What We Invest In Our Relationship With Our Children. Real Case From Practice

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

The therapist explained what was required of the group. In general, everything was simple - the one who wants to discuss his problem, sits with a psychotherapist in the center of the circle and, in fact, discusses, the rest listen, then speak out. She had something to discuss. So it seemed to her at first. But then the thought came that, perhaps, it is not so important … Maybe someone has something more interesting. The group turned out to be rather passive. "Can it still come out?" she thought.

- I have a problem, I can

At that moment, another girl also suddenly announced that she could go into a circle.

- So who? - the psychotherapist looked inquiringly.

- I can give in - she embarrassedly leaned back in the chair. There was a pause. The girl opposite nodded to her:

- You go, you were the first to say.

And she sat in a circle.

She took in a full chest of air. By the skin, she felt that 10 pairs of eyes were following her every movement, 10 pairs of ears were catching every sound.

She began to tell. She had a violent fight with her son a month ago. It was the end of the quarter - he had only deuces and triples. But it seemed to her that she was watching all the time so that he learned his lessons. He was, of course, lazy. He was a wonderful and smart guy. But he studied very badly. She couldn't influence it in any way. She had catastrophically little time. The new job required a constant presence. I liked the work and promised dividends. The dividends could feed the family. There was no way to quit work. Moreover, she always worked. A new fashionable word that she could not bear on the spirit - a business woman … I saw the assessments of her son, and something unbearable and irresistible filled her soul and mind. There was not enough air, the voice broke into a scream. It must have been despair. At this time the phone rang - the Russian language teacher was calling. The teacher indignantly announced that the child did not pass the essay, that he did not have notebooks, that he did not carry a diary, something else … and demanded that finally take action and pay attention to her son. It was like a slap in the face. As if from the height of her years she failed in her school years and there she, an excellent student and an exemplary girl, was reprimanded for her terrible behavior …. And she's not to blame !!! She behaved well !!!! A bitter storm of indignation and shame filled her entire being and pushed her into reality with force. She swung as hard as she could and hit her son on the cheek. She started screaming. I realized that she was no longer in control of herself. Scared the youngest child. Locked in the bathroom. It was very painful. It hurts physically. It's a shame. Unbearable. I wanted to bang my head against the wall. Most likely, she fought. She screamed and cried. Then she regretted that she had treated her son that way. It was a shame. I waited with horror for the end of this quarter. I was afraid to break again. Hated school. Because besides school, she had no other conflicts with her son.

- Is it so important for you that your son studies well and goes to college? The psychotherapist asked.

"Is it important?" - she wondered? Of course, she believed in his talent and wanted him to be realized, so that her son showed himself, his abilities. “But what if not? - she thought - if she doesn't go to college, if she becomes a simple hard worker? " There was not even a shadow of doubt that she would still love him. If only he grows up to be a good person, a reliable shoulder for parents, wife, children….

- Why then are good grades so important to you?

- So I say that the point is, most likely, not in him, but in me! - She said in despair, still trying to understand why she reacted so to these stupid assessments. She still had a persistent sense of impasse. There was no answer. There was a sense of guilt and misunderstanding. She once again began to talk about how wonderful her boy is and how it doesn't really matter what his grades are. Added to the previous feeling of guilt was another one - she was ashamed in front of the therapist and the group for the fact that she did not want to find an answer. She felt that he was nervous. Maybe it only seemed to her, but in any case, from this sensation, her despair grew stronger.

- Do you consider your husband a successful person?

This question took her by surprise. The husband was now practically out of work and was depressed about this. But before that he had his own business, and everything was not bad.

- Let's not talk about what happened before, just answer, do you consider him a successful person?

“Not now,” she answered hesitantly, after a long pause. And there was a feeling of devastation, as if she had betrayed him.

- So, - said the psychotherapist - you are now actually working alone for everyone, doing everything to get the family out of a difficult situation, and your men - husband and son - somehow get out of this picture, spoil everything, do not reach you..

- No! I love them. They are the most important thing I have. I have a wonderful husband. Yes, he is now not all well with his work, but I do not love him for the money. - My soul became somehow heavy and anxious. She had thought a lot about her husband in the last year. I thought everything. But she realized in the end that he is the closest person to her and she wants to be only with him.

- Tell me, do you have any flaws?

“Good question,” she considered. I began to remember. Nothing came to mind. "What are my shortcomings?" Heavy silence. How terrible it was to say - they are not. But she could not find them either. Tense up. It was terrible. Some kind of narcissistic idiot … How should this look in the eyes of the group? All people had flaws. And they were not with her. She understood that she had fallen into some kind of trap. What was she to do? - start inventing shortcomings for yourself?

“I'm lazy,” she finally said uncertainly.

- How does it manifest?

- Well … I often don't want to do anything at all around the house …. Just lying on the couch without moving.

- You get tired, it's natural, every person sometimes just wants to do nothing.

This response caused an even greater wave of despair - she could think of nothing more.

“Nothing comes to my mind anymore,” she honestly admitted and lowered her eyes.

- It turns out that you have no shortcomings?

- It turns out that no, - she said it doomed and not at all happy.

There was a silence. She clearly understood that this does not happen. There was something wrong here, something did not come together. She felt guilty. On the one side. On the other hand, she so wanted to shout: “Yes, I'm really good! I try so hard to do everything right !!! I try so hard to please everyone - so that the children feel good, that the husband feels good, so that the parents do not offend !!! She began to simply hate the therapist. She expected understanding and sympathy from him. She herself understood that she was a fool, that she fell for a child, but she admitted it! She came for help! She sincerely wanted to improve. And he sat so adamant, dry, he clearly condemned her and was not going to sympathize with her. And at the same time she felt that he was at a dead end. He himself doesn't know what to do.

- If everything is so good with you, maybe there is no problem? He said quietly.

And suddenly she realized that she had heard this phrase a million times. This is what her husband said. He was just as dry in relation to her experiences, adamant, he did not sympathize with her. He always believed that she was inventing everything, all her experiences were nonsense of female fantasy. And he was just as stumped. He also did not know what to do next, how to get out of this hole in which they had found themselves in the last two years. And this suddenly made her very scared. Unbearably scary.

As a huge column of water breaks through a dam and rushes to destroy everything in its path, so her despair due to the inability to find a way out and be heard (understood) by even someone, even a psychotherapist, burst into her soul, destroying the last hope of salvation. She felt this deadly bitter current fill her entire being, making her heart beat feverishly. She felt how hot it was in her head and how tears ran down her cheeks. She wanted to scream like they do at a funeral. Howl loudly, not holding back sobs. But there were so many people around. The scream died in her throat, causing her real physical pain. As if with the last bit of strength she held him with the muscles of her neck and jaw. She could not even utter a word, because the slightest movement could lead to a loss of control, and this cry of despair and anger would burst out. She was terribly afraid of this. With all her might she tried to pull herself together. She just felt the numbness of the circle with her skin. And the bewilderment of the psychotherapist. At least that was what she thought. With an incredible effort of will, she finally pulled herself together and, barely opening her jaw, squeezed out of herself:

- Now, now I will calm down and say…. - for some reason she thought that she should explain what was happening. She felt guilty for this breakdown.

For a while she fought desperately with her tears. Then, as always, gathering all her strength into a ball, she said something about her husband saying that, that she was horrified that she would not be heard again, they would again decide that she had invented everything. That she felt bad from the fact that her feelings do not touch anyone, are not interesting to anyone, they only interfere with everyone.

During the ten-minute break, she locked herself in the toilet, because she needed to be alone, and she could not think of another place. She tried to somehow understand herself, to comprehend what had happened. Didn't want to see anyone. She was not angry with people, she knew that they sympathized with her. But she felt as if she had been skinned. And even the movement of the air hurt her. The pain was palpable. She really felt how her skin ached and like blood, drop by drop, moving along its surface. It was an eerie sensation. She was terribly afraid that someone would try to sympathize with her, say something, and she would again fall into this abyss of tears and self-pity, despair and anger at her own impotence. No, she was even more afraid of that animal cry that lived in her chest. She suddenly realized clearly that he had been living there for a long time. A long time ago. It was he who knocked down the rhythm of her heart and interfered with breathing, it was he who interfered with sleep at night. It was the cry of a woman who had buried someone close. A cry of pain, despair and anger at the injustice of what happened. She suddenly realized that she should have let out this cry even then, four years ago, when conflicts with her husband began, when she felt betrayed by him, when a monstrous disappointment befell her, and all illusions about happy love and mutual understanding collapsed. She, indeed, buried her love then, which occupied almost the main place in her life. Everything that happened later in the relationship with her husband, after that, is a different feeling, built on the ashes of the old. It was then that she had to cry, scream, release all this pain. But she buried her in herself. I did everything to save my family. Over the years, new drops of disappointment fell into the well at the bottom of which this pain was buried, and sometimes rushed there in a tropical downpour. And now it is overflowing.

Unexpectedly for herself, she realized that she was yelling at her son, because she wanted to show her husband how scared she was. She wants him to say: “Well, take it easy, you are doing everything right anyway, you just get very tired. I will now sit down and help the child with the lessons. I'll take care of it myself. But he always remained dumb, he believed that children are women's care. And she had a strong feeling that she was a bad mother. She did not have the opportunity, and did not consider it necessary to constantly be with the children at school, like other mothers, she could not help her son with lessons, she could not cope with anything, and even her husband condemned her, asking why the child had such bad grades …

- Well, how are you? - asked the therapist after the break.

- It may seem strange, but my family has always been different from many ordinary families. - When the dust scattered from the explosion that occurred in her soul, she suddenly clearly saw what was happening to her and her life. - I have always had an active professional life. At the same time, I was never afraid to combine her with my family, children - this is the most important thing in my life. I always combined one with the other, and I gave birth to one of the children “on the job”. I had a business, and at the same time I tried to pay attention to each of their children. My children are not excellent students, and I know that many condemn me. There are other mothers who do not work and know every number that their child wrote in a notebook. I am not like this. I do not believe that I should sacrifice myself and my interests for the sake of children's assessments. I don’t think the children will be any better for it. I really don't care what their grades are - that's not why I love them. It is more important for me that they feel happy and grow up to be good people, that they know how to appreciate other people and their interests, so that they can find themselves in this life. But most people don't think so. I am trying in every possible way to prove that you can work, be passionate about something and at the same time have a happy family. And I seem to be able to do it. And only these assessments … the very reason that gives everyone around the right to consider me a bad mother, demonstrates that I can't cope, that I can't do anything. …