Category: Catherine

The stomach ache is no more.

A few weeks have passed since Catherine started to deal with systemics, it is morning, and it is Catherine's first communication, curiously euphoric and joyful: I woke up this morning, and I realized something extraordinary, the stomach ache is no longer there.

It is not the stomach ache with the pangs, the one from indigestion, no no, it is that of the clenched fist in the stomach, of the emptiness, of the imminent disaster, of the urgency to remedy, to do something ... and this morning it was not there.

It will seem ridiculous, but this is how I feel: now that I feel that it is no longer there, I realize that I did not realize that it was there, for me it was normal that there was, completely normal to feel it all day, a little more intense, a little in the background, but always with me, a continuous, incessant bass ... how long was it there?

Ah, my dear, I don't know, now I can remember that there has always been, or rather, I can not remember a moment in my whole life, and I am 55 years old, when he was not there to keep me company ... and so today, this morning, when I woke up I began to regain consciousness of myself and of what I had around me, I was stunned, incredulous... something is missing, something that I have always carried with me and that I did not know to carry with me, and now that it is not there, what a wonder, now that it is no longer there, only now, only today I know that it has always been with me, that I did not know it, and that now it is no longer there, gone, vanished, puff ... will it come back?

How did it happen that it disappeared? Ahhh, how well I am, for me this feeling is completely new, I still almost do not believe it, but that's what I feel, I continue to go and "see" if I was not wrong, if it was just an impression, as if it were a tooth that I did not know I had and that hurt me, the evil is no longer there,  I touch the tooth and the evil does not come back, it does not come back.... The stomach ache is gone, it is no longer there.

How did this happen? How was this possible? Will it come back?

To these questions now I can answer, it took only a few weeks, after all ... to me they seemed years, time has changed its pace, in my feeling, but the measure is there, certain and reliable, a few weeks.

It only took a few weeks to change what was there for decades, and I'm fine, well in a way that I don't remember ever knowing before today, the stomach ache is no longer there, the stomach ache is no longer there, burst of contentment, I don't know what to do, I would start dancing, shouting for joy,  I hope it passes, I have to meet customers and I can not face them in these conditions.

Blessed and cursed codes, it was them, what else could ever be...

So I have been under serious threat since I have memory of myself, in the face of the White Mill Family that I have told so many times, daddy works, risks,  succeeds, becomes a successful entrepreneur after leaving a secure and well-paid job, dad who is lively, who plays, who is home so little, but when he is home, well, he is my god,  maman who keeps the house and the four children, and also the grandmother's sister, now old and tired, my older brothers, bastards and bad guys, with whom I played games as a boy, beautiful, my sister whining and sickly, an unbearable complaint, always in the arms of the mother ... the grandmother, my grandmother, my granny, at whom I used to go with enormous happiness, and granpa who taught me chess ...

A great story, don't you think? All true, it was not an invention, it was all true what I told ... but there was more, not a little else, damn, a lot, much more and for me not good, just no.

And then it happened to me, yes, I know, I did my part, even if I didn't know it, that bloody husband, and my two daughters, Camille and Suzanne, and Suzanne who can't make it, Suzanne who is a talent of the violin, besieged by dad, Suzanne who must succeed at all costs in winning the games that dad has continued to lose all his life,  a harassed little girl you-did-the-exercises-today, let me-see, no-it-is-not-good, repeat-again, I protect, stem, but not enough, he relentlessly does not give up, hammers, hammers, hammers, and it is never good, and Suzanne becomes anorexic, does not eat anymore, when dad is there she eats and vomits, eats and vomits, and then does not want to eat anymore ... I move to a new town, I go far with my daughters, and he also moves, follows me, we are legally separated, but he follows me, stalks me, stalks his daughters, I denounce him, they interdict him, he tries to kill himself by ingesting drugs, then he calls 118, and from the emergency room they call me, on his indication, come to get him, they tell me, what the hell do I have to do with it, let him go wherever he wants, but certainly not here, and then he try again, but first he sends messages to me and his daughters announcing the gesture, I warn the police, they ask me where he could have gone, one of the answers is the right one, they fish him out half drowned, he had thrown himself into the sea with the car, too bad, I say now, it was better that he died,  it went on like this for a while...

And then the partner, yes, also lover and companion, older than me, a little more than my ex-husband, another leghold trap in which I fell, I got him out of serious trouble, I know how to do it, this happened later,  before he was the one big, capable, protective, so many lies, and I bought them ... and so out from there, but we remain partners, business is business, I know my job, and well ... at every serious contrast the proposal was: I'm going to crash the car into a truck, but f…, are you all plotting?

Years in that prison, and meanwhile Camille, at least she, seems to make it, she is tough, she resisted dad nagging, yes, not a musical genius but very good, she works hard and protects herself with her work, she graduates in piano, tenth year, from you in Italy it is a delirium, she graduates in architecture, she finds a job that has nothing to do with everything she has done,  one has to live, no?, there she finds a companion almost immediately, she goes to live with him, she seems happy ...

And Suzanne stays with me, first she interrupts her studies, for two years, now they call it hikikomori, or hakikomori, I don't remember, she is at home, she never goes out, but she is attached to the network, social à gogo, and obviously videogames and movies, she does not see anyone, she looks like a zombie, in overalls or pajamas ... she interrupts school because at school they bully her, and my protests and complaints have been worthless... then, suddenly, she decides that she wants the diploma, and so in 18 months she recovers the lost years and graduates ... then she works, here and there, he is twenty years old, she is a smashing-turning-heads blonde girl, could have all the love affairs she wants, then she finds one, for a while she goes to live with him, after a few months she returns that he is a rag ... yes, she comes back, what had I to do, it didn't even occur to me that there were other ways.

The two of them look a bit like me and my sister, I get away with it and my crybaby sister and always sick in her mother's arms, Camille gets away with it, and Suzanne in her mother's arms ... even today it is so, my sister, 50 years old, still in the arms of her mother, who is a bit lost, great, but still not enough, six phone calls a day, every day she eats with mom at midday, lunch is prepared by mom, maman eh?, in the evening dinner at home, but there is the companion who does and provides for everything,  kitchen-wash-iron-holds-in-order, not even a bad man, my sister is butt ugly, full of continuous evils, she has been working three days a week for years, but it was dad who place her in that position, and there he is still a feared figure

And I here, with Fifì, the partner, yeah, now ex-partner, that business that goes down the drain, thank goodness that mine, the other, the one I started, holds, but that eats from this, and it's not good, Suzanne who tries to resume studying for a f…. short degree and then gives up, another story,  it seemed to work, then down again… in order to get a job you need a driver's license, Suzanne does not have it and does not want it, locked at home again, and then she wants it, and like last time, zac, in a short time she gets it, and then tries an alternative option, who knows where it jumped out from, the violin gathering dust in its case ... sometimes she takes it in her hand, plays something, technically she is also a graduate, seventh year, and then she puts it back ... civil protection, but what is it?, okay, just provided she gets out home, goddamit, it's not good that she spends her days in bed with the blanket over her head, and then volunteer rescuer, who saw that coming, she does it, and then Julien arrives, son of a friend ...

And okay,  at first I thought so, friends and girlfriends were those, now I know more, I did not think when I looked for you to give me a hand with the management of the partner, god what stress, that then I would find all this stuff here, I'm not sorry eh, ah no, I was lucky, and I always thought I was lucky ...  come on, let me pass, yes, I know, I remember it well, I use it every day, watch out for the always, watch out for the never ..

With Julien, her favorite model, younger than her, yes, this year the baby hits the thirty, Julien is twenty-two, beautiful, yeah, heavily tattooed, proof of belonging to the species of monkeys, it is two weeks of paradise, Suzanne is radiant, and then Julien goes back at his dad in a very distant city, he had come at his mom, near our home, to look for a new life, temporarily on the shoulders of mom, mom separated from dad for years, the girlfriend, curious no?, the children are always entrusted to the mothers, at you in Italy, instead the friend sent him to dad, bye bye ... except to break his balls every now and then, Julien’s, not the ex-husband’s, according to the friend the ex-husband has never had them, because Julien does not do and is not what he could and should ... almost the same as her mother was, of the friend I mean, apart from the separation, the friend has never lived up to expectations, she has disappointed, all her life, and the friend is still very angry with her mother, dead for years, you have no idea of the talks that I have suffered for months, and the mother here and the mother there,  two infinite balls...

stupid me to have introduced him to a friendly entrepreneur, he would have hired him, and everything seemed to go well, a kind of magic ... but he was really nice, he said the right things at the right time, he was kind and affable, beautiful and smiling, full of good intentions, at least in words, he treated Suzanne very well, caring and romantic, respectful and affectionate.

Then Julien does not show up on the first day of work, packs his suitcase, and goes back at dad, and after a while he lets Suzanne know that he does not like the idea of maintaining a long-distance relationship, he is not good.

And Suzanne falls apart, begins to rave, sees dad scolding her harshly, faints every two to three, and shortly after cuts the veins on her wrists.

Yes, I know, I have already told it, have patience, now I tell everything again, but without the stomach ache, there is no more, there is not even now that I redo all the way that we have already done so many times ... I still tell it as I told it before, knowing that it is the story I told before, and that this is the story of maman, it is no longer mine, I no longer need it, it is the best story I could do until a few weeks ago, now I have another, god who struggles, but it was worth it,  it's worth it...

They are cuts, not serious cuts, I decide to avoid the involountary treatment, I find another psychiatrist, yeah, we already had one,  hearing of the matter she withdraws, said that she couldn’t help, I convince Suzy to see the new one, thank god it seems she can engage Suzy, a non-disastrous diagnosis, drugs, of course, what could I ever expect, and the advice of a psychotherapeutic path ...

And meanwhile I more and more in pieces, Fifì threatens suicide, our business goes down, coming away from there I see it as mission impossible, Suzy in a pitiful state, the new companion I had given up a year before, already the poster, a large stem, beautiful, useless as a poster, in fact, and therefore alone,  still alone, solla, eh, you remember, yes, as I said as a child when I wanted them to let me do it alone, without helping me.

And then these months, shattered and beautiful, Suzy still hikikomori, but manages to maintain her commitment as a volunteer, and the job on call she had found before the collapse ... and the plan, very difficult, to release from Fifì, eh, you remember, yes, put the poison in my soup, to reduce economic losses, to resume my business but above all I am the one who change, I am the one who change, I am the one who learn and change.

I'm good eh?, in ten minutes I redid all the way, and no stomach ache, not even a little, I thought I would find it again by touching the Suzanne affair, or Fifì, or the effort to get the business back on its feet, the uncertainty of these months after the covid hit ... no, the stomach ache has not returned, it is just no longer there.

There is sorrow and anger, but also strength, lucidity and determination, awareness of the complicated plot of having to deal with my daughter ... well, let's see what we can do with it.

***

This story had started from the "small" thing constituted by the "partner-stress", having to deal with the partner was a source of enormous stress, there was the desire and the need to change radically, the partner had become unbearable and the business was falling apart, for some time now ... but?

If the partner is unbearable and the business falls apart, well, it doesn't seem so difficult, does it? It's about writing figures, profits and losses, seeing which path to take to get the most or lose the minimum, and then take action.

Necessary and not enough, and certainly not in this case.

To solve the difficulties, which it did not seem possible to solve, and eliminate stress, it was necessary and sufficient to look for what was opposed to a reasonable and simple dissolution of a partnership that had long been at a loss.

The pages that will follow faithfully tell what we found and how we managed to solve, with satisfaction, this problem, and how we managed to solve the rest.