Session 7
I’m in the bathroom of the office building staring at myself in
the mirror. I wish I could figure out
who I’m looking at. I wonder if I changed when I started drinking or maybe I
never really knew myself in the first place.
I walk down the long hallway to Jen’s office. I go in.
The doorbell rings. I walk back
to her office.
“Come in.”
I walk in and sit on the couch.
I write the check and hand it to Jen.
She is a little antsy like she has a lot of energy, and her eyes search mine
as she asks about my ADD appointment.
“Did you have your appointment with Dr. Nelson?”
I get a folder out of my bag.
I’ve taken so many tests and read so much information and heard so many
different possible diagnoses that my head is spinning. I hand over a packet of information I got
from Dr. Nelson’s office. I don’t know
where to start.
“I guess I don’t have ADD.”
Jen looks surprised as she opens the packet.
“I took a lot of tests, like hours of tests over several days.”
Jen scans the information.
“Dr. Nelson said I have a lot of other things, but I don’t have ADD.”
Jen begins to read bits of information.
“Eighteen of nineteen symptoms of Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity
Disorder are reported by Jenny: fidgeting or feeling restless; difficulty
remaining satisfied; being easily distracted; losing important things or
forgetting a lot; always feeling on the go, as if driven by a motor.”
She moves on to the next area.
“On the MMPI-2, Minnesota
Multi-phasic Personality Inventory, people with similar profiles are
rebellious, feel inadequate, alienated, irritable, angry, argumentative,
distrustful, and behave unpredictably.
They see their world as threatening.
They are often emotionally distant from others and unhappy. They present with a variety of social,
sexual, and familial maladjustments.
They have poor social judgment, are prone to act out, and impulsive.”
I sit quietly listening, but my thoughts begin to drift
elsewhere.
I’m sitting in a
small white room with one window. The
sun is shining in. I’m at the ADD clinic
and a young man is getting another test ready.
I’ve already taken some tests on the computer. Now this man is going to ask me questions. He’s probably fifteen years younger than I
am, but I feel like a kid in school again.
I’m nervous because I want to do well on these tests. He asks if I’m ready, and I nod my head. He begins to ask me simple math
questions. I answer them without
trouble. Then he asks me a word
problem. I start to sweat. I’m terrible at word problems. I could never do them in school. I have a pencil and paper to write down the
numbers. I scribble a few notes down and
give him an answer. I’m guessing it’s wrong.
Next, he shows me
the measure of a song with notes on the scale and I’m supposed to tell him the
name of the song. I look at the notes:
quarter note, dotted half note, two eighth notes. I start humming the notes to myself. I can hear the tune, but I can’t think of the
song. He waits patiently. I’m wracking my mind. Still nothing. I finally give up and say I don’t know. We go on to the next question. As soon as I answer the next question the
song title comes to mind and I blurt out, “America!” He looks at me funny. I tell him that’s the name of the song. He smiles and writes it down. I can’t believe I figured out the song. I feel so much better.
Jen begins to read more facts she finds of interest.
“Jenny scored in the 42nd percentile on the auditory
test, but scored in the 96th percentile on the visual test
indicating the possibility of auditory memory impairment.”
I immediately think of our time with Dr. Nelson.
JB and I are sitting on a red leather couch
waiting to hear the results from days of testing. Dr. Nelson turns to JB and asks him if he’s
had any issues with me listening to him.
JB replies that it’s been a problem throughout our whole
relationship. I know it’s been a problem
because many of our arguments are over conversations I don’t even remember
having. I feel like he just makes stuff
up. Then I wonder if I am really missing
whole conversations, and I wonder if I’m really that stupid.
Dr. Nelson begins
to explain how my brain works. It’s not
that I don’t listen; I just don’t take in much of what I hear. He said it’s not like it goes in one ear and
out the other. It never goes in, in the
first place. He says my auditory
processing doesn’t allow me to hear or follow conversations in loud
environments because my brain gives as much attention to the noises around me
as it does to the voice I’m listening to. I also don’t take in conversations
where the voice is familiar or if there is an accent. So, basically, I only take in about 30
percent of what someone says.
JB starts
crying. I don’t know why this is so
emotional to him until he explains that he’s lived our whole life together
thinking I don’t care about him because I never listen to him. I had no idea how much this meant to
him. Dr. Nelson gives us some tips on
how to communicate better through active listening. I’m supposed to practice repeating what JB
says and ask questions so I can focus better.
Suddenly, so much of our fighting makes sense. No wonder he didn’t think I loved him. No wonder I didn’t remember a lot of our
conversations. It’s such a relief to get
some answers.
Jen continues.
“Cognitive/learning tests indicate Jenny has average to high
average intelligence.”
Jen says she’s not surprised, but in Dr. Nelson’s office I feel as
though someone picked me up off the streets and told me I’m royalty; the long
lost daughter of a king. Maybe I can finish
my college degree. If JB’s moment of
relief was finding that I wasn’t ignoring him all these years, mine was finding
out I wasn’t stupid. It’s the first time
in my life that someone other than JB is telling me I’m smart. Most surprising is that my highest scores are
in math and my lowest scores are in reading. I love to read and I hate
math. I wonder if they mixed me up with
someone else.
I think back on all my bad math experiences. One of my math teachers yelled at me every
time I didn’t finish my homework and made fun of me when I answered a question
wrong. Another teacher became frustrated
with me after I finally got up the nerve to ask a question. He proceeded to lecture the class on
listening skills. Another one threw an
eraser at my head when I’d fallen asleep in class. My worst memory was in 2nd
grade.
We are studying
the life of the pioneers. We eat corn
bread, which I don’t like. I don’t think there’s any sugar in it. Then we make costumes using construction
paper for hats and shoe buckles. In
keeping with the pioneer theme, at math time, our teacher asks us math
questions. If we get it wrong we have to
sit in the corner with the dunce cap on.
I sink as low in my chair as I can so I won’t be called on, but it
doesn’t work. She asks me to solve an addition problem. I try really hard, but my hands are sweaty,
and I can’t think. I answer, and I know
it’s wrong from the look on Ms. Kind’s face.
She tells me to go sit in the corner, and put on the dunce cap. I’m trying my hardest not to cry as I stand
up and walk toward the corner. This is
the longest walk I’ve ever taken. I take
the cap and put it on my head. I climb
onto the stool. Luckily I’m facing the
corner because I can’t keep the tears from rolling down my cheeks.
Jen flips through some more pages of the results before reading
out loud again.
“Jenny has a low level of dopamine, further indicating the probability of ADD. Writings pertaining to reward deficiency deficit may well apply to Jenny’s cognitive functioning. It is almost as if regular life does not provide enough excitement, or juice, for her to be satisfied. Therefore, she pursues activities which operate on this dopamine rich system in the brain.”
This is the part I don’t understand. The descriptions sound like ADD, but maybe I
don’t understand it as well as I think I do.
If it’s not ADD, then what? Does
it mean there’s not something I can take to become more organized like the
people I’ve read about whose entire lives were turned around as a result of
finding the right medication? I’m tired
of analyzing everything. Between the
excitement of realizing I’m not stupid and the confusion of having ADD symptoms
without actually having ADD, I’m exhausted and my head hurts.
“Well, knowing you’re a visual learner, we’ll have to start doing
more visual things like writing on the whiteboard or using the sand tray room
instead of just talking.”
“Ok.”
Talking; I wonder if that means that we’ll be getting back to
sharing my feelings. Now my stomach
hurts, too.
Session 8
We’re driving to Jen’s office.
JB is with me this time. Jen
asked me if I thought he would come. I
knew he would. I’m nervous but a little
excited at the same time. I haven’t been
able to tell JB how I feel, and I’m hoping Jen will be a good mediator for
us. On the other hand I’m worried that
I’ll say something that will upset him, and we won’t get it figured out in an
hour, and I’ll have to deal with him for a week without Jen’s help.
We pull in, and I tell JB I have to use the bathroom. He waits outside for me. I keep thinking about the Harley Davidson
dealership across the street. I start to
dream about riding away on my motorcycle.
It doesn’t matter where I go. I
just want out. Guilt eats away at me. I look in the bathroom mirror. I’m such a loser. I can’t believe I was once happy and excited
about life. I used to think I could help
people. Here I am barely dragging myself
out of bed in the morning.
I turn away from the mirror and force open the heavy bathroom
door. We walk down the hall silently
together. I open the door and we go
inside. The surroundings are familiar to
me, but it feels weird having JB in this private space. It’s been a sanctuary, and I know I need to
share myself with JB or we will never have a marriage, but I don’t feel
comfortable with him here. I realize my
kids are the reason I’m willing to get out of bed in the morning.
They’re also the reason I’m willing to sit in this office, scared
and lonely, trying to share the inside of me with one other person in the world
who might be able to help.
JB and I sit on the couch.
I wish it was a little bigger.
Jen sits in her chair. We do some
small talk and Jen answers some of JB’s questions about insurance and medical
billing. I’m looking out the window into
the parking lot. It’s in pretty bad
shape. The pavement is cracked and there
are plenty of potholes. The paint
dividing the parking spaces is almost completely gone. The landscaping is sparse, and the few bushes
that remain are overgrown. The only
reason the office building doesn’t look abandoned is the handful of randomly
parked cars and the regular smokers who gather around the main door for their
break. Jen gets us started on the real
reason we’re here.
“Let’s talk about communication today. Communication is one of the hardest things to
do for married couples and one of the most important parts of marriage. So, I want you to think of something that
happened recently that was a problem.”
I usually try hard to forget our problems. I always go blank when I feel put on the
spot. Fortunately, we just had a
situation. I don’t really want to bring
it up, but it seems like the safest topic to talk about so I start first before
JB comes up with something more difficult.
“I have one.”
“Go ahead.”
“A couple days ago JB came home and told me that the garage was a
mess.”
“And how did that make you feel?”
I think for a moment, remembering the feelings chart.
“I felt angry.”
“Why were you angry?”
“Because I can’t do everything.”
Jen turns to JB. I
breathe.
“JB, what did you mean when you said the garage was a mess?”
JB looks at Jen. He talks
calmly. My hands are shaking. I tuck them under my legs.
“I was just making a comment.
I wasn’t saying I wanted her to clean the garage. I was just frustrated that it was so dirty,
and I spoke my thoughts out loud.”
Jen turns her head toward me.
“This is a very common problem among adult children of
alcoholics. They have learned, as kids,
to read between the lines. They were
given mixed messages on a daily basis, so they have to depend on their
interpretation of the situation for their emotional, and often times, physical
well-being. They also have to remember
to keep the secrets of the family and they are loaded with guilt. So family members from alcoholic homes never
say what they mean, and they don’t think anyone else does either. They don’t take what you are saying at face
value. They communicate by beating around
the bush or they do a passive-aggressive type of manipulation where they might
say they aren’t upset but they will act as if they are. Then, they grow up and develop relationships
with people outside of their family and wonder why they can’t communicate.”
Jen turns to me.
“JB is not saying he wants you to clean the garage. He is stating a fact. You are taking it personally because you are
used to reading into what your parents were saying because they probably never
said what they were really thinking.”
I’m stunned. Did she just
tell me I’m wrong? How can my feelings
be wrong? We just learned about how our
feelings aren’t right or wrong. That
can’t be what she just said. She looks
at me. I don’t know what to say. I think she knows I’m lost.
“Did JB say that you should clean the garage?”
“Yes.”
“What did you hear him say, and what are you thinking about when
he makes the comment?”
“I feel like I’m getting yelled at.”
“Why do you feel like you’re getting yelled at?”
I feel her question digging inside of me for an answer. It feels like she is cutting into my heart
and pulling out memories and feelings I didn’t know were there. I don’t know where they’re coming from. Everything she is saying about alcoholic families
hits so close to home. Normally my
defenses go up by now because I feel threatened. It takes me back to age six.
My dad is
home. I didn’t hear him come in. I don’t have time to hide in my room. Maybe I can sneak by. I jump off the couch
and run toward the kitchen. He comes
around the corner and I freeze. His
voice is loud. He tells me to sit
down. I turn around to sit at the
table. Why didn’t I go to bed earlier?
He starts to talk about being tough in order to make it in this world.
“Come over here.”
He’s
shouting. He doesn’t think he is, but he
always shouts when he’s been drinking, like he’s deaf. I stand up and walk around the table and
stand in front of him.
“Life isn’t
easy. You gotta know how to defend
yourself.”
His voice is so
loud I can’t hear what he’s saying.
Mentally I’m trying to leave and listen to him at the same time.
“Hold your hands
up like this.”
He grabs my hands
and holds them up in front of my face like I’ve seen on TV in boxing
rings. Suddenly, he punches me in the
side. I bend over. I’m shocked.
Usually, he just talks for a long time when he comes home late, and all
I have to do is try to stay awake. I
stand up and clench my jaw. I tell
myself not to cry. I need to be tough. He holds my hands back up and then he puts
his hands up. I’m trying to be ready
this time.
“Go ahead, punch
your old man.”
I’m not sure how
to punch him or where, but I know I have to or I might get hit again. I swing toward his chest. He catches my hand in his and punches me with
his other hand.
“See, you have to
be quick.”
I stay bent over
for a few seconds. I don’t think I can
keep from crying this time. I don’t know
if the tears are from the pain in my stomach or the emotions I feel because he’s
hitting me. I can’t let him see me
cry. I breathe in deep and fight back
the tears. I tell myself I’m tough and
stop being a baby. I put my hands in the
air again. I don’t want to hit him
because I know he’ll hit me again after he blocks my punch, so I wait for him
to make the first move. His hand moves
toward my side so I grab it with both of my hands. He uses his other hand and slaps me across
the face. It’s not hard, but the
emotional sting is killing me. He
decides I’ve had enough. He pats my
shoulder. He can tell I’m beginning to
cry. I know I let him down. I’m not as tough as he was hoping I was. Letting him down hurts more than his
punches. I tell him I’m going to
bed. I run up the stairs and into my
room. I jump underneath my covers and
cry quietly into my pillow.
Jen asks me again how I feel.
The pain is too close to the surface, and I can’t answer the question
without tears. I’m back in the room with
JB, but I feel like I’m six again.
“I feel like nothing I do is good enough.”
My voice cracks. Tears run
down my cheeks. I take a deep breath.
“…like he’s frustrated or mad at me all the time…like my dad used
to be.”
I look down. I can’t see
anything through the tears, and I can’t stop them. I think of my dad. I think about how I could never do anything
as perfectly as he wanted.
“So when you argue or JB makes a comment to you, you hear your
dad?”
“I guess so.”
It starts to make sense to me.
I’m trying to pull it together and stop crying. I realize in that moment what I’ve known but
haven’t been able to overcome; our eight-year age difference and my feelings
for JB interchange between being a safe father figure and being a husband.
“What we need to do is start using a communication tool so that
you can both begin to understand what the other person is saying.”
Jen grabs a communication work sheet and hands it to me.
“I want you to use this worksheet, and go through the situation.”
I look at the worksheet. I
wipe my cheeks with my sleeve. The work
sheet says, “In this situation…”
“In this situation JB came home and told me the garage was a
mess.”
I look at the next part, “I felt…”
Feel. What did I feel?
“I felt angry.”
I look down at the next line, “Because I need.” Need!
I don’t need anything. I can’t
think. I stare at the floor. My thoughts are racing. I’ve never needed anything. I don’t need anyone. I don’t need anything. I can do it myself. I had to do it myself. Maybe I can skip this line. Jen notices my hesitation.
“Jenny, this is really important, but probably really hard,
because you had to fend for yourself as a kid.
Being self-sufficient was necessary when you were growing up, but now
you are an adult, and you have to let go of those defense mechanisms in order
to relate to other people. When thinking
about needs, try to think about what you want.”
What I want? I get to ask
for something I want? That sounds so
foreign, but it feels kind of good to think about what I want. It also scares me. When I wanted something as a kid, I was
always disappointed, so wanting something was risky. It was so much easier to not expect anything
than to be disappointed.
“We all have needs that have to be met. You may have suppressed your needs, but you still have them. What do you want from JB in this situation?”
“I want him to help me clean the garage.”
“So, you need help.”
“Yeah.”
“Good. Read the next part
on the work sheet.”
“Would you be willing to…”
“This is the request. You
have a need and you are going to ask JB to meet the need by doing something.”
“Would you be willing to help me clean the garage?”
“Now say the whole thing straight through.”
“When you came home and complained about the garage being a mess,
I felt angry because I need help. Would
you be willing to help me clean the garage?”
I feel weird. I feel naked
and vulnerable, but good. My body
relaxes a little and I’m not as angry. I
feel…softer. It’s the first time I’ve
asked JB for help with anything. It
might be the first time I’ve asked anyone for help with anything.
Session 9
I’m on my way to see Jen.
JB isn’t with me today. I can’t
do two of those communication sessions in a row. I need a break. I want my time with Jen all to myself. She looks me in the eye, and her words are
warm and comforting. Even if she is
trying to be tough with me on a subject, it makes me love her more for it. She is the closest thing I’ve come to having
a mom besides Nancy. I would never say
that out loud. It seems too weird or
unacceptable to talk about a friend like that, but Nancy isn’t like any of my
other friends. Being my Bible study
leader, she was a mentor before we became friends. There doesn’t seem to be a lot of difference
to me between a parent and a mentor, but maybe that’s because I’m not really
sure what a parent is supposed to do.
Nancy is not a people pleaser.
She’s direct, but kind. She gives
me advice based on wanting what’s best for me versus what I want to hear. My stubborn, independent streak normally
makes me run from people like her, but she is different from the other people
in my life who think they know what’s best.
Nancy loves me just the way I am.
Love scares me, but I so desperately want it. It keeps me from running
away.
I feel like I’m crossing a boundary when I think about Jen and
Nancy filling the void my mom couldn’t fill.
When I think of my own mom, it’s a blur.
My mom had so many things going on at once; seven kids, an alcoholic
husband, a trashed house and her church work.
As a Mormon trying to earn her way into heaven, her work was never
done. She was always running a hundred
miles an hour. Maybe that’s where I get
it.
The hardest part about being mad at my mom is that she tried so
hard. If she had said mean words or
abused me somehow, I would feel justified in my anger, but she was nice. She made Halloween costumes and baked cookies
for school. She came to my sports games
and cheered me on. She drove me to
countless soccer games and somehow found money for me to play on summer
teams. She never raised her voice. So, how could I resent her so much?
I explained my mom to a psychiatrist once who said she probably has
obsessive-compulsive disorder. I’ll
probably never really know. I just
wanted her to notice me. Even though she
was there physically a lot of the time, it was like she wasn’t there. Her body was with us, but her mind was
somewhere else. Her two favorite movies
were Somewhere in Time and The Two Worlds of Jennie Logan, where
the main characters go back in time to be with the person they love. I think my mom lives in another time always
trying to get back to her mom. I don’t
think she’ll ever know how much she is missing in the present by living in the
past. When I think of my childhood
without healthy parents, I get sad, lonely, and often very angry, but when I
think of the repercussions on my siblings, it infuriates me.
I’m home from
college. I’m not living at home, because
there isn’t any space, but I come back to visit and check up on my little
brothers and sisters. Like usual there
are kids everywhere and not everyone is accounted for. We usually find Jeff out in the woods
somewhere with a box of matches and a big knife. Ben and Sam are in the garage with a dummy
they made from old clothes and newspaper and whatever else they found lying
around. They have a video camera they’re
using to tape something for school. I’m
really impressed that they are actually doing some schoolwork and that’s when
they light the dummy on fire.
I walk into the
house and step over backpacks, shoes, and boxes of stuff. Jessica is sitting at the table doing her
homework. As I get closer I see she is
crying. She sees me right away and wipes
the tears away as she runs over to give me a hug. I squeeze her tight and ask her what’s
wrong. She breaks down again, only now
she is crying so hard I can’t understand what she’s saying. I finally get it out of her that she is
having a hard time with her math homework.
I sit down with her to look at it, and I’m shocked to see the level of
difficulty for fifth grade. I start
looking through her math book to see the examples so I can help. That’s when
she starts crying harder. She tells me
she is in the dumb class, and everyone else is smarter than she is. I ask her why she thinks she’s in the dumb
class, and she tells me that she has to leave school on the little bus and go
on field trips with her small group of dumb kids who can’t keep up with
everyone else.
My heart
breaks. I know exactly what she’s
talking about because I went to the same school at her age. She’s in the Omnibus program. Only the top five percent of the whole grade
gets to participate in the program. They
get out of school for special field trips, and they are in high level
classes. Everyone knew who the smart
kids were, and I was jealous every time they got to leave class to go on their
special trips. It’s almost the end of
the school year, and it hits me that not only did she miss out on a self-esteem
boosting experience, but my poor little sister has believed all year that she
is stupid! I explain to her several
times what the program really is and that she’s actually one of the smartest kids
in her class, but she doesn’t believe me.
She thinks I’m just trying to make her feel better. No matter how many different ways I try, she
doesn’t go for it. I suppose after an
entire year of thinking she’s dumb, one little conversation with her sister who
is home from college isn’t going to sway her.
I’m so mad at my
parents I could burn their house down, but that isn’t going to help
Jessica. I’m mad at myself for not being
home to have caught this earlier. It
makes me question if going to college was the right thing to do. It seems so impossible to pick up all the
pieces left behind by my mom and dad, but I love my siblings too much to give
up.
I’m almost to Jen’s office.
I feel anxious, but excited at the same time. I love my hour with Jen, but I hate that it’s
only once a week. I get anxious that the
hour I have won’t be spent well, and that I’ll have to wait a whole week to see
her again. I’m hoping that we talk about
my feelings because I feel more connected to her, but it also makes me sick to
my stomach. I feel like I’m beginning to
let down my guard with her. I think that
would make life feel less heavy.
I walk down the long hall trying to avoid people like usual. The hall doesn’t seem as long as it did the
first few weeks, but it’s still a little nerve wracking. I reach for the doorknob and turn it. It doesn’t turn. My heart drops. I turn it again. It’s locked.
My heart races. I don’t want to
turn around. I don’t want anyone to see
me. I couldn’t be more embarrassed if I
was naked right here in the hallway. I
don’t know what to do. I think
quickly. I look at my watch. I’m not early. I open my purse and pull out my
calendar. I have it written down. We usually meet at 1 p.m., but we changed
this time to 10 a.m. I bet she
forgot.
The weight on my shoulders makes it hard to move. I push myself to walk back down the
hall. I see a man walking into the
building. I look at the floor. He holds the door open for me. I mumble, “Thanks.” I get in my car and sit. Inside I’m fighting with myself. Part of me is rebuilding the wall around my
heart. Another part of me is trying to
stop. I want to break it down. The loneliness is killing me! I’m racing through ideas and excuses, trying
to find an explanation or an answer that will satisfy my heart, but nothing is
working. My drive home aches. A fight breaks out. My mind is bombarding me with old messages of
worthlessness. My dad’s voice is
shouting that I should never have gone to therapy in the first place. I don’t need counseling. I don’t need anyone. I can do it myself. The lonely little girl inside me is begging
me not to rebuild the wall. She is
desperate for love and for someone to know her.
She keeps glimpsing small slivers of hope, but feels every time she
grasps one, she gets cut. I need a
drink. This battle is exhausting. I don’t want to fight it anymore. I just want out.
1 comment:
great post jen! GBU
kta kita
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