101 stories from the therapy room

(A non-clinical approach to psychotherapy and counselling)

In the previous article, we came to the conclusion that the client got into “victim-hood” whenever the choices she made went wrong. We continued our investigation further  to understand why it seemed like all of the client’s choices failed to have any fruitful results. 

We decided to explore what happens before she makes a decision.

The client said she usually felt anxious before making any choice by herself because making a decision by herself was an act of disobeying the mother. This shackled the client’s ability to appraise the situation and hence her choices were made in haste based on confusion rather than clarity.

What happened after making the decision?

The client feels guilty that she made a choice. Being stuck in that guilt inhibited her ability to take steps towards any kind of course correction.

The combination of anxiety and guilt resulted in havoc  that made decision making a struggle. We stayed with this internal turmoil in the session and were able to elicit an underlying theme in the mother-daughter relationship. 

This is what we summarised of the theme – 

“I will make such choices that you can continue to fix for me. This way you will be there with me.”

The predominant emotion which kept the unhealthy symbiosis between the client and her mother alive was the fear of being abandoned.The daughter failing and mother helping her fix her mistakes kept the relationship intact. The client was torn between wanting to grow up and the fear that she would be abandoned if she started making her own decisions. This fear engulfed the client and what got suppressed is the anger. When the client was not allowed to do what she wanted to do or liked to do, she felt anger, but she suppressed it. When the client’s choices failed and her mother punished her instead of supporting her and helping her learn how to make better choices, she felt angry, but she suppressed it. Every decision or choice she made was an inner war that she had to battle. This resulted in her suppressing her needs which led to resentment. The client was caught in a loop of fear, guilt and resentment. The only way out was, “living like a victim” with self-pity until her mother came to rescue her and say “It’s okay, don’t make that mistake again.” To the client, the words sounded like “don’t make such choices again.”

What would be a way out of this vicious cycle? The client will have to learn to feel safe while making choices and acknowledge her anger and use it in her favor.

We were able to appreciate that even when the client made wrong choices, it helped her learn more about herself, course correct and learn how to make new, different choices. The evidence that she had been learning from her bad choices was that when she owned and claimed her anger, she was able to walk away from her abusive boyfriend. This was the clue we found – that if she uses her anger effectively and  creatively, she can find ways to overcome her struggles.

In order to deepen her wisdom I asked her how different she thought her walk would be now from her “victim walk” if she were to own the anger and respect her needs? 

The client demonstrated the walk –

She walked with her head up with shoulders out and open and she said, “my life, my choice and I take responsibility and own my decisions.” After she walked this way a few times with exuberance, she said she did not feel like a victim anymore. “My life, my choice” was an expression of freedom for her to hold on to in her path towards growth.

Dear readers, when you are caught in this kind of suffering, notice your physiology and body posture. What does it say about you? .. About your suffering?