Today I went for another session of my weekly sandplay therapy. To be honest, whenever I entered the room and put the symbols, there are nothing I do other than putting the symbols of what I think inside vs what I think outside. I was particularly exhausted this week because I just did United Nations YPP Exam (Polnet) for about 4 hours, and the psychologist told me that I looked pale. No surprise there actually!
Today I put symbols of money, what I like to do in my internal world (with a laughing buddha). And outside, again, I put mother and father figure (my parents) with a skull behind them.
To be honest at this stage, nothing was exceptional until the psychologist asked me about my dysfunctional family problem. I told her that my father is there but I cannot feel anything to him because my mom called him useless all the time. Money has always been the root of my family problem. My father was actually doing ok, it’s just that he wasn’t as ambitious as my mom as a breadwinner because my mom has a high standard of lifestyle while my father has not really added his wardrobe collection in the past 10-20 years.
I have told her that my grandmother was my mother figure. And who was my father figure? I have always thought -none. I don’t have any. At least I did, until today.
As I recalled my childhood memory, I told the psychologist how I was left behind in Makassar for few years until I was 3 years old. So I didn’t live with my nuclear family until my mother came and picked me again until 3.
During this period I lived in my paternal grandfather’s house, and I lived with my first cousins as well. I didn’t realize how close we were attached with as I called their mom and dad as “mom” and “dad” as well. I never called them by honorifics, but just “mom” and “dad” (+nick name).
To be honest, I don’t really remember about my uncle, except that he gave me a very odd nostalgic and familiar feeling. When I stay at my cousin’s home, I feel as I should have always been there and growing up with them instead with my current biological family. I just don’t have any emotional feeling with my current parents because they have always been absent in my life, and our relationship is dysfunctional to mediocre at best.
My uncle passed away in 2009. He was 51 years old back then. He had a leukemia, he was very thin and blind. I met him last time in 2005 and I wished that I could have taken a photo with him one last time, but his condition was so frail, and I don’t think I want to remember him as the frail, sick old man after he passed away. Most of my memories remember him when he was healthy.
I didn’t really give a thought when he passed away in 2009. I was in denial. Just like when my grandmother passed away, I didn’t cry until I saw her grave. Because I didn’t meet him often, I had a cognitive dissonance, and couldn’t accept the reality that he was no longer with me.
As long as it’s not confirmed, I will think he’s still alive and maybe we will meet again.
In 2015, I visited Makassar, my hometown and for the first time, I visited his grave, and that’s when reality slapped me. I cried uncontrollably. Thinking how sad it was that I would never meet him again. I didn’t really know why I was sad, because look, I didn’t grow up with him. He gave me a nostalgic feeling and comfort, but that’s it.
Back to the sandplay therapy room. When I told my psychologist about this, I cried again all of sudden. I was like, what the hell? Why I was crying? Was he that important to me?
My psychologist nodded, and she told me, my uncle was that influential in shaping my father’s figure. Since my biological father has failed his fatherhood function, it seems I grew attached to my childhood memory, being taken care by my cousin’s family, and had my uncle as the father figure.
The psychologist asked me again. What kind of man you want to be? And then, I told her my uncle’s characteristics, basically the anti-thesis of my biological father. A man must not be emotional (cool headed), responsible of what he’s doing, and not blaming the others for his misdeed. And when he has a family, he must do his function as a husband and as a father.
To a certain degree I want to absorb all these ideals, but at the same time I am wondering if I could really do that, since after all, he’s a heterosexual man. But I told to myself, even if I ended up in a marriage with a woman, perhaps I could become “a heterosexual man” again, and embrace all of those values?
ophisophia 