Giulia says she’s been tired for years. Matteo’s silences and faces – he calls him the indifferent – he can no longer stand, the distances, the football matches on TV and the bad moods. “I want a son”, she says, but she doesn’t come, she stays by his side because: “After him, who could I start over with?”. A late period, a hope and then the period arrives. She cries, he is relieved. She asks him why, he answers and doesn’t answer. More and more games and fewer evenings together, after a while Matteo leaves home.
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I ask Giulia how she feels, even if I can read the answer in her body: “If she sinks a little further into the armchair I won’t be able to distinguish her from the cushion”. “So you mean I’m better, at home I blend in with the rag on the floor.” A humor that belongs to her, but the substance is the same: she left me, who am I, what am I worth and who will still love me?
The wedding postponed
Martina and Vincenzo agreed: he would set the wedding date after a last solo trip to the Far East. He needed it, he says, it’s a growth experience, she says. She’s not leaving, she wants to have children, there are too many illnesses lurking. They decided like this, the summer passes, when they return they will plan the big day. Instead he returns in the throes of a botched imitation of a mystical crisis. And I don’t know who I am and I don’t know where I’m going, who I’ll be tomorrow, poverty and growth and who I’ll be tomorrow I don’t know. Vague words that send Martina into a rage: you promised. I’m not ready. Goodbye she says angrily, hoping he will stop her. Goodbye he says in tears but without turning around. I ask her how she feels, even if it’s a scene I’ve already seen: her body blending into the pillow, the floor, a longed-for and close destination.
Goodbye when you don’t expect it
Love stories that ended when projects and dreams were still alive, perhaps eaten away, stained with mold, but alive. Separation brings pain, the body collapses, the days pass slowly and tomorrow, tomorrow doesn’t seem to make sense to you.
You might think that it is a physiological reaction and in part it is: we are designed to rely on the other and when the other withdraws we falter. Nothing strange, it is a human pain, we are equipped to experience it and overcome it. But in Giulia and Martina it lasts for months and does not subside. A sense of abandonment envelops them, like a sheet of cling film that separates them from the world and from every emotion that is not painful.
The dark mood
If due to discomfort the body merges with the pillow, if the mood is dark, dull and flat, if you look in the mirror and see yourself insignificant we are no longer in the territory of normal separation pain. Something that began much earlier, born in the history of development, is being reactivated. A script that says: if you want love you won’t get any, if you want care you don’t deserve it and if you ask for appreciation, well, then apply yourself more because you’re a disappointment.
That development story became the self-concept, we call the nuclear image in psychotherapy, I talk about it in my book: “The Way Out”. What does it mean? That if you leave me I feel abandoned and suffer. But the reality is that I see myself destined for abandonment because defects in my fiber indicate that it is my destiny. Unloved becomes: unlovable. We enter the lane of emotional dependence and that requires treatment rather than a new relationship, which usually arrives sooner or later but doesn’t change things. Because that archaic story is written in the mind, in the emotions and in the body and the new love will provide relief but will not rewrite the traces.
Is abandonment treated?
In psychotherapy this suffering is treatable. An instrument passes through the body. I take Giulia to give a name to her abandoned self: “The rag” she calls it. I ask her to assume a posture in which “The Rag” coincides with her entire being. She bends over, her head bows and her hands hang, then she lets herself fall to the ground, stretched out and shapeless. She is a little ashamed in my eyes, we talk about it, the shame fades away. I ask her to give voice to all the worst she thinks about herself right now: “I suck” is my summary, the words she addresses to herself are less kind.
“Now stand up slowly and notice the body’s signals as it straightens.” Giulia notices that the more toned body thinks straighter thoughts. “Say them out loud.” She struggles, I invite her, I encourage her, I suggest them to her. “I’m solid,” she manages to say, “Tell me again, I didn’t hear you right.” Yes, it’s like a workout and you pull yourself up and repeat in a stentorian voice, in the end Giulia believes it: “I’m worth something, I feel it in my chest”. It is the beginning of change, it is necessary to exercise that self that does not give in and does not collapse, Giulia discovers that she is capable of it. She becomes indifferent to Matteo the indifferent.
The journey with Martina will pass through action. We will discover that when Vincenzo, known as the undecided one, returns, without an idea, nor a plan, nor a gift, what prevented her from saying goodbye to him was not love but her sense of guilt. She saw him dejected and distracted, his gaze lost in space eating something cold for dinner alone, the cat his only consolation. She had grown up with a depressed mother and the idea of following her path immediately evoked that sad and defeated face. There we will act on her behavior, Martina will force herself not to respond to Vincenzo, imagine him suffering and remember that nothing good would come of spending her life looking after the other.
Accept the end of the relationship
Accepting that a story is over is not easy, especially if childhood and adolescence have taught you that you mean little to the other. Yet it is possible. It’s about tracing in the mind and body a self that can meet a different destiny. Give her space, in body and in action. It takes practice. The obstacles along the way are well known: in the evening, in the first moment of well-being, the face of the person we are missing emerges: how beautiful it would be if he were here. It seems like nostalgia and it is, but we clinicians more blatantly call it desiring thinking. It only serves to distract from the present and take away meaning from the new thing we are building. You need to realize this and not indulge in those thoughts.
Avoid rumination
In other moments we look for a meaning that we still believe we have not found, a deeper meaning: we review scenes from the past, we pass them through the scanner, I was wrong, he was wrong. In reality we won’t find new meanings, we’re just getting involved in a completely pernicious mental process: it’s called rumination. It must be stopped, we must identify what it really is: a sterile and harmful form of thought. After we realized this we decided not to feed it. It helps a lot to dedicate ourselves to activities that involve us: calling a friend and talking about something else, bringing our mind back to work, to something we love and which gives us pleasure or relief. The most radical step is to recall the self that we know is vital, valid and curious. It can be useful to carve out a moment of reflection, alone and recall who we are in memory when, autonomous, we feel light or functional. Discover the sensations of the body. At that point the mental landscape changes. Beneficial thinking helps, but to consolidate it, make it true, action is needed. It’s the perfect time to organize an evening, plan a trip, celebrate lightness.
Giancarlo Dimaggio, psychiatrist and psychotherapist, is co-founder of the Interpersonal Metacognitive Therapy Center (Rome)
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