dating advice

In today’s show, Dr. Howk discusses:

1.  I grew up facing a lot of turmoil; I had a physically and sexually abusive father, I left home and was homeless from 16 to 18, and dealt with a lot of tumultuous grooming situations at a young age, and so forth. However, I was dealing with it really well up until 20 when I started to take therapy; while simultaneously moving to a tiny city that was very into “woke” culture. I feel as though it may have exasperated my victim mentality, but I am unsure. I want to know, was the victim mentality trait already integrated within my genetics or does woke culture and modern therapy have enough influence to exasperate that mentality?  Does it matter the severity or weight of what you went through when it comes to coaching yourself to leave the victim mentality?

2. How do I cope nondestructively with stress?  As a quite emotionally unstable yet conscientious person, I find myself stressed a lot of the time. In the past, my way of reacting to stress has been reaching for food. I learned that I stress ate because my body was seeking something to increase my chances of survival and reproduction during an uncertain time. More recently, after successfully stopping myself from using food to alleviate stress, I have turned to impulse shopping. This also makes sense from an evolutionary perspective, since the things I buy include jewlery, hair and nail appointments, and clothes, which all enhance my physical appearance and also increase reproductive success.  I was wondering if there is something I could effectively do to soothe stress in the moment that won’t make me gain weight or break my bank account.

3. If I had to put a label on it, I identify as a bisexual female. I’m overthinking applying the EP concepts that I understand so well when it comes to dating women. For instance, do the 10 paid dates still apply with two women?

In today’s episode, Dr. Lisle discusses:

1. Why do men sometimes pair-bond/fall in love with obviously promiscuous women(promiscuous reputation, clubbing/partying often, always scantily clad)? Maybe I’m having a hard time understanding because I’m a young woman. I would love to hear your thoughts!

2. What pair-bond behavior do highly testeronized men show? My boyfriend of 1 year remembers minute details about me, pays for all our dates, sends me food when he’s not with me, and has bought me a new MacBook Pro, iPhone, Tiffany’s jewelry, flowers every month, and teddy bears but he is not very verbally or physically affectionate. He has never initiated sexual activities with me either, although I can tell he enjoys when we do them. He’s very jealous and possessive, insulting other men’s abilities and intentions with me and always telling me to dress more modestly. In addition to not being verbally(as in compliments, sweet-talking, baby-names) and physically affectionate, he’s easily irritated with me, curses and yells at me when he’s angry, and dismisses my thoughts and opinions. He has proposed to me with a $20,000 engagement ring but I am hesitant to get more invested in this relationship but I am extremely confused about how he feels about me. If this is the pair-bonded behavior of a highly testeronized man maybe I am more compatible with a man who’s closer to the middle of the bell curve. Your thoughts would be appreciated!

3. Dear doctors: could you please speak on what it is like to have a romantic relationship with a person with low emocional stability? I have started dating a man who describes himself as having low emotional stability. Although he is very sweet and loving, I do wonder how high the cost will be to maintain this relationship. I am very emotionally stable and as such I’d like to know what to expect. 

In today’s show, the Dr’s discuss:

1. I listened to Dr Howk on pseudo esteem where you say:  If you are highly agreeable, highly conscientious and not that emotionally stable – being on social media comes with a high price for you psycolgy.  I teach workshops for companies and I get graded every time from each students.   I get 5 from 95% of the students but sometimes I get a 2 or 3 and I can tell right away before I get the evaluation who in the crowd will grade me low.   How do I stop trying to please the one disagreeable person and not feel bad for getting a low grade? When I have a disagreeable person in my workshop I feel like I have to work twice as hard to turn him or her over to my side. It feels like Im spending 1000 dollars on a 100 dollar asignment and Im drained.  My boss allways sees the evaluation and I feel the need to explain my self if a person gave me a low grade.   My boss uses the good evaluations as a selling point to get the companies to buy more workshops at his school.  

2. Do you ever talk about abandonment/rejection issues? Examples: my mother divorced my father when I was seven years of age in 1959 and my mother was murdered in 1968 leaving behind 7 children.

3. I was put on psychiatric drugs when I was 13 because of anorexia and being miserable about being bullied at school. The drugs messed me up. I can see it now that I have not used them for years. I was on various types of drugs around 10 years. I now know how damaging and useless those drugs are and I know my cognitive abilities have been damaged because of them. I also now realize just how much damage psychiatry has caused to my life overall. I’m extremely angry and bitter. I’ts incredibly painful to think about what has been done to my brain and what potential has been stolen from me. I dwell on my anger and bitterness everyday and it’s unbearable. How can I cope?