"Nah, I don't need to deal with any of that," she said. Her tone was harsh and dismissive.
My back stiffened, and a familiar feeling of tightness crawled across my body. My mother-in-law's response triggered me.
She was over for dinner, and the conversation turned to the pre-op appointment she had earlier that week and the long list of medications she had to divulge on the intake form.
She said something about probably not needing the Celexa she was still taking for anxiety and depression, but because she started crying for no reason at work one day after having weaned herself off it, she asked her doctor for a new prescription.
I said, "It's okay to be sad sometimes. Maybe you just had unprocessed feelings and needed to give them space before letting them go."
Maybe I shouldn't have said anything. My mother-in-law has not historically been open to conversations about emotions. In her family of origin, she learned that while expressing gratitude and happiness was acceptable, all other feelings should be denied or suppressed because "things could always be worse."
Still, I felt belittled by her response, and it took me a little while to understand why.
As much as I would like to say my comment came purely from a place of empathy for my mother-in-law, the truth is, it was as much for my own benefit as hers.
Something that's come up several times in my therapy sessions with both MDMA and psilocybin is that I need to get out of my head and allow myself to feel more.
I spent so much of my life trying to figure out why my parents didn't love me and how they could do what they did - as if analyzing their actions would make sense of the emptiness I felt and erase it from my memory. But looking for the reasons only distracted me from my grief and postponed the healing process.
So, I guess I needed the reminder as much as I thought my mother-in-law did. And when she scoffed at what I said, it stung. I was (metaphorically) extending a hand to her, and instead of taking it, she smacked it away.
Also, her reaction made me feel like something was wrong with me for doing the hard work of healing like I should just take a pill, bury the pain, and shut up about it.
The interesting thing is that the emotional outcome of this interaction was entirely different than it typically would’ve been (at least for me.) In the past, my self-protective fury would've kicked in, making me want to hurl every judgmental thought that popped into my head her way.
This time, my instinct was to breathe and sit with the discomfort I was feeling before responding.
After a minute or two, I realized I felt sad for my mother-in-law because she was so afraid to face her pain. Maybe she judges me and my unconventional path to recovering from trauma (although I don’t know this to be true), but her reaction had nothing to do with me. It was about her own internal struggle.
In that moment, I had compassion for her and what kept her from healing her own trauma.
As I continue to do this work, I'm learning to walk the line between sharing myself authentically and creating boundaries in situations and relationships where complete vulnerability isn't safe. Not everyone I love is in a place where they can hold that space for me, and that’s okay. I just need to take care of myself.
For once, I didn't feel desperate for my mother-in-law to see things my way. So, I chose not to respond. It was enough for me to recognize my part in the dynamic between us and to decide to do things differently.
WOW!! Your writing cuts through so much here! The judgement, shame, expectation, and the emotions that go with it! Your story allowed me the opportunity to be in that experience with you, the tension of wanting a better/different outcome came from you!! Well done! It is so hard to get there, thank you for taking me into the process of your heart.
A beautiful sharing of your process! My mum was an abusive alcoholic and one of the many things she taught me is that people can only be helped to do the inner work when they wanna do the inner work *sigh*.