Page 120 of Where Do We Go From Here?
W: Yeah. I’m not too bad that way.
K: What way?
W: Oh, I just mean my willpower’s never been too bad. You know, if I diet, I diet. If I decide to clean, I clean. I see other people faffing around about going to the gym or whatever and I always think just get on with it, you know?
K: I see. So, to get back to the drinking, for how long were you drinking heavily, do you think?
W: Oh… um… a few years, maybe? It built up gradually, really.
K: Was there a reason you started, do you think? Was theresomething specific you were trying to avoid or improve by drinking?
W: Yes, I think I’ve worked it all out.
K: Go on?
W: Well, my mother died. It was awful. It was very… um… traumatic, I s’pose you’d say. And I kind of forgot, which is weird.
K: I’m sorry, you forgot she had passed, or you forgot how it happened?
W: Oh, no… sorry. No, I mourned her. I was devastated. No, it was more the actual event that I forgot. Do you think that’s really possible? Because that’s certainly how it seemed. Like I’d wiped it from my mind.
K: You forgot the event of her dying, do you mean?
W: Yes, I was there. And it was awful. But I completely forgot the details. That’s how it seemed, anyway.
K: Well, that is perfectly possible. It’s a well-studied mechanism called repression. We do it to protect ourselves when memories are too painful to bear.
W: So repression’s not a made-up thing?
K: A made-up thing?
W: Yeah, I thought it might be just in films and stuff. You know. A plot device.
K: No, repression is very real. Well studied, and fully documented. And not uncommon.
W: OK, then. Well, I think that’s what happened. And I sort of started drinking more around then. Because I felt so angry. Actually, I was already a drinker, even before. But it wasn’t every night, you know? I was more of a weekend drinker. But I started feeling so stressed and angry all the time after Mum died. And the alcohol did seem to help.
K: Yes, it feels like it’s helping until it isn’t helping anymore, right?
W: Exactly.
K: Can you tell me about how your mother died?
W: Oh. OK. Do I have to?
K: No, you don’t have to do anything at all.
W: Fine, well, I’d rather not.
K: Perhaps you can tell me why you’d rather not, then?
W: Because it upsets me. I cry. I get angry all over again. And then I can’t get the images out of my head. That moment. At the end. In the hospital.
K: So you remember more of it, now, than before?
W: Oh, yes, I remember all of it. It came back to me in a sort of dream. Well, more of a waking nightmare, really. But it all suddenly came back. And I wept and wept and wept.
K: If you don’t want to go into detail, can you perhaps give me an overall picture? That might be helpful for my understanding.
