A Family Affair(57)

While Dr. Norton was exceptionally kind to her, very encouraging and hopeful, he did not mince words. Being selfish and given to angry outbursts was a disorder. Perhaps not the worst imaginable disorder, but still... And behaving in a way that was jealous and entitled? Disorder, also. It was completely survivable, he assured her, as long as she was in the driver’s seat and wanted to make a change.

“Let’s be clear,” she said. “I just want to make a change so that in the end I get my way and don’t feel hurt and abandoned anymore.”

“I suspect that’s one of the best motivations there is,” he said.

He seemed to still want to talk a great deal about her family and her childhood, though she couldn’t imagine what that had to do with anything. The fact was, she’d had a very nice childhood. She had loved her mom and dad very much, and when her baby brother came along, she loved him. She couldn’t remember ever not loving them.

Little by little she began to remember very small things from when she was four, five or six years old. She remembered that she had to sit on her mama’s lap because her brother was sitting on Daddy’s lap. For a while her daddy slept in her brother’s room and didn’t sleep in her room because there wasn’t as much room for that extra bed. Her mom and dad both worked and she remembered that she was in a program at school and her grandmother went to her program while her dad went to Michael’s. It seemed like a Christmas program.

“My mother wasn’t very patient,” she said. “I probably get it from her. And when Bess was born I thought, Yay, another girl. I took care of her all the time, watched over her, fed her, changed her. I was so relieved not to have to contend with another boy.”

But then Bess turned out to be different from other children and didn’t adjust to preschool or day care. She had trouble being touched, had difficulty around large groups of children. She needed lots of special education and sometimes medication to relax her compulsions and help her focus.

“I’m going to go out on a limb here and suggest that, as the firstborn, you got a lot of attention and praise and affection. And then a baby came along who required the same, and that left your cup a little empty, sharing all that adulation. And then a third baby came to the family and this one turned out to really be special needs and you lost more of your position.”

“But I loved them!” she said. “And I helped, I really helped.”

“Of course you did, but you also suffered a little loss and maybe unintentional neglect.”

“Because they had to read to two or three children instead of just one? Even I am not that ridiculous and selfish!”

“Of course you’re not, Jessie. But you are vulnerable,” he said. And there was something about the gentle way he said it that made her heart melt. “And who knows what was going on with your parents at the time. You weren’t the only living being in that house with a life. A complicated, sometimes difficult life.”

She learned that sometimes it was possible to experience loss as a child and not spontaneously get over it. There were times it set up a pattern of always expecting to be left out. Hurt. A sense of longing that is difficult to satisfy. Dr. Norton asked her to examine relationships that were meaningful to her and how she had been affected.

She thought about boyfriends, right up to Jason, who left her because she was always mad. Her brother was seldom in touch and they disagreed with each other about everything and he accused her of always being mad.

Jessie cried a lot with the remembering. She thought a lot about her father and how much he praised her, how much attention he gave her, but the second he shifted his focus to Michael, she felt slighted. She cried because of how immature that seemed. She cried because she wished she could take back some years and do them better. With all the love and support she’d gotten from her parents, why couldn’t she have been a better, more grateful daughter?

She reported to Dr. Norton that she’d been feeling terrible regret and emotionalism and he said, “Sometimes just taking a closer look at things gives us a chance to purge. Are you feeling more in control now or are you in need of help? I can get you a prescription if you’re struggling.”

“I’m just feeling hyperaware,” she said. “And like I owe the world an apology.”

“Not at all, Jessie,” he said. “You’ve actually done the world a great service. You’ve taken care of dozens if not hundreds of sick patients, you love your family and you’re looking for ways to better communicate with them and you’re learning more about yourself every day.”

“You could have warned me,” she said. “I didn’t realize it would be this difficult and painful.”

“Growth has its price,” he said. “But not growing has a higher price.”

It had been a difficult year for Anna but the last couple of months had brightened her outlook on just about everything and that was primarily because she had Joe in her life. His love and support had meant so much to her. She hadn’t realized that her life had been lacking in love and romance until Joe filled up that space inside her.

Joe didn’t mind at all that many of his intense discussions with Anna were on the subject of Chad. Not even when Anna was grieving Chad, missing him. After all, Joe missed him, too. They’d been friends for a very long time, and while Joe still held a few confidences for Chad, the one really major secret Chad had never confessed. Joe did not know Chad had a child outside of his marriage.