Caitlyn Coburn was sitting in yet another new therapy office filling out yet another new client intake form. Hopefully this works, she told herself. This is the third one I've tried in two years. So sick of it. Her old therapist had moved away, and after that, she didn't click with her next counselor, and then she had a third who she felt didn't value her time and voice. Maybe this new therapist, Kathleen, would be the charm.

In reality, she had been in and out of counselors' offices for years. As a teenager, a college student, and even now that she was supposed to be an adult, she found herself needing help with the emotional pain that resulted from her mother's alcoholism. She often wished she could have the bond with her mother that her friends had with theirs, but she wasn't sure if it was even meant to be after so long. But every time she tried to form a relationship with her, it never felt natural or the timing never felt right. This had led to her deciding she would be better off only talking to her mom occasionally, even going weeks at a time without contact at all.

Still, she tried to think good of her mother Janet whenever she could. As Caitlyn started coming into adulthood, she understood her mom would be there in a heartbeat if she ever had an emergency, even if she chose to call her father or work things out by herself instead. Caitlyn also prayed for her mother's health and safety all the time, hoping she was staying out of the clutches of a relapse. Despite how empty she felt at times, she could never actively wish harm on her mom. If Janet was ever in trouble Caitlyn would want to do everything she could to help.

One thing that helped Caitlyn is that she'd always been encouraged to live a good life. She did love her job as a nurse in Mercy's pediatric unit, and she felt proud for being hired even after some people told her she wasn't competitive enough of a candidate for a job with so many applicants. She had a good relationship with her father. She had taken on many fulfilling hobbies throughout the years and loved dance and art the most. But even with her blessings, she knew there was a gap only her mother could fill.

"Caitlyn?" The therapist interrupted her train of thoughts in the waiting room. "Hi, I'm Kathleen. It's so nice to meet you. Come on in."

"Nice to meet you too." Caitlyn said. She carried her purse and a file folder full of records from her previous counselor. "I have my files here."

"Thanks; I'll just set them down right here to review later." Kathleen closed the door behind her and took Caitlyn's folder as Caitlyn sat on the couch nervously.

"So, what's going on? How can I help you?"

"Well for starters," Caitlyn said. "You're my third counselor in two years. I've been having a hard time finding someone to work with. And second, ever since I was a teenager, I've had issues from my mother's battle with alcoholism. She's been sober in that time, but I feel like I can't forgive her fully for how I felt when I was a child. Why my mother was barely around. Why she and my father divorced and I couldn't live with her. That's why I chose you, too. I heard you had an interest in addiction treatment and working with addicts' families, and I wanted to talk with someone who would be truly patient with me."

"It's like I know I should forgive her and acknowledge her sobriety, and I do in some ways, but not in others. It's like our relationship isn't natural. I can't cope with that. Sometimes I get depressed and angry."

Kathleen took notes and looked back up at Caitlyn. "If I asked you to describe your mother-daughter relationship in one word, what would you say?"

Tumultuous. Nonsensical. Broken. Caitlyn really just couldn't use one word.

"Bumpy," she finally settled on. "Every once in a while, I want nothing but to see her and we have an amazing time. Some days I hope I never see her again or have wanted to avoid her, or I just end up annoyed. Once I became old enough that I wasn't part of the custody agreement anymore, I felt like I wanted to try our relationship again. Unfortunately, it didn't go as planned…" Caitlyn began thinking back to when she was 18 in 2002.

January 2002.

Caitlyn pulled on to her mother's street as snow flurries started to fall. She had a suitcase packed for the weekend. She'd decided to leave Naperville after fighting with her father and brother. Caitlyn had been desperate for a fresh start for college and gone to the University of Michigan, but only made it a semester before freedom became too much for her to handle. Now she was back at home and had a hard time re-adjusting to living with her family. But she figured maybe now that she was 18, she could get close to her mother for real. After some phone calls, Janet agreed to see Caitlyn for a weekend and was already opening the door when Caitlyn's car pulled up.

"Caitlyn, I didn't think you were coming quite this soon," Janet told her. "Now, I am on call this weekend so just so you know I may have to leave for the hospital at some point. Do you have enough with you in case the snow keeps you here an extra day?"

"Yeah."

She walked in the house in silence as her mom continued talking. "Now, I don't remember what your school schedule is like…"

"Shocking." Caitlyn rolled her eyes as Janet glanced at her and expressed her disapproval. At this point, Janet had gotten enough backtalk to last a lifetime and was getting tired of it.

"That said," Janet decided to ignore the attitude. "I assume it's almost time for you to go back to Michigan. I'm getting a crop of med students at County pretty soon and have to assign them to my residents."

"Yeah, Mom, about college," Caitlyn said. "I dropped out. My grades weren't that great. It was a lot to adjust to. And...I had a little too much fun out of class." Her stomach dropped as she glanced at her mom's confused expression. Here comes a lecture, she thought. She decided not to add that she'd gone to sorority parties and experimented with alcohol on weekends.

"OK," Janet replied. "So, how many parties was it? How much drinking?"

I knew it.

"Well...I went to one with Greek life…"

"Only one? Caitlyn, do you think I'm stupid?"

"And then there were football games…"

"And more Greek parties?"

"On weekends after football."

"So let me guess how this happened," Janet poured herself a cup of hot chocolate. "You started partying every weekend. It was just one time out. Then it was two. And three. Then you were going out during the week and getting hungover and not doing well in classes. And now here you are telling me you have a problem and who knows when you'll go back to school."

"I don't have a problem!" Caitlyn exclaimed. "College kids party! Quit accusing me of being an alcoholic."

"So why were you not getting good grades? That's not what I understood of you in high school. Weren't you supposed to try out for cheerleading or something? What happened to that?"

"Didn't make the squad, Mom. Or did you forget that too?"

"Caitlyn, PLEASE…" Janet shook her head. "This isn't about me right now. This is about you. Why are you here telling me this? This is destructive decision making and you know it. Did you come to get my help, or did you come to run away from your father and brother?"

Caitlyn looked away. "I just feel lost. I couldn't handle college, Mom. I thought I'd go away and everything would be fine considering how I grew up."

"Yeah well, ask me how well trying to run away from my disease worked for me." Janet sat across from Caitlyn, trying to be calmer. "You can't run away. Wherever you go, there you are. Every problem I was having with addiction eventually caught up with me."

"I'm not calling you an alcoholic, dear. But it does concern me that you're telling me this. Did you have a major?"

"Undeclared."

"OK, that's no problem...sometimes 18-year-olds don't know what they want. Caitlyn, if you want to go to college, I'm not telling you to never have fun. I enjoyed my downtime in college and medical school. But you have to balance it. You did too much of the social stuff and not enough of your work. Now, do what you need to do. If you want help getting yourself back on track, I am here for you. But if you decide you're going to keep this up, I can't change you. You have to want to fix things. And if you're going to take a gap year and live at home or even if you live here, you have to get along with your family and respect house rules."

Janet's pager cut off the conversation before either of them could get out their next sentence, and Caitlyn sighed as her mom got up to return the page. She could overhear some medical talk she didn't understand but sounded interesting.

"I have to leave," Janet said when she came back to the kitchen table, already wearing her coat. "You can stay here and reflect on what I told you. Feel free to watch TV or have something to eat. Just clean up your mess when you're done and try not to drive anywhere before the snow gets too bad. We'll continue to talk when I return."

Caitlyn slumped on the couch after her mom had left. So much for mother-daughter bonding.

Kathleen's voice returned Caitlyn to the present.

"Were you able to return to college?" Kathleen asked.

"I took over a year off to shadow different careers and spend some time at home, mostly with my dad, since I lived with him. He did make me have a job, so I waited tables while I job-shadowed or volunteered. But I'd go to my mother's house occasionally. I just felt she was a little too worried about me because I wanted to explore the social scene."

"I ended up settling on nursing after I spent some time at a hospital and meeting the nurses there. They really seemed to care about their jobs, and they told me how many possibilities there were. Mom even offered to get me into her hospital to meet some of the nurses she worked with, and at first, I refused because who wants to work with their mother? But everyone at County was so nice. They'd show me skills on mannequins, and they just seemed to all get along at work."

"So you settled on a career," Kathleen recapped. "And how did you deal with going back to college?"

"I still had hard times, but I knew in my orientation for nursing I had to be serious." Caitlyn said. "The department head said she understood college kids liked to have fun, but it would wreak havoc on our studies and careers if we got any underage drinking charges or didn't put in the work because it was an intense program. I knew that someday I'd have to be at a hospital at 7 am and no way could I be partying the night before."

"Unfortunately, as much as I wanted to be with my friends, partying was hard for me. I could never let loose. I'd flash back to my mom's moodier and depressed days, or her leaving the family. Or our conversation after I dropped out. Even when I turned 21 I didn't want to go on a bar crawl or anything. Sometimes it was hard to find friends who understood me, too. I had a lot of fair-weather friendships."

"How did your relationship with your mom improve—or not—on your second chance at college?"

"Well, I never went home every weekend to see her like some girls did, and it was really hard to get her to visit," Caitlyn explained. "My dad runs a business and she's a doctor. My dad would visit in his slow seasons but since he's a photographer he would stop coming in the second half of the spring semester when wedding season was gearing up. My mom tended to help with move-out and move-in but disappeared a lot after that. Although, part of me didn't really want to have my mother on campus knowing we weren't that close, and I still feel like she chose the hospital over me a lot. Sometimes I would fight with her that she's not the only OB in Chicago or at her hospital, but she's just too in demand. Plus I think sometimes she works a lot to avoid facing other issues."

"That said, when I was learning my nursing skills, she and her coworkers were like tripping over each other to be my 'patients'." Caitlyn laughed. "That's why I liked everyone at County. They all wanted to help. I just don't want to work there. Well, maybe I will if my mom ever leaves. But she has a better marriage to that place than she ever did to my dad."

"The problem is…" her face fell. "I don't think my mom and I have enough moments like that. Where we laugh together and enjoy each other's company, and everything feels genuine. It's like we used to be roommates or coworkers or something instead of mother and daughter. I feel like I have a mother, but I don't."

Kathleen looked up from her notes. "Caitlyn, it can be very hard to see someone you love suffer at the hand of drugs or alcohol. And I'd imagine at your young age, it was even more frightening. You didn't understand what was wrong with your mom, but you knew she wasn't right, didn't you?"

"Yep. I have memories of it. The fights with my dad, her crying and outbursts, closing herself in a room for hours. Barely knowing my brother and I were there. I would just stay in my own room when she was drunk. She never hit us or threatened us or anything like that. She was a very depressed alcoholic. I remember crying for her a lot. I asked my dad why is Mom upset, is she sick again?"

"And since you were a child, no one would have expected you to understand or stop it. It's normal to feel powerless when someone you love develops an addiction, especially as it's not something our society understands."

Caitlyn knew that from her nursing education. "A lot of people think it's a choice to be an addict," she told Kathleen. "When I was a teenager, I used to tell my friends that she should have never done this knowing she was a doctor and had kids and everything. My friends agreed because we didn't know better. I hated her and they agreed with me and validated me. But today, I know it's a disease."

"Unfortunately," Kathleen continued. "It's not as easy to tell people about and grasp as it is if you had said your mom had cancer, for example. People understand cancer either through their own experience or awareness campaigns. Addiction often doesn't get that."

"And I know Mom suffered herself, didn't she?" Caitlyn wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, but Kathleen quickly handed her tissues. "During college I had to take classes where we covered addiction. It didn't change how I felt about what my mom did, but the more I learned and read, the more I realized she was in pain too and didn't do this because she hated me or something."

"The substances tend to take over very quickly and make the addict dependent on them. They believe they need it for their survival. And as you mention, you saw how it influenced her moods. She didn't have a healthy relationship with her drinking. It escalated beyond one or two drinks with friends after work or at a social function, which is the kind of thing you and your friends don't think twice about doing. The powerlessness for relatives like you comes in when you realize that only the addict can make the choice to get help."

"I just wish I could accept her," Caitlyn sighed. "The problem is...I know with alcoholism there's no cure. She can only arrest it. She will have an illness for the rest of her life. I know she's sober, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around it."

Kathleen nodded. "I understand why you feel that way. However, in order to move forward, sometimes we have to acknowledge difficult things about the past. It is entirely up to you whether you decide to work on things with your mother knowing about her alcoholism and where she is in her recovery. I won't pressure you to feel a certain way or do anything you aren't comfortable with, but addiction is a very hard thing to ignore when you're affected by it."

Caitlyn caught herself looking at the clock and could see her session was almost over.

"I do hate talking about this," she said. "I understand why you're saying it's necessary. It's just a real pain point in my life. I try to enjoy my life otherwise and make the best of my hand, but I'm always reminded of the hole I have."

"Why don't we do this?" Kathleen replied. "Normally I try to schedule my clients' next sessions as soon as we wrap one up. But since it's our first time meeting, why don't you go home and think about our talk today and how you feel about continuing on? I want to ensure you think my practice is a good fit for you. Take all the time you need. I know you said you tried another counselor that didn't work. I think stability will be crucial to helping you heal, and a counselor you feel you can trust and work with is part of this process."

"And Caitlyn, if you don't want to return, it's no trouble. I'd be glad to refer you to one of my colleagues."

Caitlyn grabbed her jacket. "Thank you so much. I'll give you a call."

She headed back out to her car and rested her head on the steering wheel. She was tired of feeling off-balance and going in circles with her feelings about her mother. Would it ever end?

She was 25 years old and still felt she didn't have the strength to answer that question.