Month: February 2026

The Familiar Crash And Burn

rubberbandsandchewinggum4 Comments

I am not in a good place right now. Like it’s probably about as bad as it gets. Sometimes I find it really hard not to just give up trying, and instead throw in the towel and admit defeat so far as this ‘healing’ business goes…or life goes, if I am totally honest. Because, truthfully, I am not sure it is even possible to heal the sort of trauma I have. Maybe that sounds defeatist and just someone screaming out from a place of deep depression – and maybe it is that, partly…but…

After all of these years of battling so hard to keep my head above water – doing ‘the work’ in therapy, reading everything there is to try and facilitate the process, sitting in and with the discomfort of it, working on regulation, communication, self-care blah blah blah… I am at a total loss right now to know what else ‘to do’ because once again I feel like I have face-planted in the cesspit of trauma and attachment and it’s killing me. Like it literally feels like I am being annihilated right now. The panic attacks I am experiencing at the moment are insane – and a relatively knew thing for me – and all I can do is hyperventilate and tremble my way through them until they stop. It’s utterly rotten and I feel so completely alone with it.  

The only discernible difference between how my mental health and system is now and how it was fifteen years ago is that I totally understand ‘why’ I feel like I do and am aware of the parts of me that I wasn’t before. I’ve spent years investigating and raking over my past and through my psyche – but knowledge of the ‘why’ things are the way they are doesn’t change the feelings underneath that are so deeply entrenched. I still feel utterly broken, and my sense of being ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’ is as potent as ever. Yes, every inch of the relational injury (mother wound) is known about in 4K detail…but that doesn’t mean that I have found a way to stop it being triggered time and again. And because it is a relational injury any time I get in a close enough relationship with a therapist this stuff comes up, doesn’t it?

Don’t get me wrong, I get this is sort of the point of it all, but I am beginning to wonder if this deep level of life-long and consistent wounding can heal or whether being in a therapeutic relationship with someone actually just perpetuates the suffering in the end? Like if, ultimately, I can never repair or make up for what I didn’t get as a kid, I just need to find a way of living with that…and I have lived with it for decades. Surely, building a relationship with someone that has so many limitations and will have to end one day is really just creating more hurt in the long run?

I suppose it all feels especially like suffering right now because the balance of my therapy is all off and out of whack. What’s going on with Elle (or not going on with her) is activating all the stuff about being ‘unseen’, ‘forgotten about’, ‘not being important enough’ and ‘easy to put to one side’, ‘being a burden’…being ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’ blah blah fucking blah get out the tiny violins and play a concerto! And it is knocking me for six.

What I have learnt about myself over the last couple of decades is that my mental health is TOTALLY FUCKED…no…well yes, that’s true…but not that!… Seriously, what I think I am having to accept about my brain and how I function is that for my issues therapy is going to be a life-long maintenance plan rather than a complete fix and move on and whoop whoop isn’t it a wonderful life?

After a couple of years of once-a-week sessions with Em it became clear that it wasn’t enough and I was actually getting worse rather than better with that level of contact. It is a really delicate balance in therapy to get the right level of containment for me to be functional. That sounds really complicated, but basically there is a sweet spot in the therapy where there is just enough contact to calm the parts that struggle with abandonment and rejection and *issues* AND be able to do the work and hold it all safely whilst still being able to get on with the day-to-day of life…and when that isn’t possible the wheels fall off and everything goes totally to shit.

The ‘totally to shit’ place is where I am right now. And as much as I try to reason things out with myself and work with the parts of me that are in such distress – it’s not always possible to reach them – or soothe them. The level of shame and embarrassment I feel about how I am right now is hideous. Part of me just wants to curl up in a hole and die because … it is pathetic. Like how, how can I be in so much pain and be so derailed by what is really just a small reduction in contact with Elle? How am I back in the grips of a bloody eating disorder? Why does my brain think that self-harm should be the next ‘logical’ step to cope with all this?

I know it isn’t *just* reduced contact with Elle that is causing me problems. I totally understand that my life being as precarious as is it right now with finances – or lack of them- is a massive worry and triggering all my programming around scarcity and lack of safety. Like that is a real problem and it is very stressful. It’s not an overreaction. I know that I am basically tumbling around in a perfect doom storm right now with all the reasons ‘why’… but fuck me! I am so over the knowledge and understanding … please someone help me with navigating my fucking way out of this shitstorm of hell and shame and fear!

Look, I am not stupid. I know that reduced contact with Elle is a big deal and also not a big deal. Of course, having the level of attachment I have to her, it would cause problems alongside all the other stuff I am struggling with – I can’t get away from the fact that any kind of change for young parts is hard and that the dots that my brain joins around availability and contact often lean towards worst case scenarios. And I get that I should be able to extend some compassion and kindness to myself for doing the best I can in a crappy situation and know that my feelings right now aren’t a reflection on me being “too dependent” or too needy, or “like a tick” or whatever unkind soundbite I can dredge up to beat myself with but…

It’s hard.

I am so scared right now.

I fear that I sound like a spoiled brat, moaning that I am not getting what I want and having a tantrum about it when I am already being given so much by Elle. And I know I reiterate this every time I post here– but I am so unbelievably grateful to her for seeing me at all right now – like soooo grateful. I don’t know where I would be if we had have had to end the therapy. Like it would be way worse than it is now…but that’s not to say I am not struggling.

And actually, being fair to myself, rather than letting the Critic speak for me “you ungrateful child, grow the fuck up and stop fucking whining!” is that my child parts aren’t brats. They aren’t moaning and tantruming. They are terrified and scared and wondering where their safe person has gone. This isn’t a kid making a fuss over not being allowed sweets in the supermarket this is the little girl crying silently, left out alone in the grey wasteland. She’s cold and scared. Why doesn’t Elle know that she’s lost out in the cold? Why doesn’t she come and find her? And…what if Elle never comes back?

The place my emotions in coming from deserves for me to be compassionate… it’s just hard because I’ve got myself back into a place where all I know to do is to shut down, isolate, and beat myself up. I am stupid for needing so much. I am stupid for letting Elle matter to me. I am idiotic for getting myself in a place where someone else can impact how I feel about myself. Don’t I ever learn?

This last few days leading into, and over, the weekend has been especially hard because I have felt Elle’s absence so acutely. I feel that she has backed away from me and I don’t know why? I don’t understand what has changed. But I am sensitive to even small shifts in a person’s energy. And as much as I don’t want to believe that Elle’s silence signals her feeling burnt out by me, I can’t help but worry that that is what’s going on.

I can’t seem to apply the rules I have in the rest of my life to what’s happening here. If a friend failed to reply to an email or text where I asked for a bit of reassurance I would just assume they were busy, or maybe missed the memo. But it’s different with Elle. Her lack of reply feels dangerous to my system. And it probably wouldn’t feel so significant in the regular run of things where we talk and check in twice each week because miscommunications get dealt with and any assumptions I might concoct in my head can be reality-checked really quickly. There simply isn’t time for shit to get out of control when the longest gap you have between seeing someone is three or four days.

Instead, I feel like I am in a sort of horrible limbo now. I’m hanging on for our session on a Tuesday and when it gets here, I don’t want to be *this*. I don’t want to be scared, and needy, and demanding, or shutdown, or stand-offish, or not fully open…or however else it might be perceived.  I really don’t want to get into a rupture over something that can’t change right now. I don’t want Elle to think that how I feel about things is because she is ‘not enough’. Because that isn’t it at all. But I know our dynamic and how our issues can play out with one another. I don’t want to be doing the ‘transference and countertransference dance’ on a Tuesday – I want to soak up every bit of safety and care that I can in the time we have together.

I know, too, that by not bringing this stuff up, it’s probably going to make it worse in the long run and I could end up in a the rupture zone with her. Please god, noooooooo.

I suspect if I said to Elle that I was struggling really badly we might agree a specific text check in on Friday before the weekend. Just like we have the text on Monday morning before the session on Tuesday. If I said, “I just need a bit of tangible reassurance to carry me through the weekend whilst we aren’t seeing each other as much” – she’d probably do it.

I think she’d hate to know how badly I have been struggling lately, and especially this weekend. The problem is, that right now I don’t feel like I can ask for more from her. And I don’t want to tell her how terrible I feel because I just feel so much shame right now. I hate that I am like this.

The thing is, this small amount of more would probably feel better to Elle than the random stuff I am sending here and there that isn’t clear in its intent or need.

Ugh.

Anyway, that’s just another splurge of my wonky Brian (brain).

I just hope so badly that I don’t get myself so deeply into the pit on aloneness that I don’t go on Tuesday. My runners are running already and the ‘leave before I get left thing is real… when all I really want is a cuddle and to be reminded that we are ok, and I will get through this, and that it is just tough right now. Brian is freaking out but that doesn’t mean Elle and I are in the shit…

I wish I could internalise that.

Dear Long-suffering Therapist: I feel like I am falling apart.

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Dear Elle,

This is unusual for me, I don’t think I have ever written a letter to you that I haven’t sent or shared with you, and yet today I am writing this ‘hard stuff’ to you and it won’t end up in an email in your inbox or as a text to your phone, instead it’ll sit somewhere out on the internet on my blog. I don’t know whether this is a good thing or not. I imagine for you it will be a welcome relief that you won’t, once again, be bombarded with some form of contact from me.

Part of me would like to think that by not sending this letter to you it shows some kind of progress on my side. I suppose it could be viewed as ‘holding this for myself’…and if that was the true motivation for keeping all these feelings away from you then that would probably be great, wouldn’t it? The thing is, as we both know, my struggle has always been letting people ‘see me’ and ‘know me’ when I am struggling – it isn’t a good thing at all when I stop reaching out and sharing – it’s a return to default programming.

The reason I am not sending this letter to you today is because I have got myself so worked up that I don’t feel confident that it would land how it is meant and I am scared of the consequences of that. The truth is, I am basically drowning in the being ‘too much’ and simultaneously ‘not enough’ place, right now. My attachment stuff is in meltdown and my traditional go-to when it is like this is to go into hiding. This place of fear and self-imposed isolation is so familiar to me – but sooooooo painful, too, and more than anything I wish I could override the part of me that is freaking out with the ‘therapy heebie-jeebies’ and just text you and check in with the truth: Elle, I am struggling and it feels like I am falling apart. Are we ok?

The one thing I have always been with you is honest, and I have worked really hard at not letting my past experiences cloud what happens between us. Even when I have felt worried and scared that my ‘truth’ … or really, just ‘I’ would be too much for you I have always let you in and given you the opportunity to respond as Elle even when it has felt excruciating to do so. I’ve done this because you aren’t Em, or Anita, or my mum…or anyone else that has hurt me, and I have trusted that the only way to get over the hurts of the past is to allow you into my house of horrors and let you see what’s really there…even if I have wanted to turn all the lights off and lock a few cupboards and direct your attention outside to the beautiful flower garden that I have planted.

But today I have hit a block and for some reason, I can’t tell you what’s happening. And it is my fault. I can see how I have got here, and why I have got here…and I don’t know how to get myself out of it because the shame is getting bigger than my ability to combat it and we all know what happens when shame isn’t witnessed or given empathy – it gets huge and swallows us whole until there is no way we believe that there isn’t something incredibly wrong with us and can no longer believe that we are worthy of love and care.

I am so conscious of not wanting to fuck things up with you, and especially right now when my life seems to be going down the toilet. I’d sooner sit in this discomfort and know that I am not actively doing anything that could break us…or break you. Only I know this is wrong – because by not talking to you I am probably going to fuck things up because my internal narrative gets more and more fucked up and my inability to see what’s really in front of me increases. The moment I start looking for rejection and abandonment I see it everywhere…or my young parts do.

My time with you is so precious to me and I am so painfully aware (because of the past – before you) that things between us could implode if I bring all my need and big feelings right now. It’s funny, typing that, I can hear your voice in my head saying, “Lambkin, don’t be silly, there’s nothing that could make me leave you. You’re human and having a hard time and your need for me doesn’t scare me. You’re not too much and I am here holding your hand until I see you on Tuesday.” Because you’ve told me a version of that a million times before. I text you last weekend with “I miss you” and you replied almost immediately with a really holding message. You show up for me time and again…

And yet, today, I feel a million miles away from you. In fact, it’s worse than that – I feel like you are completely gone even if I have just called you to mind – or a more resilient part of me has. It’s hard. Like I said, part of me wants to reach out to you and seek some kind of reassurance that we are ‘ok’. And it is so simple.. and yet too hard right now. And this is what it is like when my system – the famous mini bus – is hurtling off down the track at brake neck speed without anyone being strapped in. There are so many conflicting or competing needs and voices that I just can’t cope. Adult me sort of knows it’s all ok, but the hurt child parts don’t get it at all.

I wonder if you have noticed how I have become ‘more’ lately. I have tried so hard not to be, extra, especially since my wife lost her job and you are seeing me for free. My internal world is so shaken and all my stuff around lack of safety and rejection and abandonment is so activated that it is total agony outside the room. I have tried to not be a complete fucking basket case when I see you, partly because I just want to have some time with you where I can ‘rest’ and feel contained and partly because you aren’t paid enough for this shit at the best of times, and you certainly shouldn’t have to put up with it unpaid!

There is a part of me that wants to cling on so tightly to you the moment I get in the room and be wrapped in your arms for the entire time I am with you. And, I know that if I reached for you that would happen – because I’ve done it before… plenty. It’s weird, though, at the moment we are close, I mean I am literally leant against you and you hold my hand… but I think what it is, is that I am keeping parts of me away from you. ‘Frustrated-with-life Adult Me’ is turning up and chatting away to you…but the very small parts that have missed you such a lot in the week aren’t there. Or they are, but they are hidden behind the sofa and you can’t see them. They desperately need cuddles, and stories, and head strokes, and reassurance and I get all I need to do is ask – but I can’t at the moment.

It’s hard. I understand why this stuff is so badly triggered. The moment my life gets a bit unsteady then every past trauma is triggered on top. My nervous system can’t differentiate which risks or fears are reality in the here and now, it just piles everything in together.

When there is so much going on in my world right now, and my system is so…mental!…so, activated, it’s super hard not seeing you as much as I am used to. And I get I am seeing you…and I am soooo grateful to you for everything that you are doing for me. I mean it is really staggeringly kind of you and it really feels incredible that you would do this for me when you absolutely don’t have to. But the little parts of me are finding the change in routine difficult. Today is Friday and the ‘falling apart’ feeling has ramped up. And it makes sense. We don’t speak on Friday anymore on our call, and the in person occasional Friday sessions that felt like such a gift are not happening either. And of course that is fine. But the fallout for my system that struggles so much with distance and containment is not doing great.

Last week you text me out the blue on Friday and it really soothed this place and the part that fears being left or forgotten about. Because you reached out, I knew that you were thinking of me and that felt so soothing. I think that contact allowed me to give myself permission to reach back to you from this place of “I miss you” rather than a slightly avoidant ‘lighter’ place.

Lately most of my communications to you have been day-to-day fluff. I think the thing you should probably know, and probably do know, is that whatever the communication is from me it is always about connection seeking. Sometimes it may be raw and vulnerable (like this), and other times completely random and non-descript insta links and humour…but fundamentally the messaging underneath is the same, and that is that I am checking that you are still there, that we are ok…and that I miss you.

And right now, that is it.

I miss you. A lot.

I am struggling to know what is the ‘right amount’ of contact with you now. Because I really don’t want to overdo it…and yet, I know that I am…and I know that the reason for this is because my system is having a meltdown and just reaching for you over and over in different ways … because to some parts it feels like you are gone, and to others there’s a fear of being left, and then…there’s messy me…who is writing this who just desperately wants things to work out.

I feel embarrassed that I find myself here. Like I know what’s happening. I know why it’s happening. I understand it sooooo well – and yet I can’t switch out of it – or turn it off.

I absolutely don’t want to be “too dependent” or worse, “like a tick”. I don’t want to be alone with all these escalating feelings that make me behave in a way that I know is frustrating (to both of us). Like I get it. I just don’t know what the answer is right now. My system is terrified of distance at the moment and so even if you aren’t distancing yourself from me – it’s how it feels – to part of me at least.

I sent you an email yesterday which was a little more feelings and less day-to-day crap and you didn’t reply to me. Usually, you would. And of course, now, I don’t know what to think because my crazy is dialled right up on high. I don’t want to make a mountain out of a molehill. I know I’m freaking out because things are necessarily different and I absolutely don’t think that’s a problem. None of this is about getting things to change – I’m hoping soon my life will get better and we can go back to things as they were. It’s just right now, I need you to know that as much as it may seem like I have my shit together and that everything is fine enough (considering the shitshow I am living in) – it’s not.

Ugh.

Fuck it all.

Man, I wish it was Tuesday…and that you secretly read my blog! lol.

Love From your most demanding, angsty, needy, client. xxx

p.s can we just snuggle next week. Thanks.

Another (F*cking) Catastrophic January…But Thank Goodness For Elle.

rubberbandsandchewinggum2 Comments

Well, where do I even begin?

I’ve been in total survival mode this last month and been barely functional. The levels of stress, or should I say ‘distress’, have been off the chart and I feel like I have been pushed way beyond my limits of coping. January into early February is never easy. It is the anniversary of that bloody awful time ending with Em over the “tick” reference which hurts so much…but it’s also the anniversary of meeting Anita – which now also hurts ridiculous amounts because somehow or other we don’t exist anymore. We never got a proper goodbye and I am left holding such a lot around that end – or lack of one. So, essentially this time of year now just seems to bring into sharp focus feelings of loss…but also abandonment and rejection and shame and … the list goes on. It’s heavy and I feel so deflated and worthless.

So, really, there’s enough going on in my internal world without any complications in my external world. But of course … my life doesn’t really do ‘giving me a break’ and sadly, one of my superpowers (although it certainly doesn’t feel like it) is knowing when the shit is about to hit the fan. I guess years of trauma make you so hypervigilant that you recognise patterns and energy feeling ‘off’ and are alert to stuff no one else would even notice. People tell me I have a sixth sense and honestly, as much as I try not to listen to my ‘inner doom catastrophiser’ when it starts telling me things are bad, it’s never wrong…ever…especially in regard to work and finances.

I said a while back that I felt like things were unstable with my wife’s job and that I felt like all I could do was wait for the shit to hit the fan and then deal with it when it did. Well, the shit did hit the fan. Big time. Four weeks ago she came home in the middle of the day and that was that. Job done. It’s shocking. The industry she is in is so cut-throat but also really fucking toxic- at least in the private sector. And so you can imagine how that landed. The car crash stuff had knocked me for six, the financial hit on the insurance payout has meant we haven’t been able to replace the car, and now the main breadwinner is out of work.

I have been completely beside myself with panic and then when it all gets too much I just dissociate. I have such a brilliant autopilot that’s been so well-honed over the years that somehow or other I have got through the last month and I have really little idea about what has happened.

The gnawing ache in my stomach has been there – I know that. My inner mini bus of child parts is totally out of control and screaming. My anxiety is through the roof. My fear about being ‘too much’ and then being rejected by Elle is huge – but that’s not surprising given the anniversaries on top of all the instability of my everyday life…

I didn’t know what to do with myself the day my wife lost her job. My immediate reaction in my body was insane- I started physically trembling and my teeth started chattering like I was shivering. Total panic and overwhelm. I sent Elle a message telling her what had happened and that whilst I needed to see her (we had scheduled in a Friday session that week in person) and would come on Friday, that I would have to figure things out going forward because… well…money…or lack thereof.

She replied with a really kind message and said we’d figure out a plan on together and she’d bring snacks… because that’s what I usually do. In the summer it was so hot that I started bringing in ice in a flask and something cold for us to drink – and that has been really lovely as it’s certainly not been coffee weather. And then sometimes I would bring in biscuits or a pastry or something.

But lately, because food and intake have been a bit of a thing for the last few months ☹ I have recently taken to bringing lunch for us both to my sessions and we pick our way through it with the drink. Our sessions are 90+ minutes in the middle of the day and so it’s good to eat otherwise one or other of us tends to start getting the stomach growls about half way through and it’s really funny!  

Elle doesn’t explicitly know the extent of the eating issue that has reared its head is the reason why I have been bringing actual lunch rather than just a drink or biscuits for the last month or so – but I did mention a while back that my body had been missing cues for eating and drinking…which is so often how this stuff starts off. It’s unconscious…until it isn’t. I have been here before…and I hate that this is so familiar. And I also sent her a link to something on Instagram about a slide back into eating disordered behaviours…so I’m trying really hard not to hide what’s happening – or tell her as much as I feel able – because that critical voice thrives in the dark and silence of shame.

So, being with Elle, in the safety of the room feels like a place where I can really consciously look after myself…or hold myself to account maybe. I don’t want to anorexia to take hold again. I so thought it was long gone…or…very very dormant…and it was…until life got too much…

Anyway, I got myself super worked up waiting to go see Elle…because the very thing I most feared and wrote about a few months back was about to play out:

At the end of the day my relationship with Elle is a paid for relationship. Without money we do not/cannot exist. And that is reality to swallow. Because whilst we, as clients, have money to pay our therapists we can keep up the masquerade that the relationship is ‘real enough’ to do the healing work we need and that we are safe and not going to be left (ahem!!).

Facing this reality at a time when more-than-ever I needed the therapy killed me. Like I seem to be losing so much at the moment – financial security is so important without it there is no physical security because what about the basics like paying the bills and keeping a roof over my head…if we’re not even able to manage the bottom couple of rungs of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs what hope is there?

I (and all my little parts) felt so sad going to see Elle that Friday morning because how would be say goodbye…even it was only temporary? Even though adult me completely gets the situation the young parts were already bracing for abandonment and rejection – because to them Elle is their attachment figure and whilst a pause in the therapy isn’t her abandoning me…that’s how it would feel. They don’t understand it’s a therapeutic relationship.

As it was, I ran into Elle in the street about ten minutes before the session – and you know how you read the things about ‘what happens if you see your therapist in the street’ and there’s the general idea that they’ll ignore you unless you acknowledge them. Yeah, no. I saw Elle, and she saw me, and she smiled and opened her arms up and gave me a big hug, kissed me on the cheek, and told me she’d see me in a minute, that she’d get the heat on, and to go and get my coffee.

So that’s what I did.

I’ve never run into Elle in ‘the wild’ before and I’ve often wondered how I would feel or respond if I saw her in ‘real life’ – and actually it was nice. I think I would have felt really upset if she’d pretended not to see me, or been stiff or awkward with me. Instead, it was just like how we are inside the room…which is actually what I needed. I need to feel like whatever it is that we have is real and not just some weird construct that happens in that space and then ceases to exist beyond that.

When I arrived, Elle had breakfast pastries for us both and she pulled me into a big hug and I leaned into her body and just rested in the warmth and safety in that moment. Part of me felt completely devastated that the person I have allowed to get so close to me and have worked so hard at trusting with ‘all the things’ was going to disappear, though. It felt like grief. Well…it was grief.

However, Elle told me almost immediately that she wanted me to keep coming to my session because I need them – now more than ever – and that I didn’t have to pay her. I was in total shock and told her that I couldn’t do that…because … shame…

I hadn’t realised how big a deal money shame is until recently, but the idea of not being able to pay for something that has a financial cost attached to it is ouch for me. I guess I have put a lot of sense of my own worth and value on my income and the moment that was gone it felt like my value was gone.

I’ve realised that my love language wish list items in terms of what I want to receive (with Elle) are ‘quality time’, ‘words of affirmation’, and ‘physical touch’ which are different to my needs in my marriage which primarily is ‘acts of service’. However, I realise that the way I show Elle I love her is through gift giving because I can’t really do any of the others in therapy. I mean we touch (thank god for that!) but I know that the hugs are really more for me and I am not there to give her words of affirmation etc…because…it’s my session. So apart from telling her here and there how I feel about her, and how grateful I am to her and for her, the way I express my love and respect and value for her is through turning up, paying on time and bringing little gifts – i.e snacks, or things I find here and there that I know she’d like…or at Christmas, a stocking full of meaningful things…which I think was something else entirely when I think about it!

I am sure it’s a C-PTSD thing, but when you’ve been deprived of love and care and all the necessary things to thrive, I think the moment we get even a sense of something good we want to cling onto it…for fear it will slip through our fingers like sand or water. On a level, I get that Elle likes me, loves me even, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t truly believe that I am ‘enough’ just as I am, and that in some way I don’t need to earn her love and care.

As a kid I made myself useful, I was a mini-therapist anticipating the needs of my family and listening to things that were way above my age and pay grade. But I was also quiet, well-behaved, excelled at school…like I moulded myself into exactly what I thought was required of me. It was like a text book ‘do this, this, this, and this and you’ll be ok/loved’ … only bending and shapeshifting to fit what I thought other people wanted never really worked. It was just exhausting and the long-term impact of that has been that it’s taken me a really long time to realise that I can just be myself…and that’s ok and enough. (Well most of the time I can believe that…)

So anyway, losing my ability to pay for our time together felt to me like I would have lost all my value in Elle’s eyes. She is running a business after all. And if I can’t even afford a reduced fee then I would have to go…because … well that’s the deal isn’t it?

Only apparently it isn’t.

I almost couldn’t take in Elle’s kindness or believe it in that moment – and so I didn’t talk about it – and Elle didn’t push it. She knows that I sometimes struggle to find a place to put her kindness and love. It doesn’t bounce off me, exactly, but it doesn’t sink in straight away either. And I can feel overwhelmed by expressions of love and kindness…and seem to shut down or be standoffish or maybe plain ungrateful…but it’s not that…and Elle understands all of that, thank goodness.

I was determined that I was going to make the most of the session with her and told Elle some stuff that I hadn’t shared with her before about my mum. It felt really connecting because it was painful stuff but I hadn’t realised before then that she didn’t know any of it…oh the joys of having had two other long-term therapists and having to recount the story more than once! That’s when she told me, “If there was a Nobel prize for cuntery, they’d give it to your mother!” This felt really validating as so often I convince myself that I am just being oversensitive and maybe things weren’t that bad. Elle assures me that they totally were that bad.

So, we spoke about all sorts that session, and I told her about my financial stresses too – which felt embarrassing but honest as I have never spoken about money before – or the endless stress and juggling act that my life seems to be with bills and servicing debt and life stuff.

Elle brought the session explicitly back round to us and the therapy about fifteen minutes before the end of the session. She told me that she wanted to see me and that she would continue to see me free of charge until things worked out and that when they did, I could go onto her concessionary rate. Which was so kind of her. Like being in the absolute depths in so many ways right now but knowing Elle is still in my corner is literally all that is keeping me afloat.

My change in circumstances has meant a reduction in contact time. We now do one-hour sessions which are really one hour fifteen, instead of ninety minutes which was always more like one hour forty-five, and we’re not doing the thirty-minute call on Fridays – but the fact that I am getting to see Elle at all is incredible to me. Like I honestly don’t know what to do with that. I feel overwhelmed with gratitude…

And I am finding it hard.

What?

Yeah. I am finding it hard, too.

I am finding it hard not to second guess the situation now because of my hang-ups around money and my worth. Part of me feels like I can’t bring some of what I am experiencing to her right now because it’s too much ‘hard work’ and if Elle is seeing me for free then somehow, I need to be as ‘easy’ as possible. I don’t want to burn her out, or be ‘too much’ or for her to start resenting me.

It’s all my textbook stuff coming up.

I’m trying to navigate what is an acceptable level of contact outside the sessions. When we were essentially seeing each other two hours, or more, a week, it felt like I could email her and tell her stuff and that was ok. But now… how can I possibly take up any more of her time when she is already giving me so much? So it’s tricky.

And of course, there’s another bit that is struggling with the change to our sessions. The young parts of me that need a high level of containment don’t have that now. And, please, do not for one minute see that as me moaning or being entitled or any of that. Adult me is fucking blown away with what Elle is doing for me…but this is the child parts and they don’t understand why they can’t speak to Elle on a Friday or see her in person on a Friday for a longer session a couple of times a month.

Any change in routine is hard and this is hard.

I feel like my needy parts are beginning to freak out a bit… a lot. I am having dreams about being abandoned and rejected and all that fun stuff. My system keeps wondering if Elle and I are ok still. Part of me wants to reach out and ask and seek reassurance from her but another part feels foolish and again, doesn’t want to create some kind of resentment and …you know…the dreaded ‘r’ word. I do not need a rupture right now. So the little girl that keeps quiet and behaves is doing her thing.

So, yeah, it’s a lot right now.

But I am so lucky to have Elle still…and maybe after I come out the other side of this financial catastrophe (because things have to get better soon, right?!) I’ll be able to tell her all about it. For now, my friend the Critic is doing her level best to keep me safe, and I guess I have to thank her for that. She understands danger and she steps up in the only way she knows: to take control when things are out of control.

I am so glad I have therapy tomorrow…these weeks are loooooong…and wasn’t January like eleventy-billion days long anyway?!

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