Disentangle. Nancy L. Johnston

Charlotte

      As Anne leaves, Charlotte arrives. Charlotte is in her thirties. Her shoulder-length hair bounces as she comes in, and she greets me with friendly, sparkling eyes. She is a jolly sort. She smiles and jokes a lot. She makes both of us laugh. Charlotte and I agree that Sharon Wegscheider-Cruse must have had her in mind when she wrote the description for the Mascot role in alcoholic families in her book Another Chance: Hope and Health for the Alcoholic Family. Indeed, Charlotte comes from a large, alcoholic family. Charlotte’s father was an untreated alcoholic who committed suicide two years ago. Charlotte worked as a flight attendant until several years ago when she married. She now lives with her husband and their two-year-old daughter and works part-time for a travel agency.

      Charlotte is a relatively new client. She came to me several months ago concerned about her relationship with her husband and her tendency to spend too much money on stuff she does not need or really want. She thought perhaps she was “addicted to Wal-Mart.”

      I have learned that Charlotte’s husband works many hours away from home at his job. He gets up early to go to work and returns in the early evening. Many evenings he spends working on their home and yard. When he sits down in a living room chair at the end of his day, he falls asleep. Charlotte wants to talk with him and hear from him about just anything. Often he has little to say. Charlotte struggles constantly with how to handle this relationship that she values and wishes to maintain.

      Today, though, Charlotte is talking about her difficulties with her mother-in-law. She is feeling very angry with this woman who she believes wants Charlotte to say and do things the way she thinks they should be done. Charlotte both wants to please her and to tell her to get lost. On one side, Charlotte says, “I feel sorry for her.” On the other side, she says, “She thinks I’m not supposed to go anywhere. . . . Well, I got her number: Her number is she wants to make me feel bad. . . . But I don’t know what to do with it [i.e., her number].”

      Then, in her characteristic way, Charlotte adds, “Isn’t that terrible?”

      “Isn’t what terrible?” I ask her.

      “Isn’t it terrible that I feel this way about her?”

      And then, also in a characteristic way, she adds, “What should I do? What should I say? Did I do the right thing with her on the phone the other night?”

       Mark

      In the evening of this same November day, Mark comes for his appointment after a full day in his office. He is a handsome man in his forties. He has a professional business which he owns. Mark, too, has a clever sense of humor that comes with him as he deals with his deeply troubling issues.

      Mark entered therapy after he was left by his wife of many years. That relationship had been happy and vibrant for Mark. They had good times and were carefully planning for their future together. With seemingly little notice, she ended the relationship and quickly got involved with someone else, and today Mark has come in telling me that he has just learned that she is now engaged to the guy and plans to be married as soon as their divorce is finalized.

      Mark has already been using therapy time to look at his high tolerance for the emotional instability that was also characteristic of their relationship. “It’s always been a roller coaster . . . always something going on.” He has also been looking at his obsession with her that has come out in thoughts and in writings he has done. He has been obsessed with trying to understand her and to get some answers from her.

      Now he is starting to feel obsessed with his anger toward her as well. In talking about her recent engagement, he says, “That makes me mad. . . . I feel anger and disdain.”

      In a healthy effort to save his self, Mark adds, “I have to remember it’s crazy. . . . I don’t need to be in a relationship with anyone who would do what she has done.”

      Meanwhile, in my therapy work with college students, clients with similar experiences were presenting themselves. The following two young women came in for counseling around this same time. And my work with them was an essential part of the development of these ideas for disentangling. Several days after I saw Elizabeth, Anne, Charlotte, and Mark, I saw these students for therapy.

       Lindsey

      Lindsey is a nineteen-year-old college junior with beautiful blonde hair and a long, tall figure. She has excellent grades and a full scholarship to college. She told me in her intake session that she has a history of bulimia, for which she was hospitalized in high school. She is not bulimic now, but does have a tendency to over-exercise. She also tends toward obsessive thinking. She seems to have a lot of insight and motivation to work in therapy.

      When she first came to see me several weeks ago, she explained that she was feeling “really unfocused . . . pulled in all directions.” Fairly quickly on the heels of this she told me, “This summer I realized that my mother is alcoholic.” Her mother denies that she has a problem with alcohol. Her mother is divorced from Lindsey’s father and lives on her own. Her mother can be emotional and dependent on Lindsey for advice and support. She can also be very critical of Lindsey.

      Today Lindsey is feeling a lot of confusion about how to handle this relationship with her mother, even though it is long-distance. Breaks from college find her spending her time at home with her mother. Financially, she is still dependent on her as well. And at a more basic level, Lindsey would simply like to have a good relationship with her mother.

      She is quite torn and confused. Like Charlotte, Lindsey is pulled in different directions. On one hand, she wants very much to help her mother in whatever ways are needed. She wants very much for her mother to be happy, saying, “If she was happy, I’d be happier.” On the other hand, Lindsey says, “She’s crazy, and she makes me feel like I’m crazy.” Lindsey states that her mother’s negative views about things “rub off on me.”

      No wonder that Lindsey feels “pulled in all directions.”

      Her personal goals include becoming more self-aware and less confused without feeling like she’s “abandoning my family.”

       Trish

      Later in the afternoon on this same day, Trish comes for her fifth appointment with me. Trish is an eighteen-year-old college freshman. She is a petite young woman with short, bouncy hair. She has a sweet smile and a very tentative way of speaking and presenting her self. She acknowledges being shy and having a history of being picked on and teased.

      Trish entered therapy because of adjustment problems to college life. She described feeling both anxious and depressed since starting college. In our initial session, she described having trouble breathing at times and feeling “so dark inside.” Many of her issues seemed to focus around peer relationships. She described her self as worrying a great deal about the question “Do people like me?” She said she had this problem in high school, but it had gotten better. “This insecurity thing came back when I got to college. . . . I’m afraid that if people really know me, they won’t like me.”

      As part of her history, Trish has told me about a difficult relationship with her father. Trish’s mother and father divorced when she was eleven, and she has had regular visitation with her father. She describes him as demanding and controlling. Trish has tried for years to feel like she is pleasing him but believes she is “never good enough.” Trish has said to me that she still hopes that “maybe I’ll get him to really like me.”

      Today, however, Trish wants to talk about her attachment to a peer on her campus, an attachment that is making her feel obsessed and frustrated. Trish describes an intense interest in this person who lives near her. The person parties a lot, studies very little, and comes to Trish’s room to borrow her things. Trish is aware that this is a “bad relationship” for her in that it leaves her feeling inadequate and not okay. She states that she tries hard to “conform” to what she thinks this other person wants her to be. She states,