Conversations With My Psychiatrist | Welcome To The Sh*t Show Part One: Andrew Is Homeless

Posted on July 20, 2023 by Gabriel...

Andrew is threatening to kill himself.

I haven’t written a lot about Andrew here. His mother and I started dating when he was four. We got married when he was seven. We separated when he was ten. It was very, very ugly. Now he’s 17-years old, just graduated high school, and sleeping in his car in the Walmart parking lot because he’s not welcome at either his mother’s house, or his father’s home.

When he was young, Andrew was mentally and emotionally abused by his mother, my ex-wife, and horribly neglected by his biological father. When Andrew was five-years old, and his mother and I were still married, we’d drive him to his father’s for a pre-planned visit, only to find the house empty. On the way back, Andrew would be screaming in the backseat “why doesn’t my father love me?”. This happened once or twice a week. On the occasions that his father was around, he would put Andrew in front of the TV, in a dark room with some popcorn, then go into the basement to drink, smoke weed, and gamble online.

…except for for hockey. His dad was very involved with Andrew’s hockey. Even becoming a coach for Andrew’s team.

On other occasions, Andrew would refuse to eat his supper. So his mother would put him into a timeout. When that didn’t work she’d start threatening him. Once, as he was sitting on the stairs, she (very seriously) threatened to pull him up and down the stairs by his hair. When I told her that wouldn’t be happening while I was around, she waited a couple of hours then get abusive with me. This was happening multiple times a month.

Andrew’s mother used to call Children’s Services on his father after almost every visit. CS would determine that neglect wasn’t enough of a reason to take Andrew away from his dad permanently. Eventually Children’s Services (that’s not what it’s called around here) decided to investigate every aspect of Andrew’s life — they interviewed his teachers, his principal, his father, his father’s girlfriend, me, and his mother.

Eventually, based a lot on my testimony and some audio recordings I submitted, they determined that Andrew’s mother had been abusing him for years, that his mother had been heavily coaching him on what to say to CS, and it would be in Andrew’s best interest (and Victor and Quintin) to be removed from his mother’s care. Initially I thought I’d be taking all three boys with me but, according to CS, I had no right to take Andrew because his father was still in the picture. So Andrew went to live with his father and his father’s girlfriend, and Victor and Quintin came to live with me.

And that was that. There was no other plan for Andrew. CS demanded all three boys be taken out of the home, or they would be placed into foster care. So I left in the best way I could think of. When I left Andrew’s mother, I paid three months rent, and paid the bills for a month. I was homeless, absolutely broke, living with my parents, with two boys, ages of 1- and 5-years old. After near-weekly blowups with my own mother, the two boys and I were eventually placed into county-run Affordable Housing.

For several years afterwards, Andrew and I had contact, but it was irregular and brief. We always hugged, we always caught up. Four to five years after the separation, and the CS removing the kids from their mothers home, and putting her on a schedule of supervised visitations, CS decided their mother had followed all the rules, and had taken part in all the therapy practices. So we went to mediation over what visitations would look like. After a few hours of negotiations we went with week-to-week with Quintin and Victor.

I warned the CS that any attempt to put Andrew back into his mother’s life would result in things getting worse, not better. But my warnings were ignored. It took his parents months to work out a schedule, but Andrew was back with his mother on a week-to-week schedule. By this time Andrew was 14- or 15-years old. Over the time with his father, I had watched Andrew go from a physically active little kid, to a sedentary, extremely moody teenager. Thanks mostly to his father, his weight was out of control. I think by this time he was almost up to 250-260lbs.

…despite it all, Andrew was doing extremely well in school, and had a lot of lifelong friendships.

For the first year after the CS backed off, he was bouncing back and forth between his father and mother. He would stay with one for a few days until the yelling started, then stay with the other until the same happened. Eventually it started getting physical. Eight months after I warned the CS things would get worse, he got into a fist fight with his mother. His mother’s boyfriend had to restrain Andrew. The CS got involved again, the police were also involved.

…my own involvement was in anonymously calling the CS when I heard about the fight. Victor and Quintin were upstairs at their mother’s when it happened, but they could hear everything.

Andrew, his mother, and his father refused to take part in the therapy offered by both the CS and the police. At least not seriously. His mother went to a couple of parenting seminars, but his father was just too lazy to get involved. Andrew, at this point, knew that any talk of taking part in therapy was just a road to getting his mother’s abusive side to catch fire.

So all of it became a pattern. Andrew would stay with his dad while his mother calmed down. Even after the physical altercation, and after his mother banned him from her home, it took three weeks and Andrew was once again a welcome guest. After screaming matches with his father — and his now second wife, he would get kicked out for a week or two, stay with his mother, and then get forgiven.

The pattern lasted for two years. Andrew would be happy with his mother or father for a week or two, then something would spark an argument and, none of the three having any coping skills whatsoever, the argument would get out of control to the point where the kid was told to leave.

Only now Andrew’s father has separated from his wife, and he’s living with a friend. A friend who has no patience for arguments between father and son. Especially physical fights. So when Andrew and his father got into a fist fight two weeks, ago the police where called and seven of them showed up. And Andrew was forcibly removed from the house. The friend has made it very clear Andrew is not welcome back.

So off to his mother’s house Andrew went. Things were tense, but relatively peaceful. Until an incident where Andrew almost got arrested. He drove some friends to a drug store in a strip mall. While he waited in the car, his friends robbed the store of $750 worth of merchandise. It was mostly a grab & dash. Nobody was hurt, and there were no weapons or threats.

But there were a lot of cameras. It took the police less than thirty minutes to find Andrew’s car, with his friends and the merchandise still in it. Andrew’s friends, to their credit, denied he had anything to do with it and Andrew was let off with a parental warning. His friends were threatened with a charge of ‘Theft Under $1,000’, which is a maximum of two-years and a permanent record. I’m not sure where that stands as of now.

So the tension between Andrew and his mother got worse. Andrew had recently picked up a new job cleaning a National Park, which paid a good wage and, I think, was unionized. A few days ago, while staying with his mom, he misplaced part of his uniform and he panicked. He had recently been accepted into one of Canada’s best Colleges, and he planned on using the money from the job to pay for his car. He started yelling. Within a few minutes things had gotten completely out of control between him and his mother. I don’t know how physical it got, but the police were called.

And Andrew had to be removed from his mother’s house. Several times during the incident, he threatened to kill himself. His mother, and the police, both — to their credit — offered to call the Crisis Line. But Andrew, programmed by now not to accept therapy from anyone, declined. He told the police that he would sleep in his car at the local Community Centre. The police told him if they caught him there, they’d charge him with trespassing. So that’s how Andrew ended up in the Walmart parking lot.

I spoke to his mother a few hours after it happened. And she was devastated. But with no idea what to do next. His father’s reaction was to go to on a four-day trip to a ComiCon event with his new girlfriend where he, according to his Facebook posts, added to his collection of Transformers memorabilia.

So now, as far as I understand, Andrew is couch surfing. I don’t know if he still has a job. I know he has car payments to make, and College coming up — I have no idea if that’s even a possibility anymore. I know his mother doesn’t work full time, I have no idea if she’s on welfare or ODSP. I know she works ‘under-the-table’ to pay her part of the mortgage on the house her boyfriend bought. So, at least in terms of money, she’s no help for Andrew.

Andrew’s last fight with his father was about money, and how his father — who sells cars for a living, couldn’t help him anymore.

I told my psychiatrist all of this, and asked her what my responsibility was. She told me the best thing I could do for him was to call the local Children’s Services (which also has programs for adults), and see what they can do for him. It was the local CS that helped me skip the waiting line for Affordable Housing, mostly because I was disabled, homeless, and living with my mother in an abusive situation. So they have programs to help the homeless. They also have a tonne of therapy options… which, of course, have been offered to Andrew in the past.

…the problem I have to work out is how to approach him. I can’t ask him to move in with me, there’s simply no room. There are also rules that I have to follow with the Affordable Housing and Disability People that preclude anyone else living here. I asked his mother if I should / could talk to Andrew, but she doesn’t want him to know she’s been talking about the situation. She also, of course, doesn’t want him going into therapy.

So I don’t know what the fuck to do. I don’t know what my responsibility is in any of this. I raised Andrew as if he were my own son for five years. I took him to his first NHL game. I took him to the water-park, we went bowling twice a month, I helped him with his homework, I got him dressed for school. I carried him on my back, I twirled him around by his arms until he was dizzy. I sang Happy Birthday to him. I introduced him to movies, and music that he still talks about today.

I held him while he cried about his father’s negligence, and took him for walks after his mother’s freak outs.

…I believe, there’s a chance his mother will take him back. At least I have a hunch. It’s the pattern. The Pattern has existed in his parents’ families for generations. His mother was physically abused by her father, and emotionally terrorized by her mother. His father was raised by two alcoholic parents. But nobody left. Everybody kept leaving and coming back… verbal apologies were never given, everything was reversed. The abused apologized. The abuser given the option of acceptance… the act of coming back was the apology, the act of receiving the abused back into the home was the acceptance.

But I don’t know.

What a total shit-show.

…I think I have to make the call, and see where it goes from there.

Posted in Appointment Day, Brother Andrew, CSG, Family, Health, Photography, Psychiatry, Suicide | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Another Conversation With My Psychotherapist… Now With Less Mom Talk

Posted on June 3, 2023 by Gabriel...

The overarching theme for my past year in psychotherapy was my relationship with my mother… which seems not a little cliché, but it was something that needed to happen.

We only discussed my mother for a few minutes this time. There just wasn’t much to talk about. She has been staying in her lane for the past few months, and leaving me alone. Which has been a nice change. We don’t have a lot of contact, just dinner once a week, and I do maintain a website for our local historical society, which she’s in charge of… but I can do that from home.

Instead my psychotherapist and I talked about other things.

…like how my oldest son, Victor, who turned 13-years old a few months ago, recently told me I was a lousy father.

I heard him yelling at Quintin, his little brother. When I entered the room, Quintin was sitting on the end of the couch, looking up at Victor. Quintin looked confused and upset enough that he was getting ready to cry. Victor’s face was red with anger, and his hands were balled up into fists.

When I asked what was going on — in a loud voice (but not yelling), Victor kept going on about how Quintin was playing online with one of Victor’s friends. .

Victor kept yelling, when I asked him to calm down and just explain to me what was going on, he told me I didn’t understand, and rushed upstairs, crying. As I was telling Quintin that everything was going to be alright, there was a huge crash. I ran upstairs to find Victor leaving Quintin’s room, still crying and angry, but now panicked as well…

There was broken glass all over Quintin’s floor, I asked Victor what had happened and he told me he bounced a ball and smashed the overhead light. He showed me his ring finger, and there was a little blood from a small cut. I was still confused as to what was going on, and got Victor a bandage. I asked again what was going on, and the anger flared back up.

Quintin, he said, was playing with one of Victor’s friends.

Then he demanded to know if I was going to put him in a timeout. It was pretty much a challenge. I told him I still wasn’t sure what was going on, but because of the ball, him being in Quintin’s room, and the broken glass, I had no choice but to get him to sit in his room for five minutes and calm down.

He sat down on his bed, and yelled at me that “mommy is the better parent”, and that he didn’t want to be here anymore.

That’s when he started demanding to talk to his mother. He wanted her to come pick him up and take him to her place. After some back-and-forth, I finally made the call… I told her what had happened, and that I needed her support, and that I wanted Victor to remain with me so we could settle things. I told her I thought the main thing that was going on was Victor was acting like a 13-year old. He was upset about something small, and the puberty hormones were just driving it into something major. She agreed with me… then, when I gave the phone to Victor, the first thing she said was he could come to her place.

…so that was that. Except I drove Victor to his mom’s, after getting him to clean up all the broken glass. And that was the last I talked to him for the remaining three days of my week.

…during that time I had to go into Victor’s room for some reason. That’s when I found the photo of the two of us, that had been beside his bed since we moved in here, in his garbage can.

On… I think, the following Monday, Victor showed up at my door after school (his mom stayed in the truck). He told me that “as my father” I should have made sure he was okay after the glass fell on his head, and that was why he was so upset with me. I told him I didn’t know the glass hit him. We said a few other things, I knew he was waiting for an apology but I honestly thought I didn’t owe him one.

I still think that way. As he was walking away, I told him I loved him, he told me he loved me. As he was getting into the truck, I asked if we were okay… he said he guessed so. And that was that. I spent the rest of his mother’s week second-guessing myself… should I have just apologized and got it over with? He called on the Sunday night, asking if he could stay with his mother for one more night, which I thought was a good sign… that he was asking permission, not that he was staying there. I agreed. Then I asked if I was picking him up from school on Tuesday, and he agreed it would be me.

My psychotherapist thought I did the right thing by waiting, and not apologizing… and that 13-years of age was going to be an adventure.

We also discussed a few other things. Like how I’ve fallen behind on cleaning my home. The dirty dishes are all over the counter; the laundry hasn’t been done in a few weeks; I have to move piles of crap from my chair to the dining table to sit down, and back again so the boys can have someplace to sit when they eat. She suggested I get some professional help just to get things under control. When I told her I have something like 300 DVDs scattered around the house, she thought a ‘decluttering’ might be in order. I agreed to both ideas… but haven’t started with either yet.

We also talked about my Book Project. We’ve discussed it before, and she’s a big fan of the idea. I told her I had been reading the interviews that I had done, and that there was some really good stuff in them. And that it was all still relevant. But there’s just too much stuff that I’ve lost over the past few years… including a crap-tonne of notebooks, photos, and magazines that my Ex threw out.

And that was about it. She also told me that it might be possible for her to see me for another four or five sessions before she has to stop. Which will be helpful… especially if we’re going to start talking about the other themes in my life.

Posted in Appointment Day, Baby Quintin, Bipolar, Bipolar Disease, Bipolar Disorder, Family, Health, Little Victor, Manic Depression, Mental Health, Photography | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments

Conversations With My Psychiatrist | The End Is Nigh

Posted on April 18, 2023 by Gabriel...

I have two more appointments before my psychiatrist retires. This isn’t a surprise, she told me when we started three years ago that our relationship would be temporary. She also told me I wouldn’t be left out in the cold, that I’d be referred to another psychiatrist and my treatment would continue.

But that’s not happening. After our sessions are over, I’ll be assigned a psychiatric nurse, who will monitor my medications for a few months, then my family doctor will take over. If he can’t, or won’t, deal with me, he can refer me back into the mental health system where I’ll have to wait for six months to two years for another opening.

If… or when he refers me, I’ll have to go through an evaluation again where I’ll be expected / forced to advocate for myself… again. Which is something very few of us are good at. The time I’m without hands-on treatment will be determined by how the evaluation goes…

My time with my psychotherapist is also up. I was only guaranteed, I think, twenty-six sessions with her, and those are done as of our last appointment. She’s doing me a favour though, and still seeing me every ten weeks or so, just to make sure I’m not entirely alone. But that’s only going to last until the end of the year.

So my safety net is being taken away again. The last time that happened was in 2018, when the psychiatrist who first diagnosed me as having manic depression retired. He decided that I didn’t need to be followed by a shrink anymore. That I’d be okay on my own. I don’t think I lasted more than a few weeks before I had to ask to be evaluated to get back into the system.

I’m not angry about the situation. She has to retire, I know that. And she believes I’m stable enough… I mean, I’m not suicidal, and haven’t been for a while now. At least not overtly. I still have some pretty self-destructive behaviours, but I’m not looking at the pills I have and wondering how many I should take to end myself. And it’s that perceived stability which is the reason why I’m not being immediately transferred to a new psychiatrist.

There are just too many people on the waiting list for both psychotherapy and to see a psychiatrist. Based on the last time this happened, I don’t think my family doctor is going to want to be responsible for my psych meds.

So back in the pool I go.

…one of the things my psychiatrist and I did talk about was my dreams. I’ve been having a recurring dream for roughly a year now. In it I find my friends — generally people I hung out with twenty or more years ago, in weird locations and we hang out and party for a while. Usually in a house or apartment I’ve never been in before. Then I turn my back, or get distracted, and when I turn back they’re gone. I spend the rest of the dream trying to find them.

For the past few months I’ve had a version of the dream at least four or five nights a week.

She asked what I thought was happening in the dream, but I’m not very good at interpreting dreams — but I don’t have a lot of IRL Friends anymore. I do see people I know when I do go out, I live in a pretty small village. But the time of getting together in the evening with Friends is over. Most of them have moved away, and the ones who stayed have their own lives to lead…

…we also talked about my Meds. She wanted to reassure me that I’d have enough refills for the year. She also bought up the idea of switching to Latuda, or maybe simply adding it to my pill diet. But I’m trying to keep my regimen to as few pills as possible, I don’t like the idea of taking pills to counteract the side effects from pills I’m already taking.

She asked about the Trintellix — it’s supposed to help me stay up during the day. I’ve been taking it regularly since, roughly, January. Recently, like the past week or ten days, I’ve noticed that it’s easier to stay up in the morning. Instead of going back to bed after I get the kids to school, then waking up at 2pm and rushing around, I’ve been getting things done before noon.

I’m still tired, I just can’t sleep. It’s a very odd feeling.

…I’ve been lucky to have the Doctor’s I’ve had — to have had the care that I’ve had, especially over the past few years. I just don’t like the idea of being on my own… of having to deal with this on my own.

Posted in Appointment Day, Bipolar, Bipolar Disease, Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Health, Manic Depression, Mental Health, Photography, Psychiatry | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Conversations With My Psychiatrist | Dealing With The Aftermath

Posted on January 30, 2023 by Gabriel...

My psychiatrist prescribed Trintellix for me in October of last year. One of my problems over the past ten years and more, has been sleeping. Basically I do too much of it, and I’m still tired all the time. The Trintellix, taken soon after I woke up, was supposed to keep me up in the morning, instead of me taking four-hour naps after I got the kids off to school.

We started at 5mgs, with the idea being that we would increase the Trintellix over time, while decreasing the Abilify — dropping the Abilify from 20mgs to 17mgs made sleeping difficult for the first couple of nights, but I took a Trazadone on the third night, and I’ve been sleeping great at night ever since (I was only supposed to drop the Abilify to 18mgs at first, but I made misread the label on the bottle).

So I took the Trintellix for three weeks… maybe a little less, but taking it did nothing to make me less tired, it just wouldn’t let me fall asleep for a nap… and if I could nap, my head would be buzzing. So I stopped taking it, cold turkey. I’ve been sleeping a lot during the day recently, even for me, so I had been thinking of restarting the Trintellix. My psychiatrist agreed that it’d be a good idea, so I’ll start again tomorrow morning.

My Aunt died recently. I’ll write more about that, and her, later. I’m still trying to figure some stuff out. Basically she helped raise my brother and I, along with her two kids, while we were in the Cult. She had escaped early on in its existence, but was convinced to come back… she negotiated her way back in, with the criteria being she wouldn’t take part in day-to-day activities, and that she would live, with her kids, in a house separate from the Cult.

…separate but close. She ended up across the street and down a few houses.

The deal was, basically, if everyone left her alone, she’d mind her own business.

The reason she escaped the Cult was a decision had been made that, since no one person was to have a bond with the kids over anyone else, she would not be able to breastfeed her baby. So she saved up her pennies and nickels, hiding them in her underwear drawer, and when she had enough for train fare to her parents home town, off she went with her daughter.

She had only been a member of the Cult for about two years at that point.

When she came back she became our babysitter, and her home became a safe place for the kids to be in. After the Cult collapsed in on itself, she helped my mother escape with my brother and myself. So we were pretty close after that. For my mother, my Aunt was the only person she could relate to when it came to those years. In many ways, my Aunt was my memory-keeper for those years as well. We would visit with her once or twice a year, and she was always willing to answer my questions.

My mother took my Aunts death pretty hard. Because of the Pandemic, we hadn’t seen her since 2018. Basically the cause of death was ‘she just didn’t wake up’. She was a few years younger than my mother, and a confidant of my mother’s for many, many years.

About a week after we learned of my Aunt’s passing, I was driving my mother to and from her office. On the way back I asked how she was dealing with the death, and she opened up about it. Which surprised me. She said she’s at an age now where the circles are moving in… she’s losing friend’s to old age, and now she had no one to share her memories from large pieces of her life.

…the day after we found out my Aunt had died, one of my mother’s longest and dearest friends had a heart attack, and was in the hospital for a little over a week. Another long-time friend is in the end stages of ALS. So my mother is feeling her mortality.

A few days after the car ride, I sent a Facebook message to my mother asking her how long my brother and I had stayed with my Aunt. I was trying to write a piece about her (still am), and had a memory of being with my Aunt for a few weeks in a row. I was very apprehensive about sending the message, because historically, anytime I initiate a conversation about the Cult, it degenerates into confrontation pretty quickly.

But this time my mother sent me a long, rational, email in response. In it she described the early years of the Cult, how it all started, how we ended up in the city that we lived in for so long. Most of what she described I already knew from talking to my Aunt, and a few other people from the Cult. But it was the first time I’ve read my mother’s account of those very early days.

I’m not sure what to do with it… it’s the first time she has opened up about those times in years, even if it was just a few memories. The problem I have, is I’ve always had memories of my childhood, but I’ve never been able to discern if those memories are in order, if they’re real to begin with, and who’s in them with me.

Not only are my memories jumbled, but because those years were kept secret, I don’t have any recollection of things that did happen that I should remember… .

Anyway… I’m taking it as a good sign, and I intend to ask a few questions and see how it goes…

My psychiatrist and I talked briefly talked about other stuff as well… she’d like me to be getting out more, especially with my camera. But she was happy that I’ve started taking an interest in my book again. I’m pretty sure my book deal has expired — I haven’t talked to the Publisher in more than ten years, and I’m in no hurry to find out if I owe them my advances — but if it was a good idea once, maybe it’ll be a good idea again.

I’ve been reading interviews I did for the book, and everything is still relevant. I was really surprised at how coherent I was in asking questions. I also read the 30,000 words I submitted to the Publisher… I always have a hard time recognizing my ‘written voice’ after leaving a piece of writing for a long time, and this time was no different. But I like them. We’ll see.

Posted in Appointment Day, Bipolar, Bipolar Disease, Bipolar Disorder, Clinical Depression, Family, Father, Health, Memories, Mother, Psychiatry | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Happy Christmas And A Merry New Year… Or Something

Posted on December 25, 2022 by Gabriel...

We didn’t celebrate Christmas when I growing up. I knew about Jesus and Santa from school, of course, but one of my earliest memories is listening from the top of the stairs while my father argued with some other member of the Cult that “he can believe in Santa Claus or Jesus, but not both”. I think they were talking about me.

I had my first real Christmas, at least one that I can remember, when I was eight. The year we escaped the Cult. We had a small apartment in a tiny city and a tiny tree, but we spent the actual week with my mother’s parents hobby-farm in the mountains. The first gift I remember receiving was a small pair of cross-country skis.

I remember the best part of the Day was watching the wrapping paper burn in the fireplace. Somehow the flames would change colour depending on the colour of the paper.

I never had a real connection to Christmas other than it being a time to receive presents. The ‘giving’ part of the Day came later, when I was old enough to start dating but, although I respected the religious aspect of the Day, it was never the primary concern. Occasionally my mother had us write letters to Santa — even though I had stopped believing after listening to that argument, but we never went to Church. Basically it was never a Religious Day for my brother and myself.

My little brother has had a slow conversion, when he had his first and only child he started taking the religious parts of the Season to heart. He goes to mass every Sunday with his little family now. When I had my first son, I started to take the secular traditions around Christmas more seriously. I taught him about Jesus and Santa, and decided it was quite alright for him to believe in both. But we always have a tree (this year’s is a little on the small side), and there’s always cookies and Egg Nog for Santa. And there’s always lots of presents, and dinner with their Grandparents.

Anyway… there’s a YouTube video worth watching below. If all you see is a large blank space, maybe try reloading the page. If that doesn’t work, just click HERE. It’s worth it.

…so — even though there’s zero evidence Jesus was born in December; and that it’s pretty ‘Sus’ that Mary and Joseph would travel all the way from their homes in Nazareth to faraway Bethlehem by donkey just so they could give birth in a barn; and the fact that during the nine months of the pregnancy the good people of Nazareth would have had to buy into the story that one of their own was impregnated by a deity; and what about the Holy Bible’s Deuteronomy (20-21) which clearly stated that “[if] no proof of the young woman’s virginity can be found, she shall be brought to the door of her father’s house and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done an outrageous thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father’s house. You must purge the evil from among you…” I’m sure that little law played no part in a 14-year old Mary and the Virgin Birth story — from our household to yours, Merry Christmas.

Posted in Baby Quintin, BiPolar Christmas, crazy people with no pants, Depression And Christmas, Health, Humor, Humour, Little Victor, Memories, Old men in red suits, Punk | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Conversations With My Psychotherapist Are Coming To An End

Posted on November 22, 2022 by Gabriel...

“…our biggest trigger while I was growing up, was me asking questions about my past. Any questions about the Cult we grew up in, or anything regarding my father, or even anything regarding my father’s side of the family, were absolutely forbidden. Any conversation about either was predetermined to end up with my mother yelling at me.”
–‘Bonding Part Two: The Punishments She Did And Didn’t Hand Out.’

“Well, if I had my way
I had a, a wicked mind
If I had a, oh Lord, I’d tear this building down!”
–“If I Had My Way I’d Tear The Building Down” (1927); Blind Willie Johnson, ‘Dark Was The Night’

In addition to regular appointments with my psychiatrist, I also see a psychotherapist every two to four weeks. I’ve been seeing her for almost a year now. Which means our time together is winding down as the Government only pays for 26-sessions. I’m really not sure what I’ve learned over the past year.

When we first started out, she asked a bunch of questions about me and my life — she already had the gist of it from notes she received from my psychiatrist so I just had to fill in the holes… basically she wanted to know my Depression Triggers. Specifically what my relationship with my mother was like.

I told her about the Cult I grew up in, how I was raised by a Collective where the children were not allowed to have a connection to any one individual over another, so I didn’t know my mother until she escaped with my brother and myself when I was eight-years old. Then there were the years of her working odd jobs, at weird hours, which meant my brother and I were left on our own with babysitters in the beginning, and then just on our own as we got older. So my mother and I never had a chance to know each other, which means we’ve spent most of our time together arguing and misunderstanding each other.

So that’s what we’ve been talking about… for a year. It has gotten very, very tedious. For the first twelve sessions, we used ‘Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy, or EMDR, to work out my Mother issues. And, for some of them, the EMDR seems to have worked. But overall I don’t think I’ve learned more than I already knew…

…she was raised by an absentee father, and an abusive sociopath for a mother. In an attempt to escape from her home situation, she ran into the arms of my Father, who turned out to be an even worse, even more abusive sociopath. When she finally escaped my Father, she had the option of going back to living with her original abuser, but getting free rent and school, or going off on her own with two kids who barely knew her.

It was an impossible choice… and I resent my grandfather for forcing her to make it. But she made her choice, and it was to be on her own. She decided being alone would be better for us than being with her parents. She was escaping abuse, and didn’t want to be abused again.

I think one of the points my psychotherapist has been trying to make for the past year is that it’s easy for me to say that, in hindsight, she could have dealt with it for another few years, to make a better future. But, having lived with her choice for the past few decades, it’s just hard for me to look at her choice and say she made the right one.

Like, instead of a ‘Sophie’s Choice’, there should have been some negotiation or something. Dammit. There was no ‘right choice’, so why not pick the one with the potential for a better future?

And back and forth it goes… if there were sides, I believe my psychotherapist would definitely be on the side of my mother. At least that’s how it seems. She has spent entire sessions recently going over what an incredibly hard decision it was for my mother to make. When I try to explain that I know that, that I’m aware of what a Choice it was, I just get talked over. I think we’re stuck on the wrong issue… yes, this Choice is the Root of our misunderstandings and arguments, but there are several branches that need to be dealt with.

It’s not like we have a lot of time left… my mother is 72-years old now, our relationship is one where we don’t talk to each other about day-to-day stuff, because we’ve conditioned each other to expect an attack of some kind. My psychotherapist wants me to bring up positive things then, instead of shutting down if and when my mother makes a negative or passive aggressive comment, to try and push through. Keep it positive. Put a positive spin on the topic.

…of course one of the problems is trying to find something positive, or negative for that matter, in my life to share. It’s not as though I do a whole lot, or have a lot to report. Her point is to share more with my mother, in an attempt to break the conditioning of the past thirty-five years.

The thing about conditioning though, is that it’s almost impossible to get the dog to stop salivating at the sound of the bell.

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