Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum

I’ve been procrastinating. A lot.

I meant to start this blog when I re-entered therapy with my old therapist in June 2016. We’d had a three year break and plenty had happened in the intervening time: a baby, a cancer diagnosis (chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hair loss – the whole nine yards), almost a mental breakdown.

I thought I’d start a blog as a way of keeping a record of what happened in my sessions and to chart my (hopeful) progress out of cancer, chaos and depression! Needless to say it’s now August 2017 and I haven’t posted anything.

I don’t know why I haven’t got round to writing. I’ve had plenty to say and no one to really share it with in the real world where I pretend to have my shit together and function. I put on a good show and unless I told you, you’d never know what a mess it is underneath the cool exterior but in truth, I really am holding it together with a bunch of rubber bands and chewing gum! It’s a little precarious to be sure. I feel like a crap swan: I’m not even really gliding along and my feet are going like the clappers beneath the surface just to stay afloat and keep moving forward.

The thing is, I may have been back in therapy for the last 14 months but actually it’s only really started to get ‘interesting’ (scary/terrifying) since Easter, in that I have started to really unpick things that I’ve been to afraid to even acknowledge before. I’ve also become aware of different parts of myself: Little Me (she’s about 2 years old), Four (her age), Seven, Eleven, The Teenager, and The Critic (a really mean bastard).

So I guess now is the time to start sharing with you lovely people on the internet because I need to let it out somewhere and talking through your therapy session isn’t run of the mill conversation at a playdate with small children- although part of me would love to see the faces of mums if I dropped the ‘so, I’m on a 22 day therapy break and I feel like I might die because my little parts are beside themselves and think they’ve been abandoned’.

To be honest, I’m a bit protective of my therapy so maybe that’s why I’ve had this blog page for ages and not said anything. Part of it is also because I wasn’t really sure what was wrong with me. I’ve been borderline depressed since I was a teenager. I have a history of self-harm and an eating disorder both of which I manage to varying degrees depending on how bad things feel.  I am a perfectionist. I don’t trust people. I feel alone most of the time even when in company. I’m highly sensitive. I like to be in control. I feel like I am not good enough. I have a dysfunctional relationship with my mother (who doesn’t?) … I mean basically I’m a high-functioning fuck up.

The deepest wounds I have are invisible and were formed in infancy and gouged further throughout my childhood and adolescence. Not many people understand what childhood attachment trauma is like, not many people have even heard of it (I hadn’t until therapy took a nose dive and I started doing some reading) but for those of you who do know exactly what I am talking about, this is for you too.

I have wanted to write and share my experience, what it’s like to have these wounds and what therapy is like as a result of this because I get the sense that therapy is quite challenging for most of us. I hope my experience makes you feel less alone even if it’s identifying with some really tough emotional stuff.

So here I am. Today. Taking the plunge. Here goes. Wish me luck.  It’s probably all going to be a bit haphazard but I’ll try my best to tell it like it is… and right now, ‘like it is’ is pretty hard. 8 days of the therapy break remain and: