Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum

So. Yeah. The title gives you the gist of what’s to come!

A few weeks ago (before the health stuff reared up and took centre stage again -bleurgh!) I got back in touch with Anita to try and arrange our ‘ending’ having initially told her that I needed to hold off on meeting until my work commitments died down – all this came a while after the communication where Anita finally (and somewhat unexpectedly) engaged with me after several months of radio silence and ghosting. Going forward I shall refer to that email as the ‘Shetland Isles Saga’! – because…ha! FFS!

Putting a pause on things after she’d emailed to agree that she would finally see me was definitely a good move. That email alone hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting, and it took a good while to process and filter down through my system. There’s absolutely no way I could have navigated a meeting with Anita when my work was in full flow …and even now that it’s quieter I still don’t know that I am totally ready.

It needs to happen sooner rather than later, I think, because the whole thing is starting to feel like an albatross hanging round my neck and as much as I don’t want to say goodbye to Anita, I have to to be able to move on and properly grieve her. Right now, I am stuck in this god-awful limbo space, and I just can’t keep inhabiting this place for very much longer. It’s emotionally exhausting and it is affecting me physically. The amount of tension I am holding in my body is unreal and even despite having bi-weekly massages, the massage therapist can’t get over what a state I get myself into in such a short time.

Feeling so emotionally discombobulated is also impacting my relationship and interactions with Elle. I feel incredibly needy at the moment, and the attachment stuff is starting to feel quite overwhelming tbh. I guess my system is desperately seeking safety in/with her – and I am really aware that my contact with her out of sessions has ramped up and I really really don’t want to tip the balance into a place where she dreads checking her emails because there’s yet another random effort at connection coming from me.

Of course, it’s not just one part of me in the mix with all this. There’s a part of me that is totally freaking out because people and relationships aren’t safe. There’s a protector part screaming “STOP IT RB! Stop seeking warmth and care in someone who won’t stay! Will you never learn?!” I mean if I am honest the whole mini-bus is in total fucking chaos and it can feel like I am rapid cycling through all of them and all their conflicting emotions so… yeah… I think I need to resolve the Anita stuff so that things settle inside a bit and I am less of a fucking emotional liability with Elle!

Having spent a lot of time ruminating about whether or not a meeting Anita was right for me now (my god the mental gymnastics have been Simone Biles-esque!) I decided after much deliberation that I did want an opportunity to see Anita in person despite how awful things have been. I’m probably insane. So much angst and confusion has built up over the last year that I decided that I wanted to see her one last time, to either confirm that she’s a fucking walking disaster and remind me that I am way better off out of it… and that my anger and hurt is justified, or if not that, to perhaps (hopefully) release some of the very strong feelings around this and be able to simply see Anita as a human who lost their grip on…EVERYTHING… and be able to move on with some kind of partial repair now that (perhaps) the attachment is less active (is it?!)…

I mean it’s not binary anyway. None of this is either/or, good/bad…it’s AND/BOTH/ALL and it’s fucking messy. But the main thing I am completely sure of is that I will (try) not go with any expectations of the meeting giving me anything I need/want because as much as the fantasy would be that Anita would see me and remember that she actually does care and that I am important to her, to open up her arms, pull me into a tight hug and tell me she loves me and that she’s sorry for what’s happened…

Wouldn’t that be something?!

However, I know that that ship has sailed, and that version of Anita doesn’t exist for me anymore- even though she very much did once upon a time. Sigh.

If I do meet her, I need to be realistic and know that it will, in fact, likely be very disappointing, painful, and open up a massive amount of shit – and so afterwards I will need a great deal of support because even though Adult Me knows Anita is long gone, to actually be with her face-to-face and have her not be how I have known her to be would be devastating to the Littles.

I anticipate the meeting feeling like a version of the still face experiment. My young parts will be searching for the smile and the safety and familiarity of Anita who I know and love and instead I am likely to be faced with a distant, withdrawn, ‘professional’ Anita, and this will set all sorts of chaos off inside. She’ll look like Anita, but she will behave like a stranger. I know that. I’ve already witnessed that version of A in the last session I saw her when she admitted to being ‘cold’ and ‘distant’ because she was in ‘self-protect’.

I fully expect this version of Anita to be present when we meet because I think if she truly entered into the meeting with an open heart and the willingness to be vulnerable with me, she might actually be hit with the reality of what she’s done. She will never go there. She will avoid meeting me in that place at all costs and instead function as a spectator to whatever I am able to bring. I imagine it might end up being pretty similar to the ending with Em. I’d like to hope it wouldn’t be…but let’s be real here, Anita is only agreeing to meet so she can avoid scrutiny and other people in her professional world (whom she considers friends) learning about what she did.

Ultimately, though I have reached a point in my head where I am prepared to go in and in one way or other leave with a broken heart. I mean it’s already well-smashed but no matter what happens there will be no walking away from the meeting feeling good. I am not stupid. Even if the meeting goes well, I’m going to be facing a whole lot of grief, aren’t I? Because the woman that was alongside me for 3.5 years twice a week, plus all the outside contact, will be completely gone and that special relationship will be left in past regardless of what happens on the day.

In some ways I actually fear a good meeting more than a cold and distant one because I think that will actually lead to bigger feelings of loss. Like if it feels familiar and reasonably connecting and she says something like, “It’s really good to see you” (because she won’t think and just freestyle it) how bloody awful to get a taste of that again and then know I’ll never have it after that moment. How fucking devastating to know she can turn it on but has chosen not to for me anymore.

Anyway, it’s all been a LOT! So, to the point RB! – I emailed Anita giving her some potential dates I could do to meet and she came back with:

Hi RB,

I am glad the pressure of work is easing for you. I know how busy you are around exam time.

I can make Friday the 21st in the afternoon if that still works with you.

Like you I’m not sure where to meet but wondering about [stately home] or [national trust property] somewhere quiet we can walk and talk.

Let me know your thoughts on this,

Anita x

I can’t really begin to describe the range of thoughts and feelings that came when I read that. Anita and I have never met outside ‘the room’ in all the time we worked together – well apart from that time I ran out the room upset, and she came and found me outside and sat with me in the dark, holding my hand in my car for an hour! But we didn’t begin the session in my car!

The suggestion of a walk and talk feels really weird because it seems to be completely out of step with how Anita has previously worked. I can remember another time where there was a rupture (ha- looks like there were a lot based on these paragraphs) and Anita and I scheduled an extra session to try and repair the next day.

It was on a day where she works in an office in my city rather than where she lives and where I would usually see her. I had said I would come and meet her in that office and she said she thought it was important that we met in ‘our room’ because unfamiliarity of location wouldn’t be containing enough and given I already felt unsettled she felt it was really important to have consistency so that my system didn’t get any more triggered. This seems really sensible and reminds me that there was a time when Anita had her therapist hat on and considered my needs and understood them.

So, it took me a bit by surprise that Anita would suggest us having probably the biggest meeting of the therapy – to end – out in a public place where we cannot sit and be together, where we could come across members of the public and where we/I would be totally exposed. I feel like it’s an absolutely shit idea and completely inappropriate. Is that just me or does any else thing that’s just total horse shit?

I’ve been turning it over in my mind (of course!). What could her motivations for this be? I wonder if it’s partly so that I can’t break down and make things awkard? Anita knows I’m unlikely to fall apart in public. I won’t cry. I won’t get angry. I’ll behave ‘normally’ even if I am dying inside. And that saves her all kinds of difficulty, doesn’t it? She won’t have to witness the pain and hurt that she’s caused.

I feel like meeting out in the open in a relatively busy public space doesn’t provide any kind of container whatsoever and really just feels utterly lacking in thought and care about what this meeting could/should be like. It shows me that Anita is no longer in a place to even think about providing the kind of space or meeting required and basically wants an easy hour where she can hand me my stuff, wander around making small talk and then walk away.

I’m not up for that.

I’m not saying I would go and see Anita and break down in floods of tears, beg for her take me back, and have a complete fucking meltdown and let it ALL out– but the space did ought to be provided for that possibility. There did ought to be space for me to be however it is and for that space to be private, familiar, and containing.

Tbh I am far more likely to turn up and be ‘False Adult’ and then leave and sit in my car hysterically crying for an hour afterwards because I am fairly certain my protectors will be doing everything possible to keep me safe in the moment but when I am on my own in my own bubble it’ll all come out.

So, my initial gut reaction hasn’t changed in the weeks since she emailed this. I really feel like this suggestion is just … not right for this end. It’s not like we’ve done years of intensive work, moved through the attachment stuff and reached a natural conclusion where we are ending on brilliant terms and a ‘wow, look how far we’ve come’ where perhaps a walk and talk and meeting in a different way might feel appropriate. It’s a million miles from that. Given how it’s been I don’t even think a one hour meeting is right. I actually think we should be meeting three or four times to properly put this to bed.

I discussed all this with Elle when it happened, and she was pretty much of the same mind (that it was a weird suggestion and probably would not be helpful). Elle said that whatever I choose to do she would want to see me the same day or the day after because she is really aware of what this will throw up for me… so that at least is something. As much as I don’t think I talk much about all this, when I do it must be pretty clear that it’s a fucking enormous deal.

As it happened I couldn’t meet Anita on the day she’d suggested so I didn’t have to make a plan or talk about where we would meet or explain why I didn’t want to meet publicly as health stuff got in the way so I was able to reply to her and say I couldn’t meet her because I had an urgent blood test on the day she’d suggested and then would have a hospital appointment the week after because my body was malfunctioning and so we’d have to postpone.

All year Anita has taken days/weeks to reply to me, or sometimes just completely ignored me. But suddenly being reminded of my health issues seemed to kick her into somewhere different. The reply to my email was immediate:

Oh my goodness, I am so sorry to hear your having such a time of it. It really does come out on us physically, doesn’t it? I really wish our bodies wouldn’t add to the stress we already feel [red heart].

Now I get this was meant to be caring and connecting and kind but honestly, after the last year it just felt… confusing but also a bit… lacking in fucking awareness. Like, actually A, the intense stress and anxiety I have been under that has been impacting my health and well-being has been caused in a large part by what you have done to me. So, it feels a bit fucking rich pretending to care about me now. Leaving me with no safety plan, no care, and fucking off into the sunset for a year is … well, I have already blogged thousands of words on this so we all know the score!

Anyway, I didn’t reply to that because what was there to say, really? Instead, I sent it to Elle and we talked about it in our next session and as always Elle was solid and grounded and present and … exactly what I needed in the moment.

A week later, another email popped into my inbox from Anita:

I hope everything goes well with the blood test today and really really hope you’re ok. Anita x

Honestly, that fucking floored me.

Like what?

Why?

Why start being like this now?

I sent the email to Elle and said that I was really upset. She said she could understand why and said that it feels like Anita is sending ‘really confusing and inconsistent messages’. That’s exactly it isn’t it? Elle signed off with a lovely holding message and I at least felt like I wasn’t going insane and maybe these messages from A weren’t ideal. They’d be fine maybe for a friend to send but not someone who has disappeared out my world for a year and left me for dead. This is some of what I said to Elle:

Yeah, it just feels really unfair of her to decide now that she thinks whatever is going on is worthy of a sort of care. There was absolutely no need to send me this today – especially as I didn’t respond to her message about feeling sorry and all the stuff about body stress. There was no need for a follow-up. It feels like it’s more about her than me…and that she has zero grasp of how this would land after how this year has been.

I know I sound angry. But there was a little part of me that also felt really really sad. Because it proves that Anita can care… and that makes how she’s been this year all the worse.

Anyway, those messages sent me through a total loop. I was already in a fucking state having to deal with the health stuff and I just really didn’t need that on top. To be fair, it probably all felt much worse because I was staring down the barrel of the cancer pathway again – but … even without that… it’s just… a lot.

A week after that message I had my hospital appointment to get checked over. Fortunately, they think everything is ok but when I got home the last few weeks caught up with me in a massive way. I was face down on my bed crying and was totally dysregulated…and -ugh – ffs RB – I replied to Anita…FFS!:

Thank you. I still don’t know the results of my blood tests so fingers crossed they come back normal.

Hospital today was ok. Lots of poking and prodding and then an ultrasound but they can’t see anything obviously amiss in my breast so hopefully it’s all some crap perimenopause symptom….so long as bloods come back fine.

It’s been thoroughly exhausting and overwhelming. I thought I was ok but it’s hit me like a Mack truck. X

UGHHH I know. You don’t have to tell me. Emailing whilst upset and triggered isn’t a good idea.

Anita replied moments later with:

So pleased it’s sounding like it’s going to a positive outcome. It’s understandable that you feel exhausted. It’s going to be really hard on you emotionally and physically until you get the final results. Please keep me updated and I will keep everything crossed for you xx

I burst into tears again.

It’s such an unbelievable feeling of push/pull. That message came through a week and a half ago and I haven’t replied.

My blood results finally came back and there is something not quite right in one aspect that could be linked to the blood cancer I had. This particular level has been creeping up and up every blood test I have had for the last two years and is now sitting on the borderline of the top end of the normal range – so we’ll have to see what happens six months from now. It’s a watch and wait. I hope it’s nothing to worry about but…it’s a marker for lymphoma so…

So, yeah, I’ve ridden the immediate wave of health shit and the Anita stuff and now am back in a place where I guess I can arrange to meet.

I don’t really know how to approach it but I think I am going to have to mention that if at all possible we meet somewhere private and indoors.

I can’t believe how knackering simply getting to the point to have the ending has been. I’m going to be totally flattened when I actually do meet her aren’t I?

xx