Controlled Chaos Sessions 16, 17, 18

Session 16

Andy has been in play therapy for a while now, but we’re to a turning point and it’s getting hard for me.  His play therapist, Samantha, told us that kids start working through their issues by playing with inanimate objects like trucks or blocks.  These things represent the furthest thing from emotions.  As the child feels more comfortable, they begin to use some of the toys that represent life, but stay on the periphery, like army men or dinosaurs.  As they get closer to expressing their feelings and emotions, they will use toys that are closer to representing themselves and their family, like the doll house with the wooden people.  All along, I’m in the room with Andy, but I’m instructed to only play when he invites me and to let him have complete control.  In other words, I don’t make up any of the play, I only respond to what he tells me to do. 

We are at the final stage where he moves from playing with the family and the house to playing directly with me.  We use Nerf swords and guns.  Samantha has told me that I need to express a lot of emotion so Andy knows that I understand what he is feeling. 

Andy hands me a sword and tells me he is a ninja.  I look scared.  I get down on my knees so he’s taller than me.  He swings his sword at me, and I block him with my sword a few times.  On the fourth swing he gets me in the side.  I fall to the ground covering my wound with my hand and moan loudly.  He waits for me to recover.  I pick up my sword with my good hand, and he attacks again.  This time he gets me on the other side.  I fall again and grasp my other side moaning louder than before.  He’s anxiously waiting for me to pick up my sword again.  I look at Samantha for reassurance that my acting is good enough.  Although, it’s not much of an act knowing that the pain Andy is inflicting on me is the same pain that I have inflicted on him during his young life.  On one hand, I’m relieved that he is working through this anger and pain. On the other hand, it hurts to know the anger and pain he feels is my fault.  It’s easier at home when he’s watching TV or playing video games to tell myself that he’s fine, and he’s too young to really have been hurt by me.  It’s easy to rationalize my mothering skills with a bottle of wine.  But here, in this little play room, I’m staring at my son who is killing me with his sword while a professional watches us re-enact the emotional pain I put him through.  Then I think about JB’s comment that Andy has had his twitch since he was two years old.  I think it would be less painful if Andy were using a real sword. 

What kind of a monster was I that my two-year-old son would begin twitching?!   I pick up my sword again.  I want him to hurt me.  I need him to hurt me because I can’t stand what I’ve done, and I’m hoping that each time he wields his sword over me, he is able to erase the marks I left on him.  With my sword in hand, I pretend I can barely move.  He waits a moment, smiles and then charges at me.  I can only partially block him this time and his sword goes right into my stomach.  I fall forward to the ground. With my face on the floor, he can’t see the tears that are forming.  He has won the battle.  I hope.  

I’m thinking about this session as I walk into Jen’s office and take my spot on the couch.  The guilt I feel for being a terrible mom is tremendous.  It weighs on me and pushes me further into the couch cushions. 

“Andy’s play therapy session with Samantha was yesterday.” 

She waits.  I think.  I feel.  I breathe.

“How did it go?”

“It was really hard.”

“How did you feel?”

“Horrible.  Guilty.  Like the worst mother in the world.”

“What happened in Andy’s therapy?”

“We had a sword fight.  Every time he stabbed me I had to show that it hurt me, so he could see that I understood his pain.”

“Wow.  That’s really brave of you to do.”

I think of the word “brave.”  I can’t connect that word to myself.

“It’s more like sorry.  I don’t feel brave.  I feel really terrible.  What kind of mom puts their child through that much pain?”

“It’s part of our human nature to hurt people we love without knowing.  Relationships are messy.  No one is perfect.  We just have to do the best we can.”

“My best wasn’t good enough.”

“So, what are you doing about it?”

“About not being good enough?”

“What are you doing to make things better?”

“Well, we’re in play therapy.”

“Yes.  What else?”

“I’m in therapy to learn how to be a better mom.”

“Yes.  What else?”

“I went to treatment and I go to my twelve step meetings every week.”

“Good.  What else.”

“I go to the DBT group every week.”

“Yes.  Anything else?”

I think for a moment.

“I don’t think so.”

“Do you hug him?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you kiss him and hold him?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you tuck him into bed?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you feed him and clothe him and go on school field trips with him?”

“Yeah.”

“You are a good mom, Jenny.  You need to stop punishing yourself and give yourself some credit.  You are doing everything you can right now, and that’s all you can do.  Can you change the past?”

I wish I could.  I would give anything to change the past.

“No.”

I think about a woman in our twelve step group.  Every week she says the same quotes over and over.  They were annoying at first, but they are making more sense as I get to know myself.  She says, “You are right where you are supposed to be.”  I didn’t get it until now.  In DBT we talked about living in the present moment, but I had a hard time grasping the concept.  Now it is coming together.  I can’t do anything about the past.  All I can do is live in the moment I have right now, and that will help determine the future that I want.  It doesn’t help to feel guilty and depressed.  That only makes the current situation worse.  As I take this all in, I begin to see a different picture of my situation.  Instead of looking at my life and seeing a big pile of mud, I see a lump of clay.  It doesn’t look like anything right now, but I see the possibilities of what it could be.  There are probably a million different things it could become, but I can’t see the finished product.  All I can see is the possibility of something.  Some of my guilt starts to slide off my shoulders, and I begin to think that it’s going to be okay.  I just need to keep working toward the goal.

What is my goal?  Terri, the DBT leader, asked us to put a picture or a phrase on our DBT workbooks that captures why we are in this group.  It didn’t take me long to think of a verse from a song I love by Sara Groves, Generations will reap what I sow.  I think of how I was raised and how alcoholism runs in our family.  And I think of how badly I don’t want to pass it down to my kids.  I looked up pictures on the internet and found one of a huge tree and another of a large, rusty chain that’s broken.  I print them out and put them on the front and back cover of my book.  The tree stands for generations of my family; the good and the bad.  The broken chain stands for the end of anger and rage in my family.  I can see my kids growing up without alcoholism or anger in their lives, and I can see them as healthy people raising their own kids without addiction and anger.  On the back cover of my book by the chains I write, “Breaking free.”  It surprises me how much these pictures motivate me to do the homework and to keep working on it when I want to quit.

“One of the things you need to learn in order to heal is radical acceptance.”

I look at her with a blank stare.

“Radical acceptance means that no matter what the situation is, you need to accept that it isn’t going to change.  Sometimes there are people who just won’t accept life as it is.  They will do anything to deny it, but denying it doesn’t make it go away.  It just makes the situation harder for everyone else around them.”

I think of my mom’s denial and how it has affected my life.  By insulating herself from pain and reality, she has forced the rest of us to deal with her issues.  In my second or third week of therapy, Jen said that my emotional age was about thirteen and that usually we stop growing emotionally because of a traumatic event.  My mom was only ten when her mother died and her emotional age seems about ten years old.  For a moment it makes me feel sorry for my mom.  Then I think of being forced to grow up living with my mom’s denial and chaos, and my heart beats faster.  My jaw clenches.  My body is in fight mode, but my mind is telling me to calm down.  If I can’t calm down and accept my reality, then I am doing the same thing to my kids that my mom did to me. 

“You can’t move on to the future if you haven’t accepted the past.”

I’m trying to wrap my brain around this acceptance thing.  My heart is on fire, moving between cold and hot air.  I’ve already buried my childhood and cried about it.  I don’t know why I can’t move on.

“What do you feel when you think about radical acceptance?”

“I feel mad.”

“What do you feel mad about?”

“I feel mad about my life.”

“What about your life.”

“I feel like everything is on my shoulders.  I have to forgive my parents for everything as well as work my butt off to become a good mom for my kids.”

“Why is it hard to forgive your parents?”

“Because I feel like forgiving them is saying it’s alright that they were bad parents.”

“Do you think you could say, it’s not alright, but I’m going to try to understand?”

My head drops and I stare at the floor. 

“What do you know about your parents’ childhoods?”

“I don’t know a lot, but it seemed they both had a lot of problems.  My dad used to talk about how they didn’t have much money and his parents fought a lot.  My grandma had been a beautiful hairdresser at one time, but I don’t remember ever seeing her without a beer and a cigarette in her hand.   

“What about your mom?”

“Her childhood wasn’t great either.  Her mom died of pneumonia in a hospital.  Being ten years old, my mom wasn’t able to go see her, and she never got to say goodbye.  They packed up all their stuff and moved from the west coast to the east coast.  My grandfather remarried six months later to a woman only 14 years older than my mom.  My mom said her stepmother made her throw out all of her stuffed animals because she was too old for them.  And my mom wasn’t allowed to keep a picture of her real mother in her room.  Her step mother sounded awful.”

The more I talk, the more I see my parents as two broken children without anywhere to go. 

“So, really, they were just kids emotionally, trying to raise their own kids.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“Maybe you can do some journaling about your parents.  Journaling seems to help you work through it.”

“Ok.”

“In your journaling about your parents, make sure you are writing about what you are feeling; not just events that happened, but what emotions do those events bring up inside of you.”

My mind wanders to our DBT group and how we talked about secondary emotions.  We keep talking about feelings and how we repress them or use a secondary feeling to hide the initial emotion.  I stayed after group to ask Terri how to go from repressing feelings to feeling them.  She said it was a process.  I wanted her to just tell me where the button was so I could push it and find my feelings.  Even though I don’t want to feel them, I know I won’t be healthy until I can, so I might as well try to do it and get it over with. 

“In DBT this week we talked about secondary emotions, and I can’t figure out how to know when it’s secondary or when it’s how I really feel.  Whatever I feel seems real.  Like when I’m angry.  I feel angry, so how do I know if it’s anger or if I’m really sad or depressed?”

“Let’s use an example.  When’s the last time you felt angry?”

It doesn’t take me long, because I feel like I’m always angry, but since we’re talking about my parents, I think about the last time I talked to my mom.

“When my mom stopped by my house.”

“What happened?”

“I was at home, and the dog started barking.  I looked outside and my mom was at the door.”

“Then what?”

“Well, sometimes I pretend I’m not home, but my car was in the driveway, and I thought she might have seen me, so I opened the door and let her in.”

“Did you have a conversation with her?”

“We don’t have conversations.  She just talks.  She starts the minute she enters the doorway and doesn’t stop until she leaves.” 

“And how does that make you feel?”

“Most of the time I just ignore her and pretend like I’m listening.”

“How does ignoring and pretending make you feel?”

I picture my mom in my entryway talking.  I picture her with my siblings talking.  I picture her with my kids talking.  All I can see now is her talking and talking and talking and never listening.  I can’t remember an image of her where she isn’t talking.  I fight the urge to dismiss these thoughts, but that’s exactly what Jen is asking me not to do.  She wants me to quit ignoring these thoughts and start facing them.  The more I let myself think about it the angrier I get. 

“I feel angry.”

“Why do you feel angry?”

“Because I don’t like to be with her.”

“Why don’t you like to be with her?”

“Because she drains me of all my energy.”

“What about her is draining your energy?”

I’m starting to feel the anger pulsing through my body as Jen digs for answers.

“She never stops!  She just goes on and on and on about our dead relatives and some dead people who aren’t even our relatives and what she’s doing at church and all the problems going on at work and whatever other dumb thing is going on in her life.  She spends 99 percent of her life doing genealogy, trying to figure out who some great, great, great grandmother is and where she’s from, and then she hunts down their gravestones to record the dates of their birth and death.  Who cares?!  They’re dead!”

Jen is quiet now letting my words float through the air and my heart beats fast with emotions.  In the quietness I look at Jen and the concerned look on her face penetrates the anger I feel.  It slowly cools off and as my heart slows, so do my thoughts, which make room for a new feeling to emerge.  We sit quietly together, and my breathing slows more and my heart begins to ache.  The pain runs up my chest and into my head.  I feel itchy like I want to run or try to gather the anger back up, but it has evaporated, and I can’t reach it.  Jen breaks the silence.

“What do you feel right now?”

My lip starts to quiver, and my eyes fill with water.  I turn away from her and swallow hard trying to hold the new feeling in check, but it has swelled too big to contain now, and I can’t fight back this new emotion.  I swallow hard again and try to speak.

“I feel hurt.”

“Why?”

“Because I feel like she cares more about dead people than she does about me.”

I hang my head and close my eyes.  I want to crawl up on the couch and fall asleep.  The pain keeps building and rests on my heart like a big boulder.  It’s sharp and heavy, and I know now why I’m always angry, because anger is so much easier to feel than hurt.  I can function with anger.  It may not always look good, and I break a lot of things, but this pain is immobilizing.  I feel like I was cast in wet cement and it’s starting to harden, and I’ll never be able to break out of the mold.  Jen is listening and watching me.  It feels like that’s all I’ve ever wanted, to be seen.  Being invisible hurts.  I think back to my teen years when I found a way to be seen.  I found that in sports people noticed me, and I played my heart out to be noticed.  Sometimes the work paid off.

It’s a perfect Minnesota summer day.  I scrape my cleats across the hard dirt of the infield between second and third base. My friend, Carrie, is the pitcher, her sister is the catcher, and I’m at short stop.  Carrie’s dad coaches our summer softball team.  My eyes are trained on the batter.  I watch her practice swings and which way her feet are facing in the batter’s box.  I know from Carrie’s pitching whether or not this girl will be able to swing fast enough to hit into left field.  The batter doesn’t have a good swing, but Carrie throws a changeup, and she hits it high left over third base, out of bounds. I could easily let this one go foul and it would be counted as a strike, but I can’t let things go, and I’m sprinting with an intense focus on the ball.  As I dive, my outstretched glove grabs the ball a foot off the ground and I slide to a stop keeping my glove in the air for the umpire to see.  Carrie’s dad is so excited, he’s screaming and shouting and jumping up and down on the sideline.  It wasn’t a tournament game or anything important, but the catch was amazing, something right out of the movies. My heart swells up with pride, and I drink in every wonderful feeling this moment brings.  Carrie’s dad talks about it for weeks afterward.  Every time it comes up I savor the attention and tuck some of it away for later when I’m lonely and thirsty for attention, and there’s nothing else to drink.

As the memory fades and my mind wanders back to the couch I’m sitting on, the joy fades and the pain in my chest returns.  Anger is so much easier to feel than disappointment and loneliness.  Wanting something is dangerous, because wanting is on the verge of needing.  And if I need something and can’t get it, it’s disappointing.  No, it’s more than that.  Not getting my favorite toy for Christmas is disappointing.  Not having a mom who could listen and know and understand me is physically painful.  It’s an ache that starts in my heart and reaches out to places inside of me I didn’t know were there.   It cuts off my air until it’s hard to breathe.  It’s like trying to live on top of a mountain before adjusting to the altitude. 

Letting go of the anger and letting myself feel the pain causes some of the hard pieces around my heart to crumble and the soft, bruised areas inside cringe at the fresh air seeping in.  Mentally, I’m trying to grasp the crumbling pieces and put them back in place so my heart doesn’t hurt so much, but the pieces turn to sand and run between my fingers.  I’m slouched on the couch staring at the floor.  Jen finally speaks.

“So, anger is probably a secondary emotion, then?”

“Yeah, probably.”

“What do you think the primary emotion is?”

Several words come to mind: pain, hurt, loss.  I wonder if any of these are emotions.  Jen slowly pulls out my emotion worksheet and hands it to me.  I look over the faces and descriptions.  There is sad, exhausted and depressed, but none of those words describes the ache I feel.  None of the emotions on the sheet hurt as much as I do, but I try to explain it anyway.

“It’s sad, only more.  Like when you see those starving children on the TV commercials and their eyes look dead.  That’s how I feel.”

 

Session 17

I’m walking down the long hallway to Jen’s office. I open the main door.  Her office door is shut.  I wonder if someone else is in there.  I’ve never seen anyone else in the waiting room.  I’m sure I’m not her only client, but I’m annoyed anyway.   What a strange thought.  I’m not three years old.  I wonder if I’m more than thirteen yet, emotionally, I mean.  I don’t want to feel jealous.  I sit down on the couch.  A bunch of magazines are spread out on the coffee table.  I look at the titles; Parenting, Cooking Light, Women’s Health, Family Fun, Good Housekeeping.  I pick up Sports Illustrated.  I’m turning the pages, but I’m not really reading them.  I look at my watch.   My session is in two minutes.  I wonder if they’ll be done by then.   I can hear muffled voices through the wall.  I wonder if anyone has listened to me from this side of the wall.  There was a mom and daughter here once in the waiting room after I was done.  There are always people at the fancy place where Andy goes for his play therapy, but no one is ever here.  I look at my watch.  She’s five minutes over.  I’m worried.  I might get five minutes less than my hour.  I guess it would only be fair.  She has let us go over an hour several times.  I check her wall clock a lot, but I’ve never caught her checking it.  It seems like she is really listening.  She’s always looking at me.  I love that.  And now she’s looking at someone else.  I hate that.  I look back at the magazine.  I still can’t read it. 

The door finally opens.  A young woman walks out.  They say good-bye.  Jen turns to me.  She is smiling.  It’s a big welcoming smile.  Her whole face lights up when she smiles.  I think Jen likes me better.  I go in.  The room is warm as usual.  I sit on the couch and sink into my spot. 

“How was your week?”

I have to think.  I’m still wondering about that girl who was in here.  She was in my spot on my couch.  I need to think about something else.  My time in here is sacred, and I’m not going to waste any of it thinking about that other girl.  I wonder if Jen really likes me.  Maybe she just likes everyone.  What did she ask me?  What did I do this week?  How do I feel?  Oh yes, I remember this week.  It was a little crazy!

“It was a long week.”

“How come?”

“I was trying to let myself feel stuff.”

Somehow I’m learning to let go.  I’ve heard the saying, “Let go and let God.”  I didn’t get it.  I still don’t get it, but there has been a slight change in me.  I’m able to let go of my anger sometimes.  It’s only for a moment or two, but that’s just long enough to feel something.  It sucks.  It’s crazy.  Thirty years of emotions are buried inside me like lava in a volcano.  All of our digging around is causing tremors, and I feel like I’m going to explode into pieces. 

“What kinds of things are you feeling?”

“I don’t know.  It’s really confusing.  One minute I’m fine.  Then I’m sad.  Then I’m angry.  Then I’m anxious.  It’s like somebody else takes over my body, and I can’t control it.”

“You’ve been burying your emotions for so long that they are finally coming to the surface.  It will feel unnatural for a while because you’re not used to feeling your emotions.  You need to remember that they will come and then they will go, like a wave.  When it feels uncomfortable just remember that they aren’t going to stay forever.”

I feel anxious right now, and what Jen says about the wave makes me think of my DBT group.  We practiced being in the moment, just experiencing what we are feeling right now.  Not tomorrow.  Not yesterday.  Just now.  I think about how anxious I am.  I practice a meditation exercise we did in group.  I see my anxiety riding on a blue, white capped wave.  I’m standing on the shore, and the wave comes in and washes over my feet.  Then the wave goes back out, and my feet have buried themselves in the sand. 

“How do you think you are handling the new emotions you’re feeling?”

I’m scared, but I don’t want to say that.  I feel like my finger was plugging a hole in the dike.  Now I’m starting to take my finger out and I’m scared the hole will lead to cracking, and soon all the emotions I dammed up will break through the dike and drown me.  It happened on a small scale after my DBT group this past week and it scared me.

Group is over, and I’m sitting in my car.  I need to get home.  My kids are waiting, but I need some time to think.   We talked about secondary emotions, and I’m anxious to figure this out.  My mind drifts to my parents.  I’ve seen a picture of my mom as a little girl about ten years old.  Her hair is white blond and long with big curls at the ends.  Her eyes are iridescent blue, and it looks like she’s staring at me.  Her smile covers her whole face, so I figure it was taken before her mother died.

In high school my mom fell in love with a man named Richard.  They planned to get married, but their parents made them wait until they were through college.  While Richard was away at college my mom met my dad while he was stationed in D.C.  They got married and moved back to my dad’s home in Minnesota.  My mom had never been in the Midwest, and he told her everyone in Minnesota spoke Norwegian.  She bought some language record albums and began practicing.  She practiced for two months before they arrived, and she didn’t find out Minnesotans speak English until she asked the gas station attendant where the bathroom was in Norwegian. Their marriage started off on so many wrong notes it’s amazing they made it twenty years before the divorce.

My mom left her whole family to move to Minnesota.  Her father-in-law died when I was two years old.  Her mother-in-law was drinking a lot and possibly schizophrenic.  It’s the first time I realize how lonely my mom must have been.   

I’ve always blamed my parents for my messed up childhood, but when I look at their own childhood, there’s no way they could have done much better than they did.  What did God expect would happen with those two messed up children?  Does he even care?  If we’re all broken and hurting each other, why did he design us to be in relationships?!  I have so many questions now for God.  I don’t know where they came from.  Just a little while ago I was teaching Bible study, and now I don’t even believe God cares about me.  I’m finally being honest, and I’m so mad I could put my fist through the windshield. 

I pound on the steering wheel until my hands hurt.   Tears stream down the side of my face.  My heart aches.  It’s like a muscle I haven’t used in years and now I keep working it, and I just want to quit because the pain is too much.  I need a break.  I’m trying to stay angry, but inside I’m melting.  I’m grasping for the anger or anything that will cover the pain, but I can’t reach it.  It used to be automatic. I didn’t even have to try.  Anger was my response to anything and everything.  

Tears are coming faster.  Everything I’ve ever wanted from my parents was impossible from the start.  Wishing they were happily married, wishing my mom would give up some church time to be with us, wishing my dad would set some rules because he loved us instead of screaming at us all the time, wishing my mom would be a mom instead of trying to be our friend, wishing she had been strong enough to hold me instead of looking to me for help.  I rest my head on the steering wheel.  My body shakes with my sobs. It surprises me how long it lasts.  I guess I have fought it for so long that I’ve only ever let out a few tears here and there.  Now it feels like the buckets of tears I’ve been storing all these years are pouring out like a river, and the current is so strong I can’t help being swept away.   The sobbing is so deep it doesn’t make any sound and it feels like I’ve been dragged by the current into an underwater cavern.  I’m drowning in this cavern, but I don’t care.

 Fifteen minutes go by.  I try to lift my head off the steering wheel.  I hurt on the outside now too, like I was in a rugby game. My eyes are swollen.  I can hardly see.  Tears are still running down my cheeks, but the shaking is gone.  I remind myself of the wave we talked about in group.  Emotions come and go.  You are not your emotions.  They too shall pass.  I feel like I was washed up on shore after a ship wreck.  I wipe the tears off my cheeks with my shirt sleeve. The pain is still there, but it’s not so unbearable, and I think if I keep feeling things, maybe the pain will wash away and down the street and disappear into the gutters.   I start the car and drive home.  I know my kids are waiting for me to tuck them in.

I’m thinking now about Jen’s question.  How am I handling these new emotions? 

“It’s hard to deal with them instead of trying to get rid of them.  My goal is to stay sober through all of my emotions.”

I’m staring out the window.  I turn my head to look at her.  She is quiet.  I’m getting more used to the silence.  It feels good to just sit here and not talk.

“It can be hard, but it’s good.  Once you’ve allowed these new feelings and memories to come, it’ll be easier to accept them.  As you accept your past you’ll be better able to heal and grow.  The skills you’re learning will help you deal with the emotions more effectively, and they won’t feel so overwhelming.  How are you doing with your anger?”

“I’m finding that a lot of my anger is covering pain.”

“Pain from what?”

I don’t want to talk about pain.  I’d rather stick bamboo shoots under my fingernails.

“I think it’s more from things that I didn’t get than anything that actually happened.”

“What kinds of things didn’t you get?”

I look at the floor.  I didn’t have a lot of things like family vacations, cool clothes, money for lunch, but there’s really only one thing that comes to mind that hurts.

“Attention.”

“From your parents?”

“Actually, I got attention from my dad.  It wasn’t always good, but sometimes it was.  He took us fishing, built bonfires so we could roast marshmallows and showed me how to read the stars.”

I’m standing outside in the dark with my dad.  He is pointing at the sky and showing me the Big Dipper.  I feel excited as I see how the four stars make up the cup and the other three stars make up the handle.  Then he asks me if I can see a little itty bitty star next to the second star in the handle.  I look as close as I can.  I tell him I think I see it.  He tells me it’s the Little Papoose, because it’s a tiny star just off the bigger star in the handle, like an Indian baby wrapped in a papoose on his mom’s back.  He says if I can see the Papoose I have good eyes.  I see a little tiny star twinkling on and off.  I smile and my heart swells up so big it feels like it won’t fit inside my chest anymore.

“It’s my mom who I can’t remember spending any time with.  She was around some of the time.  We spent a lot of time in the car or at church, but even though she was there, it was like she wasn’t really there.  It’s sort of how I feel with my kids.  I have to figure that out, because I don’t want them to grow up that way.”

“When you were drinking and depressed, you were very self-absorbed.  You can’t focus on someone else when you’re focused on yourself.  Your mom sounds like she has probably been in this kind of state since long before you were born.  That will be up to her as to whether she does anything about it or not.  The only thing you can control is you, right?”

“Yeah.”

“You are doing something about your problem, and because of the work you’re doing you can have a different relationship with your kids.  The more you are willing to experience your emotions, the closer you will feel to your kids. This week I want you to continue to allow yourself to feel the emotions rising up inside you and keep journaling about your memories and experiences.”

This feels like one of those catch-22 situations.  In order to feel close to my kids, I have to allow myself to feel the pain of never feeling close to my mom.  Some of these things don’t make any sense, but I’m not willing to argue.  My kids are more important to me than that.

 

Session 18

I’m pulling into the parking lot of Jen’s office.  I reach for my bag of notes which is underneath my Bible study book.  I joined a Bible study at another church.  Nancy decided to do a Bible study at her parents’ church and asked me if I wanted to join her.  I decided it would be nice to be at a church where no one knows me.  We started the study a few weeks ago, and I like the other women in my group.  I’ve done a lot of Bible studies over the years, but this one feels different.   Instead of being the seasoned leader, I feel like I’m brand new.  I guess in a way I am.  I’ve never been so vulnerable and honest before.  It makes everything feel like I’m doing it for the first time.

I get to Jen’s office and walk in.  I sit on the couch.  Jen shuts her file drawer and grabs her tea.  The warmth of her room makes it seem like I’m coming out of the cold air and being wrapped in a warm blanket. 

“So, how are you?”

I’m trying to think before I blurt out some habitual phony phrase.  I think about my week. 

“I feel a little less anxious.”

“Less anxious about anything in particular or just in general?”

“I don’t feel as nervous and jumpy all the time.  I can sit through my meetings better.  I can go to the store without feeling self-conscious.”

“Why do you think things are feeling better?”

I look out the window.  It’s a little overcast, but the sun looks like it wants to come out. 

“I think I’m feeling less anxious because I’m starting to do some normal things again, like I am going to a Bible study with my friend.  And I’m doing a little volunteering at the kids’ school.  It feels good to focus on something other than my recovery and therapy.”

“I think the more you can balance out your activities, the less stress you’ll feel in general.”

There’s that word “balance” again.  It conjures up several other words like, boring, calculated, and impossible. 

“So what are some ways you can continue to balance your recovery with your other life interests?”

I look at the floor.

“Maybe instead of just running I could start riding my bike and maybe read a book that isn’t all about self-help and recovery.”

“Those are great ideas.  It was important for you to really focus on staying sober in the beginning, but now that it’s been awhile, I think it’s a good idea to start balancing out your life.  You’ll always be aware of your sobriety, but it’s good for you to get involved in other activities.” 

“How are you feeling about your kids?”

“I’ve been trying really hard to give them my full attention when they’re home.  In DBT we talked about being in the moment, thinking about what’s happening right now rather than what I need to do later or tomorrow.” 

I think about Johnny coming home after school yesterday.  I wonder if there’s such a thing as being too honest.

I’m washing dishes and the television is on.  It’s Dr. Phil drilling this couple on their parenting style.  Johnny walks in the door.  The kids are home from school.  He begins to talk about his day.  I’m still doing the dishes and my mind is preoccupied with Dr. Phil’s accusations and this couple’s confused reaction.  I wonder if my parents aren’t the only people who don’t know how to be parents.  Johnny is still talking.  I can hear his voice but I don’t know what he said.  I know he’s talking to me, so I respond with, “Uh huh.”  He asks me why I always say, “Uh huh.”  Now he has my attention because the question is intriguing to me.  I reply to him without even thinking.  I tell him that I say, “Uh huh” when I’m not really listening, so if he wants me to really listen he has to get my attention before he starts talking.  After the words are out of my mouth I wonder if I should have come up with something that sounded better.  I wonder if I hurt his feelings.  I look at him.  He looks at me.  His eyebrows raise, and he asks me if I’m listening now.  I try to block out the TV. I think about my new skill from DBT group of being in the moment.  I have to tune everything else out to experience what is going on right now.  I turn the water off in the sink and I look at him.  “Yes, I’m listening now.”  He starts at the beginning and tells me about his day at school and the project they worked on.  Then he pulls out his poster and shows me what animal he chose to do for the nature project.  I’m aware that I’m listening to him.  Just him.  I’m not doing the dishes.  I’m not vacuuming.  I’m not watching TV.  I’m not on the computer.  I’m just listening to Johnny talk.  I ask him why he picked the cheetah.  He tells me that cheetahs are the fastest animals in the jungle, and they can run 50 miles per hour.  I tell him that’s super-fast.  We are communicating.  He smiles.  He knows I’m listening to him. 

Dr. Phil’s voice is still in the background screaming for my attention, and the dishes are still lying in the sink dirty.  I fight my need to go finish them.  I grab the remote control and turn off the TV.  I ask Andy and Jenna to come to the kitchen.  We all sit down at the table and I start asking everyone questions about school.  Their eyes light up and they are suddenly like water pitchers pouring out everything that happened during their day.  I try to get them to talk one at a time, but they are all talking at once, and none of them seem to care that they are talking over each other. This is what I’ve been missing?  It’s hard to believe that dirty dishes and Dr. Phil have been keeping me from this connecting time with my kids.

“It’s hard to stop what I’m doing to listen to them, but I’m doing it, and it’s really cool.” 

Jen smiles.  I smile back.  I don’t look at the floor this time.  I keep looking at her.  I feel embarrassed, but I feel good.  I know I did something right.  It seems so little and so big at the same time.  I guess I need to remember not to compare myself to other people.  Just because that might be easy for other moms doesn’t mean it was easy for me. 

“Do you remember your report from the ADD clinic?  You struggle with OCD.   So once you are focused on a task you have a hard time switching gears to focus on something else.”

I forgot about that.  It explains a lot.  I’ve never thought of myself as OCD because I don’t wash my hands a thousand times a day or check the locks on my doors, but I do get very focused on things.  Sometimes I’m so focused that I get really angry when I’m forced to stop working on something. 

“So, it’s really incredible that you were able to overcome that to sit still and listen to your kids!”

Maybe it’s not such a little thing. 

“I think you should keep practicing giving your attention to your kids when they’re at home.  That would be a really great exercise for you.  You’ll probably have to use a lot of your DBT skills.”

“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea.”

I reach for my notebook in my bag.  I take out a pen and try to find the last page I took notes on.  I can’t find it, so I make a new page.  I wonder how often I can’t find the notes I’m taking.  Probably a lot.  I think it helps just to be writing them down even if I can’t find them again.  I write down, “Give my full attention to my kids every time they talk to me.”  That’s a big goal, but I’m determined to do it.

“It’s really good that you are getting involved in things other than recovery, but you need to make sure you don’t overdo it.  Take your time and check your calendar when you make commitments.”

“Actually, Nancy and I were talking about that, and I decided one way I can keep from overcommitting is to run ideas by her before I say yes to anything.”

“That’s a great idea.  Have you been carrying your calendar around?”

“Some of the time.”

I was really frustrated about my calendar for a while because I’d forget it or lose it.  Then I remembered how long it took to remember to hang up my car keys.  I used to lose my keys a few times a week.  Then I put up a key holder by the garage door.  It took about six months for it to become a habit to hang up my keys as soon as I walked in the door.  It will probably take more than a few weeks to remember to bring my calendar with me everywhere.

“You’ve probably heard it takes 21 days to form a habit.  So, if you can put your calendar somewhere that you’ll remember it for 21 days, you will reduce your vulnerability to your old chaotic lifestyle.  It’s like running reduces your vulnerability to depression.  How has your running been going?”

“That’s getting better.  It’s still hard to stop and turn around to stay at 35 minutes instead of running the whole five mile loop, but maybe that is some OCD too and not just my addictive personality forcing me to do more.”

“How is that?”

“I was wondering why I feel such a need to run my five mile loop, and I realized that running a full circle makes me feel better than running half a mile down a road and turning around and coming back.  There’s no … symmetry or something.”

“Maybe you could find a full circle that is only 35 minutes long.”

I think about some of the other roads around my house that might work, but I don’t like any of them.  They are all neighborhood roads.  I like getting out of our neighborhood.  We live right across the street from a lot of farmland.  When I run by the fields I feel like I’m in the country, and I love it.

There was an old farm house I used to run by.  The paint was chipping off, and the windows were broken.  The grass was overgrown and the barn looked like it was going to fall over.  The fading name on the mailbox made me wonder about the people who lived there.  One day as I was running by I noticed the house was gone.  There was a large area of dirt where the house once stood.  Trees surrounded the empty space like people dressed in black gathered around a burial site.  The branches swayed with the breeze never looking away from the empty space.  The mailbox continued to stand at the end of the driveway for the rest of the summer.  I felt sad every time I ran by the empty lot.  It reminded me that every time I get used to something or someone they disappear.  It feels like the world is a rug, and people keep pulling it out from underneath me.  I never know where to stand. 

“No, I don’t want to run anywhere else.  My route is comfortable.”

“Well, since your running is a form of meditation for you, it’s good that it’s comfortable.” 

“I’m just getting tired of all the changes.  It’s exhausting.  I need something to stay the same.”

“Recovery is definitely a time of change.  You could probably use some more meditative exercises when you feel a lot of stress.  Can you think of some other things you can do or places you can go that make you feel calm when your stress level is high?”

“I thought my Bible study was going to be a comfortable place, but it’s not turning out to be that way.”

“Why is that?”

“Now that I’ve been more honest with myself I’m finding that I’m really angry with God.”

I’m waiting for lightning to strike through the window and hit me on the couch.  Jen must sense my fear.

“Do you know that it’s all right to be mad at God?”

“Well, I’ve heard that, but it still feels wrong to be angry at him.”

“Do you think God already knows you are mad at him?”

“Yeah.”

“So, if he already knows, then there’s no reason to pretend, right?”

“Yeah, but it’s like maybe he’d understand if I knew I wasn’t supposed to be mad at him even though I am.”

“I think God wants you to be honest with him, not for his sake, but for your own sake.”

The idea about being mad at God is floating around in my head, bouncing off the walls like a pinball machine.  I’m not sure where the ball is going exactly, but like my anger, every time the ball gets close to going out of play, I push the flippers wildly to keep the ball moving.     

“What are you angry about?”

I was hoping we wouldn’t get to this.  I want to sweep it under the rug, but there are no more rugs.  I can sit still, but there’s nowhere to hide.  I take a deep breath.  I can’t open my mouth.  I thought it would be easier to talk about the second time, but it’s not.  Maybe it never will be. 

“I’m angry that God let me… be raped.”

“That’s good.”

 I’m so confused.  That was hard to say out loud.  I wasn’t expecting her to be happy about it. 

“What about your rape is causing you to be angry at God?”

Her question brings me back to a conversation I had with a friend.  The only people who knew about my rape were JB, Nancy, Ann and Jen.  But I have another friend who was sexually abused, so I felt like I could trust her.  I knew she would understand.  It was hard to talk about, but it seems like talking about hard things helps me get them out of my head and into the open where I can deal with them. 

I’m sitting on a wooden chair in Lori’s apartment. I hesitate to talk.  Lori is a good listener like Jen.  She asks me what’s bothering me.  I tell her that I’m stuck.  I’m having trouble with counseling because God is supposed to be my rescuer in all this mess, but now I’m mad at him and don’t trust him, so I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.  She asks why I’m mad at God.  I breathe deep.  I look at the floor and the wall.  I look everywhere but into her eyes.  I start to talk, but I can’t get out any coherent words.  She is patient and quiet.  She tells me it’s ok.  I take another huge breath and find a small spot on the floor to focus my attention.  Then I tell her that I can’t understand why God allowed me to be raped.  I’m still staring at the spot on the floor, but it’s getting blurry.  I look up at her for a moment because I need to find some comfort in her eyes.  I find it and look back to the floor.  She tells me that God didn’t just let it happen to me.  He loves me very much, so much that he was there with me through all of it.

My jaw tightens.  My eyebrows crease.  He was with me.  I stand up and thank her for dinner.  I need to get out of here now!  I need to run.  I open the door.  She says goodnight.  I get in the car.  I start it and back down the driveway fast.  It’s a dirt road, and my tires spew rocks everywhere as I step hard on the gas.  What is that supposed to mean?!  He was there with me through it all!  I know she was trying to say something comforting, but it infuriates me.  He was there watching me go through all that physical and emotional pain?!  How is that supposed to be comforting?!  At least when I imagined God was too busy to help me, I could fathom that I wasn’t important enough for him to take the time to help me, that there were bigger things going on in the world than me being raped.  Besides, I got myself into that bad situation.  Now I’m going to have to pay the consequences of being there and being drunk.  What did I expect was going to happen?! He’s not just going to rescue me from every situation I get myself in.  But how could God just sit in that room and watch that boy hurt me?!  Tears are streaming down my face.  I can’t see the road very well.  I should slow down, but I don’t.  What kind of God watches his children being abused and molested and tortured and killed?!  What possible reason could he have to let these kinds of things happen?!?!  I race down the road wiping tears from my eyes.  I’m so mad I want to run over someone.  I want someone to run over me.  I just want something to happen!  This can’t be right!    

 My mind wanders back into Jen’s office.  I’m mad, and I can’t figure this out.

“How could God let it happen?  How can he stand by while terrible things happen to his children and he has all the power in the universe and he doesn’t use it to save us!  How can that be okay?  I can’t follow a God like that!”

Jen’s face saddens.  She feels my pain, and it touches me.  We are both quiet.  I feel guilty that I made her sad, but I also feel angry.  I want to close myself off from the world, but her reaction keeps me from closing off completely.  The way she looks inside me keeps me from hardening every part of my heart.  There’s a little tiny space that she is keeping warm and soft.  It hurts to leave that part of my heart uncovered.  I want to shut down everything, be done with this therapy and my groups and just let myself be angry and drink all this pain away, but Jen’s compassion touches me and I can’t shut it out.  After a long silence she finally speaks softly.   

That is a question that everyone has to face someday.”

This is not the answer I was looking for.  Somehow I know there is no answer, but I still want one.  I don’t see how I can move on until I get an answer.  If I can’t trust God, I can’t just go along with life as usual. 

I’ve heard that we wouldn’t be able to make choices if we weren’t allowed to do bad things and if we do bad things, then other people suffer.  I also heard that God’s ways are higher than our ways.  That’s not good enough anymore.  The one answer I heard that did make sense, was that God doesn’t actually make bad things happen to us in order to punish us, but he does allow things to happen to us for a reason.  That made sense in some situations, but what possible reason could he have to allow someone to rape another person?

And what kind of father is able to watch his child go through so much pain, when he is strong enough to stop it?!  There is no way I could sit and watch my child go through something like that.  And he is supposed to be my father!  I know his ways are higher than mine, but I can’t accept that his higher ways mean I get raped! 

“God is big enough to handle our questions and he wants us to ask those questions.  He knows we aren’t going to grow unless we are willing to be honest.”

Jen is losing me.  I get lost easily when I’m angry.  I have a hard time seeing anything clearly.  I have an intense desire to run.  I want to run until my body collapses.  I feel rage and pain, and I don’t want to feel anything anymore! 

I look past Jen to the wall.  Rage is boiling inside of me.  I don’t want her to see it.  I’m not mad at her.  She is keeping me from drowning in this mess.  I need to get out of here.  I look at the clock.  Our time is just about up.  I notice a painting on the wall.  It’s abstract and colorful.  It looks kind of messy, but there’s something about it that makes it kind of beautiful.  I have an urge to put my fist through it.