a longer excerpt from Monday’s therapy session
TW - I mention my suicide attempt
Emily: Your mother is somebody who is so dead inside. Sometimes people who are so dead inside can’t bear to see people who are alive. All of the painful and me in rage that it brings up for them. I fear that on some level, she somehow needed to do to you what was done to her. She attempted to destroy your aliveness. What is so awful is that you fear she might have succeeded. I don’t think she did. You think she succeeded. Which makes sense to me because you identified with her wish to destroy your aliveness. You reached out to your mother for Love and she tied weight around you and dropped you into the water. To drown……… It’s awful. It was a somewhat aggressive way. Right, because we know there are women who have been abuse who leave their children with their abusers, often the very same person that abused them. She left the key; she put the key back on the hook.
Me: You think she was abused?
Emily: I’m guessing something horrendous happened to her. Yeah… I would guess she was abused, I wouldn’t know for sure, but I would guess she was abused. Frankly I don’t think she made it. I would not call your mother a survivor. I would call you a survivor. I think when you think your dead, I think it really is an identification with your mother. And her wish to kill you. emotionally. as she is.
Me: well and then I tried to kill myself.
Emily: and then you tried to kill yourself, which was kind of going along with her program. Yeah, I think very often young people try to kill themselves when they feel that their parent wanted them dead. I think she couldn’t bear that you were alive. that’s what I’m getting from this.
What I’m getting from you is that this is a terrible, terrible experience that caused you feel that it’s dangerous to reach out for love. It’s gut wrenching…
Me: It’s almost ironic. I used alcohol to swallow the pills, but it was the alcohol that… I don’t want to say saved me, but…
Emily: You threw up?
Me: yeah, I couldn’t hold down the liquor.
Emily: that is so ironic. It’s like mother’s little helper. finishing off your mother’s work.
Me: what do yo mean by that.
Emily: well identification with her. you’re doing what your mom was. you’re mom is somehow trying to kill you and then you’re killing yourself using alcohol, which is her substance for killing herself. it is ironic.
