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Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits

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Mkp-hearts-NYC
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
Also, "Why We Love" is amazing, as well as "Body Outlaws"
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RoseColette (fewer thorns; more coffee)
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
During a very difficult patch of life, I read the co-dependency books, Why Men Love Bitches, The Dance of Anger, and more New Age novels than I care to list. What finally did it was taking the time to journal and reading Shakti Gawain's Creative Visualization.
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beatrice2000
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
My therapist turned me on to SARK's books, which were full of self-help messages about seeing beauty and art in the world and being in touch with your creativity. At times Sark (Susan Ariel Rainbow Kennedy) seemed like she had her head in the clouds, but had good advice about being positive and artistic. I also read Geneen Roth's books about eating disorders and depression, and books about growing up with Asperger's Syndrome and mild autism, to get answers on my own childhood experiences.

I liked Reviving Ophelia, and just remembered it last week, particuraly the teen girl obsessed with Prince, only wearing purple and listening to his music, and living in a Prince-only world.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
12/04/08

@beatrice2000: Have you read Ophelia Speaks, a response collection that a grad student put together? She put out a call for stories and then dozens of teen girls weighed in, so we got to hear from them, not just their therapist.
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hellosunshine
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
I just bought one about the Five Love Languages... Boyfriend and I have been "off" for too long and I'm determined to give it one more push before calling it a day.

I also need one for when you're an only child and swing between extreme extrovert and introvert, and you're in your introvert time and you just want to be ALONE for a few days, FOR THE LOVE but you can't because you share a studio with your boyfriend.
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RoseColette (fewer thorns; more coffee)
12/04/08

@hellodarling!: Cave time. Learned that from the Venus-Mars books. Only child as well. Finally sat my husband down and explained that there are days when I want to be left alone to my own world, doing my own thing. It's a recharging period.
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Mkp-hearts-NYC
12/04/08

@hellodarling!: YES. Ditto to the being an introvert who desperately needs people sometimes, but desperately needs quiet, empty rooms other times.
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hellosunshine
12/04/08

@rose.of.many.thorns.colette: OOH. I'll have to actually read those. He gets all "mehhhh, what's wroooong, what'd I dooooo" which is fine except when I'm all "Buddy! It's not about you!!"
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hellosunshine
12/04/08

@Mkp-hearts-nyc: It's taking an exceptionally long time to get over this especially bad episode, because I can't just be ALONE in our tiny apartment. It's making me fidgety!
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Maulleigh
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
I have no shame in admitting that self-help books have changed my life. I wish more people would read them! I don't read every single one, but do tend to stick with the classics:

How to Win friends and Influence People

The Road less Traveled

He's just not that into you (saved my life)

Seven Habits of Highly-Effective People

Right now I'm listening to the The Purpose Driven Life which is a little too religious for my taste, but I'm keeping an open mind.
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Piranha426
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
One of the biggest relationship red flags I ever ignored was when I opened my then-b/f's extra (non-clothes) closet and found (1) a huge cardboard box full of unlabeled VHS tapes (which I'm now convinced was porn) and (2) a 3-foot-wide shelf completely covered in self-help books with titles like "Please Understand Me". There must have been at least 20 of them.

The guy ended up revealing himself to be terribly, tragically mentally ill - not to mention a needy, controlling, manipulating boyfriend.

I think it's one thing to read, own, appreciate, etc. a few self-help books - there certainly are plenty of good ones out there, and I'm a Carolyn Hax devotee so I'm not at all opposed to the concept - but I think it's another thing entirely to buy book after book after book after book. I think people that do that tend to hope that one of the books will eventually tell them exactly what they want to hear [i.e. "it's not you, it's everyone else"], not what they need to hear.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
12/04/08

@Piranha426: Hey, I think we dated the same guy!
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Mama Penguino
12/04/08

@Ulookinatmyjunk!?!: And he's my cousin: a 40-yr-old recovering alcoholic (not that there's anything wrong with that) with commitment issues.
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ceejeemcbeegee is not here
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
At my principal's first faculty meeting, she passed out copies of "Who Moved My Cheese" and announced that it was a "must-read" for the discussion at the next faculty meeting and she wanted "100% participation". Throughout her career, she referred to us as "Hem" or "Haw" when she wanted to point out she didn't like our behavior, but didn't have the balls to be direct.

Yeah, we hated her.
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stacyinbean
12/04/08

@ceejeemcbeegee: Passive-aggressive much?! Yikes.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
12/04/08

@ceejeemcbeegee: Yea, I read that book because I read somewhere that Serena Williams swore by it. After I read it, I realized that a bad-ass backhand does not a literary connoisseur make.
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Mama Penguino
12/04/08

@ceejeemcbeegee: Reminds me of the New Yorker cartoon that shows a guy standing in his living room saying, "Who moved Who Moved My Cheese?"
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pinkiedeathhead
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
I just have to ask, what the hell has Jessica Simpson done to some of you? Regardless of whether or not she is a Rhodes scholar, I don't know her, she may be, why all the hate and insults? Has she killed puppies or something?
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Mama Penguino
12/04/08

@pinkiedeathhead: You didn't hear about her going into a zoo in Poughkeepsie and slaughtering all the monkeys?
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hellosunshine
12/04/08

@pinkiedeathhead: She used to diss our high school on a semi-regular basis, which was pretty annoying. Other than that, meh. I liked her yummy beauty line.
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Mama Penguino
12/04/08

@hellodarling!: Would you believe my 9 yr old niece talked me into buying that for her in Sephora? Nothing like seeing a little girl lick that shit off her arm to kill the sexiness!
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Cerridwen
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
I recently tried reading Eckhardt Tolle's "The Power of Now" on my mother's repeated recommendations....and I could not get through it. The funny thing is, I am a Buddhist. But for some reason, his version sounded so New-Agey-spiritual-bullshitty that I could not handle it. I think he garbled some major points from Buddhist philosophy and I am not a fan of his vaguely essentialist musings about women's "collective pain body." Also, I think I am allergic to anything Oprah-approved.
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CrossWord
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
Blerg. Two years ago, my dad got me a dating book for Christmas. Humiliating. I don't know what he was thinking. The advice was basically that you can't make men love you, so when one does, marry him right away.
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rollergirl76
12/04/08

@CrossWord: Which one was it?
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CrossWord
12/04/08

@rollergirl76: The List: 7 Ways to Tell If He's Going to Marry You--in 30 Days or Less!

[www.amazon.com]

God. It's so frickin awful.
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Mama Penguino
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
I loved Necessary Losses by Judith Viorst.
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oliveA
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
I've found the most life-changing books in the "new age" section. After a series of mediocre self-help books, I stumbled upon Brian Weiss's "Many Lives, Many Masters." It's about reincarnation and what we are really put on this earth to accomplish. I've been a much more peaceful person ever since.
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J.D.Regent
12/04/08

@oliveA: I just read that last year! Given to me by like 4 different friends. Did you know it is also an influential book in Jennifer Aniston's life? True story.
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stacyinbean
12/04/08

@oliveA: holy crap, his books are INSANE. I mean that in a good way. I read "Only Love is Real" and literally had to re-read almost every sentence because it seemed too incredible.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
There's a song by Ben Harper called "Drugs Don't Work" and the lyrics go something like: "Now, the drugs don't work they just make you worse". That's how I feel about self-help books right now. They can be a short-term panacea but then I wind up feeling crappy again and and bit more sad that I'm incapable of adopting the principles espoused in the books. I feel this way, because the books make it seem so simple: Like: purchase, read and then instant enlightenment!!!
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SleeplessNights
12/04/08

@Ulookinatmyjunk!?!: That's by the Verve, and I believe it's about drugs like weed and Ecstasy; recreational, unprescribed drugs.
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Ulookinatmyjunk, JOC
12/04/08

@athenaswisdom: @SleeplessNights: Oh. Ben does a version at live concerts and put it on his live album...so...I thought it was his. I don't listen to the Verve.

Anyway, maybe it was a bad analogy/comparison, because I really wasn't trying to discuss drugs or songs anyway. I was using drugs as a stand-in for the fact that like drugs, these books have a temporary effect that doesn't always hit at the marrow of the bone. And honestly, as weird as it sounds, I don't find comfort in knowing and relating to other people's pain. It just makes me feel as though I have company on the Titanic. I want to know how to get off of the freaking boat. And I have yet to find a book that gave me a remedy that I could really use
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elizabells
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
My favoritest thing EVAR is when people give you self-help books in a passive-aggressive fashion. I had a guy I was breaking up with give me some bullshit Christian women's book called "Boundaries" about how I should really be more giving, because that's what Jesus wants from the ladies. A friend who's in a new relationship gave me her copy of "Meet Mr Right, Right Now!" in FRONT of a bunch of people. Now she wants to know why I'm not interested in listening to her agonize over how she's sabotaging her relationship.
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TheGintheCity
12/04/08

@elizabells: RE: Boundaries. Did you light it on fire in front of his face?
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elizabells
12/04/08

@TheGintheCity:

Sadly, no, although I did physically eject him from my apartment.
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Mama Penguino
12/04/08

@elizabells: There's got to be a comparable self-help book for you to give her now. Something like Self-Sabotage: Quell Your Inner Beastie Boy.
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morninggloria
12/04/08

In reply to Self-Help Books Are Not Just For Desperate Twits
Anyone remember that episode of The Simpsons where Bart gets hepped up on a superconcentrated Squishie from the Kwick E Mart and joins a Boy Scouts like organization? And he gets to have a knife, and the knife comes with a guidebook featuring a character named "Donny Don't," and on the first page it says "Don't Do What Donny Don't Does" and the rest of the book is filled with images of Donny Don't being extremely irresponsible with a knife?

That episode rocks, and someone should put together a Donny Don't style book for Jessica. Donny Don't date John Mayer! Donny Don't try to be a country singer! Donny Don't design a line of handbags! Donny Don't appear in Major Movie Star!

etc.
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TheFormerJuneBronson
12/04/08

@morninggloria: I loved that episode.
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ChildBride
12/04/08

@TheFormerJuneBronson: I do too! I especially love when Bart slowly reads the (tongue twising) "Don't Do What Donny Don't Does", blinks, and says, "Honestly, they could have made this clearer."
Isn't the book also called "The 1 DO and 15,968 DON'Ts of Knives"?
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TheFormerJuneBronson
12/04/08

@ChildBride: Yes! Some of the best humor ever on that show. Is that one a Swartzwelder? I always like his.
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