Chapter Two
I needed this doctor, I knew that. I was smart enough to know that I was in trouble. And this man was not like any I’d ever met before. I don’t mean that as a cliché, but it’s true. He was a combination of Marcus Welby, M.D., and a grandfather who you specially trusted. But then, he was also just another guy who exuded trust.
Trust. How does one trust? I use the word “one” because I think it is good for self narrative writing. Can’t really think of an alternative, so I hope you can appreciate the Victorian style of English prose.
I trust the bus driver to take me across town. I trust that the butcher will give me a good cut of meat. I honestly don’t know if they will, but my past and my instinct tell me that I should trust their judgment.
I’m not man-bashing here, but…I’ve been burnt. I think that sometimes in our desperate need for love we mistake trust for truth. I know that I think of them as one and the same, but maybe I’m not so right on this. Trust is when there is an expression of unconditional love; if you were in a crowd of people and you fell backward off a podium, the person who loves you would catch you. Yes, just like in the movies. Remember, fantasy is quite active for me. The alternative being that you’re left for road kill on the floor if they don’t want to catch you. That is a breach of trust.
Truth is being able to trust. If someone can accept me for me, and not any bullshit that I may represent to them, then this is truth, and I can obtain trust from truth. But only if truth is genuine. If not, then there is no trust or truth, big goose egg, so to speak. I go back to my statement of that “may be a breach of trust”. Damn right it is. I’m thinking like someone who doesn’t matter. It is a breach of trust. People who love and trust you will not stand by and watch you fall into a crowd, unguarded, innocent, trusting. You will stand in the crowd, knowing, innocent, trusting that you will be caught. The doctor says I have “trust” issues.
Doesn’t everybody doctor?
He says “No, not to the degree that you do”. Here’s a bizarre dichotomy, I’d rather trust the used gar salesman down the road that he’s on the level, than trust my own family. And I did, I trusted total strangers, because I never thought anyone would hurt me with intent.
Certainly not my own mother.
When my second husband, Chuck, and I were “courting” over the telephone for months, we gave each other our own truths, but we fell short because we could not sustain our feelings through reality trust. He thought I would be like his ex-wife, and I thought he would be the same as my devious ex-husband. Needless to say we never got anywhere with our marriage. My mother exacerbated the decline of my marriage with her visit.
I had to make a choice, side with my husband, or my mother. This wasn’t anything new to me, so I chose my mother. I thought that I could make her stop drinking if she knew how much we cared about her, that we love her. Doesn’t really seem to matter to an alcoholic. They keep drinking and remain self-destructive whether we like it or not. It really doesn’t matter what we want, ultimately it’s their way. As someone who has loved an alcoholic, this doesn’t make any sense when you’re in the middle of it.
My mom continued to sneak booze and drink around my girls when we were in Japan, just as she had done in the past. I couldn’t see beyond my mother’s harmful behavior to my own children, as I was too engrossed with her needs. I was obsessed about my mother’s needs, even as they impacted on my own family. Each morning I would look out my kitchen window and marvel at the beauty of Mt. Fuji. And I would think this is going to be a good day. The night before was easily deniable when she passed out, maybe there was a full moon or aliens had taken over her persona. I would erase any unpleasantness from the night before and I would start off each day fresh, knowing deep within me, that this was everyday life. I was just so grateful for the nice days, I didn’t want to “jinx” them. Forget about yesterday, forget the tears, the longing in the heart, let’s just have one good day. When I take the pain killers, I can forget about the cruelty. Of course she never meant it, and I was stronger than her so I could take what she had to dish out.
Many years later, my eldest daughter Jordan would tell me that I was her mom, not my mom’s mom. There was anger in her voice, and she knew she’d been robbed of my mothering, as I spent too much time mothering my own mother.
My sessions with the doctor continued, with my bitching and complaining about my mother and how I couldn’t cope with her life. I can only repeat that I innately knew that it was going to be an emotional and physical struggle between her and me. I just knew this.
One of us would die.
I was worn down, getting chest pains, having anxiety attacks, still needing the pills to calm down. The doctor listened as I lied to him about using the pills.
My mom and I had gone through so much—me as a child protecting her—that I couldn’t cope any longer. Once when my mother had to be taken away in an ambulance, I casually and jokingly said to the ambulance driver that I could probably beat them to the hospital. My mother had not been eating, hadn’t taken her diabetes medication and collapsed in her apartment block waiting room. I was at my daughter Sean’s soccer game when she called me. Containing my anger, trying to keep it under control, I calmly left, thought to myself, Here we fucking go again and drove to her building. I could not feel the empathy or concern that I should have expressed. I was enraged that once again I had to tend to her needs. When I walked into the waiting room, she was already on a stretcher. The ambulance driver picked up my vibe after my raging comment and told me he couldn’t talk to me.
Fuck him. Fuck him. FUCK HIM.
Try doing this for 40 years and see how nice you can be. Try, just try to have the same empathy for this situation as I had twenty years ago, when she overdosed on drugs and had to be rushed to the emergency room to have her stomach pumped.
Fuck him, FUCK HIM.
To me, it seemed that something would happen with her on a major scale about every two weeks. I would “time” these occurrences and would place bets with myself. If I wasn’t paying attention to her, this kind of stuff would happen regularly as well.
I was exhausted, tired and couldn’t continue to live my life based on her life. I needed to separate, but it seemed impossible. Both she and I were too pathetically enmeshed with one another.
My mother had, quite literally, been born a bastard. A bastard child, no father, or no “legal” father. My suspicion that my grandmother became pregnant while in Switzerland by someone other than her husband Max, eventually helped me to better understand why my mother was.
My grandmother, Lydia, pregnant with my mother, was banished upon her return to Canada. She and Max had two children with her in Switzerland, Art and Denise. All of a sudden, my grandmother leaves Switzerland with her two children and is sent to a small town—where nobody may know her or her family. My mother is born in an obscure little place that no one has ever heard about. As a youngster, my mother is not allowed to visit the family farm with Denise and Art for summer holidays. She is forbidden to go on the premises and must remain home with my grandmother, who at this time has been living in the city. Christmases were spent with my grandmother in the city, while Art and Denise enjoyed sharing the holidays with the rest of the family at the farm.
My mother was a beautiful child, dark curly brown hair, doe-like dark brown eyes. Apparently her father was a piano player who had dark curly hair, too. This was all she ever knew of him.
It appears that Max kept in touch with Denise and Art upon their return to North America. Denise, as a teenager, had written her father to tell him of an impending visit to Switzerland to see him. She mentioned that she was going to bring her sister, my mother, to which he told her not to bother to come. I know this sounds so dramatic, but my aunt never heard from Max again.
Borrowed shame is what I felt. I knew that my mother was always trying to fit within her family; she needed to be accepted, loved. They were assholes. Not only did they discount her as a person, they did this to me, too. I remember overhearing my Aunt Ada talking in hushes to my Uncle Rosaire that I would never be anything more than my welfare and alcoholic mother: “She’ll be just like her mother.” They thought I was sleeping as they stood over me, but I wasn’t.
At the time Ada said this, I was about 15, and my mom and I had lived on welfare for most of my life. My father left my mother for another woman supposedly because of her drinking and constant accusations that he’d been unfaithful. We moved in with my grandmother when I was 3. My first remembrance of my grandmother’s house is that she had pears on a bed, lying on plastic, I guess to make some jam.
My grandmother’s house was at 571 Balmoral Street, 943-9227. My grandmother, Lydia, was vivacious, strong and stocky in appearance, self-assured. She was 5’7”, which was tall to my mother’s 4’9” status. Of course, I was tiny in comparison. “Nan” had flaming red hair and a liking for dirty jokes. She would keep a bunch of dirty cartoon magazines under her mattress, which my cousins, Clay and Bart, and I would read when she wasn’t around. We didn’t really get the jokes, but found it interesting, to say the least, to be able to see cartoon characters in bed with one another, usually the woman’s breasts exposed and nothing else. Or feet that were together, on top, with the foot prints showing extended on top. Please use your imagination here. These cartoon books had wild, psychedelic neon yellow and green patterns on them in swirls on the covers, and I wished that I had kept one of them after my grandmother had died. After she passed and we were looking through her stuff, I came upon these books. Instead of saving them, I felt pissed off that I had seen these as a child and threw them out.
Nan loved her family, almost too much. There was no wrong we could do, certainly not my mother, the love child. My grandmother suffered through my mother’s alcoholism and drug abuse as I had. There was a definitive restricted reluctance on her part to accept my mother’s problems. It was common for me to hear my grandmother telling me to take care of my mother. As I grew older, I felt as though I had assumed her burden for my mother. I felt as thought she just passed it on to me, because she herself could not cope.
Not everything in life is bad. Nan and my mom would work at a small café called Gillam’s, and they would take me there while they worked because they had no babysitter. I would sleep on burlap bags of potatoes in the back room, and play with a gigantic cash register, pretending to be a cashier. I liked creamers for coffee, so I would sneak them and drink them. Then, my grandmother would take those little creamer containers and we’d paint them, stick paper clips in the top of them, and hang them on our silver Christmas tree.
I remember painting the creamers, blue and red and green. Feeling pride as they hung on the tree. Nan would hammer the silver tree into the floor so it wouldn’t tip over. 571 Balmoral Street was absolutely garish at Christmas.
571 Balmoral Street had been my home. I hated it. I hated the fact that there was a grungy hotel on the corner, that we lived on a busy street, and people would wake up in the yard, having gulped Lysol by poking a pin in the bottom. At that time vanilla was cheaper and was also a cheap drunk.
571 still haunt’s my life today. The house, the people, the happenings… My grandmother had been a bootlegger, so there were all sorts of people coming and going at all hours of the night when the bars would close. Later on, my Aunt Denise would tell me that she removed her kids from Balmoral Street because it wasn’t a good influence on them. I stayed at 571 until I was 22.
I think my mother affiliated herself with 571. I certainly did. Our neighbors were drinkers, welfare people. I fit in with them. But, at the same time, I thought to myself, hmmmm… I don’t know if this is what I want. Someone had told me that if I got pregnant when I was 19, I could get a nice apartment and social assistance and that would be good. Hmmmm… not sure and feeling guilty that I had thoughts of breaking out of my social class.
My mother had a grade 9 education. She’d worked in a laundromat and a bakery. There were no expectations for her, no hoorays for her when she did well at school. She was always the bastard from the time she was born until the day she died.
It’s pretty damn raw, isn’t it?
To be the bastard, I mean.
Shunned, talked about, put down, not allowed, not given a chance. She spent her life craving affection, craving love, acceptance by her own family. I tried to give it to her what she needed. I think that my extended family was a bunch of small-minded assholes. I could feel what my mother was feeling, through my own borrowed shame. If they thought about her in those terms, then they felt the same about me, too.
The doctor would ask me about my relationship with my mother.
Well… she was troubled, she needed some help. It was really me, I was ungrateful for what I had, I couldn’t get my act together… I was a failure because I was certainly not at any point in my life where I felt I should be in my early 40s.
Yes, I had raised two children on my own, big deal, lots of women do it. And, why is it that when a rich woman raises children on her own, with a nanny, I’m supposed to think this is a great feat upon itself. I lacked empathy, could not see what the big deal was about Katie Couric having lost her husband to cancer. Katie, try losing your husband to another woman, without having support for your children and yourself, let alone America. I was angry; to hell with Katie, she’s had it easy. Don’t tell me about hardship—oh, no, I’m a bit of an expert. Katie, drag yourself out of bed, without the limousine, make up artists, baby sitters, cooks, cleaners and then tell me how hard things are for you, bullshit.
Anything that other people had experienced was nothing to what I had lived through, or so I thought. I was bitter and jealous. Throughout my later sessions, I learned to work through this, to develop empathy, to understand that each person is unique and experiences are personal. I was not a very understand listener to others and their experiences. So what, big deal, whatever… that’s nothing. I wouldn’t budge. I maintained my sour outlook and almost superior attitude about misery and criticized everyone else for not having suffered enough. To me, I was the ultimate martyr.
The doctor suggested that I may find it helpful to join a weekly therapy group, held on Thursday evenings. I immediately thought of the Bob Newhart show and thought it would be absolutely fascinating to hear about other people. I said okay, I was in.
The sessions were held weekly on Thursdays. The doctor had incorrectly given me the time that the group started on my first visit, so I was late. I arrived with 15 minutes left in the session. Perfect make up, tight top, good fitting jeans, I sat down in the chair and apologized for my tardiness.
The doctor acknowledged that he’d given me the wrong time and introduced me to the group. I remember very little. I was asked why I felt I needed the treatment. Sitting in my folding chair, looking at these strange eyes, I explained that I’m not a good mother. I can’t seem to get my act together, and I’m here because I want my daughters to have better. One of the group members, Marge is crying. The doctor asks her why she is crying, and Marge has two daughters. He knows why she’s crying, but she needs to talk about it with the group. I look at her and see the genuine emotion, the hurt, the tears, and think to myself…hmmm… I don’t know what I think but I am taken aback by Marge’s reaction. At the same time, I find it difficult to comprehend why she is so upset. Again, I have no empathy towards this woman, who is crying for me. No feelings. Dead already.
The session is excused with the following rules. One is not allowed to touch anyone else, talk about any of the group members outside of the group, and any outside activity which may have taken place outside of group hours, such as meeting randomly at the grocery store, needed to be brought up in each session. No passing the box of tissue, this was care giving. Concentrate on your assessment of feelings as it pertains to the situation, never be judgmental. The group is not here to give any personal opinions, we’re together so we can understand, feel accepted for our misgivings with others. Try to gain the understanding that others have similar problems, so we don’t feel so alone.
We break, a few members and I chat about the weather in the elevator down, and we go our separate ways. I walk in the same direction as someone else, and chit chat about nothing. I feel a respect for this group. I have no other opinions on other group members. Nothing we discuss is exasperated, exaggerated, gossiped about or criticized. We walk to our cars, unlock the doors and tell each other to have a good week, and we’ll see you next Thursday. I know from my first session with this group that I am privileged to be among them. I get it immediately.
Being in group therapy is intense, and sharing people’s fears and lives and responses and stuff is something that you don’t fuck around with.
My mother didn’t like the fact that I was seeing the doctor. She calls him and voices her dissatisfaction, provides her opinions on psychiatry. She punishes me by not supporting my visits, denouncing psychiatry or psychology. I feel weak, that I’m needing someone to help me. I have always been strong. “Fuck your psychiatrists,” she says. I still know that I need to continue to see the doctor. She continues to blast him with her telephone calls. He calmly responds to her that I am his patient. She hangs up in frustration, filled with bitterness that the doctor will turn me against her. I could feel her feeling this. I tried to reassure her that I was seeing the doctor for me, I had problems, but she cannot accept this. She tried so hard to accept him. Knowing I was going to a psychiatrist must have been very difficult for her. In a spiteful tone, she told me once that she knew I was seeing him because of her.
She’d been in the hospital earlier that month, having collapsed at my younger daughter’s soccer game. She was standing close to a garbage can, and simply fell back. Someone named Mark helped her up and I took her to the hospital. She was lying on a stretcher in the emergency room and I couldn’t give anything, I could only look down on the floor. I was standing beside her, empty. I couldn’t give any more. I’d read all of the magazines in the emergency room and didn’t want to reread them another time. She told me she was sorry. I looked at her dull brown eyes, once so beautiful and told her not to worry about it. I just stared at the floor. I’d been here many times before and I was tired. She told me she was sorry again. I knew what she meant and nodded my head. I knew that on some level she did not want to be a burden, but that’s the way it was. I know that she was sorry.
Work continued to be a challenge. At this time, I needed to travel for business. During one of my trips, I met my third husband, Ken. He and I had dated ten years prior for about 4 months, and after a very sexual time, I had called it off. Years later, I had since married Chuck, moved to Japan and was licking my wounds on that whole experience of the failed marriage. Ken was divorced now for ten years and hadn’t had any major relationship during the time I was married to Chuck. We began to see each other and maintained a long distance relationship until we later married.
Throughout that time, I also struggled at work. My client was complaining about me, telling my manager that I didn’t know what I was doing. I was almost in a fixed state. Could only make progress and put out good work if I was under dire pressure. I felt that the client was exaggerating, and they really didn’t know what a problem was. I desperately wanted someone to notice my pain. I somehow pulled it off, but not without a disturbing client evaluation on my performance. This took place about three weeks before my mother died.
Group therapy, interesting.
Wow.
It took me awhile to understand where people where coming from. I didn’t understand their stories. Group therapy doesn’t stop for newcomers, it continues with you, now there. I was attending the sessions as I had really felt: quiet, frail, pale. It really is exhausting trying to continue with a charade of appearances and normalcy. I eventually fell into my usual pattern and wore no make up, but made an attempt to brush my teeth and wash my hair on group days. I didn’t style my hair so it was always insanely curly and fuzzy. Clothes were huge, baggy, who cares? Really? I would sit through my initial sessions listening as though it were a soap opera. Holy shit. Well, of course my life, my mother, was not as bad as that, thank God.
Alexandra talked about how she felt about the color red. As a child she’d seen a movie with a devil in it, and from that time, she became afraid of large solid objects the color of red. What? Who gives a rat’s ass? How does anyone even remember that? Now, I think that is a little stupid. People are starving in Africa and you’re upset because you don’t like the color red. OK, let’s move on. Grow up Alexandra, let it go, it’s just a color.
Julie begins to talk about her father. She was his beloved, he took her everywhere with him, he worshipped her, she was favored over her siblings. During Christmas dinner one year, he exploded in a rage and lifted and threw the turkey across the room, which was upsetting for everyone. Indeed. She recalled how her mother had to clean up the mess. I broke out into a vocal rage about how unfair it is for women to have to clean up after holiday dinners while men are excused. I rattled on about women’s issues, blah, blah, blah. Julie nodded and said, “Yeah, why do women always have to clean up?” You go, girl. The doctor calmly brought us back on track, in that it wasn’t the moral or social injustice of the women’s role to clean up that was the issue, but how it felt for Julie when her father tossed the turkey across the room. At this point, I didn’t get it.
Why is it that women are always left to clean up?
