on. She isn’t shutting me out, per se—I haven’t done anything. Recently. She is shutting herself in. She is ashamed.
Does she take the mittens off behind those closed curtains? Does she pull? It’s unbelievably unfair that I am being denied access. I bet all the stuff she would otherwise be writing to me is going into a fucking therapy diary. And I won’t be able to read hers without breaking in! Maybe she isn’t pulling behind those closed curtains. Maybe she’s actually doing all her cognitive behavioural exercises (I read about those, too) and learning to control herself. Maybe she is having her agenda, and her religion, counselled right out of her.
Therapy works on shame. Or it does in my house, anyway. For just a brief period of time, my mum and dad shamed each other mercilessly. All their fights became steeped in quasi-analytical hyperbole. They attacked one another for stepping off the therapy straight and narrow and finished each other off by threatening to tell on each other with the counsellor. What’s interesting is how effective this was. Both of them were fearful of being found out. They would actually start to fret with the fear of discovery hanging over them. My mum cried the day Dad said to her, ‘God forbid Deidre should find outwhat you’re really like.’ (Deidre is their therapist.) That’s when the shame thing clicked into place for me. It was also pretty clear that, for my mum, Deidre had replaced God in our house.
All of this must have worked for Deidre. If the goal of therapy is the appearance of wellness, she must have thought my parents were star pupils. Neither of them was brave enough to be honest (with themselves, each other, her), so their goal became the appearance of honesty. The appearance of normalcy. They were faking it. They both started to look tired from the effort. Fights got shorter and less interesting (for me). Even Dobie Squires got bored. So the more they faked it, the better things appeared. The better things appeared, the greater their reward. Mum’s therapy diary changed focus from Merrill to Deidre. ‘Deidre was very pleased with our progress today.’ ‘Deidre very impressed with our employment of new skills to resolve conflict.’ Fortunately, the pendulum returned to its normal gait soon after Deidre (aka God) was out of their lives. Deidre could cash her cheques with a clear conscience, Mum and Dad could return to honest hostility towards one another, and Dobie Squires could return to bailing Mum up in the garden (and kitchen and lounge and toilet).
So you can see why I am so concerned about Maud.She is the most honest person I know. All this therapy will change that. At least temporarily. And if she starts to change, even if only for a little while, it will interfere with my efforts to get her to love me back. We have a very delicate situation here. Not helped by closed curtains. So I write to her and, because I don’t know if and when the curtains will open and close, I sticky-tape the note to the window and leave it there:
—Take them off
School is very different without Maud there. I hadn’t realised how much of my day is centred on following her and watching her. I leave a class and automatically head in the direction she would be coming from (I have her timetable memorised). Then I realise she is at home and I feel that therapy fury bubble. I think about taking some time off myself, but part of my whole fly-under-the-radar thing is never drawing attention to myself, and a couple of days off is enough to stimulate the attendance officer into asking questions. Mum and Dad would ask questions, too, and I prefer being ignored.
There isn’t much talk about Maud at school. Her question to Mr Thornton has morphed into something akin to a terrorist threat, but that’s to be expected. Translations of The Little Prince resume under the supervision of a PE teacher who speaks German. Someidiot ties flowers to the railing
Does she take the mittens off behind those closed curtains? Does she pull? It’s unbelievably unfair that I am being denied access. I bet all the stuff she would otherwise be writing to me is going into a fucking therapy diary. And I won’t be able to read hers without breaking in! Maybe she isn’t pulling behind those closed curtains. Maybe she’s actually doing all her cognitive behavioural exercises (I read about those, too) and learning to control herself. Maybe she is having her agenda, and her religion, counselled right out of her.
Therapy works on shame. Or it does in my house, anyway. For just a brief period of time, my mum and dad shamed each other mercilessly. All their fights became steeped in quasi-analytical hyperbole. They attacked one another for stepping off the therapy straight and narrow and finished each other off by threatening to tell on each other with the counsellor. What’s interesting is how effective this was. Both of them were fearful of being found out. They would actually start to fret with the fear of discovery hanging over them. My mum cried the day Dad said to her, ‘God forbid Deidre should find outwhat you’re really like.’ (Deidre is their therapist.) That’s when the shame thing clicked into place for me. It was also pretty clear that, for my mum, Deidre had replaced God in our house.
All of this must have worked for Deidre. If the goal of therapy is the appearance of wellness, she must have thought my parents were star pupils. Neither of them was brave enough to be honest (with themselves, each other, her), so their goal became the appearance of honesty. The appearance of normalcy. They were faking it. They both started to look tired from the effort. Fights got shorter and less interesting (for me). Even Dobie Squires got bored. So the more they faked it, the better things appeared. The better things appeared, the greater their reward. Mum’s therapy diary changed focus from Merrill to Deidre. ‘Deidre was very pleased with our progress today.’ ‘Deidre very impressed with our employment of new skills to resolve conflict.’ Fortunately, the pendulum returned to its normal gait soon after Deidre (aka God) was out of their lives. Deidre could cash her cheques with a clear conscience, Mum and Dad could return to honest hostility towards one another, and Dobie Squires could return to bailing Mum up in the garden (and kitchen and lounge and toilet).
So you can see why I am so concerned about Maud.She is the most honest person I know. All this therapy will change that. At least temporarily. And if she starts to change, even if only for a little while, it will interfere with my efforts to get her to love me back. We have a very delicate situation here. Not helped by closed curtains. So I write to her and, because I don’t know if and when the curtains will open and close, I sticky-tape the note to the window and leave it there:
—Take them off
School is very different without Maud there. I hadn’t realised how much of my day is centred on following her and watching her. I leave a class and automatically head in the direction she would be coming from (I have her timetable memorised). Then I realise she is at home and I feel that therapy fury bubble. I think about taking some time off myself, but part of my whole fly-under-the-radar thing is never drawing attention to myself, and a couple of days off is enough to stimulate the attendance officer into asking questions. Mum and Dad would ask questions, too, and I prefer being ignored.
There isn’t much talk about Maud at school. Her question to Mr Thornton has morphed into something akin to a terrorist threat, but that’s to be expected. Translations of The Little Prince resume under the supervision of a PE teacher who speaks German. Someidiot ties flowers to the railing
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