Easy As Falling Off A Bike pt 1091.

The Daily Dormouse.
(aka Bike)
Part 1091
by Angharad

There were no bad dreams that night, unless you count mine and I’ll save those for my therapist, who apparently could see me on Monday, such is Stephanie’s power of persuasion. Talking of the good doctor, she duly appeared on Sunday afternoon and after eating her share of a leg of lamb, took Trish with her into the study and spent an hour with her.

I didn’t see her go, I was doing my bit with our new arrival, feeding and cleaning up the mess afterwards. I redid her nappy and sang her to sleep, rocking her gently in my arms–finally laying her in her cot when she’d gone off. I turned round and nearly jumped out of my skin.

“Simon–how long have you been there?”

“Long enough,” he said, “to wish you were my mummy.”

“What d’you mean?”

“I saw the bond that seemed to be forming between you two already–you’re not going to give her up, are you?”

I motioned him to come from our bedroom, which looked almost like a cross between a nursery and a Mothercare store room. “Look, when that child is old enough to ask questions about her real mother, I’d like to be able to say that I knew her and what a wonderful woman she was, who simply died from a broken heart.”

“She’s young enough not to have anything said to her, she’ll take you as her mother anyway; so why bother with complications?”

“Si, I’m not her mother, I’m her foster mother and at most could only be her adopted mother.”

“But she doesn’t know that, does she?”

“But she will one day and then she’ll know we deceived her.”

“How will she find out?”

“Because the paperwork will say so–and I’ll tell her.”

“Isn’t it just an unnecessary complication? What good will knowing do her?”

“The relationship between parent and child is sacred, building it on lies is unforgiveable. I want her to know who her mother was, like I do all the children here. If they choose to call me mummy after that, that’s their decision.”

“I still think it’s over-complicating things, somewhat.”

“You’re entitled to your opinion, dear husband, but I’m the one who’ll be stuck with dealing with it and that’s how I’ve decided to do so.”

“Very good, milady, I’ll inform the other staff,” he said bowing to me. I slapped him on the arm as he left.

On Monday, I took the baby with me as I went for therapy. I knew it wouldn’t be appreciated by Jane Stanley, the psychotherapist, but I decided the baby would stay with me even though Stella told me she’d cope for an hour.

“Cathy?” asked the tall woman, who was wearing a pair of designer jeans and Ralph Lauren top. She had short grey hair, wore tiny diamond ear studs and a gold bangle on her right wrist. “I’m Jane Stanley, come on in.”

I picked up the carrycot and she visibly winced. Tough, I thought.

I set the carrycot down by the side of an easy chair and made myself comfortable. Jane came in and sat opposite me picking up a file.

She told me about herself, at least her professional self, and explained her boundaries. She then asked me to tell her a bit about myself and what I felt wanted out of seeing her.

I wasn’t sure I liked her and felt defensive. “I’m Cathy Cameron, married to Simon we’ve been married about six months.”

“Is this your first baby?” she nodded at Catherine.

“She’s not mine, well she is for the moment, her mother died on Saturday and asked me to take care of her. So I’m fostering her and will look to make the arrangement more permanent as soon as I can get my solicitor on it.”

“Was this a close friend, the baby’s mother?”

“Not especially, we hadn’t know each other that long, but she’d started her labour in my cloakroom and then her husband and daughter were killed in a car accident a day or so later after leaving my house.”

“So there are issues of guilt?”

“Yes.”

“What do you do as an occupation?”

“I’m an ecologist and teach at the university, help to supervise the British Mammal Survey and make documentary films.”

“You lead a busy life then–and of course, your new addition will complicate things a bit more?”

“Yes but the other kids will help.”

“You have other children?”

“Yes, six.”

“Six?” her jaw dropped a little and I hope she didn’t see me snigger.

“Yes, until now, Mima was the youngest at five, then Livvie, Trish, Billie, Danny and Julie who’s sixteen.”

“How can you have a child of sixteen–you’re what–twenty five or six?”

“Twenty six.”

“Don’t tell me you conceived at age ten because I don’t think I’d believe you.”

“Me? No, none of them are mine, I’ve either fostered or adopted them.”

“Why six–it’s quite a large number by modern standards?”

I nodded at the carrycot, “Seven,” I corrected her.

“Quite–why?”

“Because they needed me.”

“So it was their need, not yours?”

“I accept I have needs too, but one or two would have met those.”

“So why the football team?”

“Circumstances arose where they stayed with me and didn’t want to leave.”

“Or you didn’t want them to leave?”

“Some of it, but I guess they enjoyed being a part of a family rather than living in a home or a dysfunctional family.”

“So you take on other people’s problems?”

“I try to help.”

“And who helps you?”

“My husband when he’s there, my adopted father, my sister in law and my kids.”

“Friends not help too much, then?”

“Most of them live away from here, so they can’t.”

“Your adopted father–are you adopted?”

“Not really–my dad died after a stroke, which happened after my mother died suddenly. He died about a year or so ago and my professor, sort of became my father figure. He asked me to move in with him as he had a large house and he sort of became my adopted father. It’s not a legal thing, but he sees me as his daughter and I call him, Daddy. The kids all call him, Gramps, and he feels part of the family.”

“He has no family of his own?”

“No his wife died and his daughter was killed in a car smash.”

“Repeating themes,” she said to herself, “So you sort of adopted each other and fulfil a need in each other’s lives?”

“The house is full of people who help each other along. The children all decided they would be siblings even though they’re all from different families, they decided they’d call me Mummy and Simon, Daddy, Stella, Auntie Stella, and Tom, Gramps. It was their decision which we all accepted after discussing it with them.”

“So you didn’t ask them to call you, Mummy?”

“No, I thought Auntie Cathy was sufficient, they decided it wasn’t. They wanted me as a mother in name as well as role.”

“And you agreed?”

“Eventually: I wasn’t too happy to begin and tried correcting them explaining that they had mothers and I didn’t want them to lose sight of that. One had been abused by the birth mother and said she didn’t want to remember, she wanted me to be her new mummy.”

“And you agreed?”

“Yes.”

“Are you always so amenable to suggestion?”

“What d’you mean?”

“Say, I wanted to call you Mummy, too–how would you feel about that?”

“Embarrassed,” I felt myself blushing.

“But you let other people call you it, why not me?”

“You’re older than I am to start with, they were all children.”

“Including the sixteen year old, to whom you’re more like a big sister in age terms?”

“I’m sorry, but this line of conversation is annoying me, I’m leaving now.”

I stood up and pulled on my light jacket.

“Sit down, Cathy, we haven’t finished.”

“You might not have done, I have. Send me the bill, because I won’t be back.”

“At least tell me why?”

“I came here to deal with my guilt and grief, all you’ve done is to undermine what self esteem I have. Okay, I can’t have kids myself, but I can still be a mother to some who need one–you don’t actually have to have delivered them yourself to bond with them and give them a chance to grow into decent adults.”

“You’re a one woman charity, aren’t you? Out to save the world?”

“No, I can’t save the world against the other six billion morons who are trying to destroy it; or save all the abused or damaged children even in this town–but those who have found their way to me–I’ll do my damnedest to protect and nurture until they can look after themselves.”

“Are you a religious person, Cathy?”

“Religion? Ha bloody ha, yes–I’m a fundamentalist agnostic. I’m a scientist, I believe what I can see with my own eyes and can test or replicate.”

“Is your husband a scientist, too?”

“No? He’s a banker, why?”

“Simon Cameron,” she said quietly to herself, “Not the Simon Cameron?”

“Is there another?” I picked up my handbag.

“So you’re Lady Catherine Cameron, the dormouse lady?”

I blushed, “Yes.”

“Ah, some of it makes sense now.” She had a gleam of triumph in her eyes.

“I’m glad it makes one to you, goodbye.” I picked up my baby in the carrycot and walked towards the door.

“Oh, you’ll be back,” she said to my back.

“Don’t bet on it, missus,” I spat as I left.

Kudos

Comments

Not an auspicious beginning!

â€œAre you always so amenable to suggestion?â€

Jane Stanley really doesn't know our Cathy! Amenableâ€”hah! Anything but!

I wonder how Jane knows Simon, and whether she's going to be invited around for a meal. On the latter pointâ€”I'm not holding my breath.

Thanks A+B: an enjoyable installment.

Psychotherapy Stress

Bike Resources

Yuck.

Hard to imagine how this therapist came so highly recommended.

Stephanie should get an earful :)

It is just the wrong thing to do

anger a client or patient on the first meeting. Poor skills, Dr. Jane Stanley probably thought she was being clever.

1 out of 5 boxes of tissue and 7 gold stars

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

I think I understand why she was able to

fit Cathy into her (not very) busy schedule.

Bonzi, you constantly amaze me with your ability to define the people Cathy interacts/is forced to interact with, in so few words. I just thought my cats were smart.

Holly

It's nice to be important, but it's more important to be nice.

Holly

Probing

Probing is a good technique; however, when it becomes an acid dipped pry bar, it is no longer conducive to a constructive relationship. Getting help does not include being beaten into submission. It might have helped if she had listened more and left the analysis to later.

Portia

Bike pt 1091.

Me, I'd horsewhip that quack for being so mean! She has my FIRST name as her LAST! No, Angharead, I am honored and amused to be a small part of your world.

Stanman
May Your Light Forever Shine

I think

all mental health doctors should specialize in a field. The woman doesn't seem very good. Antagonism is the worst way to get a bond with a patient. A rapport must be established before the trust is there to level the guns and call the person out about the bigger issues. Cathy is lucky, she can afford to see someone else, many can't. I've seen some people who shouldn't perform therapy on a can of soup working with people because they work for the state. A captive audience if you will...Sorry ranting.

I think being so well recommended might have the lady doctor believing her own hype.
If Cathy brushes her off she could be trouble.

Bailey Summers

Insensitive doctor and hypersensitive

Cathy. Not a good mixture. Suggest a different therapist please.

My way or the highway kinda therapist

I've encountered a couple of those. One had the gall to tell me I unconciously did not want to have the surgery when I called her, telling her on the morning of my session I was unable to make it up to New York for my second surgery letter because I did not feel well. And I had never met her before(!) Another therapist, whom my partner went to in order to get a hormone letter, made it very clear that she will only do things one way - ala John Hopkins I believe and must meet her exacting standards before she could get a pill of hormones out of her even though my partner had already been on hormones for 4 years already. WTF?

Some therapists get very full of themselves and they cause a lot of harm and sadly it is hard to call them on it. However, in Cathy, I suspect she has just met her match and then some! Surely Cathy has her claws out now! (Must be Bonzi's influence)

Kim

I must have read a different episode ...

Than every one else. Cathy went into the meeting with her agenda, eg, she had already decided what the problem was and probably what she should do about it. Ms. Stanley asked very straightforward questions to understand what Cathy needed, note needed, not necessarily what she wanted. A telling point is that Cathy accused her of undermining her self-esteem, but nothing Ms. Stanley said could be taken that way... unless you had decided to do so regardless.

Cathy needs help both in caring for her family physically, but also in understanding and dealing with herself.

Janice

That Cathy chose to attend her initial session with the baby...

Any therapist would have immediately rescheduled the session; having an infant in an intake interview is counterproductive, but it is telling. Cathy had already decided that she was going into the session on her terms. Having said that I've included an amended comment below in italics.

The doctor's questions might have been brusque, but some were entirely reasonable. However, many of her questions went far enough afield that Cathy was completely justified in her reaction. (edited)

Having as many foster children at her age with her outside responsibilities and demands is problematic at best. Having only been married for six months by her account, she also is likely unable to devote the time and energy needed in developing a strong relationship with her husband. Using older children as babysitters on occasion for younger children is reasonable. Having older children assume the role of de facto nannies is impractical and unfair.

This is a family that has sustained in the past year of episodes countless attacks on them. At least one, maybe two of the children have attempted suicide. The children have witnessed the traumatic death of close friends and several of the children have gender issues. I'm sorry, but I'm with Janice. I must be reading a different episode.

She was born for all the wrong reasons
but grew up for all the right ones
Con grande amore e di affetto, Andrea Lena

To be alive is to be vulnerable. Madeleine L'Engle
Love, Andrea Lena

I guess you did for...

after reading it a second time i saw a few more things that bothered me,

She told me about herself, at least her professional self, and explained her boundaries. She then asked me to tell her a bit about myself and what I felt wanted out of seeing her.

Then instead of listening and taking notes she interrupted every thing Cathy offered.

now if you set boundaries for the patient you need to follow those as well, and from the way Cathy felt I would say the Doc, did not follow her own guidelines.

One of the first counselors I saw thought that attacking me saying I was a bad person that I would go to hell if I kept doing the things I was compelled to do because of my Hypersexuality, I never went back, my second Therapist is still with me today. I am a respected businesswoman and my Family is doing very well.

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree the happy Nymph

Goddess Bless you

Love Desiree

I think the initial

I think the initial interview was going okay right up to the time Jane asked Cathy if she would have a problem if Jan asked her if she could call her Mummy. After that the entire conversation took a tack off course. Jane, it seems to me, became aggressive and went over the boundries she should have established with Cathy at the beginning. All she did accomplish is making Cathy angry and see her patient leaving a very poorly conducted session. Jane DID NOT LISTEN to Cathy her question about calling her Mummy, instead she attacked her client and did so in a very rude fashion. I would have gotten up and left also, if it had happened to me. Rule #1 ALL doctors and therapists should remember is THE PATIENT/CLIENT is why you are in business and THEY PAY THE BILLS. Jan

Sorry, But I'm not seeing the aggressiveness..

Let's look at the exchange:

Cathy: â€œEventually: I wasnâ€™t too happy to begin and tried correcting them explaining that they had mothers and I didnâ€™t want them to lose sight of that. One had been abused by the birth mother and said she didnâ€™t want to remember, she wanted me to be her new mummy.â€

Ms.Stanley: â€œAnd you agreed?â€

Cathy: â€œYes.â€

Ms. Stanley: â€œAre you always so amenable to suggestion?â€

Cathy: â€œWhat dâ€™you mean?â€

Ms. Stanley: â€œSay, I wanted to call you Mummy, tooâ€”how would you feel about that?â€

Cathy: â€œEmbarrassed,â€ I felt myself blushing.

Ms. Stanley: â€œBut you let other people call you it, why not me?â€

Cathy: â€œYouâ€™re older than I am to start with, they were all children.â€

Ms. Stanley: â€œIncluding the sixteen year old, to whom youâ€™re more like a big sister in age terms?â€

Cathy: â€œIâ€™m sorry, but this line of conversation is annoying me, Iâ€™m leaving now.â€

First, we can't look at at what boundaries were established, so we have to assume that knowledge of them isn't needed to understand. From an outsiders perspective, Cathy's family is unique. Even before marrying Simon, she had undertaken to foster several children, ones the system would consider as "special needs". She allows them to convince her to be their "Mummy" in name (let's leave aside when this turned into fact), including Julie who is indeed closer in age to a younger sister to Cathy than a child.

Cathy completely loses it, usually a sign that she isn't in control of the conversation, jumps up and leaves in a snit. This isn't a case of the therapist being rude or aggressive, it's a case of her trying to understand Cathy and why she is there. Again as I said before, Cathy is there because she thinks she should be (H#ll she knows deep in her heart that she needs better coping skills to deal with other people and her own feelings.), but Cathy is only willing to do so on her terms.

Yes, Cathy is the client but the therapist is not being paid to be her friend or to be nice to her, they're being paid to ask hard questions, to poke places where Cathy may not want to go, but needs to. You can argue that perhaps Ms. Stanley should have used a different approach, but you can't argue that she was rude, aggressive, or abusive.

Janice (Yeah, I'm told quite often brusque and unfriendly... :-) )

What an evil ...

bitch. Cathy is quite right to be leaving; unfortunately, I fear that she won't go back for any more help from anyone.

Thanks for the continuing adventures.

Interview of two halves

Despite Dr. Stanley wincing when Cathy showed up with a baby in tow, the first half of the interview - establishing Cathy's career and her rather unusual family structure, seemed to be going well, without antagonising Cathy.

However, once she started interrogating Cathy about her decision to allow the children to call her "mummy", despite Cathy clearly outlining the children's reasoning for doing so, she crossed the proverbial line in the sand, and the interview was irretrievable. She probably crossed some professional boundaries as well.

She is supposed to be offering psychotherapy - since when did therapy involve ridiculing the patient? It wouldn't surprise me if Dr. Stanley has no children of her own and isn't friendly with many people who have children. Bear in mind also that Cathy's used to dealing with hostile psychiatrists/psychologists - it took several tries before she found Dr. Stephanie. So when Cathy saw where the line of questioning was heading, it was only natural of her to suggest terminating the consultation. Likewise, when Dr. Stanley saw that Cathy was getting distressed and planning to leave, she should have changed the line of questioning to rescue the situation. What use is a psychotherapist who can't interpret body language?

Remember - this is supposed to be an intake interview, so if it continued in the vein of the first half: establishing who Cathy is, who her family are, and what her needs are; everything would have been alright. Asking hard questions is one thing - insulting the patient because she allows long-term foster children to call her mummy is another.

There's a ten year separation in ages between Julie and Cathy - which makes finding an appropriate family relationship term difficult. In modern society, ten years is quite a high separation age for siblings, but low for mother/daughter. The mother figure in her life was vindictive and abusive - heck, she even organised the kidnap plot. So although Cathy's on the young side to be a mother, she is the mother figure in Julie's new household; and family dynamics place her closer to the other five children in terms of family role than to Cathy (who's the de facto head of household).

As for taking baby Catherine into the surgery with her, apart from assisting with the message Cathy intends to convey, it's almost certainly helping with relationship imprinting between the pair.

Bike Resources

There are 10 kinds of people in the world - those who understand binary and those who don't...

As the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, then only left-handers are in their right mind!

I find the reactions to this

I find the reactions to this chapter almost as interesting as the chapter itself! Personally, I think Ms. Stanley was doing okay at first, but then became too confrontational. Especially for an intake interview. Cathy probably overreacted at times, but I think she was justified in being upset at where things were going in the end. I also got a rather bad vibe from Ms. Stanley at the end, hopefully I'm just being paranoid about that.

Saless

"But it is also tradition that times *must* and always do change, my friend." - Eddie Murphy, Coming To America

That Woman Is Almost As Bad.....

as R. Lee Ermey trying to be a therapist on the GEICO commercial. I had a therapist once that though the solution to my Gender Identity issue was sleeping with a woman. I looked at him like he was the nutty one and got out of there really fast! It was nice to see Cathy bonding so well with the baby already.