Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum

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