Month: November 2023

Ghosted

rubberbandsandchewinggum53 Comments

I last saw Anita on June 2nd… five and a half months ago. It was an agonising ‘session’ (if you can even call it that). I realised that day, that no matter how much I wanted to stay and see her for another month, I simply couldn’t keep going when she wasn’t fit to be working or handle an ending effectively – she was in survival and winging it. It was simply too damaging to keep subjecting myself to that. Those couple of weeks after she returned from ‘the holiday that tanked’ and said we had to end were horrific. She was so ill, so stressed, and by the final week so much in self-protect that it was absolutely hideous to go and feel like the person I know and love so well had broken and checked out completely.

It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done – leaving it/her like that. My young parts were devastated…still are. Surely Anita in that state would be better than no Anita at all? Well, to them, yes, but my Adult self knew better (maybe). The level of distress it caused me, going to see, crying my heart out, falling apart, and then feeling like the person that was with me wasn’t even fully there or able to engage with my feelings about the situation because she was in survival was traumatising.

I’m sorry if this isn’t making much sense. It’s taking me ages to write this because thinking about it makes my stomach and chest go tight and I feel sick…it’s been so bad. The physical pain that gets triggered off the back of the emotion of it is so intense that I keep dissociating. I feel like I need to try and get this down but getting it on the page is hard because I lose focus mid-sentence and then when I read the sentences back my brain takes me away elsewhere.

Not ideal…but…

That is the reality…

Dissociation, I mean. It’s been particularly bad the last couple of days – I keep dropping things, misjudging space (walking into things), and then of course losing time…I feel like I am suspended between two worlds and can’t land fully in either.

That is the impact this (what the hell is this?) ‘end but not end’ has had. My brain is desperately trying to protect me from the hurt and pain. I guess it’s doing a good job. It just makes life really tricky. I feel like I am in a daze on a level but then in agony on another. I feel like I have third degree burns over my body and everything that touches me hurts. This is making therapy with Elle hard too. This week I have just wanted to run a million miles away from her because everything just hurts.

I wish I was more robust, less sensitive, *all the things* but I am not. I am someone who *feels* and loves *big*… and there is deep wounding and trauma … hence needing the therapy in the first place…and yet here I am dealing with another abandonment and rejection (with Anita) and my system is experiencing this as survival issue. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic. And the laugh is, I paid for all this! Being dumped by a friend or a lover is one thing – but mostly they aren’t professional at doing relationships, there’s no training on how to be friend…but therapists are trained professionals in relating. What’s happened with Anita is so weird because she hasn’t done her ‘job’ here – she hasn’t kept her professional hat on at all.

Anyway…get back to it RB.

All the way back in June, we left it that we’d be in touch properly after three months (September) and see how things were for Anita. If she was no better, then we’d come back and do a proper ending.  We said we’d spend some time to find a way of keeping connected even if the therapy was done. None of that felt great but it felt like it would at least honour all the work we’ve done and the relationship we had. Looking back, now, I realise there was no thought or provision for me in there. Of course I tried to put things in place to hold myself but Anita never once checked that I would be ‘ok’, or what I would do in this period knowing how badly I would struggle. It’s shit really. Like don’t therapists have a duty of care?

The laugh is, Anita was furious when I told her how Em had ended the therapy. She said the way she terminated was unethical, that Em was dangerous, and should have ensured there was an onward referral… The irony is not fucking lost on me now. And you know what? What Anita has done is ten million times worse than Em. Em was always cold and detached. What I wanted from her and what she was prepared to give were poles apart. Her tick comment and the total shitshow of an ending was really just the icing on the cake.

The therapy with Anita has been soooooo different from the very start. We met on such a deep level. The love and care were tangible. I am not crazy or too attached or delusional…the relationship is/was how I have presented it here. I haven’t made it up. I have every session recorded! So, the contrast from how it was to how it is now is utterly mind-blowing. I feel like I’ve got a whiplash injury. It’s been brutal.

At three months I sent Anita a short text message saying that I missed her and it was a quarter of year… She responded and told me that her inner child was having a really bad time and that she had changed her work into couples’ work because it was more head than heart (really?!). I didn’t push for a meeting, then, because she had told me things were no better for her and so reading between the lines, she’d still be unable to end properly. I knew it was definitely going to be an ending now, no going back to how it was, but I hoped at least at some point she’d be able/want to meet to do that…because it’s the right thing to do and it’s what we agreed!!

As the months have passed, I have tried really hard to give A space. I didn’t want to push her over the edge or further away with my ‘need’ because it’s everyone else’s needs being too much for her that sees her in this place (well, it’s more complex than that!) … but this of course, has meant that I have been left holding an awful lot. There’s been no end. No closure. No celebration of the work we did. It’s just been another situation where I have been dropped from a massive height and left trying to gather all my pieces together and soldier on. Every time the second of the month rolls around, I feel utterly bereft. I struggle to function in any meaningful way and just want to crawl into my emotional hell hole and die.

Don’t get me wrong, things are never good these days – it’s a daily struggle. Inside it’s awful and it’s getting worse as time goes on, not better. There is no sense of distance creating healing – rather, I’ve been hurtling downhill on the struggle bus and there’s no brakes. To say it’s scary is an understatement. I’m in a perpetual state of flight and it’s wreaking havoc with everything. I feel like I am living my life in some kind of bizarre alternate reality, or a movie…you know, like the Truman show or something. Nothing feels real and I am waiting for the ‘scene’ to end and regain some sense of being me again. Or perhaps not that…I don’t want to be stuck in this all too familiar version of me: the one that feels unsafe, lost, alone…unlovable…I want to go back to the one who felt held, safe, and functional the one who was starting to heal.

By not asking anything of Anita, or holding her to the agreement we made, I have been stuck in a kind of awful limbo since September. I really hoped things would improve for A but the reality is she won’t have changed all that much in her life and some of it is not possible to change. She’s still working, though, (ain’t that the kicker!) and although she swears it’s the long-term depth work that’s beyond her capacity, knowing her as I do, she’ll be hanging by a thread even doing what she’s doing.

I guess I just hoped that somehow, she’d want to find some way of not severing our connection altogether. I hoped that everything that she had said over the years was true: that she wouldn’t leave, that she loved me, that no matter what she was there for the journey, that she couldn’t let me go, that I was safe with her… you know the drill. And whilst I know no one can promise ‘forever’, I honestly never believed she could walk away and not look back. When I walked out her house in June we were not leaving on bad terms, it wasn’t a rupture. It was a “neither of us want this”, “I love you”, and “let’s find a way to figure this out” (her words not mine).

But something has happened in the last few months to change that – I don’t know what – but I know now that I am not going to get an ending. In fact…I don’t think I’ll hear from A ever again.

I can’t believe I am even typing that.

So, it’s got to November now and the struggle bus has careered off over the cliff edge and gone up in flames with all the passengers on board. I don’t really know what to do if I am honest.

On the 2nd November I text Anita a simple, “5 months. I miss you”. I don’t know what I thought would happen. I guess maybe I had hoped that she’d dig deep into her therapist tank and think, “I really need to sort this out with RB. It’s not fair to keep this dragging on and we need to meet so we can end properly”.

But, like most of the interactions we’ve had since June – she replied with something so lack lustre that it just lit the fire under my teen,

“I know but I really can’t work at that level any more xxx”

I’ve been hanging on for 5 fucking months and that’s the best she can do??? Like come on, that’s not fair. She is still working AS A THERAPIST and yet she can’t find an hour to meet me face to face to talk with me and get a sense of closure AFTER EVERYTHING WE HAVE BEEN THROUGH…and knowing my history so intimately?

It was just too fucking much.

So…then it came…the words that I have been swallowing. I typed a message on WhatsApp knowing that this was it. But I have been so fucking contained, quiet, giving her space and time….and what about me? Where have I been left in this?

Shafted.

I knew that sending this message would probably stress Anita out. We all know she’s not good at reading, but you know what? What other choice have I been left with? She hasn’t offered to meet. She’s just been waiting it out… I guess hoping I would just disappear, and she wouldn’t have to deal with a difficult emotional situation. She wouldn’t have to face what she’s done. Anita is inherently avoidant in her personal life so it’s hardly surprising that she’s behaving like an ostrich when she knows she’s hurt me. But again…she’s a therapist. Suck it up and do the right thing. Do the right fucking ‘ethical’ thing.

This is what I sent:

I’m not asking you to. It has never been about going back to how things were. I know that would/could never happen and not only because you have no capacity/bandwidth but also because the hurt this has caused me means it would never work again how it did because my trust in you is gone and I’m just in a state of survival now. You don’t want to repair that. Or can’t. And so, it’s really hard.

I don’t know how to explain this or get it to come over in the way it’s meant – because this isn’t a conversation to have on WhatsApp it should be in person.

I know it’s really fucking awful for you, and I really really see that. You know I do. I’ve always seen it, often before you have. And this is why it’s so fucking hard for me now- you let me into so much of what was happening for you – and I’ve watched you get more and more stressed and have been unable to do anything to make any of it any better – it’s been hard watching the person I love so much break bit by bit. I have so wished there was something I could do to make things better for you. But then you slammed the door.

It’s so confusing. I feel like suddenly I became the problem and too much and it’s really hard because I didn’t change and yet it feels like massive displacement – like this isn’t all about me. I get your capacity changed but did the love just die too?

Our relationship moved so far outside of what therapy is but equally we’ve spent so long together that the reality is we are also just two human beings in a relationship and it felt deep and important – to me at least. Like I know it was messy and complex sometimes and I really know I can’t go back there like that (with you or anyone else)- but I do really still love you and care about you and miss you.

And this is why I’m struggling – I can’t believe that how you have been with me all this time is just fake or just ‘work’ because it hasn’t felt like that to me. Like when you take away the work what’s left underneath? Because when I take away ‘therapist you’ and the intensity of seeing you all the time I’ve got Anita – someone who I just really love, who I miss, and who I’d like to see every now and then.

And so, this has completely broken me in ways you would never understand. It’s not just a bit difficult or upsetting it’s totally flattened my inner world. You made me believe that I meant something to you and that I was safe. Stupidly, I thought our relationship would evolve into something else eventually. And yet here I am five months down the line and I’m alone with it. I cannot understand how you can completely cut me out of your life after everything. Like it totally screws my brain up thinking that the idea of seeing me in any way at all feels overwhelming and too much.

I didn’t expect us to return to how things were, but I hoped that we’d find some way through this – somehow. Like find another way of connecting.

I’m just left in a state of complete and utter confusion. There is no closure only me driving myself mad with questions that I have no answers to. I find it very hard to understand how you can just stop caring. Like I can’t get my head round what ‘love’ even is if you can just act as though the relationship was nothing.

And it’s not about therapy now. I feel in lots of ways that it got really blurred anyway but that’s not a bad thing – but it’s a reality. I am seeing someone else now and honestly, it’s just breaking my heart. It’s different. I’m not trying to replicate what I had with you because I’m not interested in that, and I also know I can’t go back to that either. So please know I’m not asking you for that.

When I message you it’s because I miss you. Not because I’m asking you to go back to twice a week and loads of contact. It’s not that. But I’m really really struggling to get my head round this. It’s like I’m grieving you but you’re still alive.

I know this won’t make much sense because I don’t make sense to me either.

A. I love you. That’s really it. I just really love you.

So, I sent that on the 3rd of November and have received precisely NO response.

No acknowledgement whatsoever. Two weeks and nothing at all. Not even a “I need to speak with my supervisor and will get back to you”… zilch.

I never, for one minute in all the years that Anita held me to her chest for hours at a time so I could listen to her heart beat, read me stories, told me she loved me and kissed me on the top of my head, washed my elephant, bought me so many gifts – and even a fucking beating heart necklace to remind me of her heartbeat when I wasn’t with her… would ghost me.

I don’t know what I did to deserve this.

But there we are.

That’s life, I guess.

Letter To My Seventeen Year Old Self – Revisited

rubberbandsandchewinggum9 Comments

A few years ago I wrote a letter to my seventeen year old self here on the blog. It felt quite cathartic at the time. I was still working with Em, and it felt like I was at a place where I needed to open up some big stuff and trust in the relationship. I felt like this teen part was getting in the way and wanted to ask her to step back a bit…big mistake!

These last couple of weeks this particular teenage self is having a really hard time. Things are pretty awful actually…and so I am writing to her again. It has a different flavour to the last one (which I’ll add to the end of this post for anyone that hasn’t been tagging along here for all eternity)

x x x

Dear Seventeen.

I am so fucking sorry for being yet another adult that has let you down and for not protecting you from being hurt again…and again…and again. I need to do better – for both our sakes. Last time I was here I asked you to let your guard down and be more open with Em our old old old therapist…(we’re racking them up aren’t we – I wonder if there’s a record for burning through counsellors?!)

It’s been years since that letter in 2018 but I want you to know that I see that I was really wrong to encourage you to be ‘less resistant’ and wrong to ask you to lean into trusting Em when you clearly felt very reluctant to do so. I should have trusted you then because your inner barometer is (and always has been) spot on. You read people so well, and as much as it can be frustrating for me to have you dig your heels in or go into hiding in the therapy room, I realise now that the only way you’ll trust is if you feel safe. If you don’t feel safe it’s because it isn’t safe– it’s not because you are misreading a situation and viewing everything through a distorted trauma lens.

I told you before that you’ve done a wonderful job of keeping the young ones safe and I need to remember that you are a very experienced protector rather than a barrier to the therapy. You have always let me know when things are off. I want you to know that you weren’t the problem in the therapy with Em and I am sorry that I believed that the reason things felt so difficult with her was because we weren’t giving her the map and keeping her… what did she say?… Blindfolded? … and after a while I felt like it must be true. I felt her frustration with us both and ultimately pushed beyond what felt ok for you – and I regret that. You’d been down that path before and I had forgotten, but I remember now, and I am sorry.

We, so often, ask young people to ignore their gut feelings as if we adults know best (we so don’t – we’re just winging it too!). We ask you to be compliant and disregard your feelings in order to make things easier for us. Actually, what I should have done when you were so vocal and upset was to be far more curious about what was holding you back from opening up to Em in the first place. I know you are incredibly scared of rejection and abandonment – of course you are- but it was more than that wasn’t it?

You inherently know who you feel safe with and with those safe people you feel able to talk and allow yourself to be seen. K doesn’t trigger your nervous system and you are able to stay in the window of tolerance with her. She sees you (and all the others), and she does nothing but understand, make space for, and celebrate you. She is a gift. But you never felt safe with Em, not really. You were attached to her, just like I was but she wasn’t safe. Talk about trauma bonding!

I am so sorry that I pushed and told her things that you weren’t ready for. You were right to be wary and I am sorry. It must feel really painful to keep experiencing the same kinds of rejections and abandonments on repeat because I override you. I promise I won’t do that anymore. I am paying attention now. I hear you. I understand why you think it is safer to stay silent and isolate yourself. It’s lonely inhabiting this space but at least no one can hurt you.

It seems late in the day to be talking about all this stuff with you again now, but this last couple of weeks I have been really aware of how distressed you are and it’s not just about what’s happened with Anita is it? Although that is a massive hurt too – so massive. To be honest, I don’t know how I am going to get us through that stuff right now. I’m struggling too. I can barely breathe through the grief- and I know it’s not just you that’s freaking out now. The entire minibus is screaming… again. I am sorry. I never in a million years she’d do this to us. I never thought she’d walk away knowing what she knows and the damage it would cause. It’s no wonder you’re falling apart. But just hang in there with me, ok? We’ll find a way.

The other day I was telling Elle about some of what has happened to you. Don’t worry, I didn’t go into all of it, but I think you heard enough, and it’s spooked you a bit because there’s the very painful stuff waiting in the shadows isn’t there? I don’t think you want me to go there. It’s been sitting with me for the last 23 years so it can wait a bit longer. I don’t know if I am ready, actually. The anniversary of all that horrible stuff is coming up and I don’t have to resilience I used to have to cope. I don’t feel like I can tolerate any more rejection…the feeling of constant disconnection is painful enough. Part of me knows that the path to connection is being vulnerable but actually vulnerable hasn’t worked out great for us, has it? I don’t know what to do…and I am meant to be the adult here!

I never let Em or even Anita near this stuff of yours so I can understand why you feel terrified of Elle who really doesn’t know us at all. And, honestly, I don’t know if she actually even cares… well, she doesn’t care. Of course, she doesn’t. This is just her job. So why would I expose you when everything is already so fragile?…not fragile…broken…the fragile stuff got smashed didn’t it? God this is so tough.

I like Elle but I can’t figure her out at all, and I know you can’t either because you’ve repeatedly shut things down in session and so False Adult has taken over and filled the space. I hear you screaming not to talk to her about Anita…because it’s not safe to do so. And I am listening. The thing is, I know I need to talk about what’s happened because it is killing me, but I don’t know if she is safe either. It’s a really tricky situation. I just don’t know if we can go where I need to go. I don’t know if it is me making it feel like this or whether it’s just the dynamic.

I feel like I am doing what I used to do with Em. I feel like it’s really ok to do the ‘head’ stuff but we are soooo needing the ‘feeling’ stuff. We need a relational experience and relational repair and containment and holding… but I don’t feel like there is a relationship. I feel chronically alone. Perhaps it’s because I’m hiding you and the little ones but ugh…it’s painful. I need a sense of there being an ‘us’ in the room, not just a ‘me’ being watched from the other chair. Wanting to connect feels dangerous and the idea reaching out but then being rebuffed feels worse. We’ve been there before so it’s not surprising we are tentative. The thing is, detached relationships feel so fucking triggering to us – but I also know our need for connection feels stifling…for Em at least. I don’t know what to do.

That’s probably not fair, actually. Elle has no idea of any of the stuff I find really difficult…and not just emotionally, but there’s the simple in the room stuff too. It all works together to make a fucking disaster, doesn’t it?!

UGHHHHHH!!!

Being sat opposite someone again rather than next to them feels really uncomfortable and exposing. The table between us feels like another barrier and evidence of the distance between us that will never close. I create enough glass walls to separate us as it is, but these physical barriers feel like being pushed away. It’s really tricky. I feel like I am under the spotlight and want to hide in a dark corner. I miss Anita being beside me – both literally and metaphorically. Now I feel tense. Exposed. Rigid. I don’t relax. I feel like I need a soft toy to ground…I think you do too. All of this is working against us. I cannot believe just how massive the loss of physical proximity and touch has been. I just cannot regulate at all, and this is causing you, especially, a lot of difficulty. I hate this so much.

Since that session where I talked about what it’s been like for you, it’s as though you have taken over my mind and body…which is probably why we ended up going completely the wrong way in the car the other day! I have been so dissociated, sometimes completely frozen, but mostly I am massively conscious of feeling like I want to self-harm…or worse. And I know that’s not me. It’s you. You are showing me and telling me that you have reached your limit. You have coped and coped and coped and now you’ve run out of coping. I get it. I have no idea what to do about it, though.

I can’t seem to find a way to make this better because my coping has gone too. I just can’t do this anymore. I can’t hold this pain. I sent Elle message and told her I want to leave and run away. I don’t think she cares, she’d fill the time just like Hannah, Anita, and Em. Clients keep coming on the conveyor belt.

I joined some dots in the week, and it was as though yet another trapdoor opened up and another cavern of darkness awaited us. Sometimes inner revelations don’t feel good – I guess this is why our brain hides so much from us- it’s protective. This reminder just felt massively upsetting. It’s been so fucking hard for you hasn’t it? Like always…

I can really understand why you felt so betrayed when I let Em know the extent of the eating disorder that was so active again in 2018. She’d told me that I could bring anything to the room and when I shared the details of the ED with her it felt like a massive weight had been lifted. I’d been holding this ‘secret’ for twenty years and I genuinely believed that we might finally get some help. But then she delivered the ultimatum about ending the therapy shortly afterwards and it felt absolutely horrendous. It had been such a massive exercise in trust letting her know that stuff and then all of a sudden, she was threatening to terminate.

Actually, it was too much for her. And you knew it, didn’t you? I still feel physically sick when I think about it. It was the same when we finally did come to the ending in 2020. She said we could work through anything and that I needed to take a step towards her, that I could express my anger…and then look… she was gone. You knew it would happen. I wanted to believe it wouldn’t.

Anyway, you reminded me why that all felt so bad this week. It wasn’t just Em betraying your trust. It was a replay of H wasn’t it? She did the same. I remember you finally telling her what was going on for you after struggling alone for two years with active anorexia. You hadn’t seen her since you were fifteen and the change in your body had been massive by the time you saw her. You were/are so unwell. She didn’t say anything at the time but when you got back home, she brought it up on the phone didn’t she? She seemed to really listen and after three hours talking you ended the call feeling like maybe things might be ok now – it was that same sense of relief I felt having told Em. There’s something so soothing in being seen…until what you’ve shared gets thrown back in your face.

Your eating disorder is really complex and really dangerous. It know you are desperately trying to cope with feeling out of control but it’s also hiding who you are, taking up less space. Maybe if you can just completely disappear all the pain that you are feeling will disappear too. I don’t think I have ever really looked back at how awful it is for you being in the closet, feeling completely alone and struggling with how you feel about H and your sexuality. I mean add that onto the abuse you’re being put through at home…it’s no wonder things are a mess. I feel that sick feeling in my solar plexus just typing this, so I know that pain hasn’t gone for you and needs to be explored… the fact I have been in therapy for most of my adult life and have never gone near this stuff really shows how vulnerable it feels.

Just like Em, H delivered you an ultimatum. But worse than that, she actually walked away. She told you you were too much and that she needed space. She said that we’d take three months … and then talk. That never happened. We never came back to talking about what happened. It was four years before we caught back up. I was twenty-one then and in a much better place but I’ve never really recovered from what happened for you then and there you are stuck carrying so much still. It’s all so raw. And then of course this all plays into what’s happened with Anita. We were meant to leave it three months so she could figure out where she was at. We were at least meet to properly end if she was no better. It’s five months in now…and we’re in limbo. You and I have been here before.

Rejection and abandonment… I wish I could remove these words from our vocabulary. I am so sorry. I don’t understand how this stuff keeps happening to us. People tell me it’s not me but it feels like I am the common denominator in all this. I don’t know what to do. x

Here’s the original:

Dear Seventeen,

I’ve just read your diary. Please don’t be mad. Wait and hear me out a minute. I know how angry you were when you woke up to find dad reading your diary on holiday in Mexico and how violated you felt back then; but please know that I am not deliberately prying into your private life or being nosy. I’m just trying to understand you better. And honestly, I am good at keeping secrets, in fact I’ve been holding onto yours for the last seventeen years of my life. I’m not here to judge you and I promise that you can trust me.

We haven’t met before. Well, I know all about you (more than you realise) but I don’t think you are aware that I even exist. I’ve been watching you stuck in your own private hell for a long, long time now. It’s like Groundhog Day for you in the year 2000 isn’t it?

Too often I have turned away from you when I should have reached out to you. I have ignored your pain and your suffering because I haven’t known how to help you. Sometimes I have wondered if you even want to be helped.

I don’t know if you know it, but sometimes you take over my body in the present (which, by the way, is 2018 and means you’re often roaming around a stretch-marked 34 year old bod’ – yeah I know, it’s not great – and to think you hate your body now is incredible!) and react to my current day issues as though you are being hurt again in the way that Mum and H hurt you. It’s like my life triggers flashbacks from your life and you (and I) are reliving the pain over and over again.

I can feel your anxiety and fear coursing through my veins. I can’t speak and I go numb. I shake. I feel your frustration. I haven’t know what to do and neither have you. I’ll admit that I have felt overwhelmed by your feelings. I know you have things to say but I also know that you are very very frightened. I understand how desperately alone you feel. It broke my heart reading your account of the pain you feel inside. I know how hard it is. I remember it well.

You feel like you have no one to listen to you and that no one cares. It feels so difficult to trust anyone. You fear getting close to people and letting them in because you think you’re going to be rejected or abandoned or ridiculed – and you don’t think you can survive it again. This year has been the hardest one yet, for you, and I am not at all surprised that you just want to run away from everything and anyone that might hurt you.

So you isolate yourself in order to avoid being hurt but you can’t be alone forever. In your heart, deep in your soul you know you need love and connection. We all do. I know it feels risky seeking that out. I know you fear annihilation. I get how scary it feels to consider opening up again after what’s happened. You are still heartbroken but the only way your heart is going to mend is through letting someone heal it with you; currently you have a handful of shattered pieces and no glue.

There is no shame in wanting to be loved. You needn’t be embarrassed for feeling love either.

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You probably won’t believe me (who can blame you after all you’ve been through); but if you can find a way to trust me, I think that I am the person that you have been waiting for. I can help you, listen to you, and love you…if you’ll let me. I really want to make things better for you – for both of us- because right now your pain is my pain and it’s crippling the pair of us.

I’m so sorry, so very sorry that circumstances have made you feel like you are not worthy of love and care. How things have been with mum are not a reflection on you. None of how she has been with you is your fault. You are not unlovable or untouchable even if that’s how you’ve been made to feel over the years.

How things have been for you growing up isn’t normal. I think you know that but really acknowledging that is devastating. You have suffered emotional abuse and neglect at the hands of the person that should have loved you and protected you the most. I assure you that there is absolutely nothing you could have done that would have changed how things have been for you.

I know that’s hard to hear, but I think you need to hear it and try and take this in. You carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. You feel responsible for everything. And darling, some things are simply beyond your control. No matter how good you are or how much you achieve, there are some things you cannot change or control. You can only be responsible for you and not for the actions of anyone else.

What I will say, though, is this: it won’t be long until you are able to start getting away from some of the horrid stuff. Next year you will leave home and go to university, you’ll fall in love (really!), and things will start to get better. I promise you it won’t always feel this bleak. Until then, though, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to hold on tight and keep putting one foot in front of the other like you always have. I know it feels impossible sometimes.

Despite everything that has happened you are still here. You are a fighter. I know there have times when you have been very close to the edge. I know there are days you have thought about driving your car into a wall or overdosing or paddling your surfboard out to sea and never coming back. I felt the pain of each cut you made, and every burn on your skin. I know how you starve yourself. I see how regularly you purge everything from your system. You are punishing yourself over and over again for something that is simply not your fault. I don’t hate you. Why do you hate yourself?

You’ve lost sense of your value – or maybe, more accurately, you have never felt valued or loved. You feel worthless. Don’t get me wrong, I know why you feel this way. Steady and systematic emotional abuse does this to people. Now you feel like you are acting your way through life. You have little idea of who you are because you’ve spent so long trying to be what everyone else wants you to be that you really don’t know how to be yourself. You’ve struggled so hard against yourself for the last couple of years not wanting to disappoint anyone but inside you were dying.

I am so unbelievably proud of you. Coming out was massive. I know right now it feels like the worst thing you’ve ever done and you feel more lonely than ever; but those people that walked away from you, called you names, and bullied you were not your friends. I am telling you that even though it was scary and is still having a huge impact on your day-to-day you have made a huge leap forward into living authentically as who you really are. I know it takes a huge amount of courage to stand up and speak your truth but six months from now, you’ll be surrounded by people who love and accept you for exactly who you are and those people will become lifelong friends – chosen family.

I also want to say thank you. What for? For looking after the little ones. You are a force to be reckoned with, for sure! They are very lucky to have you as a protector. I know it’s difficult living your life when you continually have distraught children demanding your attention. It is not your job to hold them. It was never your job to look after them, but in the absence of an adult to care for them, you’ve done a brilliant job.

I have children (a boy and a girl). I see a lot of you in them because I remember you as a child, too. You were innocent and vibrant and full of life. You had so much love to give and then something happened and you started holding everything inside and that light you exuded steadily faded until it is now barely a flickering flame inside you. I know right now you feel bereft because, to you, coming out equates to you never having children and you so desperately want to be a mum. I’m not a time traveller but I am telling you this – children are going to be part of your future and that flame will burn brightly again in the love you have for your babies.

You are incredibly strong and I recognise just how much effort you put in to surviving. Sometimes the best you can hope for is just to keep on keeping on. You’ve done amazingly. Don’t roll your eyes! I mean it. The fact that in the face of so much pain you have still somehow held it together, passed your exams, can drive, and are alive is testament to your spirit. You are so driven and this is a good thing. It’ll take you a long way in life. But do you know what? You need to learn to relax too.

You need to let your hair down every now and again and have fun. You are so serious – so grown up- because you’ve had to be. As I said earlier, I am here now, for you and for the little ones – if you want me to be. So I am giving you permission – please relax and start to heal. The adult you all need/ed is here now. I’m not super woman but I promise you that if I can be there for you when it starts to feel scary then I am going to be there – and I am not going anywhere.

Things aren’t going to feel better overnight, I think we both know that. If things are to improve then we are going to need to work together on this. And so there’s something I need to ask you to do for me. I know you know about the therapist that I see each week because sometimes you hijack my session and stamp your feet a bit; or sometimes sit there silently raging and planning how you’re going to hurt yourself when you get the chance. Between you and the little ones there’s not a great deal of space for me in the sessions. I am, in no way, complaining about this, but I was wondering something.

I know you really like therapist but it feels risky to have feelings for her. You are attached to her just like the young ones are, ok perhaps in a slightly different way, but you do love her. And that’s ok. You want to be known by her. The idea of her really seeing you is both appealing and terrifying. Sometimes you let her see you, the real you, and other times you shut her out. When you feel close to her the alarm bells ring and you instantly back away.

Look, I’ve known this woman for six years now and I’ve been in therapy with her for three. I trust her but it’s not me that needs to talk. I’m ok. Do you think that maybe you might tell her how things are for you? Or if you can’t, do you think maybe I could tell her for you?

You’ve been holding onto this pain for such a long time, and I have been sitting on your secrets for as long as you’ve been alive and I think it’s time for us to move on.

What do you think?

Sending you so much love,

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