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Dear Madison,
My father, a merchant mariner, was away from home many months at a time. During his absence, my status in the house hold was elevated. I was my mother’s best friend, confidant and companion. When my father returned from a trip, I was relegated to my role as a child in the household. As happy as I was to see my father, the change his presence commanded did not sit well with me. I resented my father for treating me like the child I was, and felt guilty for resenting him.
The problem wasn’t the way my father treated me, in this regard, it was the way my mother treated me. She treated me like a peer when I wasn’t. She made me her friend for her benefit. Such relationships are known by the following names: emotional incest, covert incest and psychic incest. I am not suggesting there was any sexual activity between us. However, there was an unhealthy dynamic. A dynamic where a child loses a parent, not terribly unlike what transpires when there is actual physical incest.
Do you think this phenomenon applies to you?
You have my support,
Larry
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