Alone for the Holidays?
Just post-divorce, Faith will not have her kids over this Xmas. Her therapist helps her break through her denial that she could be lonely. She acknowledges the difference between "alone" & "lonely", thus avoiding a potential disaster (similar to her suicide attempt 14 years earlier.)
“Thanksgiving was delicious.” Faith’s eyes drift out of the Zoom frame. Then snap back. As her psychologist of two years, I'd learned to listen as carefully to what she does not say as to what she does.
She sounds pleased with herself. However, something in her affect triggers images in the back of my mind from her terrible “Christmas story”14 years earlier. Is she really as okay as she portrays?
“Not just the food. But having the girls with me.” Faith’s eyes widen with remembered satisfaction.
“All the planning paid off. I taught them how to make Gr’mas raisin walnut stuffing. Then on Black Friday, we shopped, and I got them each sheets for their new bunk bed.”
She doesn’t mention her ex-husband. Was it possible that neither Faith nor her two daughters felt his absence? The custody plan that Faith and Fred agreed upon in their divorce agreement in August was typical — equally splitting time with their girls, weekends and holidays.
It dawns on me that Faith will not have her girls over Christmas. That was Fred’s turn with them. Nor would she be present at Fred’s large family Christmas gathering, with its abundance of food, hugs, laughter, and running children. His family used to welcome her with open arms. Not this year.
Where are her feelings about this? My mind races ahead.
Like many, Faith grew up learning little about the ‘language of emotion.’ For Faith, feelings could be dangerous. For good reason. She never brought home friends. Mom might just be passed out on the couch, having started to drink while watching her afternoon soap operas. So Faith learned to ignore the sad home reality, and to put on what she called her ‘Smiley Face’. Even to herself.
Do I see Faith's Smiley Face now? By being alone over Christmas, is Faith setting herself up to repeat her terrible "Christmas story" from 14 years ago?
I scan her face and ask, “You’ve mentioned the Christmas holiday? I wonder what you’re thinking?” Pause.
“I’m not thinking anything about Christmas. I’ll probably grade students’ finals. Grades are due in early January. But, I don’t wanna talk about it. It’s 3 weeks away.” Another pause.
I feel non-plussed. Had it not registered for Faith that her girls would be with Fred? That she’d be alone? Her first holiday without any family. Was she actively choosing not to think about it? Or was this a less conscious denial? Like her Dad, who we early on named the Great Denier?
I flash to Faith describing how her gentle soft-spoken Dad would bend his large frame over Mom at the dining table, as she swayed drunkenly on her chair, perhaps dribbling food onto her chest. “Now Ellie, you look really tired. I’ll help you to bed.” Mom allowed his large arm to steer her away from the dining table and away from his daughter’s downcast eyes.
“It’s my session and I can talk about what I want.” Faith’s tone is firm. “You know I’m gathering my papers to apply for tenure. I worry about which articles are best to include. And this new class I’m teaching this semester could be a feather in my bonnet. So I’m particularly concerned about grading those term papers. Then the finals.”
Grading papers. My image of Faith grading papers over that terrible Christmas in graduate school catches my breath. Connections form in my head. Almost two years earlier. She’d sought therapy after losing her directorship of a major research project at her university. She hadn’t lived up to her own expectations. Up to her ideal for herself. She’d convinced herself that she’d never get tenure. And described how she slid into a depression. When suicidal thoughts started to feel more real, she decided to seek professional help.
In our early sessions, we discussed previous times when she was this depressed. She remembered, and told me the Christmas story of her last year in graduate school, over a decade earlier. Her dissertation writing was stalled. The class she was teaching was behind schedule, her class lectures were unfocused, and 3 students had complained to the Dean. Instead of going home for Christmas, she had decided to stay at school to grade papers and redo her class final exam.
“I went to pick up my take-out dinner,” she had told me. “Campus was deserted. No one in Jon’s Joint, my favourite take out place. It started to pour... Cold, sharp, beating rain, biting at my shoulders. I had no umbrella and was soaked when I got home. I felt abandoned. Like no one cared. No one called me. I went looking for those pills I’d been hoarding . . . “
. . . . the end of Faith’s suicide attempt story was just as bad. When her parents arrived to take her home from the hospital, her Mom was asleep in the passenger seat, remaining the Great Avoider, true to form. Her Dad was his usual upbeat self. “How you feelin’? Darlin’? We’ll get you home in a whisk. I turned up the heat the way you like it….”
She recovered from her suicide attempt, met Fred, married him, and constructed her life so she’d seldom be alone. I feel like a word weaver, weaving words, images, trying to make connections. What is alarming me now.? . . I squint, lining up her history into a pattern of what might be happening during this session. Feeling alone can differ from being alone.
OK, I think. So, this upcoming Christmas holiday signals familiar hallmarks in Faith’s life. Good friends out of town. Fred will take their daughters to his family’s big festive holiday gathering, where she is now excluded, highlighting to her that she is “unwanted.” And, she is experiencing self-esteem pressure to perform, with increasing anxiety about failing to achieve her much-coveted tenure. She’s talking about using her typical coping strategies: staying alone, muscling through her work, and ignoring any potential lonely feelings.
Now seems the moment to share my concerns with her. I say, “Yes of course it’s your session. You’re the captain of your ship .. . your life.. this session. But we’ve also agreed that when I have a hunch, I share it with you along this journey we’re on together. And we at least explore a bit down whatever my hunch path is . . . “ “Yeah, Yeah. I know. That’s our agreement …..” her voice trails off. Long pause.
“ . . . and my hunch is” I continue, “ that your worries about tenure … while important… and we can look at them in January… are distracting us from something else more immediate.”
“Oh, that distraction thing I do…?” Faith’s head tilts. Assessing the moment. Measuring her own feelings.
“Yes. You’ve a fine talent as the Great Distractor. That’s how you survived your Mom’s drunkenness, your Dad avoiding anything bad.”
Faith smiles slightly, “Yeah, I got good at it. Yeah. I know. I try to distract you too. “
“And yourself,” I underline. “So you can look away from something you don’t want to see. “
“OK. I got it.” Faith sighs. I wonder, can she move past her denial? “OK. Ok. …. well…I don’t know what to say about Christmas. Ok…. well…Fred will have the girls. And they’re always thrilled to go to his sister’s house ….. “ voice trails off again. “I know Fred will be delighted. Over Thanksgiving, he Face-Timed more than our agreed-upon evening Goodnight call. I started to feel annoyed until he fessed up to feeling lonely. He said it’s the first holiday we’ve not been a family in 12 years. And a black cloud hung over him all Thanksgiving weekend. I did feel kinda bad for him at that moment.”
“So Fred admitted he was lonely?”
“Yeah. Big admission for Mr.- I-can-handle-my feelings-Tough Guy.” Faith tilts her head and chuckles.
“You’ve had your own experience of loneliness — and worse — over a holiday,” I say it softly.
Her smile fades. “Oh! I get it. Your hunch is that I’ll be ‘lonely’ too - this being MY first holiday alone. My daughters will have a wonderful time with their Dad and cousins. And I’ll be home alone.” Pause. “Ok. I’ll be alone. But I never said I expect to feel lonely,” she insists.
We are both familiar with our pas de deux. This dance we do together: when Faith tries to sidestep feelings she knows could upset her, and I try to lead her back to them. At such times, she’ll often try to distract me, as she did when she’d move Mom’s wine glass out of her reach. This protection- distraction dance is not always conscious — indeed often automatic— all the harder for me to track it then flag it.
I ask myself: how to connect up her being alone, with feeling lonely, with the potential of her slipping into another depressive episode, with a potential of her falling off the cliff? I need to put my connections on the table for us to examine together.
“I won’t be ‘alone’ alone.” Faith cocks her head. “I’ll have all those ‘delightful’ finals to grade to keep me company. While they’re unwrapping those Christmas presents, i’ll be unwrapping the amazing minds of my honours students who …. “ he eyes drifts into the distance, out of the Zoom frame. “Yeah… I remember when Suzi opened the box to her new ice skates. She jumped into my lap & started babbling about her first skating lesson …” and her eyes tear up as she begins recalling Christmases past. Her sense of warmth. Enfolded in her husband’s large family. Faith sobs quietly. Her awareness of how her family would be newly restructured settles like dusk outlining the dark shape of another loss resulting from her decision to divorce.
OK. At least we’re past her denial. I sigh. Relieved. Her shift allows me to spell out my concerns. She listens as I wonder aloud with her if her current situation could parallel that terrible graduate school Christmas. Even if she does not connect to her younger suicidal self, she understands her potential to slide into depression when feeling alone, and “uncared for.”
The next two weeks strain us both.
Even with awareness, in subsequent sessions through the month of December, Faith dances around…
“. . . . you’re overreacting”, she tells me. “Don’t worry.” “I’ll Face Time with the girls…”
“. . . Fred says he’ll take my wrapped presents with them. They’ll know I love them… that I’m ‘with’ them…”
“This divorce shit is worse than I expected. Having my girls only half of their little young lives…” she wipes her nose on the back of her sleeve . . .
“OK. This is my choice. I’ll own it… OK. OK. My freedom for an oriole cookie”, she snickers.
We step dance together. Protect. Distract. Reality. Sobs. I can do it. No, I can’t. Her vacillation exhausts us both.
On New Year’s Day, I get an email. “Happy New Year. Thanx for your patience with me. I decided to go to Aunt Millie’s. Left the finals at home : ) Having fun!”
By Joy A. Dryer, Ph.D. | Relationship expert in private practice, both as a Psychologist and Divorce Mediator in NYC.
Joy is a qualified Psychologist (Clinical), based in Brooklyn Hts, New York City, United States.
With a commitment to mental health, Dr Dryer provides services in English, including Clinical Supervision, Counselling (Divorce), Individual and Couple Therapy, Mediation, Mindfulness, Psychoanalysis, Psychology (Clinical) and Psychotherapy.
Dr Dryer has expertise in Anxiety Disorders, Attachment Issues, Attention Deficit Disorders (Adults), Career Issues, Creativity Issues, Death and Dying, Depression, Divorce and/or Separation, Pre-Marital Counselling and Relationship Counselling.
Click here to schedule a session with Dr Dryer.
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