Chapter 28. Therapy

Another August 1998 assignment from Maureen is to personify the alcohol - if that drink could talk to me and tell me what it will do for me, what would it say?   

It’d say:

·          “If you quickly drink me down, I’ll give you a tingle, a sweet warm sensation that quickly relaxes you and cheers you.

·          I will decrease your internal discomforts, and give a feeling of pleasure by a fast outpouring of feel-good neurotransmitters.

·          I’ll help you release the day’s tensions; I’ll be reward for the hard work you’ve done all day or week or month. I’ll make ordinary, even tiresome chores more fun since you’ll feel looser and not so pressured or irritable.

·          I will make you more daring and make you feel sexier; give you a liquid makeover from the inside out, a fluidity that you don’t usually have because you’re so uptight, give you a “psychic flight.”

·          I’ll give you relief....sober is dry and uptight, drunk is fluid and liquid and loose - a freedom, giddy and light.

·          I will make you happier with yourself, sending the ‘old self’ away. I will help you forget that you have to do it ‘right’; I’ll give you escape - permission (by taking away some of your inhibitions) to express your anger more readily, to be more seductive or ‘naughty.’

·          I will erase (for a short time) your fears of not doing it right or not being perfect; your fears of being a defective daughter, wife, mother, person; of being rejected or not loved and then abandoned and lonely.

But since I know you want the whole truth, I (alcohol) will also tell you that

·          I’ll also cause you to forget much of what was said or done after you take in some ounces of me. You may have great sex, but you won’t remember. You may say something hurtful in your looseness, but you won’t know that it’s even affected Gregg.

·          I’ll make you ‘messy’ - with foggy eyes, slurred speech, impaired movement, careless words. 

·          I will eventually alienate you from Gregg, causing a lack of respect, causing him to pull away.

·          I’ll cause a built up of toxins in your body, that kill some brain cells, that make you feel muddle-headed in the morning, that tax your liver, that cause depletion of serotonin and other neurotransmitters contributing to a greater depression.

·          I will prevent you from being alive with emotion and from finding resolve, letting you dull pain, fear, and rage.

·          I’ll cause you to postpone squarely facing your pain. I’ll give you a way to self-medicate and put off going to God for your deep yearnings. I will get between you and God, make you feel guilty for going to ‘wine’ instead of Spirit for filling; in fact, I’ll be the substitute so that it hardly occurs to you that there’s any other way, and you won’t have reason or need to learn what the filling of the Holy Spirit is about.

 

And in late August, while hurting and feeling alone, and after thinking and praying long, I appreciate this vision: a picture of largess.

Friday, August 21, 1998

Picture: My large place with you....a plateau of low-growing, wonderfully scented herbs, that release their sweet scents when stepped on (or danced on :)), no muck anywhere in sight, severe clear with dazzling sun, babbling brook of clear, refreshing water tumbling in small falls (one side of this plateau has a rising cliff-like edge) so that quiet pervades with background of moving water sounds. 

We dance, slow at first; you hold me Jesus and pull me in close.  You desire me, I’m your bride. You delight in me, you enjoy me. We swing sometimes, and the movement is so fun and rhythmic, the music from within (You or me, I can’t tell, we’re as one) and uninterrupted. I simply follow your lead, and am so happy to have that lead…

Only in You is my soul at rest; there is no Rock, or fortress; no other entity that will love me always, be my refuge and strength, my tender companion, my faithful lover, my rest, quiet, trust, comfort and confidence.

Therapy sessions happen every other week or so, most often with some time talking as a couple, and also some individual time for us each with Maureen. 

During a September individual session, I explore feelings

·         of inferiority (compared to Allure especially: still there’s an irrational envy of her thighs),

·         of unimportance (with Gregg especially, in that he would pursue another woman), and

·         of being a non-person, or person dismissed.

A first memory comes to mind: the picture of mom shushing me during nap time and me crying myself back to sleep because I couldn’t get up from my nap.

Another memory comes of my mom saying to someone (a sister, or a friend of hers? Not sure who but somehow it got back to me), “What was she thinking?” after she was called by Seth to come to our Storm Lake house to address a question of his. I was away from my three older children at a friend’s house receiving shower gifts for baby Dan. I realize later that my choice to leave the kids with a 7-year old was not wise, but at the time I felt I had no other choice. (Seth really was amazingly capable and responsible; also I think I had asked Mom if she could watch the kids during the baby shower, but she said she had a conflict.)

“What’s the matter with her?” rather summarizes the sense I have of how Mom felt about me, probably/maybe both my mom and dad? Like there is something wrong with me.  Which easily contributes toward my sense of feeling that I really am inadequate, a stupid daughter, a bad wife, a flawed friend, a defective person. 

SHAME.

Maureen urges me to fight hard against numbing out. After a session, Gregg and I talk on the way home.

Gregg said, “So, for you, it’s either pain or numb.”

I half-jokingly, rather more seriously said, 

“You mean, there’s another choice?!”

Either ‘numb’ or ‘pain; is certainly the lesson that I learned growing up.

“The only real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes.” 

-Marcel Proust

I record our work in therapy – a healing of memory.

September 19, 1998

As Maureen leads me to think about Jesus coming into the situation of the little girl napping, I picture Him coming alongside of me, touching me, drying my tears and talking softly to me, saying something like “what’s the matter...you want to get up?... I can understand that, little people are full of energy! But your momma is tired and needs to sleep some more, so I’ll lay here beside you and we’ll talk....what have you been doing these days?  Riding your trike in the basement, that sounds fun....yep, I’ve been going around the world checking up on all my little girls... do you know that I love you? I do - you are so precious to me, there is no one just like you... I made you, do you know that? I wanted you from the beginning, and I know you and want you to know Me and how much I love you.”

A little bit later Maureen encourages me to envision Jesus leading me out of bed; upon imagining approaching my mom, consider what I’d do. I speculate I’d just plead with my mom for some recognition of my desire to get up, hoping for some words of comfort and empathy. 

Maureen has a couple of different pictures: maybe I’d throw water at my mom to wake her, or pllling my tongue at her to say “look at me, I’m out of bed!” Those would not be my usual gotta-be-nice responses, but I sense such a freedom in actions such as those. At the end of the therapy session, Maureen reminds me of the possibility of “getting out of bed.” I respond with obvious excitement in my voice and body, 

“Really? I get to get out of bed!!??!!” 

I feel excited about not being shushed, about being able to grow up and act adult, about not comparing myself with anyone else or living by anyone else’s rules or desires.