“And whenever you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father in heaven may also forgive you your trespasses.”
Mark 11:25
The buzz of the new millennium was in the air. Everyone was thinking of starting new, starting again. Could it apply to the relationship with my dad? I saw this as a perfect opportunity to try, at least. So I wrote my dad a New Year’s card, thanking him for everything he’d been and done for me. I also asked for his forgiveness, for hurting him in the past. And I told him I hoped we could become closer in the New Year and the New Millennium. I signed it “I love you, Sheryle.” That was probably the most difficult thing I have ever written. I honestly didn’t even know if I really meant it. But I did start wanting to mean it. I felt better after writing it. I decided to forgive him—even if that meant the feelings would come later. I waited. His move, right?
Dr. Fay applauded my efforts, while cautioning me at the same time. She didn’t want me getting my hopes up too high. Indeed, I might not get the ideal desired result, not that I knew what that would be. But writing and sending this card, for now, was enough.
Once Dr. Fay and I worked through my relationship with my dad, I thought I had all of my issues wrapped up. Not quite. I still had one parent to go.
My mother: my best friend? My ally? My enemy? Who was she to me? Once I felt a little more at ease with my father, Dr Fay wanted to delve into the wonderful world of mother/daughter relationships. I knew that I had “issues” with Mom, of course, but I honestly thought they were under control. I came to therapy to deal with my dad. Mom wasn’t the problem. I knew she loved me. She’d sacrificed so much of her life for me. I didn’t have that much of a problem with her, did I?
Dr Fay asked me about how well I got along with her lately. I told her that we talked on the phone regularly. At this point, she asked me about the move from Minnesota to Oregon. How did my mother feel about it? Honestly, Mom wasn’t happy about me moving so far away. She had always talked about all of the plans that “we” were going to make, all of the things “we” were going to do. No matter what I wanted to do, it was always a “team” thing with her. Her dreams always included me, and my dreams should always, therefore, include her: together forever.
Growing up in a sheltered environment, college offered my first timid steps away from her world. I discovered that I loved my freedom. Despite the fact that my behaviors were far from healthy in college, I certainly didn’t want to go back to that cage. I was free. I was living my life, or so I thought. Even if my eating disorders became my life, at least they were mine, not hers, and certainly not “ours.” No, Mom, this belonged to me!
So the tug of war ensued. The more I wanted to run away from home, the more she wanted to keep me there. I resented that greatly. She, of all people, knew that dysfunctional situation and how stifling it was. Wouldn’t she want me free and happy? That’s what she always said, but then she would turn around and encourage “our dreams and plans” again, which were close to home, while discouraging mine, which were further away.
I felt like I had two extremes going on here. My father didn’t want me at all, and my mother wanted me too much. Mother bashing became the new focus of my sessions with Dr Fay. I began to wonder if my father’s lack of involvement in my life was attributed not to the fact that he wasn’t interested in me, but rather, that he simply didn’t see any room for himself in my life. I suddenly found myself embittered toward my mother. Had she stolen my father from me in order to have more of me for herself? I started to feel like I had issues with the wrong parent. I felt angry, confused. Who do I blame?
I wanted a scapegoat. None of this was making sense. Food wasn’t my enemy? My father wasn’t my enemy? It had to be Mom then, right? All I was left with was more questions and more pain. I felt like, once again, I wasn’t getting any better, only angrier and more wrong. Basically, I lived a temper tantrum twenty-seven years in the making.
While still stewing in my anger toward my mother, I did get feedback from my father regarding the New Year’s card. It wasn’t directly from him, but, in one of my conversations with my mother (I was still talking to her), I found out that he read it silently to himself and smiled. According to my mother, he kept it by his chair and looked at it from time to time. Mom told me she thought it made him happy. I was tempted to feel slighted by his easy happiness here, but I couldn’t hate him anymore.
More and more of my sessions were spent crying. I didn’t know what to make of this. Was that what I was doing here? Accepting? Grieving? Maybe I wasn’t crying or grieving specifically for my father or mother. Maybe I wasn’t even crying for myself. Maybe I was grieving instead for the situation, not just what happened to me, but what happened to all of us.
We all bought into our “should” lives: this is the way “life should be.”
