"Where would you like to begin?" Lorne asked a couple days later as he made himself comfortable in his 'therapist chair' and Buffy sat rather awkwardly on the couch.
"Shouldn't you be deciding that? You're the therapist."
Lorne grinned, "Well, yes, but maybe you want to tell me what triggered your desire to see me?"
Buffy sighed, "Oh yes, that. Well, I was thinking that I needed someone to talk to that wasn't Spike. He's not exactly conducive to healing when he's right over my shoulder wanting me to answer questions I don't have the the answers to."
"Do you have any family support, Buffy?"
She snorted, "Are you kidding?"
“I take that as a no.”
“You take that right.”
“Your mom? She isn’t a big helper when it comes to relationships?”
Buffy cocked her head to the side, “This your way of asking for information about my family life?”
Lorne smiled, but said nothing.
Taking a deep breath, Buffy launched into her history. “My mom was always kind of in the background, and yet not, if that makes sense. She was such a perfectionist. She never said boo to my father, but to me, she made comments all the time about how I could improve myself. I could never do anything right. It was all about my Dad and what he needed, what he wanted. And yet, there was this underlying resentment she felt for him that I always sensed, but could never find definitive proof of. My Dad, well, he walked all over her. He made her feel as if she could do no right. Which I suppose is why she took it out on me and made me feel as if….” She stopped, trailing off. “Huh.”
“What? Where’d you go?”
“Angel. He always made me feel as I couldn’t do anything right in our marriage and I bent over backwards for him. Now I take it out on….”
“Buffy?”
“I take it out on Spike,” she said softly.
“You’re saying that for you, he can do no right?”
“Seems that way.”
“Seems that way? Is it really that way? Are your gripes all with Spike or with Angel? Fifty-fifty?”
“Everything that’s happened since Angel left, I took out on Spike. He’s gotten it all. He’s gotten my moodiness, my bitchiness… he’s seen me be basically Linda Blair and he’s borne it all. He fights back, but for the most part, he takes it. And I let him. How sick and twisted is that? I let him take it. I apologize in one breath and treat him like shit in the other.”
“Does he deserve that all?”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“Then why do you do it?”
“Because he’s always just taken it.”
“So, you want the guy that doesn’t.”
“No, I want the guy that does take some of it, but I want the guy that stands up to me too.”
“Did you ever stand up to Angel?”
“Hardly.”
“Why not?”
“It was easier sometimes. I didn’t want to argue with him. Just wanted to keep him happy. And he had this way of making me feel as if was just causing trouble and being unreasonable if I did speak up. So I just kept my mouth shut.”
“And how did that make you feel to do that?”
“Like I lost myself. My voice. My independence. I became my mother and I hated myself for it.”
“Do you feel that Angel leaving had anything to do with how you were?”
Buffy welled up in tears and she nodded. “Yes.”
“How so?”
“I could have been more.”
“How do you mean?”
“Like maybe he needed me to stand up to him. Maybe I wasn’t enough woman for him because I was too busy being a doormat.”
“I’m going to take a shot here and you tell me if you see a pattern of some kind.”
“Okay,” Buffy agreed, bracing herself.
“Your mother bowed to your father and yet resented him. Instead of standing up to him, she put the perfectionist standards on you that he put on her. Following me?”
“Following you.”
“Okay, good. Then, you get married to a man that was just like your dad in the respect that he wanted you to be perfect. He cheated on you which was a slam in the face, and was a message to you that you weren’t good enough for his perfectionist standards. You took up with Spike, the man that worshipped the ground you walked on and treated you like a Queen, even if you didn’t know that he loved you, you knew he treated you well and you clung to that.”
“Right.”
“When Angel left you, Spike was there to pick up the pieces. Keeping now, the lie he told, out of this okay?”
“Okay,” Buffy said slowly.
“So he became the person that you could express yourself to. He took all of you as you were. You saw that as an invitation, albeit subconsciously, to unload upon him.”
“Yep, that’s pretty much it. I couldn’t take any of it out on Angel, so Spike became the one.”
“Just like your mom couldn’t take it out on your dad.”
Buffy took a deep breath and sat back. “I’m fucked up, aren’t I?”
“No, Buffy, you’re not fucked up. You’ve taken a behavior that was directed at you and placed it on someone else as a way to cope. We all do it. It’s the bully that gets beaten at home and takes it out on the weak at school.”
“Great, I’m a bully now?”
“No! I was giving an example. Okay, poor example. But do you know what I am saying?”
“Yes, I put Spike in charge of being my punching bag because he let me do it. He took it and didn’t fight back.”
“And you see that as weak. You saw it as weakness in yourself as well.”
Buffy stared at him, waiting for him to continue.
“You’re angry at yourself for not standing up to Angel and you’re angry at Spike for not standing up to you. In a way, he’s become you. You’re taking out your anger at yourself on him.”
“Wow. There are so many levels,” Buffy said in awe.
Lorne chuckled, “Usually how it works.”
“So it could be that I’m goading him into standing up to me?”
“Could be, yes. And the more he doesn’t, the more it angers you. You see it as a weakness, your weakness and his. I agree you have a lot of anger Buffy, but I also think a lot of that anger is with yourself. You’ve learned, probably mostly from your mother, how to direct that anger out towards others and make the issue theirs, instead of looking inside and finding a productive way to handle that issue.”
“I am fucked up.”
“You’ve gotten in a pattern that you probably never realized you were in. We all do it, whether we realize it or not.”
“I’d become aware of some of that, but. . .wow. There was more than I realized.”
“Does it make sense or do you feel that I’m just talking out of my ass?”
She shook her head, “No, it makes total sense. I’m completely bummed that I fell into the clichéd trap of finding someone just like my dad.”
Lorne laughed, “Spike isn’t like your dad though.”
“Hence the problem apparently,” Buffy joked. “Maybe if he treated me like shit, I’d know how to react better to him.”
“Well, I for one am glad that you’re here and we’re discovering these things. So many people go through life not seeing the unhealthy patterns they do over and over and over again…then they wonder why they’re never happy. Buffy, the fact that you’re here and you’re trying shows me that you are committed to making things better for not just you, but those around you.”
“Yeah,” Buffy muttered, “I’m committed all right.”
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