So, the title says it all doesn’t it?… Elle came back off her break last week and, honestly, by the time the therapy break was up, I was in a completely horrible place emotionally. It’s not really any great surprise that everything tanked. I knew this first break with my newest/latest therapist was going to dredge up all kinds of shit – and it REALLY did. It certainly hasn’t helped that my last three therapists have all ended the therapy after a therapy break and so the sense of anticipatory dread about what would happen when Elle came back (if she came back) was intense.
Because I have been in such a bad place mentally – definitely neck deep in a depressive episode (only realised this today!)- I spent a good part of the break second guessing myself, driving myself mad, going round in circles and wondering whether or not I should send Elle the link to the last post I wrote. Part of me thought it might help her understand me a bit better and another part thought it would give her ammunition to cut and run, hence the mental gymnastics!
But, as I have been massively struggling with opening up in my sessions or, rather, have been completely unable to go anywhere near the stuff about Anita (which is absolutely tearing me apart), I eventually decided that it was better to throw a grenade into the mix now and see what the outcome was (if I’m too much better to know) rather than be in hiding and the outcome be the same only a few months and several hundred pounds further down the line.
Another reason I decided to send the blog was because every time I have thought that I might be able to venture towards this really vulnerable, painful stuff in session something has happened to throw me off course and I’ve taken us off in a completely different direction. It doesn’t take much at all. I am so sensitive to feeling rejected or abandoned now that it’s going to take a lot to feel safe enough to be vulnerable with Elle and as much as I really like her, I don’t trust her – at least not with those particular fragile parts of me. I wrote this the other day – this is what I need to say, in part – but it’s too fucking scary:
Look, I really need to take off my armour and have you witness what’s hurting inside because I feel really alone, and I can’t carry on like this. The thing is, I have been encouraged to take off my armour before. Things have been ok when I have taken my helmet off and just exposed my head, but when I have taken off my breast plate the person who told me my heart was safe has run at me with a dagger and stabbed me. There’s a serious wound that needs attention but the thought of exposing that makes me very scared because I think I’ll die if it happens again. My heart just won’t survive another dagger through it.
I also thought it would be good for her to see that blog because it talked about how I had felt about how I had experienced her in the room texting and forgetting to record the last session before the break. Of course, in the ideal world, I would be able to bring that to the session because it’s not that big a deal and any therapist that’s half-way decent can surely manage that…but… I can’t believe how many steps backwards I have taken since leaving Anita and it felt too big to bring to the room. All the things that I had worked so hard at: being able to express how I felt in the moment, to talk about things that hurt or felt off, feeling safe with another person who is meant to help, it’s all just gone now. I feel so unbelievably anxious about therapy. I am absolutely terrified of being found lacking/too much and being sent on my way again.
I thought if I gave her the head’s up pre-session it would give her time to think about it and perhaps give her something to help open the session after the break because I would most certainly be in tortoise mode!
Elle sends text reminders the day before our session and when I received that I sent the link to my post. I hadn’t wanted to send it until I was sure she was back from her break…because, you know…boundaries…! The moment I hit send I immediately felt very very ill. It was like the old days with Em. Absolute terror flooded my system. I felt like I had done something wrong and that there would be ‘consequences’. I have such a lot thank Em for don’t I?! Elle has never given me any cause to think this, but as I said, I had got myself so worked up over the break that I just wasn’t functioning in a very effective way at all.
It got worse and worse as it crept closer to the session. I woke up at 1am on Tuesday morning and had a massive panic attack. Elle didn’t acknowledge my email at all on Monday and so I woke up in panic and basically catastrophised in my head until it got light thinking that she was set to have a ‘difficult conversation’ the next day. I could really have done with some kind of, ‘thanks for this, look forward to seeing you tomorrow and talking this through’ from her but it was radio silence until the session on Tuesday and, honestly, I just wanted the ground to swallow me whole when I arrived. I was absolutely bricking it. The therapy shits were back (haven’t missed those I can tell you!). So, yeah, all in all it was absolutely awful.
As I waited for Elle to come and get me, my heart was racing, and I thought I was going to be sick. She opened the door and seemed…like Elle. I sat down…she looked like Elle. A couple of minutes went by, she grabbed the recorder and turned it on and said nothing. My brain was in a spin. Had she read the blog? Had she suddenly remembered to get the recorder because of the blog? Or had she not read it and just remembered, but forgotten that she’d forgotten to record before the break? I guess if she’d read the blog, she’d have had the recorder ready, wouldn’t she?… anyway I was trying to make sense of what was happening and where we were at. She said nothing about the blog and didn’t ask about the break…so I inferred that she hadn’t read the post because I feel like that was the map for the session and there was no mention whatsoever.
And that set off another reaction in me. Well, inside at least. My face gave nothing away.
For fuck’s sake RB!
I had been so anxious about telling Elle all that stuff, it was exposing but I really felt like she needed to see/know it…and she had chosen not to read it. Oh, good, we’re back into Em territory – just ignore me. My mum is currently in an ‘ignore me’ phase too, so it felt especially triggering alongside Anita’s ‘barely there’ replies to my messages. All in all, I just felt utterly shit, unseen, and circling the drain of ‘no one really cares’. I don’t know why it’s so hard. Like I am not a shit person and yet I feel like I really just don’t matter at all. Like I can’t even pay for someone to care.
I told Elle early on that breaks are a massive issue for me, so blog or not, I am surprised that she didn’t bring it up. I really get that lots of therapists are client led, but I really feel like in this early phase of the therapy I could use a bit of handholding. I feel like a therapy novice again and just don’t know what the fuck to do or say. Like I am doing brilliantly with False Adult and talking A LOT but inside it’s absolute carnage. I feel like I am some kind of glitching hologram. I am desperately trying to figure out ‘how’ and ‘who’ to be in the room to be deemed good enough to stay. I sometimes hear myself and just feel like I am incredibly boring and moaning. I feel like Elle must be watching the clock – because the version of me in the room is fucking tedious.
I honestly don’t know what to do. I know my advice to anyone else would be ‘try and take this to your therapist’…but I am trying to in the only way I can right now and I’m not being met where I am at.
I feel so fucking crap.
As I said, it dawned on me (finally) today that I am depressed. I have been battling with such a lot since May (and longer really) and I just feel so completely at sea now. I feel like I can’t even write properly. My brain is just a miserable fog. I’m spending hours and hours mindlessly scrolling through social media but not engaging. Anything that requires the slightest bit of attention span is a total fail. I can’t tell you how many times I have checked my phone even writing this but can’t even bring myself to proof-read it. I feel so lost. I want to sleep but can’t. I want to rest but my brain won’t stop freaking out. I have absolutely no motivation whatsoever. I need to cry but I have buried my feelings so deep right now because no one is safe enough to feel them with and I can’t manage alone anymore.
It’s crap…so crap.
I keep going to therapy. I keep trying. I keep saying how I need to connect with Elle…and we do…on a level. BUT it’s not the level I need. I’m not talking about hugs and all that stuff – although I am really feeling the ache from not being held by Anita – I feel like Elle and I need a conversation about ‘us’ like what is ‘this’ in the room.
Maybe we’ll get there eventually. I dunno. It’s all just so unbelievably exhausting. I need her now – like this week – but I don’t know her yet … and until I know her I don’t think I’ll trust her with me.
I wish someone would come and find me in the dark because it’s horrible here.
Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum 
I remember comparing pre-therapy shit experiences with you in the past! Commiserations that you’re experiencing it at the moment. I’m glad Elle was the same in the room, but I wish that she had broached the subject to show that she had read the email and to follow up from what she already knew about you in terms of how you experience breaks. The trouble is, you are both still in the early days I suppose, and perhaps it will be a slow burn? I’m hoping for you, this will really work out though I’ve begun to wonder whether any therapist really can last for too long without something going slightly awry (read that as badly wrong). I suspect that, simply the act of being a therapist, doesn’t automatically make you immune to the fact you are a human with all the frailty and difficulties that any relationship is bound to have. Really, honestly, I don’t know how it works but I do know I wish for you that well will not be an E or an A, but will be a long term sustaining therapist for you, as long as you want her to be 🤞🤗
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Sorry to muscle in on RB’s post (sorry RB, I know you’ll understand) but it’s nice to see you LS. I hope things are better now. Are you safer and Ok?
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JH! Long time no see! Are you still knocking around these four walls too?! Great to see you and I’ve done a couple of updates this year which I thought you had access to, I do have your email don’t I? I’m hoping I let you know but if I don’t have your email, it’s the old passwords, only seriously locked down now 😊
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LS!! Can you send me the password? I am also glad to “see” you and wonder how you are and how you all got on. I hope all is well! ❤️
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Slantgirl! So good to hear from you. You are the one whose email I did have, and I checked last night that I had sent you one last year, and I did! I’ll send it again now, and if you don’t get it within the hour come back and let me know because it means I don’t have your correct email address. You didn’t reply the last time, but I just assumed you were busy or perhaps don’t check emails that often, but it could be that I haven’t got the right email. I’d like to though! 🤗❤️
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My reply disappeared and I wonder if you have the same email from last June when I last emailed you? I’ll try and email you again tonight 🤗
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Thanks LS. I hope so too. Although I still don’t know if she’s going online in December… I feel like I’ve been in a hit and run accident over and over and am beginning to wonder if I should just become a recluse! I do really like E but I am struggling such a lot and she’s got no clue….or I don’t think she has. Hope all well your end. x
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NOOOO… not online! Why on earth would she do that?! It’s a positive that you like E but I can really understand your struggle and it makes sense to find it hard to be open until she’s proven herself safe for you. I hope she does very, very soon 🤗❤️
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I guess cutting commute, saved costs of room etc. I understand the wfh driver but it’s not ideal for therapy. Some people love it but I’m not one of those people! Once she’s made a decision either way I’ll feel better. I think I’m wary to open up when there’s a possibility she won’t ‘be there’… it’s all a minefield!
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Oh that’s completely understandable, I’d feel exactly the same. What’s the point in narrowing down your search to a local person if they’re gonna be online on a World Wide Web instead of in the same room? I’m amazed it’s considered as helpful therapeutically. So many of the micro expressions and body language must be lost online. It’s just not the same connection in my mind. It really is a minefield! It’s wise to not open up if she’s going to be gone by December though, if you can’t do online. Ugh. What a nightmare!
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Yeah. I think for particular clients working on particular things it can be very useful .. but I always experience as massively disconnecting and like a still face exercise. I knew this was a possibility when I met her but she is by far and away the best fit for me in my area…and I’m hoping we can figure a way forward if she does go wholly online. Ultimately, I just feel so bloody sad that A is gone. I’ve lost such a lot. It feels so hard picking myself up and trying again – especially after Hannah! Maybe I ought to just give it all up as a bad job!
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(Not sure if you meant to write the whole name?)
I’ve always experienced exactly the same way you do, so I do understand what you’re saying. Don’t give up though, it might never happen or there might be some way through for there to be some kind of exemption, I don’t know maybe walking in therapy or something like that? Not ideal for the kind of therapy that you have there with the book reading and hugs, and with the winter looming, most people would look at twice I think. I’m not surprised you’re still grieving the loss of A, you’ve barely had a chance to surface to breathe, let alone process what just happened out of the blue like that.
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What Hannah? She’s the one that I saw for eight sessions before Elle and then got dumped because of the blog. That’s not her name, though. I don’t know what’ll happen with Elle tbh. I feel like I am in survival at the moment and just trying not to drown week to week. I can’t process what’s happened with A – it’s so raw and so unfinished. I honestly can’t believe she’s done this to me. I always fear people will abandon me but I never for one minute thought A would leave…I believed her promises. What a fool!
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You’re far from being a fool. We all revelled in your most excellent therapy with you… and standing by you as we witness it disintegrate when nobody thought it would.
It’s the original wound resurfacing and feels very cruel. I so much hope Elle will help. Sorry, I’d forgotten about Hannah but now you mention it I definitely recall the blog problem she had. I must have blocked it out as it beggars belief! Oh RBCG, I wish I could find a solution for you but all I can do is strongly wish you all good things and tell you that I know it’s a cliche, but it really is them and not you!
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Thank you LS. I keep trying to hang on to that. It may not be a ‘me’ problem but it is certainly me left holding the broken pieces. Sometimes it feels so desperately unfair. Like, I get Em being crap at the end and not coping with the attachment stuff, but we never had the kind of relationship A and I had. So for A to just leave like this…. I can’t get my head round it. She said she actually cared…but you don’t do this to someone you love.
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Hey RB…no Ben and Jerrys for me today but fruit pie and fresh cream! 😋
Do you think you can send a pre therapy email this week – I’ve found that they don’t always respond except to the very specific, in the room, conversations. Some kind of “this is what I need you to know. Will you please ask me a/b/c?” “If I just waffle, will you please ask me if Im hiding behind general chat?” Maybe cut and paste certain parts from this blog?
Keep digging away, you’ll get there. It takes a lot of time for you both to get to know each other.
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I don’t know. I feel like I am already so burnt that every time I reach out and something like this happens I get more and more reluctant to try again. I feel like a completely different person to the one who was doing therapy with A. Like I could say anything and express anything…but then look how that worked out. It’s just all terribly hard. The Tony’s special edition Ben and Jerry’s is incredible. Try it x
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Oh RB this all sounds so incredibly awful. I do hope your insides find calm in the next little while. Sending big heaps of love to you…xx
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Thanks darling. It’s tough. I am having so many nightmares when I sleep now – and today I woke up crying my eyes out… it’s pretty awful and there just doesn’t seem anywhere to feel safe. How are you holding up? x
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Sooo weird that she didn’t mention it?! D: perhaps somehow she just missed the message? Gosh … this sounds terribly uncomfortable and painful and so so hard to navigate 😔 and confusing too …
Sending the big love. Relationships are hard and trauma is hard and relationships built around trauma are just … gosh … too much for the heart 😦
Sending all the big love and care x
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Honestly I have no idea what’s going on. All I can guess is she either missed the email or chose not to read it … although I am surprised given the title she would choose to ignore it and not mention the break at all when we met. It’s left me feeling quite confused really. I am struggling to find a way to get to this stuff in the room and I’m really struggling with anxiety at the moment – nightmares and waking up in tears etc. It feels pretty shit. Thank you for the love and care – always very gladly received. x
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My heart was racing along with yours as I read this. I know the feelings of thinking you’re coming back from a break to bad news. Why do therapists always do that?! 🤦🏻♀️ I can’t believe she didn’t even mention the email. There’s every possibility that she hasn’t seen it I suppose but I think that’s dubious. There’s something in what you’ve written which gives me the feeling that she was waiting for you to bring it up and ask if she’d seen it and because you didn’t, she didn’t. Did you feel that too? I think that’s kind of unfair for a new client though.
I’m so sorry you’re going through all this. You will get there with Elle I think. She sounds a lot like my T in the early days. It hurts the little parts but just hang on, it’s the way safety is built. I’d be so concerned if she was hugging you and giving you all that Anita did this early in therapy. You’ve just been hurt. My guess is that you’re like a frightened abandoned puppy under a table and while puppy would love her teach in and pull it out, puppy would also bite her hand off of she tried because puppy has learnt love and affection = pain. She’s probably sat on the floor in the same room as the puppy, being quiet, with a treat on the floor, letting the puppy come out from under the table in her own time. When puppy gets close, she’ll maybe hold a treat out and see if puppy wants to take it out of her hand. She won’t try to pet the puppy until the puppy shows behavioural signs of being comfortable. I want to believe that this is what she’s doing for you, even though it sucks for the parts that need her to help you get over Anita, she won’t force connection on the puppy just yet. That’s how my therapist was with me at first. Even when I was asking for hugs and desperate for her love, she knew that was only 1 part of me… Other parts needed to trust her too.
Having said that, I do think a balance needs to be struck between sitting and waiting for you to come to her and reaching out towards you. Responding to the email would be the equivalent of tossing a treat nearer to the puppy so the puppy doesn’t have to come all the way from under the table, just a little, then a little further and so on.
I hope things settle and you find your feet with Elle soon hunny. These early days in a new therapy just after an abandonment trauma are AWFUL, I can remember them well. Hang on hunny, I have my fingers and toes crossed for you that it will get better and I’m hoping Elle is just taking the time necessary for trust and care to develop xxx
I did get your IG message btw. I’ll email you soon! xx
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Yeah, I agree…all of that. It’s so hard when the only way I have felt able to take a step towards her has been ignored/missed. After all that’s happened with Em, Anita, and Hannah it’s hardly surprising the room feels a bit bloody dicey. I feel like sending the blog was a massive exercise in trust and hugely exposing. To have it go unread/unacknowledged is hard. I have no idea what’s going on tbh. The sessions seem to go ok enough but I am really not good with the week between sessions and the lack of contact. It’s so tricky to navigate this because I just feel chronically ‘too much’. I feel like I need a bit of hand holding really… literally and metaphorically!
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