Risk Averse

 “I was talking to my friend Cindy last night,” Jenny begins. “She said she came across this quote from Eleanor Roosevelt ‘Do something every day that scares you.’ I was blown away. That’s just what we’ve been talking about, right?”

“Yes,” I agree nodding. “That’s a very profound quote.”

“But I thought you said you have to feel safe in order to take risks.”

“That’s also true. But if you wait until your last, last drop of fear and anxiety is gone you might stay stuck forever.”

“I know,” Jenny says dejectedly. “That’s why I’m here,”

“You’re 25 years old Jenny, I don’t think you can say you’re stuck forever.”

“I know. But we’ve been working for a while now and there are still so many things I’m terribly, terribly afraid of. Meeting new people is a total, complete trauma for me. I hate the first few weeks of school. There are so many new people, new faces, new expectations, new, new, new.” 

“And what is it that you’d say you’re afraid of?”

“That’s no secret. The wicked step-mother! What a cliché.”

“Except your step-mother was a little more wicked than most.”

Jenny seems to fade away and soon starts visibly shaking.

“Jenny, where are you? Can you come back?”

“I’m here. I didn’t dissociate. At least I don’t think I did. I knew I was here with you in your office.” Pause. “But perhaps part of me was back there, back in that basement,” she says starting to cry. “Why, why did she hate me so much? What did I do that was so terrible?”

“Jenny…”

“I know. You’re going to say I didn’t do anything. That she hated me because I took my Dad away from her, because she couldn’t have him every minute of his life. But maybe that means I was too demanding, wanted too much!” she adds sobbing.

“Is that how it feels, how it felt?”

“Yes, that I was just a greedy child who would suck her father dry unless Darlene stepped in to protect him! After all, I had killed my mother, why wouldn’t I kill him?!”

“Do you feel you killed your mother?”

“Of course!” Pause. “No, no I didn’t kill my mother, she died of cancer!”

“Jenny, it sounds like the rational you knows that you didn’t kill your mother, but perhaps there is a piece of you that feels you did.”

“She died so soon after I was born, before I was one. I don’t remember her at all,” she says sobbing. “Is that killing her? Not remembering her?” Pause. “Maybe I infected her when I was inside her. Maybe there was something so bad about me I contaminated her.” 

Although the rational me, yearns to counter Jenny’s assessment of her culpability, I wait to see what more primitive material Jenny may unearth. 

“Darlene would always tell me I was a bad seed, destined to do nothing but hurt and destroy. I fought her, screaming, yelling, thrashing, but she only hurt me more, left me starving in the freezing cold basement. It gets cold in Vermont in the winter. But, truthfully, I believed her. I believed I was a bad, bad person. I had killed my mother. She gave up her life for me. Even neighbors said that. ‘Your mother loved you so much. She gave up her life for you.’ She gave up her life for me and I was so, so angry with her. If she was going to have me, she should have stayed with me!! If she was going to leave me she should never have had me!” Jenny says, sobbing.

I want to go her and hold her and tell her nothing was her fault and that everything will be all right. Instead, I sit calmly in my chair. 

“I never said that out loud before,” Jenny says between sobs. “It feels good to say it out loud.”

“What feels good about saying it out loud?”

“I’m not sure. Sort of like I can examine it in the light of day.”

“And what do you see when you examine it in the light of day, in the light of an adult day?”

“Yes, that’s it. Saying it out loud brought it into the present, into me as an adult – sort of. It’s like a child fantasy that I’ve carried around my whole life and in the light of day – in the adult light – it doesn’t feel as real or as powerful.”

“It’s time for us to stop for today, Jenny, but you’ve done amazing work here today. I hope you’re able to be proud of yourself.”

Yes, yes I am,” she says smiling for the first time. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” I say.

Pretending

 “I did it!” Charlotte says, gleefully.

“Congratulations,” I say enthusiastically, “And welcome back.”

“I’m not talking about going by myself to Italy.”

“Oh! What did you mean?” 

“I did go by myself to Italy. It was hard. And all you’ve heard about Italian men, don’t believe a word of it. No one gave me a second glance. Oh course, why look at a middle-aged woman when you have all these gorgeous young, half-dressed I might add, girls running around. But seriously, don’t you remember what we talked about our last session?”

“I thought I did but… Oh, Charlotte, you really didn’t…”

She smiles broadly nodding at me.

“You pretended you were sick,” I state matter-of-factly.

“Correct! You see, not even you can remember me unless I do something daring, outrageous.”

“Of course I remember you. I didn’t remember that you were considering presenting yourself as someone who was ill, but I remember …”

“It doesn’t matter. I figured out how to get the attention I wanted. The more outrageous I made the story the more attention I got. It’s amazing how solicitous flight attendants can be when you tell them you’re dying of cancer or that you just had a chemo treatment.”

“And is that whose attention you wanted?”  

“Anyone is better than no one, but no, that’s not whose attention I wanted. But it was fun trying out different stories and seeing what provoked the most sympathy or what made people the most uncomfortable.”

“What did make people the most uncomfortable?”

“If they thought I was going to throw up all over them. That was a good one, especially on a plane with the person sitting next to me.”

“Sounds like you took a lot of pleasure making people uncomfortable.”

“Yes, I did. Felt like I was getting back at all the people who’ve made me uncomfortable, people who look at me like I’m ugly or don’t look at me at all, as if I don’t exist.

“What do you feel as you tell me all this?”

“First word that came to me? Triumphant!”

“And since you’ve been home?”

“It’s back to the same boring life. Biller in an ophthalmologist’s office. Real exciting. A great place to not be seen.” Pause. “But I am thinking about bringing my little pretense back home. Maybe in grocery stores or gas stations – I can go someplace I don’t usually shop. I’ve even considered taking it to work. Who’s to say I couldn’t start telling my co-workers I haven’t been feeling well, that I’ve gone to the doctor, that I have some kind of cancer, etc., etc.”

“Charlotte, when you first started talking today I felt annoyed with you, annoyed for the people you were duping and angry that you felt you had to stoop to subterfuge to get people to pay attention to you. But as you’ve kept talking, I find myself feeling sadder and sadder. And I suspect you also feel both angry and sad. You’re such a bright, insightful person. You could do so much more with your life.”

“Except that I’m ugly.”

“I know you feel ugly, and this is something you and I constantly disagree about, but you don’t have to be the most beautiful woman in the room to have friends, to have lovers, to have a job that fulfills you.”

“You mean billing doesn’t fulfill me?” she asks sarcastically.

I sigh. “I know your mother didn’t value you. I know you feel your older sisters were prettier and smarter than you. And given all that, it is still possible to have a meaningful life.” Pause. “You’ve always talked about writing. You certainly demonstrated that you can be creative with your storytelling about yourself. Put the stories down on paper instead of acting them out.” Pause. “I’m sorry. I’m preaching. I know I can’t decide your life for you.”  

“I’m 55 years old. Don’t you think it’s too late for me? How do I change now?”

“You went to Italy.”

“And my most fun was spinning a death fantasy about myself.”

“What was your fantasy about what the trip would be like before you left?”

Charlotte drops her head. “I thought I’d meet the love of my life. I know, that’s stupid, ridiculous. I feel like an idiot even saying it.”

“It’s not stupid, Charlotte, it’s a wish. But maybe it would have been good if we had talked more about your imaginings about the trip before you went so that you could have anticipated several scenarios, thought of the good things that might have happened, as well as the disappointing things. And I know that although many people like it, traveling alone can be very hard.”

Charlotte starts to cry. “It was very hard.”

Anger: Expressed and Repressed (Part II)

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” Jacquelyn begins. “I’ve been thinking I should take a break from therapy for a while.”

Internally, I scream, ‘What!? I thought you said you were going to think about your anger?’ To Jacquelyn I say, “And why is that?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been doing this for over a year, seems like it’s time for a vacation.”

“Does your desire for a vacation seem connected to last week’s session when you realized you were angry at your mother for not protecting you as a child?” I ask.

“I didn’t say that.”

“Not exactly, but you did want the woman in the TV show who reminded you of your mother to be killed by the serial killer.”

“I didn’t say that either.”

Disappointed that Jacquelyn has moved so far away from her more open, insightful stance of last week, I ask, “What’s your sense of what’s going on between us right now?”

“Nothing special.”

Feeling increasingly exasperated, I ask, “Can you say what you think is going on between us even if it’s not anything special.”

“You’re mad at me. You’re mad at me because I want to stop therapy.”

“I am annoyed with you, Jacquelyn, because I felt so hopeful last week, hopeful that we’d made a breakthrough, that you experienced your anger at your mother and that although you were scared of the repercussions, you went away wanting to think about it.”

“It was too scary.”

“I do understand that, Jacquelyn,” I say, thinking that perhaps she’s put one toe back in the water.

“But why were you angry at me if you understood?”

Hmm, I think to myself, I wonder if Jacquelyn wanted me to feel angry so that I could feel what she feels – angry but thwarted in its expression. I decide to keep that thought to myself. “I can understand and still be angry. Anger is a feeling. We can’t control what we feel, although we can control what we say or what we do.”

“So you don’t feel scared when you feel angry?”

“No, I don’t feel scared when I feel angry. Except some times.”

“Like when?”

Although repeatedly answering a patient’s questions is unusual for me, I feel that in Jacquelyn’s case it is a helpful form of modeling, perhaps making her own anger less frightening. “Well, I guess like in that TV show you talked about last week, I’d probably be scared if I got angry at the serial killer because I’d be afraid if my anger showed he might immediately kill me.”

“That’s it!” Jacquelyn says staring at me, her eyes wide open. A second later she’s sobbing, pulling at her hair.

“It’s ok, Jacquelyn,” I say quietly. “There’s no serial killer here and your father is long dead.”

She continues crying, but seems calmer. Through her tears she haltingly says, “I never even knew I was afraid he’d kill me. Like he could read my mind. Like he’d know I hated him. I was always so scared, so scared, so scared,” she says cradling her body in her arms and rocking in the chair.

“I’m so sorry, Jacquelyn. I’m so sorry that you had to go through all that. You were only a powerless, dependent little girl. You were so scared.”

I can see Jacquelyn bristle. She stops crying and lifts her head. I went too far.

“I’m sorry, Jacquelyn,” I say, “I know it’s very hard for you to be aware of how powerless you were as a child. It makes you feel all the more frightened.  It’s more than you can bear.  

“Maybe it is time to take a break from therapy.”

I look at Jacquelyn tenderly. “No, it isn’t,” I say. “I know I went too far. You were back there being that little girl and I so terrified you that you had to come back to your adult self, had to go back into a defensive mode. Will you forgive me?”

She is again crying. “I don’t think in my entire life anyone asked me to forgive them. I used to dream about that. I used to dream that one day both my mother and father would take me aside and apologize for all the bad things they’d done to me. But of course that was ridiculous. Except it’s kind of like you made my dream come true, even though you didn’t do anything nearly as bad as they did.” Pause. “Yes, I’ll forgive you,” she says crossing both her hands on her lap and staring directly at me.

Anger: Repressed and Expressed

Thirty year old Jacquelyn looks unusually pensive as she settles herself into the chair across from me.

“A weird thing happened this week. Kind of disturbing ,” she begins. “You know how I tell you that I always watch those gruesome  shows like Criminal Minds or CSI, but that I have to cover my eyes during the particularly gory scenes?” she says grimacing.

I nod.

“Well, one of those gory scenes came on, and instead of covering my eyes I felt sort of compelled to watch it. And I – this is kind of embarrassing. I, umm, I actually felt kind of excited and found myself rooting for the serial killer. I wanted to watch him kill that, that, umm, that woman.”

“What did you first think of, Jacquelyn, before you said ‘woman?’”

Jacquelyn lowers her head. “First I thought to say ‘bitch,’ then ‘sniveling baby,’ or ‘coward’ or ‘idiot.’ But they sounded too negative, so I settled on woman.” Pause. “You know, you’re always telling me that I have lots of anger, but that I keep it buried inside me.” Pause. “I didn’t feel angry, not even when I was wanting him to kill her.” Pause. “That doesn’t make sense when I say it out loud.”

Jacquelyn’s last comment is encouraging. Although I’m sure she’s at least of average intelligence, she tends to be quite concrete, has difficulty with self-reflection, and is often unable to take in what seems to me the most obvious of connections.

“Was it that you wanted this particular man to kill the woman or did you want this particular woman dead?” I ask.

“Do you think I’m terrible for thinking about this?”

“Not at all. You weren’t killing anyone, you were watching a TV show.”

“I guess,” she replies dubiously.

Silence.

“You want me to answer your question.”

“Yes.”

“I wanted this woman dead.”

“And can you say more about that? Why did you want her dead? Who did she remind you of?”  

“I don’t know.”

“Well, how about thinking about it now.”

Silence. Jacquelyn squirms in her chair.

“Can’t she just be a woman?”

“If you think about a woman, what woman comes to mind?”

“She wasn’t like my mother.”

“Does that mean your mother was the first woman you thought of?”

She nods, looking down.

“And what’s the similarity between your mother and this woman in the TV show?”

Still not looking at me she says, “They were both housewives.” Pause. “They had children.” Pause. “Umm. Umm. They couldn’t stand up to their husbands.”

Thinking to myself, ‘now we’re getting somewhere,’ I ask, “How did the woman in the TV show not stand up to her husband?”

She looks up. I suspected that it would be easier for her to talk about the TV character than her mother.

“There’s this scene at the breakfast table where her husband is screaming his head off at both her and the kids. You know he’d be cursing in real life but of course they can’t show that on TV. He goes off on the little girl when she spills a glass of milk, calling her an idiot and worthless. The little girl starts to cry and the woman tells her husband to calm down and that does it, now he’s really off the wall, screaming at the woman and even looking as if he might hit her. She cowers and turns back to washing the dishes while the father starts screaming at the girl to stop crying and when she doesn’t he slaps her across the face. The woman doesn’t do anything.”

“Does that sound familiar, Jacquelyn?”

Tears roll down her face. “I didn’t want to kill my mother. Oh my God, I hope not. I hope I didn’t wish her gone, because then I would have been left with him.” Pause. “We were both such cowards,” she says now sobbing.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Both of us. Neither of us could stand up to him.”

“Jacquelyn, you were a little girl. How were you going to stand up to him?”

She shakes her head and continues sobbing. “Cowards. We were cowards. We should have done something.”

“You’re angry at both yourself and your mother for not being able to fight back.”

“We were cowards.”

“You can’t accept your own vulnerability, Jacquelyn.”

“No! I can’t!”

“So you wanted to kill the woman in the TV show because of her ‘weakness,’ because of her vulnerability.

“I didn’t want to kill her, I wanted her dead.”

I think Jacquelyn has had enough for today and decide to back off.

“You’ve done a lot of good work today,” I say. “I wonder how you’re feeling.”

“Scared.”

“Scared of?”

“I’m not sure. Being slapped across the face like the girl in the TV show. That’s silly. I feel bad, like I did something wrong and I’m going to be punished.”

“I understand, Jacquelyn. You’ve gotten closer to your anger than you’ve ever been and I think that’s frightening you.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Okay. I’ll try to think about that.”