Читать книгу Not pregnant yet? You bet! - Римма Ефимкина - Страница 14

When she came to women’s psychotherapy group, all the other participants had been in for several months and had established trustful relationships. Yana sat with a face of stone, she did not smile, did not laugh at jokes. Her voice did not match her appearance. Despite of the fact she looked her 38 years old, her voice was baby-doll-like with hurt intonations.

The group members were offered to do “advertisement” exercise as a warm-up – they should have taken several items from the box of small toys and come up with an advertisement. Yana chose for her advertisement three little kittens. There also was their mother-cat in the box, but Yana did not notice it. Then, according to instructions, they should have voiced the characters. Yana and the director had the following conversation:

– Now voice the characters in the first person.

– “We are pretty little kittens. Someone, please take us!”

– How does this reminds you of your life.

– I have no idea.

– Maybe it’s not all of your life, just a small aspect of it.

– I don’t know… are you saying that I’m like these kittens? Someone should adopt me? But no! I don’t see any connection.

– Now try to say the same, but using affirmative language form.

– I lose connection…

– The kittens also lost someone with whom they had a connection, whom they were connected to. Who was it?

– I don’t know.

– There is their mother-cat in the box, they were sold together as a set.

– I didn’t see it.

– Maybe they lost HER.

– I don’t know. I would like to finish this exercise.

The director did not insist that she continued, although it was obvious that this dialogue caused strong feelings in Yana, but she, as it was her habit, preferred suppressing them to remain calm at least on the outside. The director reminded her of free-will rule that applied to all group members. This meant, that the participant should decide for themselves whether to continue or not. But if she stopped an exercise, she took the responsibility for the consequences of her choice – i.e. possible psychosomatic issues like headache, for example.

Then it was time for sharing, during which Yana again began saying that it was difficult for her to communicate with others, as she did not understand what they wanted, she took it as an offence and closed up like a spoiled child. The director said to this:

– I would like to point that little girls do not give birth, only grown up women do.

After these words Yana stopped suppressing her feelings and started crying, and then said to the group that she had a dream that she had a baby, but it was strange, it was not clear whether this was a boy or a girl. She had mixed feelings about it: she both loved it and was disgusted with it.

The director told her that a dream is the royal road to the unconscious. She suggested using a method by Fritz Perls, founder of gestalt school, according to which all parts of a dream represent dispersed fragments of one’s personality, so each part of a dream is one aspect of the dreamer’s personality. To integrate each part and become whole it is suggested to voice it in the first person in present tense and end with: “And this is the essence of my existence”.

– Voice this baby from your dream.

– “I’m a newborn, I’m neither a girl or a boy. My mother both loves me and is disgusted by me”.

– How does this remind you of your situation?

Yana pondered for a bit and told that this reminded her of her childhood. Her single mother raised her and her brother all by herself. The brother died when he was young, mother began drinking after his death. Yana lived with her mother and when she was drunk, she was really embarrassed of her in front of her friends and boy-friends. According to her, it was her husband who “saved” her from this unbearable life. Yana talked about this very enthusiastically and underlined her great gratitude and love for her husband. But at the same time she called sex with him her conjugal duty, unpleasant, but mandatory. Going back to her point, Yana said:

– When my brother died, my mother told me at his funeral “I wish he was alive and you were dead instead!”

– So subconsciously you decided to become a boy to win the love of your mother? But boys cannot get pregnant either, only woman can.

Yana cried bitterly at those words out of self-pity:

– I wanted to be a girl and alive. I wanted my mother to love me…

– Imagine talking to your mother, tell her these words.

– Mother, I want you to love me, I want to live!

– What would you answer if you were her?

– “I love, but I’m angry at you at the same time!”

– Why are you angry?

– “You move so much, you bother me all the time, you are so restless!”

– Do you mean – alive?

– Yes! Alive! Dead daughter would have been more convenient.

This being said, Yana realized that her mother’s pattern of behavior towards her as a child did not let her to grow into an adult self-sufficient woman who would have her own children. Instead she encouraged her to “stop dead” to be convenient. And this is how she lived acting in her relationships with her husband as a convenient “dead” woman. And when she tried to get pregnant she did the same towards her future children.