“The ability to speak and know the meaning of words, as well as the ability to remain silent, is the most important thing for a person.”
It happens that sometimes, without your own will, you become a witness to someone else’s drama, in which you recognize much that is common to all of us.
Perhaps good circumstances made it possible to find me in a place you rarely visit, where children are born and spend their first days with their parents. The great thing is that today there are unique opportunities for both parents to start interacting with their baby, not at home but from the first minutes of his life. Therefore, this place is specific, and human reactions are not standard.
Ambivalence is the most expressed in its incredible power, and the mother is filled with it. With severe pain in her body, barely moving, she is focused only on the small universe. Even the steps that bring severe spasmodic pain seem light and not very convincing, but confident and not at all subordinated to this pain.
Father. He is also in an ambivalent state, but his condition is radically different from the young mother’s. The father’s ambivalence balances between a completely incomprehensible sense of self-sufficiency and a kind of mother-child “container.” It looks as if the father perceives them as one and thus maintains a euphoric state, focused on the two who mean something extraordinary to him in these few days. As a psychotherapist, I would call this an overwhelming, a phantom that originates from the depths of the unconscious and, having completed a circle, returns to its root cause. The father is the call of nature, the depth and maturity of the psychophysiological constitution.
So fathers become deep, mysteriously incomprehensible. Mothers change oppositely. They cling to reality distorted by pain and begin to change. Even their facial features change – romanticism is replaced by a mix of maturity and bodily suffering.
Thus, against the backdrop of these unbelievable observations of human destinies, the euphoria of running fathers and the deep grounding of mothers, a completely different scenario stands out as the antithesis of the classic ones.
She. She is old enough not to say that too young, but her movements, voice, and reactions do not correspond to the age of her body. They are somewhat teenage. After a rather complicated event, she was not affected by such painful symptoms. After a rather stressful experience, she was not affected by such painful symptoms and moved as usual without excessive efforts to overcome the pain.
He. He has a good physique and an overly tense face. His voice is deaf, as if he speaks and returns the sound to himself. He does not demonstrate the standard attitude towards mother and child to the extent that it seems that this child is with him all his life or, on the contrary, does not exist.
He and She. It seems that the conjunction -and should be removed. We need a complete stop, not a conjunction between them. Conversations are about clarifying relationships. There is no gentle appeal to the child, and the child, as if “understanding” everything, is silent, does not cry, and only sometimes raises his voice in a half-toned tone.
She – accuses, cries to pacify, attacks blackmail the child (this is the only place where he is mentioned).
He – explains, justifies himself, attacks, injure her, runs out of the room and returns.
He explains something for a long time. She calls him “zero”.
He leaves.
What’s the point of all this, and why write about it? It is a fair question. But I should point out a few catastrophic things inherent in infantilized people who, having received the honourable mission of being parents, have not understood where they are, who they are and what they are for.
As a psychotherapist, I describe the phenomenon of hysterical psychosis. Everyone is in it. Only some of the parents release the tension and begin to “put on” new statuses, roles, experiences, and changes. Others “collapse” and continue to chaotically disappear in a whirlwind of pleasure, which brings them to a state of “zero”. They settle their relationships by drowning in a distorted sexual ecstasy (because it is through this they carry out all their communication and enjoy sadistic insults and accusations against each other).
As for ambivalence. It will leave some people with the strongest memories, which will later become a trophy and, like Baron Munchausen, will be constantly retold. For others, it will lead them into an acute phase that will end incomprehensibly. Either with sadistic sex, in which they will unconsciously punish each other, or with a long walk from and to. The third way is a breakup, which, in this case, is the healthiest way to solve a problem in a relationship.
But the saddest part is about the child. For some, it is joy and renewal of life. For others, it’s a real incomprehensibility in which they will never be able to become different.
He left. He did not return. The dropped word “zero” became a complete stop, perhaps, beyond which there is no return.
It is clear that the ability to speak and know the meaning of words, as well as the ability to be silent, is the most important thing for a person.
Perhaps parenthood is when there is sex, and it is only for two. It is when you have ambitions, and everyone has their own. It’s when you can renounce your illusions and fantasies and deny yourself to some extent – for a child who lives with you for a while and changes you for life.
<< Back to the list of articles
