After just over 3 months of sessions, my oldest friend has fired her therapist. This makes me sad. Bertha had been making progress, and I believe my friend is more fragile without her. Plus, I was relieved that she was depending less on me and more on a trained professional with knowledge of her situation.
I found out about this in a flurry of overwrought texts when I was in Grand Rapids visiting Violet. Because that's how my oldest friend rolls. It's like she has a sonar that can tell when I'm really happy and that's when she implodes.*
She was in a motel. She ran away from her housemates because Robert, her landlord and on-again/off-again lover, "has directed some awful, humiliating comments" her way. This is important because she is not in any physical peril. This is a romance gone wrong because he is still seeing other women and since they live under the same roof, she knows all about it. Anyway, first she went to a crisis center in tears and they assigned her a social worker and advised she not go home in her current state. Since she has no friends out there, and her daughter was on vacation with her dad (my friend's still-hated ex-husband), she checked into a motel.
She also sent me a screen shot of paperwork she gave them at the crisis clinic. My name appears. I am to call them if she seems suicidal and they will head over for a wellness check. Oh, for fuck's sake. I am 2000 miles away and in a different time zone. I don't often see these texts until hours later. I can't be her "back up!"
I asked her where Bertha was. After all, I have no good advice to ever give anyone about romance. But Bertha seemed to making real headway with my friend. Since working with Bertha, she reported that she had "booed her last hoo" over Robert, was looking to find alternate housing, and had begun exploring volunteer opportunities at the local library and Red Cross to get her out of the house, out of her own head, and interacting with others.
She's not seeing Bertha anymore. She can't afford it. I repeated what I've been telling her – her mental and emotional health are important and I'll pay Bertha. OK, no, it's not really the money. She switched her story to say that Bertha is only a LCSW, a licensed clinical social worker, and my friend believes her problems are too sophisticated and complex for Bertha.
I am, of course, crying "shenanigans" here. I have known my friend since Kindergarten. When the going gets tough, she caves. Bertha obviously gave her advice she didn't like, or perhaps held her responsible for the decision to resume sleeping with Robert. Or perhaps pointed out – as my friend's daughter and I both have – that Robert's motive could very well be practical and financial rather than romantic. She pays him rent, he gets voucher money from the State of California for giving her a break on housing, and she is the only one of the housemates who is physically able to help out around the house. Yes, I believe that he slips it to her every now and again to keep her in love and in line.
So no more Bertha. But she is back with Robert. Last night she sent me a picture of the curtain going up on a performance of Sweeney Todd. Yes, she and Robert are celebrating Halloween with a night out. So much for him being a cruel narcissist. That was last week. Now they realize they are "happier together than apart." However today (Saturday) she is off to stay with her daughter in Los Angeles for a few days because Robert spends his Saturdays and Tuesdays with his "real girlfriend" and that is too depressing for her. I see that this situation is untenable, even though my friend does not.
No more talk of volunteer work. No more talk of alternate housing. I asked her about her spiritual journey but she brushed it off, explaining that she no longer believes in God because He hasn't shown her the way to go. I started to tell her that faith doesn't work that way – that a bluebird won't appear outside your window if God wants you to stop sleeping with your landlord. But I gave up. She's not open to hearing it.
I am completely dispirited as I post this. I will be 69 in a matter of weeks. My friend turns 70 in December. We known one another since 1962. I can't tell you how many conversations we've had about, "WHY DOESN'T HE LOVE ME?" It took me until I was 30 to learn that when I say to myself or others, "Oh, he doesn't mean it," he really does. That I can't make a man love me through the force of my will or love. That lovers come and go but good friends are forever. That the most solid, lasting and fortifying relationship I will ever have is with God.
Life has taught her none of these things. She is sick in body (depression, diabetes, heart disease, chronic UTIs) and soul. I can't help her. I am not equipped. And I am sick, too. Sick of the ennui.
*Yes, I know it's not about me. I realize it's only a coincidence, and my friend isn't thinking of me at all as her chaotic life goes off the rails. But I'm not going to lie: I resent her timing, no matter how unintentional, enormously.