Untold

Peter is unusually quiet at the start his session. He looks down at his hands, then gazes out the window. I resist the temptation to ask him what is going on and remain silent with him. The silence grows more comfortable, the connection between us palpable.

“I know I’m going to tell you today. That doesn’t seem like such a problem. I guess the question is why I’ve never told you before. It’s been almost three years since I started seeing you. I know you’ll ask why I didn’t tell you sooner. I’m asking that myself.” Pause. “The answer isn’t obvious to me. If I hear myself say it never seemed like such a big deal, that seems ridiculous, even to me. If I say it was too hard to talk about, too embarrassing, too uncomfortable, I just don’t think that’s it.”

My discomfort increases as Peter continues speaking, trying to imagine what he might not have revealed. He’s talked about his rigid, explosive father; his removed, distanced mother; his bullying older brothers. I like Peter. Shy, reserved, anxious Peter has done well in his life. He’s a sociology professor at a local university, is married to a warm, accomplished woman, and thinking about having children. He worries about his anxiety, his tendency towards depression and his discomfort with the competition in the academic world.       

“I was molested by my Catholic priest,” he blurts out. “By my confessor. It’s like a joke. I wonder who he was confessing to.”

I’m shocked. Not by the revelation, but just as he’d anticipated, by his not having told me long before.

“I’m so sorry, Peter,” I say, “So sorry that you had to endure that experience.”

“And wonder why I didn’t tell you before.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“Obviously the case in Pennsylvania brought it all back up. Not that I’d forgotten about it. Just brought it back to the forefront.”

“Leaving you feeling how?”

“Sad. Depressed. Disgusted. Angry. You name it. The feelings all victims describe.”

“And how do you feel telling me now?”

“I don’t know. Kind of numb I guess. It’s not like I thought about it every time I was in session. Occasionally it would go through my mind and I’d say, no, this isn’t a good time.”

“And when you thought it wasn’t a good time, why did you think you thought that?”

He shrugs. “Other things seemed more pressing? I really don’t know.”

Suddenly a thought comes to me. “Have you ever told anyone?”

“I told my wife. Before we got married. I thought she should know…”

“Can you finish that sentence?”

“See, this is exactly the problem. Once I tell, it all becomes about my having been abused by my priest.”

“What all becomes about your having been abused by your priest?” I ask, confused.

“Everything. My shyness. My depression. My anxiety. It’s not! It’s not only him. He didn’t cause everything,” he says angrily.

“Of course not,” I reply. “Being sexually abused – however significant - was one of the events that affected your life, along with many other things.”

Peter stares at me. “Do you really mean that?”

“Yes, of course.” I pause. “I just had a thought. That priest had so much power over you as a child, perhaps it’s that you don’t want to give him the power to have made you the adult you are, you don’t want him to control your adult self.”  

Tears run down Peter’s cheeks. “That’s right. That’s exactly right. I could never put it into words, but that’s what it is. The bastard manipulated me as a child. I didn’t want him to matter anymore,” he says burying his face in his hands, sobbing.

“I don’t think you’re going to like what I say next, but the problem is, that by not speaking about him, you have unconsciously given him the power to continue to silence you, to continue to hide as if you’ve done something wrong  - which you haven’t.”

“No! That can’t be! Oh my God, you’re right. I’ve let the bastard continue to control me!”

“Well, you’re now unsilenced. You’ve spoken. You told me. We have a lot of work to do around this Peter – and I don’t mean that he’s the only factor influencing your life – but he has been a significant force and it’s time for you to speak.”

“I’m so sorry, so sorry I never told you.”

“You have nothing to apologize for. As I always say, you can only do what you can do and you’ve now spoken.”

#MeToo

“I’m trying to decide whether I should join the hashtag MeToo movement and tell my story. All these courageous women are coming forward. Why shouldn’t I? I mean, I don’t have the same story. There was no famous actor or congressman, but still, I have a story.”

You most definitely have I story, I think to myself, remembering when Amber first started working with me many years ago, an almost mute thirty-five year old who held herself rigidly together, staring blankly into space. It took her over a year to tell me her story of sexual abuse by both her father and brother.

“And, after all, my brother is a pretty hot-shot business executive,” she continues.

“Is it that you’re concerned your story isn’t …” I hesitate. “…news worthy enough?” I ask, puzzled.

She pauses. “Maybe.” She pauses again. “You think that’s kind of crazy, don’t you?”

“I don’t know about crazy, Amber, but it confuses me. It’s definitely up to you whether or not you tell your story. I’d just want us to consider the consequences of your telling or not telling.  But what’s your fantasy here, that you expose your abusers and no one really cares? Is your wish that it be front page news?”

“I hadn’t thought of that but it’s a good question.” She sits in silence. “I’ve never told anyone except for that feeble attempt to tell my mother who obviously didn’t want to hear it so I immediately backed off. And you, of course. But even that took me a long time. I have considered confronting my brother.  Not my father,” she continues. “That would be way too scary. But I haven’t even said anything to my brother. What am I scared of? Having them deny it? I guess. Not having anything to do with me? That would be no great loss. But now I’m thinking of telling the world that my father and brother took turns raping me while the other one watched. It’s disgusting. I can’t even say it without feeling nauseous. How could I imagine telling the world?”

Although I have some thoughts about what might be underlying Amber’s conflict, I stay silent, waiting to see what she’ll come up with herself.  

“I would love to expose them to the world. I want the world to know how these seemingly normal upper-middle class men – boy in my brother’s case – can be brutal rapists. I was only 11 for God’s sake. And it went on and on until I finally got up the nerve to say ‘no’. And what would people say? That I could have said ‘no’ sooner? That I could have told my mother? Or somebody. I’ve certainly told myself those things often enough.”

“You say that it feels scary to confront your father, but it sounds like you find it less scary to imagine exposing him to the world.”

“I suppose I do. It feels more anonymous, like he can’t get to me. Standing in the same room with him and confronting him, I don’t know what he’d do. Scream his head off at me, for sure. Smack me across the face? Very likely. Kill me? I don’t know. Maybe.”

Feeling my anxiety rise, I say, “Amber, I don’t know whether your fear that your father might kill you is your fear as a child or your adult fear, but if the adult you is truly afraid that your father might kill you, I can’t imagine that your exposing him publically would decrease that risk.”

Amber’s eyes widen. “Now you’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry, but when I said I thought we should consider the consequences of your speaking out, I wasn’t thinking about your placing yourself in physical harm.”

“But how do I know whether my fear is coming from my child self or my adult self?”

“I don’t know. We definitely need to talk about it more. And I should ask you if you’ve ever known your father to physically taken revenge on anyone.”

“I know I told you that he beat up my first boyfriend. I guess he didn’t want the competition. And that he sometimes beat up gay guys in bars. I know he has guns, but I’ve never known him to use them. Used to say it was for our protection. That’s a joke.”   

“Let’s step back a minute. Let’s for a moment ignore the possibility of your father retaliating and look at what you’d feel about publically telling your story.”

“Scared.” Pause. “Victorious. Like I finally got them back.” Pause. “But then I wonder what everyone else would think of me. Especially my fiancé. I haven’t even had the nerve to tell him. I’m afraid he’ll think I’m garbage. Or that he’d treat my brother and father differently.” Pause. “When I hear myself say that I think I must be crazy. Why wouldn’t he treat them differently? And why do I care? You know, I think maybe I should work on telling the important people in my life before I decide if I’m going to come out publically.”

I smile. “Sounds like an excellent idea.”

When Silence Speaks

Emma settles into the chair across from me, takes a deep breath and speaks quietly, slowly, deliberately. She’s telling me about her week. Her son is excited about his softball team, her daughter is anxious about her upcoming school play, her husband is away on a business trip. “That makes it easier,” she says.

“It makes what easier?” I ask.

“His being gone. I know it’s terrible to feel like that and I know it’s not his fault, but it’s easier.”

“But what’s the ‘it’ that’s easier?”

There is a long, profound silence. Emma sits motionless. Although I’ve only seen Emma for a couple of months, I’ve become familiar with her stillness.  

“I’m trying to decide whether I should take the children out to dinner tonight,” she finally says. 

I’ve also become familiar with Emma’s tendency to avoid answering questions and to switch topics, often to something banal, almost as though there was nothing we had been discussing. 

“What just happened now, Emma?” I ask. “How did you get from it being easier when your husband’s gone to taking the kids out to dinner?”

“If I’m going to take the kids out to dinner, tonight would be a good night. Before he gets home.”

Yes, I think, but she still hasn’t addressed what makes it easier when he’s gone. I consider pushing, but find myself reluctant to do so.  

Another profound silence ensues. 

“Do you ever take vacations?” she asks suddenly.

“Yes, I do. Why do you ask? Do you feel anxious about my being gone?”

Another long silence. “No,” she says with a nervous laugh. “It would be easier. I wouldn’t have to think of what to say.”

“So it’s easier when your husband is gone and it would be easier when I’m gone.”

Silence.

“Speaking is obviously very difficult for you, Emma. What happens when you sit in your silence? What are you thinking? What do you feel?” 

Silence.

Emma’s silence, her non-responsiveness, her tendency to talk about apparently inane topics. None of it makes me angry. Sometimes bored, sometimes frustrated, but generally I hold myself still along with her. It’s like feeling frozen. Emma has told me a little about her background. She was the only child of a religious family who lived in the rural Midwest. Her father was extremely depressed, often unable to get himself to work for weeks at a time. Her mother was an angry, embittered woman who reached for the belt for any minor infraction.

“Emma, what about as a child? Was it difficult for you to speak then too?”

Another nervous laugh. And silence.

After a while I ask, “Can you say what you’ve been thinking during the last couple of minutes that you’ve been silent?”

After a while she responds, “They’re images.”

“Can you tell me what some of the images are?” I say gently.

“Cornfields. Sunflowers. My mother. It’s cold.”

I flash on a patient I saw years ago who, as a child, was punished by being left naked in the storm cellar. I wonder if Emma was similarly abused.

“Can you tell me about your mother, Emma?”

“She was mean. She hated me. She said I was the devil’s child, that she needed to beat the devil out of me.”

“What kinds of things did she beat you for?”

“Everything. Not getting up at exactly 6AM. Tracking mud in the house. Talking when she had one of her headaches. She always said her headaches were my fault. She never had headaches before I was born. That’s what she said.”

“You were terrified of her.”

She nods. 

“Did you ever feel angry with her?”

Silence.

“You can feel angry with someone even if you don’t express it,” I say.

“She gets bigger.”

“I’m sorry?” I say, confused.

“The image. It gets bigger.”

“You’re saying that if you feel angry at your mother you see her image getting bigger?”

She nods.

“And you feel more frightened.”

She nods again.

“Is that what happens when you talk to me, Emma? Does the image of your mother get bigger, like you’re not supposed to be telling me things?”

Silence.

“You know, Emma, you can always tell me to stop, that you’ve had enough. I’ll always respect your wishes. The last thing I want to do is be another abuser.”  

Silence. Then she says, “Maybe if it would be better if we didn’t go out to eat. It’s a school night. The children need to do homework.”

Although she can’t say it directly, Emma has clearly told me she’s had enough.

Secrets

Tall, thin, with neatly coifed grey hair, Estelle Harrison, fidgets in the chair, looking decidedly uncomfortable. “I’ve never done this before. I’m almost 80 years old. I can’t believe I’m coming to a psychologist. But I have to talk to someone. My husband has lung cancer and he won’t let me tell anyone. Another secret. I’ve been the keeper of secrets my entire life.”

“Why is your husband’s cancer a secret?” I ask, thinking how unimaginable it would have been for me to keep my late husband’s cancer secret, how more impossible it all would have been without the support of friends and family. 

“He feels ashamed of being sick, like it’s a weakness.”

“So you’ve told no one?”

“Our daughters know. They call. But they have their own lives. And truthfully,” she says sighing, “I’m not sure how much they’d care anyway. Dave wasn’t a very good father. In fact, he was a terrible father. He used to beat them. That was another secret I kept. He’d take down their pants and beat them with a belt.”

For a reason I cannot completely explain, I think, “Did he get off on it?” What I ask is, “How old were they?”

“I can’t remember how old they were when he started. Young. Too young.”

“Until …?” I ask.

“They both left the house pretty early, so I’d say until they were seventeen. Actually after Maureen left – she’s the oldest – Liz got it worse.”   

Finding this difficult to listen to, I say nothing. My mother didn’t protect me from my father’s rages, but he wasn’t beating me and his rage wasn’t fueled by a perverse sexual desire as seems to be true for Dave Harrison.  

As if reading my thoughts, Mrs. Harrison says, “You think I’m terrible don’t you?”

“I don’t think you’re terrible, but I’m not sure why you didn’t try to intervene, to protect your daughters.”

“I was afraid he’d get physical with me too.”

“And did he?”

“He slapped me across the face a couple of time.”

I am again silent.

“You younger generation, you all think I should have left him. But it wasn’t so easy back then. I was a housewife. I had no way to support myself. I wouldn’t have known what to do,” she says starting to cry.

Feeling more compassion, I say, “It sounds like your daughters are angry with you for staying, for not protecting them. That must make it harder for them to be available to you; that must make you feel all the more alone.”

She nods her head, still crying.

“This might seem like a foolish question, but why haven’t you told whomever you want about your husband’s illness, regardless of what he wants?”

She looks at me, startled. “I can’t do that. It’s his illness. If he doesn’t want me to tell, I just can’t.”

I feel myself getting angry at Mrs. Harrison’s passivity. Is that reasonable? Or is my anger at my mother seeping into this therapy session? Or, yet another possibility, am I feeling Mrs. Harrison’s own anger? 

“Are you angry with your husband, Mrs. Harrison?” I ask.

“I can’t be angry at him. He’s sick.”

“You can still feel angry with him. You can feel angry for his mistreating you and your daughters. You can be angry that he won’t allow you to speak, to tell people who could be supportive of you.” Suddenly I wonder, “Does your husband know you came here today?”

“Oh no, I could never tell him that. He’d be furious at me for telling our secrets.”

I again feel annoyed. Now I wonder if I am feeling angry like her husband, angry that she is so passive, angry that she presents as a martyr just waiting to be beaten. Does she carry within her both the beaten child and the angry parent, with the angry parent projected outward so she doesn’t have to feel the rage herself?  Way too complicated for a first session but I do ask, “What about your own childhood, Mrs. Harrison? Were you beaten?”

“Oh no. I was the good one. My brother and sister got my mother’s rage, but I always did what she wanted and I never talked about what went on at home.”

“Just as you did with your husband. But were you angry with your mother?”

“I couldn’t be. I was too afraid I’d give her some sassy answer one day and then I’d get it too.”

“Sounds like you might have lots of angry stored up inside.”

She shrugs. “I guess.”

Unsurprisingly, another passive response.” 

Unspoken Loss

“I never expected to be in a therapist’s office,” Darlene says, pulling at her fingers, glancing anxiously around the room. “I like all your windows. It makes your space feel larger, but still cozy.” She laughs self-consciously. “I’m an interior designer. Space matters to me. I’m sorry, I’m just rambling. I guess it’s hard to begin.”

“Take your time,” I say reassuringly. “It’s hard to open up to someone you’ve never met before.”


“It’s hard to open up to anyone. I’m 37 years old and except for my husband and my best friend I never talk to anyone about my sister. Or her death. That’s how I got to you. My friend sent me your blog about your husband’s death and I looked on your website and saw that you wrote a book about it and I thought, wow, here’s someone who can talk about her loss, maybe she can help me talk about mine.” 

Darlene is talking rapidly now, as if in a rush to discharge years of pent up words. “I was seven when she died in a car accident. She was 16, the golden girl. Literally. She had beautiful long blond hair. And she was very smart, in her senior year of high school, with her pick of all the best colleges. Even her name was special – Lily, like the flower. Me, I kind of faded into the background – skinny, brown curly hair, a bit of a tomboy back then, okay in school but nothing exceptional. I was the tag along little sister, kind of a pest. 

“Then she got killed. Of course my parents were devastated. Everyone was. I know now that my mother became majorly depressed, but then all I knew was that she vanished into her bedroom. I would hear her crying. I’d want to go in and comfort her but the door was always locked. Sometime I’d curl up on the floor outside the room and just wait for her to come out. My father threw himself into his work. He’d tell me not to bother my mother, not to upset her any more than she was already upset.”

I’m aware of the sadness I feel for Darlene as the lost, frightened child. I’m also aware of Darlene’s envious feelings towards her sister and wonder how that has affected her mourning.

She continues. “I don’t know how long it was before things became normal again. Except they weren’t normal. All the pictures of Lily disappeared. And no one could mention her name again. I never really understood how Lily died. I mean I knew she died in a car accident, but I don’t know who was driving or who was at fault or any of the particulars. I still don’t know. No one talks about her. It’s as though she had never existed. It’s weird.”

I shudder internally. I can’t imagine a more unhelpful way to mourn. And I can’t imagine the message Darlene received about death and mourning when a child goes from being loved and adored to being vanished and unspoken. There’s so much that Darlene needs to work on. 

“How did you feel about Lily’s death?” I ask.

“Scared. I couldn’t understand how someone could be here one day and gone the next. It was frightening. I still feel that way. Death scares me. It’s one of the reasons I keep putting off having a child. My husband really wants children. But I worry. How would I cope if the child died?”

Darlene has stated her conscious concern about having a child. I wonder about possible unconscious reasons such as fear that her negative thoughts magically killed Lily and might similarly kill a child or that a child would become a competitor for her husband’s affection just as Lily was for her parent’s. But these are just speculations on my part and very far from where Darlene is at the moment.

She continues. “I still miss Lily. And I imagine losing a child would be way worse. Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“Is there something wrong with me that I still miss Lily after 30 years, that I still want to talk about her?”

Sadness fills me as I think about my two October losses - my husband now dead for seven years and my grandmother for 44. I carry them with me always, aware of the richness they brought to my life.

“Absolutely not,” I say. “Your parents never gave you or themselves the chance to mourn Lily, to tell stories about her, to remember her so that you could take Lily inside yourself so that it wouldn’t feel as though she had never existed. Taking the person who’s died inside us is a way to bring ourselves comfort, as well as a way to keep that person alive in the only way possible.”

Darlene’s eyes fill with tears. “You will work with me, won’t you?” she asks plaintively.

“It will be my privilege.”