“I really appreciate your seeing me again,” Estelle Peterson says wringing her hands. I had previously seen Mrs. Peterson for a number of years. Although we made some progress in curbing her anxiety, she remained a constant worrier.
“My daughter’s pregnant,” she says.
“Congratulations. I remember you were afraid you’d never have a grandchild.”
“Yes, yes, that’s true,” she says dismissively. “But she lives in Florida.”
“And that means?”
“Zika!”
“Oh, you’re worried about her getting the Zika virus.” Concern about Zika is certainly understandable, but I suspect it will only fuel Mrs. Peterson already considerable anxiety.
“And having a deformed child! I can’t imagine anything worse. I told her she has to leave Florida. Right now. Right away. She doesn’t have to worry about me, but she has to take care of her baby! I told her to go stay with her sister in Connecticut.”
“And she said?”
“That it wouldn’t be a practical. That she and Jonathon have jobs. That they just couldn’t pick up leave.”
“I told she could just quit her job and Jonathon can stay here, that she’d be all right with her sister. Then she got mad at me and told me to stop it. I told her I couldn’t stop it, that I couldn’t bear to spend the next six months worrying about her baby. They hadn’t even told me right away, so I’ll probably worry anyway, worry if one of those mosquitos got her early on. But she won’t listen to me. I don’t know what I’m going to do. How am I going to get through her pregnancy?”
“How’s your daughter feeling about being pregnant?”
“What? Oh, she’s pretty good. She said that some of her morning sickness was pretty bad, but I told her not to worry about that, that was to be expected. I remember when I was pregnant with her and her sister. I thought I would die. But I didn’t. And she won’t die either. But I might die of a heart attack if I have to worry about the baby for six months.”
I remember now. It wasn’t only Estelle’s constant worrying that was so difficult, but also her need to make everything about herself. Everyone’s pain becomes her pain. She sees herself as being constantly worried about others, but really she’s concerned about dealing with her own anxiety and discomfort.
“So how can we help you to survive the next six months?”
“No, you have to help me convince Diana. Tell me what I can say to her to make her leave?”
“Even if I could do that, which I can’t, it seems to me we both need to respect your daughter as an adult, to respect her decisions and to try to be as supportive of her as you can.”
“How can I respect her decision when it’s endangering her child, when it will leave me, her mother, a nervous wreck until the baby is born?”
“Do you generally respect your daughter’s decisions? Did you respect her decision to marry her husband, to become a teacher, to move to Florida?”
“I definitely wanted her to move to Florida. I wanted to keep an eye on her. Becoming a teacher was okay, although I wondered if she couldn’t do better. I guess that was true of Jonathon too, but he worked out pretty good.”
Knowing that I am most likely talking to myself, I continue on, “Mrs. Peterson, respecting your daughter’s decisions means recognizing that she’s an adult apart from you who has a right to make a decision even if it is different from the one you’d make.”
“Even if it endangers her child? No, I can’t respect her decision.”
And I don’t respect Mrs. Peterson’s way of being in the world, making it difficult for me to espouse respect when I don’t feel it myself. Perhaps I can try to accept Mrs. Peterson for who she is, and thereby move us both towards a more tolerant view of others.
“Mrs. Peterson. I suspect that you’re not going to change your daughter’s mind about not leaving Florida. Perhaps I can help you to accept that fact and perhaps we can work on managing your anxiety.”
“You’re not being helpful.”
“Sorry. I can only do what I can do.”
“You used to say that to me all the time, that I had to accept my limitations, that I couldn’t control everything, that I could only do what I could do.”
“Yes, that’s true.”
“But maybe this time I can do more.”
“I guess we’ll continue this discussion next week.”
Diana beams at me as I open the door to the waiting room, walks rapidly to my consulting room, and starts talking before I have a chance to sit.
“I couldn’t wait to tell you,” she says excitedly. “I left my apartment today without checking the door three times to see if it was locked.”
“Wow! That’s great,” I reply. “Quite an accomplishment.”
“I know. I’m proud of myself. But that doesn’t mean I’ll do it next time,” she adds, wanting to be sure that neither she nor I expect too much of her.
“But you did it this time. Any idea what made it possible?”
“Well, we’ve been talking about it a lot. I’ve been trying to tell myself what you always say, that checking the doors or the windows or whatever, doesn’t make me safe, it only gives me the illusion of safety.”
“So by telling yourself what I tell you, it’s like having me with you, which might also make you feel safer.”
“That’s definitely true. I always feel safe when I’m here.”
Twenty-seven year old Diana and I have been working together for several years. She’s very attached to me and does often see me as a safe haven in an otherwise unsafe world.
Diana has good reason to feel unsafe. The youngest of six children in a strict, religious household, Diana became her mother’s scapegoat, enduring vicious beatings and days of frigid silence. Her father was mostly absent and certainly not a protector. She couldn’t wait to leave for college but, much to her surprise, she felt frightened being away from home, became riddled with almost paralyzing obsessions and returned to the unsafe safety of her abusive family. She stayed at home through her Master’s degree in Marketing, performed at the top of her class, got an excellent job and moved into her own apartment. It was then she began treatment with me. We formed an almost instantaneous connection, I as the good mother, and she as the seemingly competent, capable adult, hiding a scared, vulnerable child underneath, a combination that invariably hooks me.
“I know you’d never hurt me,” Diana continues. “There’s no one else I can say that about.”
“There’s your black and white thinking again,” I admonish. “You know that I have hurt you, Diana, like when I misunderstand you or, worse still, when I go on vacation.”
“That’s for sure!”
“And there are other people you trust Diana, your brother Thomas, some of your friends.”
“You’re right. But now that you reminded me for the umpteenth time that the world is not all black and white, I feel scared that I didn’t check my door, like I need to rush home and check or someone will break in and be waiting for me.”
“I wonder if you’re saying that if I’m not all good, then I can’t magically protect you from the bad in the world and that makes you feel both angry with me for reminding you of that reality, as well as more vulnerable, like there is no magic that can keep you safe, that neither you nor I are omnipotent.”
Diana sighs. “It’s always about that, isn’t it, anger and vulnerability. I’m scared of everyone’s anger – including my own – and I’m afraid if there’s no magical protection I’m going to be hurt.”
“I’d say you summed that up very well.”
“So what do I do about it?”
“You try to remember that just because you’re not omnipotent – that checking the doors three times isn’t magic – doesn’t mean that you’re powerless. It doesn’t mean you’re the helpless, dependent child at the mercy of your mother. It means that your power is limited, just like every other person in the world.”
Diana continues for me. “And just because I’m angry doesn’t mean I’m so powerful that my anger can destroy.”
I nod.
After a brief pause Diana says, “I’m trying to decide how I feel about not checking my door.”
I remain silent.
“I guess I’d say I feel sort of in the middle, not as happy as I was when I first came in, but not as scared as I was a few minutes ago. I think I can go to work rather than rushing home, but I might feel more scared going home tonight.”
“What might you do to help yourself be less scared?”
She smiles. “Think about being here. Or even better, imagine you’re coming to see my apartment.” She pauses. “But maybe I’ll ask Barb to come over. She doesn’t have your magic, but she’s a more likely visitor.”
