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.

Why some things are difficult to talk about

I've mentioned before what I originally wanted with this blog - just a place I could get that shit out that I can't talk about elsewhere.

Well, one part of that was completely scuppered in the very early days of its life. You see, my lady friend found my blog (while searching through my browsing history - which she likes to do). Instantly, a whole part of my life was off-limits. It shouldn't be. It goes against the very point of this blog. But it is.

It's like being related to a comedian. If I had a brother who was a comedian, I'd no doubt have to put up with being the brunt of his jokes, being called an idiot, having every childhood embarrassment brought up on stage, the time I got stuck in that pipe, time I climbed the tree and couldn't get down and had to be rescued by a neighbour, some incident where I'm sure I wet my pants at some point. But it would be funny, which would at least soften the blow.

Or if my brother was a psychologist, no doubt I'd end up being discussed in a paper entitled My Idiot Brother, A Study On Sexual Repression. Or if he was a pro-wrestler, I'd end up being his practice dummy for his half nelsons. Or even his full nelsons.

That's just the way it works when you bring family into it.

But I'm not a comedian and I'm not funny, so there's nothing to soften the blow. I'm just tired, bitter and generally pissed-off. So, if I were to rant about my idiot brother (I don't have a brother, by the way), it would just be hurtful to read. It's not like I'd be balancing it out with the good times, the time he beat up a bully for me, or slashed the tires of some girl who dumped me.

Balance has no place on this blog.

So the question was asked about why family life wasn't brought up here, specifically the imminent birth of our child, and here is the answer -

Because you read my blog!

Rest assured, if you ever lose the ability to read, it will be open season here on My Medicated Cartoon Life.