permanent fixture – and that’s something that only comes with time. It’s simply a matter of recognizing that you need to give yourself the grace of rest and healing and letting things settle while you adjust to your new existence.

Because what you’re looking for – a family of choice, a community, people who know you – will come in time. Time is the one element we have no control over; we can’t speed it up when we wish and we can’t make it stand still when we need it to. Time will always flow as it wills, and things will always take exactly as long as they take; it’s the curse of our awareness that we have to make peace with time’s intransigent refusal to bend to our will. But it’s in the act of making peace, of surrendering to it like surrendering to the pull of the current of the river, that we let it flow as we need and get where we are going that much more smoothly. Because right now, part of surrendering to time will mean surrendering yourself to healing and adjustment. To learning and re-learning and un-learning.

When you give yourself that time, you’ll find that the things you are looking for will be that much easier to find. It’s less of a matter of “it will happen when it’s supposed to”, so much as “it will happen when you’re ready and best able to recognize it when you see it.” Some of these new relationships will be the natural evolution of the ones you have now. Some may well be a rebirth of their own – old relationships that came to their natural conclusion, only to sprout new shoots and new growth. Some may be new relationships grafted onto old ones and some may seem to come from the most unexpected of places, like seeing wildflowers bloom in a rain gutter.

But they will come in their time and not a moment before. So the best thing you can do with this time is to rest, to recoup and to engage with yourself and this old, new world. The more you give yourself the chance to become comfortable and accustomed to this massive change in your existence, the more you will set yourself up to bring these relationships – whether grown, found or reborn – into your life. You’ll find your partners and your family of choice, faces new and familiar, in time.

Just give yourself that time. Even a newborn phoenix needs to learn how to preen its new feathers and relearn how to fly.

You’ve got this.

All will be well.  

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I’m in a classic “platonic friendship with unrequited crush/oneitis” situation. Turns out my friend that I’m crushing on recently got a partner, a close friend of theirs and also a friend of mine.

In my mind they were The One for a while now, even though I knew it was basically impossible due to a combination of personal feelings on their end and external circumstances, we talked about it and settled on Just Being Friends – I’m genuinely happy being friends with them and I cherish them a lot, still I foolishly held on to that fantasy that it might work out someday.

So recently they told me that they’re currently seeing someone, a mutual friend, although someone I’m not nearly as close with. I know I should be happy for them (I am) and wish them the best (I do), but there is this nasty part of me that’s upset and jealous.

Like I’m having all of those pathetic “it should have been me”, “they’re doing all the things that we should be doing”, “why was I not good enough” thoughts. I hate having these thoughts, I know that indulging in them is poison, yet I keep drinking that garbage – maybe partly because I enjoy wallowing in misery and maybe partly because I believe that the only way out is through.

I know that one classic piece of advice is The Nuclear option, breaking off all contact and effectively removing both of them from my life, but this is genuinely the last thing I want to do. Both really mean a lot to me and the one I’m crushing on is one of my closest and best friends and I don’t wanna lose those friendships because of my feelings.

I know that I’ve messed up so far, indulging in an unrealistic fantasy and holding on too long, but I strongly feel that this is my problem and I don’t wanna make it theirs.

So long story short, how do I deal with and get over those nasty feelings of jealousy, hurt and maybe a bit of mourning for something that never was, so that I can be happy for my friends? It feels like I got all the pieces but I can’t assemble them.

Sincerely,

Getting Over It

DEAR GETTING OVER IT: I will be honest, GOI: I appreciate getting letters like yours in no small part because it’s not very often I get a “my crush likes someone else” letter that focuses on “and I want to be happy for them,” as much as on the frustration and sadness and jealousy or anger of their crush liking someone else. That speaks well of you and where your head is at with all of this.

But I want to emphasize that what you’re feeling – that sadness, that sense of loss and those feelings of “why couldn’t it be me” are entirely understandable. It’s not bad to feel that way and it’s not toxic to have them; there’s nothing contradictory about holding both feelings at once. People are complex! We can feel many different ways about the same situation, including ways that seem like they conflict with one another. In fact, this is something that comes up fairly often in polyamorous circles: the weird mindf--k that is feeling compersion (that is: feeling happy for another person’s happiness) for one’s partner’s joy in a new relationship while also feeling a little jealous about how their time and attention is being given to someone else instead of for you.

So, the first thing I want you to understand is that you shouldn’t be getting down on yourself for feeling this way. Feeling a certain way isn’t bad, and it doesn’t make you a bad person for having those feelings. Feelings are just that: feelings. Feelings happen. Sometimes they’re good and positive, sometimes they’re bad, sometimes they’re even ugly and you wish you didn’t have them. But the fact that you’re having a feeling doesn’t define you as a person. It’s how you act on those feelings that matter… and “acting” in this case is as much in how you behave towards yourself over them as it is about how you behave towards your crush and their new relationship.  

This is why being kind to yourself about having those feelings is important. If you can recognize that the feelings themselves are inherently normal and neutral, it’s a lot easier to take a step back and pay attention to what you’re doing about them and because of them. And right now, it seems like you’re mostly beating yourself up over them because you have them. That’s neither particularly kind, nor is it helpful.

Take the part where you blame yourself for “indulging in unrealistic fantasies”. What’s wrong with that? The thing about unrealistic fantasies is that they’re inherently indulgent, whether it’s about being a dashing tiefling rogue going on incredible adventures, or thinking about Christina Hendricks coming to you with a bottle of Pappy Van Winkle and inviting you up to her suite at Aria after completing her DJ set and… 

Wait, that was my unrealistic fantasy. Sorry, that got away from me for a second.

My point is that indulging in the fantasy isn’t a bad thing; it’s like a treat for the brain, a little game of ‘what if’ that lets you occupy an imaginary world for a bit. It only becomes a problem when you start treating it like reality or letting the idea of it interfere with your real world in negative ways. If, for example, indulging in the fantasy gave you the inspiration and motivation to become the kind of person that you see yourself as in them – not necessarily the person in the relationship but the person who could take the steps to find a relationship like the one you fantasize about – that’s great! Similarly, if it lets you blow off steam, take a break from your troubles or otherwise give you a moment to take a breath and recoup from the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, that’s all to the good… even if it involves sweaty thoughts about someone you know doesn’t necessarily feel the same way about you.

But if it curdles and becomes a sense of ownership or interferes with your actual relationship (or theirs, for that matter…) that is when it becomes a problem. That’s the point where it’s no longer a fantasy but something closer to obsession. And it doesn’t sound to me like that’s where things went with your crush. It sounds to me like the worst thing that this crush has done was inspire you to do nothing – neither making a move, nor moving on. Which, y’know, isn’t necessarily helpful, but hardly something to beat yourself up over.

Would it have been better if you could just enjoy the crush and plow the energy it gave you into something productive? Sure. But holding onto the fantasy isn’t bad in and of itself. At worst, it just delayed things a little and made this eventual outcome sting a little bit more. Which sucks, to be sure, but it’s honestly not that bad.

It’s the fact that you’re beating yourself up that’s the problem, not the fantasy. The thoughts you’re wallowing in – those feelings of “it should have been me” and “why wasn’t I good enough” – are understandable and normal. They’re regret talking, pointing out things that you could only see in hindsight. The point of regret is to learn; you want to recognize the inflection points, the moments where you made choices that lead you to where you are now. The goal is to understand how you got to where you are now, so that you can avoid it next time.

But what you’re doing with those feelings of regret isn’t learning, it’s punishment. You’re hurting yourself for making “bad” choices, for being a “bad” person for being in the position of getting hurt by this. But why? Why do you deserve to hurt yourself like this? For having feelings for someone who didn’t have those same feelings for you? How does that merit smacking yourself around? Is that doing anything to make things better, or are you inflicting pain for the sake of feeling even more pain than you do already?

The logic of it makes no sense. Take a step outside yourself and you’ll see it clearly. Imagine if your best friend – someone other than your crush – were to come to you with the same regrets you are currently feeling; they had feelings for someone and now they’re sad that the person they were crushing on is dating someone else. Would you be beating them about the head and shoulders with a riding crop over their supposed stupidity? Would you be berating them for their poor choices? Or would you be giving them a reassuring hug and saying that it’s ok, it’ll feel better and there will be other crushes in the future? That it’s not the end of the world, even though it may feel like it right now?

I strongly suspect it’s the latter. So why does your friend merit better, more compassionate treatment than you for being in the exact same situation? Why is it more sensible – for suitably illogical definitions of “sensible” – to punish yourself like this when you wouldn’t do that to someone else?

The thing you should understand is that you were making the best decisions you could with the information you had at the time, and it led to this situation. It only feels obvious and inevitable now, because you can look back and see the exact path you took to get here; at the time, you were navigating a winding road in an impenetrable forest, with branching paths leading to unknown destinations. It’s sad, yes… but it also means that now you have new information, which means that next time, you’ll make different, better decisions.

The same applies to the word choices. You’re using a lot of words that are heavy with implication and judgement. “Should have”, “should be”, “Good enough”. All of those imply that you did something wrong, and you didn’t. It implies that this was a failure on your part and it wasn’t. Even if you had acted on your crush instead of “indulging in the fantasy” of it, that doesn’t mean that things would have been different. It’s easy to assume that you messed up because of where you are now, but there are no guarantees or even hints that this would have led to a different outcome. As the wise man once said: it’s possible to make no mistakes and still lose. That’s not weakness; that’s life.

Someone caring for you in the way you wish they did isn’t about being “good enough” for them. They didn’t look at you like they were reading your stats or tallying up points on a spreadsheet and deciding that you didn’t meet the right benchmarks or milestones. They didn’t weigh your heart vs. their friend’s heart and yours came up wanting. If you’re a regular reader, I’m sure you’ve seen the times I’ve said that women aren’t Mjolnir and sex isn’t about being “worthy”. The same applies to love; someone not loving you the way that you wish they did doesn’t mean you weren’t worthy of love, just as someone loving someone else means that they are.

Love isn’t about metrics. Love is a wild and complex dance, a blend of emotions and chemicals in the brain, and sometimes the thing that tilts love from philia or storge to eros just isn’t there or doesn’t click the way it needs to. That doesn’t mean there’s a flaw in anyone involved, any more than the people you love as friends but not as lovers are flawed. It just means that the crucial x-factor isn’t there. It’s nobody’s fault. Nobody did anything wrong. The fact that you don’t love them romantically doesn’t mean that they’re bad people. It just is.

And a quick note on The Nuclear Option. The reason why I tell people to take The Nuclear Option after a break up is so that they have a chance to heal in the aftermath and to minimize the odds of both clawing the wound open or making poor choices while those wounds are still raw – like drunken 3 AM texts begging their ex to take them back. It doesn’t mean that you’re cutting contact forever, nor does every heartbreak needs to be followed by immediately cutting them out of your life like Stalin erasing people who fell out of political favor. It’s just a way of making sure you don’t make things worse while you’re hurting. You don’t need to cut off contact with your friend – especially not under the current circumstances.

So here’s my advice for healing your broken heart. First: let yourself mourn. A dream you had has died. That’s something that should be mourned. Give yourself permission to have a day or two to hole up with some comfort food and media, and cry your feelings out without shame or judgement. Let your tears wash out the emotional wound so that it can close without trapping debris or becoming infected. Go ahead and have a large, loud, snotty bawl about it and just let it all out like you’re ripping off a bandage. Keeping it in only makes the pain last longer and hurt worse.

The odds are, if you finally let yourself give in to the feeling and have that big cathartic cry, you’ll find yourself cried out and surprisingly ok in the span of 90 minutes or so. But there may be a few tears left, so give yourself the rest of that day – or even that weekend – to get the rest out.

Then, once you’ve reached that level of catharsis… forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for caring for someone who may not have cared for you the same way, but who still cares for you none the less. Forgive yourself for wanting something that ultimately you couldn’t have, for feeling foolish and for feeling jealous. Let yourself accept that the jealousy is understandable, that the feeling of being sad for yourself is entirely ok and reasonable, not signs that you’re a bad person. And forgive yourself for beating yourself up over those feelings.

Then, once you do: focus on the other side of your feelings. Let the compersion take over, and enjoy the way your friend is enjoying their NRE. Be happy for them, even as you acknowledge and accept that you are a little sad that it isn’t with you. And as you do, let their happiness inspire you. Instead of focusing on a past dream of a future that never was, look forward – building your future self in such a way that you too will be experiencing that happiness. The future is still out there, unwritten; put yourself in position so that you can shape it and be ready for it when it arrives.

Love is out there. There will be other loves, more happiness, more smiles, more hope. There will always be time for dancing and joy. You just have to reach towards it, instead of looking back.

You will be ok. I promise.

All will be well.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com