Around that time I began seeing a psychologist. I had resisted going to therapy on more than one occasion, but halfway through my twenties it finally made sense. A place to talk to someone, to explain why I would suddenly feel so alone, why I was sabotaging my life, and why I had become this arrogant, negative person. The first thing my therapist asked about was — you guessed it — my relationship with my mother! And… you guessed it again: I considered abandoning therapy then and there.

“Thank you, but I’ve seen all those movies where you end up paying millions just for the therapist to insist that all your problems are your parents’ fault. Thanks, but no thanks.” I resisted the first few months, probably the hardest time. I talked about all the problems in my life, my desire to get out of radio and to leave my job, my resentment toward society in general. Gradually, my therapist was helping me to talk about what I didn’t address: my relationship with my mother. “Your mom is not going to change,” she repeated session after session. “You are not going to save her.” She demanded I say it to myself. “You cannot choose your mother, but you can choose how you're going to relate to her for the rest of your life. First, you need to resolve your relationship with her.”

I had to stop seeing her. One day I took her to lunch and explained that some time would pass without us seeing each other. Her eyes filled with tears, and she immediately offered me an apology for so many years. She opened the door to a long process of reconciliation and forgiveness. That day I cried all the tears I hadn’t cried as a teenager. To explain them, I yelled, scolded, and blamed her for everything blameworthy. I left, determined not to see her for months. But two events exacerbated the situation and put my relationship with my mother in shock. I had to take her to check herself into a psychiatric hospital. She was there a little over a month. For a week I didn’t go to work. The work of accepting reality became my priority. I started writing. I read Bret Easton Ellis like crazy. I faced it as well as I could. Months later I got a call from my sister. “Mom had an accident. She fell off her bike and destroyed her face. She’s stable.” You can imagine how hard it was for me to visit her, to confront a living metaphor.