Karen, my therapist in Montpelier, was helpful though I didn\u2019t have a lot to say. Somehow I got onto the belief that not doing something was equivalent to not caring. I think this is part of what gets me in trouble with Eleanor, when I can\u2019t do something for her. I feel so desperately awful, that I\u2019ve failed her so badly, and I also feel the ugly feeling of having my very real caring be invalidated. But because that doesn\u2019t come up in words, I can\u2019t do anything about it. Instead I feel wrong and bad and like I shouldn\u2019t be here. I told her about Mother and \u201cYou don\u2019t care about the Colonial Dames\u201d and how I couldn\u2019t think of an answer until later when I realized I could have said \u201cIt\u2019s true I don\u2019t care about the Colonial Dames, but I\u2019m glad you have something you\u2019re excited about.\u201d Of course that wouldn\u2019t have satisfied Mom, but at least I would have spoken my truth. I said to Karen that the only thing that would have satisfied her would have been if I were interested in the Colonial Dames and joined them. Karen said even that wouldn\u2019t have worked, and I realized that was probably true, and then I started to cry. I cried for that little girl who wanted so much to make her mother happy, and tried so hard, and because her mother refused to receive her offerings and love her back, she took that as meaning she was unloving and unlovable. I cried and cried for that little girl who deserved so much better. I can feel the sadness now and tears in my eyes. It\u2019s so painful to accept that nothing I could do would have made her happy. I think of all the evidence in the 4th of July monologue that NOTHING would work. I hurt so much for that little girl. I hold out my arms and she comes running and I hold her while she cries and I tell her \u201cYou are a good person, a caring person, and your mother was wounded in ways she couldn\u2019t let herself know about, which would have been the only way she could have healed.\u201d
\nKaren kept asking what the feeling was \u2014 \u201cdon\u2019t care\u201d is a thought. What\u2019s hard is I can\u2019t begin to describe it, in fact I think part of the dynamic is to hold me unaware of what\u2019s going on. I dissociate and go into denial. I feel terrible, my heart squeezed and hardened, and perhaps my body trying to shrink. That\u2019s what Karen observed and translated \u201cit\u2019s not OK to be here. I\u2019m not safe.\u201d There\u2019s probably a feeling of conflict and also of invalidation, as when someone tells me something about me that\u2019s not true but I accept it, because the part of me that knows it\u2019s not true is not strong enough to insist. The invalidation is so conditioned into me that I have to deduce it, I don\u2019t experience it. God, how is it possible to change something so deep? I\u2019ll ask Caryn when she comes back.
\nHow did I start to separate out caring about a person from caring about their property? One was the time I told my husband he \u201cdidn\u2019t care\u201d and his answer was that he DID care, about me, but just couldn\u2019t do what I wanted him to. (See the post for October 17, 2010) I see that Mother taught me that caring about a person meant caring about their things and ideas too. The second time I began to see the two things were not the same was when I was down at our summer house in Maine, and my sister\u2019s daughters had left their beach towels draped over furniture on the porch. Mother was complaining about the mess, and I said \u201cAren\u2019t you glad they\u2019re here? Of course they don\u2019t care where they put their towels\u201d and Mom said \u201cYes, they don\u2019t care about me.\u201d I was stunned, realizing that Mother couldn\u2019t make that distinction, and then remembering the time Dana had challenged me about the same issue.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Karen, my therapist in Montpelier, was helpful though I didn\u2019t have a lot to say. Somehow I got onto the belief that not doing something was equivalent to not caring. I think this is part of what gets me in … Continue reading