"Anyone can tell you guys get along great," he'd grumble. "Why won't she admit it?"
"Let's leave that deep stuff to Dr. Mason. That's why you're paying him."
While the Mom-love bit was old but continuing news, this past-life detail business was intensifying and starting to really get to me. I didn't admit my frustration to my husband, but I took it out on Dr. Mason on my next visit.
He started in with a lets-go-back-to-your-early-years query that was getting as stale as the difference between smooth and nutty peanut butter at home. "Eat what you like, for heaven's sake!" I'd say to Karen, not daring to tell her our peanut butter came with yucky oil still on the top.
"You look a bit unsettled today, Sarah Jeanne; is there a problem? How is your depression? You're blue moods?"
"They are partially replaced by annoyance."
He laughed. "Perhaps that's a move forward, Sarah Jeanne."
"Isn't that a bit like replacing a nose bleed with a headache?" No one called me Sarah Jeanne but my mother, and now sometimes Paul or Suzie. I told him so.
"I'm sorry. How would you prefer I address you?"
"You could call me Minnie Mouse if you'd answer some of my questions instead of just asking them."
He smiled. "Let's give it a try, shall we?"
"I'm a little sick of being asked whether we used two-ply or one-ply toilet paper to wipe our ass a hundred years ago when I was growing up. That's all. I have enough work taking care of today's problems."
"My. Your vocabulary skills seem to slip when you're irritated, don't you think?"
"Yes, Doctor. My first husband was in the military. I've even been known to say 'fuck' when I'm really upset!"
"Hopefully, not in front of the children." I had enough sense to keep my 'efing mouth shut. Instead, I apologized.
"Look, Dr. Mason, I'm sorry but you told me in our first session to be myself. Myself gets pissed off on occasion. Karen's obsession with the way I was brought up is getting to me lately. It's as if everything my mother did was so perfect we have to duplicate it exactly. She insists on knowing every little detail. It is very irritating."
"Do you admit to her when you're annoyed? Communication is very important."
"We communicate very well, thank you. She knows it pisses me off . . . annoys me, but she keeps doing it."
"Everything? Without fail?"
"I haven't found an instance yet. I'd love to break the pattern but no luck so far. She'll ask about meals we ate and I'll pull out a recipe and we'll cook it together. That part's fun; for both of us. Sometimes she doesn't even like the result but if I ate it as a child, she feels she has to as well. Maybe that same recipe won't be suggested in the future, but she finishes the meal on the first go around."