[continued from previous post; do not begin here, or you'll find yourself in medias res -- first read this post ]
And ?
I still felt the need of someone to talk to every week, someone to whom I could unburden myself entirely and vent or whatever about the week’s issues. Now I have Funny Guy, and I see even more clearly how important it is for me to have a friend to talk with, a companion, another human being to listen and respond. Not that Funny Guy takes on the role of shrink, not at all; Funny Guy and I listen and talk to one another pretty equally. But my final shrink wasn’t really ‘analyzing’ me in any way. He was just listening.
So I began by warning him, the final shrink, whom I started seeing in February 09, about what had happened with the two previous shrinks, that they had become identified in a way that was completely inappropriate with a man I was dating, and when I had brought up all the very bad signs and red flags about these men, they had dismissed the signs without even considering them seriously, suggesting, instead, that I needed to stop making mistakes etc.
The new shrink (let’s call him 3) was very sympathetic and stated clearly that he would be aware of that problem.
Then I felt, what I hadn’t felt with either of the other two, that I needed to tell him everything about my past, about both parents, so I did. With the other two, I had been so wrapped up in the present moment, dating and all the exigencies of the immediate, that I had never really talked about The Past in a thorough and consistent way. Somehow, perhaps because I wasn’t dating anyone much in February, March, and April 09 (I just had a series of totally unpromising first-dates), or perhaps because some good intuition led me along this path, I looked back very carefully at my mother and my father.
Let me be clear: this all had nothing to do with Freud. No one, neither 3 nor I, was using psychoanalytic terminology, and he never pushed me in any direction at all. I didn’t require pushing or leading: I guess I knew what I wanted to say. I wanted to look at everything very thoroughly and carefully.
And??
Well, I discovered something very unpleasant.
Hitherto, I had seen, quite clearly, with eyes wide open, that my father was a rat. All my cousins thought so, his own brother thought so, and even his own parents were critical of him, because he was a truly horrible person. From the moment of my birth he ignored me entirely and even denied my existence. My parents were divorced when I was a baby, and my mother moved to New York when I was 2, so I didn’t grow up anywhere near him. He remarried and had another daughter, and until his dying day, which was the day Obama was elected, he spoke and wrote as if he had only one child. The only time he acknowledged me in the past 25 years was to write in his will that although he had two daughters, for the purposes of his will, “my daughter” means XXXXX (my half-sister’s name was spelled out). And no doubt he did that just because the lawyers told him that if he didn’t mention me, I could claim some of his money.
Whew.
Oh, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. He was much, much worse than that, but I don’t want to waste time on him now, because he’s not the story I’m telling. Although I was 61 when he died, I don’t think I saw him more than 8 or 9 times in my life. Truly, he pretended I did not exist. The last time I saw him, at a family gathering in the early 1980s, I went — dutiful child that I am, alas — over to embrace him, and he turned his back to me.
Oh gosh that’s pretty heavy stuff!
There’s worse to come, but not about him.
Anyway, it was clear to me, growing up, at least it appeared clear, that I had a good parent and a bad parent. I had one who took care of me and one who didn’t; one who lived with me and brought me up, and one I never saw, who ignored my existence; one who identified me as a child and functioned as a parent, and one who was entirely non-functional in my life and invisible to me, a complete non-person.
The awful realization I had in the first month of my talking with 3, when I was trying to fill him in entirely on my background, was that my mother was a bad parent also; that, in fact, neither parent loved me; that in fact, they were both hostile to me.
Mimi, how terrible! But it couldn’t be. You can’t be entirely right about that.
Would that I were wrong. Would that I were. I wish it more than you do. But alas it’s true, and if I hadn’t realized it, I would have been able to have the loving and fulfilling relationship I have with Funny Guy.
Oh gosh.
My mother did take care of me, food and shelter and school and birthdays and Christmas and the rest of it, but as I got older, it became clear that she was very hostile to me. She was always extremely critical of everything about me — my looks, my clothes, the papers and stuff I wrote for school, everything. And when I won prizes at school, because I was an academic kind of kid, she didn’t seem as pleased as other parents were about their children in similar circumstances. People would say, “Oh, your mother must be so proud!” but she never seemed to be. And the older I got, and the more abilities I showed, the more hostile she was. A psychiatrist friend of mine who is a reader of this blog remembers well, and even reminded me recently, that when, in 1974, I got offered a very good job, instead of saying (as I would have said under the circs),”Oh, that’s fantastic!! I’m so happy for you! It’s wonderful! Did you accept?” — she said dryly, “Well, that was a coup” — as if I had somehow engineered this job offer, as if there were something shady about it.
Yup. I can hear what you mean.
And when I’ve published books, not only has she never read them, she has made it clear to me that she has never read them. She’ll say things like, “I bogged down in the first chapter. Why do you use words like xxxxx?” and fasten on some word she doesn’t like. She hasn’t read more than a few pages of any of them, and we’re talking five books here.
I can’t believe that. Unless you write really technical books on scientific subjects —
Do I sound like that kind of person?
Well, no.
I’m not, and they weren’t. Oh, and I should also add, that for essentially all of my adult life, which is I guess a bit over forty years, she has always criticized or made snide remarks about the birthday and Christmas presents I give her. And she will make negative remarks more than once about “that awful book” and, at the same time, praise a present someone else gave her. I give her lovely birthday parties, with a meal, a nice cake, her friends, cousins etc., but she never thanks me for those at all, never says how lucky she is to have such a wonderful daughter who gives her lovely parties etc etc. Nothing like that at all. — I have had to ask myself recently why I keep giving her presents and parties, but I know the answer: I’m wired to be dutiful. It would be hard for me not to do all that.
But it gets much worse.
When my children came along, she was very critical of me as a mother: I never did anything right, I was ignoring my children, or not feeding them at the right times, or — her special critique — I was selfishly spending time on my own writing and not paying enough attention to their needs. AND — here we begin the really bad part — when they got to be older and began getting annoyed for whatever reason, as indeed girls (yes, they’re girls) do at their parents, she would encourage them in their hostility, telling them that they were right about me, that I was a terrible person.
Mimi, how can you know this?
Because once she told one of them that in a room right next door to where I was trying to nap. Child Q had gone to her to complain about me, no doubt knowing she would have a sympathetic audience, and my mother appeared not only sympathetic but enthusiastic in her conversation, affirming eagerly that I was indeed the “bad” person Q thought I was.
Oh gee. This is….not good.
I won’t even go into how my ex-husband, the father of my children, fit into this dynamic, but you can believe it wasn’t good either.
So at any rate, what I learned from myself, really, or rather, from my talking to the sympathetic 3, the third New York shrink, the one I went to last spring, 2009, could be formulated this way, though I didn’t formulate it that way then: the only paradigm I had for a loving relationship with another person was the one with my mother. And that was so tainted by hostility that it was very bad. She was outwardly affectionate, sort of, but inwardly hoping for the worst for me. And that was all I had to go on in forming friendships and romances on my own.
Wait a sec. Two questions: first of all, it wasn’t that outwardly affectionate if she was so critical, as you say; and secondly, how is it that you have so many friends?
Yes to the first question; she wasn’t all that affectionate, really, but compared to the nothing I got from my father, it appeared loving. She was envious and — entirely unconsciously — wanted bad things to happen to me. And as for the friends, well, I’ve realized recently that some of the people I used to consider friends were actually not very kind to me, and it has been a kind of relief to stop seeing them. But yes, I do have many good friends, and I guess that’s just good luck or good taste or both.
Or perhaps the fact that many people recognize in you someone who is a good and loyal friend, kind, generous, and thoughtful, as well as funny and quirky and imaginative.
It’s a good thing you’re saying that! I wouldn’t want to be in the position of praising myself….
Back to the story. I’m dying to know how all this connects to Funny Guy.
So at any rate, I came face to face, in February and March 2009, with the fact that really, neither parent had loved me; that I had grown up more or less disliked by both parents. — Now, I didn’t “go anywhere” with that recognition. I just had it…
But my relationship with Funny Guy is truly, far and away, the best relationship I’ve ever had with any lover. It’s completely and utterly devoid of any hostility on his part, and this is entirely new to me. He has said many times that all he wants is to make me happy, and he means that. He doesn’t have a job or some other purpose in life at the moment, and his child and grandchild live in a distant (American) city. I’m it, really, for him.
And, to come round to the point, I believe that without that realization about my mother — namely, that she didn’t love me either; that my father was not the only bad parent — I wouldn’t have been able to have the very good relationship I now have with Funny Guy. Although in the early days with FG I never made that connection, although in fact I’ve only made that connection I think in the past four or five months, I’m convinced that it’s true, and that I’m right about it.
Backing up a bit, Mimi, surely someone loved you in your childhood ??
Yes. My maternal grandparents loved me, doted on me, adored me. But that grandfather died when I was one-and-a-half, and my grandmother when I was 23, so I haven’t had them in my life very much, at least, haven’t had them living.
You have.
Yes, okay, in a sense, I have. Twenty-three years is something. That grandmother, E, doted on me, and I knew it. I remember years ago, 1980, holding a man’s hand during a movie. He was very kind and affectionate (that day, at any rate!), and I remember thinking that his hand felt like my grandmother’s, or that holding his hand reminded me of holding hers.
So you did have another paradigm…
I guess I did, but the other, my mother, was stronger. I didn’t grow up in the same city as my grandmother. She lived either a very long, overnight train ride away, or a complicated flight or two away, and for most of those 23 years I only saw her twice a year, and never for more than a week or two at a time.
But that love must have left a very strong impression.
It did. I can barely write this.
But not strong enough…
Well, yes and no, I guess. In the short run, not strong enough to undo the really dreadful effect of both awful parents; but in the long run, I didn’t forget it. I had had the experience of being truly loved, of being doted on, so I knew at some level I was worth it, that it was possible, and I wanted it again. I clung to that memory.
So you think that the memory of that true love, your grandparents’ love for you, which you held in your heart all those years (sorry for the trite phrase), and the recognition that your mother didn’t love you — those two things made it possible for you to have, at age 62, the first truly good romantic relationship of your whole life?
Yes. I do. And especially the second: I had to confront directly, and it was very upsetting, that truth about my mother. And it continues to be a difficult recognition, because I’m in touch with her daily, and I’m responsible for her. I doubt if she has noticed a change in me, but it’s there.
Well, Mims, there’s much more I’d like to ask, but this final post has gone on long enough. So tell me this: can we expect to hear from you again? And by “we” I mean your audience, such as we are.
Maybe. I’m taking down some posts, but I’m leaving all the Funny Guy ones up, and some of the earlier ones, such as “What does ‘I’ll call you’ mean?”, because it gets a lot of hits. It seems to be performing a useful social function.
I’ll respond to comments on this last double post, but I won’t add new ones. I’m now completing the novel version of Mimi’s dating adventures, and if you’d like to know when the book will be available, send me your email address as a comment to this post. I won’t publish the email addresses, but I’ll save them.
And so??
And so goodbye, blog-readers! This blog has meant a lot to me. Communication means a lot to me; I really require other people in my life, and conversation with them, so the blog has been in many ways a true life-saver. And to the friends I’ve made and met — Juliette of rendezvouswithromeos.blogspot.com, Suzanne of suzanneportnoy.com, Loverville of loverville.blogspot.com, funkybrownchick, elizabeth of sex in the public square — and the ones I haven’t met but have emailed — dating trooper, ruby, sapphirejay, viviane, lolita (one of my earliest fans), melissa — I’ve loved getting to know all of you. You’ve provided fun and wisdom and joy during a time that would have been pretty dismal without you.
Thank you all.
And buy my book (when it’s out)!!
lots of love,
Mimi.
