Month: March 2019

One Small Step At A Time

rubberbandsandchewinggum4 Comments

Time seems to be motoring on doesn’t it?…Thank god! I am so over Winter now. I can’t even explain how much happier I feel since the sun came out this week and we’ve had a few solid days of blue skies here in the UK (well, where I am at least). January felt unending but honestly I don’t even know where March has gone?…

Today I received a text from a friend whom I had met for a coffee last Wednesday saying how nice it had been to catch up and sorry it’d taken a week for her to acknowledge that. My response was, ‘A week? Already?! I’m such a headless chicken right now! So lovely to see you and thank you for the lovely treat. See you soon!’…S and I usually meet up for coffee every couple of months but when we were chatting realised it had been well before Christmas that we had last got together.

I am usually pretty good at sending people messages after I’ve seen them to say how much I enjoyed spending time with them and yet somehow I have barely blinked, a week has passed, and there I am belatedly thanking someone for taking me out for my birthday! It’s not like me at all.

My blog is completely falling by the wayside, too. I can’t believe there was ever a time when I had space in my week to write one or two posts here each week. Now I hurriedly type something in order that I don’t forget where I am at. This is meant to be my mental health/therapy journal of sorts – but lately I feel I am missing a good deal of ‘content’ because I haven’t time to get it down on the page…and then when I do get a minute I forget what’s happened or how I felt when reflecting back – how much of that is dissociation and how much of that is goldfish memory is anyone’s guess!

I miss having a couple of quiet hours in an afternoon to sit at my laptop and write, drink coffee, and splurge my emotional stuff – pain pain pain ugh! Having said that, the one thing that has come of being so busy all the time (other than being perpetually tired!) is that there is much less time to fester on the attachment stuff during in the daytime AND THIS IS VERY GOOD NEWS. Lately, before I even know it, it’s either Monday or Friday and it’s time to see Em again and I can’t get fully engulfed in the attachment pain.

Don’t get me wrong – the attachment stuff is still there BIG TIME bubbling under the surface (Still a long way to go to earned secure attachment!), and sometimes it is bloody agonising/debilitating …but because I have so much to cram in I can’t get swallowed up by my feelings in the way that I have done in the past. I used to mope about hanging on between my sessions literally counting down the days (minutes!) to when I could see Em and felt as though I would die from the pain of being away from her (not joking) – now I have to get on with my ‘professional’ life and hold the young feelings as best I can. Sometimes I am successful at it – sometimes I fall flat on my face/arse/both.

To be honest, what seems to happen is the days are largely ok, I’m aware of the parts feeling sad and can give that some space but put it to one side… and then when I get tired and it’s close to bedtime the younger more needy feelings come up to the surface and I feel really quite sad. I miss Em. I suspect that is quite common.

Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to talk about – love the fact that I am saying how I have no time to write and then essentially write bog all for loads of paragraphs!

Soooo…..where am I?

Right now I feel upbeat-ish which I appreciate is a bit of a (huge) sea change from all the stuff I was talking about in my recent post. That either makes me properly fucking bonkers or clearly demonstrates how quickly feelings can move in and out for me. The other week I felt stuck fast in the pit of attachment pain and now… well… I don’t – not really- or certainly not in the same way as I did…and why is this?

Guess?

Because of a twenty minute conversation with my therapist!

I wish I was able to remember that when things feel bad talking about them with Em usually helps! Like duh -that’s what’s meant to happen. Unfortuantely, I seem to be hard-wired to protect myself from her – well – protect myself from being hurt by her and so we do this little dance back and forth every few months….almost like clockwork. Or, more realistically AROUND THE BLOODY THERAPY BREAKS!

The few months from January to March were pretty hard so far as painful attachment feelings went. One shit dream where Em was misattuned and seemingly abandoning sent me deep into my real life tortoise shell in my sessions. I was stuck in that place where I doubted Em, struggled to trust her, and felt disconnected which meant that sessions were ‘fine’ on the surface for a while whilst competent adult showed up and sent smoke signals to hide what was going on underneath. But before long, as things spiralled downwards, full on dissociation took hold and therapy was really really tough. I wanted to connect (that’s all I ever want) but I couldn’t and I felt like Em wasn’t seeing me because I wasn’t allowing her in. Of course, when I am in hiding I also feel like she is keeping me at arm’s length and so it’s a negative spiral where I feel increasingly disconnected.

NOT GOOD.

Anyway. Em and I did quite a lot of talking around the issue for a few weeks, i.e acknowledging that there was difficult stuff that needed to be talked about. I think sometimes those laying the groundwork sessions can feel frustrating because like, really, why can’t I just spit it out already? Why do I need to keep doing flypasts to check it’s safe to land. However, that is how it is, and eventually, after checking everything was safe enough I finally asked if I could show Em my book…not all of it….just the last picture I had drawn:

And whilst handing that image over was a big deal in the moment, in the big scheme of things this is really nothing compared with some of what I have shared with her over the years.

The response?

Exactly what I needed to hear. Em used the voice (you know the one!) and really ‘talked’ to me. She acknowledged what I was saying in the picture and how it relates to what I have said many times before – and she really understood how I was struggling with what was going on in the room between us. That the relationship, for me, has been the hardest thing. She held up her hands and took some of the ‘responsibility’ (her word) for skirting round the issue sometimes. She told me that she realises that there have been times where she has said or done things that haven’t met me where I am at, have been misattuned, and that at times this has meant I have been left feeling really horrible at the end of the session and having to carry that on my own and of course that understandably makes it really hard to open up because the fear (that was already huge) has had some level of reinforcement before.

That’s the long and short of it.

Basically, it was one of those moments where you get real human connection, you realise you are both human and absolutely doing your best but sometimes it falls short…on both sides…and that has been enough to make me feel anchored in the relationship and like she really does care.

It seems nuts really that I have been in hiding for months and a simple twenty minute ‘proper’ vulnerable conversation sorted it out….FOR NOW…because we all know this stuff has a habit of coming back round again….like in a few weeks when it’s her Easter holiday.

HELP!

So, we ran out of time that session but agreed to try and keep the connection and communication going – even if it was hard. She asked me to try and tell her when I felt disconnected or that she was misattuned even though it is really hard to in the moment. I left feeling so much lighter.

Part of me wanted to jump into the next session and show her more of the book but actually, another part just wanted to talk without an agenda. And that is what has happened. The last two sessions have been really nice. On Friday I showed Em the YouTube video that I posted here with the failed divers. It was good to lighten the mood and laugh together – but also to try and explain why I made the analogy with my therapy.

I feel like I have an A for effort but an E for execution so far as therapy goes. I turn up every week. I want to do the work….but fuck… most of the time it’s not a smooth move! Em told me that it wasn’t a performance and that I could be just how it is. On some level I know that but that also requires a level of vulnerability that I just can’t achieve.

Sooooo…to Monday and an unexpectedly HUGE session. Again, I just sat down, no real agenda, and started blathering on about work and then suddenly a load of buried stuff came out about early in my career missing a student with anorexia and the guilt that I still feel for ‘failing her’. Anyway, that developed into a massive conversation about when and how my eating disorder started in my teens. My ED is something I struggle to get to in my therapy (especially after the nightmare that happened last year) but somehow I could talk about it this week and god, it’s been so long buried, it was good to give it some light and air.

Whilst Em and I didn’t talk about our relationship at all – which has been ‘the big thing’ bugging me lately, strangely it’s kind of not front and centre at the minute. Talking about this ‘old but huge thing’ was incredibly connecting. Sharing something so personal and guarded and having it responded to kindly and with empathy was soooooo connecting.

So yeah, it’s a weird one right now. There are all kinds of things going on and there are certainly some more big (scary!) conversations to be had but right now I am optimistic about it all.

But don’t let me fool you into thinking everything is rosy in the internal landscape of yours truly. Hell no! That’s not how it is. So, it was bad from January to March because I felt unseen and disconnected from Em – booooo hiss!! BUT NOW because I feel connected to Em I feel really needy and just have that ache to be close to her. Oh the joys of attachment eh?!

FFS! Gimme a break!!! Haha…just remember this:

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Count Down To Feelings Splurge

rubberbandsandchewinggum6 Comments

So, here I am again …mild panic….deep breathing… on the verge of another big splurge of attachment pain in therapy tomorrow. Oh the shame! What I am feeling right now, and is just about to blow open again, has been building steadily since I had a horrible dream in January where my therapist basically flat out ignored me causing a huge rupture (in the dream!). The details aren’t really important but since that dream that niggly doubting part that struggles to trust Em and feels like she doesn’t really care has been grumbling away in the background.

Of course this mistrusting, angsty part is not the only part that gets activated when the negative attachment stuff (fears of being abandoned and rejected) starts swirling closer to the surface; the younger, clingy, needy parts that just desperately want to be loved are really going for it inside too. It’s such a battleground…and oh my god it’s exhausting.

It’s funny really. I can go months without dreaming about Em at all and then when the attachment button gets wedged on she is on my waking and sleeping mind pretty much all the time. It’s embarrassing and just plain ugh. I have my adult life to be getting on with, which is hectic and consuming enough without little ones inside feeling like they need to be within 3ft of my therapist at all times …and even then that’s not really close enough – I wish I could say that there wasn’t a part that wants to crawl into her lap and go to sleep! Then there’s the teen parts saying it’s time to cut and run because it’s all a crock of shit and Em is just someone we pay to listen to us and there IS NO RELATIONSHIP. I mean for fuck’s sake…this stuff is getting so old now!

The only thing that is better now is that I can see it for what is it now. I recognise the process and every time I come at this stuff it’s from a slightly different angle. Adult me diligently attends my sessions and we go through the process over and over and over until one day maybe something will be healed. And healing has been happening – in small increments. Each time we have the difficult but healing conversations a different part hears what’s being said and little by little I start to internalise a felt sense of being safe in the therapeutic relationship. Strangely though, this sense of things being ok ebbs over time depending on what’s going on with different parts. Adult me knows everything is ok but the younger parts repeatedly hit black ice and start sliding.

Em and I have been edging towards another of those ‘big’ conversations for a while now – laying the foundations for the work: alluding to big wounds and shame and embarrassment and all that jazz. There’s been a lot of dissociation but also a lot of explaining my process when I find my way back into my window (letter box!) of tolerance…and this is huge progress. I don’t just sit there in silence and in agony now…. I can, to some extent, explain the agony even if I can’t say why I am in agony! We can track the body reactions and the feelings….even if I can’t just say ‘this all comes from me wanting to be close to you’.

The other week Em asked me how I felt about things now we have been having two sessions a week fpr the last six months, and oh my god – it was horrendous. The body reaction was huge. I felt like I was going to vomit and then after a few minutes went completely numb and into my safe space. So much for giving up dissociation for Lent! We talked at length about what was going on and how every time we get close to talking about our relationship it stirs up a huge feelings. I can talk about really difficult things from my past and be fine but the moment we edge closer to what’s going on with us in the relationship- I’m gone!

We both know there is work to be done there but it’s a case of how we do it. Em made reference to staring at the sun the other day and how we can’t do it for too long because it’s too painful and maybe we can do it slowly. She also said something about letting the big  (mother)wound breathe little by little so it can heal rather than keep ripping the plaster, exposing it thoroughly so that any contact with anything feels like salt being poured in the wound and it being excruciating. I totally see what she is saying. It makes sense….

I’m definitely more of an ‘avoid- avoid- avoid- avoid- avoid- avoid….big running bomb and huge splash into the attachment wound let it all out in one go’ type therapy client. Ha. And that’s where I am now. I told Em on Friday that I have been avoiding talking to her about ‘stuff’ (code for the attachment feelings) because it’s so unbelievably painful. So we both know where we are heading. We’ve been here enough times before and yet every time I feel like I have a big thing to get off my chest it’s as though I am saying it for the first time.

To be clear here – basically the THING that chokes me for weeks or even months at a time is the loving feelings I have towards Em. Sometimes I sit in session and I just want to tell her I love her, I am grateful to her, and that I appreciate her. That shouldn’t be so fucking hard should it?- after all these years – but it really is. Because there are other (younger) parts that love her in a completely different way…that all-consuming way a child loves its mother and that’s where the shame comes in. All of it makes me feel sick. There is so much I want to say but it get sooooooo complicated.

I reach a point though, where I can’t avoid the work and even though it is fucking hellish being told, in the kindest way possible, that this is a therapeutic relationship and there are needs that can’t be met now but we can process the loss and pain together….PUKE! – it has to be done.

I bought a notebook after my (horrid) dream in January and I started writing down dreams and odd bits and bobs. The idea was I would take it to therapy and unpick it bit by bit rather than ending up texting stuff. I haven’t text Em in a long time but when the attachment/love stuff gets active that need to connect outside the session gets stronger. I thought the book would be a good tool. It has been coming in my bag to therapy but hasn’t made it out yet!

(You can’t make this shit up!)

In the last week I’ve written loads. It’s gone mad inside and I have been writing and doodling stuff – because it’s all starting to make its way to the surface…and then I ended up texting Em the picture below… So, tomorrow the plan is to try and make a start on this stuff properly….

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After I text the picture I ended up writing round this drawing I literally let it all out:

  • This is the worst week in a long time
  • Anxiety has ramped up since I text you this image (above)
  • Shame has gone insane because the need is huge
  • The attachment-related pain (stomach ache and tearfulness) are stuck on
  • I feel emotionally vulnerable
  • It’s as though the avoidance and coping strategies have gone offline and I’m left with that gaping wound
  • I am both desperate to see you and terrified of seeing you
  • I don’t want to dissociate on Friday but know it’s really likely because you will undoubtedly ask me about what prompted me to text you…and then the shame will flood in and I’ll be gone
  • I can’t bear the boundary talk again
  • When you try to normalise my feelings I feel even more pathetic. It’s as though you’ve seen this stuff a million times before and it’s almost scientific to you. This makes me feel really sad because it essentially confirms what the critical voice is always shouting: ‘the relationship isn’t real and there is no connection – it’s all just transference’ This makes me feel sad because you really matter to me and yet it’s stupid to feel anything at all when this is clearly just another example of the same process to you. I could be anyone.
  • I desperately want to connect but what is there to connect to? -NOTHING. That makes me want to run away.
  • Why do I keep doing this to myself?
  • Why do I keep hoping that one day something is going to shift and change?
  • It’s so unbelievably painful…this is why I don’t talk!!
  • Talking about our relationship is really painful for me because I am so aware of the lack of relationship.
  • I feel ashamed for needing you
  • I feel embarrassed that I care so much about someone who is just doing their job
  • Every time we talk about this  I feel like I am being kicked in the stomach and being rejected – it really hurts
  • I hate that you have all the power
  • I hate that it makes no difference to you whether I see you or not

WOWZERS …. there it all is! Yikes….

And then we had Friday’s session and it was ok and she didn’t give me the boundary talk and instead said something about us both knowing there were things on the periphery that need talking about that don’t make it fully into the room but that she gets the sense they are not on the periphery when I am out of the room….

uh huh

yep

and that spawned this when I got home:

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And that, my friends, is where I am at right now. Crazy is notched up to a solid 9 on the scale after several months of being a 4!

I guess we’ll just see how it all goes … it’s all part of the process. Man I love therapy 😉

I’m Giving Up Dissociation For Lent!

rubberbandsandchewinggum5 Comments

‘I’m giving up dissociation for Lent!’ …Ah if only leaving my unconscious ‘go to’ coping strategy behind were as easy as giving up chocolate for the next forty days… actually, giving up chocolate would be a huge stretch, too, so I don’t know why I am even saying that!

I’m not religious (at all) and so the title of this post was sarcastic rather than a real thing – and please don’t be offended by the tone of the post if you are religious- it’s not meant as a dig I am just thinking out loud and scratching my head about where I am at right now.

I always kind of wonder about why other heathen non-believers like myself seem to jump on this particular time period and say they’re foregoing something until Easter. Like what’s so special about Lent? I wonder if the idea of withholding from ourselves is so engrained that we think, ‘ah, yes, I can punish myself for a protracted period of time’. Let’s face it, most of us don’t need an event in the Christian calendar to revel in self-denial and penance. We are perpetually listing our failings and, for the anorexic eating disordered among us, fasting is second nature.

Maybe Lent is too easy then?

Maybe it’s the convenient timing too?

These days we are so fixated on body image – I’m sure it’s about now that the glossy magazines start bleating on about how to achieve ‘the ultimate bikini body’ (FYI you basically have to put a bikini on your existing body but that’s not what they pedal is it?!) – that maybe we see Lent as a time to shed those winter pounds we gained. It’s become diet season so why not have a running jump at losing the muffin top? I dunno.

Look, I totally get that seeing the next six weeks as a sort of weightloss challenge is a bastardisation of the original purpose – but this is what I am wondering about – like why when you don’t do organised religion does Lent seem to be a ‘thing’? For those people that are religious I understand it – makes sense – and I’m betting most people of faith aren’t simply shunning bars of Galaxy until Easter.

Anyway, moving on…a bit…I have been thinking about self-care, strangely, in relation to Lent. I give self-care a wave every now and then but, frankly, am pretty poor at looking after myself. I seem to come somewhere right down the bottom of the pile for care: kids, wife, other people, my animals, the dying orange at the back of the fridge, and then somewhere a little further along the line is me.

It’s strange.

I get that self-care is a REALLY GOOD THING and NECESSARY if you don’t want to be a complete knackered wreck/basketcase and yet I really struggle to prioritise my needs and myself. There’s a part of me that sees looking after myself as selfish… rationally I know that is totally fucked up but it is how I feel.

There is certainly a part of me that thinks I don’t deserve to be happy, to be looked after, to rest, or be a normal weight….and we all know who that is: the Inner Critic. I know that part of me has been doing her best over the last 25+ years to protect me and keep me functioning but these days, her ideas of how to keep me safe and working don’t really work. Trying to be perfect, stretching myself beyond my limits, and starving myself don’t really lead to things being ok or safe. I know that.

I have been really aware of my body again these last couple of weeks. You know how it is, that niggling thing where you look in the mirror and notice all the flaws – that extra couple of pounds you put on over Christmas seems to have welded itself to your hips and won’t budge…(even though you’ve done nothing to help budge it other than will it away!). And I think this is why Lent is winding me up a bit as I see people choosing now to start dieting again because actually my brain is scheming and saying, ‘Go on, jump on board with it too, here’s your opportunity, you can legitimately hide behind Lent to cover your eating disorder for the next couple of months – give up sugar…or EVERYTHING and you can lose that weight that’s been driving you mad for the last three months’.

See, this is not good which is why I am just blathering on here. I am aware of how careful I need to be when my mind starts considering any kind of restriction because it never leads anywhere good. I know I need to have a conversation with my therapist about these feelings but I feel kind of moronic talking about not eating when I am actually eating and am as close to a normal BMI as I have ever been.

It’s sad that there’s some critical voice that is saying, ‘you can’t talk about not eating when you are this weight and eating food! Like seriously, look at you, you’re fat!’ Of course I do know that this is exactly the time I need to be mentioning these feelings in therapy – BEFORE things start to spiral downwards and the ED mindset kicks in and the secrecy and denial becomes the fronting part. I don’t want to end up in the place I ended up last year  and when Em issued an Ultimatum.

I also need to work out why I am feeling like I need to take control in this particular way again. It isn’t because of Lent! 😉 I know it has something to do with the level of dissociation I have been experiencing lately. I had a crazy bad dissociative session last Friday and I know it’s because I have been edging closer to the Mother Wound again. When the young parts are a bit more present or want to come to therapy it generally doesn’t go well – not because Em says or does anything wrong, but because other parts step up to protect me from being vulnerable (or stupid!). That huge need for connection and care so easily triggers feelings of shame as well as fear of being abandoned for being too much that it just sends me into orbit. I get sucked out the room. It’s horrid.

Fortunately, Em and I were able to do some good work on Monday where I was able to stay in the window of tolerance and start to unpick some of what has been going on. Em herself said something about the fact that there is a massive painful wound that sometimes gets exposed and is so incredibly raw that it is too much to bear so I cover it over with a plaster – only it doesn’t heal when it’s covered. So the deal is we are going to try and very very gently let a little bit of air get to the wound and let it start to heal in tiny increments…and try and understand the shame too. (This is not new news by the way, it’s just we are repeating it again!)

I don’t really know what I am trying to say with this post, but basically, I think if I am going to try and give up anything for Lent then it has to be being horrible to myself and defeating myself. Rather than giving up something I enjoy (although to be fair I think the Critic is a bit of a sadist and enjoys being mean!) I am going to try and use the next few months to be kinder to myself. I am going to try really hard to trust in my therapeutic relationship with Em and accept and believe that after seven years she is still there, steady, and constant and caring…I do not need to be frightened of her. She is safe.

What am I giving up for Lent? A lifetime of bad habits that hurt me. Perhaps some of you can do the same.

EEEK! I’m beginning to wish I’d stuck with chocolate! x

 

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