Amanda McNeil writes:

 

Dear “jake” I was extremely distraught/hurt/heartbroken/enraged to see I was not mentioned in your inaugural column. ESPECIALLY WHEN MENTAL ILLNESS WAS PART OF THE HOLY TRINITY. my first question to you is what the fuck is your problem?!!!!????!!!! How can one earn a coveted mention in this fucking advice column? Wtf do I have to do?? PLZ ADVISE. amanda mcneil ps also i feel like my sister takes me for granted. wwjd? pps oh and i have this pain in my side when i bend over. can u fix that too? Thx

Amanda, 

 

Thank you for your letter and the direct messages to me that followed asking if I’d received the letter, then the second letter which was just a forward of the original one, then some more messages, followed by the letter we agreed to not speak about publicly because honestly there’s no way either of us come out of that exchange looking good. While all of the other people who wrote in asking for advice were courteous and tried not to impose themselves by only asking for an answer to one question, you chose a “different path”. So now, in accordance with the Last Estate Coalition of Advice Columnist’s newest guidelines for dealing with mentally ill people, I have to respond. 

 

While I can understand that you feel distraught/hurt/heartbroken and enraged, I can’t begin to imagine that any of those feelings are new for you. You’ve expressed them often over many things since childhood and yet not really taken any action to change the root cause of those feelings: your own need for validation by other people. I will not allow myself to be emotionally and mentally punished by you because you fail to control how you feel. You walk in here waving your tantrums like a cudgel, expecting everyone to flinch away and get in line with what you want, but it’s not going to happen, not on Blackwood Time, baby. So what the fuck is my problem? I’m the one giving advice here, I have no problems. That’s why I qualified to do this shit. You think they just let anyone start telling other people how to live their lives? If that were the case imagine the fucking chaos. Ridiculous notion. 

 

Now as to what you need to do to earn a mention in this advice column, let me refer you to the response I gave when you first sent in this question: ‘send them titties.’, Another failure to uphold your end of social contracts. See, Amanda, there’s a thing called etiquette and it dictates that people expose themselves to me before I will help them with things. That’s how I have this box of VHS tapes of everyone at The Last Estate (except for Stuart Buck who is my enemy and I will not ever help but still keeps trying to expose himself to me anyway) and why Eris is one of my oldest friends.  Am I going to do anything with the tapes? Have I already? Oh I dunno, no one ever actually watches Jake Blackwood’s movies. No one sees the bodies. You can keep secrets best when you say them out loud and people ignore them. It’s confessio per insulsitatem as the ancients said. So you want to be noticed? You want people to say “Oh there’s Amanda’s head; I knew her”. Well,you have come to the right fucking place. You’re mentioned now. You’re on the list. It’s never going away. You are going to be validated. 

 

I think the most important thing is to spend some time asking yourself if you actually believe your sister takes you for granted or if you just feel that way. We often forget that there can be a difference between what we feel and what we believe. If it’s just something that you feel, we’re back to Amanda needing to take ownership over herself and practicing the idea that you are not simply a collection of feelings. Lie to yourself and make yourself act differently than you feel. Your feelings are irrelevant, only the results of your actions matter. Make good actions and you will have good results. Do not chase feelings. Chase results. 

 

If you determine that your sister actually does take you for granted then you still have ultimate control over the situation. You can make a choice to continue to be a part of your sister’s life in the way that you are, lacking her acknowledgement or appreciation, and come away from it knowing that you are the better person: a person who is giving of themself to improve the life of someone else at their own expense.(this is why I do this column) You can look at her and know that deep down she’s just a fucking taker. She takes and takes and doesn’t actually give a fuck about you or the fact that you are related. You can choose to recognize that all you get in life is a series of complex interwoven choices that just cascade through time in all directions and that in this moment your sister is a cancer that is eating away at what little worth you feel and for once stand up for yourself, cutting the ungrateful bitch out of your life forever. It’s up to you to decide; either way, own it. 

 

Lastly – the pain in your side when you bend over is likely something I could help with. Send me video/pics of you bending over and I’ll see what I can do. 

 

Warmly, 

Jake Blackwood

If you need advice, life coaching, financial suggestions, or anything where basically you need a person smarter and better than you to talk to just email me at jake@last.estate.