Starting Over 3, 10/28-31/05 – She Forgot Colonel Mustardby LauraBelle
When Allison first entered the Starting Over house last season my first impression was that she looked like she belonged on one of the Nanny shows, complete with painted on smile and cape, although the British accent was replaced by Southern charm. The goal this season seems to be to break through that fake exterior and get to the issues, the ones that existed way before cancer.
I missed the first twenty minutes of the show due to circumstances beyond my control. Once it picks up, my mouth drops open as I listen to Allison describe a suicide attempt. She's outside with Iyanla and say she had tried to slit her wrists, then became afraid that she had been successful. They are sitting at table surrounded by slips of paper with assorted feelings on them. In front of them is a caricaturist drawing s sad fretting Allison with words surrounding her face like, "Rage, "Panic", "Trapped", and "Self Hate."
Looking beyond Allison's prim and proper mask, we're able to see much more of who she is. After she discusses all of this with Iyanla, Allison becomes much lighter and the caricaturist begins drawing a different side of Allison. She chooses much better words to surround herself in the newer picture, "Acceptance", "Love" and "Victory." Once she compares the two portraits next to each other, she can't hide the fact that the rest of the world eventually will always see behind her phony mask. Her best bet is to be authentically happy, not faked.
Lisa continues to be an amazing accountability partner for Jill. She joins Jill on her weekly visit to check in with Jenny Craig. Jill is quite dismayed to find she has only lost one pound after losing nine the week before. She explains she felt that she was eating so much that week and losing all that, she thought if she ate much less this week she would lose that much more. Her Jenny Craig consultant tells her it's a common mistake. What she actually did was send her body into starvation/survival model. To make matters worse, her recent diagnosis of anemia means Jill can't work out for right now.
Back at the Starting Over house Jill tells Iyanla of her frustration with being found to be anemic and only losing one pound this week. Iyanla wants her to keep trying to get down to her authentic self. She tells Jill that each one of those pounds represents one of her issues. For every pound lost, Jill will be allowed to take one article of clothing off her naked self mannequin, working towards getting to the authentic Jill. One pound lost today means one article can come off.
Iyanla has quite the interesting assignment for Christina. She has Christina secretly go around and hustle her housemates, getting them to give her things and do things for her throughout the day. Eventually it leads to having to hustle her new friends out of money. Not sure how to do it on her own, or perhaps feeling too much guilt, Christina enlists the help of her accountability partner, Jessica. Christina finds herself going to Lisa and TJ making up a lie saying she is broke and wants to go to the movies. She asks for five dollars form each of them and gets it.
When Iyanla meets up with Christina again later, she sees the difference in Christina after she has been hustling. Although Christina is saying she didn't enjoy it, Iyanla thinks she seems "high" after bilking her housemates out of favors and money. Christina explains enlisting Jessica's help and realizes when in Las Vegas she had a partner in crime as well. With the money and favors, Christina has been earning poker chips. Iyanla now tells her these chips are representing what Christina stands to lose with her hustling – an ability to earn a living without hustling, the risk of being hustled herself, her self respect and son Jackson's respect for her. Christina returns the money to her housemates without explanation.
That night Lisa takes her housemates out to "The Stand," the restaurant she worked in the day before, for dinner. She is dismayed to see her accountability partner, Jill, eating meat loaf and mashed potatoes with the excuse she needs the iron for her anemia. Meat loaf, well, alright, but mashed potatoes?
After their meal, Lisa goes into the kitchen and talks with the workers she met the day before. She gets them to give the table free dessert. Back at the table, and telling the other ladies how she acquired it, Lisa laughingly describes herself as a food whore. She draws the line with shopping, though. She says hookers shop; she doesn't. Hookers also have men pay their bills and that's something she won't do either. Apparently she doesn't consider her father a man. Christina just rolls her eyes at Lisa dissing her once again.
The next morning Christina calls Iyanla quite upset, but not at Lisa, at her ex-husband. He is due to take custody of their son for a court-appointed two weeks. Her ex has never been a big part of the child's life, but now is seeking shared custody, and his new wife is asking the boy to call her "Mommy." Iyanla asks why she cares now, and Christina say she just misses her son so much.
Dr. Stan has been asked by Rhonda to work with TJ on her ADHD. He wants her to learn how to organize her thoughts when she is confused instead of getting easily frustrated. He leaves her with a jigsaw puzzle, a crossword puzzle and origami. She is to work on these tasks while Allison times her. TJ is already frustrated from the get-go, because she feels like she is being tested.
Rhonda leads Group talking about vices and sacrifices. TJ says her vice is picking at her fingers. Allison says hers is two glasses of win at night. Jill's is smoking, and Jessica's is not being emotionally honest. That's a vice? Perhaps it depends on how you look at it. If it's something you depend on to make you feel better ...
Explaining that sacrificing is what we feel like we are doing that makes us turn to our vices (at least I think that's what she means ...) Rhonda asks everyone to give up a vice for three days. TJ says she'll give up picking her fingers, but that seems like more of a nervous habit. Allison says she'll give up her wine, leading Rhonda to ask if she has a problem with alcohol. With both an alcoholic father and brother, Allison believes she has a problem with it, but doesn't believe herself to be an alcoholic. Jill is guilted into going down to only three cigarettes a day.
Jill then meets up with Iyanla would would like her to give up "reactionary speaking" for the day. When someone addresses Jill, she first needs to say, "I'll get back to you on that," then write down an affirmation and what she would like to say. After waiting three minutes, she is then allowed to speak. It worked for TJ the other day, I guess. Iyanla asks Jill what she thinks her intention will be with this exercise, and without missing a beat, Jill says, "Let me get back to you on that.
TJ works on the jigsaw puzzle with Allison timing her. She is getting easily frustrated but does finish it. Yet, Allison notes it was only supposed to take five minutes, but really took over fourteen. Moving on to the crossword puzzle, TJ has a very difficult time. She wants to give up.
Today will be a hard day for Jessica to give up her "not being emotionally honest" vice, as her sister and sister's family are in town and visiting the Starting Over house. Soon after they arrive, while Christina helps keep the kids busy, Jess, her sister Stephanie, and Rhonda meet to discuss Jessica and Stephanie's relationship, both before and after their mother's death.
Stephanie fully admits to never knowing Jessica at all until after 9/11 when their mom died on one of the flights that crashed into the towers. Of course, the girls were eight years apart, making the only information they knew about each other learned from their mother. Since she was the one that held everyone together, after her death they just all seem to be moving around like strangers. Rhonda suggests the two sisters get pedicures together to do a little bonding and learning about each other.
Iyanla finds Christina in her room, still quite upset about the situation with her son and ex-husband. Iyanla points to the reminder notes Christina had taped around the room her first few days in the house – "Speak out" and "Set boundaries" – and tells Christina not to forget those lessons. Christina is an adult and can choose how she will be treated.
Jessica and Stephanie find out during their pedicures that they are completely different people. They have both been dealing with their mother's death in completely different ways. Jessica has never seen Stephanie cry about it, and now realizes she has never seen her cry. Jessica prefers to keep to herself and stay away from anything that has to do with 9/11, but Stephanie immerses herself in it, preferring the company of those that know what she is going through. Perhaps this is where she should be seeking the comfort of Jessica. She is the only person in this world that knows exactly the loss she is dealing with.
Iyanla gets together with Jill to see how her delayed speaking exercise is going. Jill thinks it's interesting how everyone relates to her differently. She felt bad with Christina, because when she told her she would get back to her, it seemed Christina thought Jill was avoiding her. Iyanla allows her to cut the exercise down some. She will now speak her affirmation instead of writing it and only has to wait one minute now, not three.
Allison is busy with her own exercise, so the chore of timing TJ in her tasks falls to Lisa and Jill. TJ is getting so easily frustrated with her origami that it's causing her to strike out at everyone else in the belief that they are striking out at her. She yells at Lisa at one point to stop being so bitchy with her. Allison notes TJ would rather just give up than try to focus.
Once her tasks are complete, Dr. Stan comes to check on TJ's progress. He sees that it's almost paralyzing for her when she feels she gets stuck. She experiences so much anxiety with it that it doesn't allow her to brainstorm. Dr. Stan leaves TJ with a murder mystery game he wants her to play with her housemates that night.
After Stephanie and her family leave, everyone sits down to play the mystery game with TJ. She assigns roles and passes out accompanying hats. Allison wonders why she has to go through this sober. Lisa says this isn't fun to her; it's like math, and that's not fun either. TJ gets quite upset when she feels no one is listening to her explain the rules, and they complain they're trying, but it's just boring. At one point TJ snaps to Allison, "Shut up!"
TJ tells the others their lack of attention is disrespectful and tosses her hat, spilling her Diet Coke. Jill, admitting to a love/hate relationship with TJ, cracks, "Where's the weapons? I did it with the baseball bat. I killed him!" Some might think she should have recited her affirmation first, but I found it extremely funny and just thought she was missing the part about being with Colonel Mustard.
Walking out, TJ complains everyone is making fun of her, yet they all believe she is being oversensitive. Allison notes that just like the crossword puzzle and origami, when it gets tough, she wants to bail.
It seems that when things were going well for TJ she felt under attack, perhaps feeling like she was being made fun of and not understood just like when she was younger. I'm sure the life coaches and Dr. Stan will help smooth all this out, but it's going to be a long road to travel getting TJ to overcome her insecurities and fears based on her disabilities.
Who do you think will be the first woman to graduate? Email me at LauraBelle@realityshack.com
|
|
