Hooked

“I never thought I’d be seeing a therapist. And certainly not for this! After all, it isn’t a problem. It’s what everyone does. Everyone my age, anyway. But here I am,” Samantha says, looking at me expectantly, brushing her straight blonde hair away from her face.  

She’s been speaking at me rapidly for several minutes although I still have no idea to what she’s referring. I look back at her and wait.

She sighs deeply. “This is harder than I thought. I guess it kind of feels like talking to my Nana. Don’t get me wrong, I love my Nana but …”

I smile inwardly. “But you wouldn’t want your Nana to know about whatever this is. ‘

“Exactly,” she says brightly.

“Well, I’m not your Nana, but it would be helpful if I knew what’s troubling you or, if it’s easier, you can tell me a little about yourself.” 

“I’m 20, a sophomore in college, actually born in Florida, from Daytona. I have two younger brothers. My parents are divorced. My Mom’s a nurse, my Dad owns a car dealership. I told them I wanted to go into therapy because school has me stressed. Which is kind of true.” Pause. “That’s about it. So I guess I better tell you.” She takes a deep breath. “I assume you know about hooking up, where you just go on your phone and make a date to meet for sex, no strings attached?”

“Certainly,” I say nodding.

“Well, I do it quite a bit. Started in high school, much more in college.  Like I said, no big deal, just lots of fun. Sometimes great sex, sometimes just so-so, but it’s a fantastic way to get lots of experience without having to worry about it getting messy.”

I now feel like Samantha’s Nana. It’s hard for me to imagine the pleasure involved in totally anonymous sex. But I hope to keep my judgment to myself. “So what about hooking up is becoming a problem for you?”

“I can’t not do it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, used to be I’d only do it on the weekend, sometimes with four or more guys, but still only Saturday and Sunday. Then it was also Friday night. And then maybe a couple of other nights during the week. But now I can’t not do it! I can’t sleep if I haven’t hooked up with at least one guy, sometimes more. Sometimes I try. I pace the floor, I drink some wine, I take a Xanax. Nothing works. Sometimes I end up hooking up at 3, 4 in the morning. I’m driven. And I know, it’s like being an addict and no kind of addict is good. My Dad’s an alcoholic and my Mom used to be addicted to pills. She’s clean now. But I know. It’s not good. Right?”

“No, Samantha, it’s not good.” Corroborating Samantha’s assessment doesn’t feel judgmental, but rather supportive of the stronger, less impulsive part of her. “But tell me what hooking up does for you? What about it makes you feel relaxed when nothing else works?”

“Like you said, it relaxes me. I guess part of it is just the physical release. Although I know that can’t be all of it, because it doesn’t work if I … uh … if I do it myself.” Pause. “I guess it fills me up, makes me feel less alone. And I like being wanted. Like the guy can’t have enough of me. Or the guys. They just all want me. It’s a high. Just talking about it makes me want to run out and do it.”

“And if you don’t. If you sit with your feelings right now?”

“I guess I feel blah. Yeah, blah. I feel ordinary, like a nobody, kind of lonely, like no one wants me. Yuk! I don’t like it. I don’t want to feel like that.”

“Can I ask you, Samantha, are the feelings you just described familiar? Did you feel them when you were a child?”

“For sure! First there were the two younger kids, boys at that. Then there was the booze and the pills and the screaming and the divorce and more screaming. I thought they might fight about who had to take us, but I guess that was the one non-issue. My Mom got us, no questions asked. Except they kept screaming because my Mom wanted more money, my Dad said no way. I don’t have much of a relationship with my Dad. He has lots of women. We kind of get in his way.”

There are so many interpretations to be made here, all related to Samantha’s feeling unimportant and insignificant, whether in relation to her brothers, her father, her father’s women or her parent’s involvement with their own lives and addictions. But there’s no rush. If she can tolerate her feelings, I suspect Samantha will be in treatment for some time.    

Why Can’t I Leave?

“I’m such a mess,” Janette says. “And a coward. I hate myself. He does it again and again and I do nothing. I couldn’t believe it when I asked him last week where our tax returns were and he said he asked our accountant for an extension. My stomach dropped through the floor. He tried playing innocent, like he just didn’t have the time to get all the paperwork together and our tax guy was swamped anyway, etc., etc. But I knew better. I was so mad I started hitting him with my fists. He kept trying to worm out of it, but he knew I knew.

“So then he got all apologetic. Sorry! As if that could fix everything! I’m so mad. He goes to his Gamblers Anonymous meetings, he has a sponsor – supposedly anyway – but he keeps betting on those damn games and losing more and more of our money. It’s our money I remind him, but I’m just talking to myself. I know, he’s an addict, but that’s not an explanation. Besides, it doesn’t matter anymore why he does what he does, the problem is that I stay.”

I remain silent. Janette and I have been here many times and she indeed knows the problem.

She sighs. “I know, I’m reliving my childhood, my father an alcoholic, my mother a gambler. You would have thought I’d know better, but here I am, stuck in it all over again. I do hate myself. I’m furious at Joe, but I despise myself for my inability to get out. I know, I should feel more compassion for myself – that’s what you always say – but how can I feel compassionate when I’m so stupid.”

I feel Janette’s frustration, as well as my own, not so much at her inability to leave her husband, but at her unmerciless attacks on herself. “I doubt it’s that you’re stupid, Janette, but rather that you can’t give up hope. When you started this session you said you couldn’t believe it when you realized Joe had been gambling again. I think you couldn’t believe it because you keep hoping Joe will change, just as you hoped that your mother would change and your father would change.”

“Well,” Janette, asks defiantly, “Isn’t that proof that I’m stupid. If you keep hitting your head on the same brick wall, hoping that it will stop hurting, you must be stupid.”  

Janette’s response intrigues me. “That’s an interesting response, you didn’t say hoping the wall would break, you said hoping it would stop hurting.”

“So, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m not sure, but can you talk about your anger at me?”

“I’m just mad. Mad at me. Mad at Joe. Mad at you. We’ve been going round and round on this for a long time, and I’m still here.”

I wonder whether the “here” means with me or with Joe, but I ask, “How does it feel to feel mad at me?”

“Pointless. Just as it feels with Joe. You’re not going to change.”

“How would you like me to change?”

“Tell me how to get out of this damn marriage.”

The response that goes through my head – hire an attorney, file for divorce and don’t go back – shows me I’m more annoyed than I realize. “And if I can’t tell you how to get out of your damn marriage, what do you feel?”

“Angry.”

“I believe that you’re angry, but I wonder if you also feel scared and powerless?”

“I’m scared that he’s going to go through all our money. But I’m not powerless. All I have to do is be brave enough to leave.”   

“What about when you were a child, Janette, when your father was drinking and your mother had gambled away your school lunch money?”

Her eyes fill with tears. “Why’d you have to bring that up?” She pauses. “Yeah, I was powerless then and I hated it. But if I started “sniveling” – that’s what my father called it – he’d just start screaming at me for being such a baby.”

“So that’s what you’re doing, Janette, you’re screaming at yourself just like your father screamed at you. And you keep hoping, not only that Joe and your parents will change, but that you can endure their repeated disappointments without feeling any pain. It’s an impossible task. But if you can acknowledge your own powerlessness and mourn both the husband and the parents you never had, you’ll be more able to make the break.”

“Doesn’t sound easy.”

“No, it’s not. Definitely not easy.”