“My resentment flared again today - my resentment toward almost everyone, including my own children. I am tired, and most days I just don’t know how I am going to get through all this. I appreciate that I have housemates, seriously. I couldn’t survive in my life right now without the physical and financial support of Sam and Ileana. But that support comes with a price tag, and I am tired of paying it.
I am not sure what I really want in my life. I thought once I knew.”
The therapist makes a note and then slowly glances at Candace. “Did you ever know what you wanted in your life?”
“Of course,” scoffs Candace, irritated at the question. How many times have I said this before?
“Then tell me what you once wanted.”
Her irritation continuing to rise, Candace shifted in her seat and stared out of the window into the darkening sky. How does she just not get it?, she thought. As her mind began to drift to a scene created in her desperate wonderings, Candace’s body fought against her. She could feel it try to relax as the happy scene materialized into the conscious mind. She willed it to remain guarded. In her mind, she heard two distinct voices commanding her, controlling her, manipulating her.
The therapist noted the reaction and time on her notepad and waited for Candace to respond to the question.
A third voice echoed into the mix, a strong voice, a voice used to taking control and manipulating the others. Breathe slowly, it soothed. In, out, count to five. All too easily, Candace wanted to relinquish control, but she also heard anohter voice screaming to take control, to grow up, to face reality.
After 5 minutes of watching Candace’s labored breathing and restlessness, the therapist asked the question again. “Candace, tell me what you once wanted.”
Candace felt herself sink into darkness as the two prominent voices continued their violent argument. Neither of them directed commands at her now, but the chaos of their battle weakened her; and all she think was that she wanted out.
“Candace?”
“Out,” was the only reply.
“You once wanted out?”
“Now, I want out, now.”
“Explain that to me.”
“When I first let her take control of my life, it was truly the best thing. I was drowning, but I used it as a way to zone out and to not take full responsibility. After a while, I was living on auto-pilot. Or I thought I was.”
“Who is she?”
“She’s the stronger one.”
After a few notes, the therapist asked, “When did you first give control to her?”
“Patrick,” Candace said slowly, the voices continuing to echo loudly. “When I was dating Patrick.” Rubbing her temples, Candace willed away the beginning of a headache, slowly breathing in and then out. She reached for her water bottle, her hands visibly unsteady. In, out, in out, she commanded to her breathing. She felt trapped in a dense fog, a fog that blocked her subconscious mind from the rest of her. Candace felt that she had to consciously will her body to move - her lungs, her heart, her throat as she tried to swallow the water. Like echoes from a distance, she could literally hear, “Drink water, swallow slowly, breathe in and out, count to ten.” The echo of Patrick’s name into the fog grabbed hold of one of the voices screaming for control. The other voice reached out and also grabbed hold, and instead of screaming at each other, the two voices began to struggle to free Patrick from taking control. In her mind flashed the images of the argument between the two voices; the scene of what Candace desired most in the world; the scene of herself in therapy; and the newer scene of Patrick wrestling with the two dominant voices in her mind. The scenes played over and over on an endless loop, slowly blurring together. Candace struggled to remain in the present, to sort out the reality from the imagination.
Without prompting, unrehearsed, Candace began, “Patrick was a devil, truly.” Her tone was light, and the therapist knew the memory of Patrick was pleasant. “Charming, polite, handsome. He was the first man I had dated after my divorce that had any intellect, so I desperately desired more time and attention from him.”
As the story unfolded, Candace managed to will away the rotating scenes and to slowly tune out all other voices in her head except one. The voices didn’t leave; however, they had just faded into background noise. Candace knew that the stronger voice had succeeded again in taking control of the situation. It was the stronger voice telling the edited version of the story now. The stronger voice would tell just enough to provide a glimpse into the truth but not enough to bring shame and discomfort to Candace.
“I think I should’ve known on the first date that he was a devil, but I was lonely and so broken inside. I needed something I thought he could provide. When he pulled me roughly close to him and kissed me with a desperate longing, I was hooked. He knew it.”
For several minutes, Candace told the story of the six months that she and Patrick dated, of the manipulation and control, of the rough, almost savage sex and of the emergence of the strong voice that finally put an end to the relationship.
“Without me understanding why or how, the stronger voice was able to free me from what became a very unsafe and unhealthy relationship. It just happened so fast, and I thought I was immune from that sort of degradation and violence. I am well educated, after all. It took me a long time to heal from those six long months.”
“And the stronger voice?” the therapist prompted.
Candace scoffed. “She’s been with me every since.”
“She’s strong,” said the therapist without expectation.
“She’s a control freak,” Candace said.
“Can you tell me what you truly long for?” the therapist prompted again.
Derision and sarcasm seeped from her comment, “The fairy tale, of course. I want to believe that I am worthy and desirable. I want the white picket fence.”
“And why did you answer with sarcasm?”
Does she honestly not get it? thought Candace. “Because it isn’t going to ever happen for me.”
“You are agitated now. Can you tell me why?”
Candace closed her eyes and thought about what she would say to her, to the stronger voice. More than anything, she needed, she wanted to close that voice out and to find her own voice again. Instead, the strong voice answered. “I’m agitated because so much of this is obvious. I am angry; my life is out of control and I don’t know how to make it better.”
I’m alone, and I’m frightened. My children are growing up so fast, and I miss them. I can’t seem to put the pieces back together again so that the days are full of love and sunshine.
“I push people away, including my children when all I want is to pull them closer. I use men and sex as drugs to dull my fears.”
I am broken and scared. I struggle to understand why my marriage fell apart, why I can’t seem to find a balance anymore..
“Candace, your responses seem rehearsed,” the therapist says, carefully examining Candace’s face for a reaction. Instead, the stronger voice, stoic, remained controlled and answered. “I have played this out in my mind a million times.”
But I haven’t. Please let me be the author of my own story.
“So this voice, the one now, this isn’t really Candace at all, is it?”
Finally!
The stronger voice doesn’t answer.
“Are these voices aware of each other?” continues the therapist.
Oh yes! But we are sometimes trapped.
The stronger voice scoffs, mocking Candace’s hidden voice. Like you are strong enough for this, she leers. “There are no divergent voices,” she says to the therapist and straightens in her seat. Glancing at the clock behind the therapist’s head, Candace visualizes her items so that she can prepare for her exit.
The therapist too looks at the time. “Ten more minutes still. Why don’t you tell me more about why the stronger voice is still with you.”
Please! she begged. Let me explain.
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