Hi. My name is Pam, and I'm the Oedipal daughter of a (slightly narcissistic yet highly conscious and deeply empathic) opposite-gendered parent who is a shrink. "Hi, Pam." I appreciate the large turnout. I had no idea there were so many of us out there. We, the adult children of this nation's mental health professionals, are a silent population altogether ignored by the studies—literature and scholarship in our parents' field.
This is probably a good thing. I mean, dinnertime at my house
always felt like a psychological survey. ("How did you feel about Debbie
telling you she was going to kick your butt?" "Let's explore how you
contributed to her anger." "Let's think a little bit about the power
you're giving her." I so wished that just once my dad would throw on his
coat and bark, "Nobody messes with my little girl. I'm going over there
to kick her butt right into next week!")
Mercifully, I no longer harbor such rescue fantasies. Really. I
don't need to cling to the mythological safety of my family of origin. I
am no longer "Elecktrafied," as I dubbed my father-fixation when I was
nine. Yes, I knew all about the Elecktra complex when I was nine. At that
age I wanted to be a child psychologist when I grew up and share a
practice with my father, "Just like Freud and Anna Freud," I'd
say.
I have transitioned. In fact, a week ago I dreamed that my husband,
not my father, was driving our old wood-paneled family-of-origin station
wagon from my childhood. Despite such progress, I do look forward to
delving into these and many other destructive psychological constructs
with you.
I'll officially kick off our first meeting by saying I maybe
shouldn't use the word "shrink" so blithely. A little passive-aggressive,
right? I didn't mean it like that. (Though, isn't that the charm of
passive aggression? You get to say it, but you're not responsible.)
Although my dad does have the capacity to make a person feel small,
sometimes, he can be a little shrink-wrapped—but not so much anymore. In
fact, I'm at peace with how adult I am when I'm around him nowadays. But
I suppose, technically, the shrink part was referring to my father's
profession, not my feeling infantilized by him, wasn't it? Pardon my
projection. That's what my husband says when I'm vein-popping-screaming
at him about why he's making a federal case out of something. "Get the
popcorn," he says with bone-deep calm, "the projectionist is here. It's
showtime." (This is what happens when the deeply centered son of a
marriage and family psychologist marries the sky-is-falling daughter of a
Freudian-trained analyst.)
Like my husband is the model of mental health. Mr. Zen. Mr. Let's
Not Overreact. Mr. Rearranging the Deck Chairs on the Titanic. I often
fantasize our fights being videotaped by some disembodied, impartial
being I could conjure up at the right moment, at which point I could say,
'You think you didn't sound enraged? That was just you offering a
thoughtful alternative interpretation? Really? Roll tape.' And the judge
would announce my vindication.
Anyway, my husband contends that his mother's profession is not a
defining piece of psychological information, nor is it a pertinent
psychological tool with which to dissect him. No, it's biology or brain
synapses, deep parental love, loving childhood memories, family trips,
economic status, education, tweaks of nature—those are what make him
tick.
Hello? Earth to Planet Denial. Takes one to marry one. I know for a
fact. (I always know things for a fact, which is a significantly higher
degree of truth than simply knowing or believing something. I think I
always say "I know for a fact" because when you're a shrink's kid, you're
always being told, "I know you're feeling very angry right now," or, "I
know you're thinking this is unfair," and, "I know your tummy hurts
because you're so sad." So you grow up desperately asserting the
feelings, beliefs and thoughts you actually have, to ward off all those
lovingly suffocating and infantilizing and minimizing
interpretations—which may or may not have been on the money—but still
made you feel like you couldn't breathe and that you never had any
authentic feelings in the privacy of your own mind.)
Where was I? Unlike my husband, I know for a fact that my father's
profession has had a huge impact on my life and that I can point to all
kinds of positive and pathological personality traits that derive
directly from his work. I may paddle my Cleopatra way down DeNial on some
things, but I've certainly developed a hypervigilant level of
consciousness about this one.
