Real Life Matters

“The only journey is the journey within.” – Rainer Maria Rilke

I could write an entire book about my mom, Ingrid, and her impact on my life. She was born in the late 1930s in Chicago to Swedish immigrant parents. She lived with undiagnosed bipolar disorder until she was 40 years old. She slept poorly for most of her life.^[1]In this post, I often refer to my mom in the past tense. She is still with us, living with dementia in a nursing home in Michigan, not far from our home. Much of her is already gone, so it … Continue reading At her best she was hilarious, charming and intelligent. At her worst she was volatile, narcissistic and manipulative. For as long as I can remember, I simultaneously loved, feared, and distrusted her.

Early on in the theater of life, she passed out scripts for my dad, my sisters and me. We all played our assigned roles under her expert curation. Step out of line, and she would give you the evil eye. Challenge her and you could quickly find yourself on her bad list.^[2]For people with borderline personality disorder, things are often perceived us in black and white. “Signs and symptoms of borderline personality disorder may include: An intense fear of … Continue reading My dad played out his role as a kindly powder keg, and my mom constantly reminded everyone of his anger and anxiety, which she alone could provoke into an enormous mushroom cloud, devastating everything in its path. It scared the hell out of all of us. There was a mix of dread and anxiety in our home, interlaced with nervous laughter and more than a few happy days.

Ingrid’s Special Gift to the World

Here is the script I got from my mom early in my childhood:

You will be a doctor or a lawyer, even though you suck at math just like me. You will make piles of money, which will be used to take care of me in my old age. You will discover a cure for cancer, perfect the unified field theory of physics, win the Nobel Peace Prize, and be elected president of the United States in landslide elections for two consecutive terms. While pursuing these things, you will perform flawlessly without making any mistakes. If you do make a mistake, you will not tell anybody that you made it, because everything you do reflects directly on my achievements as your mother. You are me, and I am you. Now, even though I am a minister’s wife with young children at home, I am moving to Ann Arbor to study pediatric nursing at the University of Michigan. I will be home on most weekends, but during the week you are on your own. I made some hot chocolate powder that you can heat up and enjoy after school. Have fun!

My mother’s emotional and physical absence during my early elementary school years and beyond made it challenging for me to navigate the world. My dad spent long hours in the church office, trying to please one congregation or another. He was, as they say, unavailable, though I knew he was a kind-hearted man with only good intentions for everyone, including me. I competed with my dad for my mom’s affection. In her eyes, I could do no wrong – that is, until I did manage to cross her, which happened on rare occasion. Then there was hell to pay.

When my parents were around, they consciously embraced a “hands off” parenting style, which involved letting us make our own decisions in all matters of life, great or small. You can imagine how stressful this is for kids. They need functioning adults to show them how to do things. Kids do not yet have the tools to navigate life successfully on their own. And they need to learn, all along the way, how to have appropriate boundaries and respect for others, neither of which I learned until much later in life.

Turn Up the Radio

To further complicate matters, conflicts in my family were never resolved. They were simply brushed under the rug. If an argument developed during a car ride, my mom would turn on the radio to WJOY FM. We would all listen to relaxing elevator music until whatever was bothering us drifted by and could be safely ignored. We carried on in this manner until the next crisis emerged and was quickly handled accordingly – or more accurately, not handled at all.

I emerged from my childhood with an enormous chip on my shoulder. I was pissed off, plus I had an insatiable ego and lots to prove according to my assigned script. Underneath the surface, I was brittle, lonely and terribly insecure. I tried constantly to figure out what would please my mother and did my best to meet her impossible expectations without missing the mark. To make matters even worse, whenever my will conflicted with hers, she always got her way. This made me even angrier. For example, I liked to part my hair down the middle and feather the sides, which was all the rage in the early 80s. She liked bangs, so I kept my hair accordingly all throughout my college years. In the seventh grade I wanted to learn the French horn and brought one home after school. It sounded sweet! She made me return it the next day to the school and stick with my old, beaten-up trumpet. “You are a trumpet player, and that’s that.” Ironically, in college I obsessed about becoming a trumpet player in a large, professional orchestra. She, on the other hand, insisted that I was going to become a lawyer, which would make her so proud. I relented under the force of her personality.^[3]In some ways, especially things having to do with money, I am happy that I became a lawyer. I learned lots of interesting things, worked on some amazing deals and interacted with international … Continue reading

Winning the Lottery

In contrast to my early years, the best thing that ever happened to me was marrying Jennifer. Getting married is like rolling the dice. You can never be certain that the person you are marrying will grow and mature over the years in ways that are mutually compatible. Call it God’s grace or dumb luck, we somehow managed to roll double sixes.

In Western cultures, more than 90 percent of people marry by age 50. Healthy marriages are good for couples’ mental and physical health. They are also good for children; growing up in a happy home protects children from mental, physical, educational and social problems. However, about 40 to 50 percent of married couples in the United States divorce. The divorce rate for subsequent marriages is even higher.^[4]https://www.apa.org/topics/divorce-child-custody

Our marriage has been far from perfect. Despite some enormous ups and downs, our marriage has survived and is now thriving. For this I am super grateful. I grew up in a home where the nominal tension of life was so thick that it could be cut with a knife. The vibe at home today with Jennifer and our girls is totally different. When I pull into our driveway, my blood pressure goes down. I am happy to be here.

The Parking Lot Incident

The turning point in my life with Ingrid came in the early 90s. Jennifer and I signed up for therapy and took a course on Boundaries, which was life-changing for both of us. I cannot recommend the book more: “Boundaries: When to Say Yes, How to Say No To Take Control of Your Life” by Dr. Henry Cloud and Dr. John Townsend.

I will never forget the first time I applied good boundaries with my mom. It was Sunday morning, and I drove to Southfield to pick up my mom for church. Jennifer was home with Annika, a toddler. Annika was fighting a low-grade fever. I pulled up in front of my mom’s assisted living facility. I loaded my mom carefully into the passenger seat of our Ford Taurus. After getting on the road, I told her about the situation. Nurse Ingrid suddenly appeared and suggested that we administer a low dose of Motrin for little Annika. I said, “Jennifer and I have decided to let the fever be, and let her body figure things out on its own.” Ingrid was not pleased with this answer and insisted that we give Annika the medicine. Ingrid refused to budge.

According to Winston Churchill, a fanatic is someone “who can’t change their mind, and won’t change the subject.” On this Sunday morning, I kept trying to change the subject, but my mom wouldn’t relent. I decided to try out one of the lessons I was learning in therapy about Boundaries. I said, “mom, if you do not drop this thing about the Motrin, I am going to turn around this car and bring you back to “the place” (my mom’s preferred name for the Heatherwood, her assisted living home, which she hated intensely). After we had driven a few more miles in silence, Ingrid said, “I still think you should give Annika the Motrin,” and I lost it. Wheeling around our Ford in a way that would make a Michigan State Trooper proud, we were on our way back to the place, this time speeding more than a few miles over the posted speed limit. We pulled into the parking lot in front of the Heatherwood, I got out of the car abruptly, walked around to the passenger door, opened it, and ordered my mom to get out. She refused. In a manner that would have warranted a 911 call by a concerned bystander, I reached in and tugged, doing my best to extricate Ingrid from our Ford. “Oow! Oow! Stop!” she protested. After a few seconds, I realized that her seatbelt was still fastened, which was why she wouldn’t budge. Holding my breath, I reached across her body and unbuckled my mom’s seatbelt. Still she refused to get out. She said to me, “get back in the car. We are going to church!” I then resorted to lying. “Mom, I just need you to get out for a minute so that I can reposition you to be more comfortable in the car.” This confused her and somehow worked. She got out of the car, I placed her cane in her left hand, ran around the front of the car as fast as I could, hopped into the driver’s seat and sped away from my mom with the passenger door still open. She could not believe what was happening. I stopped the car when I was at a safe distance, reached across the passenger compartment, somehow managed to pull the passenger door shut, and then zoomed out of the parking lot. Looking back in the rearview mirror, Ingrid just stood there, in disbelief. I got on the highway. Eventually, after some deep breaths, my heart slowed back to normal.

It has been many years since the parking lot incident, which was not my proudest moment. Jennifer and I have each grown older and wiser. Ingrid has grown older and, sadly, has continued her long cognitive and physical decline.

I have forgiven my mom and have found a way to love her genuinely and with compassion, which is a gift for both of us. Now we don’t have much to say – and that is ok. She just smiles, looks into my eyes. I look into her eyes. She says: “I am so happy that you are my boy. You look so much like dad.” I sit on the side of her bed and hold her hand. At long last, we have made our peace.

“If we start being honest about our pain, our anger, and our shortcomings instead of pretending they don’t exist, then maybe we’ll leave the world a better place than we found it.” – Russell Wilson