Q. Hey, this is strange. I know that my friends love me because I am a nice guy, i listen to what they have to say, and i care about them a great deal. But....i can't shake this feeling that it's all one huge trick, that all my "friends" are just being nice to me because i force them to, (as if I'm that awkward kid that no one can really get the courage to tell him to just go away.) The strange part, is that i know this isn't the case, but, i guess this is a case when knowing a fact doesn't mean you have to believe in it, too. I haven't gone to get professional help yet, but, it'd be great if ...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q. My 3 year old daughter cries and screams about not wanting to go to her biological father's house for visitation. This has gotten worse since she came home to me one weekend and said he had burnt her with a cigarette on her leg. I immediately got a restraining order against him to keep him away from the kids. We went to court to continue the restraining order and the judge gave him supervised visitation. The visitation is to be supervised by his mom who he lives with and was there when my daughter says she was burnt.

I feel like if my daughter is that scared of him she should not have to go. My ex-husband has been told that he has anger

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q. Hi there. Been married for 3.5 years, 6 months into the marriage my husband began his oxy addiction of 2.5 years. I had no solid proof of my 6 month suspicion until i blatently caught him one morning in the bathroom. Forced him into rehab unless he would rather lose me. he went to rehab, but it basically took him about a year to get sober.

Now he has supposedly been sober for 6 months. Which is great. But I am feeling all the codependent issues, trust issues, feel like i have lost my feelings for him and that he is such a different person than i thought he was, angry how he could do this to us and to me. I try to

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

My girlfriend and I have been together for 5 years in an on and off relationship. We have a 1 1/2 year old son together and she suffers from schizo-affective disorder. Along with new motherhood and the weight gain of pregnancy her self-esteem has been horribly low over the last 1 1/2 years. She has been out of therapy and off of medication for her schizo affective disorder / Depression for about 4 months now against everyone's advice.

Things have been very hard since the baby's birth. She hates how she looks and does not think she is beautiful at all. Today she told me that she is having serious doubts about our relationship because even though I am a

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

I am a single mother of a 6 year old. My daughter has never met her father. She hates any man I date and is so mean. She treats the man I am dating horribly. She is so sneaky and mean to him. She tells me she's afraid that she will have a daddy. She hates any type of change and threatens to live with my parents if I have a boyfriend. She treats my boyfriend like awful. He treats her amazing. How do I make her realize that my boyfriend is not a threat to her and that he makes mommy happy.

A: This is a tough one. From you daughter's point of view, she has everything

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Recently I have become aware of how dysfunctional my original family was and now how dysfunctional my kids (a 28 and 26 year old) and my ex husband and myself are. The problem is that we find ourselves all living back under the same roof again due to various issues. My problem is that I keep getting triggered when my ex does not support me in laying down boundarys or when one of my kids cross that line.

I know this could be an opportunity for growth but I find it extremely stressful and feel like just running away and never talking to them again. In my family of origin problems were handled by scapegoating me and now it seems the same thing is happening

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q: My husband (26) and my daughter (14) were caught exchanging sexually explicit text messages. My daughter admitted to having sex with her step-father and of course he is denying it. DCS and the police are investigating and they have removed him from the home since we have a 1 year old daughter together. This is very difficult for me to deal with and I have started seeing a counselor.

When the text messages were discovered, my daughter was out of town for the summer and will now be staying there with her father. If it is proven that my husband is guilty, I can no longer support him and I believe he should get whatever is coming to him. My problem is how

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q: From the time I was 15-18, I was abused mentally and sexually by a very close adult mentor/friend. Aside from the abusive part, he was a great role model for me. I'm almost 20 now, and I have not spoken with him or seen him since I was 18. We both have received separate counseling, and I have accepted what happened, and he has expressed remorse and the both of us have been counseled to never have any contact or communication with each other. He seems to be on board with the idea, but I struggle with it. Why is it important to be completely separated, even years after the matter? Is it ever possible for the abused and the abuser to ever ...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q: I have been dating my boyfriend for about a year and a half now and we have lived together for about 6 months. He does have a bad temper and sometimes throws things during fights and other things of that nature, but I just always thought he had a temper and that was just that. But, come to find out the more I talked to his brother and mostly his sister in law they have told me many things about his childhood (they are 10 years older than him). His father was never around, he does drugs and is an alcoholic and verbally/emotionally abused his mother and my boyfriend when he was very small, up until about age 7 and still to this ...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q: This is my second episode of having an eating disorder. I got help about 2 years ago and mostly recovered from it, but relapsed about 2 months ago. When my mom found out the first time, she had no idea what to do and it destroyed our relationship. Her mother had an eating disorder and she cannot handle that I suffer from the same thing. If I tell her that I relapsed, our relationship may never be the same again, and I cannot live with that.

The disorder is much worse this time, and I recently began cutting. No one knows except for my best friend, who keeps telling me to tell my mom. I don't think that there are any other adults

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

Q: My best friend died last spring when a car hit her on her bike. I've known her since we were toddlers and her parents live across the street. I feel empty without her and I know it'll get worse in school, because I keep thinking of her never to go on to high school, to graduate from college, to get married and have kids. I think her mom and dad have gone into depression; her mom is worried all of the time and gets exhausted at little tasks, and her dad is getting moody and hardly ever talks anymore. My parents are going through a hard time, too, since she was like a second daughter to them, but they try to act cheerful ...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »

My family, friends and boyfriend have all expressed their worries about my behaviour in the last year.

One of my friends is in his last year of medical school and one of my friends is a nurse. Both of whom have said [separately] I'm suffereing symptoms of a manic episode! They say I'm cocky, spend money I don't have, I annoy them because I don't sleep, I talk too much and I can't keep a job because my attention span's the size of a rodent. Not only that, they've started telling my parents and boyfriend too!! I think that is completely out of order!

I was diagnosed with depression last October and in February I came off my medication

...  
Read the rest of this question and answer... »