Creatures of a Day: And Other Tales of Psychotherapy (12 page)

“Keep going. Tell me about you and James.”

“I did my best for him. I was a nurse forty hours a week and a mother the rest of my time. I had no other life. Zero. And James was a problem every step of the way: problems sleeping, walking, speaking, playing with other children. And major disciplinary problems all the way through his life. I’ve read a lot now, and I think he was born a sociopath, something deep, inbuilt, genetic, unchangeable about him. Also major learning problems. He just couldn’t concentrate, never learned to read well, always in special schools. I suspect today he’d also be diagnosed as severe attention deficit disorder.

Justine went on for much of the hour telling me in detail about James’s medical and psychological problems and all the
treatments attempted. “We tried lots of meds, including Ritalin, anticonvulsants, and even antipsychotics. Nothing helped. I spent all my money on medical and psychological help. All in vain.

“When he entered adolescence, he hit the recreational drugs big-time and used anything he could find. I sent him to detox centers, rehab ranches, and wilderness retreats. He ran away from each of them. He fought everything. Then, around sixteen or seventeen, he met the hard drugs, especially heroin, and he was gone for good. He stole everything he could from me, including thousands of dollars from my credit cards. He robbed my neighbors and friends, and I finally threw him out and disowned him. The next and last I heard was that he was in San Quentin. That’s the story. And I am exhausted telling it.” Justine leaned back in her chair and wiped her eyes with a tissue.

After a few moments, she looked up and added, “I’ve been imagining this whole week telling you this story. I rehearsed this conversation with you, and I imagined your response.”

“Which was? . . .”

“I imagined you inquiring about positive memories as a young child, about putting him to bed at night, about warm feelings I had about him or the good times we shared. And my answer to you is that
I cannot remember a single one. I mean it. Not a single one.
”

“You’re right. You nailed it: that
is
what I would have asked. And your answer is very heavy, very dark. I’m saddened by what you’ve told me. Saddened for James but even more saddened for you. Tell me, have you shared all of this with Connie and Jackie?”

“Everything. They’ve been aboard from the very beginning, when James was born, and followed every step of the way. But it’s a different experience here today telling the entire story all at once. I’ve never done that with anyone. I’m wiped out.”

“I feel uneasy asking you more, but it’s best to get it all out—like excavating an abscess. Tell me, what are you experiencing right now, here with me?”

“Shame. It’s like your coming into my home and seeing nothing but filth and rags.” She paused briefly and then asked, “Do you have children?”

“Four. I know what it is to be a parent, and I’m able to get in touch with how unbearably painful this is for you. But still, don’t stop. I want you to keep expressing it all.”

“I must have been a ghastly mother, but believe me I tried—I did everything in my power. But it is shame. It . . . James . . . that creature in San Quentin . . . however you put it, he is a part of me. He’s wrapped in a banner for all to see, saying, ‘Made by Justine Casey.’”

“Do you think that others think that?”

Justine sobbed and nodded, “Yes, anybody who knows my story.”

“I know your story, and I don’t think that. Try to keep talking. What other questions are there for me?”

“Am I ghastly? Am I a horror of a mother? Am I James? Is he me?”

“None of the above. I want you to know I’m on your side, Justine. I’m here to help you. Not once, not for an instant, did such thoughts enter my mind. What I
am
thinking about a lot now is how relentlessly harsh you are on yourself. We’ve got to stop today, but I’d like to focus some of our final session on the topic of being kinder to yourself.”

A week later Justine arrived at my office with a folded sheet of paper in her hand. “I had a dream last night, and I know from reading your work that you pay attention to dreams. This one woke me up about four am. I think it had something to do with you.”

“Let’s go over it.”

She unfolded the paper. “This is just a fragment—I couldn’t remember most of it . . . I’m walking along a path and climb through a window into a large, dark room. Somehow that path reminds me of the path to your office, but it’s night and I can’t see much. Then once I enter the room, I hide behind a very small chair and wait. I’m holding a weapon in my hand. Suddenly I notice that the chair is gone. Someone has removed it, and I am totally visible, totally unprotected. I am scared shitless. That’s when I woke up drenched with sweat.”

“You have hunches about this dream?”

“I’ve no clue about how to even start. How do we proceed?”

“Since we have only this last session, we don’t have time to explore it in depth, but generally I’d ask you to think about certain parts of the dream and just free-associate. That is, just ruminate out loud; let your thoughts run free. But given our shortage of time, let me pitch in first. What strikes me about the dream is the location. You say it resembles the path to my office. Moreover, it was dreamt the night before our appointment. Any thoughts about that?”

“It
was
your path. I could hear the crackly pebbles just like your walkway. But the window and the very large room: they’re not familiar. A big room, maybe a movie set? I don’t know where that comes from.”

“And then you try to hide but behind a very small chair, which doesn’t seem to give you much protection. And then that soon disappears. So you’re in my office, and suddenly your hiding place is gone. What’s
that
make you think of?”

“I see where you’re going. I’m here in this office, maybe it was your office, and my cover is yanked away, and I can’t hide, and I get very scared.”

“You say your cover was yanked, but you yanked it by your decision to come.”

“It was tougher than I thought. I couldn’t or didn’t hide from you and was bare-breasted.”

“Bare-breasted?”

“I didn’t mean that . . . ” Justine blushed. “What I meant was I got everything off my chest.”

Strange slip and probably loaded with meaning, but there was no time to explore it in this last session. I tagged it and put it into storage, in case Justine opted to return for longer therapy, and responded, “Another aspect of the dream is that it is night, you are entering surreptitiously by going through a window, and you hide inside. I wonder if that refers to the unusual way you contacted me. Meeting at Astrid’s memorial and making an appointment there is somehow not the same as coming into my office through my front door. And then you make sure it will be for a very few sessions.”

“Yes, that’s right on: I see your point.”

“But I keep thinking about that pistol you’re carrying. What hunches do you have about that?”

“I never said anything about a pistol. I said I had a
weapon
.”

“Tell me: Do you still see the dream in your mind’s eye?”

Justine closed her eyes and seemed to drift off, “Right, it’s there. I can see it, but it’s a little faded, but I can see that I’m carrying a weapon, and it’s definitely not a pistol. I’m carrying something large, huge. It’s a bazooka—no, no, it’s an atomic bomb.” She opened her eyes and shook her head.

“Lot of feeling there. Stay with it; keep going. What about that huge weapon?”

“The dream says I am dangerous.”

“Say more about being dangerous.”

“Truth is, I
am
dangerous. Venomous. I’m full of anger. Bad, angry thoughts about everyone circle through my mind. That’s why I stay away from people. That’s why I’m so alone.”

We remained silent for a minute or two. The time had come. I hesitated while I formulated what I wanted and needed to say to her. “There’s something I’ve wanted to tell you. I’ve hesitated until now because of my discomfort about patient confidentiality. It’s something Astrid told me during our therapy, and usually I’d never repeat anything told to me by a patient. But this may be so important for you to hear that I can’t be silent. Moreover I’m certain Astrid would not have minded my sharing this.”

Justine’s eyes were riveted on me.

“Astrid told me about a time when she was at her worst, full of terror, certain she was dying, unable to control her sobbing. She was awaiting the arrival of her family when a nurse bent over and whispered in her ear, ‘Show some class for your kids.’”

I stopped and glanced at Justine. Her face, her whole body was deathly still, as though frozen in time.

“She gave me no name but only said it was a nurse who was tough but whom she highly respected. Was it you, Justine? Did
you
say that to her?”

“Yes, I said that to her.”

“Astrid told me that those words, your words, were ‘transformative.’ She called it the turning point in her ordeal. She said those were the most helpful words she had ever heard.”

“Why? How?”

“She said it immediately, miraculously, brought her out of herself, that it made her think of others, that it gave her a sense of meaning, that it told her that, even if she were dying, she
still
had something to offer her family—she could model how to face death. You gave her a priceless gift.”

Justine sat silently for a long time until she said, “Good God. This is the cruelest joke.” She looked away staring out of my office window, and she spoke as though in a trance. “The cruelest of jokes. You see, I didn’t
whisper
that into Astrid’s ears. I
hissed
it. Yes,
hissed
it. Astrid had everything—a room full of beautiful vases and flowers, a golf-ball-sized diamond ring . . . beautiful grandchildren, big family and friends gathered around her. I’d have given anything to have had her life—even
with
her disease. She held court in her powder blue cashmere robe for an endless stream of beautiful visitors and friends. Her husband told me about his goddamn yacht a hundred times, and her therapist and chum was the important Dr. Yalom with his signed books spread all around her bedside, and yet, despite all that, all she could do was whimper and sob, day after day. She was pitiful. I was spiteful, viciously envious, and totally exasperated by her.”

“And yet, despite all that,
you
were the one who brought such great comfort to her. ‘
Transformative
,’ she said. You changed her life. What do you do with that knowledge?”

Justine sat silently, slowly shaking her bowed head.

I glanced at the clock. “We’re running out of time, and I’m struggling to find closure. Despite all your self-accusations,
the better part of you
found the right words to say.
In the end
it is deeds not thoughts that really count.
Let’s do a thought experiment, Justine.”

She raised her head to stare at me.

“Imagine,” I continued, “right here in my office, a row of people you’ve helped, maybe even transformed. The line starts here”—I pointed to a spot near my chair—“and imagine all the people who are grateful to you, people dead or alive. Can you see folks you remember? Please try hard.”

Justine silently nodded.

“I can imagine,” I suggested, “a very long line winding out of the office and down the street. Right?”

“Yes,” Justine said softly, “I can see them. A few of them back from Michael Reese Hospital days. I see both the living and the dead, the recovering and the moribund. I see Astrid standing there near the head of the line, and yes, it
does
stretch far—all the way into the distance—as far as I can see.” A long pause and then, “Thank you, this helps. But there’s a lot left. The anger isn’t quelled. The vicious thoughts are there on all sides, lying in wait.”

“Those thoughts are old, archaic, going back to your early rough, hapless days. And you’ve come by your anger honestly. Of course, much of your anger and guilt is still tethered to your son, who is disowned but, as we both know, not forgotten. All these feelings have to be exhumed, examined, and, finally, scattered. It will take time and a guide, but you can do it. I’m certain of it, and if you wish, I’m glad to be the guide.”

Justine sat there, tears flowing down her cheeks, no longer forbidding, no longer resembling Miss Markum from olden days but softer now, almost winsome, almost huggable. She raised her chin, “You mean that? What about your comment about being scorched?”

“Not doing what’s right is worse than being scorched. And what’s more, you’re worth it. Call me whenever you’re ready.”

Justine rose and collected her things, and I walked with her to the door. As she left, she turned back to me for a last look. I saw pain and sadness in her eyes and perhaps pride as well. I hoped she would call.

~ 7 ~

You Must Give Up
the Hope for a Better Past

“I
want this to be different from our last consultation. This time I want a complete overhaul. My sixtieth birthday is approaching, and I want to change my life.”

Those were Sally’s first words. A handsome,
forthright woman, she looked straight into my eyes and held my gaze. She was referring to our previous therapy six years earlier, when she had requested four, and only four, sessions to help deal with her protracted grief following her father’s death. Though she had used that time efficiently and explored her stormy relationship with her parents in some depth, I sensed there was much more that needed attention, but Sally had been resolute in her wish for only four sessions.

“I’m not sure how much you remember about me,” she continued, “but I’ve worked forever as a physics technician and that’s what I want to change. The truth is that my heart’s
never
been in that work. My real calling is writing. I want to be a writer.”

“I don’t recall your mentioning that before.”

“I know. I wasn’t ready to talk about it then. Not even to talk to myself about it. Now I am ready. And I’ve contacted you again because I know you’re a writer and I think you can help me find my way to becoming a real writer.”

“I’ll do my best. Fill me in.”

“I’ve made the decision to put my writing first. I’ve got enough money to do that now, with my retirement benefits and my husband’s job. He’s an airline pilot, and even though United has stolen the pilots’ pensions—the CEO really needed his hundred-million-dollar salary and bonus—my husband still makes good money, at least for the next five years. And the most important thing is that I must have talent.”

“
Must
have talent? Tell me about that.”

“I mean I
must
have some talent. I won a literary guild fiction prize for new writers when I was eighteen. Four thousand dollars. And that was forty-two years ago.”

“A huge award! Quite an honor!”

“Quite a curse, it turned out.”

“How so?”

“I got this notion I could never live up to that honor. I began to feel like a fraud and was afraid to show my work.”

“What did you write?”

“What
do
I write, we should say, because I’ve never stopped writing. A bit of everything—an unending stream of poetry and stories and vignettes.”

“And what have you done with all your work? Have you published any of it?”

“Aside from the novella that won me the prize, I’ve published nothing. Never tried to publish. Not once. But I’ve still got every piece I ever wrote. Couldn’t send anything out and couldn’t throw anything out. I put everything in a big box and sealed it with strong tape. Everything I’ve written since my teens.”

A big sealed box containing everything she’s ever written! My heart began to race.
Slow down,
I said to myself, for I was slipping into my identity as a writer and felt myself getting too involved. My curiosity was aflame. And my empathy, too. I shuddered as I imagined my entire life’s work stored away unseen in a large box.
Don’t over-identify
, I told myself.
Nothing good will come of it
. I turned back to Sally.

“What’s that like for you?”

“What? Having everything in that box?”

I nodded.

“It’s not so bad. Out of sight, out of mind. It worked just fine . . . until now. I can tell you a lot about the blessings of denial. I’ve always thought your profession lacked a proper appreciation for denial.”

“Right! We don’t invite denial to our campfire. I confess that I expect my patients to doff their denial and hang it in the cloakroom before entering.”

We smiled together. We were a good pair. When had I last uttered “campfire,” “doff,” and “cloakroom” during a therapy hour? I sensed us settling comfortably into a
writerly
con
ve
rsation
.
Careful, careful,
I thought.
She has come for help, not conviviality.

“That box—where do you keep it?”

“Actually there are two boxes. Box number 1, the main guy, is jammed full, taped shut, and stored out of sight, way in the back of my closet. I’ve jettisoned a lot of things over the years—clothes, photos, books—but not that box. I’ve carried that box around with me, as a tortoise lugs its shell, from dwelling to dwelling for most of my life. In it is all my work from adolescence until about fifteen years ago. The second box, where I store all my recent work, is open for business under my desk.”

“So you’ve saved your whole life’s output of writing and keep it close but out of sight?”

“No, not my entire oeuvre. A good bit from even earlier years met a sad fate.”

“How so?”

“It’s an odd story. I’m pretty sure I didn’t tell you this in our previous therapy. One day when I was about fourteen, my parents and brothers were out, and I began snooping through the dresser drawers in my father’s bedroom. That was not unusual for me. I can’t recall what I was looking for, but I’ve always been a hard-core snooper. On this particular day I found two of my poems in a drawer containing my father’s sweaters. The paper seemed damp, as though my father’s tears had fallen on them. I had never given him my poems, and I was absolutely enraged that he had them. How could he have gotten them? There was only one way:
he
must have snooped through
my
room when I was at school and stolen them.”

“And so . . . ”

“Well, I couldn’t very well confront him with it, could I? That way I’d have to admit I was snooping in
his
closet. So I had only one recourse.”

“Which was . . . ”

“I burned all the poems I had ever written.”

Ouch! It felt like a stab in the heart. I tried to hide it, but she missed nothing.

“You winced when I said that.”

“Burning all the poems you had ever written! I’m trying to conjure up a picture of that fourteen-year-old girl striking a match and setting her poems on fire. What a painful, horrendous thought. Such violence toward yourself! Tell me, Sally, do you have any sympathy for that young, fourteen-year-old girl?”

Sally looked touched. She tilted her head back and glanced upward for a few seconds, “Hmm. I’ve never addressed that particular question before. I’ll have to think on it.”

“Let’s tag it and make sure we return to it later. It’s important. For now though, let’s talk more about your reasons for coming.” I would have greatly preferred to return to that mysterious taped-up box—it drew me in like a nail to a magnet—but Sally’s story of burning her work when her father invaded her privacy gave me pause. The situation called for great discretion. She’d get back to that box, I was sure of it, but only on her schedule, only when she was good and ready.

Over the next few months we prepared the ground for her new life. First she had to deal with retirement, a major, often frightening transition that few navigate with equanimity. Though she was fully aware of the many obstacles in her way, she was also a determined, efficient woman who composed a checklist and checked off one item after another.

First she had to come to terms with the irreversibility of her decision. Her particular field of physics moved so quickly that her knowledge base would soon be outdated, and she knew that she would not have the option of changing her mind in the future and reclaiming her job. To make sure that her lab would function without her, she instigated a thoughtful administrative reorganization, insuring a smooth transition.

Next she addressed loneliness. Her husband planned to continue to fly for five more years and was away fifty percent of the time, but she knew she could count on a bevy of friends. And then there was the question of finances. At my suggestion, she and her husband consulted a financial advisor and learned they had sufficient funds for retirement, provided they gave their children less money. They then arranged a meeting with their two sons, who reassured her that they could manage on their own.

The final item on her list—where to write?—was particularly bothersome to Sally, and she fretted about it for weeks. To write well, she required absolute silence, solitude, and restful contact with nature. Eventually she located and rented a nearby loft encircled by the arms of a massive California oak.

And then one day, to my great shock, she entered my office carrying a two-foot-by-two-foot box, a box so heavy that the floor quivered when she set it down between us. We sat in silence looking at it until she extracted a large pair of shears from her purse, kneeled on the floor next to the box, looked at me, and said, “Today’s the day, I guess.”

I tried to slow things down. Sally’s eyes were red, her lips trembled, and her grip on the shears seemed unsteady. “First, let me ask what you’re feeling. You look so strained, Sally.”

Sitting back on her heels, she replied, “Even before our first session, I knew that this day would come. This is why I came to see you. I’ve dreaded it, hardly sleeping several nights, especially last night. But I woke up this morning somehow knowing that now was the time.”

“What did you imagine happening when you opened it?” I had posed that question in the past, but it had never proved fruitful. On this day, however, she was forthcoming.

“There are a lot of dark chapters in my life, darker episodes than I’ve conveyed to you, and there are a lot of dark stories in that box, stories that I may have mentioned, but only obliquely, in our therapy. I’m afraid of their power, and I don’t want to get sucked back into those days. I’m very frightened of that. Oh yes, as you know, my family looked good from the outside, but inside . . . inside there was so much pain.”

“Is there a particular story or poem that you dread meeting again?”

Rising from the floor and setting down her scissors, Sally settled back into her chair. “Yes, one story that I wrote when I was in college haunted me all last night. ‘Riding on the Bus’ I think it was called, and it was about me at thirteen, a period when I was so unhappy I seriously considered suicide. In the story—a true story—I boarded a bus and rode to the end of the line and then kept riding it back and forth for hours contemplating how to end my life.”

“Tell me more about not sleeping last night.”

“It was bad. My heart pounded so hard I felt the bed shaking. I was terrified of that particular story and how I sat all day on the bus, thinking of killing myself. I remember being unable to find a reason to continue living. I kept imagining myself opening the box, rummaging around, and then finding that story.”

“You were thirteen then, and you’ve just turned sixty. So that means the bus ride was forty-seven years ago. You’re no longer that thirteen-year-old girl. You’re all grown up now; you’re married to a man you love, mothered two fine sons; you love being alive, and you’re here today planning to pursue your real calling. You’ve come so very far, Sally. And yet you hold onto the idea you’ll be sucked back into the past. How—when—did that odd myth take hold?”

“Long ago. That’s why I taped the box shut.” She picked up the shears again. “Maybe that’s why I brought it here to your office.”

I raised my eyebrows and gave her my best puzzled look. “How so?”

“Maybe if you’re with me, you’ll hold me and keep me in
this
world.”

“I’m a good holder.”

“You promise?”

I nodded.

With that, Sally again kneeled on the floor, methodically cut the tape—doing as little damage as possible to this treasured box she had lived with most of her life—and gradually pried open the lid. Then she sat back in her chair, and we both stared in silence, in awe, at the startled stacks of paper, the dusty literary record of her life. She picked one sheet at random and silently read a poem.

“A little louder, please.”

She looked at me in alarm. “I’m not used to sharing this stuff.”

“What better time than right now to break a bad habit?”

Her hands trembled as she looked at the page. She cleared her throat a couple of times. “Well, here are the first lines of a poem I don’t recall at all. It’s dated 1980.”

To want words

Is not hunger

But disease

Dis ease

A lack of mountains

Comfort collapsed

Just flat

Landscape

Eating the evening up

Like a train

Across Wyoming

Roaming those thought tracks

My feet made to scale

Like those of fowl that

Pace the low tide shore

Till water or words rise

To level all sign

Of unusual bird

Or strange mind

Tears came to my eyes. I found it hard to find words. “It’s a stunning poem, Sally. Stunning. I love it, especially those last two magnificent lines.”

Sally took a handful of tissues, lowered her head, and wept for a few minutes. Then, dabbing her eyes with a tissue, she peeked up at me. “Thank you. You can’t imagine how much that means.” She spent the rest of the session sifting through the ancient pages of her life, occasionally reading passages aloud, and then, as the end of our time approached, sat back in her chair and took two deep breaths.

“Still here in the present with me?” I asked.

“Still rooted in 2012. I’m so glad you’re here. Thank you. I couldn’t have opened this without you.”

I glanced at the clock. We had run past the hour. Sometimes patients catch that glance and conclude that I’m impatient for the hour to end. But often, like today, it was just the opposite. I was hoping we had more time to pursue the path we were treading.

“We’re going to have to stop now, but first we should plan how to proceed. For sure I think we should meet tomorrow or the next day.”

Sally nodded assent.

“And do you feel comfortable looking through your writing at home? Or would you prefer to leave the box here with me, and we’ll continue looking together next time.”

As she thought about my question, I added, “I promise not to snoop.”

Sally elected to take the box home and to meet again two days later. After she left, I thought about what a privileged profession I had. What an honor to share such pivotal and precious moments! And listening to her read her poetry was such a treat. I’m tone deaf and never appreciate concerts or opera but have always delighted in the spoken word—theater and, above all, poetry readings. And here, today, I am being paid to be present at this extraordinary drama and to listen to exquisite lines of poetry. I felt guilty at enjoying my hour with Sally so much. Of course, I knew it was problematic—without doubt transference was haunting this session, and the hovering image of her father vastly increased the complexities of her sharing her work with me. And there was also the issue of how I, a professional writer, might respond to her artistry. Some therapists decline to read a patient’s writing for fear of damaging the relationship. They worry about what they would say if they disliked or couldn’t comprehend the writing. I’ve never fretted over that. I have too much respect for anyone seeking to cultivate creativity. If the writing is not to my liking, I can always find some lines that move me and point those out to the writer. That’s always welcome and often helps writers to raise their work. In this instance, no problem whatsoever arose, since Sally was a gifted writer and all I had to do was tell the truth.