Godammit, I’m Mad!

I just saw this movie on TV, late at night, and was haunted by its depiction of a suffocatingly close friendship that revolves around need and control.

Have you ever had – or observed – a friendship like that? There’s usually one person who seems more dominant and demanding, and one who allows this to happen. They seem to share an identity, one that doesn’t permit either to grow or change.  But you can’t really cite either one as villain or victim, since it’s a dance that takes two people to perform.

When an exasperated lover tells the Michelle Williams character that her best friend “controls” her, she is shocked. It’s not always easy to recognize the dynamics of a relationship when you’re in it. From my perspective, the controlling friend, played by Anna Friels, was more like an emotional vampire who thrived on sucking the joy from the other girl’s life. She is also a classic portrait of Borderline Personality Disorder, a condition so fucked up and harrowing that many shrinks balk at trying to treat it.

My mother was a Borderline and bipolar, too. Because of her, I can’t watch movies that feature a Maniac character; I still get freaked out by the trailer for The Shining. Because of her, I can’t stand people who try to control me, even though I have married two of them.

The first one is still a “control freak” who won’t even talk to you unless he gets to control the conversation. When I met him, I must have found that reassuring. I was only 16. Later, it was unbearable.

The second one, the Love of My Life, is so controlling that he won’t let me buy the groceries, because I “can’t do it right.” The other day, he said to me: “Let me open the sugar next time.” This gave me a frisson* of perverse glee; I’m 56 and my husband thinks I’m too incompetent to open a box of sugar!

Today, I experienced another secret thrill when I opened the new box of sugar while he was at work.

I think the moral here is that people can only control you if you let them. The control is yours to keep or give away. And sometimes, you can pretend to give it away as long as you remember deep down that you are the boss.

~

* frisson is the word for this week. Try to use it in conversation or in writing. See if you can keep a straight face!

My sister found this photo a couple of weeks ago.  I am thirteen, standing on the street with a cigarette, obviously looking for trouble. I found it, but that’s another story.

I was a child of the ’60’s, but god knows why I thought it was good to look like this. I remember the place in Venice where I used to buy long silk-velvet gowns for $6. I didn’t wear underwear or shoes, but eye-make-up was a priority.

Can you imagine being my mother? What a nightmare it must have been for her. She sometimes screamed at me, “I only hope one day you have a child just like you!” I’ve tried not to hurl this same curse at my own kids, but teenagers tend to challenge one’s patience and sanity.

At thirteen, I insisted that I was adult enough to do whatever I wanted, but in reality I was a complete idiot. Thinking about Tavi now, I see how focused she is. At least she knows something about something, even it’s all about runway fashion. I was an empty vessel, rebelling against authority with all my might, with no other interests or concerns.

I used to blame my parents for how defiant and out of control I was, but now I’m thinking that teenagers have to be awful, if for no other reason than to break away and live their own lives. If they weren’t awful, you might not encourage them to move the hell out of the house.

But some teenagers are more awful than they need to be. Were any of you as awful as me? Or even more awful? Do any of you have an awful teenager of your own to try not to kill deal with? Please share with the class!

Still annoyed by Carine Roitfeld, I remembered how much I love her daughter, Julia… and that Anna Wintour has a beautiful daughter as well. Both Carine and Anna like to pose with the daughters at fashion shows and on the red carpet.  Both are probably vaguely threatened by their young daughters, and by each other’s daughter.

Do you think the daughters are secret allies, comparing notes about their bossy know-it-all moms? “I hate my mom’s fucking bob!” “Oh god, at least your mom dresses like a mom!” Or do they hate each other?

Which Vogue Daughter is your favorite?

Julia Restoin Roitfeld:

Bea Shaffer:

Sylvia Plath was a crazy mother, but what should we make of her son’s suicide? We know that depression runs in families, but most of us manage to hang on, even if our mothers were crazy.

Maybe when a family member commits suicide, it presents itself as an option that wouldn’t otherwise be considered. My own mother liked to threaten suicide, but her theatrics only went as far as rattling her pill bottles.

I had a phase, a few years ago, of routinely announcing that I wanted to put my head in the oven. I still think it’s a funny image. I am hoping to find a jeweler who will collaborate with me on my vision of a gold medallion depicting a little oven with legs sticking out of it. In memory of Sylvia, the feet would be wearing low-heeled pumps.

The other day, my ex noted that his uncle and a cousin had committed suicide, but he had an excuse for both of them; they didn’t really count, in his opinion. Men can be funny about depression, because it goes against their gender description.  Yet they kill themselves far more often than woman do, in a ratio of 4 to 1 in the US.  Are women more adept at suffering? My feeling is Yes.

When a famous person commits suicide, it’s always a blow. It makes me wonder why they didn’t wait another day, or call their doctor, or just stay in bed. Nicholas Hughes seems by all accounts to have been a vibrant, talented and lovely human being, who didn’t suffer from depression until his father died from cancer. It sounds like the loss broke his heart, and he simply couldn’t recover.

When Hunter Thompson killed himself, my prevailing reaction was resentment. How could someone so pugnacious just give in like that? What a quitter!

People who commit suicide are not only depressed but impulsive, apparently. Most important, they have lost all sense of humor. Sylvia Plath should have waited around, until the image above struck her as funny. I’m glad my own crazy mother set a better example by sticking around and tormenting us until she was 73.