Everything Here Is under Control: A Novel

I dunno. I thought it would be better if we didn’t talk for a while. I mean, we’d just end up fighting again, and I’d say something mean. I know it’s partly my fault she has to work the way she does. Who am I kidding, it’s all because of me. I get so upset thinking about it. I want to become an adult, right now. That way, I can work hard and help w

Similarly, because children cannot easily leave an offending situation, they are prey to powerful, limitless longings to fix the broken person they so completely depend on. It becomes, in the infantile imagination, the child’s responsibility to mend the anger, addiction or sadness of the grown-up they adore. It may be the work of decades to develop

Andy kept telling me that no one is ever ready to have a baby and that it will always feel terrifying. The more he said this, the more resentful I became. The risk felt so much higher for me and it wasn’t something he would ever truly acknowledge.

The MEM caretaker “wakes up” in middle life to discover he has an overwhelming sense of deprivation. He is torn in his unconscious with two unresolved needs: to be cared for and to become himself. He now feels trapped in his caretaker role. He has lost the life he really wanted, the one driven by his own desire, the one energized from his soul rath