Page 63 of The Me I Left Behind

The therapist uncrossed her legs and leaned forward. “When you were a little girl, it was easier for your mother to control you. You knew only what you knew, and that she was the one in charge. But as you grew older, as your world and experiences and social circles grew wider, you started deciding for yourself. Your mother felt her control slipping, so she fought to hold on to it any way she could. Unfortunately, she did that by making you feel inferior and inadequate.”

“I see.”I think.

“Why would she do that?”

“So you would continue to need her, perhaps. Or maybe because that’s what she, herself, experienced growing up.”

Maggie knew her mother’s upbringing was chaotic. “Or, maybe… Not to contradict you, at all, but my mother grew up not knowing where her next meal was coming from, if her dad would come home from the bar or not…and she was passed around from family member to family member over the years. She had no control over her life.”

“And then…?”

“And then, once she got married and had me, she tried to control everything in her life.”

The therapist nodded slightly. “Why do you think that?”

“Because maybe then, she thought she would be happy.”

“Was she?”

Maggie shook her head. “No, because happiness doesn’t work that way, does it? Life doesn’t work like that, either.”

The therapist smiled. “Yes. That’s right.”

“Simple, but complicated.”

“Yes, in some respects.” The woman studied her for a moment. “Max used the same tactics, you know. Belittling you. Isolating you from others. Keeping you in the house and seeing to his needs, rather than out in the work world. He made you feel inferior and full of self-doubt. He counteracted that by making you feel like he was taking care of you—he made himself your provider, keeper, savior. Am I correct?”

She was. “Why have I not seen this before?”

“Because you were too busy complying with, and pleasing, everyone else—even your kids—and not yourself.”

“You think so?”

“I do. Maggie, you’ll bend over backwards and do whatever you can to please him—whether or not you realize it.”

“Or keep him off my fucking back.”

“Perhaps that, too. But you are a pleaser.”

Maggie sighed. “Fine. Maybe I am.”

“Just think about it.”

She did. For an entire week, until their next session.

“You’re right,” she told the therapist the next time. “What do I do about it?”

“One thing at a time. Let’s start with your mother. Can you eliminate her toxicity from your life?”

“What do you mean?”

“Can you divorce her? Completely exclude her? Cut off all ties?”

Divorce?Maggie’s response was quick. “No. Because divorcing my mother means divorcing my father, and I’m not ready to do that.”

While she sometimes blamed her father—he’d done very little to protect her and her brother from their mother’s wrath when they were younger—she also knew her dad often took the brunt of her craziness, too.

Probably why he drank.

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