Unrelenting Grief

“I just can’t get over this,” Scott says his head buried in his hands, a tall, dark-haired man who looks like he’s in his mid-thirties. “He was 98 years old. Did I expect him to live forever? I loved him so much. And he was always, always there for me. When he and my Grandma decided they couldn’t handle the Kansas farm anymore they moved right next door to us. Actually giving up the farm was pretty hard for me too. I guess I’ve always been a softie. My Dad made fun of me, called me a wuss, a ‘girl,’ too sensitive for my own good. He was always trying to toughen me up. But I loved that farm. It was my safe space. I spent summers there, got to be rid of my Dad and just be loved by my Gram and Gramps. I’m sorry, I’m just rambling all over the place”

“Not at all,” I say. “I can feel how much you’re grieving.” I am near tears myself, remembering the pain of losing first my grandmother and then, three years later, my grandfather. Remembering too, although my grandparents lived not on a farm but in a three room apartment in the Bronx, I knew what it was to have and lose a safe space. “You’re talking about loss. Most people have a terrible time with loss. Doesn’t mean you’re a wuss. Loss of the farm, loss of the days of feeling safe and protected, now the loss of your Grandpa. Is your Grandma still with you?”

“Yes, she’s only 90,” he says with a slight smile. “In my family that’s almost young. But the last month has been really hard on her,” he says sobbing. “I guess it’s been really hard on all of us, taking turns sitting by his bedside, holding his hand, first all those machines and tubes and God knows what else. Then, nothing. I don’t know which was worse, hoping for a miracle, or letting go of hope,” he says breaking down in gut-wrenching sobs. 

Several minutes pass.

“I can’t go on like this. It’s over a month. I have a wife, a precious daughter, a job. I can’t just keep crying.”

“A month isn’t a long time, but I understand you’re saying you’re feeling his death too intensely, like it’s entirely consuming you.”

“Exactly! And I keep asking the same thing my father did, ‘What’s wrong with me?’”   

“I suspect there’s nothing wrong with you, but perhaps we can try to understand the intensity of your feelings. Whose Dad was he, your mother or father’s?”

“My mother’s. I never really knew my father’s parents. They were very old and lived across the country so we almost never saw them. I don’t think I even went to their funerals – my Mom probably wouldn’t have wanted me to.”

“Because?”

“She was over protective like that, wouldn’t have wanted me to get too close to death.” Pause. “I had an older brother who died before I was born. I’m not sure my mother ever got over that loss. And she spent a lot of time making sure I wasn’t going to die like he did.”

“How did he die?”

“I guess he was a real dare-devil kid from the moment he was born. Putting things into electrical sockets when he was like two, riding his bike in traffic, climbing taller and taller trees. That’s how he died, fell out of a tree. My Mom was going to have none of that with me.” 

“Are you saying your Dad pushed you to be more like your brother and your Mom pushed you to be anything but?”

“I never thought about it that way, but that’s exactly right.”

“And your grandparents?”

“I was fine however I was.”

“Wow, that’s quite a contrast. Your grandparents loved and accepted you for just being you. You didn’t have to do or not do anything. That’s an amazing gift. No wonder your grief is so profound.”

Scott weeps. After a while he says, “But I have to stop crying. Why can’t I stop crying?”

“Because you’ve lost one of the two people who were most able to love you.”

Scott shakes his head. “I think there’s more.”

“I’m sure there is. None of our behavior is so simply explained. Do you have any thoughts?”

“I think I’m afraid. I’m afraid of my father. I’ve always been afraid of my father. My Grandpa kept me safe from my father. Now that he’s gone I don’t know if I’ll be safe. I don’t know if I can keep myself safe. And my Grandma’s too depleted. Anyway she wasn’t the one who kept me safe from my father. It was Gramps, Gramps,” Scott says sobbing. “I’m such a baby. I’m a 36 year old man, how can I be so afraid of my father?”

“I guess that is the question, Scott. What went on between you and your father when you were little that made you so afraid of him? We already know that he was very critical of what he saw as your ‘weakness.’ But perhaps there was more. Our time is up for today, but perhaps we can continue with this next time.” 

Lying

He sits fidgeting in the chair, alternately looking down at his hands and staring at me. I don’t usually treat 17 year old boys, but his mother was frantic when she called, convinced that her oldest son David was going to commit suicide. 

After several minutes of silence I say, “Your mother was very worried about you. Have you been thinking of killing yourself?”

He wrings his hands, continuing to move jerkily in the chair. “It’s a lie,” he says, almost in a whisper. 

“What’s a lie?”

He swallows. Tears brim in his eyes. “I don’t want to kill myself. I just made that up.” Pause. “Like always.” Pause. “I always lie. I don’t know if I can tell the truth. You know, like that guy Santos, the Congressman,” his words now coming out in a rush. “I wasn’t sure I could tell you the truth. I’m still not sure, but I’m going to try. I have to try. I don’t want to be the laughing stock of the country when I grow up. I don’t want to be the laughing stock of the school right now!”

I flash on a childhood friend when we were both in the third grade. She told the class she had three siblings, although she only had one. Since we lived in the same building the teacher asked me if it was true. I didn’t want to get my friend into trouble so I said I didn’t know. I felt compassion for my friend. I’d seen her mother scream at her and beat her with a belt. I feel a similar compassion for this young man who sits across from me. I’ve known compulsive liars, people who wanted to gain an advantage over others or who enjoyed the power of putting one over on someone. But my guess so far is that isn’t David. 

“Have you always lied?” I ask David gently.

“It’s been worse since high school. But… but I guess I always lied at home. I lied to protect my Mom, to make her feel better. I’d tell her about my friends in school, about how well I did playing soccer. Those were all lies.” Pause. “I know I didn’t make her feel better by telling her I wanted to kill myself. I guess I do sometimes think I would be better off not being here, but I know I said it like I was going to do it any minute now.”

“Why did you want to give her that impression, David?”

“I guess I felt desperate, like I have to talk to someone, to someone I can tell the truth.”

“And what is the truth?”

“I’m a bad person. I hate so many people. I hate my Dad, my younger sister, the jocks in school. Sometimes I even hate my Mom and that makes me really bad.”

“Because?”

“Because she tries so hard. And I know how much she loves me.”

“She tries so hard to…?”

“To make everyone happy. To get along with my Dad. To keep him from yelling at me. But she can’t. And in the end she’ll say, ‘Well you know your Dad just wants what’s best for you’ or ‘You know your Dad’s under a lot of pressure.’”

“So in the end you feel she sides with him.”

He nods his head. 

“And that feels pretty awful.”

“Yes. But I shouldn’t hate her for that. She’s just trying to do what’s best, what’s best for everyone.”

“But maybe doing what’s best for everyone isn’t what’s best for you.”

“I guess.”

“What would you like her to do?” 

“To tell my Dad to fucking lay off!! Oh, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I apologize. I…”

“You don’t have to apologize, David. Here you get to say anything and everything you want.” Pause. “Has your Dad always picked on you, David?”

He nods. “He’s a college football coach. As you can see I’m not exactly made in his image. I’m this little, puny, ugly kid who’s sucked at sports all my life. He’s the life of the party. I’d rather go read a book. He can’t stand looking at me. So I make things up. I make myself more than I am.”

“I’m so sorry, David, sorry that your Dad can’t appreciate you for the caring, sensitive person you are.”

“Sensitive is the last thing my father wants me to be. He constantly accuses me of being too sensitive. And if I’m so caring, how come I just scared my Mom?”

“My guess is that you lie as a way of expressing your anger, as a way of fighting back and not being the puny, too-sensitive kid.”  

“I’m not sure I get that.”

“That’s fine, David. It’s kind of a heavy statement to throw at you just as we’re ending this session. We can pick up from here next time.”

“So you will work with me?”

“Definitely. It would be my pleasure.”

Compassion

“You don’t understand!” Morgan screams at me through clenched teeth, hitting the sides of her head with her fists. “I hate myself! I hate myself! I’m stupid and ugly and awful. Bad! Bad! Bad!”

“Stop it, Morgan,” I say raising my voice. “You know you’re not allowed to hurt yourself in my office. Stop and try to calm down.”

Morgan brings her fists in front of her eyes and bursts into tears. I silently breathe a sigh of relief. She continues to sob.

“I’m here, Morgan,” I say gently.

She nods, still crying. 

“She’s such a bitch,” Morgan manages to say through her tears. “But why am I such a mess? I should know it by now. She’s the golden child. Everything good comes to her. And me? I’m just bad and deserve everything I get.”

“Morgan, is there even a little part of you that knows that’s not true, that knows you were a small, helpless child who deserved to be cherished, not beaten?”

“Nope! You just said it. I was small and helpless, by definition that made me bad.”

“But all children are small and helpless, Morgan.”

“But not all children are illegitimate.”

“That was hardly your doing.”

“Tell that to my mother. I was born, ergo it’s my fault. And then Prince Charming comes into the picture and the golden child is born and I’m even more worthless than before. And now not only does Mom get to beat up on me, but my sister does too. You should have heard her gloating. Gloating! I mean I get it. She’s happy she’s pregnant. I should be happy for her. But gloating. Like it was a contest. I can’t even get a relationship and she and Rob are going to be the ‘happiest people in the world. You’ll know what I mean when it happens to you.’ Gag! I thought I’d throw up. But that’s because I’m bad. Because I can’t love my sister, because I can’t be happy for her.”

“It’s very hard to be happy for someone who smiled sweetly after she got you in trouble and watched you be beaten.”

“But I deserved it! I did pull her hair, or steal her doll, or punch her. I hated her! I still do. And that makes me really, really bad.”

“Does it?”

“Doesn’t it? Aren’t you supposed to love your sister? Aren’t you supposed to turn the other cheek?”

“Your rage at your mother had to go somewhere.”

“See, that’s exactly what I mean. I was a rageful brat. And if I couldn’t rage at my mother, I turned it on my sister. Charming!” 

I sigh. “I always feel as though I’m arguing with you, Morgan, always trying to convince you that you need to have compassion for yourself…”

Morgan interrupts me, snorting her disdain. I continue talking.

“…that you need to have compassion for yourself as the scared, helpless child you were and understanding for yourself as the angry adult who keeps turning that anger on yourself.”

“Compassion doesn’t exist is my vocabulary, let alone in my experience.”

“If you read about a child who was beaten with a belt, who was locked in a closet, who was repeatedly sent to bed without food, wouldn’t you feel compassion for that child?”

“Maybe. But for me, for me I feel only hatred. I was bad. My mother was trying to beat the badness out of me. If my mother was bad she would have beaten my sister too. But it was only me, only me who needed to be beaten.”

“I do understand, Morgan, that you have to hold on to the belief that you were the bad one because as long as you’re the bad one you still have hope you can be different and win your mother’s love. But if she can never love you – perhaps because of the circumstances of your birth, perhaps because you reminded her too much of her – then the hope of her loving you is gone and you’re left in mourning, without the only mother you ever had. And that’s sad, Morgan. Very sad. And you need to find compassion for yourself.”

“There’s that word again. You don’t get it. There’s no word like that for me. It’s as though you were speaking Chinese.”

“I do understand that compassion feels entirely foreign to you. But you need to find your compassion for yourself, perhaps by first taking in my compassion for you. Your life has been terribly painful and unfair and you need to be able to feel sad for you.”

Diminished

“I hope you had a better New Year than me,” Jeff says with a bitter edge as he settles into the chair across from me.

“I thought you were really looking forward to spending New Year’s with Eileen.”

“Yeah, me too. She broke up with me.”

“Oh, I’m sorry. You thought this relationship had real potential.”

“Them’s the breaks. I don’t seem to be able to find anyone since my divorce. Sometimes I wonder if I should have stayed with my ex, but I know we were both totally miserable.”

Forty-two year old Jeff is a good looking man with blonde curly hair, a dimple in his chin and intense blue eyes. He has, however, had little success in establishing a new relationship.

“Did Eileen say why she broke up with you?”

“Something about my being too sarcastic or too needy or some stuff like that.”

Silence.

“I guess you want to know what I think about what she said to me.”

“Jeff, your tone is pretty biting today. Are you angry with me?”

“I guess.”

Silence.

“I’ve been reading your blogs. And I was wondering why you never write about me. What makes the patients you write about more interesting than me?”

“Before I address that question directly, I’d like to look at the feelings that were brought up for you.”

“Makes me feel like I’m not as good as your other patients, not as important, not as interesting.”

“Sounds pretty much how you felt in relation to your two older brothers.”

“That’s for sure,” he says, smirking. “I was the pretty one, but not a girl. And my brothers had the smarts and the artistic talent which was way more important than looks in my family.”

“So you feel less than.”

“Yup! Guess you could say that.”

“And the fact that you’ve built a thriving accounting firm doesn’t undue the messages of ‘less than’ that you took in as a child.”

“Right again!” Pause. “I’m just a numbers man, not an intellectual, not an artist.”

“And the worse you feel about yourself, the angrier you are at the other – me, Eileen, whoever – for, in your eyes, not being valued.”

“So you’re saying Eileen was right about me. That’s great, real support, and from my therapist no less!”

“I don’t know if Eileen was right about you or not. What I do know is that when you feel diminished, less than, you’re so hurt by those feelings that you lash out and that doesn’t serve you well.”

“So why haven’t you written about me?”

Although Jeff’s demandingness makes me want to withhold from him, I feel it is more important to respond to his question and then deal with his reaction to what I have to say. “I don’t know, Jeff, how many of my blogs you read, but every so often I explain that the ‘patients’ in my blogs are fictionalized. I’m real – as real as I can imagine myself to be in a made up situation with a fictionalized patient. Otherwise I’d be concerned about patient confidentiality.”

“You’re kidding me?! Now I feel like a real ass. Competing with imaginary people! You must have been laughing your head off at me.”

“Not at all. This has been a very important session. We could see right in front of us how hurt you feel when you feel devalued and how quick you are to attack the person you experience as diminishing you. It clearly comes from how you felt as a child, but we need to work on helping you not to automatically assume that you are being devalued and, even if you are, not to bring to the current situation all the rage you felt as a child.”

“You know, I don’t even remember being enraged as a child.”

“Well, you might not have been allowed to show it.”

“That’s for sure. No one did anger in my family. We talked about issues like ‘civilized’ people. Anger was off the table.”

“So you’re probably sitting on years and years of anger.”

“You mean like when my mother would make me draw and draw and draw, despite the fact that I had no talent and that she would sit there criticizing everything I produced?”

“Yes, like that. I’m sure that made you plenty angry.”

“Holy shit! You know what I just realized. If the patients in your blogs are fictionalized, that means you’re one of those creative people. Does that make me feel less than? Yes, it does. But for whatever reason, right now that actually makes me feel more sad than angry. I guess I feel sad for the kid whose talents weren’t recognized and only found lacking for what he wasn’t.”

“That’s great, Jeff. I’m really glad you’re able to feel compassion for yourself as that child. That awareness will serve you well.”

The Consultation

Rebecca Whitman rises from the waiting room chair extending her hand to greet me. She is dressed in a pale lavender suit and matching high heeled shoes which are surprisingly flattering with her flowing dyed red hair. I wonder at her age. Mid-forties? Hard to know how much plastic surgery she’s had.

“This is a consultation, right?” she begins immediately . “I’ve had lots of them. You get to decide if you want to work with me and – never to be forgotten - I get to decide if I want to work with you. So what do you want to know?”

Feeling as though she has just thrown out her opening salvo, I say, “That’s quite a beginning.”

She sighs. “I believe in getting to the point. Why waste time. It is my money after all.”

“Do you want to be here, Ms. Whitman?” I ask, noticing that I have automatically called her by her last name.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, we’ve never met before and yet it feels to me that you’re already angry with me. That doesn’t make much sense unless you’re angry at being here.”

“I’m always angry. I’m angry at being here. I’m angry that I have to pay you to listen to me. I’m angry that I’ve seen I don’t know how many therapists. I’m angry they’ve either thrown me out or been completely incompetent or both. I’m angry that even though I’m one of the best real estate agents in the area, I eventually get shown the door. No biggie, I’m good enough I always find another agency. I’m angry that I’ve had three failed marriages and heaven knows how many other relationships that failed. Any questions?”

I feel torn. A part of me wants to join all the others who have gone before me and stop this consultation immediately.  But another part, perhaps the grandiose part, wants to give it a shot. I do know if I’m going to try, I want to do something other than taking her anger on directly.

“What would you be feeling if you weren’t feeling all that anger?” I ask.

She laughs. “I’ve heard that one many times before. You think a simple question is going to have me dissolve into tears. You’re going to have to do better than that.”

So much for not taking her anger on directly. “Do you like being angry? Do you like losing jobs and relationships and therapists? And why are you here? What do you want to accomplish?”

“Better,” she says.

I feel myself getting angry at her constant evaluation of me. I keep silent.  

The silence persists.

“I guess you want me to answer your questions.” Pause. “Ok, Ok, I’ll answer the questions. Sometimes I like being angry and sometimes I don’t. And, no, of course I don’t like losing job or relationships.” Pause. “I’m not sure why I’m here. I guess I’m hoping someone doesn’t throw me out.”

Her last statement sounds so sad that I find myself fighting back tears.

“Someone I can have respect for, that is,” she adds with her typical bravado.

My sadness shuts down immediately. Rebecca Whitman has told me a lot about her defensive need for anger.

“If I ask you who was the most significant person in your life who threw you out, who would you say?”

She shrugs, “My mother.”

“Ok, Rebecca, so I do think you’re afraid if you let down your anger you’d be left with lots and lots of tears, tears of loss, abandonment, worthlessness and, of course, rage.”

“Think you’re smart, huh?”

“Rebecca this isn’t a contest. I’m not here to beat you in a competition. I’m on your side. And I know you can’t simply put away your defensive angry. It’s been a part of you for a long time. But hopefully if you come to trust me, you can let it down little by little and together we can deal with the pain underneath.”

“Ok smarty-pants, guess why my mother threw me out.”

“There’s no way I could guess that, but I’d appreciate your telling me.”

“Because I told her my step-father – step-father number three, by the way – was doing it to me.”

“Oh, Rebecca, I’m so sorry.”

“Yeah? Yeah? What the fuck good is your pity going to do for me? I was eleven years old. Eleven years old for God’s sake!”

“That’s more than reason enough to be angry. But you must also feel sorry for you as that eleven year old child.”

“I don’t believe in a pity party!”

“Compassion for a child is not a pity party.”

“So are you going to work with me?”

“Yes, Rebecca, I’m going to work with you. I’m not going to throw you out.”

“Ok,” Rebecca says as she sprints towards the door.

Absence

In the five years that I have been treating Patricia she has come a long way. Although professionally accomplished and successful, outside of work she had been withdrawn, isolated, and friendless. As she came to rely more on my consistency and trustworthiness, she was able to venture out of her cocoon, making friends and, recently, to begin living with Derrick, a man who seems both sensitive and loving. Still, there is a limit to her capacity for closeness. I experience it in the consulting room; Derrick complains about it at home; and she herself continues to be aware of her tendency to draw back. My understanding of Patricia’s reticence is that she both seeks to protect herself from further hurt, as well as trying to prevent unleashing the hungry, insatiable child within her.  

“I’ve been having a hard time lately,” Patricia says. “I know how fortunate I am. Derrick is such a kind man. And I love him. But, I don’t know, sometimes I just feel smothered. I feel I want to run away. I know you say it’s because I’m afraid of being too needy. And maybe that’s true because I’m also feeling those old feelings of emptiness, of being apart, of loneliness. I want to reach out to Derrick and sometimes I even do, but it doesn’t matter, the feelings don’t go away. I feel weary. I’m so tired of dealing with all this. It feels as though it never ends.”

“When did these feelings resurface, Patricia?”

“They’re always there at kind of a low level, but I guess maybe it was while Derrick was away on business.”

“And his being away came right after I had been away on vacation, right?”

“Yes, I thought of that. But I really don’t know if that matters or not. The feelings are the same I’ve always had. The ones I had as a child when I was afraid all the time, when I didn’t want to go to summer camp, when my parents argued, when they yelled at me for hiding out in my room or reading too much or never bringing friends home. There was never quiet. I wanted to hold myself very still so that nothing bad would happen.”

I have heard Patricia make similar statements over the years. Today as she speaks, however, I feel bereft. It is as though I have become her as that scared, isolated child. Then suddenly, totally unbidden, I think of being in my grandparent’s apartment, sitting with them at the kitchen table and my spirits lift. My grandparents and their apartment had always been a place of love, warmth, and safety for me. And suddenly I have a new insight.

“Patricia, it just occurred to me that there was no one in your early life who offered you a feeling of being cherished, of being safe and secure and loved. Not your parents, no grandparent, no aunt or uncle, no one,” I say, again feeling sad as I put into words this absence in Patricia’s life.

“That’s true,” she agrees.

“So perhaps that’s what your feelings of emptiness and loneliness are about. You don’t carry within you images of warm, caring people who help you to feel loved and not alone.”

Patricia starts to cry. “That’s true. There’s no one kind up there. No one at all. That makes me sad for me.”

I nod. “I’m glad you can feel sad for you.”

“But what do I do with that?” she asks. “How does it help?”

“Well, first it gives you greater understanding of your feelings so that they’re not as so overwhelming. And obviously it enables you to have compassion for yourself which is always a good thing. And from that place of greater understanding and compassion, it will hopefully be easier for you to take in warm, caring, loving people in the present – Derrick, me, your friends – so that you will have kind people to take with you in your mind.”

“But it can’t make up for what I didn’t get in the past.”

“No, it can’t. All we can do about what we didn’t get in the past is to mourn the absence and try to fill ourselves up with the people who can give to us in the present.”