0 When you know your beloved will leave

prettyndsweet12 asks: I recently fell in love with the most amazing guy. He’s funny, very responsible, and smart, and he makes me feel special when I’m around him. When we met I knew he was a Senior and I was a Sophomore but it didn’t bother me. Now that the school year is over and he’s leaving, I’m devastated. I definitely want to keep in touch with him and still see him (I don’t think he’s going away for college) and maybe in the future we could get married and have a great life. I know that may not happen but I don’t see me falling in love or feeling the same way about anybody else. What should I do?

Hi prettyndsweet12 –

How great is this!!!  I’m so happy for you!  What a joy to read such good news!

Now I know you have a question, but let me just jump around on my hind legs for a while first.   You a) fell in love, with b) an amazing guy, who’s c) funny and d) responsible, and e) smart, and f) makes you feel special, and g) you love him so much you’re envisioning spending the rest of your life with him.  Wow!  That’s, umm… abcdefg… SEVEN great things here all at once!

But then you have a problem.  A problem not because of anything bad about this guy, but all because he’s absolutely wonderful.  The problem of what happens next, and what he and you should do.

Well it seems pretty clear that you’re not sure what he’s going to do.  And that makes everything more difficult.  So the first thing I recommend is that you Continue reading

0 How to handle false rumors about you.

Nellsane asks: Recently there has been a rumor formulating about me being abused by my uncle, which is false. And also that he got imprisoned – also false. Now I’m going to be honest with you and tell you I’ve been abused as a child, but not by my uncle; it was a neighbor. But my question is – why do this to me out of all people? This is a pretty dumb rumor if you ask me, and people would be stupid to believe it. I still do not have any idea as to who spread it. And if I do, how should I react? I think this rumor has only been spread among some boys. How do you think I should react to this rumor without just drawing more attention to myself?

Hi Nelsane –

I’m a dog, and love pretty much everything.  I even love the cats and squirrels I complain about all the time, really.

But two things I detest are false accusations and vicious rumors!  I wish I had a perfect solution for you, and I even more strongly wish I knew who was doing this, so I could go implant my fangs into their stinky old butts!  But I don’t, and I can’t.  So all I can do is to offer some “maybe pretty good” suggestions.  I’m so sorry – I wish so badly I could do more!

My first suggestion is my simplest.  The rumor is stupid and untrue, so Continue reading

0 Why our interests come and go over time.

Wooff asks: As a kid, I have always had this interest for reading books. You’d give me a book and I’d finish it within a week. As I grew up from 4th grade to 7th, my book addiction became less. And then I got depressed in 8th grade and got interested in books again. And now I’m happy – and it takes a lot of force to make myself read a book. Why is it so? Is it because I have too much studies or it because I’m just plain lazy? I would like to start reading with interest again. Although when I read a book I become interested in it again. But I want to have the excitement back. I want to be able to be excited even before reading the book, instead of just forcefully making myself read it.

Hi Wooff –

This makes me think about food (But hey, everything makes me think about food).  When I was a puppy, I loved nothing more than cheese pizza.  Then I got a little older, and, while I wouldn’t say no to cheese pizza, I would spend my nights dreaming about lamb chops.  Then I got a little older than that, and started going nuts about cheese pizza again.  Why?  I have no idea.

But with you, I think it’s a bit clearer.  What’s going on is that you’re growing up!  And as your brain develops, you’re having different interests at different times.  When you were about eight years old, you were obsessed with books.  But then your body started changing, you got all sorts of hormones going wild in you, and you became more interested in other things.  Particularly other kids your age (this is completely normal).

But then (also normal), your development hit a wall.  Life started making less sense, and you didn’t feel completely right about yourself or the world around you.  And books became a great place – both to hide out, and to let your new, maturing brain connect with newer, more mature thoughts.

Now (normal yet again), you’ve gotten through that depressed time, and books don’t seem all that interesting.  Maybe you’re craving Continue reading

0 How to treat skin and weight problems

ScubaGrl asks: I’m trying my best to lose some weight, but nothing helps. I’m also suffering from acne, which destroys my confidence everyday. (I had it worse last year. It’s better now. So I think there’s some progress.) It’s not like it’s a little bit. They are everywhere in my face. Plus being fat isn’t helping. I am happy, but whenever someone talks about my fat and acne, I can’t help but feel bad. I don’t know what to do anymore. Can you please help me?

Hi ScubaGrl –

Acne and overweightness are two really difficult issues.  Both happen naturally, and for a multitude of reasons.  So it’s hard to give you one specific “cure” for either.

It’s also hard because I’ve never suffered from either.  With weight, I’m so energetic it’s hard for me to keep enough weight on for my ribs to not be visible.  And with acne… well… it’s not fair I know, but… my face is covered with beautiful fur, so even if I had it, no one would see it!

Now I’ve written other pieces on my website about ways to lose weight, but they’re probably things you’ve already heard: exercise more, drink more water, eat less junk food, get enough sleep… I know, borrrring.

But I do have one suggestion, that might help with both.  I can’t guarantee it’ll help at all, but if you do it the way I’m saying, it shouldn’t have any negative side-effects, so there’s no reason not to give it a try.

Do you know about Continue reading

0 What goes bump in YOUR night! …what is truly, truly scary to you?!

What goes bump in YOUR night! …what is truly, truly scary to you?!

Where I live, in the United States, we’re about to have two really fun holidays. From our European heritage, we have Halloween, and from Mexico, we have Dia De Los Muertos  (Day of the Dead). Both involve decorations with skeletons, concepts of the dead coming out of their graves… ooh it’s enough to make anyone go “Yikes!”

About a week ago, I wrote a letter to my Pack members, asking what gives them the willies. The responses were… well, read on!

Like most people, eiei hates public speaking; so does cinderrella (along with creepy sounds at night and vampire movies); Peace_Dog is worried about True and False Prophecy; Astrid is scared of paranormal TV shows – especially since she saw one where a ghost robbed a girl out of a bed that looked just like hers! — and angelbrat,my kind of human, said that what scares her the most is CATS!  “They are weird, ugly, disturbing and most of all they are associated with witchcraft. They remind me of deaths especially when they growl its as if they are talking to each other.” Exactly how I feel (but angelbrat, I think your friend must be making up that story about a cat strangling a person! I mean, those paws are awfully small!!)

You know, when I was giving examples of what might scare a lot of my Pack, there was one thing I thought about mentioning but didn’t – and then two letters came in about that! Brittany wrote, “This morning at recess at school I leaned up against the corner of the kindergarten building, and my friend Emily said ‘Um…behind you?’ and I walked away and saw a huge yellow and black spider going insane.  That scared me to death!” And PurpleHaze pointed out that she knows they’re good for the ecology, so she doesn’t kill them (good for you my dear! You’re so right!), but that “It doesn’t matter if they are little bitty teeny spiders that build little bitt y teeny spider webs between blades of grass, or big hairy Wolf spiders that carry their babies on their backs or giant fake spiders in silly movies, or pretty garden spiders with pretty colored stripes that build big beautiful webs between two trees, or the small fuzzy ones that seem to hop from place to place… I get itchy all over like maybe something is crawling on me. I have to look behind me all the time, like maybe there’s one sneaking up on me.  And it takes me hours to make the feelings go away.”

Wow, PurpleHaze, I think you’re a poet! That’s so well-written it gives me the creeps… and I don’t mind spiders at all!

But there’s another letter that I really want to share with you all. I expected most of the letters to be creepy fun, and maybe even funny. And they were. But this one made me cry. I think it’s one of the most sensitive, beautiful things I’ve ever read. And I think it says, in an incredibly honest way, what I and most of my Pack friends often feel.

“I’m fond of talking, like chatting, or in person. But I usually get worried when I talk to boys who I don’t know online and when they want to see my photo. I think this is because I wanna be something special in their mind even I don’t like them. At those moments, I am worried if they don’t like me. I don’t mean that like between boys and girls, I mean like between a person and a person.

“As I am a teenager, I also care about how everybody sees me. In fact, I am really scared that someone thinks ‘she is nothing, just forget her.’ So, I try to meet people, but sometimes, it doesn’t work out.  Actually, it (not working out) happens a lot these days. I am so depressed, and now I am a little scared even to try.  In education, and in community, if I make a mistake, I feel like everybody I love is blaming me. And even when they are wrong, they act like their mistake is nothing compared to mine. So, sometimes, I lie to cover my fault.  I know its wrong, but it makes me feel better.

“Well… enough of my feelings. FINALLY, the thing that really scares me is that someone I love or someone I care about thinks of me as a jerk and being a failure in my own mind, no matter how I try.

“Therefore, I would like to ask you a favour. Right now, I need a place to let go my mind. If you have a network address or something to help me share my feelings or forget them, I would like to know that. I really wish you won’t ignore my mail and I am hoping for your reply.”

Well, Erin, I can tell you right away – that’s so beautiful and sad, I can’t ignore it at all. And here’s my reply: You Are A Member of Our Pack! And you can write me anytime you want with your feelings, and I’ll be honored and thrilled to hear from you. And if you want to share your concerns with everyone else, I’ll post them just like all the other hundreds of questions I do; or if you would prefer it stays just between us, that’s fine too.

Now, what scares me?
Let’s see… skateboards, loud noises, my veterinarian when she has a needle… but when I really think about it, there’s one thing that scares me the most. And that is Rage. When a stranger doesn’t want me in their yard, and screams at me to get away, or when dogs get into a fight or are barking at me furiously, or (worst of all) when Handsome gets really angry and yells out bad words – I get really scared.  Oh sure, I know I can outrun that stranger, or avoid that fight, and I know Handsome will always calm down right away and pat me and say he’s sorry that he got so upset. But still, lots of times, I’m still trembling.

So give me a speech to make in front of a thousand people, give me a whole web full of spiders, even give me a night full of the yowling of cats! I’ll take all those, if I can just not get yelled at.

Because, you know, it’s when I’m yelled at that I feel most alone. And that’s when I have those feelings like
Erin wrote about. Those feelings we all know all too well.

But hey, Halloween and Dia de los Muertos are not about bad hurtful feelings! They’re about fun scary stuff! They’re about ghosts and goblins and skeletons and vampires and those amazing “Scream” masks with the fake blood squirting inside them, and zom bies and glowing monstrous jack-o’-lanterns… and lots of candy that makes your next trip to the dentist TRULY scary!

So here’s hoping that for this month, and forever, your scares – well, most of them – are the fun kind.  That’s what this Pawprint is here to celebrate!

0 How to stay safe in a foreign city

Gehue1099 asks: I am terrified about going to another country without my parents. I’ve never been that far away before and it’s for 3 days so I’m wondering if I should go or not. We are going to see a Taylor Swift concert in Detroit, and I looked it up online and it doesn’t seem that safe.

Hi Gehue1099 –

I have to admit, I’ve never been on an airplane, or ever traveled across any international border.  My idea of scary travel is getting into a car and wondering if we’re going to the veterinarian’s office!  So I really relate to your question.

Having said that, there are two big truths here – and both are good news.  Firstly, the vast majority of international travel today is very very safe.  The nations of the world have a strong interest in keeping on friendly terms with each other, and keeping tourists coming to visit them, so you’re in good shape overall.  The second is that modern media just LOVES to exaggerate how dangerous places are.

There are, and have been, places in the world that are torn up by war or revolution, making them so dangerous that no one should go there without taking very special care.  But most places aren’t like that.  The vast majority of people in Iraq, Iran, Russia, China, and the other places you hear troubles about, are just fine.  Remember a few weeks ago when all the talk was about the protests in Baltimore, in the U.S.?  Watching the stories on television would scare anyone into thinking that no one could safely step into this huge violent riot?  And then a teenager’s mother walked out into the middle of the street because she’d seen her son on TV, grabbed him, gave him a smack, and took him home?  Yes, the most dangerous thing in those streets was how angry mothers get when their kids disobey them!

Detroit is a wonderful city, with a great history that includes the cool stylish cars America is known for, and some of the most beloved music of the last 60 years.  It took a huge hit when the economy went down about eight years ago, though, and it hasn’t recovered nearly as much as anyone would hope.  So what does this mean for you?

Well, a lot of things.  Number one, it means they really Continue reading

0 How to get less shy in public

PhoebuSam asks: From the beginning of my childhood, I was a very shy and quiet boy. I mean I made friends quickly if I wanted to, but it takes me a lot of courage to start the conversation. I’m pretty popular at my university so luckily I don’t have to start the conversation usually. But in turn, this has turned me into a more shy and quiet person. I have gotten to this point of my life where I feel shy of going outside of my own house alone, which is pretty stupid. Take today for example: It’s a beautiful day outside but I think I have a few classmates here so I’m sort of scared of going outside. I just don’t like being seen. And being seen alone is way worse. I could go outside in the nighttime but it won’t be like the daytime. Which is beautiful. So my question is, how can I overcome such a fear?

Hi PhoebuSam –

As a general rule, I’ve never been very shy.  If I see someone I want to meet, I walk right up to them, sniff them, and check to see if I should jump on them, play with them, or run away.

But I felt some of what you’re feeling once.  When I was a little puppy, I played with any dogs I could find.  But when Handsome brought me to his home, from the pound, the veterinarians told him to keep me away from places with lots of dogs, till I could build up enough immunity to certain diseases.  So for my six-month birthday, it was a very big deal that he could take me to a huge dog park!

I was sooo excited!  I ran into the grounds, ready to play with all the dogs there… and none would even look at me.  They’d either walk away, or snarl at me to leave them alone.  I was just devastated.  I kept trying, though, and at least enjoyed the chance to be out among all the smells, but when Handsome drove me home, we both felt sad and disappointed.

What’s important, though, is that he kept taking me back.  And bit by bit, I developed more confidence, and started learning how to be “cool,” and sure enough, I made some great friends.  So much so that, before too long, it was me who was ignoring the overtures other dogs were making!

Now it seems to me, you’re a bit like me that first day.  You would like to be able to go out and enjoy everything and everybody out there, but you’re feeling like something is wrong.  Especially by this time in your life. It’s so off that you even say you’re pretty popular at your university, but are afraid to go out because there might be some classmates of yours out there!

So what do you do?

Well, the most important thing to do is to Continue reading

0 Is it okay to feel ambivalent?

Shikuza blue asks: I have quite a big family. Sometimes I feel that it would be better if I could live on my own alone. But now when my house is empty because everyone is abroad, I am alone – and not liking it too much. Even though I know that my parents will return from their trip and I will go back to my wanting a more solitary life, I can’t live it now.

Hi Shikuza blue –

To put it in the most confusing way I can, you’re not alone in your wish to be alone but not be alone!  This feeling is very very common, especially in teenagers.  It’s called Ambivalence, and its what we feel when we either don’t want anything, or we want two or more things that are completely opposite.

There are lots of things that look a bit like Ambivalence, but aren’t.  For example, when you’re wanting to diet so you can lose weight, but you really want that yummy chocolate cake you just saw.  You’re not ambivalent about it – you just want two things and have to decide which you want more.

But when you really want to be alone but don’t want to be alone, or when you really want to hang out with someone you often don’t like, or when you want to try something new that you think you won’t like – those are Ambivalence.  And it’s really difficult!

The most famous case of Ambivalence ever was a character named Hamlet, in a play by the same name.  This poor guy was a prince who found out his uncle had murdered his father, and then goes pretty much nuts trying to figure out what he should do about it.  But he also struggles over a bunch of other things too.  At one point, he’s so confused, he considers ending his own life, and famously even struggles with that (“To be or not to be, that is the question.”).

So Ambivalence can be a mess, no question.  But there’s one thing about it – it shows Continue reading

0 Why people act different when loved ones die

WILBUR asks: My father passed away last Tuesday. I was left out of all the funeral plans. I am handicapped, but my husband isn’t. My sister, who has taken it upon herself to do everything for my mother, had her two sons, daughter, and husband give a eulogy. I was never asked to speak, and neither was my husband. All plans for the wake were done without anyone asking my opinion about anything (all the way down to refreshments in the coffee room – they didn’t even tell me there were any until I went for coffee). My husband says that my sister was trying to help me avoid any more pressure over the death. If you agree let me know please.

Hi WILBUR –

First of all, of course, my head is bowed down for your loss – fathers are just so wonderful.

I’m not brilliant enough to be able to read your sister’s mind – your husband has a lot more knowledge about her than I ever could, so his thoughts might well be correct.

But I do know a few things about humans. And one of them is that nothing, and I mean nothing, brings out the shadow-sides of personalities like the loss of a loved one. And when that loved one is a parent, humans start to act based on very old, deep baggage. Maybe your sister is someone who goes into take-charge mode when she’s under stress (which would fit with your husband’s view of her taking responsibility for your pain).

Or maybe this is a bit tougher than that – maybe she has always had some deep-down resentment, if she felt you were closer to your father than she was. Or maybe she still looks at you as the child you once were, and figures you can’t handle pressure or pain.

It could be any of these, or something completely different I never thought of.

What’s important is that you realize two things: First, that this might well be Continue reading

0 It Would Have to Be …living with change…