Friday, June 5, 2009

Everyone needs a Dr.Phil



I love Dr.Phil.

I don't get to see his show very often but, when I do, I love it. Dr.Phil takes people with relationship difficulties, many of them being quite normal relationship difficulties rather than the loons you'll see on the Springers and Maurys, and he just sits them down and tells it like it is.

He just says what we all know.

Really obvious stuff. In that sense, you'd think he'd be redundant. But the people he gets on the show are usually completely blind to the obvious. And, when it comes to personal relationships, we all get that way some times. Why is that?

I'll see the most well-adjusted, rational people, people I would go to for advice, and yet when it comes to their own personal life, their families, they are entirely destructive. In their own personal relationships, normal people can be antagonistic, defensive and can do their upmost to make bad situations worse.

A common thread seems to be mothers.

What is it about mothers? They nurture and put in so much into bringing up a child. Having children myself, it's only now that I appreciate just how much work that is. And yet, when children reach a certain age, so many mothers seem to turn. They become just a little poisonous, seemingly totally unaware and without conscious malice, yet poisonous nonetheless. Is it that as a child gets to leaving home age, or beyond it, mothers resent the idea of losing their child and it twists them emotionally?

I don't know. But families, especially mothers, seem to love drama.

Family relationships are weird. To a large extent I see family as people you just happen to be related to. I take a very cold view on that. If someone is a pain in the ass, tries to guilt-trip you, tries to stir shit, my advice is always the same - cut them out of your life. Don't engage them. Just cut them out. Life is too short.

And yet I have very little by way of personal relationships, possibly as a result of that policy. So maybe I'm not the right person to ask.

But I'd trust Dr.Phil.

I think we could all do with someone like that. Someone outside your family unit to just see the obvious and beat it into our heads. I wish I lived with Dr.Phil.

4 comments:

Brian Sibley said...

But would you want to sleep with him?

Bitter Animator said...

You know, I could... but, by that stage, we'd be such good friends. Is it a line I'd want to cross?

Red Pill Junkie said...

LOL at the comic panel. ROFL

I guess part of maturing is to acknowledge the fact that your parents are neither heroes —as we once thought during childhood— nor complete idiots —as we once thought during adolescence— but people who, most of the time, love us very much and tried to do the best they could.

You have to reconcile yourself with the imperfections of your parents and your siblings.

I've come to realize that my family is my anchor with reality. Had I been born in the US, I'd surely be either dead or committed in a mental institution by now.

But getting back to Dr. Phil: Most importantly than telling people the obvious flaws in their lives/relationships/personalities, would be to telling them HOW to overcome those flaws. Me for instance? I know exactly what's wrong with my life; but do I have an idea of how to fix it?

susan said...

I do watch Dr. Phil on occasion. But lately all he has on is Octomom, so I don't watch per say.

His Texas accent also drives me nuts.

Regarding Parents, Mark Twain said it best I believe;

“When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”

I am sure Bitter you are a very good father.