CROWN OF PRIDE

101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counselling)

My 42-year-old client Ragini shared her struggle in connecting with people around her. She said that of late, she had been feeling a lot of irritation and frustration towards her husband, her brother, and others. The main reason was that she felt that her kindness towards others was never reciprocated by them. Her relationship with her husband was strained as they had been having more and more arguments recently and she was beginning to lose contact with life and herself.

Ragini is a busy working professional and yet makes it a point to look after and looks out for others – her in-laws, her husband, her brother, her parents and even some of her friends. She feels like her husband gives more attention to his family of origin than to her. From Ragini’s narrative, what we were able to understand is that the client is a compulsive care giver.  We summarized – “I take care of others, but others take me for granted, don’t value my efforts and don’t offer help and care when I need it.”

 I decided to start there with “Why is it important for you to take care of others?”

Ragini recalled that she was always told by her grandparents and mother “You are the eldest and you need to look out for your brother”, “You need to be loving”, “You need to adjust with the other people”, “You need to take care of the family”, “You need to accommodate others’ requests”.  Such early messages resulted in her always putting other people first. She further recalled that once as a young girl, when she got one chocolate from school, she gave it to her brother. She never had or did something for herself.  This had earned her a lot of appreciation as a kind and loving child.  Doing things for others became second nature, and being a good girl in other’s eyes was paramount. She then used a metaphor to describe her feeling “it’s like a heavy crown on my head”.

I became curious about the metaphor and use of the word “crown” and framed my next question, “Why does the burden of taking care of others seem like a crown?”  This connection between the burden and the crown made her reflective. She went on to add that this crown was, “a crown of thorns”. It seemed that the crown of thorn was a story of resentment, but I took her permission to offer a different interpretation to her metaphor of the crown.

We looked at the loop of her taking care of others and her later feeling of irritation and frustration. We summarized it as follows:

Step 1:

She senses the need of others and feels an inner compulsion.

Step 2:

She offers care and gets involved.

Step 3:

She feels pride because she has been able to give support (this is a blind spot)

Step 4:

She expects others to value her efforts

Step 5:

She feels resentment from the unfairness in the way other people treat her despite all the care she gives.

My interpretation was that she prides herself in being able to take care of others. And she wears pride like a crown on her head and the resentment over time turned the crown into one of thorns. This interpretation shook her up, because she had been keeping count of her resentments but missed seeing that she takes pride in taking care of others. Her pride made her feel strong and glorified her narrative of others’ dependency on her.

Once she saw the blind spot, she said, “I don’t need this crown anymore”. It was a great moment for her to have said this.

Once she was aware of the shift in perspective I asked, “How will not having the crown reflect in your day to day life?” She said, “I will not go out of my way to help or please people.”

I asked her to draw the crown and place it in front of her as though it’s placed in a glass case in a museum to remind her how she was carrying this thorny crown of pride with her everywhere by taking care of others.

In the following session, the client reported that at a family gathering she heard about some comments made about her by a family friend. These comments disturbed her husband and he suggested to her, “Why don’t you clarify to our friend about her opinion of you?”  The client   was able to tell him, “It is her choice to have such an opinion about me. She did not make this comment to me directly so I don’t have to go out of my way to change her opinion.” She felt great relief when she was able to stop herself from feeling obliged to change others’ perception of her.  She had let go of the crown and allowed it to be in the museum.

My Reflection:

In the client narrative, it was evident that the client felt resentful that she gives more than what she gets in return.  This awareness would not have changed anything for the client and would only lead to more internal struggle. Had I worked on the resentment, it would have been like an effort to cool hot water without dousing the fire.

What was not visible however, was the pride she felt in taking care of others. My choice to work on highlighting her pride allowed the client to make behavioral changes consciously.

She made a choice to give up her “crown of thorns” and was succeeding in connecting to life with happiness.