In Search of a Self

“I can’t believe it,” Janice says throwing her hands in the air. “Why does she feel she has the right to tell me what I should wear to my child’s graduation? I’m 42 years old. Shouldn’t I know what’s appropriate to wear and what isn’t?”

Janice is talking about her mother’s intrusiveness, a situation that has only worsened since her family moved to Florida a little over a year ago.

“Well,” I ask, “what does give her the impression that it’s all right for her to tell you what to do?”

“She’s always done it. That’s how she was when we were kids – especially with me as the only girl – and that’s how she is now. ”

“What did you say to her when she was telling you what to wear?”

“I said, ‘Ma, I’m a big girl now, remember?’”

“So you don’t confront her; you kind of make light of it.”

“I don’t scream at her if that’s what you mean.”

“No, I wasn’t talking about screaming at her. I was talking about having a genuine conversation about how you’re a grown woman who doesn’t need her mother to tell her what to wear and how it doesn’t feel good to have her invading every aspect of your life.”

Janice pauses and then asks, seemingly puzzled, “What’s the alternative?” 

Similarly confused, I say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know what you mean.”

“Well, when you just said it doesn’t feel good having her invade every aspect of my life, it suddenly felt scary to me, like if she wasn’t invading every aspect of my life would I feel, I don’t know, would I feel lost, abandoned?”

“That’s a very insightful question,” I say, thinking back on my own relationship with my intrusive mother. Early in my life I experienced her hovering as protective and safe, but I grew to chafe against it and needed to set my own boundaries. Perhaps Janice isn’t there yet. “So you’re saying that as much as you protest about your mother’s intrusiveness, perhaps there’s a part of you that still longs for it.” 

Janice looks at me, looks over at the clock, looks back at me and says, almost mournfully, “Ten minutes left.” 

So Janice longs for me as well, I think. I remain silent giving her the chance to pursue her own thoughts.  

“It’s so easy to me to feel lost, empty. Even when I’m with my kids, even when the house is bursting with noise, I often feel alone. I feel alone right now. You’re not saying anything and the session is almost over and I feel scared. And when I feel scared like this at home I call my mother. I sometimes fantasize calling you, but I wouldn’t do that – unless there was really some kind of emergency.”

I wonder how it is possible that I haven’t seen this side of Janice before today, how I accepted her protests against her mother’s intrusiveness at face value and didn’t see the scared little girl underneath. Was it because of my own experience with my mother? Perhaps. But I have an alternative thought. With her mother, Janice is the obedient child who accepts – and perhaps even welcomes - her mother’s intrusion into her life. With me, she is still the obedient child, but she knows – consciously or unconsciously - that I want her to be separate and independent, so she’s being as I want her to be. But as long as she’s being how I want her to be, she’s still not being her own separate person.

“I was just thinking, Janice, that you’re always trying to be the person the mothers in your life want you to be, whether that mother is your biological mother or me or perhaps other people as well. I think in the process of trying to please us all so you don’t have to feel scared and alone, you’ve kind of lost who you really are.”

“That feels really scary. Truthfully I’m not sure I’ve ever known who I am. I was my mother’s child and my husband’s wife and my children’s mother, and my brother’s sister, and your patient. I think all those people are different. I don’t think I have one me.”

“I can understand how that feels really scary, Janice. So I guess we know what we need to do. We need to find out who Janice really is.”

Ten Sessions

“This is our ninth session,” says Penny, a petite, anxious 29 year old, adjusting the pillow behind her back as she settles into the chair across from me. 

“And that means…?” I ask.

“We only have one session after today.”

Startled, I ask, “Why is that?”

“That’s all the insurance company allows.”

“I’m confused, Penny. I thought I explained to you that I’m not on any insurance panels and that you decided to see me anyway.”

“For 10 sessions,” she says, squirming in her seat. “That’s what my husband said I could do because you were so highly recommended. He said I could see you for the same 10 sessions the insurance company allowed and if you were as good as they said you should be able to help me in the same amount of time.”

Thoughts swirl through my head: I’m not on insurance panels because I don’t believe therapy can work in 10 sessions; you were sexually abused by a brother-in-law as a child, have to force yourself to endure sex and want to be “cured” in 10 sessions; you’re a scared, passive woman with three small children at home and have no one in your life to talk to other than me; I wanted to see you at least twice a week and we compromised on once, but I’m not a miracle worker.

I settle on a far more mundane response. “How would you feel about us ending after ten sessions?”

“That’s what my husband said I could do.”

“I understand, but how do you feel?”

“I don’t want to. Talking about all that childhood stuff, I don’t know, it’s brought it all back up. Now I really can’t stand to have my husband touch me. He’s not happy about that either.”

“Have you told your husband how you feel?”

She shakes her head, morosely.

“Can you?”

“It won’t make any difference.”


Penny’s passivity is difficult for me, but I know that’s always been her way of being in the world, the obedient little girl who did what adults told her – including her brother-in-law – and now the obedient adult who follows her husband’s dictates. I’m in a bind. I don’t want to become another person who tells Penny what to do, but I also can’t help her if she doesn’t stay in treatment.  


“What are your options, Penny?”

“I guess I’ll just have to stop after next week.”

“You wouldn’t consider talking to your husband about what you want? After all, he must also want you to become more comfortable with sex,” I say, aware that I am coaching her.

“Do you think that’s possible?” she asks, more brightly.

“It would certainly be my hope, but I know we can’t accomplish that overnight.”

“Would you talk to him?” she asks, plaintively.

Oops, I think, I should have seen that coming. “Penny, why do you think my talking to your husband would have more weight than your talking to him?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know. It just would.”

“But maybe it's important for us to understand why you feel he'd listen to me more than to you.”

“I just know he would.”

“Let me ask this, how are you and I different?”

“What?” she says, giggling, “In every way. You’re smart, educated, a doctor. You know what you’re talking about. There’s nothing about us that’s the same.”

“It’s impressive how much you put yourself down, Penny, how little you think about yourself, how you so easily give up your power. If you think so little of you, I understand that it would be difficult to present what you want in a convincing manner to your husband or anyone else.”

“So you’ll talk to him?”

I groan inwardly. “Is the answer for me to talk to your husband or for you to feel better about yourself and to be able to stand up for what you want?”

“But we’re running out of time,” she says.

“You definitely have a point,” I say, glad to be able to support her statement. “It would be difficult for us to sufficiently help you feel better about yourself in one remaining session.”

“So you’ll talk to him?”

I remain reluctant to step into the role of the authority who might save the day – assuming, of course, that her husband would listen to me which is clearly uncertain.  Instead I say, “How about this idea, Penny? How about if you ask your husband to come in to a session with you and you can tell him how your feel and I can be here to support you?”

“What if he won’t come?”

“I guess we won’t know until you ask.”

Submission

“I can’t believe that I’m spending all my time in therapy talking about my job,” Pauline exclaims, bursting into tears. “I thought you talk about your childhood or relationships, not a dumb job!”

I’ve seen Pauline only a short time and she’s correct, she’s spent most of her time talking about her job. She’s a graphic designer, a good one it seems, but she’s been in a state of panic since the administration in her company changed, resulting in her reporting to two different supervisors.

“This week the artistic director wanted me to drop everything and work on one project, while the marketing director wanted me to work on a totally different project. What am I supposed to do?” she asks, crying. “I’m think I’m going to quit. I can’t stand the stress!”

“Pauline, I understand that you can’t possibly do two different things at the same time, but what I don’t understand is why it is so, so distressing to you.”

“But I can’t do what both of them want!”

“I understand that you can’t do what they both want,” I say. “But I don’t understand why that throws you into such a state of panic. I don’t know a lot about you, about your history, your past, so it’s hard for me to know what might be going on for you, but since your anxiety is so intense, I would suspect it does have something to do with your childhood. I’m only guessing here, but was there a lot of conflict between your parents? Did you feel you had to choose between them?”

“No, not at all. They presented a united front. There was no room for discussion. You just obeyed. You did what they said. My mother was the tough one, though.”

Pauline hesitates. I wait.

“This is hard for me to talk about. I feel like I’m betraying her. She was doing what she thought was best.”

I can feel Pauline’s anxiety. I also see the beginnings of a connection, the issues of obedience and betrayal perhaps linking the past and the present.

“You never disobeyed my mother. She wouldn’t talk to you for days, for weeks if you did. She knew that she and Dad were right and that you just had to do what they said. I couldn’t stand that silent treatment. I felt like I’d lost her. So I did what she wanted. Even about work. I was really good at math and science as a kid. I wanted to be a doctor. But my parents said no, that I’d never find a husband if I became a doctor, that I’d never have children and a life, so I couldn’t do it. I was good in art too, so I became a graphic artist. It’s okay. At least it was.”

Inside I scream, “No! No! You need to do what you want to do!” Part of this reaction is probably my experiencing Pauline’s unfelt anger and rebellion. But I know that some of the feelings are all mine. My father was an angry, explosive man who hated psychology and psychoanalysis and always opposed my career choice, responding with both anger and contempt. But as afraid as I was of him, I fought for what I wanted. My grandmother taught me that. Pauline probably didn’t have such a role model in her past. She submitted.

“You couldn’t resist your parents and pursue your dream. You had to submit.”

“Submit. Yes, that’s a good word. I’ve submitted my whole life. With my parents, with men, with work, whatever.”

“It sounds like that’s why this work situation is so difficult for you. You have two authority figures wanting different things from you. You can’t obey them both. So you feel scared just as you did as a child. Then you can’t think from the place of an adult and figure out a way to handle the situation however you need to do.”

“That’s true! I always want to please. But I can’t please two people at once.” She pauses. “So what should I do?”

I smile. “I understand that you’re very used to having people tell you what to do, but maybe that’s one of the things we can work on changing. I suspect you know a lot more about your company and the people involved than I do and that you’re the one who’s best able to figure out what to do.”