Mother

 “My mother is driving me absolutely crazy,” Jenny begins. “I know that’s an old story, but it’s getting worse. I’m trying to get ready for my 50th birthday party and she can literally call me a dozen times a day. She’ll ask me how she can help me with the party and if I give her anything to do she keeps calling with one question after another. ‘Is it okay if I invite my sister? What about my neighbor? Are you having kids come? What about kids under 12? Under 5?’ And those are all separate calls. It’s driving me nuts! I’ve asked that she text me these questions but she just won’t do that. I’m at my wits end.”

“What’s your guess as to why she’s calling so often?” I ask. “Is she having some anxiety about you turning 50?”

“I never thought about that, but maybe. If I’m turning 50 she has to be getting older too. She’s always dreaded aging. But I don’t know, it also just feels like it’s what she’s always done, pretended to be helpless so I would take care of her, which has obviously gotten worse since my father died. I’m tired of being her caretaker. I have enough of my own headaches, my daughter floundering, my husband dissatisfied at work. It’s too much. But my mother is always the one who throws me over the edge. I guess that’s because I see her as so narcissistic and self-involved, never really seeing me or wanting to know what I want.”

“That’s obviously been true throughout your life.”

“Definitely! That’s why it’s so maddening. Even these questions about my party. It’s she who wants to invite her sister – and of course I’m inviting my aunt. She wants to invite her neighbor and it’s she who probably doesn’t want kids at my party.” Pause. “I’m sick of talking about her. I feel I can’t ever get her out of my head. Now she even calls about questions about her money, about her checkbook, about whether she deposited her social security check, which is of course on direct deposit. I guess she’s getting more and more infantile, wanting more and more for me to take care of her.”

Alarm bells go off in my mind. “How old is your mother?”

“Seventy-six.”

“I don’t mean to be an alarmist, but is it possible your mother is beginning to have cognitive problems?”

At least a minute passes as Jenny sits staring at me as though in shock, a deer caught in the headlights. Then she bursts into tears. “I’m terrible! I’m a terrible person, a terrible daughter. My first thought when you said that was, oh no, now I’m really going to have to take care of her! Isn’t that awful?”

“No, it’s not awful of you. It’s an understandable first thought. You’ve spent your life taking care of someone who didn’t need to be taken care of and it would indeed be horribly ironic if that person does need caretaking at the end of her life. But we may be getting way ahead of ourselves. I don’t know if your mother is having cognitive problems.”

“It’s just that it makes too much sense for it not to be true. I mean I know we all – especially as we age - lose words occasionally or misplace things – but as soon as you suggested it about my mother I knew it was true. That bit about her social security check did throw me and there have been other things. She didn’t seem to know who the President is although she’s always stayed up on current events. And it wasn’t only that she didn’t know, she didn’t seem to care either. And when she called to ask if she could invite her sister, I got short with her and said, ‘Of course I’m going to invite Aunt Mary.’ The way she reacted, I wasn’t sure she really knew her sister was my aunt.” Jenny pauses and shakes her head. “This is so terrible. What an awful way to end a life! And I’ve been getting so pissed at her lately and I’m sure you’re right, she just can’t help it.”

“But your getting pissed at her makes sense. You’ve seen her constant calling, questioning as a continuation of her playing at being helpless to elicit your caretaking.”

“But it’s not! Or maybe sometimes it still is.”

“Yes, that’s possible.”

“This is going to be hard.”

“Yes, it is.”

“I think I’ll make an appointment with her neurologist. Maybe he’ll be able to tell me how bad she really is. And if anything can be done.”

“Sounds reasonable.”

“But they really can’t do anything, can they?”

“My understanding is, not much, but it never hurt to explore possibilities and get an idea of where she is at this point.”

An Apology

An Apology

“I’ve been depressed since our session this past Monday,” Paula begins. “I’m not exactly sure why.” Pause. “I guess it’s because we were talking about my mother’s death – for a change – and that always makes me depressed. It’s been almost 20 years for God’s sake, I don’t see why I can’t let it go.”

“I know you get depressed when we talk about your mother’s death, Paula, but I thought about our last session too. I feel as though I was pushing you too hard and I want to apologize for that.”

“That’s what you get to do. If you didn’t push me, I’d be even more stuck than I am already.”

“I don’t know. You were talking about your guilt about your mother’s death and although it’s true that from my perspective you have nothing to feel guilty about, what matters is your perspective. I don’t think I gave you enough of a chance to talk about your feelings, including your guilt feelings.”

“My mother died of cancer. I get that I was a teen-ager, more preoccupied with my own life. But I could have gone to the hospital more. I could have spent more time with her. I could have just sat holding her hand.” Pause. “Besides, why would I get depressed if you were pushing me to not feel guilty? You’d think I’d appreciate it.”

“Well, what is one of the big problems you had with your mother even before she got sick?”

“She was always in my face, always on top of me, telling me what to do, telling me what I should think, what I should feel … Oh! I get it! You think you were being like my mother, intrusive like my mother”

“Yes.”

“Hmm. I guess that’s a good point.” Pause. “But I still don’t know why that would get me depressed.”

“Well, what did you feel when I was pushing you to not feel guilty”

“I don’t know if I felt it then or whether I’m feeling it now that we’re talking about it, but right now I guess I do feel, hey, isn’t this where I get to talk about my feelings? How come you’re not letting me feel what I feel?  I thought that’s what I get to do here!” Paula pauses. On my video screen I watch as she drops her head, her straight brown hair falling forward over her face. “I’m sorry,” she mumbles, “I didn’t mean to get annoyed.”

“Paula, what just happened? You seemed to go from a person expressing her feelings and her right to be heard, to what seemed to be a scared, apologetic little girl?”

“I felt guilty for being ang… annoyed at you.”

“So you can’t even say you’re angry at me.”

“I’m afraid to be angry at you.”

“Because?”

“I don’t know,” she says in a barely audible voice.

Silence.

“Your anger feels dangerous?” I ask.

She nods. “I was angry at my Mom and look what happened to her. It’s much better to keep it tucked safely away.”

“Except it’s never ‘safely away.’ It’s turned inward on yourself so that you end up feeling depressed.”

“So you’re saying I was depressed after last session because I was angry at you and turned it on myself, not because my mother died? That makes me sound even more selfish and self-centered!”

I feel the urge to argue against Paula’s interpretation of her depressed feelings and wonder if her way of being self-deprecating, tends to elicit a reassuring, albeit intrusive, response from me. Do I feel a similar pull with other patients? Does Paula unconsciously set up this dynamic?” I’ll have to think about all that, but right now I need to respond to Paula.

“I think you can be depressed for more than one reason, but it sounds as though you’re saying you should feel depressed about your mother’s death.”

“Yes, of course I should feel depressed about my mother’s death. She’s dead!”

“You can certainly feel sad about your mother’s death, but I don’t know that carrying depression around as a heavy weight that burdens all aspects of your life is at all helpful.”

Paula sighs. “I guess after almost 20 years I should be able to cut myself some slack.”

I nod, smiling.

“But why is that so difficult for me?”

“I guess because you still feel the need to punish yourself.”

“I think you’re right.” Pause. “But what can I do about that?”

“I guess we’ll need to talk more about why you can’t forgive yourself for what you see as your adolescent ‘sins.’”