Being Bad Part II

 “I’ve been thinking about what we talked about last time,” Brenda says, beginning immediately. “About my being angry. I suppose I could be, but I don’t know what I’d have to be angry about. I have this great life, a family who’d do anything for me, a nice condo, great weather. What else do I need? Well, I guess I’d like to find a man, but I’m not angry about that. It will happen eventually.”

“You mentioned last time that when you felt angry you stopped eating. What was that about?”

“Mostly I was just mad at myself. Mad that I let myself get too fat.”

“You said that when that didn’t work, you’d eat and throw up, what did you mean by that?”

“When my Mom got mad at me for not eating. Or more like when she kept asking if I didn’t like her food, or if I could tell her what she could make me that I’d like,” she says rolling her eyes. “It got annoying so I’d eat and throw up later.”

“You were annoyed at your mother?”

“Yeah. She can get pretty annoying. She thinks my skirt is too short or my hair is too long or I wear too much make-up, whatever.”

“So you can feel angry with her.”

“Yeah, I guess. My Dad’s not like that, pretty much everything I do is okay, but I don’t know, it’s almost like it doesn’t matter what I do, almost like he’s not interested. Yeah, I guess that’s right. I’m the afterthought. My brother’s the boy, my sister’s the smart one and I’m just me. I mean, he does like it that I do well selling houses. That he cares about.”

“So you feel criticized by your mother and ignored by your father except at his business.”

“That pretty much sums it up.”

“Don’t you think that’s something to be angry about?”

“I suppose. But it’s not like I’m being abused or beaten up or neglected.”

“That’s true. But you’re entitled to have whatever feelings you have. You don’t have to be beaten up to feel hurt and angry.”

“No one gets angry in my family. We’re polite and respectful, except when we were little kids of course. But like I’ve never heard my parents fight. They never scream at each other.”

“And do you think they have a good marriage, a close marriage.”

“I wouldn’t say that. They kind of exist in the same house and are pleasant enough to each other, but I wouldn’t say they’re close. I’m not sure anyone in my family is close to anyone else.”

“Sounds lonely. And sad.”

“I guess. I’m not sure I know anything else.”

“It sounds like you know something else when you batter cars.”

“That’s not being close!”

“No, but you were feeling something intensely. I think you said you felt free, that you were showing them you couldn’t be pushed around.”

“Yes, that’s right, but I’m not sure how that’s related to my parents or to closeness.”

“As you said, everyone in your family is proper and respectful. Everyone is good. But there’s an absence of feelings, any feelings, angry feelings, loving feelings. It kind of sounds like you’re living in a doll’s house.”

“Funny you should say that. I’ve had friends tell me my parent’s house reminds them of a doll’s house. I always thought they meant because it was super done by an interior designer, but maybe they meant more than that.” Pause. “So you think it’s good for me to be ramming cars because it gives me a chance to express my feelings?”

“I wouldn’t say that. It does give you a chance to let loose with feelings you’ve kept bottled up, but you’re acting out the feelings against inanimate objects, not really letting yourself know what or who you’re angry at. I suspect you’ve been carrying around lots of feelings for a long time.”

Silence.

“So what should I do about my obsession about ramming cars?”

“Well, when you first have the thought or the impulse, I’d try asking yourself what you’re feeling right then. What made you have that impulse right at that moment?”

“But can I still do it?”

“Perhaps it would be better to ask if you can not do it. If you can not do it, that would be best, but I don’t know if you can stop quite that easily.”

Silence.

“I just had the desire to do it, to do it as soon as I leave your office.”

“And do you know why that is?”

She shakes her head.

“You sure?”

Brenda drops her head. Very quietly she says, “Maybe because I felt you were taking something away from me.”

“Which made you feel…?”

“I guess annoyed.”

“So it felt like I was telling you what to do – or what not to do – and depriving you of something you enjoy. That made you angry and wanting to act out that anger by ramming cars.”

“I guess.”

“I think we made a lot of progress today.”

“But what if I still want to ram cars?”

“No one changes overnight, Brenda.”

Shame

“I love you,” Melanie says, looking downward.

Twenty-five year old Melanie has been my patient for two years, a lovely young woman struggling with anxiety and depression.  One of six children raised on a farm by parents who saw their offspring as laborers, rather than cherished beings, Melanie has come to rely on me as one of the few people who is consistently in her corner. Professing her love for me doesn’t take me by surprise.

“Thank you, Melanie,” I say, “that’s a lovely gift.”

“No,” she replies. “It’s much more complicated.”

I wait, unsure what she means.

“I said that to my last therapist,” she says hesitantly. “You know, I’ve talked to you about Dr. Hopkins. I saw him for a couple of years before you.”

I nod.

“But I never told you what happened, why I left.” She pauses. “We had an affair.”

I’m shocked. Not that I’ve never heard of therapists inappropriately crossing sexual boundaries, but I’m surprised Melanie never told me something of such significance.

“I’m so sorry, Melanie. How come you never told me before?”

“I was too ashamed.”

The victim blaming herself. Not unusual I think to myself. “Do you realize that Dr. Hopkins abused you?”

“No. It wasn’t like that,” she protests. “I told you, I loved him. And he loved me back. That was the most wonderful surprise of my life. Someone I so looked up to and admired actually loved me!”

“Melanie, how did your therapy with Dr. Hopkins end?”

“Well, for a while we saw each on the outside and I continued to have my regular therapy sessions. Dr. Hopkins was very clear that we couldn’t do anything sexual in the office, that we had to remain professional during our sessions.”

I am beyond furious at this so-called therapist, but hope that I am successful at concealing my feelings.

“But then Dr. Hopkins told me he didn’t think I needed therapy anymore. So I quit and just saw him on the outside.”

Still seething, I wonder if Dr. Hopkins thought his prowess as a lover had “cured” Melanie or whether he just found it too difficult to keeps his hands off her during their sessions.

“But then one day,” she continues, “he said that we couldn’t see each other anymore. He told me his wife was sick and that he felt too guilty being with me. I was devastated. I mean, I knew he was married. I knew it wasn’t like we’d be together forever and ever. But I loved him so much. And I thought he loved me. So how could he just walk away?”

“When you say you thought he loved you, are you now questioning that?”

Melanie starts to cry. “I was a fool. I know I was a fool. Did I really think a smart, educated man more than twice my age would be in love with me? He wanted my body. But I just wanted so much for him to love me, that I deluded myself into thinking he did. That’s what I’m ashamed of, being such a fool.”

“There’s an awful lot to deal with here, Melanie, and I’m sure we’ll return to this many times, but I want to come back to us before the session ends. So what did it mean to you to tell me you loved me? And what response did you hope for – or fear?”

“I’m not sure. I know I don’t want to sleep with you, but I do want you to love me. I guess I want to crawl into your lap and have you stroke my hair and tell me you love me, just as you’d tell your own daughter. Is that wrong?”

“No, Melanie, what you wish for can never be wrong. But acting on that wish is different. You wanted Dr. Hopkins to love you, which really meant you wanted him to care about you, to cherish you and to act in your best interest, not his. He did abuse you, Melanie. He took advantage of your need, of your vulnerability and crossed what should have been an unbreakable boundary. As for us, the wish to crawl into my lap and be my daughter is a more than understandable wish for someone who was so neglected as a child. But if I were to act on that wish I would not be acting in your best interest, because I would be giving you the false hope that you can go back to being a child and get from me what you couldn’t get from either of your parents.”

“That makes me sad.”

“I’m sure it does. Mourning what you never got and never can get, is always sad.”

The Risk

“It’s been a while,” says Delores. “I appreciate your seeing me so quickly.”

“My pleasure,” I respond, truthfully. I always liked Delores, a spunky, vibrant woman who was in her late 60s when I last saw her.

“This time it’s actually not an emergency. Not like last time. I was such a mess. Losing Marvin so unexpectedly was devastating. I just wasn’t prepared. And having him be the third husband I lost, well, that was all way too much.” She sighs. “But I guess that is part of why I’m here. I’m trying to figure out if I dare do it again. After Marvin I said never again, no more men. And now, now I just don’t know.”

I certainly remember Delores’ trauma at losing Marvin. I myself was a relatively recent widow, Delores’ pain clearly reverberating with my own. And the fact that she had lived through two other such losses felt truly overwhelming. I can certainly understand her reluctance to take the risk again.

“Is there a specific man?” I ask.  

“Oh yes, Harry. A friend of mine kept asking me to go out with him. She said he was a widower, a friend of the man she dates, a good bridge player and an all-around nice guy. I said ‘no’ for quite a while. Then one day I felt lonely and they were going to a movie I wanted to see, so I said, why not, it’s just one date. That was three months ago. And now, well, it’s going to go one way or the other. I either have to stop seeing him or take the plunge.”

I certainly understand Delores’ conflict. Harry perhaps offers a more fulfilling, richer life, but certainly raises the specter of another devastating loss. I’ve lived my life believing that it’s “better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all,” but perhaps there’s a limit to the number of excruciating losses any person can sustain. Fortunately I don’t have to make Delores’ decision for her.

“So, what are your thoughts?” I ask.

“Well, I’ve thought of all the obvious things – he’s older than me, although only by a couple of years; he has prostate cancer but they’ve been watching it for years and it’s never gotten worse; he’s also had a lot of skin cancer, but that seems under control as well; no heart disease, but Marvin supposedly didn’t have heart disease either, until he keeled over dead. I go round and around in my head about all that. But what’s really odd, is that I keep thinking about my father, dreaming about him too.”

I remain silent, giving Delores time to reflect.

“My father’s been dead for almost 50 years. It was very traumatic for me when he died. I felt like an orphan, even though I was in my 20s. My mother had been dead since I was 10, so it had been just me and my Dad for a while.” Pause. “But I don’t know why I’m particularly thinking of my Dad now. He didn’t come up for me when Marvin died, or any of my other husbands either if I remember correctly. No, that’s not true. John, my first, died not that long after my Dad. I wasn’t 30 yet and I remember then thinking of my Dad a lot. There were so many losses. I could cry just thinking about it.”

“I’m sure that’s true.”

“So do I want another one? I mean, I know no one ever knows, that I could drop dead tomorrow, especially since I don’t exactly have longevity in my family, but I guess my experience is always that the men go first.”

“Except not for your mother. She died first.”

“That’s true,” Delores says pensively. “I wonder what that meant for me. This is a crazy thought, but I wonder if I expected my Dad to live forever. I mean I knew he couldn’t, but still …”

“Was that a wish, Delores? As in you wanted your Dad to live forever because you couldn’t face another loss.”

“I’ve certainly faced lots of them.” She chuckles. “I wonder if I keep looking for the one who’ll live forever. Just kidding.”

“Maybe you’re not kidding. Maybe you keep looking for the man who won’t abandon you, who will live to be there for you, unlike either of your parents.”

“That’s deep. My unconscious would have to be real smart to think that one up.”

“Perhaps it’s that the child part of you is still yearning for the safety and security that was so absent in your childhood.”

“Perhaps. But I don’t know if that helps me figure out what to do about Harry. I’ll have to think about it during the week and see what my unconscious comes up with.”

“Sounds good.”  

If You Loved Me

“I got a great idea after our last session,” 30 year old Melinda says enthusiastically.

I remain silent.

“You know how we’re always arguing about whether or not you care about me? Well, I figured out how you can prove it to me.”

Oh my, I think to myself. Whatever’s coming can’t be good.

“You can stop charging me for some period of time we agree on. That way I’d believe you cared about me and weren’t just in it for the money.”

I feel as though I’m going to be walking through a field full of land mines. Other than agreeing to Melinda’s request which I know I’m not going to do, whatever I say has the very likely potential of a large explosion. I’m also aware of feeling angry and put upon. Hmm, I think to myself, I bet at some level Melinda could have anticipated that would be my reaction. 

“When you came up with this idea, Melinda, how did you think I’d respond?”

“I don’t know. How should I know how you’d respond?”

“Well, we’ve worked together for about three years, you might have some thoughts about what I would or would not say or would or would not do.”

“You’re not going to do it, are you? You’re just stalling, playing games,” she says, her anger building. 

“Is that what you would have expected?” I ask.

Melinda crosses her arms over her chest and glares at me. “I’m not saying another work until you answer me directly.”

I sigh inwardly. Melinda and I have frequently found ourselves in these kinds of power struggles. I can refuse to say anything, at which point she will indeed not say another word until she storms out at the end of the session. Or I can submit to her demand that I answer her, which feels to me like an uncomfortable submission. Or perhaps, just perhaps, I can try and interpret what’s happening between us. Melinda’s mother died when she was nine, leaving her to be raised by her distant, authoritarian father, who she rebelled against while desperately wanting his love and approval. In her interaction with me, Melinda can take the role of her authoritarian father who tries to force me to be as she wants me to be. Or she can be the needy, demanding child who wants both to win her father’s love, while insuring that her mother will not abandon her.

“So I’m going to run a few assumptions by you and you can tell me what you think. First, I think you knew – if only unconsciously – that I would not agree to your request, that it would stretch the boundary of our relationship in a way that would not be acceptable to me. Second, the reason you find it so difficult to believe – and accept, I might add – my caring is that you felt abandoned by your mother and rejected and criticized by your father. It’s also easy for you to become your father in this room with me and just as you refused to bow to your father’s demands, at some level you know that I will not bow to your demands either.”

“It wasn’t a demand, it was a compromise, a negotiation.”

“I’m not sure about that Melinda. I think you came prepared to fight with me. And that’s probably the most interesting question. Why is it that you want to fight with me?”

“I don’t want to fight with you. I fight with you because you won’t give me what I want.”

“Which was exactly your relationship with your father.”

“I guess,” Melinda says reluctantly.

“But I think that as much as you say you want my caring, you often do things that prevents your getting exactly what you say you want, which leads me to wonder if you need to reject my caring.”

“That doesn’t make sense. Why would I do that? I think you’re just playing therapist tricks, trying to get away from your not caring about me.”

I choose to ignore Melinda’s last provocation. “Melinda, if you accepted my caring you would be saying that you were a person who deserved caring about. And if you allow that in, then you’re left with the realization that you are indeed loveable and that no matter what you did – or do – you couldn’t keep your mother from dying and you can’t keep your father from being a cold, critical person. And that leaves you feeling powerless and helpless and we know how awful those feelings are for you.”

“Is there any way you’d consider my suggestion?”

So much for interpretations, I think to myself. What I say is, “Now I know you know the answer to that question, so I guess you’re saying you’re mad at me.”

“Yeah. I think you should have to do something to prove your caring.”

“I guess we’ll continue talking about this next time.”   

Lost and Perhaps Found

I’ve been working with Marvin, a 72 year old depressed widower for nine months. His sessions – like his life - are boring and repetitive. He refuses to discuss the past – says he’s too old for that – and complains bitterly about the emptiness in his life. “Nothing’s better,” he says today. “I still sit alone in my apartment staring at the beautiful weather and wondering why I can’t get myself out there, even to take a walk. There’s no place to go. I’m just lost. When Esther was around, even if we did fight all the time, at least there was someone there. Now there’s nothing.”

I ask myself, not for the first time, why I don’t feel more empathy for this man. After all, I too am a widow. I know the pain of loss, the feeling of aloneness. It’s his passivity that I find difficult. I want to shake him, tell him to find some hobby, some activity, a friend, a girl-friend. But I do none of that, knowing full well that he would find reason to rebuff any suggestion I might make. Today, I take a different track.

“How do you feel about coming here?” I ask.

“I come,” he says, averting his eyes.

Although his answer is the typical passive, uninvolved response, I sense a certain discomfort and wonder if more is going on than he’s saying.

“But how do you feel about coming?” I ask again, more persistently.

“What do you mean?” he says, even more flustered.

“How does it feel for you to come here?” I repeat. “To see me?”

“I…I don’t know,” he says, squirming in the chair.

I remain silent.

“Maybe I shouldn’t come. Is that what you’re telling me?” he says petulantly.

“I didn’t hear myself say that.” 

He sighs. “Everyone gets tired of me. Even my children tell me if I don’t stop complaining they won’t call any more. Not that they call that much.” He pauses. “You think I complain too much, don’t you?” 

“Well,” I say, trying to be diplomatic, “I understand you’re feeling miserable and unhappy and wanting to talk about your feelings. But you don’t really talk about your feelings. Instead you present as a forlorn, helpless person stuck in your misery. Yes, Esther died and you’re alone and you can’t bring her back. But you can try, ever so slowly to make a life for yourself.”

“I love you,” he blurts out.

I’m stunned. And speechless. I flash on the story a well-known psychoanalyst, Dr. Glen Gabbard, told about himself when he was first starting out in the field. When a female patient told him she loved him, he responded first by saying, “No you don’t” and then by trying to convince her that what she felt was not “real” love, but transference from earlier loved figures in her life. I knew what not to do. What to do was more difficult.

“I’m flattered…” I say.

He interrupts, more animated than I’ve ever seen him. “You mean you love me too?” he asks hopefully.

Oh dear, I think. “I’m flattered that you think that much of me,” I continue. “And I’m really glad you’re able to feel so alive.”

“You don’t love me,” he says, immediately deflated.

“I care about you, but I don’t love you as you want and need to be loved.”

“Nobody ever loved me,” he says. “What a fool to think someone like you could love me.”

“I don’t think you’re a fool at all. I’m glad you’re able to engage in life sufficiently to feel love for me. Now we have to help you find someone who can love you back.”

He shakes his head. “That’s impossible. No one ever loved me, no one ever will.”

“I would really like to understand why you feel so unlovable.”

“Why don’t you love me?” he asks challengingly. 

“I’m impressed,” I say truthfully. “You can be assertive when you want to be. But by looking to me for love, which I suspect you know wouldn’t be appropriate, I’d guess that you tend to look for love from people who can’t love you back, probably like the people who couldn’t love you in the past.”

Marvin slumps further down in the chair.

“You know,” I say, “now that I know you can have that spark, I’m going to be more insistent that you engage with me in therapy. We need to talk about the past. We need to talk about how you feel right this minute. We need to reintroduce you to life or perhaps introduce you to life for the first time.”

“You think that’s possible?” he asks.

“I detected a bit a hope in that question. I say we go with that hope.”

Betrayal

Twenty-seven year old Carla sits crying in my office, her eyes red, shredded tissues in her lap. “I can’t believe it happened again,” she says. “I thought Martin was different – kind, sensitive. I couldn’t imagine him being unfaithful. I don’t understand why this keeps happening to me!”

And that, I think to myself, is exactly the question. Carla is tall, attractive, shapely, smart, articulate, funny and yet Martin is the third man who’s been unfaithful to her. For the moment, however, Carla needs to deal with the immediacy of her pain.

“I thought I’d surprise him,” she continues. “Bring us Thai food for lunch. I knew he’d be writing. Or I thought he’d be writing. I didn’t even register the strange car in his driveway. Until he didn’t answer the door. I rang and rang. My stomach started to get all queasy. He finally answered in a bathrobe, tried to make some feeble excuse, but I’m not stupid. I threw the food at him and ran. I wanted to key the girl’s car as I went, but I knew that would be dumb. So here I am, betrayed again. What’s wrong with me?” she asks, beseechingly. 

Odd, I muse, I had a similar experience with a man I dated 40 years ago, showing up at his door only to find him with another woman. I was both devastated and enraged. But that was a long time ago, those feelings long gone, not distracting me from my role as therapist.

“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you, Carla. But I do think it’s important to understand why this scenario does keep repeating. What are your thoughts?”

“I don’t know!” she responds, crying. “My parents have been together for over 40 years. I’d be shocked if my father ever cheated on my mother.”

“And your mother?” I ask.

“What!?” she says, furrowing her brow. “You’re asking if my mother ever cheated on my father?” she asks, incredulously.

I nod. 

“That’s impossible. My mother was the least sexual person around.”

“Is that because she’s your mother or …?”

“My mother pulled away when my father tried to be affectionate. And sometimes I could hear them arguing. He was frustrated.”

“So why are you so sure he was never unfaithful?”

“Because he wasn’t that type.”

“Obviously, Carla, I’m not saying that your father was unfaithful. I have no idea. But I do think it’s interesting that you’re so convinced he wasn’t.”

Shaking her head, she says, “My father stressed the importance of good moral values, insisted we go to church, lectured us on being good people. He’s a wonderful man.”

I’m surprised by Carla’s naiveté. I think of the people I’ve known – both men and women - who were unfaithful to their partners. Many of them were good people.    

“Two questions. Do you think only “bad” men are unfaithful? And are there similarities between the men you’ve dated and your father?”

“Actually, Martin reminded me of my father. He even looks a bit like him.” She smiles uncomfortably. “You think I have an Oedipal thing going with my father?”

“What do you think?”

Carla looks out the window. After a pause she says, “My father put up with a lot from my mother. She’s difficult, demanding, cold, particularly to him. He dotes on me. I love him a lot so, yes, maybe I’m kind of in love with my father.”

Well, I think to myself, that opens up lots of possibilities. Does Carla choose unavailable men so that she can remain faithful to her father? Is her father more of a womanizer than she thinks and is she choosing men who are like her father? And if they’re like her father does the relationship feel incestuous so that she unconsciously does something to subvert it? If her mother is cold, is she choosing men like her mother to try to win in the present that which she lost in the past? Does she try to be not her mother and end up being too smothering and intense? Lots of questions, none of which will be answered today.

“How do you feel, Carla, about being kind of in love with your father and how does it affect your relationships?”

“I don’t know. Right now, all I know is that I’m sad. I’ve lost again.”

“As in you’ve lost Martin and lost your father again?”

“I haven’t lost my father,” Carla declares emphatically.

“Except that he’s with your mother, not you,” I respond gently.

“Oh, I get it. I don’t know. This has gotten too Freudian.”

“It’s time for us to stop for today, but you opened up lots of things today and I’m sure we’ll get back to them.” 

I Don’t

“I appreciate your seeing me,” says Patrick Monahan as he seats himself in the sage chair across from me. Medium build, with curly brown hair and a few extra pounds, I’d guess him to be in his mid-thirties. 

“My brother John said I should talk to someone. He’s a psychologist too. He thinks I’m making a big mistake. You see, I finally got engaged. I’ve been trying for years to get Angela to marry me and she finally agreed. I was really, really happy.”     

I look at him quizzically.

He laughs uncomfortably. “I know, what’s the problem? The problem is she says she doesn’t love me.”

“I can see that would be a problem,” I respond, trying to remain neutral, but wondering why Patrick would want to marry someone who didn’t love him.

“But I don’t believe her. I think she does love me and just doesn’t know it yet.”

“How long have you and Angela been dating?”

“About six years. With some short break-ups scattered in there. She’s always said she didn’t love me, that she cared about me, but didn’t love me. But I just think she’s closed off to her feelings and that if she gives me a chance I can get through to her.”

I flash on a man I dated almost forty years ago, someone who told me he loved me in “his way,” a relationship that ended with much pain and heartache. Those were the days I was still trying to win the love and approval of unavailable men who, unsurprisingly, resembled my father. 

“She had a pretty traumatic background,” Patrick continues. “Abusive parents, foster care. That’s why I’m sure once she learns to really trust me, she’ll love me.”

“Can you tell me what attracts you to Angela?” I ask. “And why she decided to accept your proposal now?”

“It’s her biological clock. She wants to have a baby before she gets too old.”

I groan internally. Definitely not a reason to get married, nor to bring a child into such a tenuous relationship.

“But why I’m attracted to her? That’s easy, she’s perfect. She smart and pretty and funny and determined. We have the same values, the same politics, the same everything.”

“Except she doesn’t love you.”

“She thinks she doesn’t love me.”

“Can you tell me a bit about your background, Patrick?” I ask, changing gears.

“I grew up outside of Detroit. My father worked for the auto industry. In those days there was pretty good money to be made. My brother is 10 years older than me. When I was three my mother got breast cancer. I actually don’t remember her not being sick. And she was pretty sick. She’d have times when she’d be better, but then it was back to chemo, and days and weeks of being in bed. She died when I was 11.”

“Sounds very painful.”

“Yeah. It was. My grandmother came to live with us, to take care of us, of me really. My brother was in college already. But I hardly knew her. And she sure wasn’t the warm, cuddly grandmother type. I counted the years – the months really – before I could go to college and get out of the house.” 

“So you’ve never really had a mother.”

“No, I had a mother. She didn’t die ‘til I was 11.”

“But you didn’t have a mother who was able to take care of you, to nurture you, to love you. Not because she didn’t want to, but because she was understandably involved with her own illness.”

“Yeah. I guess that’s true.”

The connection between a sick, unavailable mother and Angela, who is also unable to fully love Patrick is blatantly obvious to me, but I hesitate to verbalize what might be a premature interpretation. 

“I know where you’re going to this,” Patrick says. “John says the same thing. I’m trying to save Angela, when I couldn’t save my mother.”  

Thinking that is part of the issue, I say, “And what do you think about that?”

“I say, so what if I am? I love Angela. And if I can help her, so much the better.”

Feeling that something is missing from this story I ask, “Why did you decide to come today Patrick? I know your brother said you should talk to someone, but why did you come?”

Patrick looks at me sheepishly. “Truthfully, once Angela said she’d marry me, I got scared. I don’t know if I got scared that she didn’t love me, or scared that maybe I didn’t love her.”

“So when you don’t feel like everyone else is questioning your decision, you can question it yourself. That’s good. Because you clearly do have lots of questions that we’ll need to look at.” 

She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not

 

In an earlier blog, “A Dog’s Life,” I talked about Terri, a patient who became angry with me for canceling a trip because my dog was sick, while she had almost died as a child when her parents left her to go to Japan. Although her anger turned to sadness as she left my office, the anger soon returned.

“What do you mean you care about me? I’m just a patient to you. One of many patients. A patient who gives you money. I’m your livelihood. That’s why you care you me. Would you see me if I didn’t pay you? No, of course not,” Terri says crossing her arms in front of her, glaring at me.

“It’s true that you pay me, Terri, but you’re paying me for my time, not for my caring.”

“Huh!” Terri snorts, “Sounds like you’ve said that before!”

“Yes, I have said it before, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

“So tell me how you care about me. Show me.”

Although I’m beginning to feel annoyed, I acquiesce to Terri’s demand.

“Well, I listen to you carefully and thoughtfully, I try to say and do what’s in your best interest, I worry about you if you’re having a hard time or if you’re being in any way self-destructive, I talk to you when you call …”

“Fine, if my calling bothers you, I won’t call any more.”

 I feel a flash of anger, but recognize that Terri is trying to provoke me.

“Can I ask you something, Terri? Would it be possible for you to believe that I do care about you?”

“What do you mean?” she asks scowling.

“It feels like you’re trying not to take in any of the positive things I’m saying, that you’re turning them around so that you end up feeling rejected.”

“Right, so now it’s my fault that you don’t care about me!”

“Whoa,” I say, raising both hands. “Let’s stop a second here. It’s not a question of fault. What I’m suggesting is that it’s very difficult for you to allow in that anyone cares about you because you felt that neither of your parents loved you. That’s the lens through which you see the world. It’s a world where nobody loves you.”

“Yeah, I guess that’s true.”

“So the idea that I or someone could care about you is entirely foreign, a foreign concept that’s impossible to allow in.”  

“That’s depressing.”

“I agree. Now I’m going to go a little further here but, again, I’m not talking about blame, I’m just trying to look at why you might do what you do. Okay?”

“I guess,” Terri says reluctantly.

“I think you also need to reject caring – just as you rejected my caring earlier - because what would it mean if I cared about you and your parents didn’t? It would mean that it wasn’t anything you did as a kid to make them not love you. It would mean that you were and are loveable and that your parents were incapable of loving you the way you needed and deserved to be loved. It wasn’t your deficiency, it was theirs and that means no matter what you do you can never, ever win their love. And that’s really painful.”     

“You know what?” Terri says. “I think this is all a bunch of bullshit! We start out talking about you not caring about me and end up back on my parents. I think it’s you who are trying to turn things all around.”

“We’re kind of stymied here, Terri. I can say you’re turning things around to avoid taking in my caring and you can say I’m turning things round to avoid dealing with what you experience as my non-caring.”

“You’ve got a point there,” Terri says, almost smiling. ”I want to ask you something. You’re an analyst, right?”

I nod.

“That means you’ve been in therapy, doesn’t it?”

I nod again.

“Did you feel your therapist cared about you?”

“Yes, I did.”

“How come? How come you did and I don’t?”

“For exactly the reasons I mentioned earlier, except in reverse. Although not everyone in my early life cherished me, there were enough people who did, that caring isn’t foreign to me. I expect people to care about me and I can take in that caring without having to give up on all my early caretakers.”

“Thanks for telling me. I think.”

I smile. “Nothing is ever uncomplicated, Terri. My telling you might feel like a gift, which you might also feel the need to reject. And now you might not only feel envious of my dog, but of me as well.”

“I’ve had it for today,” Terri says as she bolts for the door.

Breaking Up

“I’ve decided I’m going to break up with Tim,” Allison announces at the beginning of her Monday session.

“Really?” I say, obviously surprised. I see Allison three days a week. On Thursday there was no intimation of her breaking off the relationship. “I thought you and Tim were doing very well.”

“Wow! I finally got to shock you,” she says laughing, passing her fingers through her curly, brown hair. “Yeah, we were. But, I don’t know, I think he’s too boring for me.”

“Too boring,” I repeat. 

Allison is a 30 year old drug rep who came into therapy because she made repeatedly poor choices in men. We came to understand that Allison chose men who were similar to her grandiose and narcissistic father, a man who was always too busy and self-involved to attend to Allison. By choosing boyfriends who were like her father, she hoped to win in the present the love she couldn’t achieve in the past. Such a strategy never of course works, since choosing a narcissistic boyfriend will lead yet again to disappointment and pain.

“Yeah. I don’t know, the relationship is just too predictable, maybe too easy.”

“Too easy,” I say.

Allison laughs. “I’ve clearly thrown you for a loop. I love it!”

“So maybe our therapy sessions were also too boring and you’ve just spiced them up.”

“I never thought of that, but maybe,” Allison replies, still gleeful.

“Okay, so here are my questions: What’s wrong with easy? What makes easy uncomfortable? And what happened in the last four days?”

“It’s just not exciting. There’s no spontaneity. He’s always there – trusty, reliable Tim.”

“And you could say the same of me.”

“Yes, that’s true, you’re trusty and reliable, but I kind of like that from you.”

“Except you liked ‘throwing me for a loop.’”

“Yes. But that was like I kind of one upped you, like you know so much and sometimes it seems you can even read my mind and here I am able to surprise you. It makes me feel like I got you!”

Thoughts race through my mind. Allison feels she has just won a competition. With her father? More likely her mother. Allison and I have spent so much time dealing with her father, that her mother is a more shadowy figure to me. Still, my sense is that she too was fairly narcissistic and definitely intent on receiving as much of her husband’s meager supplies as possible. And there’s still the question of what changed in four days. Was the weekend break difficult for her? Was I too know-it-all in our last session?

“Did you have a hard time with our weekend break, Allison?” I ask.

“This has nothing to do with you! Why do you always want to make it about you?” she says angrily.

“I guess that makes me feel like your parents.”

“Now that you mention it, yes! I think you just wanted to deflate me because I surprised you.”

I consider Allison’s accusation. “I’m not consciously aware of competing with you or wanting to deflate you, but I am aware of being disappointed in your so easily discarding Tim and what seems like such a good relationship. Perhaps it made me feel you were discarding our work together and perhaps that made me want to reassert my presence.” 

“Wow! There’s a lot of stuff in there. You certainly think a lot about why you do what you do.”

“I try to. I think it’s very important that we try to understand as much as we can about ourselves and our motivations. Doesn’t mean we always succeed. We all have an unconscious – including me – and by definition the unconscious is unconscious.”

“I guess you’re saying I should try to understand why I want to break up with Tim.”

I nod. “Yes, I guess that’s what I’m saying.”

“He’s so much not my father. I know, I know, that’s a good thing. But it doesn’t always feel like such a good thing. It feels like I’m giving up so much.”

“You are. You’re giving up hope. You’re giving up the hope of ever getting the father you needed and deserved in both the past and the present and that’s very painful.”

“But you’re saying I should do it?”

“I’m not saying you should stay with Tim, but I am saying that until you mourn the father you never had and give up chasing him in the present, you’re going to face a lot of painful breakups in your life.”