Posts from — April 2008

First of all I am very, very groggy. But in the last couple of days I have been feeling more like myself in the middle of the grogginess. I trust my feelings and emotions, and I keep feeling compassion for myself – what I think is more important than what others may think.

So within this context Andrea and I talked about something that really upset me that would have been too dangerous to care about in the past. My aunt did not call me as she promised after my grandmother’s mastectomy to tell me how she was doing. What I fear is that after my parents arrived to be with my grandmother that my aunt felt like it would be getting in the middle of things to call me.

Here’s what I remember was said about this:

- I hate second guessing things with my family or interpreting what happened. It’s all so complicated. My family feels complicated to me. I have the experience of things being easy in my marriage and I want more of that.
- I felt like I had been starting to build something more with my aunt and then this happens. It makes me angry to feel like I was hoping she could be there for me and then she’s not.
- Andrea suggested that we did not need to focus so much on the pain of all of this because we know that my family is this way. Instead I can know that in my life now I have enough of my own made-up family and the secure feeling within myself to be able to focus on what is strong in my life.
- I bristled a little at that because it was new for me to be feeling the hope in my aunt. There was something else in her statement that made me nervous and I didn’t know what it was until the end of the call.
- I also noticed that I didn’t resist the truth that my family disappoints me over and over again. Andrea had also said that I can look at my family differently now – that I know that I am sensitive and vulnerable in my family and that I can make choices for myself around my involvement with them that are respectful of my needs.
- I saw that in the past I would resist the idea that my family doesn’t give me what I need partly because I didn’t see what was possible. I can see that in other families that aunts and uncles can look out for their nieces, can be close to them, and can help them navigate challenging family situations. They can simply be available. I need that and I haven’t gotten that when I’ve needed it, either as a child or now.
- My way of wondering if there was something different I could be doing didn’t come up in my conversation with Andrea. I feel my impulse to assume that if only I had XYZ then things would have been better. But I’m going to let that impulse pass.

When I asked Andrea how I might handle this if this comes up in conversation with my aunt, we talked about how what I might say could be said in this context where I don’t NEED something from my family. I could choose to tell the truth about how I felt purely because it would be the easiest thing FOR ME to do. Not because I am hoping for some relationship or anything.

Then we talked about how my aunt might respond. She could say something like – Well, you could have called me. Andrea suggested that I would not even need to explain myself because I don’t have to try to have a relationship and build something with her.

I’m still kind of blown away by this. Choosing not to try to have a relationship? Recognizing that having a relationship with my extended family is so hard and not in my best interest because I am so vulnerable with them? This feels really radical to consider first what I want and what would feel good to me. Not trying so hard. Wow.

At some point Andrea also underscored with her words what we were really talking about – I am making decisions for myself based on what works for me and not based upon what other people will think of me or my decisions or how I go about doing things. This is still so new. There have been times when I was thinking about this situation with my aunt when I could feel myself thinking about how she might judge my choices and then I felt myself not caring and trusting myself. It was incredible.

So then as we are wrapping up I hear this really quiet voice say to me that if I get stronger I am afraid of losing Andrea. I say this out loud to her. I realize soon after that this was part (not all) of my reluctance to not focus on my feelings around the situation and focus instead on building up my strength. Also during the session I was aware of wondering if I was still connected to Andrea. Did I feel her with me, helping me, or did I feel alone on my own?

I figure I was working out this question – if I got stronger would I still have Andrea with me? Her answer to me makes me want to get stronger. She said that I could have her with me in really nice, more complex ways. She said that as babies we need our parents the most but the way we need them is really, really basic – just there. As children get older, they need us in more complicated and interesting, rich ways. As she was saying this, I knew she knew what she was talking about from her experience with her own kids. She added that some of the times that have really accelerated our relationship have been when the older parts of me have needed her. That is so true.

It’s fascinating to me that this is coming up because I was thinking this morning that I didn’t get in as much trouble in life as I could have simply because she was there. My life was saner because I knew she was there. We took baby steps in therapy, nothing like what has happened over the last year, but I was steady because I knew she was there.

I am ready now to keep having her with me in those more complex, complicated but rich kinds of ways.