Final Analysis - Catherine Crier [75]
“Half way through [the flight], I started feeling sick to my stomach…and go to the bathroom…. One of the stewardesses was coming down the aisle…and told me that I was going to get ‘trapped in the bathroom by the carts.’…Went ahead to the bathroom and was inside…for at least twenty minutes. Came out, and was jumped on by her partner for not wearing shoes on the plane….
“Ordered by rude fellow to put shoes on immediately and go back to my seat. Told him he was very rude. Started up aisle only to run into (rude attendant with cart)…. Told me to get out of her way…. I couldn’t because other attendant was blocking me….
“She ordered me to go back to my seat, raising her voice, and grabbing my arm several times. I told her not to touch me and to stop shouting.”
Upon arrival, her hopes for the trip quickly receded as Eli quickly lost interest in the European holiday. On the second day after their arrival, Eli slept a lot, and Susan speculated he was getting sick. The following day proved no better as Eli informed her that he missed his friends and wanted to go home. The conflict climaxed while Eli and Susan were on their way to eat dinner.
“Taxi driver does not seem to know where restaurant is. Drops us off on street corner in Montparnasse…. Eli launches into diatribe about how stupid I am. Don’t know where I’m going. Don’t do anything right. Certainly not knowledgeable like Dad…. Mean while, I am trying to consult map but having considerable difficulty as am being bombarded by Eli in an all too familiar way about my numerous inadequacies.”
Susan described in some detail the foods she and Eli enjoyed during their two-hour meal, and the “delicious bottle of wine” the two “polished off.” Despite these indulgences, the meal did little to quell the rising fury between them.
“We stagger into a cab, stagger home, and Eli promptly gets on the phone and dutifully tells dad he’s coming home,” Susan recorded. “I don’t get it…. Asks dad to get him on flight ASAP…. Have uncomfortable feeling that Felix is somehow behind all this…. It is strange to hear Elisay now that the thought of my returning home is intolerable because nothing has changed. ‘Be nice to Dad,’ he says, ‘you have to be nice to Dad.’ He says that I have spent Dad’s money today and now I must be nice to him. He doesn’t seem to understand that it is also my money. ‘Dad’s worked for that money, you don’t work,’ Eli says. ‘Dad works every day of his life.’ Whatever I’ve done is completely unacknowledged…. Now, feel like failure.”
On May 27, Susan dropped Eli at the airport and stayed in Paris to complete her holiday. The goodbye was hard on both mother and son, as the expectations for the trip crumbled before their eyes. “Hugged him goodbye, and hurried away to hide my tears…. Eli in obvious guilt conflict…. Seems to feel he is betraying dad with me…. What has Felix done to him?…If it’s like what he did with me, Eli has a tremendous amount of suffering ahead of him…. Felix has all of the children brainwashed into believing that they have to stay with him.
“Eli has always had panic attacks when away from home…. Re-minds me of me when I was too anxious to leave my room as a teenager. Couldn’t imagine living without Felix…. Felix has a way of instilling these feelings—it’s part of his controlling persona…. None of us will have any peace of mind as long as Felix is living with us.”
Once Eli left, things improved for Susan, who wrote enthusiastically about her Parisian museum romp on May 28. Susan’s entries remained upbeat and positive for the remainder of the vacation. “Tomorrow, leave for home, which am not looking