I Hate You--Don't Leave Me - Jerold J. Kreisman [36]
For months afterward her father was helpless and so was her mother. They eventually divorced six months later. During this period, Lisa felt lost and isolated. It was similar to the way she felt in biology class when she’d look around the room and observe the other kids squinting into their microscopes, taking notes, apparently knowing exactly what to do, while she became queasy, not quite understanding what was expected of her and feeling too scared to ask for help.
After a while she just stopped trying. In high school she began to hang out with the “wrong kids.” She made sure her parents saw them and how freaky they dressed. The bodies of many of her friends were covered—almost literally—with tattoos and body piercings, and the local tattoo parlor became a second home for Lisa as well.
Because her father insisted she couldn’t make it as a doctor Lisa went into nursing. At her first hospital job, she met a “free spirit” who wanted to bring his nursing expertise to underprivileged areas. Lisa was enthralled by him and they married soon after meeting. His habitual “social” drinking became more prominent as the months went by, and he began hitting her. Bruised and battered, Lisa still felt it was her fault—she just wasn’t good enough, couldn’t make him happy. She had no friends, she said, because he wouldn’t let her have any, but deep down she knew it was due more to her own fears of closeness.
She was relieved when he finally left her. She had wanted the split but couldn’t cut the cord herself. But after the relief came fear: “Now what do I do?”
Between the divorce settlement and her salary Lisa had enough money to return to school. This time she was determined to be a doctor and, much to her father’s shock, was accepted into medical school. She was starting to feel good again, valued and respected. But then in medical school the self-doubts returned. Her supervisors said she was too slow, clumsy with simple procedures, disorganized. They criticized her for not ordering the right tests or getting lab results back in time. Only with the patients did she feel comfortable—with them she could be whomever she needed to be: kind and compassionate when that was needed, confrontational and demanding when that was called for.
Lisa also experienced a great deal of prejudice in medical school. She was older than most of the other students; she had a much different background; and she was a woman. Many of the patients called her “nurse,” and some of the male patients didn’t want “no lady doctor.” She was hurt and angry because, like her parents, society and its institutions had also robbed her of her dignity.
The Disintegrating Culture
Psychological theories take on a different dimension when looked upon in light of the culture and time period from which they emanate. At the turn of the century, for instance, when Freud was formulating the system that would become the foundation of modern psychiatric thought, the cultural context was a formally structured, Victorian society. His theory that the primary origins of neuroses were the repression of unacceptable thoughts and feelings—aggressive and especially sexual—was entirely logical in this strict social context.
Now, over a century later, aggressive and sexual instincts are expressed more openly, and the social milieu is much more confused. What it means to be a man or a woman is much more ambiguous in modern Western civilization than in turn-of-the-century Europe. Social, economic, and political structures are less fixed. The family unit and cultural roles are