You Can’t Get Grapes at Eckerd’s

Raymond had finally managed to establish boundaries with his family. In fact, he had not spoken to any of them in over six months. He had refused to send money to siblings when they made their quarterly pleas for cash. He simply did not answer the phone for the weeks it took for them to actually hear his message: “I’ll call you when I’m ready. Until then, I’m asking you to just give me some space.”

Raymond had been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for just over five years, a monumental feat. They continued to offer him drinks and question his “diagnosis.” He had to sneak out of family gatherings to go to Twelve Step meetings, which were the foundation of his sobriety. Since he left home after high school, he had struggled with either depression or anxiety. At one point, he was on an average of seven psychiatric medications to be able to function and get through a day. They told him he just needed a hobby and to get outside more. When he was released from the hospital with medical complications of his last overdose, they invited him to visit with them “to rest.” He was greeted with one day of rest and being served like a king. This was followed by a “family meeting” aimed at getting him to see that his psychiatrist (me) was the problem and he needed to quit therapy, stop blaming his childhood trauma, and get off those medications. Over and over, they had performed the emotional “bait and switch” maneuver of offering love and giving him demands and betrayal.

This time looked different. Raymond needed time and space to focus on his family and primary relationship. He also had to face surgery and recuperation, something in which he wanted his blood relatives to have no knowledge, input, or participation. The six months had been exquisite. His therapy moved forward in ways that had not happened before. His sleep improved after surgery corrected a painful orthopedic condition. He grieved the fact that his family could not be supportive and was ready to think about how to handle the holidays. He could envision maintaining emotional boundaries.

Then, it happened. The phone rang. Caller ID indicated that it was the “safest” of his siblings. The only one who understood half way alcoholism and had not completely canonized his parents and denied the dysfunctional childhood they shared. He answered the phone. The conversation was very nice. They talked about the season and gardens. Only when the question of Raymond’s health arose, did he slip and mention his surgery. The loving tone on the other end of the phone vanished. A deluge of questions, challenges, “How could you’s” and, finally, shaming insults followed. When the phone line finally went silent, Raymond was devastated.

This was a Bumper Sticker Session. (I just realized that the abbreviation of this would be a “BS Session.” What a hoot!) Raymond had spent his life, like many, trying to be “good” enough to be able to get the unconditional positive regard we all crave from our families of origin.

MORAL: “You can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s.” (If you never lived in the South, Eckerd’s was a chain pharmacy like CVS or Walgreen’s.)

If you go to the drug store and demand fresh, plump seedless grapes, you will go away empty handed. On a good day, you can get raisins (shriveled, dried grapes), chocolate covered raisins, grape juice, and artificial grape drink. You can complain, picket the store, beat up the manager and even spray graffiti on the walls. However, you can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s. Even if you buy the chain and put in grapes, it will have to be licensed as a grocery or produce store and will no longer be the thing from which you sought what would have satisfied that deep, painful longing. In the end, you have to leave the pharmacy as it is, go down the street to the grocery store to get the grapes you need. That may be a violation of “all the rules.” However, it’s the only way to get grapes.

So many times, we end up frustrated, hurt, and even battered when we try to make those we love and are bound to by genetics or marriage, or some other life-long commitment to give us something we need. The grief that goes with seeing them as incapable (not bad or wrong) of doing so taps into the inborn drive a child has to cling to “his or her adults” in order to be able to stay alive. To violate that relationship is life threatening. To lose the relationship, regardless of the rationale is excruciating. However, in the end,

You just can’t get grapes at Eckerd’s.