Author: rubberbandsandchewinggum

If (When) I Run Away – Please Come And Find Me.

rubberbandsandchewinggum4 Comments

Last year Elle and I were talking about when things have gone wrong in my therapies (there’s plenty of content there and we visit it regularly!) and situations where a client might choose to ‘end’ and not come back to therapy but it feels somehow unexpected or not the ‘natural end’. I was in one of those sensible adult places, not activated (!), and so able to express some of what goes on for me when the wheels feel like they are falling off in the therapeutic relationship and how panicked I get. I recognise that sometimes the reasons I bolt for the door (sometimes literally) are often not what appears to be happening on the surface in the moment.

What can seem like a very small trigger can send me totally spiralling…but then that’s hardly surprising when we look at this through a Complex Trauma lens, or the fact that I have tonne of parts who are all processing stuff in their own ways – many of which are not particularly sophisticated! Of course, my four-year-old self and teen parts don’t see things the same way my adult self does, nor have they the skills to manage things in the way that my adult does. You’d think I’d be ok, though, seeing as I have a really fucking competent adult self. The problem is, my system is complicated, has the capacity to hijack me, and I am really really good at dissociating. Adult self is rarely there when I need her when I am freaking out.

Let’s face it – what scares me (all of me) more than anything is broken connection, feeling like the attachment is severed, and that I am on the verge of being abandoned. This is not at all surprising given my history because there was a time when disconnection really was a life-or-death situation. My mother’s PND did nothing for my little baby self or my developing nervous system and I have spent so much of my life in survival because my caregivers have never been reliable.

It’s hardly surprising that when I feel like the relationship with Elle (or A or Em…) is headed towards a cliff edge I am the first to run away. I am the absolute queen of ‘leave before I get left’ which is why I absolutely need my therapist to know this pattern and make sure I don’t bolt and disappear when there is a rupture (even if from their side it might seem small, repairable, or can wait). Ruptures can feel catastrophic to my system these days because … well… there have been ruptures where I have been hurt really badly and basically been abandoned and rejected because of my responses. Think of Em. My reaction to being called a tick, calling her out on it, and running scared didn’t see her try hard to meet me in it, to apologise, to understand why I was terrified, she just saw it as a perfect opportunity to let me go.  

Anita was way better at handling ruptures… until her life collapsed around her ears and she couldn’t hold herself let alone anyone else. The damage from that ending is ongoing and painful. I feel so sad that in the two years since I last saw her, she hasn’t been able to step outside of her struggles and meet to end but that’s not what I am here to talk about today… although it definitely fed into the intensity of the panic I have felt with Elle during our recent rupture. 

So, what’s this post all about?

This is a pre-curser post to help understand a bit of what happened in the most recent rupture with Elle (i.e when I brought it to her attention). Because yes. I got myself in a mess. A big one. And I ended up sending her this message:

I don’t want to see you anymore.

You can only imagine what sort of a state I had got myself into to send that. Eek. Like, I am the person will ALL THE WORDS… not none!

I’m almost done writing that post – and it’ll be up soon. But suffice to say it’s been a wild ride.

I am glad, then, that over the time I have been working with Elle, I have given her pieces of the map of me so that she has been able to understand me better and figure out what I need.

Most of the time I probably appear pretty together when I see her despite the crap that keeps hitting my day-to-day life. I probably seem a bit wounded and in need of support for my little parts but also seem generally functional. Sometimes I am a bit closed off but I am present in the room rather than off in space dissociated. The completely derailed, panicked, reactive, scared stiff self hasn’t really made it to the room (she’s done some emailing though!) – or if she has, she’s not been triggered BY ELLE. Elle has been a witness to the struggle and in support role in the room, not the trigger. It’s only this last month that Elle has had to misfortune of meeting that part of me in person.

Anyway, back to last year. I was testing the water with Elle knowing that it was only ever going to be a matter of time before something triggered my runners and protectors and I needed to know how she would respond if I unexpectedly disappeared. We all know that there are those diehard therapists who will say “I respect client autonomy, and if they choose to leave that’s their choice and I will not contact them thereafter. It’s up to them to contact me should they want to resume therapy.”

Puke.

Honestly, this kind of therapist really annoys me more than anything. If that’s your stance as a therapist then you absolutely should not be working with C-PTSD or people with multi-part systems. This ‘in the service of the client’s autonomy’ is bullshit. I’m not for one minute saying to beg and plead for a client to come back, that’s not realistic. But so often when we start running and slamming doors behind us, it’s not because we want to leave – it’s because we are scared! And we need for the adult, regulated nervous system (therapist) to remind us that we can come back, that we are wanted (even if we are having a tantrum and full of shame), and that they are committed to working through EVERYTHING with us even if it is HARD. Letting a triggered client disappear out the door is abandonment… it’s not kind.

And so, that day I asked Elle if she had ever made a mistake with a client that led to termination and what she did, or what she would do differently. Elle told me the about the biggest regret of her career was a time when she wasn’t as sensitive as she could have been with a client who kept cancelling last minute. She reached the point where she enacted her cancellation policy after several missed sessions – i.e charging for the session by sending an email, and the client left as a result – never came back in. Elle said she had failed to recognise potential wounding around money and still feels terrible to this day.

Mistakes and missteps happen, but what I wanted to know was what she did when the client said they were not coming back. Was she a ‘respect client’s autonomy and let them go’ therapist, or did she do something different?

Elle assured me that she had reached out and suggested that they meet in person but that the client didn’t want to come back, that there were some back and forth communications but that the client ended.

[For the record there was nothing identifying or specific – merely Elle’s feeling that she fucked up and had learnt a lot from that.]

I told her that I would always want her to reach out to me because it made me think about all the times I ran out of Anita’s and how when I am upset I can pull the plug (or parts of me can) and how it is really important to me that my therapist recognises when I am truly wanting to end and when I feel backed into a corner and feel like I need to leave because I can’t tolerate the feelings of disconnect etc.

Even though Elle was clear that she would always contact me in a rupture situation – my brain was whirring after the session and so I wrote her this letter at the time:

I was thinking about what you said yesterday, about the client that never came back – because of course that’s what my brain does at 3am when I can’t sleep and the anxiety is doing its thing. I actually had a lot of thoughts, like I can think of hundreds of reasons of why that all happened, but I am sure there’s nothing you haven’t thought about over the years so it’s not relevant.

However, what it did make me really think about was what would happen if something similar happened with us. You’ve probably figured out by now that I am not someone who cancels last minute and, generally speaking, if I did it would be because something was out of my control with the kids or something. But, actually, there are times when I get completely hijacked by my system and the “I don’t want to go” (it’s much bigger and more complicated than that) is really hard to get around.

Tbh it’s rarely an “I don’t want to go” because there is lots of me that absolutely does but it’s sometimes more of a “things feel very wrong, something is up, I’m scared that it’s all going to blow up, I don’t feel safe, I feel hurt, abandoned, rejected, maybe even angry… [on and on and on]…and so I need to protect myself from that and stay away – and she doesn’t care anyway so what’s the point?! It’s better to leave before I get left…”

I mean I totally get what happens, where it comes from, what parts of me are involved, and yet when it’s happening it is not always easy to sidestep it. It would be funny if it wasn’t so tragic but I guess at least there’s a really clear trajectory on how it all runs which I guess at least I am aware of now. And I see it a lot. Clients, for whatever reason, find it difficult to go to their therapy, maybe don’t show up, and might seem to be ghosting but actually it’s not because they don’t want to be there it’s because there is some kind of a rupture (that maybe the therapist has absolutely no clue about) and they, for whatever reason, can’t bring it to the room.

So many of us are conflict avoidant and even though bringing ‘big feelings’ shouldn’t be a problem, I guess most of our experiences have been that when we have, we’ve been mocked, or shamed, or abandoned, or gaslit…you know the deal… and so we’d rather not risk that repeating. I think sometimes, too, part of us knows that our reaction to whatever has been triggered is MUCH BIGGER than it ‘should’ be and so there’s shame and embarrassment there too because we feel completely derailed and it’s not even that big a deal (only it is a massive deal!).

I think it can be all the more unsettling for people that don’t really spend much time contemplating the therapeutic relationship and so when something between the therapist and client happens it’s hard to know what to do with it. Like it’s much easier to say, “I’m sorry, I’m sick” rather than, “I feel really anxious and something you said has really upset me” when they thought they were there to talk about their work stress and all of a sudden all this other shit is stirred up.

Sometimes it feels like a toddler or a teenager having a tantrum but actually I think that’s exactly what is happening – whatever is being triggered isn’t necessarily conscious and, in that moment, the adult self isn’t available enough to navigate the situation and all we know is that it just feels huge and insurmountable and overwhelming and completely in our bodies – and so the instinct is to run away and hide.

In some ways I think this can be really hard to manage because whatever is happening to stop a person turning up to therapy feels massive to them, and acting out can bring on all the massive feelings of shame and embarrassment afterwards and basically like you just want to crawl into a hole and die. It takes a lot to feel brave enough to come back and talk it through, and there has to be a strong enough sense that the person opposite you isn’t going to confirm everything that you fear is happening. It really is like with toddlers and teens. They need an adult to help them out of their meltdowns sometimes and an invitation back to work things out.

It is really complicated (but also not). I think when people don’t show up, rather than being flaky or disrespectful (I mean I guess there must be some people like that), is about testing whether the therapeutic relationship is strong or not. Like do you care enough to come find me if I disappear or will you just let me go? And I really get that this is complicated because all the training is like, ‘therapists should respect client autonomy’ and all the shit about not creating a dynamic that encourages ‘game playing’… only that is really pathologising and really makes it seem like everything that happens is down to us. It’s not game playing, it’s trying to protect ourselves.

As I said, lots of us have been hurt over the years and haven’t had the experience of managing conflict in a way that doesn’t somehow burn the house down and so rather than face a situation that potentially will hurt us more on top of whatever hurt feelings we are already feeling, we disappear. I think, for me at least, if I experience something as being abandoning or rejecting then it absolutely triggers the need to run away.

I’m not explaining this brilliantly well, and this is looooonnnggg, but I guess what I am trying to say is, if I cancelled last minute, or didn’t show up it’s not because I am rude, or don’t respect boundaries or whatever else – it’s because something is really wrong (from my side) and it feels too hard to come. If you just let me go and never contacted me to find out what was up or didn’t reach out and invite me to come and try and figure out what’s going on with you in person, actually what it confirms to me is probably everything I was running away from in the first place which is the feeling that you don’t care…

I’d like to think that a situation like this would never happen – but I also live in my head and experience often enough my runner ducks bolting. Just usually I have enough time to gather them back together before I see you.

Having a therapy go south in this way is sooooo common and causes such a lot of hurt to those involved. I have way too many stories – not just my own! – and I was wondering whether after the event a therapist reaching out would make any difference. And I think it would. An opportunity to talk through what happened when it’s not live would probably be really helpful because I think we tend to carry this shit around for a long time. 

Anyway, that’s… a lot. I’ll try not to run away, but if I do, please come and find me. X

And so… I guess it was helpful that I sent that last year, because Elle did come and find me…and the session when we did get to meet was HUGE. I’ll get the ‘what happened next’ post up asap.

Dear Therapist. Just Because We Don’t Want Reminding That We Are Therapy Clients Doesn’t Mean That We Don’t KNOW That We Are Just Your Job.

rubberbandsandchewinggum34 Comments

Today has been rotten. I’ve spent weeks trying very very hard to keep my chin up – or should I say, keep my nostrils above the shit soup that I have been neck, or even, mouth deep in for the longest time. I have painstakingly worked my way through the metaphorical ‘A-Z Book of Self Care’ – exhausting all my tools and strategies in an almost frenzied attempt to stave off sinking beneath the surface (again). I really don’t want to drown in the emotional cesspit!

My social media accounts look like I am living my absolute best life right now, but as we all know there’s often quite a distance between appearance and reality. My exterior looks one way (picture perfect), but I can tell you with complete confidence that my inner world is mired in the deepest, darkest shit right now. I have always been good at masking, though.

Knowing that Elle would be on a break right at the same time that all the anniversaries of Anita pulling the plug on my therapy two years ago has meant that May has been one hell of a messy month inside of me – my minibus has been renamed ‘The Struggle Bus’ and has some wicked looking decals on the side – not that anyone would know. I haven’t just wallowed in the ache and panic of it, though. I’m not lying when I say that I have been making herculean efforts to keep afloat. I have been trying to keep my life vest inflated by blowing into the little tube meanwhile pretending that I am not actually drowning…in shit. My friend said that perhaps I should start flashing the little light and blowing on the whistle…but I don’t want to disturb anyone. And who is going to want to rescue me from a huge vat of shit anyway?!

I took myself away this week, on my own and have been immersing myself in nature, living on my own timetable largely off the clock. I have tried to take out any of the stresses and strains that can leave me feeling overstimulated and overtired – and snappy, and on the verge of meltdown (!)… and it has been great, and I genuinely thought I had warded off the emotional disaster that felt inevitable with the break looming… but today I woke up and felt off. That familiar sense of painful ache and emptiness had rooted and the emotional dark cloud had firmly placed itself above my head.

Despite all the effort to avert the emotional crash it’s happened anyway. Of course it would. I walked 26km of coast path yesterday in an attempt to not end up where I am now (in my bed all day, in a freeze with the curtains closed feeling hopeless and sad). I thought that if I just kept moving, I would be ok. I kept finding a point on the path in the distance and walking to it, then finding another, and another, and before I knew if I was miles and miles from home.

I should know better by now than to try and outrun (walk) something that lives inside me. I can’t run away from my parts and my pain. Sometimes it feels like I live with pieces of shrapnel inside and have learnt to move and bend in particular ways in order to try and avoid the worst of the hurt. Most of the time I am successful. Unless of course I trip and jerk in an unexpected movement and then … OUCH!

And that’s what’s happened today.

Again.

I probably should have made more of an effort to let Elle know what was going on inside me in the two sessions before she left. I have a children’s book called ‘A Shelter For Sadness’ that I read once with Anita. When I got ‘the box’ back from her in December it was the one I picked to show Elle. It’s lovely and talks about making different spaces to house Sadness (or I guess, this expands to whatever other feelings you need to hold). To be honest, I think the sessions before a break need to be all about creating not only a shelter for sadness but for all the little parts that struggle so much. I need a youth hostel!

Sounds like a good idea, doesn’t it?  

It would be if ‘False Adult’ hadn’t been fronting quite a bit. There’s also been another active protector part – probably a slightly ‘low volume’ version of the ‘Inner Critic’ piping up here and there warning me not to be “too needy” or “too honest” about how things feel for fear of being “too much”. The very last thing I want to happen is have another therapist go off on their holiday and then decide that I am too much like hard work and terminate when they come back.

The thing is I don’t help myself at all by avoiding saying, “The idea of you being gone is really unsettling me” or “I really need for us to do some focussed work before your break with the little parts” or “I might turn up and be adult but the reality is the young parts need stories and cuddles before you go” or “I hate to be like this but can you give me some kind of tangible reassurance that we are ok because my system is in freefall” or “Can we maybe organise a check in later in the week so that it cuts down the break a bit?” or “I am swimming in shame right now and feel so untethered. Can you tell me how you are feeling right now about me so I don’t create stories in my head when you are gone?” or “Can you remind me that just because Anita left at this time of year that you aren’t going to, too?” or “Can you write me a note for when you are away that I can open in our usual session time to keep connected?”…. You know… any of the things…but I know why I do.

I don’t want to be ‘that client’ even if I am so totally ‘THAT CLIENT’. So instead, I spent the last couple of sessions before the break wittering on about my day-to-day (which to be fair is full of serious shit as well). I felt like I wasn’t even in the room for the very last session before Elle left and I went away feeling really sad and disconnected which is never the ideal situation to be in when there’s two weeks between sessions.

I know it is a tendency of mine to emotionally check out as a kind of protective measure before a break. You know, leave before you get left. It wouldn’t have been obvious to Elle. I looked ‘there’ enough. But I think actually I was dissociated – or parts of me certainly were.

So yeah, May has been tough for the most part.

But it’s especially tough today.

I started to feel myself edging towards the shame slide on Thursday night thinking about how hard I struggle with separation and how it ALWAYS feels like a rejection or abandonment. I feel embarrassed about having given something to Elle before she’s gone away that on one level, I think is really thoughtful and shows exactly how important she is to me…but then as time has gone on I wonder if it’s too much? Like, get in your lane RB and remember that you are just a therapy client. And with that has come that painful reminder of the time I gave Em a copy of ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’ and a glass snowflake for Christmas and she basically rejected them telling me that I paid her for her time and that’s enough.

I sent Elle a short message about feeling ashamed but not why I was feeling that way or any detail at all and she reminded me to stay off that “slippery slip”. But it’s not that easy, is it?

You may be wondering how any of what I am saying has any bearing on the title of this blog post?

I don’t know how to get this out to be honest because it’s swirling in my mind and nothing has landed yet.

But I suppose the thing about breaks is it’s another reality check that therapy is just therapy and we are our therapist’s work. Nothing more than that.

One of the things I struggle such a lot with is the authenticity of the therapeutic relationship. Like it’s so hard to settle in the space that is, “my therapist genuinely cares…but it is a paid-for relationship”. I think that is especially the case for those of us with early trauma and attachment issues…and *all the things*!

I would hazard to say that most of us would rather not be perpetually reminded of the fact that the relationship we have with our therapist only exists if we can pay for it, and the moment that we can’t we’re out the door (this has been very present in my mind since my wife is out of work and finances are an absolute disaster). Or that in reality the relationship as we know it only really exists for that hour or two each week. Outside that, you’re on your own – and we need to be soooo careful about hitting the concrete walls of boundaries we don’t know about outside that time don’t we?

Like who doesn’t love, “If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t be working with you…but I will not respond to or even read your emails and should you choose to contact me in that way you are deliberately walking yourself into rejection and pushing boundaries…” Cheers Em. It was very hard to believe that she saw me as anything other than someone who reliably showed up every week and handed over money. She never wanted to enter into the ‘us’ of the therapeutic relationship and I felt horrible all the time.

I guess some people find the transactional nature of therapy easier than others. I mean, sure, if you are going to talk through work stress, or getting divorced or whatever – I am sure it’s no problem at all to have the ongoing reminders that your weekly session is an ‘appointment’ because perhaps the sessions are less about the relationship with the therapist and more about what needs immediately fixing in the world outside the room. I know people who think of their therapy sessions in the same way that they think about going to the GP or the dentist… but Elle doesn’t occupy that zone in my head at all…and I know a lot of the people that read this blog don’t think of their therapists like this either.

Get to the fucking point RB!

So… I guess what I am trying to say, and have said it in so many different ways over the years, is that I am not stupid: I know my therapist is my therapist. I know my relationship with Elle is a paid-for relationship. I know she is not my friend. I know that there are clear boundaries around our relationship. I know that although she’s supportive, she’s not there at 3am to call when I wake from yet another nightmare feeling panicked and like I want to give up on life altogether. I know that she sees other clients. I know that as much as I would like to be ‘special’ to her, that I am just one of many people she sees, and in fact – my experience would tell me that when it comes down to it, I am not one of those clients that therapists want to hang onto. I am one of the first to be chopped when things are hard.

But you know what?

I know it, but I don’t need reminding of it.

It’s there all the time.

That doesn’t mean I am in denial. That doesn’t mean I hope that one day our relationship will be something different than it is now. It doesn’t mean that I am living in some kind of fantasy about the therapy being anything other than therapy. I am not hiding from reality.

The parts of me that want to feel safe, and loved, and like I matter are constantly aware of exactly what therapy is and what it is not. I know I am a client. But forgive me if I don’t want it ramming down my throat.

And yes, I’ll be the first to put my hands up and say that I find it hard navigating the therapeutic relationship… I mean, this blog shows that doesn’t it?! And I absolutely do get triggered by things that maybe I shouldn’t. Well, ‘shouldn’t’ is bollocks anyway…because my experience is my experience. But I can’t believe that I am in unusual in feeling how I do, in reacting how I do to certain kinds of communication. I bet, actually a lot of people have a response but feel too embarrassed or ashamed to even bring it up. Sometimes it feels easier to keep quiet and move on through triggers alone than let our therapist see how ‘small things’ can really ‘hurt a lot’.

I did absolutely find the weekly automated texts from Elle reminding me of my session time painful – for lots of reasons. I don’t think that impersonal communications are easy to metabolise for the parts of us that aren’t ‘adult’. I have C-PTSD – and structural dissociation with a system of at least nine parts so is it really surprising that my four-year-old self feels upset when ‘the Elle that she knows’ sends group emails ‘to all clients’ when she has no idea what ‘a client’ even is when she is used to being referred to with more affectionate terms. It’s jarring.  

The other thing is: I DO NOT NEED REMINDING OF MY SESSION TIME … because I am pathetic counting down to 12 o’ clock on a Tuesday from the moment I leave the room and by Friday I am really struggling. Having what felt like a sterile and cold message on a Monday morning when I was so far away from a state of connectedness was just endlessly triggering. That doesn’t mean I don’t know that I am a client. It just means that my system needs something different. And you know what? That brings up so much shame and embarrassment for me.

I spend so much of my time second-guessing what is ‘real’ and what isn’t in the therapeutic relationship. I want to feel like the relationship I have with Elle means something to her too when it means such a lot to me. I don’t want to feel like I am on her conveyor belt of people to see. I don’t want to be reminded that I am on a conveyor belt at all – even though I know it completely and feel it all the time.

That doesn’t mean I have a sense of grandiosity or that I feel like I am more important than other clients, or that I am not ‘a client’. In fact, it is the very opposite. I hate group emails and impersonal communication because my self-esteem is so low that being reminded that I am just ‘one of many clients’ directly taps into the recent trauma with Anita ending our long-term work. I couldn’t even pay her to stay. She chose to keep other people on and not me. I don’t think Elle understands what that rejection has done to me and how hard it is to trust in her and how much of myself I hold back or keep out the room because of what happened with A.

I feel like I have never been enough for people to stay. Or to care.

The person that should have loved me no matter what (my mother) has happily disappeared from my life again, too. Although the abandonment started young of course…

So with all this in mind, knowing why I am in therapy at all, is it any wonder then that I don’t want to be reminded that I am just a client? Is it so very wrong of me to want a place and a person that feels safe and where I feel like I matter? Is it wrong to want to believe that someone might actually care just because I am enough as I am? Is it wrong to want to feel like the person sitting with me might just love me not just despite my flaws but because of them? It’s scary being seen but therapy is sometimes the only place where that truly happens.

I thought Elle of all people would understand this.

Although, I’m not sure now.

I always imagined that if she was struggling with something between us, she would tell me first…or you know, take it to supervision and then come to me. But imagine my horror to discover a post in an online therapist forum by her (albeit under a pseudonym – but it is most definitely her from other comments and posts) that talks about a client that has issues being reminded they’re a client and asking advice.

The original post has been deleted – but the comments from other therapists and her replies that are attached to it are still there – and you can imagine how reading a string of thirty comments about yourself and what might be ‘wrong’ with you feels. And I can infer enough from those that she doesn’t know what to do to handle it delicately because I have a total emotional shutdown in our next session any time she sends something formal or automated or a change in office hours (that last one really upset me because the reason I got upset at Christmas when we couldn’t see each other on Christmas Eve wasn’t just a change in office hours – it was so much more than that). And there’s a reference to something that she can only have read in a blog post of mine because I never shared it with her directly but actually – she’s misread that too – she said I was angry about something A did in communication – it wasn’t that AT ALL. What I was feeling was scared.

One of the horrible side effects of developmental and relational trauma is hypervigilance. I have always had to carefully watch for change in people because so often there was a form of abuse coming with change. One minute things would be fine enough and then all of a sudden the wind would change and it was fucking terrifying. You get really good at ‘noticing’ when you are scared all the time. A simple shift in tone of voice, body language or whatever could often be the signal to get out of the way in order to not be hurt. But then there was also the stuff around silent treatment as punishment and I think sometimes more formal/sterile communications can feel like a withdrawing of warmth (and therefore care). It’s complex. But has absolutely fuck all to do with my not wanting to be reminded that I am in therapy and a client.

I am so hypervigilant, though. I notice everything. So of course if I get some kind of written communication that feels very different to what I am used to experiencing with someone my brain is scanning for meaning in that. I would love for my brain to be able to switch into, “this is just admin, everything is fine” but that’s not how it works. It starts with stories about how “something must have changed” or “watch out because something bad is going to happen”. And it’s not as though there isn’t evidence for this bad stuff happening. I’m not stuck in old patterns and unable to make a leap into the here and now, because the reality is, not all that long ago my sense of things being off wasn’t wrong…despite Anita’s protesting otherwise…and the next thing I knew I was dumped. So yeah. I do worry when there is inconsistency and that isn’t because I don’t want to be reminded that I am client, it’s because I am terrified that change means abandonment or rejection.

I just don’t understand how someone who is so big on authenticity and honest communication and you know all the Brene Brown stuff about being vulnerable and open has chosen to go online to figure this stuff out rather than come to me directly because I thought by now we had a strong enough relationship to have those conversations.

The irony is not lost on me that this is exactly what I am doing now! Running into the safety of the online world rather than reaching out. But I am the client… or capitalise that… CLIENT… you know, the thing I don’t want to be reminded about – and she is the therapist – the therapist who is currently away on a break. I am just a client who will not bring this up in an email right now (even though it’s really knocked me for six) and will hold onto it for as long as I can because I respect the fact that she is on holiday from her job – which is me – and therefore this ‘work’ can wait. But hey, I have problems with being reminded I am a client. Like, seriously, please do fuck off.

So, I have felt hurt today…and also maybe a bit angry it seems based on that last line.

This probably sounds so much worse than it is. There is nothing ‘identifying’ about me (in the real world) in that post or in some of the other comments elsewhere that reference how we work. But I can identify myself clearly from them and so, it seems, could someone else who has been following my blog in the background for years and thought that they recognised me through one of Elle’s descriptions of how she works with a particular client on another post – such a small world – ugh. That person clicked through Elle’s posts and was able to join enough dots from stuff I have said about me that they thought they should reach out to me and let me know that they thought they could identify me via what my therapist had posted – albeit still in an anonymous way. Ugh.

So of course I checked this out. And this is when I came across the stuff about not wanting to be reminded of being a client. Elle would never for one minute think that I would have found this stuff but I think she underestimates my ability to take very small snippets of information and make links – or it seems, for readers of mine to… she ought to , though, because I know she is the same with this kind of thing. Neither one of us is not very familiar with the online world. This is why I stay away from forums generally, there’s so much crossover and I don’t want chance encounters (well not like this)! I do also get that the reason I was identifiable is because of what I’ve written on the blog…so it’s not straightforward.

So, yeah, this is utterly fucking rubbish isn’t it?! I so wish that when this happened a couple of months ago, she’d have said to me, “RB, last session you were really shutdown but you didn’t tell me why and hardly talked – you just snuggled into me and cried. I sometimes read your blog when you seem far away and shutdown to give a me a clue of what’s going on for you because you said from the start that I could have access to your blog before we even started working together and often you send posts to me. I know that you found the automated texts hard a while back and we’ve changed that, but then I see from your post that the email I sent about fee increase has been triggering too but not because of the money – which is often what people feel upset by. Do you think we might be able to talk about this together?”

Like, please please Elle – come to me before you head out online for advice…because although I can’t read exactly what you posted originally, surely – surely by now you know me enough to know that I am not some delusional fucking freak who has no grip on reality. The thing is, because I only have what I can see to go on, the story I am telling myself is exactly that – and not only that, but that you find me hard work, that I am in some way problematic, that how I react sometimes is too much and that I am making you feel uncomfortable and that there is a big problem you don’t know how to solve, and probably too that you don’t really even like me very much. It’s basically activated my Inner Critic and given it a megaphone.

As a result I am completely triggered and stressed and worried that history is going to repeat itself and you’ll decide that I am a pain in the arse and get rid of me because I can already see how this could land. And that hurts such a lot because I trusted you with me and this just feels like a massive betrayal of that trust. But not only that, there’s a part of me that now feels like I need to go into hiding – because obviously my reactions to some things are extreme and that is a horrible place to inhabit…albeit really familiar.

I just want my 90 minutes a week to feel important, and protected, and safe, and like I actually have some sort of value even if I have to pay for that and that I don’t have to think about anyone else and can be in the moment just with you. And I am sorry that I struggle when faced with the stark difference between the warm person I see each week who sends me really lovely emails and holds me so carefully and the one who is running a ‘business’. But sure. It’s me, hi, I’m the problem it’s me... because it always is a me problem.

It seems kind of cruel that this had to all happen today on the anniversary of the day that Anita dropped the bombshell that she needed to end with me – and when it’s fucking ages until the break is over…but it’s my own fault. I should never have gone down the rabbit hole in the first place. But it was that thing, feeling far away, disconnected, sad, lost, and looking for a sense of the person I think I know…and finding the person I think I know…but also not.

All I am hoping for now, really, is that I don’t get myself so worked up between now and the 27th that I end up backing so far away that there’s no going back. A triggered system left in freefall is never a good combination.

I think the best thing I can do is retreat into myself and try very hard not to catastrophise…

Good luck with that!

Dear A, It’s been Two Years…

rubberbandsandchewinggum15 Comments

Dear A,

It’s hard to believe that it’s two years since the Anita that I knew and loved was last properly in the room with me. It’s two years this weekend since you went off on your holiday for your birthday, full of reassurances, telling me that “nothing will change” and that you would be “coming back” and that you “love(d) me very much”. Little did I know, then, what would happen to us barely two weeks later. Little did I know you’d never properly come back to me. Had I have known you would pull the plug on us, on me, I would have made more of an effort to take in those last moments of feeling (relatively) safe and held.

I would have taken so many mental pictures of the room, and of you, and tried so much harder to commit the feelings of connection and safety to memory so that I could refer back to them and use them to soothe all the hurting parts of me later down the line. I would have breathed your familiar smell in, carefully listened for your slow, steady heartbeat all the while soaking up every last second of feeling safe in the moment because I can count on one hand the times that I have managed to settle my nervous system since we ended.

Having said that, I think it’s actually all the memories of the connected moments that now hurt me the most. I find it so difficult to sit in this place where I know what we had, how it felt, how you made me feel…and to now be here – it’s all gone… Of course, I have so much of ‘us’ evidenced in my writing and in voice recordings as ‘proof’ but I can’t bear to read back over my blogs or listen to our sessions anymore.

It hurts, too, that the tangible items that you gave me, gifts and transitional objects, now only bring me pain. On the one hand they serve as evidence that we really did exist for a moment in time, well three-and-a half years, but on the other hand that no matter how much “love and care” there was, it wasn’t enough to make you stay. We don’t exist in the here and now and it breaks my heart.

Sometimes I wonder if there was anything I could have said or done differently in those last sessions before your holiday? Could I have said something to pull at your heart enough so that you wouldn’t have ever considered leaving me in the first place? It’s hard to know. I spent months saying ‘less’ and hiding myself away, trying to give you space for fear of being too much because I knew that you weren’t well and things were hard in your personal life…as it was I ended up being “too much” and “not enough” all at the same time regardless of my best efforts to behave in the right way.

When you came back from your trip you were not the same Anita. From the moment I walked in the door I knew something was wrong and it took less than five minutes for you to say, “I’m going to have to bring the counselling with you to an end” and that you were ending with all your “long-term clients”. It’s funny. It’s so much easier to say “counselling” rather than “relationship” and for you to refer to me now as a “client” rather than “RB”. It’s easier to say “I need to cut the stress out of my life” rather than “I am cutting you from my life.”

For someone with the kind of wounding I have, and the issues around rejection and abandonment I struggle with, the way you handled our ending…or should I say ‘not ending’ (?!) couldn’t have been worse.

The day you told me we needed to end, you broke down, there was a complete role reversal, and you even said, “This is meant to be your session not mine.” And yet, I still paid you for it – and for all of those ridiculous sessions where my heart was basically being emotionally stomped all over in hobnail boots.

I focused on trying to save you (not for the first time), because if I could rescue you then it would mean I would be saved too. At the end of that first bomb-drop session, you shifted and said that we would, “find a way to connect” and that we would “figure something out.” I left devastated but somewhat hopeful because this back and forth with you wasn’t completely new territory for me.

Looking back over the last eight or so months of our time together, there was such a lot of push/pull and it wasn’t coming only from my end. I absolutely have a wonky brain, and things get messy, but there is generally a trigger. One minute I was “too dependent” and the next you’d tell me that you “love” me “such a lot.” It’s weird being someone’s “stress” but also being “so important” to them. It’s no wonder I got more and more panicked, and more and more clingy because things weren’t really safe, were they? – I wasn’t imagining it, even though you tried to tell me it was all in my head and that you “hadn’t changed”.

You said so many times in those weeks, “This isn’t what I want” but it was you who made this happen. You chose to cast me adrift and yet keep working with your other clients even if it was because you couldn’t “afford not to work”. I will never ever be ok with that. No matter how many angles I come at this from, and no matter how much benefit of the doubt I want to give you, I can’t let that go. You chose to sever our connection and chose to maintain others. It doesn’t make sense to me. I get that different clients demand different things from you but I just don’t understand how if anything you ever said to me was true that you would do this to me…and to others like me.

You wax lyrical about the importance of ethical practice but I am struggling hard to find anything ethical in how this all went down. At the very least, surely you would ensure that the clients that you were letting go were safe, and had someone else to go to. Like what on earth were you and your supervisor doing when all this was happening? You must have been speaking with her throughout this car crash time. Surely, there’s a fundamental understanding that you, as a therapist, safeguard your vulnerable clients – I mean you do understand complex trauma, don’t you?

And on a human level…well, on a human level you just do better.

Perhaps I am just too sensitive. Maybe I care too much. I have always worn my heart on my sleeve and this has proven to be both a blessing and a curse. But I sure as hell know that if I had hurt someone in the way that you have hurt me that I couldn’t just let it go. I couldn’t just bury my avoidant head in the sand and pray that when I came up for air that everything had gone away. I would have to try and make amends even if the other party didn’t want to hear it. Like how can you sit in your therapy room week in, week out and not be perpetually reminded of what you have done? Are you really able to just blank it all from your mind? – I just don’t know how you possibly could.

I think this is partly why, now, even two years later I am struggling to let the last bit of hope of you go. There’s a little bit of me that wonders if one day you’d try and repair because this isn’t how we treat people we love is it? Surely, somewhere in you there is a part that wants a proper resolution, a proper goodbye, to know that you have repaired some of the harm you’ve done…because that’s what I would want if it were me.

I know that is really only the hope of a little part that thinks you might come back, the one that trusts and always wants to see the best in people…and ultimately the one that always gets so very badly hurt. It’s certainly not my adult self, because there is no way on earth I’d let you near my poor vulnerable heart ever again. Even if you did muster up an apology that acknowledged and reflected the magnitude of the damage that you did to me, I could never trust you again and I think I would even struggle to accept an apology now. I no longer respect you. In fact, I think you are pretty dangerous.

I know too, that I cannot continue to judge your actions and behaviour by my standards. You are not me. And whilst I couldn’t do what you’ve done to me and your other poor clients…you clearly aren’t bothered by your conduct. You probably now just notch it up to having burnt out and “stress” so of course you weren’t at your best…but that doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible for what you did and the harm you caused…it just gives you a sense of justification for it.

I have spent years and years waiting for people to change and do better – but the thing is, people rarely change. It’s a good thing then, that the majority of my system has, not exactly let you go, or moved on, but there’s some thick scar tissue forming where that open wound was. I’ve protected myself from what’s happened – to an extent. I don’t long for you anymore. I don’t look for you out in the world. In fact, if I were to come across you now, I imagine I would walk the other way and avoid meeting you because really, what is there to say?

It’s done now. You’ve moved so far past it and our relationship. You’re still working. You’re still advertising that you work with trauma and on a long-term basis. None of the things you said about moving to “couples work” or “online work only” and “no more trauma clients” are remotely true. And I think maybe that’s one of the hardest parts. The lies. Like why bother? It hasn’t protected me any. It hasn’t made it easier. All it’s done is make me question everything about what I thought to be true between you and me.

And where am I left in all this? Well, it’s two years on and I am still hurting – although not like I was. Anniversaries – or should I say ‘traumaversaries’ are rough. I hate the fact that once again I am super aware of dates and how they correspond to our relationship disintegrating.

I hate the fact that I have been a depressed, frozen, dissociative wreck all week.

I hate that once again I am left trying to process all this by writing you a letter that you will never see.

I hate that I will spend the next month struggling hard to keep my head above water as the various anniversaries of aspects of our final month together unfold.

I especially hate that the emotional upset is already making its way into my relationship with my therapist Elle. I am scared stiff that something bad is going to happen between us because I am hard-wired to look for problems and the slightest sense of something being ‘off’ feels completely catastrophic – and it’s not fair.

Elle is going to be away in May right at the time that it was all unravelling with me and you… it couldn’t be worse timing. She did ought to be able to go away without my wheels falling off… and yet there seems to be almost an inevitability that the shit will hit the fan this month. I get that I should be able to circumnavigate that, but when all my system is activated it’s so much harder to hang onto any sense of safety.

Part of me is so angry about all this. I am mad that two years down the line I am still trying to undo the damage that you have done. And I am mad that I’ve basically spent the last five years trying to heal from failed therapeutic relationships on top of the original traumas I came into therapy for.

So, happy birthday Anita, I’m sure you will have a wonderful time… I hope you choke on your cake and the candles set fire to the table cloth! See… I don’t even mean it. I really want to but the truth is, I still wish you nothing but love and happiness because as much as I wish I didn’t, I still love you. x

The Therapist, The T-shirt, And The Trigger: A Journey Of Doubt And Vulnerability…And A Massive Meltdown/Rupture

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

There’s a certain kind of raw vulnerability that comes with the territory when you’re in therapy – or at least that’s the case when the protectors aren’t running the show and shutting things down! I spend most of my time here writing about my therapy and the messy process of confronting and working with parts of myself- my minibus.

Currently, it’s a bit of a disaster on board the RB bus, and all the passengers/parts seem to be noisily vying for various kinds of care and attention. These parts of me have so many different wounds and so many different needs that it can be very hard to strike the balance of what is needed and whom to focus on in therapy – especially if several parts of different ages are activated all at the same time (like now – groan!).

When the conditions are just right, the alchemy that happens in the therapy room can feel amazing can’t it? Life changing, actually. And sessions can feel like a much-needed balm. Sadly, though, for those of you that have followed this blog a while, you’ll also know that it doesn’t always work out and it’s not always positive. I’ve spent a great deal of time talking about when therapy goes wrong and the damage that gets done time and again.

Therapy is (supposed to be) a safe space, a place where you can unpack your baggage and work through it without judgment, a place where all of you can be seen and held and understood – a place where you can metaphorically get out your favourite pair of rather faded, threadbare pants, the ones that don’t really fit anymore, hold them up the light and try figure out why you just can’t seem to let them go despite having many pairs of ‘good’ pants… and why despite having lost one of the socks in a pair some time ago, you daren’t part with the remaining one just in case the other should one day miraculously show up again…even though you probably did leave the other under a bed in a holiday apartment in Spain.

Throughout all this your therapist won’t flinch or mock you for your terrible underwear but stare at it alongside you and help you work out what’s really going on and what the pants and socks symbolise…or something like that. LOL!

So, yeah, it’s a safe space.

But, like with everything else in life, the boundaries between “safe” and “unsafe” aren’t always as clear as we think they should be. Sometimes, the things that trigger us don’t come in the form of some big, glaring issue: “like a tick” or “holy fuck RB – those pants are truly disgusting, how could you possibly still want them?”; sometimes they show up in the tiniest, most unexpected moments – wearing a slogan t-shirt, for example.

I guess I should back up and start from the beginning.

Last week, thanks to the wonders of the almighty ‘algorithm’, Instagram chose to hand me a fucking doozy: one my therapist Elle’s ‘open’ profiles – one that’s apparently been out in the magical internet universe for a good while, but because I don’t actively search Elle out (anymore!), I had no idea that it existed.

Typically, this all happened on a day where I was feeling disconnected and distant from Elle, a day where I had actually wanted to email her and reach out for reassurance, but had stopped myself. Lately, I’ve been feeling a lot of shame around my ‘need for Elle’ and have felt myself backing away a bit. I don’t think she’s got any idea that this is where I am at right now, but I feel the gap between us opening up week on week…or at least some part of me is experiencing our relationship in this way and it’s not great. I’d go so far as to say a good half of the passengers in the mini-bus aren’t strapped in and we’ve veered off-road.

Brace positions folks…we all know how this ends.

Of course, Elle’s personal Insta account is locked down (thank goodness…I think…) but this one isn’t. What showed up on my feed wasn’t some professional ‘therapist’ account; it was personal-ish – well without giving too much away, it’s a page that she’s made to showcase something she’s taken up relatively recently – a performance-based activity. This new ‘thing’ is something I’ve known about for a long time and something we’ve discussed on and off over the last eighteen months so I wasn’t completely surprised when I saw she had made a page for it.

This ‘thing’ has caused me some angst before- I think I mentioned it at the time. As bad luck would have it, one of my friends was also doing the ‘thing’ at the same time and had met Elle and become friends with her through this activity. That has been really hard for me to manage on lots of levels. I have wanted to go support my friend and watch her perform but have deliberately kept away from going to see her knowing that Elle would likely be there, too, and so instead I watch her from her online videos (my friend…not Elle!).

Our city is relatively small and so there is always going to be a chance of running into each other anyway- but I would never deliberately put myself in the same space that Elle might occupy because – ouch… it would physically hurt to have her ignore me…or of course, the Elle I meet in the outside world not be the person I see in the therapy room.

It’s been hard in other ways too. As time has gone on, I can’t help but feel more and more jealous that my friend gets to spend time with Elle – doesn’t have to pay to see her – isn’t on the clock and kicked out when the time is up – can send her WhatsApp messages and memes and basically have a ‘normal’ relationship/friendship with her…and, I’m not stupid, I get that Elle is my therapist and not my friend and I undoubtedly get a different kind of relationship with her – but ugh.

It’s not even like my friend is someone that only lives in my phone and I rarely see. I see this woman every single fucking day, our kids are in the same class at school FFS, we hang out and go on walks with my bloody dog…and yet there’s this unspoken thing between us. I told her the Elle is my therapist early on…but thereafter we’ve both ignored the fact but it sort of feels like an elephant in the room.

But that’s not the problem this week. It’s just there always in the background.

Back to the Insta page. Perhaps I should not have clicked on the page when it came up. But then, it’s not like it’s a secret Elle has kept from me – the thing she’s doing, I mean. And as I said, I felt disconnected from her that day and suddenly here she was in my phone. I had chance to see what Elle had been talking about all these months. I find it hard to hold her in mind at the best of times, and I was floundering last week and here were actual videos of Elle that I could watch and I was curious… and desperate to feel like she was still real…and so I started scrolling through the page.

Big error.

And, you could laugh…I probably should…but it wasn’t anything that she said or did that upset me. Nope. It was a t-shirt that’s fucked everything up…you can’t make it up, can you?

On one of the videos Elle was wearing a shirt with a phrase on it that hit me like a sucker punch to the gut. I’m not going to tell you exactly what the t-shirt said. That’s not the point. The point is that the words, the design, everything about it felt painful to me. It felt like Elle was wearing something that spoke directly to me – even if it wasn’t intended to. She knows a lot about me and she knows what my life is like and how it is set up. And here was a slogan that ripped into an aspect of that. Noone needs to see ‘Fuck your ______’ and a picture of that burning…and no one needs to see that on the body of their therapist on an online video.

I get it. It’s not meant to be personal. Elle would never in a million years think that I would see this. She probably didn’t think at all –  

But it’s hard not to wonder: is this a sign? Is it a cosmic nudge that the safe space I thought I had built around her is, in reality, much smaller than I thought? – or possibly totally non-existent? That in fact, she is not at all who I thought she was, or hoped her to be. The truth is, I’ve been struggling with a deep sense of doubt all week and really couldn’t connect this week in my session (although it wouldn’t have been apparent because I am SOOOOOO good at looking fine when I am anything but!).

I kept my most vulnerable parts firmly locked away and I felt as though something was wrong the whole time…but that’s because for me, or several parts of me, there is now something wrong. It wasn’t helped at all when, that was the first session in as long as I can remember that Elle didn’t reach for me. She didn’t hold my hand…and as I got up to leave, she opened the door. We usually hug at the end and it was as though she had forgotten…or maybe she just didn’t want to? I did ask for a hug but it all just landed really flat for me. This has added an extra dimension of fear around our relationship heading south even without the fucking t-shirt.

How do I even bring this to her?

How do you sit across, well next to, the person who’s been helping you heal and admit that you feel suddenly unsafe in the therapy? How do you tell them that you feel like they might just be humouring you or tolerating you because it’s their job to, and not because they genuinely care about you as a person? How do you say, “I see and recognise EVERYTHING that you do for me, but my brain can’t hang onto that in the face of a perceived abandonment or rejection and right now I feel like everything is an act and I want to run away before you hurt me any more. My little parts are terrified that you are going to leave too…and tell me I am too much.”

I know. I know. I need to say exactly that, don’t I?!

For those of us who have spent years, a life-time even, feeling like we don’t quite belong in the world, who have never felt quite good enough, feel as though we have to work doubly hard to be accepted and that love and connection comes with a catch…it’s hard to build trust and even harder to maintain it. This is especially the case after everything that happened with Em and Anita and Hannah.

It’s taken a good while for me to really feel safe with Elle, to trust that what she says is true, and that she is there for me. And my goodness, she demonstrates it in so many ways time and again…and so seeing this version of Elle online has basically felt like the universe is playing a cruel joke on me – AGAIN. Because I so want to believe that Elle is the person I have come to know over the last eighteen months and not the person my phone sent me last week…she is, of course, both…so what do I do with that?

I know I need to find a way to bring this up because literally just now – writing this post – the joy of the algorithm has done another two things to me – it’s shown me that my friend is going to be doing the ‘thing’ again next week with Elle (groan) and Facebook has also decided that Elle’s child may be on the list of ‘someone I know’ despite me not being friends with Elle online, us having only one mutual friend, and my NEVER having searched her child out… just no…no more of this cruel hell please!

I am so activated and upset and basically overwhelmed by this whole situation this last week and the longer I keep quiet about it the worse it gets. I can feel myself drifting away from Elle. There are a lot of competing voices inside, though – and it really isn’t helpful when some of them are saying to “shut the fuck up and keep your mouth shut”…because what if what I have to say doesn’t go down well? What if Elle feels like her privacy has been intruded upon. What happens if she gets defensive- or worse – reactive? I am imagine her first action would be to block me from seeing that account because I clearly can’t handle it and that would feel rejecting too.

I don’t want her to think that I’m some kind of stalker that’s sought her out on social media and then had a meltdown about what I’ve seen. Because that isn’t it AT ALL. And, then there’s the other bit -the self-doubting part of me that is so used to me being the problem that I tend to look inside and find fault with myself first. So, I am not even sure whether or not I am just overreacting to the whole thing in the first place and should just get over it and let it go? Maybe I am just being super sensitive and dramatic? I’m more or less over the ‘group email’ now and I never told Elle about what had happened maybe I can move through this alone, too, and not risk fucking things up with another therapist.

The thing is – it’s still in there somewhere, isn’t it? Like, it’s stored away as a nugget of doubt and this latest thing with the shirt feels like another added to the pile…and I don’t want there to be a pile building up because I’ve found that once you start to accumulate doubt nuggets they seem to grow exponentially and before you know it, you’re surrounded by doubts and can see little else.

And perhaps I need to be less judging of myself. Maybe I am overreacting – but what I know is this: the heavy feeling in my chest and the sick feeling in my stomach are real…and the sadness I feel is there regardless of the trigger. It’s not the same as Em calling me a tick, but it’s in the same zone… basically something about me is unlikeable and deficient in Elle’s eyes and that hurts because more than anything I want her to judge me as worthy.

The video was filmed back in November and honestly, since that time Elle and I have done some incredible work, we have got closer and closer to each other, and I have felt so safe and contained with her (just haven’t caught myself up from Christmas here yet have I?!)…and yet, it was a choice she made to wear that t-shirt that day…having already known me for 15 months at that point, told me that she loves me, and you know all the lovely things…

Ugh.

I get that life as a therapist is a bloody minefield – because Elle is a human and not just a therapist, isn’t she? She exists in the world outside the room as a person with all sorts of feelings and opinions that may not necessarily align with the clients she sees. Like of course, I know that. But there is always a chance a client may come across you in the wider world- or even actively seek you out…and…well…fuck it…all I can say is this t-shirt has really upset me and I don’t know what to do about it.

There’s a part of me—the protector part—that wants to quit therapy entirely. That part of me feels it would be easier to cut and run, and avoid having to squirm in discomfort about this whole thing. My track record for bringing difficult stuff to therapists and it working out positively hasn’t been exactly great and honestly, I don’t want to be in a situation where I feel ‘done to’ again when things don’t work out. Like I don’t want to feel the pain of rejection or abandonment again…although on a level I already feel this this week. I don’t want to lose Elle but also, I don’t want to be in therapy with someone who is just tolerating me and behind the scenes thinks badly of me.

Complex trauma really is the gift that keeps on giving, isn’t it? I know that how I feel right now is being exacerbated by the fact that we are headed into May – and 2 years since Anita went away and never really came back. My safe person went away on holiday full of reassurances and returned a different person. Elle is going away in May too. Like, what happens if it all happens again? And the pattern repeats because once again I am being too much, having too many big feelings, and the hard work to be around me is simply not worth it?

So here I am, sitting with all of this discomfort, trying to figure out how to move forward. Trying not to let the Inner Critic get too loud. The fear is real. The uncertainty is paralyzing. But I know that if I don’t bring it up, if I don’t address it somehow, I’ll be stuck in this cycle of self-doubt and avoidance all the while losing connection with Elle and that is frankly terrifying.

So, here’s to the T-shirt, the trigger, and the uncomfortable journey ahead…2025 can, frankly, go do one!

Update: Life Is A Shitshow

rubberbandsandchewinggum14 Comments

Where do I even start with this? Seriously, why oh why is my life so endlessly fucking challenging? I often wonder if I must’ve been a colossal asshole in a previous life because the unending piles of shit that land over and over seem just really too much. Surely, life isn’t meant to be an ongoing struggle that involves jumping hurdle after hurdle without ever having much time to recover and breathe before the next? But that’s how it feels.

It’s little wonder I am always so strung out – even when things seem to be going relatively well, I feel as though I am waiting for the next barrage of shit to hit…and it always always comes without fail. It might sound dramatic but I really feel like I have had more than my fair share of crap in this lifetime. Like living with an abusive parent, the death of the safe parent, and cancer at 31 was enough thank you very much… ugh.

So, it’s been a little (long) while since my last post where I was having a meltdown about the group email that Elle sent out about her fee increase in April. I honestly wish I could go back to that time and only be dealing with that level of shit in my life – you know, alongside having a chronically sick kid and all the other bits that I navigate on the daily…but I was just about head above water then even though it’s felt like I have been drowning emotionally for the best part of six months.

As it turned out, I never got round to telling Elle about the meltdown I had about being ‘one of many’ and her group email, because as life would have it, my life got turned upside down AGAIN and that seemed really insignificant in the big scheme of things . Ironically, the thing that wasn’t a worry at all in that message, i.e the fee increase has now become a real and present stress alongside the not wanting to share Elle. What’s happened you might wonder? Well, let’s just say, it doesn’t seem pay to speak up when things are wrong – or to care in this world.

My wife recently took on a new role in a new organisation in order to be able to work closer to home now that one of our kids has been diagnosed with a chronic lifelong condition. She’d been in post for a week when she had to escalate some serious findings to the CEO and rather than listen to what she had to say they got irate and told her to leave…basically they didn’t want to know. This was shocking… like honestly, mind-blowing…you just wouldn’t quite believe that companies run like this…especially when people’s lives are in the mix but it is all too common unfortunately.

So, what does that even mean? Well, this is the sixth week she’s been out of work and no money coming in. She has several ongoing interviews at the moment (at her level most jobs have a minimum of three interviews and some kind of presentation to the directorate), but these things take a loooonnnggg time and meanwhile our main earner isn’t earning.

Can you imagine the stress? For someone that has a bit of a scarcity complex it has really triggered me.

Of course, my system is in absolute meltdown about it. I am hardly sleeping, my back seized up the first week, then I came down with a stinking cold/flu which has lasted the best part of a month now and I have had to work through it when had I not been self-employed I’d have been in bed sick.

It’s not surprising I got pummelled with this though and just haven’t been able to bounce back, as alongside all of this we spent most of the first week post ‘no job’ in hospital with our son who is immune suppressed due to his medication regime and had developed an infection.

It’s been exhausting.

I am exhausted.

Burnout is real.

And it is nigh on impossible to hang it all together when so much feels so out of control and dangerous. This post has actually been half-started and languishing in my laptop for ages now, and really I thought about deleting it as it’s not even really about ‘therapy’ – but I want to post so that my next ‘therapy’ post will make some kind of sense…when I get round to writing it… because no surprise, I have hit huge skids with Elle this week (not that she knows it yet) and it has felt like the biggest rupture to my system.

My inner world is in turmoil and I think it must have at least something to do with my external world going tits up…but you can figure that out with me next time. Maybe I am overreacting or maybe Elle has just been unconsciously insensitive and maybe I am justified in feeling really hurt. I don’t know.

Still, back to the shitshow that is my day-to-day!

As we all know, life doesn’t happen for free… gotta love capitalism! lol. I have juggled some bits around for now – taken on some extra debt to cover the immediate expenses, but there is a real worry that this can’t go on for too long before I’ll have to make some hard choices about my therapy with Elle. And whilst it would be me putting things on pause for financial reasons, my system won’t understand that at all especially given the recent ‘rupture’ stuff that’s just been triggered.

The universe has been delivering a total avalanche of shit since my wife became unemployed… not only were me and my son ill… but the car got a puncture and needed a new tyre, the dishwasher blew up, the boiler broke and flooded the bedroom – because – why??? Then my car engine light came on last week and was an £800 fix…umm….HELP!! There’ve been a few more of these unexpected financial sucker punches but I can’t remember what they are…dissociation is such fun! But it’s meant the safety net I put in place to tide us over whilst my wife gets a new position is spring huge tears left and right.

Not seeing Elle would feel like an abandonment to my young parts who already struggle such a lot because of what’s happened in previous therapies. How many times have I heard that “I’m with you for the entire journey. No matter what.” Or “It’s not about money to me” or “I will keep showing up for you.” And then something happens and oh look, it’s Me, Myself and I figuring things out alone – it certainly doesn’t help that we are rapidly approaching May and two years since Anita went on holiday and then came back and ended the therapy…or you know, didn’t actually end or say goodbye…

FFS.

As much as I’d love to pretend that Elle and I have a relationship that is important and matters no matter what – the reality is, my time with her is a paid for slot and … well… if things don’t shift for the better in the next few weeks then… Elle and I don’t exist. And that is super painful and is sending me into freefall. It’s hard to imagine the person that has been so present and available and just plain loving and kind mightn’t be there for me for much longer – and I do wonder if I have latched on to this ‘rupture’ this week to make it easier for me to detach from her if I have to.

I’d like to think I was better at navigating ruptures now – but I think my ability to be able to bring hard things to the room depends largely on how solid and safe I feel – not only with Elle but in life…and frankly – safe isn’t a feeling I am tapping into right now. Ugh.

I won’t keep you hanging for months on end with the next bit…I just haven’t been well enough to write until now.

xx

C-PTSD Triggers – Episode 5723: Therapist’s Generic/Impersonal Group Emails

rubberbandsandchewinggum22 Comments

Oh lordy! I honestly feel like I am navigating a fucking gator-infested swamp of Complex Trauma Doom right now…Seriously, it’s like running through a minefield of endless triggers at the moment, and I seem to be setting them off with nearly every step I take. It’s starting to do my head in, frankly – and my entire system is taking a lot of hits! Wouldn’t it be wonderful if there was an off switch for all our sensitivities?…or a reset for trauma brain…

What’s the problem today you ask? – I mean there are several ongoing issues and upsets #breakdown but today’s bit of bollocks is that I have been once again upended by a seemingly innocuous email communication from my therapist Elle.

Oh, but of course this would happen today! –  the first day in a really long time where I have been able to carve out some space and time for myself in a place that I love- and then rather than be able to sink into safe and calm I have spent the day ruminating on the message! – let’s be clear, group mail outs trigger the shit out of me. FFS.

This is not the first time I have had a reaction to an impersonal email or communication from a therapist. Years ago I remember Anita handing me a printed sheet of paper at the end of a session with her holiday dates on and it signing off with something like ‘sorry for the inconvenience it may cause…best wishes…’ and it sent me into outer space because how could it possibly be that one minute I was snuggled into her body with her telling me that she loved me and the next minute I was being presented with cold admin related paperwork and sent on my merry way? This kind of thing jars my system so badly… because, yay for relational trauma and the fear of people turning cold and leaving.

Early on in my work with Elle a similar situation to today happened (a group email to all clients) and I went belly up then, too. It was the first time that my mask of coping slipped with Elle. I had read her message that began with, ‘Dear All, My apologies for the impersonal nature of this group email…’ and it landed really hard. At the time I felt like the group email was a backhanded way of her addressing something with me and feeling like I was getting rejected for something I didn’t know about – basically WhatsApp communication being a ‘no’. I absolutely crumbled. I was able to tell her in an email:

The email you sent on Friday made me cry. Like I actually fell apart. I felt like I’d pissed you off, and rather than tell me directly you’d done it in a ‘send to all’. The feeling of needing to run away and self-protect was massive and really highlights to me what a fucking massive mess I am in. Literally everything feels like a rejection or an abandonment or like I have done something wrong or that I’m fucking things up and my system just can’t cope.

Elle replied with a really holding/caring message to that and I think it was probably the start of me moving into trusting her a bit with ‘messy me’. At that point I wasn’t especially triggered by the fact I was receiving a mail out to all clients because I was still getting to know her and wasn’t all in – but that has certainly shifted today because crikey…it’s been a lot.

I just REALLY DON’T EVER want to be receiving a ‘Notice to all clients’.

When I feel attached to a therapist the last very fucking thing I want is the reminder that I am one of many clients that my therapist sees on her conveyor belt of losers each week, or that the carefully constructed relationship we have only exists in the room for the time I am there and is nothing more than an elaborate paid for pantomime full of smoke and mirrors. Elle is running a business (ugh she said that today in the email ‘rising costs of running a business’) and that is therapy. Anything beyond that is just wishful thinking on my part.

Being just a ‘client’ is hard enough but being reminded of the ‘others’ that I have to share Elle with triggers all kinds of sibling jealousy…I don’t want to be conscious of the fact that there will be other people Elle likes better than me, others who she would choose to see over me if there was a choice to make… it’s all just too painful. I do understand that this is ‘the work’ but sometimes when you have had a childhood of never being put first, never feeling important, never having someone’s undivided attention…then it’s not surprising that we might just want that in therapy (even though it can’t really ever happen – the fantasy of that is important).

Some of you might remember when I, idiotically, asked Anita about a box on the shelf in her room one day and she told me that a client who had anxiety and trust issues had given it to her and that inside there was a stone with the word ‘trust’ on it and I wanted to curl up and die and for the floor to open up and swallow me whole.

Recently, I wrote about what a perfect therapy room would look like and shared it with Elle. She emailed back to say she really liked it, that she’d like to share it with supervisees, and then commented that the soft toy I had seen in the room (that I had mentioned in the post) belonged to another client… Oh holy fucking hell. Like no. Please no. Just no. I can’t explain how having that confirmed triggered the shit out of me. Of course I know that there’ll be loads of people working on their inner child in therapy with Elle- like I’m not stupid…but I don’t need reminding that there are other people that Elle might cuddle, read stories to…basically, I don’t want to know that she’s probably replicating what she’s doing with me with others.

I didn’t tell Elle this because honestly, I don’t want to come over as a needy, selfish brat… but it is how it is.

So, umm what else can I say about all this stuff?? It’s not just group emails that are problematic, generic communications aren’t great for me – full stop. Recently the ‘automated session reminder texts’ stopped because I let Elle know that they trigger me and I find them upsetting – like, the day before a session when I have drifted off into panic and doom because it’s been soooo long since I have seen her the last thing I want is stone cold admin… and so Elle has been sending me personalised messages that are far more in keeping with how we communicate both inside and outside the sessions and I have found them so much better.

So, it’s hardly surprising that today’s email landed so painfully. It’s been a bit of a week with one thing and another, anyway, but I just about got to the weekend in one piece with a bit of slipping and sliding. The irony in all this is, Elle and I had a really lovely reconnecting session this week after my holiday – like it was just so great to see her, we laughed a lot, and she surprised me with a really beautiful, thoughtful, handmade present that was so personal to our work I just wanted to cry – like my heart was fit to burst and I just can’t even begin to explain how much it meant to me. We’ve remained in close touch most of the week and it’s felt so nice…until today and this email.

But this is Complex Trauma brain for you, isn’t it? One minute things are going great, are doable and the next moment everything feels like it’s complete shit, and not real, and basically the protectors go wild trying to stop us from getting hurt. Adult me can see that today’s email is just a fucking admin email – but try explaining that to the minibus inside who wonder where ‘our Elle’ is. Like where’s the Elle that calls us ‘sweetpea’ and ‘lambkin’ and ‘flower’…now we are ‘client’.

Ugh. It’s just ugh.

So, what was it all about then? Well, Elle is putting her fees up from April – which is…fine. I mean, I get it, this is how things are. I know that money in therapy can be a minefield in itself for some of the reasons I have listed above – i.e it making the relationship seem fake. Like it’s very clearly a transactional relationship and without that exchange of money the therapy ceases to exist but over the years I have managed, just about, to see that actually just because I pay for my therapist’s time it doesn’t necessarily follow that the care and love I experience from her isn’t real…at least I feel that’s the case most of the time!

However, seeing things today like:

I appreciate that, for some of you, this will mean you will have to consider whether to continue working with me, or perhaps decrease the number of sessions you attend per month. If this is the case, please let me know as soon as you can so we can discuss the best way forward.

Are a reminder/warning that maybe things aren’t as solid as I think. I would like to think that if I couldn’t manage the increased fee that Elle wouldn’t just ditch me, or I’d have to see her less… but who knows from that email? Fortunately, I can absorb this increase – well, right now I can…June-September is always tricky as my work pretty much disappears.

I think the hardest thing about therapy in general is that for me therapy isn’t a six month or year-long financial commitment that I am investing in but will end soon and so it’s a stretch now but fundamentally worth it…but there is an end point.

For me therapy is going to be long-term and so it’s literally like having taken on a mortgage term and equates to about 25% of my income over the course of a year. That’s a lot, isn’t it? Elle and I have a 90-minute session each week – and I’d love to say I could go down to an hour, but we all know that that wouldn’t work, that it takes me so long to ground and feel safe in the first place that an hour just isn’t enough – and that even as things are now I am in a state of perpetual struggle because there actually isn’t enough contact. I miss having two sessions a week like I did with Em and A and how containing that felt.

I am really aware of the need to have some kind of regular, agreed upon contact on a Friday with Elle– even if it’s just a fifteen-minute call … but it’s all money isn’t it? Especially now. And don’t get me wrong, my time with Elle is worth every penny and then some! I really really get that she gives me WAY MORE than she has to – she is so available to me outside the sessions … and I am so grateful to her. She demonstrates in so many ways that I matter to her – but my belief in that is so fucking fragile and today has left me feeling like I need some serious reassurance.

I feel like a fucking fool getting so upset about this that I will go hide in my hole until Tuesday and in the meantime the littles will get more and more worked up because how embarrassing is it to say, “I have been completely derailed by your group email today and the little parts of me wonder if all of what I think our relationship is is a lie – am I delusional?”

Sometimes it feels so unfair that those of us with Complex Trauma who badly need therapy to keep afloat are always having to juggle finances to make it possible to do the therapy just to help us recover from things that weren’t even our fault to begin with. Childhood and life trauma are bad enough, but it’s especially galling to think about this when you’ve also experienced harm in therapy – all those years with Em and Anita for what? Debt and more trauma lumped on top!

I already work more hours than I want to/feel able to in order that I can keep going to my sessions but that’s a choice I have made because the therapy is so necessary. My last evening teaching session of the day (7pm) wipes me out and by Friday I am dying, but what other option is there? In the ideal world I would reduce my hours and this would stop me feeling so fucking burnt out all the time… but if I don’t see Elle my emotional world unravels.

So yeah…bleurgh..! Receiving this message on a Saturday has totally bummed me out. I wish Elle had have joined some dots and realised that this kind of generic communication might not land brilliantly well. Even, if she’d just sent a quick message with it at the top – ‘hey sweetpea, I hope you’re having a good weekend. I know this is a formal looking email below, but please know it’s just admin and doesn’t change us but I do understand how the mechanics of money in therapy can feel triggering sometimes and  I really don’t want for you to feel like I am pushing you away’. I dunno – anything really but she clearly has no idea how this has landed and is probably having a wonderful weekend enjoying the sun and blue skies we’re finally getting here in the UK.

In true RB style I’ve been stuck in a ruminating brain loop all day and just feel really far away from Elle…let me just say this one last time: impersonal group emails are not for me! – ugh. I feel like they are a pushback… and adult me knows it’s just life…

But right now, just fuck my life! And fuck CPTSD.

x

I could really use a hug right now – and a new brain!

Not Doing Brilliantly Well: Breakdown And Burnout

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

So, it’s been a while since I have been here to update the blog…months in fact…

I guess it was inevitable, but I had a total breakdown in January, folks, and just couldn’t do anything with it or myself at all. I was barely functional let alone able to write. It’d been coming on steadily for months, well, let’s be real, since May 2023 when everything with Anita disintegrated before my very eyes. Something had to give sooner or later – and that something was me.

I have been muddling through, hanging it together with rubber bands and chewing gum for such a long time, but then, OOooofffffff  November was ROUGH, December was BRUTAL, Christmas was UGH, and January … well… FUCK ME!! …The crash was real!

Somehow, we are almost at the end of February now, and I’m more or less functional again but it’s VERY tentative – cue full blown anxiety attack earlier today and the realisation that I am probably less ok than I think. Yikes.

I am floundering around and trying to put one foot in front of the other and not fall flat on my face again because there just isn’t capacity for me not to be ok any longer. The reality is that work kicks back in tomorrow after half term break (and several weeks preceding this of cancelling lots of work) and people need me to be on my ‘A game’…or at least ‘present’. The GCSE and A Level exams are looming and I simply can’t get away with any more sick days. I need to be the calm and supportive person that my students need – but it takes a lot. Somehow or other I need to pull something out of the bag – even if the bag has a fucking great hole in it and its contents have long been lost.

When things went south last month, Elle and I were on a therapy break (what a surprise)! I wrote a bit then to try and process and make sense of what was going on for me, but then I shut the laptop and it’s been sitting there as an open tab of shame ever since.

So, I guess maybe, I’ll post that here now and then try and get back to filling in blanks of what’s been happening more generally in another post – i.e bring things up to speed and talk about what happened when Elle and I met face-to-face after Christmas and her being sick and all the stuff since…but I don’t have the brain for that right now.

However, I feel like if I don’t try and post something now despite being overwhelmed with ‘everything’ another month will roll by and I’ll lose sense of where I am at. So apologies that the chronology is off but I’ll get back on track eventually.

It’s so hard when my brain stops working properly writing is the one thing that just falls away. I just can’t do it. My attention span is minimal and my ability to hold anything in mind just goes. I feel like I have been stuck in procrastination and freeze for pretty much the last six weeks and it’s been hard. Everything has suffered…self-care…everything.

So… buckle up for what was in the laptop and written in the height of the meltdown.

This was mid-January and Elle was away, it was all kinds of tough with anniversaries and bleurgh – it’s not pretty but is exactly how it was in the moment – my poor poor brain, system, self:

The fast acceleration into the place that is super scary happened this last week again. I could feel the wheels starting to fall off, the nightmares were relentless, the feeling of intense panic and overwhelm were all consuming; my system activated so massively (including all the protectors) and there was nothing I could do to stop it. I couldn’t regulate AT ALL and the spiral down into total meltdown and collapse happened. It’s hardly surprising, though, what with all the ‘shitty’ anniversaries landing: five years since I met Anita (and she’s no longer part of my life) and therefore also five years since Em called me a ‘tick’ and my therapy with her blowing up. There is so much hurt and grief. Like I don’t think I will ever get over this… it’s too much and sometimes it just catches up with me.

I always feel so vulnerable around now, understandably, but it’s been made a million times worse by the fact the Elle has been on a break this last week, too. It’s been two weeks between sessions at a time where, in all honesty, I could have used two sessions each week AND check ins not her absence and physical disconnect.

Instead of a feeling of safety and connection, it’s been the complete opposite of the level of holding and containment I needed. I’ve felt so far away from her and, of course, that’s also further triggered my system around the abandonment and rejection stuff that is already so live at this time of year. I have been certain that something bad is coming on Tuesday when we meet again, and have been in a place where I was really and truly considering leaving before I get left (god I am so sick of this horrid process!). There’s no evidence to suggest anything is wrong between Elle and I, but my system doesn’t understand that, all the alarms are blaring and it’s full-scale panic. It’s a total system malfunction.

Truthfully, Elle being away for this particular week in the year could not have been worse timing. Like it just felt like an absolute sucker punch. I felt my heart sink when she told me she’d be away, but’s it’s been especially tough having this happen on top of all the bumping along and disruption with the therapy pattern around Christmas holidays. Not seeing her face-to-face as planned on Christmas Eve was hard, and finding out that she had this current break coming the same day she let me know I couldn’t see her on the 24th was really painful, and then there was the cancellation on the 31st because she was sick which really unsettled me. Like it’s been a lot…even though we did end up speaking on the phone on Christmas Eve and seeing each other on the 1st January which was so needed (I’ll come back to this ‘good’ stuff next time).

On paper it would seem like not a lot changed, then, like Elle has really done her very best to minimise the disruptions and accommodate me. The fact that she came in on New Year’s day whilst still clearly unwell because she knew how much I needed the session shows she cares and gets it. And sane and rational me really sees it and appreciates it such a lot… but the rollercoaster my system has been on around all this at a hard time of year has been insane.

I’ve been holding on so tightly to what is left of my sanity and coping for such a long time now that I guess it was inevitable that something would give sooner or later. And so, this break on top of all that has gone before has just been too much and the final thread that was holding me together just snapped on Saturday in the BIGGEST way.

I am usually able to keep what’s going on internally (even if it is horrific) fairly locked up inside and suffer my way through alone whilst appearing largely normal and ‘functional’ in my day-to-day life but as this week has gone on my filter between my inner world with the distress I am feeling and my outer presentation has totally crumbled.

My mask has slipped, not just slipped- shattered – and this weekend I just completely fell apart. My usual relative calm disappeared and the snappy, angry, hurting parts of me were on full show and then shortly after that I broke and just sobbed and sobbed for hours – ugly crying, snot, convulsive sobs…you know? Full mental collapse. This wasn’t a ‘healthy’ release of emotion. I was completely out of control.

It’s hard to really explain because I think most of the time, I seem to be pretty unhappy and struggling, don’t I? So how is this any different? The last time I was here I was at a pretty low ebb. I spend so much time writing out my feelings, trying to process, doing the self-care, doing the therapy, blah blah fucking blah tick box of survival strategies, but sometimes I get so sick of how hard everything feels. I try so hard to drag myself through and into a better place but I feel like I am dragging the weight of the world behind me. It’s exhausting.

Like at what point do I just stop and admit defeat? I honestly can’t keep going like this anymore. I do get that I am neck deep in a depressive episode at the moment, and that it’s winter, and that this is the very fucking worst week of my calendar year but ugh…just really, when will it get easier?

As I said to Elle the other day in a message, “surely life isn’t meant to be this hard” and it shouldn’t. To find myself back in a place where self-harm seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do and suicidal thoughts are coming through my mind like buses- it’s not good. Like it’s really fucking shit in fact. It all just feels desperately bad and I can’t seem to get out of it. I feel like I am screaming underwater.

I was meant to go away this weekend, alone, but I realised that this would be a very bad move and as much as being around people feels intolerable, I am at least safe.

So yeah, I’m having all the fun of the fair right now! I know if I wait it out things will get better. I just wish there was a magic wand I could wave to make all the hurt and distress stop and allow some space to breathe and settle. I feel like I just can’t land in my window of tolerance at all…or letterbox.

I was feeling fairly connected to Elle at the start of this break even if I was overwhelmed but the steady sense of disconnect started as the first weekend approached, the panic kicked in, and from Tuesday (the day of our usual session) onwards it’s felt like any connection we have has been completely severed.

I was so painfully aware of needing my session with Elle on Tuesday because so much was being activated around the old stuff with Anita and Em, so to not see her or even check in via a message felt really difficult. I could have reached out – I am sure she wouldn’t have minded – but then she’s on a holiday and look how many times things have gone to shit with therapists during or directly following a break. I don’t want to do anything that might make Elle get fed up with me and so I have backed right off. The fear of history repeating is huge.

Sadly, my mind can’t seem to differentiate that this disconnect from Elle has come purely from my side. All it knows is that disconnect feels terrifying and that if it goes on for long enough it’s hard to come back from it. This horrible feeling has got worse and worse through the course of this week. I have been steadily drifting away on the ocean in my little boat and now I can’t see the land at all and the seas are getting rougher and rougher and Elle has no idea.

The sadness of the little parts is big but there’s also some anger coming up from the protective parts who I think have just about had enough of feeling ‘left’. It’s hard enough getting through the regular week and only having a single session after so many years of two sessions a week with Anita and Em. It feels like I am always stretching just that little bit too far between sessions and it takes its toll. I wish that I could land in a space where I wasn’t hitting a panic on a Friday each week and then hanging on by the skin of my teeth to get to Tuesdays.

Holidays are very necessary, but my god they suck balls too! That probably makes me too needy or too dependent or whatever else – but it is how it is right now. Parts of me are so mad that it’s like this again but part of me really gets it. It’s all been a lot for too long and there is only so much I can hold on top of the demands of my exhausting day-to-day life.

I feel like I have mentioned this struggle between sessions in so many different ways over the last eighteen months but it feels really hard to ask for more from Elle. I think we need a Friday check in… I mean, I’d love to see her twice a week in person but I don’t think that’s on the cards. I get the sense that she is carefully managing what she can cope with and probably two sessions would feel a lot of me… and that’s hard isn’t it?

Thinking you’re only tolerable for a certain amount of time each week but any more than that risks burning them out is hard. Again, Elle hasn’t said this AT ALL and so it could be my projection given what’s happened before with other therapies but I am just not willing to reach out and ask for something and be told no. Elle has invited me so many times to ask her for what I need and has said she would try and give me what I need.

I just wish it felt easier to make requests but I know right now my reluctance is due to how live the memory of stuff with Em is. Like, all the times I braved asking for things: transitional object (ugh pebblegate), three dots in a text mid-week, sitting next to me, playing games, ANYTHING AT ALL REALLY, and getting no…it’s hard to feel like I want to brave more of getting that feeling of rejection and shame that arises.

Elle is not Em, or A…she’s really great…and I really want to trust Elle – I do trust her- but when I feel vulnerable, I just can’t get out of my shell or ask for help. I hide.

I have been especially conscious of all the soundbites that haunt me during this break, “adhesive like a tick”, “too dependent”, “you want more than I can give” etc and have been so terrified of being ‘too much’ so as I say, I have really backed away from contact with Elle despite needing it. I don’t want her to feel the need to escape my neediness. I really want her to be able to have a break … just not in January 😉.

I think it would have probably helped if when the wheels had started to fall off I’d have been able to reach out and ask for some reassurance that we were still ok…but I was set dead against it in my head. I just told myself to tough it out…get your shit together RB! I see now that that was an error because it’s much harder to get back on track from this point although I guess at some point I am going to have to make a choice – to either continue on in this misery or reach out and ask for support because this isn’t just a small wobble that I can handle on my own, this is a scary crisis point that I haven’t found myself in for several years.

I am trying to hang onto the good… because there is and has been such a lot of it. But it’s hard to remember that when your brain is working against you and all your body knows is terror. I honestly hate how when my system gets hijacked and adult me loses the capacity to hold it all that it gets so bleak so quickly. I guess this really is a reminder of a patterning that must have been forged early on in my childhood. This terror – it’s visceral – and so familiar.

It feels really bonkers to be here because even in the last session before the break, Elle demonstrated that she clearly had my littles in mind and was doing everything she could to settle them before she left. I had been waffling on in false adult moaning about some daily life shit and she stopped me when there was a natural pause. It was about half an hour before the end of the session and she asked me if I wanted a story and a cuddle…yep…

I think in the sessions before a break I am always preparing to be left and almost pretend like I am fine, and coping, and adult … but inside it’s a different story. I’m so glad she knows this about me now and reached for me rather than allowing me to run down the clock and then feel awful and unseen afterwards. I just need to remind myself of this when I feel like I have been abandoned.

After the story, Elle had asked if she could take Baby-Elly and Monty away with her on her break and send me photos of what they got up to, she thought it might be a nice thing for them to do. She then asked me if I would take Hare Bunny (that I gave her for Christmas) home with me so that he didn’t get lonely in the office whilst she was gone. Like that’s really lovely isn’t it? And I really really loved that she thought of that. It’s a world away from the no contact breaks with Elle, or even the texts from Anita.

Like how nice to take our transitional object away, and include the little elephant that’s been held hostage all these months with Anita. Adult me can see how hard Elle is working to keep my system in connection with her… it’s just a lot when I need a big cuddle, some reassurance, and to hear her voice.

Elle sent me a picture of Monty and Baby-Elly waiting to go on their holiday last week and on Monday one from their break. It made me smile. But then as the week went on it felt so so hard for me and I felt so far away and as much as I wanted to reach out and send a message ‘how is everyone enjoying their holiday?’ or ‘I miss you all’.

I didn’t. Because I can’t forget when Anita went on holiday, sent me messages, sent me photos, told me she was thinking of me….and I literally sent, ‘Looks lovely, I miss you’ back…that I was told that when she’d read the message she felt pressured and stressed and that this was probably part of what led her to end the therapy. I know this says more about her than me, and her mental state and how she’d allowed herself to burnout…but it was me that was taken out in the crossfire and it is me that is now terrified of a repeat.

I still wonder how I was supposed to glean from the messages from A that we were in serious trouble and that she was going to terminate. Before she left, she told me everything was fine, that we were going to be ok, that she would come back… and even the night before that hideous ‘I need to bring the counselling with you to an end’ session she sent me a message telling me she was looking forward to seeing me…. Looking forward to seeing me so she could end???? Like make it make sense!

So it’s little wonder that I am reluctant to reach out – because even when things look fine on the surface, the amount of times I have walked back into a problem is… staggering really.

On top of the absolute emotional hell I am navigating my way through during the day, I’ve been absolutely plagued by nightmares. They’re really something and don’t take a lot of unpicking. One particularly distressing one that apparently had me screaming in my sleep was me standing on a cliff near my house and the waves were ENORMOUS. It was grey and stormy and lashing it down with rain. Despite the cliffs being at least 100 feet high the waves were flooding over the top and the buildings were flooded and being completely attacked by the sea.

I commented to whoever I was with that “I have never ever seen it as bad as this before” and that’s when I heard screaming to the right of where I was standing. My attention had been so focused on the town and the buildings that I hadn’t noticed what was going on to the right of me. A child about four years old, was clinging on desperately to the rocks and crying. There was no way down to it and I saw it get washed off the rocks and into the sea. I reached for my phone in order to call the emergency services and no matter how I tried I couldn’t unlock my phone to make the call. No matter what I did it just wouldn’t work. All the while I could see this tiny kid being pummelled by the sea and hitting up against the rocks. I felt so completely powerless.

It’s hardly surprising I woke up screaming and crying and in a drenching sweat. I can still feel the complete panic I felt just typing that. As I said it doesn’t take a genius to figure that one out but it is a real indicator of just how distressed I have felt.

The week has been lots of that sort of thing and by yesterday I had worked myself up into a right state. The protectors were so vocal and honestly, I just wanted to know that I wasn’t going fucking mad…because that’s what it’s felt like.

I just want to say, too, that I haven’t just been head in the sand this break letting the shit come at me, knowing Elle was away I booked in for a two hour massage, I have really careful to take proper breaks, eat well, sleep (!), and get out in nature…but you know, sometimes there is only so much you can do. My system is in freefall, it’s been flashback galore on top of regular therapy break shit… I just … well… didn’t have enough resource in the tank to get through it.

I ended up sending Elle an email yesterday:

I’ve got myself stuck in a deep hole and as much as I’m trying to claw my way out there’s some really vocal and aggressive bastards stamping on my hands. I’m sending this now because I think by Tuesday I might actually not turn up at all.

Elle usually responds with pretty holding and containing stuff and I hoped so much that she would send something like, “I am sorry that it’s so tough Sweetpea. Tell Brian and the bastards to behave themselves. I am looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday but until then the biggest of hugs to you.”

Or any variation on the kind of thing she usually sends.

But this came…and honestly I just felt so sad.

I really really hope you do. Elle xxx

Like, it’s not terrible is it? Not by any means, but I guess having not seen Elle for a while, or heard her voice, or any of the things that we usually do to connect, and my being in such a desperate headspace it just felt distant and triggered total panic.

Like, this is it then – she’s had enough hasn’t she?

And then because I felt so upset about it, the protectors have really stepped up their game – of course they would.

Sometimes if I have felt a response from Elle has missed the mark I will email her back and clarify how I am feeling and she generally replies with something holding. I held off this time and continued to suffer. This really tells me how scared I have been feeling. I had been messaging a friend all week and she encouraged me to reach out to Elle again and let her know exactly what was going on. On Sunday I did… I screenshot some of my conversation with my friend and sent it…and this is what came back almost immediately:

Oh my poor love, I’m so sorry you’ve been struggling so badly this week, and I feel very grateful that you trusted me enough to send me all this.

We are always ok, and I promise you with my hand on my heart, I would always talk to you if there was anything going on between us that I felt needed addressing. I see you struggling here with the idea that you can do the same, and you can, and I will do my best to offer you what you tell me you need in terms of reassurance and care, however that looks like for you. 

I’m imagine you feel asking me for specific things that would help you to feel more cared for feels unreasonable, and I would really love you to ask me for them, and let me decide if it feels like something I’d be willing to do. I know that probably feels like a very risky thing to do, and I want you to know you can ask and I will do my utmost to offer you what you need. You are loved and respected and giving you whatever you need to feel safe is my priority.

Please do come in on Tuesday, and we can try and talk through what might be helpful to you in future, or you can just snuggle up to me and cry for a full 90 minutes and be broken in complete safety.

And honestly, that’s the Elle I have been trying to find inside myself all this break.

I responded to her:

💜 thanks. 

I’ve just got really panicked because coming back from Christmas break and into this time now in 2019/20 was when it all went to shit with Em – sometimes I think it would be useful for you to see what happened back then but anytime I even think about going back to dec/jan posts to send you the links to what I wrote it has such a massive physical reaction just remembering that time and how bad it felt that I can’t do it… And as much as you might think it’s ok to ask for things it’s hard to really put into words what it feels like to ask for actually not much at all and get hard nos. There’s a lot of really shit stuff that’s happened over the years and my brain doesn’t let it go. 

And breaks are bad for lots of reasons – I mean it doesn’t help that after a few days there’s a panic that people are actually going to die on me – I’ve got my dad to thank for that one, dying three days into a holiday… and then there’s all the shit from my mum being away from Sunday-Friday when I was small and how insane and volatile she was when she came home…like those things have always been problematic… but breaks have certainly been exacerbated by the fact that three times I’ve been on a break and come back to discover that actually:

Em – Nothing is too big that we can’t work through it

A- I’m only going away for two weeks, nothing is wrong with us and I promise you nothing will change and I’m coming back 

H- I think it’s great that you write, I’ll take how I’m feeling to supervision and see you in a couple of weeks

Were all lies. 

And as much as things might look ok … apparently they weren’t. Like I don’t get how I was ever supposed to know that there was a problem, particularly with Anita. But apparently my saying I missed her felt overwhelming (see the screenshot)… but then literally the day before I saw her to be told she was ending she said “I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow”. I don’t really know how that works.

So it’s not easy navigating anything when my experience is that people say things that suggest one thing and then the reality is quite different… and not only that but it’s me that’s misread the situation or been too much despite CHECKING so as not to end up being a problem.

It’s all just a lot and so live right now and it’s hard because I try really hard to not get things wrong and somehow still manage to fuck things up. And it’s hard to not think it’s a me problem.

I could really use a big hug and a lobotomy 

X

And once again the Elle I know and love came back with such care and holding that my system just settled right down and I wondered how I had got myself in such a fucking mess again:

My lovely girl, will you believe me if I say I always have all of those things in my mind whenever we have a break? 

I think about how A gave you no clue about what was going on for her, and how Em reassured you, and how H wasn’t confident enough to say how she felt, and I think “what can I do differently?” And the only answer I ever come up with is to just be consistently me; honest about how I feel, open to hearing anything you believe will help and support you, and reassuring you that I am capable of telling you if I feel anything other than happy and calm about any of it.

And I am genuinely confident that – in time – you will trust that what I say is what I mean, but that earning that trust is going to be that much harder – both to build and maintain – due to all of that damage that was done. 

And enormous all-encompassing hugs are always available and in plentiful supply.

Lobotomies however, are only available on request every second Weds.

Elle xxx

PS I read the message you sent to [friend] about you finding the automated texts triggering, and so tomorrow…I will send you something just for you! 😀

And so, since then in January…I’ve had no more automated reminder texts about sessions and perfect personalised ones…and our sessions have been lovely (as always) and I’ve muddled along.

We’ve literally just been on ANOTHER BREAK now because I have been on holiday but I’ll get to that next time.

So yeah – big meltdown was had since I was last here. I am steadily finding my feet again…and ugh…life eh? Thank you for everyone that has messaged to check in and I am sorry I haven’t had the bandwidth to even reply. And amazing work if you got to the end of this – it’s almost the length of my undergrad dissertation!! xxx

“A Memory-cake Covered In The Sparkly Frosting Of Multiple Crushing Disappointments”: The Last Face-to-face Session of The Year,  The Phonecall, And A Cancellation…

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When I was staring down this Christmas period at the start of December it looked like it might actually be one that would be almost doable – or at least one where therapy and the therapy break would not be complicating factors. Elle and I had a session together booked in the room for Christmas Eve (I was so excited about this) and then we’d be back in on New Year’s Eve…so really there was not even a break (yay!). This year, I’d only have to get through the Christmas stuff with family and all the mess that entails, plus the usual hell of the crap with Em and Anita being thrown into sharp focus…but otherwise it should be fine, right?!

Having had my therapy with Em blow up so spectacularly in December ‘19/January ‘20 I now suffer really bad anxiety about my therapy ending, or being rejected by my therapist after a break…this hasn’t been helped at all by Anita ending our therapy when she came back from a break, either… but despite all this, I felt like it would be ok this year because Elle and I are ok…I think. I was ready for what was inevitably coming, but confident that the scaffolding that was around me with the sessions with Elle would be strong enough so that I didn’t fall apart. Or that was the plan… only… you can so guess where this is going can’t you?

Elle wasn’t wrong when she referred to the Christmas period as “a memory-cake covered in the sparkly frosting of multiple crushing disappointments.” This insight came a few weeks back in response to the email I sent with the extended metaphor about the roundabout of death that I seem to be stuck spinning on. I have been struggling a lot after getting the box of things back from Anita and if I am honest, I’ve been hanging on by my fingertips for most of this year. I certainly can’t do another year like this one. I simply don’t have it in me.

I sent that message about my struggling to Elle the night before the news that we wouldn’t be able to see each other on Christmas Eve as planned. It was bad. Like what timing! I obviously had my massive meltdown when I found out I wouldn’t see Elle face-to-face (fuck me that was a rotten few days) but recovered a bit when we scheduled in the phone session for Christmas Eve instead. It’s obviously nowhere near the same as being together in the same space, but it was something at least…and of course we’d still have the final face-to-face on the 17th.

On the day I learnt that Christmas Eve was off I also got the added and unexpected news that Elle was going to be away in January – neatly coinciding with the time when it all went to shit with Em, “Like a tick”. Eek…never my best week and honestly, I can already feel a massive sense of dread being ‘alone’ that week. It’s hard to put into words the kind of response those words trigger in me even now but I find January really rough because it was such a horror show ending with Em. And what if Elle doesn’t come back?

I know that I am really bad with disruption and change, anyway, but I had no idea back in early December just how fucking many crushing disappointments would materialise in this window of glittery Christmas hell… but Elle’s words have continued to ring so ear-piercingly true it’s not even funny. Like really? Is the universe taking the fucking piss? Or do I just have a ridiculous amount on negative karma that I am working out in this lifetime because really, sometimes, it just feels so unfair.

It’s that bleurgh period between Christmas and New Year, the time where I traditionally fall into a bout of deep depression and freeze…and guess what? Yep. Here I am again. Same shit, different year. I’ve had the laptop beside me for a couple of days thinking that I would write…I’ve got plenty I could be working on (including my story for Elle) but nope. I’ve been completely stuck in overwhelm and instead of being productive or actually just being at (much-needed) peace – I’m doom scrolling and fitfully sleeping and generally beating myself up for yet again not making the most of my time off work.  More than anything I really need proper rest and care – and I don’t mean more of the self-care, I actually just need taking care of. I could really use a week of mothering rather than being the one doing the mothering… that’s it.

I know I am not alone in finding this time of year tough. Christmas is a lot. And even though I actually managed to pull off a pretty decent Christmas Day and Boxing Day, I have both emotionally and physically crashed and burned since then. I am in the place where I want to be completely away from people – at the beach in my hideaway but know also that I can’t go and escape and run away because ‘it’s Christmas’. The only person I want to see right now is Elle…and I think that is because I have done such a lot of adulting that the parts of me that need a bit of nurture and attention are starting to get really restless….they’re desperately upset, in fact.

These last few days I have been riding massive waves of anxiety. It’s got so bad that I have dreams that I am being physically sick and throwing up and the experience is so visceral that it wakes me up and I am instantly aware of the sick feeling of high anxiety in my body. If I didn’t have an empty stomach, I most certainly would be sick at that point. Talk about somatic response to emotional upset. Ugh.

As much as I have tried to keep my mind away from the usual triggers, it’s nigh on impossible not to be reminded of what happened with Em or to drift into thinking about all that has happened with Anita at this time of year. I don’t miss Em in the least but I am still reeling from the hurt she caused. And Anita, well, I miss her but I have let her go now. This year I didn’t bother to text her over Christmas. Although I know she’d reply there’s no point in trying to keep any channel of communication open with her. Her behaviour towards me this last year tells me everything I need to know about her feelings towards me and I need to find a way of moving through the pain of it all.

Parts of me have wanted to reach out to Elle and forewarn her that I am not in a great place. I have been really conscious of wanting to see her the last few days, especially having not seen her in person last week, but there is also another part that’s really prominent and activated and is just full of shame and terrified of reaching out because what if something has changed?

I have been really conscious that when I see her, I could end up being totally shut down and avoidant and pretend like everything is ok when it really isn’t. I haven’t told her how it is, because it’s Christmas, it’s a break, and also…there’s that heightened awareness of everything that went wrong with Em playing out in my brain. I so badly don’t want to be perceived as ‘adhesive’ and ‘like a tick’, ‘pushing boundaries’, ‘trying to get inside her’ being ‘demanding’ and ‘intruding’ and make her feel like she can’t get away from me because my need for her is ‘all the time’ etc. And I know none of these are Elle’s words but they are branded into my brain…thanks Em! But maybe I am ‘too dependent’ (the words that Anita denies ever having left her lips) and so I have stayed quiet and suffering.

It feels like with all this being so live at the minute it would be a really good time to talk to Elle about it when I see her – because the feelings are right here on the surface rather than pushed down in the depths. Of course, Elle knows a bit of what happened with Em but largely we’ve been firefighting the Anita stuff. Part of me was almost tempted to share the blogs from the time when Em and I ended with Elle so she can really see exactly what went on…but I haven’t…because it’s a lot.

I had decided last night that when I woke up this morning I would send Elle a text after I got her reminder text about our session and let her know that I needed her to stay close tomorrow because things are hard. I’m sure she knows this already. I had a terrible night of nightmares and was up a lot through the night so didn’t end up waking up until 10:30 this morning. I looked at the clock and mentally felt the relief of knowing it was only just over twenty-four hours and then I’d see Elle. When I checked my phone Elle’s normal message wasn’t there. Instead, there was a message telling me she was sick and that she didn’t think she’d be ok for tomorrow.

You can only imagine how that landed.

Of course, I am really sorry that she is poorly and I more than anything hope she gets better soon because she’s not immune to how fucking hard this year has been either, and I think she desperately needed a break. There’s some horrible viruses going around at the minute and it’s not exactly restful being sick even if you are laid up in bed is it? It’s just like being pummelled. Adult me wishes there was something I could do to help her feel better. I hope there is someone looking after her but I get the impression she is the one who looks after everyone else.

Aside from my big feelings of care for Elle there is absolutely the hugest feelings of sadness and disappointment again. To have hung on so tightly to get to tomorrow to see her and for it be taken off the table at the last minute is just gutting – especially after what happened with Christmas Eve. I had just about got myself in a place to handle the January break thinking we at least had two sessions before that to reconnect and put something holding in place…and yet here we are… I feel like I am running on a track that keeps crumbling just ahead of me.

I just can’t.

I am really out of coping at the moment.

I wish I could say it wasn’t like this, but I’m devastated. I just want a cuddle.

And then of course I feel ashamed and embarrassed that this has affected me the way it has because I know that none of this is intentional. I know Elle can’t help being ill. It happens. But the little parts of me that so badly needed to see her on Christmas Eve are still hurting about that, and here we are again…another disappointment. The littles don’t understand the ‘reasons’ that they haven’t been able to see Elle they only feel what it is to be ‘left’. It feels abandoning and rejecting. AND I KNOW IT ISN’T but we’re not dealing with Adult Me, are we?

Elle even told me in her message this morning “please don’t see this as a sign of anything more than the worst kind of luck […] I know this is horrible timing”… like I know she will get how this has landed…or at least, she might have a bit of an idea…but it’s just so painful. This sort of thing taps deeply into the bit when I was a kid always waiting for my mum to come back. She was away Sunday through to Friday and I would always feel so disconnected and lonely in the week. And this is the same. I am always on a countdown to see Elle, and it’s hard, especially as I only see her once a week and that feels it’s too long as it is.

I just feel like I am stretched so far beyond my capacity right now…because Christmas did, of course, throw up shit. My wonderful mother failed to acknowledge me or my kids for the third year running, and didn’t even send a text to acknowledge the gift I had sent her. I just can’t even. What kind of person doesn’t even send a ‘thank you’? Or a ‘happy christmas’? Well, I know the answer to that, but it doesn’t stop it from hurting. The original wound was right there with the spotlight on it. My mum doesn’t care about me and … well what more is there to say? Well, plenty, actually, just not today.

Ugh.

So, this has all got a bit out of chronology, hasn’t it? I was meant to talk about the last face-to-face session and the phone call. What can I say. Feeling like I do right now? And please don’t read this as ‘spoiled brat’, it’s ‘desperately sad and hurt little parts’.

Actually, I don’t remember a whole lot about the last time I ‘saw’ Elle. I know that I was massively conscious that it would be the last time I would see her for a while and it triggered the smalls a lot which meant that False Adult was pretty present for a fair bit of it, I think.

In the few days leading into the session, I had finally begun writing the story I wanted for Elle but it was nowhere near finished or even edited by the time it got to Tuesday. Despite this, I printed it off and wrapped it with part of the gift I had bought Elle for Christmas. It was all in my bag but there was a part of me that feared giving Elle the present – yet again another throwback to Em when she rejected my gift of a snowflake and copy of ‘The Velveteen Rabbit’. Again, there was absolutely no reason to think that this would happen with Elle. I have given her all sorts of stuff over the last eighteen months but this time of year is so ridiculously triggering – ESPECIALLY after recent events with Anita.

It was quite a bit of time before I allowed myself to relax into being with Elle in the session. I always find it hard when there is going to be a break. Part of me longs for closeness and connection but part of me is so painfully aware that it/she is going to be taken away that I rarely ask for what I need before a break and pretend like I am fine. I think this is also a hangover from working with Em where my needs were never met and so I stopped asking.

Still, I did eventually cuddle into Elle and stop jabbering on about meaningless shit. I felt sad. And empty. And far away…even though I was now close to Elle. I could almost feel the clock running down and with every passing minute the deep sadness seemed to get bigger and bigger.

I hate breaks.

LOL.

After a period of quiet, Elle told me that she had something she wanted to give me, a present to open on Christmas Eve when we would have our call. She said that the thing she had given me is very special to her and that she really liked the idea of my having it and that she also really wanted to talk to me on Christmas Eve to check that I was ok.

I could feel tears coming in my eyes but pushed them away. I don’t think I said anything to Elle. She must think I am really rude sometimes. Like she had been so thoughtful and taken a step towards me and there I was silent. If anything, I was completely overwhelmed. There is always such a lot I want to say but I can feel myself pulling back…afraid of being ‘too much’.

Can you all see how much the young parts are struggling right now?

After a while I told Elle I had something for her and that she could open part of it then. I felt really exposed and stupid handing over the present – which is really really sad. I suddenly felt really idiotic having tried to write Elle a story and embarrassed giving her the soft toy that went with it. I gave myself a really hard time all the next week about it.

There wasn’t time for Elle to read the story in what was left of the session and she asked if she could read it at her leisure. Of course. I didn’t hear anything all the last week about it in the few interactions we had but it wasn’t surprising, that week was like groundhog week and I think everyone was hanging on by a thread. It didn’t stop the inner critic having a good old taunt, though. The erosive power of that part of me is so strong and it takes away anything good.

I had really badly wanted to write the story – and it got fucked by my wonky brain having a meltdown over the change to Christmas Eve, then what I did finally write was ‘ok ish’ but not ‘good enough’…and so my brain decided to really go to town on me. Elle’s silence seemed to confirm that I was a fucking moron for trying. I am trying to think where all this comes from but all I can think is that there must’ve been times when I have tried to do something like paint a picture, or write something, and it’s been disregarded. Highly likely tbh.

So yeah, that week leading into the call was a bit rough.

Because everyone was at home and sound travels in my house, I couldn’t do my session at home. The ideal would have been to have been alone in the house, snuggled up in bed. Instead, I made up a little den in the backseat of my car with pillow and blankets and Monty and my soft dog toy and took the car across to the park to where there is a reasonable mobile signal. Sadly, the signal isn’t really strong enough for a video call – or at least I didn’t want to ty that and it not work, so opted for a voice call.

It was ok- certainly better than not talking at all that’s for sure. Elle mentioned a couple of times how it was not to be able to see each other…and it was hard because I really would have liked to have seen her face (and hold her hand!). Although, tbh there’s a chance I might have dissociated. I work 100% online in my job and video calls are all that I do, and yet I think seeing Elle over a screen might have made me feel even further away. I don’t know. I don’t exactly have a good track record with Em and Anita but then I don’t know how it would feel with Elle and maybe I need to try.

Again, I don’t really remember much of the call. Elle said that she liked the story – I think – although don’t really know what she said. I think I may have said something dismissive or shut the conversation down. I think I was probably embarrassed to talk about it – especially as I had convinced myself that it was utter shit and that she hated it in the week since I had given it to her.

I think I told her a bit about how sick I have been feeling and the anxiety stuff. I think there was mention of my mum… and some past Christmases but honestly, I don’t know. I know there was a huge part of me who was trying very hard to stay present but kept wandering away. There was a part of me that felt very very sad. I think November and December have just been really hard and I so badly wanted to be near Elle…and whilst she was trying really hard to be there…it’s just not the same is it? I have spent so many years on the phone as a kid trying to connect with my mum on a Wednesday when she’d call home but never being really given space to express how it felt. I was ‘fine’…. But I wasn’t.

Anyway, there’s a lot stirred up and going on BUT I was really glad to have spoken to Elle because even though it wasn’t the same as face-to-face, it was still contact, I could still hear her voice, and know on a level that she was still there even if I couldn’t see her and it made me think that this is an option for the future for sessions if they need to be moved or maybe just check ins. I actually think if we could talk on the phone in the week just for ten or fifteen minutes it would make things feel a whole lot easier than they have been.

Near the end of the call, I opened the present that Elle had given me and it was just lovely. It was a beautifully bound folio copy of her favourite childhood book…and really it was just one of the most special things anyone has given me. This was especially the case this year where Christmas was the usual of me arranging my own presents – and this year even wrapping them. It felt really lovely that Elle would share something that felt so meaningful and important to her with me. She directed me towards her favourite chapters and I read them on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which felt really connecting.

It was surprising how fast the ninety minutes went and I could feel a massive pang of sadness come as I realised it was time to hang up. Elle told me she would message me on Christmas Day when she had opened the other things I had given her and that she was looking forward to seeing my face next week…

It was lovely to receive a really warm connecting message on Christmas morning, then. She seemed genuinely to really appreciate what I had given her and so that felt nice.

I am trying really hard to hang on to all of how this lovely connecting stuff has felt today and am really trying not to let the sad take hold…but it’s hard. Tomorrow is going to be hard.

I won’t get to post again before the new year (relief!)…but I guess I will just round off with the Counting Crows lyrics that always resonate so much at this time of year:

A long December and there’s reason to believe, maybe this year will be better than the last. I can’t remember, the last thing that you said as you were leaving, now the days go by so fast.

A Change Of Plan, A Total Meltdown, And Riding On The Roundabout Of Death…

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

Do you remember the old roundabouts in kids’ play parks that were really super-fast and basically death traps? Everyone would grab the handle and run like hell round and round then jump on and hope not to fucking die as the force was so strong and could ping you off? There was always the potential risk of getting your foot trapped under it when it was getting going, too.

So… that’s one aspect of how it feels at the minute. Like nearly all the parts of me are stuck on this fucking roundabout and feel soooo sick. Some are screaming that they “want to get off!” and to “slow it down!” Some are on the verge of losing their grip on the handle and are soooo scared and crying…and then the Inner Critic keeps spinning the thing faster and faster because suffering is fun…apparently.

It’s disorientating and exhausting and I feel like I am expending a ridiculous amount of energy just trying to hang on and not puke…only it feels worse than that because it feels like it’s life or death in the moment. I am so fed up of feeling ill and overwrought.

I am wondering a bit, whether it would just be best to let go, tumble out, sustain a little bit more injury but at least be off it. Although, given I have to be more-or-less functional I don’t necessarily think that’s possible. Having said that, functionality is riding at about 50% at the moment and I can’t believe how much of my teaching timetable I have cancelled recently. I just can’t do it.

Everything just feels impossibly hard and I feel a little bit like I am splitting apart and don’t have an especially good handle on myself. I guess it’s not surprising everything feels catastrophic for a lot of me – the problem comes when I can’t hold it all, though, because when that happens everything feels unsafe…mixing metaphors really badly, it’s like the little rowing boat has somehow ended up in whitewater rapids. I always thought I’d enjoy rafting until I did it in Thailand and ripped my big toenail off. I still feel sick thinking about that. And so, it’s really not good at all.

So yeah – it’s a mess and because it’s a HUGE mess I feel like everything is about to explode or implode, maybe. It’s like all those alarms are going off again and as much as I’d like to think they’re malfunctioning – or I am – it doesn’t change how scary it all feels. And, it’s nearly Christmas and that’s terrifying in its own way too ☹ especially if this is the starting point.

Ummm so please stay close because it’s bad.

x

This was an email I sent to Elle after a recent session a couple of weeks back. The stuff with Anita and the box still felt really live (my god there’s sooooo much to process there) and I could feel myself edging closer and closer the to place where it gets very very bad.

I had wondered whether or not to even tell Elle how it was feeling, because really what could be done with only two more sessions until Christmas? The holidays were looming large on the horizon and therefore the dreaded therapy break too (the most wonderful time of the fucking grinchy year).

Although it wasn’t a lot of time, I decided I wanted to be able to try and get something in place to hold this…disaster… so that I didn’t combust or disintegrate or get pinged off the roundabout and sustain some nasty injury over Christmas, and the only way that could happen was if I was honest about how bad it was feeling.

I think I was pretty numbed out in session that came after the box and the elephant and Anita’s note and we didn’t really talk about it … but then that’s because I couldn’t see the box in the room and part of me, at least, felt embarrassed to bring it up.

Later on, in that session Elle said she’d had an idea about creating a nice new box for the stories to go in, but tbh I was pretty shut down at that point because I’d felt like she’d forgotten. She absolutely hadn’t. She was being led by me and when I avoided it she brought it up, safely, as I was cuddled into her. So I do get this is me not her – but it’s all VERY VERY sensitive and I feel as though I am edging my way round quicksand. Hence sending the roundabout of death email.

Elle replied kindly and said that she really understood how hard this time of year is calling it “a memory-cake covered in the sparkly frosting of multiple crushing disappointments” and said that she was ready and waiting with a blanket and reckons she can break my fall if I choose to let go of my grip on the roundabout.

It was around then that I had decided that it made sense to use one of the remaining sessions with Elle unpacking more of my box from Anita, and then use the last session on Christmas Eve to really try and connect with Elle, give her my Christmas gifts, settle the little parts, and create enough holding and containment to get through the Christmas week.

I woke up the next morning feeling really sad and little and out of sorts and took myself back to bed for a nap in an attempt try and snap myself into a better, more adult, place before a massive day of lessons. The nap didn’t really help and I felt really unmoored and upset having had some nightmares with Elle in – you know the usual stuff around abandonment and rejection… awesome.

I was just about to get up and shower but checked my phone first, and imagine my absolute horror when I saw and email from Elle telling me that we wouldn’t be able to meet on Christmas Eve having had a an email from the landlord of her building saying they were closing up for the whole of the Christmas week and that the space couldn’t be used. I literally couldn’t believe it. Although, of course, parts of me absolutely could… because this is my life, isn’t it?

The message felt really jarring. Elle basically said that our last session would now be the 17th and that she also would be away on the week of 14th January (I didn’t know about this until then, although the phrasing of her message made it seem like she thought I already knew.) and that she hoped it didn’t feel too “unsettling”.

It wasn’t just unsettling. It felt like a huge body blow and I basically crumbled in a heap and sobbed face down in my bed for half an hour. I left it until the very last minute before I had to teach to get out of bed, quickly washed my face, and tried to adjust my mask so I would be able to work. There were soooo many feelings. But hurt and disappointment felt like the big ones. The email from Elle wasn’t horrific but it wasn’t really holding either. I didn’t know what to say. Part of me had already cut and run and another part didn’t want to be too needy. So, I simply replied:

Ok. If you get a cancellation can I see you?

Because at this point there was still a week and a half until the office shutdown and perhaps this would give her enough of a head’s up that a single session wasn’t going to cut it.

I think I probably need to give Elle a bit of lesson on my communication style and let her know that if I go quiet for a period of time or hardly respond, THINGS ARE BAD… like VERY BAD.

Elle said that she would let me know if anyone cancelled – which is fine – it was the sort of reply my short email required. Only it wasn’t. I just needed a bit more warmth and a bit less admin at this point when I was totally losing my shit… but then I suppose she didn’t know I was losing my shit…but I would expect by now for her to have an inkling because I’ve done the crumple in a heap a few times now around contact/sessions/extra sessions.

So, when I say I fell apart at the news of no Christmas Eve session, it’s no exaggeration. I absolutely and totally crumbled inside. It all just landed so heavily at time when I absolutely don’t have enough coping to handle it. I was mad at myself for being so upset. I was angry that I had let myself get to a point that it mattered to me whether or not we would see each other. I was gutted that the little parts of me had been excited to see her so close to Christmas and that this year the break wouldn’t even really be a break as there wouldn’t be a missed session.

It wasn’t Elle’s fault we couldn’t meet on Christmas Eve but there was a part of me that was really sad that knowing how this might land Elle just seemed not to really care. Like – was there no work around?

To say that I felt totally abandoned would be an understatement and my system went into apocalypse setting. After all the stuff with Anita being so activated again, and it being December and the anniversary of the wheels falling off with Em all the alarms were switching on…plus there’s all the non-therapy trauma with my mum and wider family, the fact that I had an actual mental health breakdown that saw me off work for 17 months that was triggered at Christmas…well, the funnelling into doom was rapid. Like this time of year is not great for my mental health outside of therapy but adding in the complicating factors of failed relationships and then this…well… it was fucking awful.

There was just this horrible empty feeling and the sense of being ‘not good enough’ and ‘unimportant’ and we all know how bloody awful that is. Over the course of the day, I basically unravelled in the biggest way. It was hideous. My runners were running and my protectors were going all out. As I say, when I am in this kind of a place the last thing I do is reach out and say anything or tell the person I am upset, instead I spin in ever tighter spirals until I am so dizzy and sick that I fall off the roundabout.

I was so disappointed. I had genuinely been just a little bit hopeful this year, that despite everything, Christmas might not be quite the shitshow it has been in recent years. I realise too, that a lot of this is about how I struggle with change. Like, I do know that it wasn’t like Elle and I weren’t going to meet at all and she had at least given me the head’s up rather than telling me in the session the next week. It just meant my plan for how I wanted the run into Christmas to be was not going to happen…and…one session instead of two…was a sucker punch.

It was agony. I can’t really put into words how bad this stuff feels when it’s happening but I do understand that it feels so catastrophic because SOOOOOO MANY parts of me are in play. The entire mini-bus is in the mix- and the driver too.

I felt like I was stuck between a rock and a hard place and there wasn’t a good option (in my wonky brain at least?!). What should I do? Turn up on the Tuesday and pretend like everything was fine so as to avoid a deeper rupture when there would be a two week break and then another two week break in January? Like, this has probably been the option I have leant towards in the past, but I also know that leaves a lot of my system feeling angry and resentful and hurting afterwards and then I am left in the doom loop.

Then there was a part of me that thought about going and saying how awful this had felt and how unseen and abandoned I felt but then I didn’t want the last session to be fraught and there not be enough time to make a repair… but also, I didn’t want her to know that I needed more than what she’d put on the table. I was already swimming in shame for getting myself in a place where I imagined this sort of thing wouldn’t happen between us.

It wasn’t so much the cancellation, rather that there was no alternative options given. I felt like I had been dealt a hard slap of reality of what our relationship was…and it wasn’t what I had thought. I didn’t want to go in and embarrass myself by showing her how much this had hurt me and for her to come back with something like, “I’m just your therapist.”

And so, then that really only left me with this option… and that was to not go back at all. Told you the protectors were activated! But it’s not surprising. There are only so many knock backs I can cope with and after Anita’s shit note in the box and sending back ‘The Rabbit Listened’ and all that has dragged up, I just wasn’t in a place to hold this, too.

I felt really really sad. I had been planning to write a story for Elle to give to her in our Christmas Eve session. We had talked about writing a story together a while back and she’d told me the animal she thought she’d be. I had ordered a plushie version of this animal and just needed to write the story – I thought I had two weeks to do it and had mostly mapped out the plot line and characters. Now this just felt stupid and my brain was in no place to write.  

There were a few other bits I had ordered over recent months to give Elle this holiday that felt very specific to our work and the conversations that we had had. I had another card with buttons on, referencing back to the year before when we had done the session with the buttons and I had put her in my button circle. At this point I just felt fucking stupid – like really, why bother and what was the point? None of it is real…and of course I have evidence of just how not real even the therapeutic relationships that seem to be galvanised in love are.

There was part of me that had an idea to write the story and leave it with Monty outside the room with a note that said I was done and not coming back just before the session….but as loud as the teen part was, there were lots of littles crying and begging for that NOT to happen.

For fuck’s sake. Like it was seriously all kicking off. Part of me feels really embarrassed that it gets like this but these days there is a huge amount of compassion for all those parts – the reactions I have are only as big as the hurts I have endured over the years…and this with Elle was just poking a massive stick in the mother wound again.

So, I suffered out all of Wednesday and most of Thursday before being talked down by a friend who strongly encouraged me to reach out to Elle and let her know what was going on for me because she probably had no idea at all. She said that Elle always responds well when I let her know what is going on and that I should give her the opportunity to help.

The stubborn protectors didn’t want to contact her at all and were so angry when I sent on Thursday:

I’ve had a massive meltdown.

I couldn’t say more than that. But that really said it all didn’t it?

And thankfully the Elle that I think is Elle, that most of me knows to be Elle showed up. She sent the most holding email and it completely settled my system down – it was like switching my nervous system from complete overwhelm and panic and putting it into safe mode (I really hope she wouldn’t mind me posting this- but I think you can probably see why it was so effective):

Oh lambkin, I feel sad hearing that, and I hope you’re not feeling shame about it, because sometimes a meltdown is exactly the appropriate response.

There is so much happening right now, and this is historically the toughest time for you for so many reasons. I feel so sorry that there’s not more I can do for you, other than offer you my love and understanding, and a hand to hold and a body to lean on every week. And I feel really sorry that we won’t be able to meet on Christmas Eve as we’d planned, as that felt like such a holding thing to do and imagine would potentially have helped with the tricksiest week of the year.

And I wondered if maybe we could possibly have a phone call that day instead? I know you said you struggled with Zoom sessions in the past, but I wondered if it would feel different to maybe have a phonecall, maybe snuggled up in bed with the duvet over your head? Maybe we could try it at least and see how it feels? It might be a good solution for when things get tough or when it’s not an office day for me. 

I hope you feel me holding your hand, even when I can’t physically be there to do it.

Elle x

So, I sent an email back with all kinds of fluff in but also saying that I would really like to talk to her.

My system was still in a state for quite a few days – the hangover from the mess I had got myself into, I think. I felt quite dissociated and just couldn’t really get my brain to work even though things felt tonnes better than they had. I must have read that email a million times last week and each time it had the same calming effect… because even if I don’t remember always, or don’t feel it, she does understand doesn’t she?

I badly wanted to write the story for Elle ready for our last session on Tuesday but I just couldn’t do it. I couldn’t even get myself to go near my laptop until the Friday night because it felt like I was thinking through cotton wool. I have definitely found with my writing that when I am in the zone it just comes and when I am not… well… it’s like wading through treacle. My vocabulary isn’t there, my ability to hold the story in mind, the characters, speech, ALL OF IT feels nearly impossible and honestly, it’s given me a whole new level of compassion for my GCSE students who get 45 minutes to write a story on an unseen stimulus in their exams.

Anyway, I started to write the story but quickly realised I would not be able to finish it in time for Tuesday. I couldn’t even edit what I had done properly… and for someone who generally likes time for things to marinate and settle this felt shit…ESPECIALLY as it was something I wanted to give to Elle. I don’t feel this way with the blog because it’s just me wittering away in a stream of consciousness but a story, for someone whose opinion matters…like I at least wanted to give her something I was happy with and something that was FINISHED. ☹

I’ll write another post on our last face-to-face session (which I did go to!) in the next few days…and the phone call…whatever that ends up being like. Eek. I’m trying hard not to get worked up about it.

Tbh I am feeling a bit meh this weekend. The emotional nose dive is real folks. Christmas is catching up with me. The same old shit is rearing its head. I have retreated into myself and feel pretty fucking shit if I am honest. Once again, I am in that place where I know that if I hide it’ll be way worse than if I reach out…but reaching out feels too much and too scary especially when the Ghost of Christmas Past is sitting on my shoulder reminding me that everyone is tired at this time of year and capacity is at an all time low. And maybe had I not had an emotional meltdown this time five years ago, Em might not have given up.

Most of me knows that to not be true…but…at least some part of me is aware of not wanting to be a burden.

Deep breaths eh?

I imagine lots of you are feeling a similar kind of heaviness and … ugh… sadness…and grief…and ALL THE THINGS right now. So, sending out heaps of love of Christmas as you run the gauntlet of the holidays and corresponding therapy breaks. xx

The Apology That Never Was…

rubberbandsandchewinggum26 Comments

Since last week when I opened the box with Elle and received the rather lack lustre apology from Anita my brain has been looping thinking about all the things she could have said, or should have said, or maybe more what I would have liked to have heard in the ideal world.

Over the years I have got pretty good at writing letters to my therapists when they won’t engage (honestly, it really feels like a me problem sometimes!) trying to process and get closure when they won’t help me with that. I think the one I wrote to Em ‘Kind Regards (And F*ck You)’ stands out in my mind!! lol. But actually, this time I need to give myself some words to move through the end with Anita when she very clearly won’t. I guess it’s a kind of written empty chair exercise.

So, Anita, this is what you could have said. Best wishes…or maybe…lukewarm regards RB x :

Dear RB,

I am sorry that I haven’t felt able to meet with you during the last eighteen months to give our work and the relationship we had the end it deserved and to return your things to you in person. I haven’t known how to deal with what’s happened with you and me, knowing how much I hurt you, and the more time that has passed the harder it has got to return to it and look at what went wrong. You know I am good at avoiding things that are uncomfortable!

I know that I have let you down and I should have done better. You placed your trust in me and I have shattered that trust – I am sorry. I can understand how being stuck in limbo for so long and my inability to properly engage with you will have caused you even more pain on top of what was already there from last year. No one comes to therapy to end up worse than they did when they started, and knowing what had already happened to you with Em I can only apologise for doing you more harm.

I know that May 2023 was terrible, and the couple of years leading into that if I am really honest. I fucked up. I lost control of your therapy and my feelings and things got really blurred between us. You should never have had to hold so much of what was going on for me just to be in the therapy with me – and I know that this is a total reenactment of how it was for you as a child.

I should have taken your advice and taken more supervision and gone into personal therapy when stuff started going wrong with my mum and wider family and I felt like I was burning out. Instead, I chose to walk down the path of denial ignoring all the warning signs that my life was blowing up around me and pretended for as long as I could that I was coping (in between my mini breakdowns with you).

I know you noticed that things weren’t right when I was in my ‘head in the sand’ periods and told me over and over – and rather than have to face the truth of what you were saying and feeling, I made out that it was you being too sensitive and wrong. I know I apologised for this when I last saw you, but I see now how my “you were right, you saw it before I did” wasn’t a good enough sorry when actually the last eight months of our time together was frequently an exercise in gaslighting. I am sorry that my avoidance of my own mess left you constantly second-guessing what was going on and endlessly triggering you. You were right. Things were different and I had changed.

I know that how I have behaved towards you will feel rejecting and abandoning… devastating… especially to the young parts of you whom I made so many promises. What has happened must feel very confusing for them. I am sorry that I couldn’t provide a space for you to be able to express these feelings and work through what ending meant to you. You deserved better than this – especially given the unexpected losses you have experienced in the past.

I have sent back your books today and I have included the ‘Rabbit Listened’ not because I don’t want it, but because it is a symbol of so much of the work we did together. Thank you for trusting me with you for all those years. I am sorry that you have been left holding so much as a result of my inability to handle my situation.  

I know that you probably now wonder if any of our relationship was real given how it has been since we last saw one another. It was. My love and care were real. I just reached a point in my life where I couldn’t cope with anything or anyone outside of my immediate unavoidable life demands and actually, in truth, I’m not even handling those well even now.

You were the collateral damage as everything blew up around me and that should never have been the case. I should have stopped my therapeutic work months before I took the decision to end with you and other long-term clients. I was doing a disservice to you and others and not working ethically when I was hanging on by a thread. I see that now and I can only apologise.

I am also so so sorry that I left you with no support last year knowing how massively this was all going to impact you. Given the type of deep relational/attachment work we were doing together and the frequency of our sessions, as well as the sheer length of time that we had been working together, I absolutely should have ensured that you had someone to help you in the immediate aftermath given I was unable to hold an ending. I should have made sure there was a safety net to catch you.

It’s not an excuse, but I was so caught up in my own survival that I totally neglected to safeguard you. I am pleased to hear that you were able to source your own support but I am again sorry that I failed you so badly – I should have done better.

I know that you know that I am still working and I know how this feels painful to you especially as I have not met with you to end. I can really understand how it must feel abandoning and rejecting to see my advertising for clients and seemingly taking on work that is similar to ours. I can understand that this would be really upsetting and perhaps even make you feel angry.

The truth is, I am ashamed of what I did to you and I don’t feel competent or confident enough to handle the very delicate situation between us now. I think I will only make things worse and set you back and I really don’t want to cause any more harm than I already have.

You told me that it felt like I had cut my end of the invisible string. I didn’t mean to. I disconnected from myself first and then went wild with my scissors and very little of anything remains intact. I know it’s not much comfort but this was never about you. It wasn’t your fault. I know nothing can make this right but please know that I am truly sorry. I hope that one day you might be able to forgive me.

With love and care,

Anita.