Esther came to me in a roundabout way because there were breastfeeding problems: overproduction, breast infections, a lot of pumping, endless feedings, a tongue tie… she got stuck and had help with that, but now there is another big hurdle: she has realised that the sadness that came over her a few weeks after birth was not just a ‘bad day’ or feeling a bit down, but postpartum depression, as it has been labelled. She lives far away from me, but another appointment nearby makes a combination possible, so that she does not have to make a long, stressful journey.
Once at Esther’s house I notice that she quickly becomes very open: she is ready for this process. She wants to leave the ‘mess’ of the past behind her, to break away from what she calls the toxic dynamics with people who are very close to her: the members of her family of origin. During the introduction, she does not say much at first about the impactful period that puberty was for her, but during our four-hour conversation she bravely and determinedly works towards talking about it. The systemic methodology with which we start immediately makes her tears well up. She feels a lump in her throat, a burning lump that she cannot swallow, almost taking her breath away.
When we evaluate together, she, like me, notices how positively she experiences the relationship with her partner. For quite a long time, he and his family were her refuge. She felt welcome and seen and they were happy with her as the wife of their son, their brother, their brother-in-law.
For a long time she did not want children, but now that her son has arrived, she is deeply moved by the amount of love he unleashes in her. However, he does not only unleash love, as we will see during our conversation – he also unleashes a lot of old sadness and her tears are the meltwater of everything that has become frozen within her and is stuck inside as a cold and inflexible mass.
She realises that she does not really know who she is, besides motherhood. Where does she stand now? How to go forward? How can she take up the space she did not have as a child? How can she powerfully claim her freedom and break loose from what hinders the development of her potential? These are big questions that are unavoidable, but at the same time they also frighten her and make her sad and silent and sometimes anxious. She regularly has the feeling that the walls are closing in on her, that she would like to leave and start a whole new life, in a place where no one knows her.
In her family, she was an afterthought; her two brothers were 11 and 8 when she was born. She would have liked to do something else in terms of work, but her parents would not allow her. To them, working for her brother seemed like the safest place for her. It reminds her of how, as a young girl, she was constantly protected and pampered, as she calls it, although it did not feel that way. It felt suffocating, like a lack of freedom that other children in her class were allowed to experience: walking to school themselves, choosing their own leisure activities, having space to just hang around and do nothing… For her, it was not like that: she was involved in so many extracurricular activities that her entire week was packed. She was brought and fetched everywhere; her parents did not allow her any independence in this regard. School was a particularly difficult situation: it was only a ten-minute walk, but she was taken by car at all times of the year. Her mother’s schedule caused her to be late every day. Esther repeats it a few times: ‘Every day, really every single day!’ Her classmates therefore thought she was strange. Esther felt like an outsider; she did not belong. “I could have walked or cycled that short distance, together with the others! I felt ridiculed. I experienced it as an enormous restriction of freedom.” It is therefore no wonder that she notices so much in her throat, so much that hinders the free flow of inhalation and speech…
After some time as an employee, her father started his own company and spent most of his time there. There was little attention for Esther. His companies flourished and there was always enough money, but Esther lacked attention and recognition for who she was and what she could do and what she dreamed of.
From the age of 55, her father no longer had any financial need to work and was usually at home, just like her mother, and she saw a dynamic between them that also lacked mutual interest, with little overlap between their activities. Her eldest brother lived on his own for a while, but is now in his early forties and lives with his parents again. He has taken up yet another study and started a company in which he collaborates with his younger brother.
Esther has seen all these developments and says: “I consider myself so stupid. I have much more to offer and I did not have to wait until this age to discover myself…” She cries again and we are silent together. I ask what it evokes in her body. She thinks with closed eyes and says: “Sadness… and also anger…” I ask her what that anger would say if it could talk. Now she does not have to think long: “Fuck off! I hate you for what you did!” She now also feels a tingling in her toes, tension in her lower back, and stiffness in her shoulders. We discuss all the sensations and what they might have to tell her.
“Since the day I can remember, I have never had freedom. That feeling is very old, really very old…” We talk about the emotions that must have arisen at the time as a result of her feeling of loneliness and we see if she can imagine a child of that age. If that does not work, we use her own son as an example, even though he is only little over a year old. I ask how he would feel if she and her partner treated him this way and what it would mean to her if he did not talk to her about it. Her tired eyes fill with tears again and she sobs as she says: “That would hurt me very much. It would mean that he thinks that I will not understand him, that I will not hear him or see him.” The fact that she did not talk to anyone about how she felt at school was for exactly the same reason: in the years before, she had already lost confidence that her mother would understand her. That was the child she was: sad, ashamed, alone with her pain.
I explain that she may not have expressed the emotions, but of course that did not make them go away; she was just ‘keeping them down’. I speak slowly, put a pause between ‘keeping’ and ‘down’. I catch her eyes and ask what could be another word for ‘keeping down’. She hesitates and shakes her head. I say: ‘de-pression’. She looks at me and says: “Ooooooh… woooow… Yes, that sounds very logical… but I have never made that connection myself…” We discuss that now she does seem to have space to express her feelings, that her own family offers her the security and listening ear that she used to miss.
That is a wonderful starting point for change. We will read more about that next week.