Derived from

Soul Mothers’ Wisdom: Seven Insights for the Single Mother

By Bette Freedson
 

Driving through the midsummer night, the mother hunched over the steering wheel. Beside her, slumped against the seat, her husband moaned. The two little girls huddled silently in the back had been told to try to sleep until they got to the doctor's summer house, somewhere on a lake, deep in the New Hampshire woods.

Aware of the apparent urgency, the generous man had agreed to see their father in the middle of the night. But the girls remained awake, the tension in the front seat covering them like a heavy, humid blanket.
 

As the car hurtled through dark, winding mountain roads, exhaustion and fear held the daughters in a state of terrified numbness. They had known for a while that something was wrong with their father. They’d seen him with tics that confused them, and nervous habits that had startled them. Once one of them had seen him on his bed, curled in a fetal position, crying.
 

 But now, racing to this strange destination, into some unknown, and possibly frightening territory, they knew that interrupting the yearly mountain vacation they all loved meant that whatever had been wrong was worse.

Tense in the best of times, their mother had worriedly tried to reassure them, saying that the doctor was going to help daddy feel better. They hoped that this Doctor would know what to say or do to restore the father that they loved, but neither girl could imagine how or when this might happen.
 

Finally arrived at the summer home, the doctor ushered their crumpled father into the large room that was called  his "office.'' Their Mother had disappeared, and any explanation to the daughters had been cursory and deficient, designed to whisk them to the fringes of the situation as quickly and simply as possible.
 

Frightened, each in isolation with her own confused thoughts, my sister Gini and I were settled onto lumpy day beds on the Doctor's long, narrow screened porch. With no idea how to speak about what was happening, we were unable to help each other through the ongoing ordeal. I don’t know if Gini slept, but I did not. Instead, I lay on my side wildly awake, looking into a scene that was not meant for me to see.
 

As reality and unreality strobed through my perceptions, I watched scene one, act two, or maybe three, of my father's off-and-on again bouts of debilitating depression. I could not make out much of the room the two men were in, nor could I hear their voices. It seemed as if Doctor and Patient were sitting in a theatrical spotlight, crickets in the dark outside chirping the score.
 

Eventually, we made our way back to our vacation spot with nothing explained, and no comfort given. Suffice it to say that I returned forever affected and forever changed. The memory of my father and the now faceless, nameless doctor has fascinated and haunted me.
 

When I think back, I see my adolescent self,  looking directly into that room, the light of which is diffused onto the dark porch, allowing, as if on a screen in a dark theater, a clear view of my father sitting on the patient side of the doctor's desk.
 

I also see myself lying transfixed on the porch. It could have been that we’d landed on an alien planet and daddy had been taken to the leader; but it was real, and in some real way, I had landed in some strange alien territory, watching…and wondering.
 

What was being said in that room? And how could a man hurting as badly as my father obviously must have been, be helped by some other being?
 

My father would come to have other bouts of depression, some less intense and some worse. However, for Gini and me, traumatic experience seeded intuitive destinations. Eventually, we would both become clinical social workers, each playing the part of patient and of healer in many professional and personal dramas. Speaking strictly for myself, my destination has continued into this mysterious and mystical territory, evolving from that critical moment into a living mission.
 

The restoration of inner peace, mental calm, and capacity to cope has become my most critical clinical goal for treating those suffering the sequelae of complex trauma. Toward this destination, the dual dynamic of the intuitive mind and the potency of hypnosis combine to create what often feels like healing Magick.