Weak smile without a self

For unknown reasons, I have seen very few wimpy men in therapy. That was my “diagnosis” of this client, though I believe he wouldn’t have seen himself that way. Instead, he thought he had been long trapped by a master trapper, his incredibly psycho-bitch evil wife. After seventeen years of marriage, he finally left after being slapped and punched and pushed almost daily, verbally knifed and threatened constantly. His story was one of being out-clevered and strong-armed at every turn, fooled, cheated on, stolen from. For years he had thought of leaving, but she used the Borderline strategy of threatening to claim he’d been violent, to take his children. He lost his house – she refused to move out. He couldn’t sell it – she wouldn’t let the agent show it; then after an extreme price reduction, wouldn’t sign. She’d been the money manager, had secretly neglected his car payment for months, so he lost his vehicle. He described her wizardly way of diverting his checks to a hidden bank account with a post office address, so no warnings would come in the mail.

From a five-bedroom house, substantial equity, savings, six-figure income, to a cheap apartment, the clothes on his back, unemployed.

My client didn’t think he had any depression other than the blues that such circumstances would warrant. His character was genial, loose, game, going with the flow, hopeful. And – in a move that has at times made me want to ball a fist and clock the pisher* – he ingeniously slid in this inoculant: “I had two loving parents.”

I was somewhat pleased to scandalize him. “No. You had wimp-making, backbone-stunting parents.”

Actually, I only talked to him about a home where strength is prevented and a child is separated from his feelings, and the facet of depression that is loss of identity, and the attraction to people who recapitulate one’s selflessness.

Before my talk, he hadn’t wanted therapy. After it, I didn’t know. I could say that in a way I didn’t want therapy with him. He had that look and that way that say “depth isn’t a part of me.” Some people shouldn’t cry deep tears to their wellspring: They are just too stunted and tight-circuited for that. I wrote down some book names for him. 

If any readers would like a brief discussion about depression, identity and the absence of strength in dreadful situations, you are invited to write to the email listed at Profile, right column. 

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* “Pisher” – Yiddish, at http://www.brityiddish.com/2016/08/pisher-is-crude-word-or-at-least-in.html.