The Brick: Share-a-Cab Version

Dee, an exile, and Self discuss an encounter with a mentally ill mind

The Brick Problem

Dee (Exile): I got a brick problem.
A (Self-energy): Explain what that is, Dee.
Dee: When I’m dealing with someone who is not right in the head for some reason I don’t fully understand, I call it a ‘brick problem’ because it’s like dealing with a person whose head is a brick. I’m trying to describe it nicely instead of using ruder terms.
A: It seems relatively kind, all things considered.
Dee: I’m doing my best not to cast aspersion on their intellect. Mostly they seem triggered into an atavistic or child-like state where they can’t grasp facts, reality or sanity. It’s very mind-breaking for me, but I try not to call them names besides saying I think their head has turned into a brick.

A Nice Night Out, Curtesy of Trauma Bonding

A (Self-energy): So what’s the specific brick problem?
Dee (Exile): Once upon a time, I had a nice night out with my mom and dad. A rare occurrence, due to the fact my mom is a covert narcissist with borderline personality disorder and my dad was an overt narcissist and psychopath. But even people with severe personality disorders can behave from time to time, so we had a nice night!

We went to Mama Desta’s Ethiopian Restaurant and then saw the Vagina Monologues at the Apollo Theater on Lincoln Avenue, just north of Fullerton. Which goes to show that despite their issues, my parents are open-minded and culturally adventurous.
A: Everyone has their good qualities.
Dee: So, we had, for us, a ‘genuinely’ connecting night. Of course I was holding my own grievances in abeyance—I was bracketing the issue of never receiving repair or acknowledgement for all the crimes they committed against me—which is corrosive to any real relationship. Particularly considering the curious mix of watching a play about sex crimes with sex criminals! But on the surface of things, in the bracketed space I created to protect them from the consequences of their brokenness—I was able to spin a little cocoon out of time, put my truths and needs aside, and trauma bond very effectively with them.
A: If there’s one thing we’re great at, it’s trauma bonding!

The Geography Problem Arises

Dee (Exile): Right! So we were the trauma bonders par excellence that night, and a ‘lovely night was had by all’ (on the surface) even if underneath, the exiles seethed to see that yet again we chose THEIR comfort, THEIR reality, and THEIR lies, over OUR comfort, OUR reality, and OUR truth. We sat next to them and watched the Vagina Monologues as if the issues were somehow out ‘there’ instead of sitting right next to us!!!! But I digress.
A (Self-energy): (listening calmly)
Dee: So then, the evening came to an end outside the Apollo Theater. We must have a geography lesson here. I will make a map: as you can see, the Apollo, the big red pin, is in the middle between where I am going north to Albany Park, and where my mom and dad are going south to downtown Chicago.

This is where I hit my mom’s brick wall. She says, “Oh, why don’t we share a cab home? We can let you out on the way to our hotel downtown.”

The Brick

Dee (Exile): Now, it’s true my mom isn’t the smartest person on the planet, but this one is a real stumper. She is so triggered by this extremely rare, connected evening coming to an end, she’s devolved into a toddler level of comprehension of basic reality. She ABSOLUTELY and I mean 100%, positively, totally, completely, CAN NOT comprehend WHY we can’t “share a cab” and “drop me off on the way.”

My dad and I, being based in reality, completely comprehend she’s out of her mind, BUT there is no way to communicate reality to her at this point. She’s mentally ill, and mental illness does what it wants to do, when it needs to do it.
A (Self-energy): It’s sad.
Dee: (big sigh) Yeah, it is sad. But exhausting since this is the story of my entire life. It’s hard to have a mom that suddenly becomes a toddler at the drop of a hat and then YOU, the child, have to TRY to be the adult, because the adult just disappeared into the black hole, wherever they go when they get triggered…

If I had to do it over again, I would ask my dad to pay an extra $10 to literally just circle around the block in a cab. The only problem with this plan is they would have to get out of the cab and wait for another one while I went on my way in that one, since I wouldn’t want to be waiting for another cab by myself on the side of the street at night. But because my dad and I didn’t understand my mom’s profound illness at the time, we didn’t come up with this much better solution to her confusion / delusion, and instead we simply insisted that we take separate cabs.

Even though the REASON we took separate cabs is GEOGRAPHY, my mother never understood that. She left feeling abandoned and rejected by me, convinced I simply didn’t love her enough or want to spend time with her so I declined to share a cab because I didn’t care about her.

And that burned a hole in my heart and soul!! I felt annihilated by her inability to SEE, HEAR and UNDERSTAND me!!! I spent the ENTIRE NIGHT swallowing my RIGHTEOUS entitlement to repair and apologies from both of them—I spent the entire night IN FORBEARANCE of my TRUTH so that we could ‘put the past aside’ and have a ‘nice night’—and we did.

I gave my mother compassion, forgiveness, and connection out of the true places in my heart that do feel those things for her.

And at the end of the night, because of her mental illness, she had a hysterical breakdown, accusing me of not loving her and not caring about her because I wouldn’t share a cab with her. As if the entire night of connection and earnest effort I put forth to connect to her meant nothing! As if it never happened! She is a black hole into which you can POUR YOUR ENTIRE LIFE and it will NEVER BE ENOUGH!!!! She is a sieve, and all your love pours in…and pours right out on the street and down the sewer.

Everything good that happened that night got swallowed up in her rage, her hysterical, desperate pleas that I share a cab with her, her irrational inability to contact reality and understand I wasn’t withholding love from her because I geographically live north of the location where we were standing, while her hotel was geographically south of the location where we were standing.

No, it was all about how I didn’t care, I didn’t want to spend time with her, I didn’t love her, I didn’t want to share a cab with her, she just couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t want to spend a little more time with her.

And that is my brick problem. Her head becomes a brick. It’s a brick wall I can’t get past. A brick wall I hit my head on. It’s simply a brick. It can’t love, feel, reason, or contact reality. It’s a brick of contempt, rage, hatred and misunderstanding. A brick of delusion, distortion, and derangement. And it’s no fun to stand on a street corner with a woman having something close to a psychotic break practically shrieking while crying and accusing you of hating her because “I don’t see why you don’t want to share a cab with me!!!”

Transitions + Mental Illness = Bricks

A (Self-energy): That sounds really hard, Dee.
Dee (Exile): Yeah, this one was hard. But this is a chronic event. It happened throughout my entire childhood. There were many brick incidents. This is only one of the more recent ones. Try being six or four when your mom’s head turns into a brick. I don’t like it, A.
A: That’s understandable, Dee.
Dee: I like my map! It makes things about as clear as they can possibly be. I feel bad and sad because I wish her head wasn’t a brick. It just goes “Poof!” and turns into a brick on a whim. Darn it all. I had a theory.
A: What’s your theory?
Dee: Well, I’m not always privy to what turns her into a brick, it could be the wind just blew the wrong way. But transitions are often hard for borderline people—I’ve seen that with other borderline people I know. Anything that shifts the relationship, or endings or beginnings, can really set them off. My mom was a horrific screaming banshee before we left the house to go out to eat for Sunday brunch, for instance.

Car Abandonment Incident Theory

Dee (Exile): All that to say, since this was an ending, she was on high alert. My theory is that it might have triggered her abandonment when she was seven or eight. Her step-father left in a car and never came back. So in her deranged mind, maybe me not sharing the cab reminded her of her step-father leaving in the car—me leaving in a separate car was a painful trigger of the earlier abandonment wound and she got caught in its web in her broken mind.
A (Self-energy): That’s a good theory.
Dee: That’s why I wish I was evolved enough at the time to get in a cab with her, circle the block, pay $10, and be on my way. But my dad and I weren’t educated about her illness enough to begin to come up with such a creative solution. We just thought she was irrational and nuts! Which she was, of course, but it goes deeper than we understood at the time. This was around the year 2000, before I’d even started my IFS training, so I had no clue. It’s very sad, A.
A: I agree, Dee.  

Exile Wishes We Appeased Her

A (Self-energy): How are you feeling now that you went over this particular brick incident, Dee?
Dee (Exile): (sighing) Hmmmm. I’m not sure. I’ve gone over and over this in my mind for around 25 years, so it’s not like going over it one more time is going to be the Holy Grail. But making my map makes me feel better. I like my map! It helps me SEE how irrational she was, and also how lacking in creativity to accommodate her illness my dad and I were. I really wish we’d just spent $10 or $20 and driven around the block to appease her.

Exile Also Considers the Limits of Appeasing: The Broken Arm Brick

Dee (Exile): But also I guess the issue is that most of the time there’s no appeasing mentally ill people. Like the second time I broke my arm. I told her I broke my arm, which I knew BECAUSE I’D BROKEN IT BEFORE SO I KNOW WHAT IT FEELS LIKE. It was another brick incident. It went like this:
me: “Mom! I broke my arm!”
mom: “No you didn’t.”
So I had to go through dinner with a broken arm, sitting there, eating with my left hand, my right hand in my lap, and none of those psychos giving a shit. Just sitting there in excruciating pain, but too bad, you live with crazy people, that’s how it’s going to be. Having no idea if I was ever going to get medical care or not.
A (Self-energy): Dee that’s very terrible.
Dee: That’s why I’m not sure how this makes me feel. I have a lot of bad feelings in there, A. A lot of rage, pain, being ignored, being treated irrationally, dealing with the brick. I hate the brick. I guess I just have to chip away at all the brick incidents and get to the bottom of them all. Along the way I need to understand more about borderline personality disorder / defenses, narcissism, neglect and abuse. It’s a big bundle of bad!
A: Dee, it is a big bundle of bad. I’m really sorry you had to go through all that.
Dee: You and me both! But I’m pragmatic. It is what it is. I can chip away at it. I got you and I got IFS so we can do this!
A: Yes you do and yes we can.