In Treatment

Hello, Mia.

Would you like to come in?

It's over.

I'm not pregnant.

In Treatment - Mia - Season 2 - Episode 26

I'm not feeling well.

I really should've stayed home.

I called in sick at work. That's a first.

What did your doctor say?

I'll live.

- Did he say anything else? - I'm so tired.

I want to go back to bed.

I'm not up for a whole session.

Well, why don't we just start and then

we'll see how it... how it goes?

I'd rather stay here for now.

Can I get you a glass of water?

Maybe some tea?

That's very nice, but I'm fine.

That's what you kept saying last week... "I'm fine."

How have you been?

Fine.

Would you like to tell me what happened?

There's not much to tell.

I went to work on friday...

Started bleeding.

I went home...

And it didn't stop.

End of story.

So,

emotionally, how are you?

I'm kind of numb.

It feels better that way.

I understand.

I thought

that I was gonna be a parent and now I know

I'm not.

I'm really sorry, Mia.

I just felt transformed for a couple of weeks.

Like I had a real...

purpose. And I was a different...

a different me.

You know, a woman has a baby

and people stop asking questions: "what's wrong with her?"

Or...

"she's so ambitious."

Or "pathetic" or "strange."

It's easy then... she's a mother.

It answers all the questions.

It seems to me that you had a lot of questions yourself last week.

Maybe I melted down a little, but I still wanted to have the baby.

The stupid thing is I can smoke now - and I don't even want to.

So maybe you have changed a little.

Nice try.

You know,

There's other ways to be a parent

if that's what you really want.

You mean compete

with some young suburban couple for some pregnant teen's baby?

I can't imagine picking

ivy league sperm out of a catalogue

to defrost and squirt.

You don't want to adopt,

you don't want a donor

and yet you're sure that you wanted a baby.

It isn't just about being a mother,

like you said last week. You also wanted to have

the perfect picture.

I kept waiting to meet the right guy but it...

he didn't show up.

Or more likely

I pushed him away.

And now no man and no kid.

I don't want to talk about this.

Let's switch to the weather.

It was a really cold weekend, wasn't it?

Actually, it was surprisingly warm.

Did you stay inside?

Did you call anybody?

You could've called me.

You're still in mourning

and you were away over the weekend anyway, right?

Mia, something like this...

you call me.

Actually, I did talk to someone. Believe it or not,

I spoke to my mother.

I'd certainly like to hear about that.

Do you think we could talk about it inside?

What is it with therapists?

You hear the word "mother" and these bells go off?

Pretty much.

It's... it's part of the training.

So would you like to tell me about the conversation

you had with your mother?

Cara, one of my nieces, gave a piano recital on saturday,

and when my mother saw that I wasn't there

she called to see if I was okay.

Your mother and

- not your father? - Right.

I haven't heard from him in a while.

Anyway, my mother is the queen of protocol

and I had missed a family event.

This... it was Cara playing Chopin, and I have been paying for her lessons.

I told my sisters that if any of the girls wanted

music lessons that I would treat.

I mean, what is the money for?

I defend some pretty questionable doctors

present company excluded...

and how many pairs of high heels do I need?

Is that because you want to make sure that music isn't taken away from them

in the way

that it was for you?

Playing piano was...

the one thing that always made me feel happy.

Anyway, I didn't answer the phone, so she left a message.

And then later that afternoon she showed up at my apartment

with a platter of pierogis.

Maybe she was concerned for you.

Well, there's always a first time, right?

So how did it go?

I was still in my pyjamas.

She took one look at me, the heating pad, the tylenol,

the tissues in front of me and she said, "do you have the flu?"

And I shook my head no.

I started to cry and she got it.

And she said "maybe that's nature's way."

I don't know when I last cried in front of her

or when she's last

hugged me.

And then she heated up the food,

set the table nicely, poured us some nalewka.

What's that?

It's a cherry-infused vodka. It's a traditional drink.

Anyway, she tried to make a consolation toast.

She said "to better days..."

And then she told me

that she was proud of me.

Well, maybe she was.

She said that I should be

grateful for what I have.

My independence, my career, this interesting life I'm leading.

It sounds like some of the things that she might have wanted

for herself.

Well, I snapped at her. I said, "that's kind of a strange toast

considering you've always blamed me for ruing your modeling career."

Did you tell her that?

Well, you won't believe what she said.

She said that

she didn't really have much of a career.

She wasn't that pretty and

that she never would have risen above her

job as an underwear model,

which is not what I grew up hearing.

Right, her mantra.

Her false mantra.

The same lie over and over until everyone accepts that it's true,

especially me, the one that she loves to blame.

Did you ask her why she did that?

My mother said that it was...

Kind of her cover story...

That having me didn't ruin her looks. It

destroyed

her mind.

She said that after I was born, she lost it.

She couldn't get out of bed, she didn't want to eat.

She said she stayed in her room because she was afraid

that if she left it, she would kill herself,

and that there was

some small, sane part of her that didn't want to do that to me.

there are some mothers who get so depressed

that they lose sight of even that.

So where was your father during all of this?

She said he just moved into the living room.

He didn't try to get her professional help?

Are you kidding?

He was first generation.

He would've been mortified to ask someone for help,

to admit that his wife was crazy.

So he took care of you during this time?

He did everything. He had too.

She didn't even want to breastfeed.

So, really, you weren't

mothered for over

a year.

When she came out of it somehow she did, she said

she had this rush of feeling

and that she wanted to be close to me,

but by then my dad and I were just inseparable...

I think the word she used was

"impenetrable"

that my father had never forgiven her and that

he used our closeness to show her how

she'd failed.

She said that she was so guilt-ridden that she thought

she didn't deserve me, and so she just

kept away.

That's quite an admission.

That must've given you a lot to

take in about

both your parents.