In Treatment (2008–2010): Season 2, Episode 26 - Mia: Week Six - full transcript

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.

{You know}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.

Yeah, I guess.

Do you think her depression
might also explain

why she didn't get pregnant
again for 10 years?

No. She talked about
that too. The twins

the cherished twins

they were an accident.

She said that

she was terrified when she found out
that she was pregnant again

and that she asked my father

to hire a sitter so

someone would take care of us
if she couldn't.

And according to her, he said

no.

That he couldn't afford it.
And she insisted that it was

his idea to send me out to
his sister's out in new jersey.

- And you don't believe her?
- Of course not.

My father adored me.

She also said that I was wrong about him
coming out to visit me every sunday,

that I must've made that up,
because they came together

once a month.

- That's not possible.
- Actually, mia, it is...

Because it's entirely
possible you airbrushed her

out of your memories of that time.

Sometimes the need
to protect one parent

is so strong a child puts
all the blame on the other.

No, you're getting this wrong.

She, she is the one who blamed me.

Until saturday,

when she came to you
with what sounds like

an unburdening.

I'm wondering what that must've been
like for you to hear.

It made me furious

and if I hadn't been sick,
I would have thrown her out.

Do you know what it was
that made you so angry?

She spent my whole life telling me

that I ruined her life,
and now she changes her mind

when I'm vulnerable,
when I've cried in her arms.

Well, maybe feeling you cry in
her arms is what made her open up.

What kind of timing is that?
What does she expect?

That's a good question.
What do you think she expected?

Why are we examining her motives?

I'm fucking here
because of her fucked-up motives.

She wanted me
to let her off the hook.

"Bless me, my daughter,
for I have sinned."

I'm supposed to listen until she's
finished and grant absolution?

What's the matter? You look horrified.
What, I'm back to monster Mia here?

No no no no no,
I understand your anger.

She didn't take care of you,
she lied, she was never there for you,

then suddenly she wants to be

close.

Why...

Did she give up?

Okay, she was sick for a year,

but after that...

Why didn't she fight
harder to be my mother?

How, how come nobody sticks by me?

But she did say that she tried
but that there was something

impenetrable about
your father's bond with you.

- Why are you taking her side?
- I'm not trying to take her side.

All I'm suggesting is that

it may not be as black
and white as you rember it.

It's black and black.

She manipulated me one way

for my entire life and now
she wants to manipulate me the other way

- to get rid of her guilt.
- That might be true,

but it's also possible,
perhaps in her own

clumsy way, that your mother
was trying to reach out.

She saw that you were in cris,
in some way like her own crisis...

there you were in pajamas,
you were depressed,

it was related to a pregnancy
and she recognized it right away.

She was trying to help.

So once again,

I had a chance at

intimacy and I screwed it up.

I pushed her away.
Is that your point?

God damn it.

Just stop all the therapy
and tell me what you think.

Your mother tells you all
these things and you get angry.

What about your father?

I felt bad for him.

His wife gives birth,

he wants to celebrate and she's
ready to jump out the window?

Plus he has a crying,
hungry infant to take care of.

He has to be both the mother
and the father, so good for him.

Has it ever occurred to you he might
have colluded in the lie that she told?

You just said it: she told the lie.

But he never corrected it.

Why do you think that is, Mia?

He was helping her save face.

For 43 years?

Can't you accept
that he was a good father?

Nobody in therapy has a good dad?

A good dad who shipped
a 10-year-old girl off to New Jersey

rather than pay for a babysitter?

There had to be a way
to keep you at home.

I mean, families find a way
of working things out.

Well, she's probably
lying about all that too.

She could be, but let's just take
her at her word for a moment.

What that means is that you have
to reevaluate

who your parents are
and what they did.

Maybe your father wasn't
the ideal man that you thought.

And maybe your mother was
actually trying to connect with you.

What's going on here?
She decides to rewrite history

and you just go along with it?

Well, sometimes we find it easier

- to hold on to the fiction.
- It's not fiction, Paul.

I'm telling you my mother
was never there for me

and my father always was.

That's your mantra, Mia,

and maybe
it's as false as your mother's.

Look at the way you defend it,
how angry you get if I challenge it.

I ask you to see your parents
in a different light...

I just ask you to do that...
and you go on the attack.

You accuse me of taking sides.

Maybe I just don't like it when
you blame him for everything.

I need a break.

Shit.

- Sorry.
- That's okay.

It's not about blame, Mia.

What I'm asking you to do
is more complex than that.

I want you to question the way that you
have thought about your parents

for most of your life.

Oh, is that all?

I know it isn't easy, but I can tell
you from personal experience...

It's better to do it when
your parents are still alive.

My whole life I had this...

Distorted image of

who my parents were.

And I didn't want to let that go.

I fought against it,
and then finally I did,

and it was too late.

My father was...

he was gone.

And that was...

a huge loss.

I've had enough loss this week.

I know, but, Mia,
if you don't go through this,

you're gonna stay where you are,

you're gonna keep punishing the men in
your life for not being what you need...

- men like Bennett.
- Bennett was an asshole.

Or like me.

You blamed me for the abortion,

but wasn't it your father
who arranged it?

He was just supporting me.

Or maybe he was,
once again, trying to hold on

too tight,
to keep you as his little girl.

No.

No, the abortion was my idea.

I told you that last week.

You said you haven't
heard from him lately,

even though
he must've known you were sick.

He was... he was always
there when I was a girl.

Was he?

How about your piano?

You said it was the one thing
that always made you happy.

Did you mother talk about
what happened to it?

She said that he sold it.

He said with two babies in
the house there was enough noise.

Let me ask you something:
what would happen

if you believed her?

If you actually let yourself
feel the hurt and the anger

that you might have buried
for this perfect dad?

I can't do this, Paul.

Okay?
Not today, not this week.

You know,
maybe this is the perfect time.

This is a week that's
been filled with loss.

You mother comes
and she gives you...

A new family history.

The picture you've had of them
is just torn up and thrown away.

And earlier in the week
you lost your own child,

the baby
that you wanted for so long.

That new family also
just taken away.

That's not quite true.

On saturday my mother
insisted on calling her doctor,

and he had us meet him
at his office in greenpoint

on a saturday night.

He's the same doctor
who delivered the twins.

Hadn't you already seen your doctor?

I called on friday.

My park avenue obgyn said, you know,

wait it out and to call him
if the pain got much worse.

My mom drove us to brooklyn
and there was old dr. Solomon,

sitting behind his desk.

He did some tests

and he told me that...

that I hadn't lost the baby
because I wasn't ever pregnant.

I told him about my f. s. h. level

and he said that I probably
never would be pregnant.

And then he went on.
He said that...

He sees this kind of thing
once a week:

women like me... successful,

no children, my age and older...

who come in just convinced
that they're pregnant.

And he has to tell them
that they're...

they're not.

So...

So you hadn't done
a test before that.

No.

- why not?
- I don't know.

I thought I would wait.

I had an appointment for this week

to see my doctor
and I was just so sure.

But I had it wrong
and you have it wrong.

I don't have to grieve for
a child that I never had.

Mia, last week you...

you talked about the...
the new life that...

that you felt inside you.

It wasn't there.

But in a way it was.

The strength of that desire to...

to create new life.

It's almost 7:45.

Is it too early to get drunk?

Who knows?
I could get lucky and...

meet another married man at the bar.

I'm gonna go.

Will you please call
me during the week?

Call you?

I want to know how you are.