Month: June 2024

Startling With The ‘L’ Word

rubberbandsandchewinggum10 Comments

So… I’m stuck in a total procrastination dead zone again. The entire weekend last week passed in a big heap of ‘meh’ and ‘bleurgh’ and I did absolutely nothing except lie on my bed and beat myself up about not being able to do anything – I didn’t even watch crap to pass the time. It was a complete freeze. I hate that sooooo much. This weekend hasn’t been much better to be honest but I did at least take myself off to the beach walk a bit.

To be honest, I’m not surprised that I crashed and burned last weekend. The week leading into it was a massive week for both good and bad reasons – yay for a brilliant P!nk gig, boo for being put back on the two-week pathway for cancer care. I’m obviously trying to stay optimistic and hope that what’s going on with my body is some spanner in the perimenopause toolkit, but for now I am in that limbo zone and trying to not get too worked up whilst waiting to see the specialists next week.

It’s exhausting, though. I already feel like I am stuck in an endless emotional spin cycle so could well do without my body having a moment. It’s honestly been a ride this last year trying to get through the fallout of what’s happened with Anita and I feel like it’s caught up with me in a big way as I have navigated my way through these anniversaries.

There has a been a tremendous amount of heartache and pain…and disbelief…and it keeps unfolding and there seems to be something new each week – seriously I can’t make it up!! But there has also been some good, too so I don’t want to neglect that even thought the shit/upset seems to dominate.

So perhaps we’ll use this as a brief interlude before heading back to the Anita saga! – although so much of what happens or doesn’t happen with Elle is because of what’s happened with Anita… what a legacy!

I guess this last couple of months with Elle has seen me be a bit braver – perhaps – well, actually no… apparently, I tell her a lot of stuff in various ways, I just don’t fucking remember any of it – my dissociative skills are top notch- but there was a bit of HUGE moment fairly recently where I took the armour off and did vulnerability. I could almost hear Brene Brown cheering me on – after all vulnerability is the bridge to connection! (and heartbreak! But let’s not split hairs!)  

I don’t think it’s any secret here that I really like Elle. I also don’t think it’s any secret that I have been super wary of letting myself feel too deeply…no…not that…wary of *expressing* how I feel too openly.

Some things have felt fine to tell her: the shit about breaks, the lack of object constancy, feelings of shame, and little by little more about what happened with A…but one thing I have been SOOOO conscious of is being too much, talking about how I experience her, and of course, tiptoeing carefully around the ‘L’ word – well basically keeping it totally off limits. After what’s happened with Anita loving feelings feel incredibly dangerous in therapy and I simply don’t want to fall headlong into an attachment where I lay my heart bare and then the therapist comes along and stamps on it with both feet.

It can sometimes feel like a slow dance back and forth with Elle. Like, I think sometimes she has been waiting for me to take steps towards her before saying whatever she might want to say. I guess, it’s tentative because I am so easily spooked, and she knows that the relationship and trust can’t be rushed. But actually, sometimes I just need clear reminders and expressions of care and then I’ll happily come forward.

So, a while back I was feeling, I dunno, particularly ‘warmly’ towards Elle I decided to buy her a book that had just come out. ‘The Oxherd Boy’ has been all over the internet for a couple of years with its lovely uplifting and heartfelt messages on life and relationships. It has lovely artwork, too. Finally the creator made a book and I thought it would be a nice thing to give Elle. I know she likes ‘Big Panda Tiny Dragon’ and this is in a similar vein.

She seemed to really like it when I gave it to her, and then one day she was replying to an email and asked me if she could put it in the waiting area so other people could see it because she thought it was so lovely.

My initial reaction wasn’t great. Like oh my god, all the feelings of abandonment and rejection and being inadequate flared up and I felt really hurt. I guess there was a part of me that wanted it to be something special between us, or her to not see it as something that’s just part of her work. The young parts were really triggered. Aren’t they always?! Thankfully I didn’t reply with a tantrum, I just simply said it was her book to do as she wanted with…which perhaps was bit petulant but there we are.

I think Elle is someone who is a really generous spirit and likes to share things with people- she’ll loan out books etc – and that’s really nice, but I think that gift, in that moment was my vulnerable self wanting to connect and instead it felt like ‘let’s share with all the clients’ and missed the importance of the gesture on my part… not ideal.

I get this is my stuff but it’s painful when it happens because it really comes from such a young place. However, Adult me does know that when you give someone something it is theirs and Elle really didn’t need to ask me whether I felt ok with her sharing the book – but she did. Although she must think I am way more fucking competent at expressing upset than I am, because I would need a fair wind behind me to say ‘no’ and my reasons why … because uh, hello, I’m a people pleaser!

I think probably when I am talking about my day-to-day life I must appear really forthright and confident – but we all know it’s a whole other kettle of fish when we are talking about our relationship to our therapist WITH our therapist in real time face-to-face. It’s a whole other dynamic! I will get better at it – but like I say, I am carrying a whole heap of shit from Em and Anita in my backpack and so it’s harder going.

I’ve not explained that episode brilliantly well, but let’s just say, every now and then the young parts of my system make me very aware of them – and I realise I still have a lot of work to do!

Elle replied:

I so appreciate it, and you.

A while later when the parts had settled down and gone for a nap, I replied:

I appreciate you, too.

In fact, I was away that weekend and wrote it in the sand – although I never sent the picture to her…although part of me wanted to.

It was a little step forward – but for me it’s more than appreciation. It is absolutely that of course it is – and a huge amount of gratitude. But for a long while now I have had the strong feeling of love for Elle. It’s not romantic and it’s not really parental either (phew)… it’s that really fucking annoying space of friend that can’t fucking be. I mean I get it’s totally a thing, ‘oh I wish my therapist was my friend’ but honestly, had I met her under different circumstances than therapy I think we absolutely would have been friends.

But, alas, no…therapist/client we are and will remain.

So, back to the ‘L’ word. My tentative little heart has been peeking out periodically trying to figure out what is ok and safe to say to Elle – AND DUH! – like yeah you can say whatever you like in therapy can’t you?! – but we all know that when you’ve been kicked so many times that the reply is important too. Sure, we don’t express loving feelings only to have them, hopefully, reciprocated but there is nothing fucking more cringe than opening up your heart to someone and them either pretending like you haven’t said it, or replying with ‘thank you’. I needed to be confident enough that my feelings would be received with compassion rather than disgust…thank you Em…the ‘tick’ still hurts.

However, in the lead up to May I had started to share a bit more with Elle about how shit everything had been feeling and she had responded so … helpfully… repeatedly that I just felt myself emotionally edge closer and closer to her. Then when I shared what I had sent to Anita alongside my big splurge about hugs and shame etc she just really couldn’t have been better. The big long hug being welcomed and my need for it understood galvanised the vulnerable parts a bit and I think made them really see that Elle is safe.

I know I have a really good poker face in sessions and can seem totally unfazed and I dunno – cold maybe?- that I realised that I really did want her to know how I felt. I mean I get she fucking knows because she’s since told me I’m not as opaque as I might think and that she really does see me.  

In the wake of the absolute heartbreak and hurt with Anita there has been something good and so I rather bravely sent this at the end of the first big anniversary day, the day where A had told me she was ending work with long-term clients. It had been a sucker punch kind of emotional day but also a reflective one and what I alighted on was I felt a strong connection to Elle whether I wanted to admit it or not and thought, ‘Ah fuck it! Might as well say it rather than dancing round the edges’:

So I’ve almost survived the anniversary of the day life got spectacularly turned upside down… and I’m still just about in one piece even if it’s a bit (lot) wobbly. This whole month feels a bit like trying to juggle jelly, actually…and I hate jelly. 

However, as much as I feel like I’ve been trying not to drown this last year and not always being brilliantly successful at it – there is something good to have come from the shit and that’s that I got to meet you which would never have happened had A not lost her mind…or H hadn’t breakdown about the blog… 

People often ask me if A were to be back to her normal self and wanted to repair if I’d ever go back. The answer is no. 

Sometimes it feels frustrating how protected I’ve become but then I’m not at all surprised. It’s weird feeling like so much goes on in my head and then hiding such a lot 🙈 

I suspect you know this already, but I love you. And I guess I don’t need to qualify how, but it’s really a massive gratefulness for you  X 

(with these images attached beneath)

I hastily hit send and then went into a massive OMG RB WHAT HAVE YOU DONE???!!!

However it wasn’t long at all before this reply came:

Big warm smile reading that message, and a tender-sad ache in my heart for the well-protected heart that sent it.

I love and am grateful for you too, you courageous little pangolin.

And honestly, I just fucking melted. Adult me, little Mes, all of them…like RELIEF. Once again proof that Elle is not disgusted by me, she doesn’t see me as too much etc etc…and as much as she has NEVER given me any reason to think she might feel negatively towards me, far from it, the legacy of previous therapies has left deep wounds and some easily ripped open scars.

I spend a lot of time in my head (!) and I realise that I keep forgetting all the connecting moments we have had and almost feel like I need to print out our emails and put them in a binder to remind me because it’s like I suffer a huge amnesia. My brain is trying so hard to keep my safe that it’s keeping everything out – the good and bad. Not that there’s bad with Elle. I told her recently I feel like the Glitch Girl in ‘Wreck It Ralph’

Anyway, I keep moving forward with Elle, baby steps. Recently, again, I asked for a cuddle mid-session. It was the session that fell the same week of the anniversary of the last time I saw Anita and I was not in a brilliant place. After weeks of wanting to be closer to E I hurled myself over the edge and asked again – every time I feel like there’s a possibility things might have changed and it feels risky- it’s so sad – but every time I ask Elle responds positively… because she is not Em, or A, or even H – she is just Elle.

I can remember absolutely nothing about that session…other than being massively relieved to remove my armour when she came and sat with me on the couch and then about five minutes from the end saying, “I really don’t want you to hurt me” and Elle squeezing me more tightly and telling me that it wasn’t her intention and that she didn’t think she ever had hurt anyone (clients). Which is an impressively crap level of recollection for a 90 minute session – but this is where my head it at right now…flaky as fuck!

I get my experiences of therapy so far have been pretty fucking shite so far as harm and hurt go. I don’t for one minute think that Elle and I won’t hit the skids at some point, but I do have faith that she will be strong enough to work through ruptures with me and do the work required to ensure that we both remain safe in the therapy. I don’t think we will end up in a place where the therapy ends because she loses control of her own feelings and her ability to hold the frame. I fucking hope I am right with that assumption!

After that session, I sent Elle the link to one of my recent blogs too, another step into vulnerability and she replied as Elle does:

You do a really good job of describing your internal experience with this, and – believe it or not – I did get a lot of what you say here yesterday. I imagine you think you’re opaque to me and that all this stuff is well hidden, but I see more than just the corners of it I promise you. 

I think I told you the first day we met that – as well as being really good at looking after myself – I am also very very patient. Which is to say I have no real agenda other than to be around for you until you feel safe to share, no matter how long that takes. 

I don’t think I can convince you with words that nothing you can reveal to me will be horrifying or scary to me, or reassure you of something that you feel in your bones is a fundamental truth. I can only show up and offer love and curiosity and acceptance to anything you choose to bring me. 

The tightest of tight compacting hugs until I see you again on Wednesday. I hope Pink delivers!!

Elle and I have lots of interaction now – just touching base- I send her photos from my walks…but those nothing, unemotional check ins give a sense of continuity and stability which means when my wheels fall of I can reach out with the heart stuff and she does know when it warrants something deeper.

I feel like bit by bit I am letting her see me, and bit by bit the trust is growing and it couldn’t be better times because there is plenty of shit that has been stirred up with Anita this last couple of weeks and I have needed the steady grounded approach Elle brings.

So I’ll post this up now and try and write about the latest upheaval and upset from A later this week. Like I said, though, I’m finding it hard to get out of my procrastination zone with this stuff right now…I want to write- I just feel so much pain going anywhere near the Anita stuff that I am having to push through a lot of internal resistance. I’ll get there in the end!

Hugs to you all and a heart from my weekend on the beach x

The Messy Month Of May: A Tale Of Two Therapists – part 2

rubberbandsandchewinggum39 Comments

Ugh! What a week. I feel like I am in some kind of weird emotional paralysis – but stuck in utter hell so it’s not a good place to be AT ALL- and it’s stopped me from doing anything with this blog post. Despite knowing all I have to do is go dredge up stuff from April into May – so it’s not even all that ‘live’ now – it’s not proving easy. If it were this would have been posted last week and instead it’s still swirling unwritten, and my head is spinning.

I feel like I am thinking with cotton wool where my brain should be at the moment. I do know that this kind of dissociation is one of my most effective protectors but, honestly, it’s actually really preventing me from processing now. I guess I should thank my brain – it obviously wants to save me pain…and it is painful looking at this. However, my body is sending me all the messages that things are not ok even if my brain is trying to conceal things from me. I feel soooooo anxious and shaky and generally just very not ok.

I am on a massive emotional downward spiral in the here and now and am really struggling to hold all the parts together in order to remain in some way functional. I guess in some ways this recent-ish stuff with Anita is where the unravelling started accelerating and so I am reluctant to bring it to the front and centre again given where it has all led me.

The young parts are utterly inconsolable right now and I have this overwhelming need to feel safe and contained because I simply can’t regulate myself which is really disappointing given how much work I have done on myself. I feel like I am so full of tears, but they won’t come out. I feel like a dam that is on the verge of bursting but for some reason I can’t give myself the permission to let it all out – probably because I am terrified that once I start crying, I just won’t stop. I know that isn’t how it works and I know I can’t cry forever but something is holding me back. I guess, part of it is I just don’t want to feel this alone anymore.

It’s weird, there’s a massive disconnect inside. There are parts of me that are screaming out for Anita but the sadness those young parts feel when they know she is so far gone is absolute agony and so instead, they’re left in this wasteland of terror. There are others who absolutely don’t want Anita and want Elle instead – but that isn’t helpful, either, because Elle isn’t here to hold my hand and wrap me in her arms 24/7… and let’s be really clear here, I don’t want to end up face first in attachment hell with Elle because that won’t end well- although I don’t feel like I have much choice in the matter at the moment as my system steamrolls over my coping adult self.

So here I am navigating the fallout of the last year and feeling completely unequipped for the job. I think I have spent a lot of the year in avoidance and now I can’t outrun the feelings anymore … so yay for that! Yikes.

Anyway, last post I mentioned that immediately following my email to Anita asking her to help figure out a way for me to get my stuff back if she wouldn’t end that I wrote an email to Elle too…because…I am beyond help…but actually because I was really suffering. It was not long after the session where I had braved asking for a hug in session and I’d spent the majority of the session snuggled into Elle’s body – which felt amazing but also triggered all sorts of panic. And then of course she was about to go on a break…cue nightmares. So here’s more of RB in her meltdown era:

Dear Elle,

This is a real mess. It’s taken ages to get down because my brain refuses to think in a joined up way… or, rather, there’s been a fuck tonne of internal resistance and I’ve been fighting against various parts that want to shut this down over the last month. I keep zoning out every time I think about saying something, so leave it… or it completely disappears from my head when I see you. 🤦‍♀️ Things get worse and I repeat the cycle over and over until today and I’ve woken up screaming from a nightmare and I think that’s probably a message that I’m not really doing very well.

The last month or so I’ve been having dreams/nightmares where in various ways you’ve left or abandoned me in some way. In the ones where you leave sometimes you tell me what’s going to happen in advance and other times I only find out after you’ve gone – but either way there’s no explanation for what’s happened – I’m just left to pick up the pieces. It’s not a break it’s an end.

Sometimes the dreams are strange, and we’ll be in a situation that feels really off. I’ll tell you how what’s happening is hurting me and you don’t care at all, and I’ll leave – only making it as far as the next room and crumbling in a heap. I’m finding it both exhausting and unsettling. 

I think part of it is that my brain has a wonderful way of catastrophising around dates/anniversaries and likes a good couple of months run in to build as much panic as it can. It’s almost a year since Anita’s holiday that turned out to be the end of our therapeutic relationship. The “it’ll be fine and I’ll be back and nothing is going to change” couldn’t have been further from the truth and I feel like I’ve spent nearly a year in survival now… I mean on top of the usual life survival 😅. So I’m not really surprised that everything has become so panicked inside lately. I feel like the light on a lighthouse constantly scanning the horizon for danger and finding it everywhere.

Only it’s really gone wild the last few days since telling me you’ll be away. I feel stupid because most of me knows you’re just having rest and a break … which is good and necessary- like it really is. But there’s these other very scared parts that think you might not come back at all. I get it’s unlikely but actually there is a pattern of people disappearing after or during a holiday and it’s not like it’s only historical from being small- although there’s that in there, too. And I really get how fucking ridiculous this sounds – but it feels like I’ve gone up through a hole in the clouds at the top of the Magic Faraway Tree and hit the land where everything is topsy turvy and keeps flipping so there is nothing solid. 

So, I feel fucking weird about that … and actually not just about the break. I think in general I’m really struggling to figure out what’s going on. I really get how bonkers it sounds when I say that I lose all sense of you or our relationship between sessions- or at least lots of parts of me do. Like every single time I see you it feels like I’m trying to work out who you are, if you are safe, what might have changed, how you feel, if we are ok. Inside it’s chaos and it’s like trying to convince a bunch of really protective gatekeepers that you’re not going to deliberately hurt the parts they are trying to protect. 

It’s hard because all the while I’m trying to appease those parts and also take care of the very sad, needy ones I am having a completely different kind of conversation with you. I am really aware of boring the shit out of myself when I’m talking to you. It’s really hard because I feel like I can’t win. If I’m boring myself then I feel like you must be slowly dying inside and clock watching too. But, clearly, there’s some part of my system that believes that it is safer to be like this than actually exposing the parts of me that are distraught and broken. And I really get why this is happening – like I’d have to be an absolute masochist to put myself in a position where I could be hurt again in therapy. 

The other week I was so anxious and dissociated when I arrived that I don’t think I was even able to speak to you for quite a bit of time. I don’t know what happened to allow myself to ask for a hug that day because the protector parts of me had been screaming not to and wanted to go home. This is because I’m absolutely terrified of being pushed away now.

The thing is, there is also the bit of me that is like a heat-seeking missile that actually more than anything wants to be close and connect rather than be in lockdown. I find it really hard feeling far away and disconnected because it triggers my system really badly – it’s all the stuff about being too much *list goes on*…so it felt really nice to not have twenty layers of armour on and for the first time in a really long time I felt like my entire system settled…for a few days at least. 

Only it didn’t last because when I saw you again it felt like I had no idea what was going on and the same pattern of trying to figure out if things are safe, ok, unchanged happened – only with the complicating factor of having exposed that really needy part and having zero clue what the outcome of that was from your side …

So – yeah- I feel like I’m unravelling at the minute… or pretty much continuously since May tbh 😩. And whilst I’m shining the light on the crazy, I sent this to A  – I doubt she’ll respond. But as much as it will be really painful to have my stuff, I think after all this time it’s only right that I should have it back. It’s been colossal shitshow and not at all what we agreed would happen at all:

[THE LETTER TO ANITA CAME HERE]

So this was a really fucking put myself on edge kind of a communication week – I’d let ALL THAT out the bag with Elle and also sent the big thing to Anita all with one session remaining before Elle went on a break. Talk about door-handle type revelations there! I do wonder whether there was a part of me that decided to burn the house down right before the break so that if it all landed badly I would have some hiding time and could come back and pretend like nothing had happened.

Anyway, first to reply was Elle:

That’s such a beautiful honest clear request to Anita. I badly hope you get the response you want, and that you get a chance to reclaim your things and maybe also a little fraction of what they symbolise for you.

I think it’s really important for you to recognise the importance of “I don’t know what happened to allow myself to ask for a hug that day”. I think you did and do know on some level that, despite all the wounds that you have been dealt, that it was safe to ask for that hug. Personally, it felt such a meaningful thing for you to ask and to hold on (and squish tighter!) in the way that you did, but at the same time I had no sense or expectation that that session was the one that would unlock our relationship and allow you to feel you could finally completely trust me. A step forward is still a step forward, don’t negate it by whatever comes next.

I so appreciate you sharing, and I don’t want you to feel that – by not bringing any of this up on Tuesday – you’re somehow backing away from all of this. You’re not, you’re just taking your time, being vulnerable in the way that feels safest to you and yet still being so courageous. I want you to know how much I appreciate that.

I’ll see you in a few days. Until then, keep breathing and allowing yourself to be loved.

——–

I feel a bit weird posting that reply here – I feel incredibly protective of the relationship I am trying to build with Elle and have been really reluctant to be specific about anything she has said/emailed here because, well,  I don’t want her to feel self-conscious that stuff she might say might end up here on the blog and then as a result stop saying these lovely things which have felt soooo important for the building of trust in our relationship.

I know I have a long way to go and it’s a sloooooowwww process, but I think it’s important to show this email because it really highlights the difference between Elle and Anita now and how I am most certainly with the right therapist for where I am now. That message felt so holding and containing and Elle has done such a lot of that for me over this year. I might not be especially expressive or open in the sessions but she has always responded well to my vulnerability splurges in email…of course I often forget all this in the room.

Anyway, the good news is that the emails that Elle and I exchanged over that weekend did a lot to help me feel like maybe the Anita stuff that I have been so scared of taking to her was actually fully accepted and that Elle was on my side. Because Anita also replied and I was left floundering…but Elle was there to help me pick up the pieces a bit before we had our session on the Tuesday and unpicked the whole sorry fucking mess.

Anyway, here’s Anita’s reply after months of radio silence and avoidance. Seems like asking to see her supervisor or colleague was enough to make her do ‘the right thing’:

Hi RB,

Thank you for your email.

A lot has happened over the past 12 months lots of changes and emotional turmoil. 

With hindsight we should have done a proper ending at the time, especially with everything being so unstable around me.

But unfortunately, none of us can predict the future and I also understood your feelings at the time and inability to keep coming knowing it was working towards a final end.

I am so pleased you are now seeing someone else to help process everything.

I am wondering if you would like to meet up so I can let you have your things back and for us to say goodbye to our therapy relationship.

Unfortunately, due to unforeseen circumstances I have also had to change my supervisor to someone online in the Shetlands. 

So it’s not possible to use my supervisor. 

I am also currently moving my case load to online therapy only. 

I could possibly ask a colleague but thought I’d ask if you would like us to meet first rather than use a third party.

Please let me know your thoughts.

With very best wishes, love and care, 

Anita x 

Ummmm so yeah…

My initial response was one of disbelief…for so many reasons.

In some ways it felt like more of the same – look how hard it had been for her this year. The bit about my ‘inability to keep coming knowing it was working to a final end’ feels like the biggest exercise in revisionist history. It’s almost like Anita has forgotten how she was, how she couldn’t breathe, how any time I brought my feelings to the room she shut them down, said she couldn’t handle the stress and would go on again about how hard her life was. We agreed we’d come back after three months to see how she was or end if no better – that wasn’t ideal but it was the best she could manage in that moment and I had to leave because it was HURTING ME… like fuck me, she seems not to care at all about how much what has happened has hurt me.

So, I was a bit angry about that part of the email…and then I had to laugh…

The supervisor bit…

I mean…The Shetlands?

Let’s put it this way, Anita had been working with her old supervisor for YEARS (although how effective her supervisor/supervision has been is up for debate!)  in our locality and then for unexpected reasons that has to end and all of a sudden Anita is picking a supervisor who couldn’t be any further away from us in the UK – like it’s literally 800 miles distance. Whilst I’m not suggesting that this new supervisor is a problem, perhaps they are very good, and sure remote sessions these days are absolutely a thing …but, I dunno, it just feels a bit avoidant.

I mean there are soooo many supervisors in our area, Elle for one! (although can you even imagine that scenario?!). I dunno, it just feels like  a weird choice to make. Anita can hide online and pretend she’s the ethical therapist she promotes herself as. This one need not know what she has done to her long-term clients. I also get that sometimes you might seek out a supervisor with a particular specialism but given Anita is winding her work down to the bare bones of what therapy is I can’t see that being the case.

Anyway, in some ways it just felt like Anita was going, ‘there’s no way you can see my supervisor because they are in Timbuktu’ – I think, too, the realisation that I might go and see a colleague of hers would put the fear into her and that is the only reason she’s offered to meet.

The sign off ‘love and care’ made me want to cry. Like what love and care? There’s been no fucking love or care this last year.

Anyway, I went to see Elle after all this and thrashed out a few options. I didn’t reply to Anita until after I had seen Elle. Given it’s a very busy time of year for me I replied and told her that I would like to meet but not for a while because I would need to put some serious scaffolding around me to make it ok and that work is so demanding I can’t afford to not function.

That period of busy is now at an end and honestly I feel sick about arranging this meeting. I am in such a terrible place emotionally that I really don’t know what good can come of seeing her. Perhaps it’s just me, and maybe I am now looking to see the worst in Anita, but I don’t feel confident from her email that I would get the end I need. Like it really needs to be a heart-to-heart exercise. I cannot go and have the sort of experience I had with Em. I need Anita to at least meet me in the pain.

Part of me feels like I might just be leading these little ones like lambs to the slaughter. I know how bloody flaky I must sound – to have been practically begging for Anita to engage with me and meet all year, and no she has finally conceded I am running scared. I think in my head I had thought she would opt for the supervisor/colleague handover of stuff and had got my head in a place for that…but now to be faced with seeing her… gosh, I dunno.

What do I do? The longer I put it off the more I feel like I am prolonging the agony for all these young parts. But, equally, knowing I am barely holding it together as it is makes me worry what the fallout of that meeting would be.

So, yeah, it’s a mess.

I feel so desperately sad and alone. I guess, I am now coming face to face with the reality that part of me, deep down, had hoped would never come. How can the woman that held me so tightly, told me she loved me every single session, washed my elephant so that it would smell like her, and read me stories now be a total stranger. It is completely crazy making and I am not at all surprised that my child parts are fucking destroyed.

I’ll come back again and add to this because I am sooooo far behind with the blog, but for now I’d be interested to hear your thoughts on this (although not if it’s to say that I am a delusional weirdo obviously!).

The Messy Month Of May: A Tale Of Two Therapists – part 1

rubberbandsandchewinggum23 Comments

May was a really tough month, unsurprisingly, and this blog post was started right at the beginning of it – and then sat languishing as an open tab alongside tabs for a million past exam papers – whilst I did my best to get through the busiest working month of my teaching calendar and trying not to emotionally fall apart.

Mid-May signalled a year since that god awful session where Anita came back from her break and then dropped the bomb about her thinking she’d have to give up her long-term clients…but then at the end of that session doubling back and saying that we’d “find a way through and still try to connect”.

Then of course, there was the agony of flip-flopping back and forth over the next couple of weeks until I just couldn’t take it anymore and then ultimately, I walked away on the 2nd June with the agreement that Anita and I would come back together in September and either figure things out if she felt better, or end properly if the picture was not improving. I hoped she’d get better, I hoped she’d feel like I was worth her time…but nope. Her silence has been so loud that it’s been impossible to ignore and this ‘end but not’ has done so much damage…on top of so much damage that was already there.

And so here I am – a year and a day on…and we have not yet had that meeting to end, to honour what once was such an important and meaningful relationship, or to simply say goodbye and give me the opportunity to get my things back. The thought of holding my baby elephant in one hand and my storybooks in the other actually fills me with the most profound sadness, but I know it’s something I’ll have to go through in order to move on and past this. Again, given the kind of work we were doing, it’s just terribly poor that A hasn’t been able to return those things to me in order for those young parts to get a kind of closure.

It’s been a completely horrible year but this last week or so has been really terrible. Anniversaries are hard and I knew I’d find it difficult – a year without A – I could never have imagined that eighteen months ago and yet here we are, or rather, here I am.

I wasn’t expecting the wheels to totally come off yesterday given that I had survived most of May with the minibus reasonably intact and everyone more or less safely strapped in – but the wheels came off, and the windows and doors blew off, and the engine exploded, and the steering wheel came loose in my hand, and the gear stick snapped, and the brakes failed, and the air bag activated…. and you get the picture. It was a total shitshow.

I woke up and just felt completely and utterly broken, externally frozen and internally in complete meltdown. I thought a walk might help so I took myself off out to the river having failed to motivate myself to get up and out of bed on Saturday where I, instead, spent several hours like a zombie staring into nothingness when I was literally in my most favourite place in the world and a stone’s throw from the sea and sand – big gold star for brilliant dissociation skills there RB.

Usually, I find walking in nature soothing and settling or at least distracting, but all I felt yesterday at the river was total shit and anger and upset and then I started spiralling and my brain started serving me so many episodes of rejection and abandonment – and of course threw in the Em stuff for good measure. Thoughts of self-harm crept in (just because I really need that right now!) which was especially worrying given how long it’s been since I have hurt myself deliberately. There’s been a lot of dissociation related accidents with the oven and burns lately, but none of them have been on purpose. Anyway, the more I walked the worse it all got, and then my brain started really panicking and began unpicking my relationship with Elle and then I started totally unravelling… AND OH MY FUCKING GOD MAKE IT STOP ALREADY!!!!!!

It was really painful. Not only was I feeling the full force of the grief around Anita, the … what would be call it for Em?… shit?…then all of a sudden I have really really vocal parts telling me that I am a fucking fool to think I can trust Elle, that she is only going to hurt me in the end, and that actually she doesn’t really care anyway so I am idiotically marching myself into another replay of the same old shit where I get my heart broken and she walks away without so much as a backward glance…because…(here’s the fun with parts) that’s all I deserve because why would anyone care when it’s been proven time and again that I am ‘too much’.

Ouch.

Nice one Brian (brain).

These days I have a pretty good handle on my system (!). I am usually able to separate myself from the parts and to hear and listen to them and generally I’m not completely taken over and unable to function when they’re activated. Ha! Well, they had other ideas yesterday, didn’t they?!- and, honestly, I mustn’t underestimate the power of the Teen and Critic when they are doing their utmost to protect the littles because they are fucking formidable. But wow- am I tired today. And honestly, I feel so unmoored it’s awful. It’s hard not to plunge headfirst into a shame cycle because the level of need I feel right now is huge. I feel like I need a massive amount of reassurance and physical proximity…and that’s a problem because…isn’t that what eventually burns people out?

Ugh.

My whole system is totally off its tits and I can’t seem to regulate or ground. I keep trembling. It’s really bad. Part of me just wants to run away and hide and there’s the other parts that just want to feel safe and settled.

Anyway, let’s rewind a bit and go back and go back to where I began this a few weeks ago…

Back to the end that wasn’t…I feel like I am treading this same old ground over and over, feeling my way through the dark and seemingly getting nowhere – although that’s probably unfair, I am still here and so that’s something…

The lack of planning around the ‘end that wasn’t’ was impressive and, honestly, the more I think about it the more annoyed I am about it all. Therapists can’t/shouldn’t just make it up as they go along and hope for the best when it comes to closing down a therapy – especially a long-term one like mine and Anita’s was. If therapists decide to end long-term work they should be seeking proper supervision first, formulating a plan with their supervisor, and finding ways to minimise the harm to their clients so they create as good endings as possible for those clients…

Well, you’d think so, wouldn’t you?

To be fair to Anita, she was in a complete state of panic and survival and just didn’t have it in her to be working, let alone working as a therapist at that point last year. I am so sad about how it all went down and I do get it…sort of…but I am less understanding about that fact she continued to keep working, and I PAID for that fucking shitshow of a month, and that she is STILL working but hasn’t kept her end of the bargain with me. Like wtaf?!

It was clear A couldn’t hold the end and needed space as she edged closer and closer to collapse…but three months rolled by, and no end, more months passed, no end, every time I asked to meet to end she was “not in a good enough place” and just avoided going anywhere near this/me.

I’m a fairly patient person but I have my limits.

I feel that after 3.5 years of paying to see a therapist twice a week that I should at least have got some kind of ending that is about me and my experience not just a therapist saying how ‘hard’ everything was for them and being unable to hear anything that was in any way painful for me. Like it would never have been great – it wasn’t what I wanted – but at least holding space for how fucking terrible it was would have been something.

We had agreed to tie up what has been massive work…but also what has been massive heartbreak and betrayal of trust. There ought to have been a space to process that and there just hasn’t been. I’ve been left holding such a lot – and thank goodness for Elle, but this isn’t work for Elle and I, really, it should be between me and A. I shouldn’t have had to find a way through this on my own – and I don’t, Elle is there, but I still find it really difficult talking about this stuff because there’s enough of me that believes this is fundamentally a ‘me’ problem and there’s a cautious bit of me that doesn’t want to have her confirm this because I do or say enough to send her running for the hills. I shouldn’t have had to grieve this loss in this way, especially given the kinds of losses and bereavements I have experienced that Anita is so very aware of.

In March when all the health stuff was kicking off and it was my birthday I hit a really bad place. Tbh it feels like I am perpetually skidding on black ice and then I periodically face plant into the worst bits, pick myself up and continue slipping and sliding along until I fall again. But in the March crash I sent Anita a message it had been months since the last one and I made reference to some of the stuff above:

There has been no proper end, no goodbye, you’ve still got my books and baby elephant…and I can’t even begin to explain how hard that feels for the littlest parts of me.

There was no reply to that.

And radio silence is just so wonderful isn’t it?

Several weeks later in April I reached a point where I had enough of being fobbed off or completely ignored and decided to try a different tactic. I haven’t been hounding Anita or contacting her very regularly at all, but every few months I’ll ask if we can meet to end and for me to get my stuff back because…that’s what should happen!

However, I realised that if Anita wasn’t going to be prepared to meet with me then I need to find a way of closing this off and moving on because it’s so painful to me.

On 4th April  I sent this email to her:

Dear Anita,

It’s nearly a year since you went away on holiday and never properly returned. Those couple of weeks when you came back and said we had to end were really awful. Part of me was glad you could share with me how hard everything had got for you but it was really hard for me – because I care such a lot about you, could see you were in no place to hold the kind of end I needed, and so I walked away in the hope that giving you time and space would help you get well quicker and eventually open up space to be able to properly end- if that’s what needed to happen.

Of course, there was a huge part of me that hoped you’d come out the other side and actually want to see me, that actually the love you said you felt for me was real and not just words, and our relationship meant something. Clearly, I’m delusional to have thought that there was any foundation to our relationship.

After a few months it was clear to me you weren’t coming back and things weren’t better for you – but I didn’t expect for us not to be able to come back together even just for an hour, to meet, to properly say goodbye and end. Endings in therapy are such a significant part of the work. In life we are often faced with shit endings, but therapy can offer us a chance to get a good one. To grieve, to celebrate, to get closure. Only we haven’t done that. And the confusion and hurt I feel around this is just enormous… and this is especially so after what happened with Em. I never thought you’d be like her.

The very things I’ve been trying to undo for so many years with you about ‘not being worthy’ and being ‘easy to abandon’ have been hardwired now because the evidence is there. I opened myself up fully, my most vulnerable parts were completely exposed, and actually deemed both ‘too much’ (work) and ‘not enough’ (to care about).

This year has been like living in limbo. It’s been torturous. I’ve been left holding so much and have got absolutely nowhere to put any of it. To keep reaching out and to either get no response at all or be told that you’re ‘not in a good enough place’ to meet to properly end feels really crap. Like I’m not worthy of your time. That an hour of your life is too much to ask for despite the fucking emotional mess this has left me in. You said this was delicate work – and it really is.

It feels like you’ve washed your hands clean of the situation and haven’t cared at all about the fall out of what’s happened with you for me. Probably now you’ll see this as me being mental and too dependent and too attached – a ‘me’ problem. And this is a huge problem for me, but I honestly feel like the kind of work we were doing, for the length and frequency of time that we were doing it, deserves a proper end.

I assume you are still working in some capacity, and I get that it might look different now – but like I said – it’s an hour of our lives and it could be anywhere.

You still have my books and my small elephant … there’s some serious irony there. You said you’d look after it if I looked after the big one. But actually, it feels like my child parts are being held hostage by someone who doesn’t care for them at all.

I, too, am not in a good place (you can probably tell). I can’t move on from this whilst you’ve got those things. It breaks my heart not being able to be close to you. I miss your hugs, your heartbeat, and our stories. I miss being with you. I miss your energy. I miss feeling safe.

I’ve been seeing someone for several months and I can’t go anywhere near this stuff because it’s too painful. As much as I don’t want this, I do need to find a way to move on and seeing as you won’t meet with me can we arrange a way of getting my things back?

It would be too upsetting to receive them in the mail because they’re not just things – they symbolise such an important part of our work and our relationship. I know I’m going to need to be with someone when that happens so I wondered whether you might give me the contact details for your supervisor so we could arrange some kind of handover of my things and a space for me to just be with that maybe? Or I don’t know, one of your colleagues? I just know I’ll need a bit of a space to process what this all has meant and what’s been lost because otherwise it’ll be like picking up my dad’s ashes and stuff from the undertaker’s garden wall. It’s the same well of grief. I can’t really believe it’s come to this – trying to navigate saying goodbye to someone who is very much alive but won’t participate.

I feel so broken by what has happened. I probably sound angry or nuts. But actually, I’m just very hurt and want to move past this heartbreak.

Despite how this must sound, I really hope that you are doing ok because I care about you and I love you … that has never changed and that’s why this hurts such a lot x

So that was a lot – wasn’t it?

In true RB fashion, I simultaneously managed to have a fucking breakdown with Elle – it was one of those lovely moments where several shits seemed to hit the fan all at once. Things had felt reasonably settled and I had managed to take a bit of armour off in sessions which had felt nice if not a bit risky. But then, of course, she announced she was going on a break and – brace positions – it didn’t land brilliantly well inside given the landscape was already pretty fucking crap.

Breaks are never very good but I think I find them even more difficult these days because …well, bad things happen after breaks don’t they?! – but also my ability to maintain any sense of connection with Elle when I am not with her is patchy at best and breaks just exacerbate that. I find that in the usual run of things, by Friday my brain just has this void where the evidence that things are ok and the Elle is safe should be. My system starts to do the thing where everything feels wrong and dangerous which is especially bad timing as this is exactly when the young, vulnerable parts feel really scared and desperately want evidence that things are ok. It’s just fucking awful!

Honestly, I find this such a nightmare. To be so functional in my adult life and then to have this fucking disaster mess going on draining the battery is just the pits…and frankly embarrassing after so long.

However, in some act of bravery, or madness, or both following that email to Anita I sent a long and exposing email to Elle… because hey, why not?! Like in for a penny in for a pound… yikes.

But this is long so I’ll carry this on in part 2 – and guess what – Anita replied to my email…so there’s that to look forward to! Not even I could make up the content of it. The positive was, I had to laugh because…I’ve done too much crying! This isn’t an intentional cliff-hanger – more of a oh jeez we’re at nearly 4000 words again.

xx