The father of 27-year-old Nina died a year ago. From that moment on, she again became very close to her mother and adult brother, taking care of them and taking care of them. And at the same time she lost her life guidelines, the meaning of her personal life.
Robert Neuburger: What feelings are you talking about?
Nina: I have always wanted to be in control of my life. Already from a very early age, from 8–9 years old, I knew that I had to get out of any situation on my own. And at the same time, I felt some kind of heaviness in relations with my relatives. That is, we are talking about two sensations: extreme control and heaviness in relationships.
Robert Neuburger: Are your parents alive?
Nina: My father died almost a year ago; I have a mother and brother, he is 25 years old. Other relatives practically do not communicate with each other.
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Robert Neuburger: Do you love your work?
Nina: Highly.
Robert Neuburger: What is your brother doing?
Nina: He is an investment banker.
Robert Neuburger: At 25 years old?
Nina: Yes, he is a prodigy. He is an investment expert and is responsible for the decisions the bank makes.
Robert Neuburger: Here’s how!
Nina: (With pleasure.) Yes, he was always curious, and his brother has a phenomenal memory.
Robert Neuburger: When did you and your brother leave your parents’ house?
Nina: He still lives with his mother, and I moved out about a year and a half ago, but I never really separated. I am either at home or in my parents’ house. And since my father died, I often live with my mother and brother. Probably because my mother says she needs me. In our family, I have always played the role of mediator. According to a psychotherapist I once went to, this role is now difficult for me.
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Robert Neuburger: Have you gone through psychotherapy?
Nina: Yes, for an eating disorder. I had anorexia, bulimia. I have not recovered, but now I cope better with these conditions. And I graduated from behavioral therapy when I realized that eating disorders simply reflected my psychological problem — I was very insecure.
Robert Neuburger: But if your brother lives at home, why does your mother need you?
Nina: I think she wants to rebuild her family.
Robert Neuburger: Does your brother have a personal life?
Nina: No I do not think so. Relationships with other people have always been difficult for him. I think he’s still a virgin, but we never talk about it.
Robert Neuburger: Did you have lovers?
Nina: I’ve had many one-night stands with men I knew for a fact that they weren’t looking for a serious relationship. And I don’t know why I’m going for it … And how such relationships can be changed.
Robert Neuburger: How do you meet men?
Nina: By the Internet. I can’t get to know someone in real life because I’m sure I can’t like them. If someone is interested in me, I, most likely, will simply not notice it.
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Robert Neuburger: But there are more or less serious dating sites, right?
Nina: Yes, yes, that’s what I’m talking about. I visited almost all sites and in the end I always attacked men of the same type. My acquaintances are not a disaster, but after a while I realize that they were not worth the effort. Men do not linger in my life, but it is they who fill the void. Like TV programs: you take the remote control, switch buttons and watch anything. Just something to fill the void.
Robert Neuburger: In fact, the same mechanism of action and bulimia. In many ways, you are trying to extinguish the fundamental anxiety that you call «emptiness.» When did it start? When did you first tell yourself that you have to take life into your own hands? You were 8-9 years old, what happened at that time?
Nina: My brother jumped the class for the first time. Then it happened a second time and a third. We can say that he was the star of the town where we lived. When relatives or friends came to visit us, no one talked to me: they only talked to my brother. He even appeared on TV! It was at that time that I realized that I needed to pull myself together, otherwise I would go with the flow, go nowhere …
Robert Neuburger: It wasn’t easy for you…
Nina: I think that my brother will haunt me all my life, especially since now he suffers from depression with suicidal tendencies. He needs a lot of attention and seeks to get it through suicide threats.
Robert Neuburger: To whom does he address them?
Nina: Mother and me.
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Robert Neuburger: I think I understand his problem: he has been a star since childhood, and it is difficult for him to stop being one. What he does doesn’t really excite him, right?
Nina: Not good. As a child and teenager, he was always the best; then he entered the university and there he saw that the competition is very tough. There he was not always the first. It was then that his brother first had gloomy thoughts.
Robert Neuburger: Is this the situation you had in mind when you mentioned your role as mediator in family relationships?
Nina: Yes, mom is afraid to make some mistake in communicating with her brother. She says that she takes all his suffering on her shoulders, but is afraid of his reactions.
Robert Neuburger: And yet she shares this suffering with you…
Nina: But that’s because I asked her to.
Robert Neuburger: What is your relationship with your brother?
Nina: Very close. He says that I’m the only one who understands him and that I’m actually his «blotter» …
Robert Neuburger: This is something to be proud of! You absorb his anxiety, and then what? What are you doing with her? Was there any suspicion that your brother has homosexual tendencies? If he is so closed, withdrawn, suffering from feelings of guilt, there must be some reason for this …
Nina: But I don’t know what that reason is.
Robert Neuburger: Is your one night stand style a defense against falling in love with someone and being so far away from home?
Nina: Don’t know. I feel like I need a stable relationship. Although, perhaps, I scare men, because I demand too much at once.
Robert Neuburger: But you don’t ask them to marry you the next morning!
Nina: (Laughs.) No, it doesn’t come to that. But maybe I’m not giving the relationship time to settle…
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Robert Neuburger: It’s hard for me to imagine that you are leaving your family of origin. Now it seems impossible. But I think that the question should not be put in this way: either I will leave the family, or I will be with him. In addition, you play an important role for your family, and this also supports you. The question, rather, is to find a balance between your professional life, which should be built, and the family, which functions like many single-parent families. I would even say families that have had problems in the past. When the connection between family members is too close, it develops for a reason.
Nina: I know that my father was abandoned by his parents immediately after his birth and was raised by his uncle and aunt. But I don’t know if it was a trauma for him.
Robert Neuburger: My first thought is that you would do well to have family therapy.
Nina: Mom will never agree to this. And my brother will refuse: he is undergoing psychotherapy, and when his therapist suggested that I come to the appointment with him, he flatly refused.
Robert Neuburger: Clear. Then you have the opportunity to do this work yourself. Knowing that you will need to find a therapist who will not push you to break up with your family, a therapist who will be open enough not to. But it is possible to find it!
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A mounth later:
Nina: “It’s a little strange to completely trust a stranger. But it was very interesting to finally find the name of that emptiness that torments me. It was as if I discovered another part of my personality. I was also struck by the advice not to move away from the family, but to find the right “distance”. I used to think that you have to make a radical choice, but it’s not! I will start psychotherapy to move on.”
Robert Neuburger: “Nina, no doubt, is too attached to her family, to her role as a guardian of her mother and a “blotter” for her brother. But offering her the cure to leave this environment and thus become independent would be to put the cart before the horse: independence is not a break. Distance does not solve anything, because her family is part of her life. For her, it is more about building your personal life, appreciating yourself more, and then the separation will occur naturally. Those types of psychotherapy that claim that violations are associated with too much closeness to mother, father, spouse and that separation will solve all problems, most often lead to unconstructive consequences: either the patient transfers his addiction to the therapist, or he develops an internal conflict over for loyalty, which exacerbates his symptoms.»
For privacy reasons, we have changed names and some personal details. The recording of the conversation is published with abbreviations and with the consent of Nina.