Complex Trauma

What Was In The Box? My Stuff Returned After 18 Months

rubberbandsandchewinggum28 Comments

I received a delivery notification last Sunday that my box from Anita had reached my friend’s house and was ready to collect. Anita hadn’t let me know that she had posted it so, whilst it didn’t come as a surprise exactly given I had requested things be sent two weeks prior to this, it was an impersonal shock opening up an email to see a photograph of my box outside my friend’s house.

I can’t really understand why Anita didn’t send me a message to say, “Hi RB, just to say I sent your things today so keep an eye out for them. Anita”. But we all know how detached and disconnected from the whole sorry affair she has got. To be honest, she was probably just glad to be rid of it all and didn’t give it a second thought.

I burst into tears when I saw the picture in the email. I hadn’t expected to but it was the small parts for sure. I think up until now those parts of me have been in a denial about the fact that Anita is properly gone from my world. I think whilst she still had my things, there was a little bit of hope for some part of me that one day we’d get together and sort this out to an extent.

I know we’d never work together again but I suppose part of me had been hoping that if I was patient enough and didn’t apply too much pressure at some point Anita would come to her senses, move far enough through the shit she was swimming in and want/be able to offer me some time to really close of the work. Like surely she’d want to say goodbye. After all, she had been so utterly horrified by the way that Em and I ended that she insisted we would ensure we did things properly. So much of our work was about undoing what Em had done and yet, actually, when it’s come down to it, Anita hasn’t kept her word on anything.

Fortunately, throughout all of this Elle has been completely amazing. She been holding my hand very tightly (both literally and metaphorically) through everything and has repeatedly reiterated that we can process all of this ‘together’ and that she’s totally here with me so that has felt really good.

I think the only reason I have been even able to go to this place, i.e requesting my things back, is because I feel so confident in the relationship that I have built with Elle now. I remember when I first met her, feeling so embarrassed even alluding to the work that Anita and I had done, mentioning the stories and elephant felt like I was swimming in shame, even saying that I loved Anita felt horrible.

But since Elle and I have done so much work at creating safety in our relationship, the fact that we also read stories, I snuggle into her on the sofa, that ‘love’ is very much part of the narrative between us, means that as painful as it was going to be receiving my stuff back from Anita, I wasn’t also going to have to deal with feeling ashamed when we opened the box. And it was ‘we’ rather than ‘me’ opening the box.

Elle and I decided that the best thing to do would be to bring the box to session on Tuesday and we’d figure out what to do with it together. As I say, Elle has made it very clear that I am not alone with any of this and that we can take it slow. She really has completely understood how big a deal this has been for me and the little parts of me and has done everything she can to make the experience as positive as it can be.

When I went to collect the box from my friend I was immediately alarmed. It was soooooo fucking heavy. Too heavy, surely, to be just my books and baby elephant? I started thinking of different scenarios in preparation for what might be inside.

My first thought was that Anita had probably just lumped all the books I’d even bought her in the box too, failing to differentiate between ‘our’ stories and books I had actually given her. I was ready for the possibility of ‘The Rabbit Listened’ being part of the package as even though it was a gift to mark our first year together it was also something we had read a lot. Another scenario I was prepping for was Anita sending back the egg crystal I had given her, stones, the ornaments, even possibly the dream catcher and windchimes… like honestly, there was the potential for soooooo much to be in that box.

I put the box on the passenger seat of my car and drove into town…

The sick feeling was hideous.

Walking from the car to Elle’s office was exhausting – the box was so heavy and felt actually like such an apt representation of just how fucking emotionally heavy this had all been.

Elle had moved the table to one side of the room when I arrived leaving the rug in the middle completely empty for us to be able sit of the floor with the box. We sat down together and talked about what to do. She had scissors ready and she asked whether I wanted to open the box or whether I wanted her to do it. I asked her to.

She sliced open the box and it was full of books. I could immediately see that ‘The Rabbit Listened’ was in there as it’s a hardback, as well as some of the books I had given her – ‘Big Panda Tiny Dragon’ and ‘The Journey’ – this felt like a bit of a kicker but at least there were none of the other presents I had given Anita over the years.

Lying on the top of the parcel was an envelope with my name on – so there was a note. I hadn’t been sure whether it would just be a parcel of my things and nothing more.

I reached into the box, quickly tore open the envelope to reveal a card… it was… umm…I dunno…not great, I suppose. Given how many lovely cards there are out there these days, how many lovely cards I have picked out and carefully written for A, it was a bit lack lustre – Elle even commented that she didn’t like it and that it felt like something you’d give to someone going into hospital.

I think given how much energy and thought I put into this sort of thing, once again it felt… just sad, really. I mean, I suppose I shouldn’t moan, it’s better than the ‘nothing’ I ever received from Em…but, then, Anita and I were so fucking close for so long – we’ve gone from beating heart necklace jewellery to this:

Dear RB,

I am so sorry things turned out as they did.

I know it’s been so very hard on you.

I truly wish you the very best for the future.

With love and care, Anita x

I quickly scanned the inside of the card and passed it over to Elle, saying “it could have been worse”. She read it, audibly groaned when she read the words and said, “could it?” I think in the moment I was just trying to get through it all and didn’t really take it in too much and cut off from the feelings a bit. Elle said I have a much more developed scale for shit than most and so the fact that this feels like it “could have been worse” really just shows how much I have had to deal with in my life because it was crap. That felt like a really kind thing to say and also really showing she understands that this IS a huge deal and is giving me permission to feel the feelings when I am ready to do so.

We sad laughed a bit about ‘things’ like how vague and lacking it was. It’s almost as if the ‘things’ that have happened were completely outside of her control- accidental even and that she had absolutely no agency in the events that have unfolded just by chance. Elle has a thing about people taking accountability and responsibility and she said it felt like Anita was completely abdicating herself from taking any responsibility for how shit it has been. She said it feels a bit like Chat GPT wrote the card and another friend of mine said it read like a card you’d send to a work colleague who was leaving. I added, “One you don’t like very much!”

Still, quoting Em in our last session together, “It is what it is” and I guess now I know exactly what I a have to deal with.

Elle asked me if I felt numb and I said that I did. She said she would too and then told me about some of how she was feeling about it all. It all felt really connecting. I didn’t want to go rifling though the box and all the books then and said I wanted to sit on the sofa. Basically I really just needed to be very close to Elle (even though we were sitting next to each other on the rug) I had had just about enough exposure to the pain of it for the moment.

So, we got back up onto the sofa leaving the box in the middle of the floor and I cuddled into her for a bit. We talked about what it was all feeling like – pretty shit- and then I moved and reached into the box and handed her ‘The Rabbit Listened’ with the front page open and said, “The other gifts coming back don’t really hurt but this one is a real kicker…” and Elle read the note I had written all those years ago to Anita and put it down and then held me close.

She picked up Baby Elephant and held him and asked him how he’d been and then did his voice replying saying that he was really glad to be back with me now. Then she sat him next to Monty on the couch and said that Monty would have to be careful with him whilst he settled back in and that he needed a lot of love after what he’d been through. Honestly, it felt really just so holding for the little parts.

I’d actually brought some new books this week and I asked if we could read those. I wanted to do something that was not ‘the box’ and connecting for me and Elle because I had been really conscious of how easily I can drift away when I feel scared and upset, and so even though none of the upset was about Elle I knew I needed to keep her close because it wouldn’t take much for me to go into hiding when actually I needed to stay as connected and present as I could.

In getting out the books, I also grabbed Big Elephant from my bag, which is maybe the first time it’s come out, and I showed it to Elle. She put baby elephant and Monty inside her (Big Elephants’) arms and said how happy Baby Elephant looked, and then we had a really lovely time reading, giggling, and talking about the book and the characters and it gave a bit of a respite from the box.

A little bit later I pulled a book out the box ‘A Shelter For Sadness’ and showed it to her. She read it to me. And said that we could read all the stories and give them new associations if I wanted. I told Elle I was struggling to understand how it had got to this place when nothing had gone very wrong between me and Anita and yet it was all playing out like this now. Elle said she thought that something had gone “very wrong” but with Anita and not me, and maybe that might feel in some way comforting because what’s happened has nothing at all to do with me.

The session seemed to fly by – even though I was there for nearly two hours. I guess, there’s a lot to delve into and through, it’s been eighteen months to get to this point. Elle asked me what I wanted to do with the box. I said that I wasn’t sure. She said that I could leave everything with her and we can come up with a plan on what to do together next week. She asked if I was taking Baby Elephant home and I said “not yet”. She said that he wasn’t to go back in the box and has put him somewhere safe in the room where he can be with her. So… yeah…Elle rocks doesn’t she?!

This week has felt pretty tough, of course it was going to be a big one, but Elle has been really ‘there’ with me and we have touched base each day and then again through the storms that have hit the UK this weekend. She emailed me on Friday night telling me to keep safe and again on Saturday morning checking things were ok. We live rurally and were without power from midday yesterday until mid-morning today so it’s been a bit bleurgh but fortunately no damage to property this time…and that’s why this blog didn’t make it up online yesterday. No internet!

So, Elle honestly has been great. I mean, part of me would like to have spent the entirety of last week in the room with her but I do have a life I have to get on with, and so having finger tips touching has been almost enough.

Anyway, this isn’t the end of this saga. I haven’t taken everything out the box yet… I have merely opened it up and glanced inside, really. I think this next session on Tuesday may be hard, although Elle says she’s had an idea about what to do with the books so… at least I am not on my own flailing around with it all alone. I have three more sessions before Christmas break so I figure two weeks on unpacking Anita and then Christmas Eve session to be with Elle, do festive fun things, maybe Playdoh and stories….and then try and get through the holidays in one piece. x

Dear Anita, I Wish You’d Just Tell The Truth…

rubberbandsandchewinggum24 Comments

So, it’s 18 months since I last saw Anita and, as you know, in that time I have tried time and again to get some kind of ending/closure with her. I mean, after 3.5 years of twice weekly therapy, a proper ending session/s really is the least that should have happened ESPECIALLY given the sort of work we were doing around childhood trauma, abandonment, and rejection AND how terribly things ended with the therapy with Em.

There was such a lot riding on this therapy going well and ending right… but the therapy was cut short and there has been no closure – so that’s just fucking great! So often, Anita has said she’s either ‘not in a good enough place’ to do an ending or has basically avoided answering my messages at all – then of course there was the small glimmer of half-progress when I asked about meeting with her supervisor instead and she suggested that we meet for a walk and talk to end…errr…nope! That never happened, but that is actually a very good thing because I simply cannot imagine trying to walk and talk this mess out.

Elle and I have been back from therapy break since the start of November (I’ll write about me and her in another post because there’s plenty there to talk about). I’ve been super aware that Christmas is coming very soon (oh joy!) and that I really really don’t want this shit with Anita dragging into 2025 – it should have been left firmly in 2023 when we SHOULD have met again in the September to end given that Anita was no better, as we had agreed. But that never happened and I have been chasing her ever since. It’s farcical really. You’d think she’d want to put this to bed just as much as me.

Anyway, having spoken with Elle about this: Anita, my stuff, what I need/want – I was really conscious that I wanted to get my stuff back even if I didn’t end up meeting with A (which would probably be best, as I have little confidence in A’s ability to hold the space for the kind of meeting we need) but also that it needed to be in good time so that I wasn’t opening pandora’s box right on the eve of Christmas.

Christmas is hard for me for soooo many reasons but I really don’t need to be literally and symbolically unpacking the grief of what’s happened with Anita and specifically the grief of my little parts during the holiday that is all about kids. There was a time when Anita would be giving me Christmas gifts and we’d be nearly celebrating another year’s therapy anniversary at the start of January. So, yeah, there’s a lot that happens round now – not forgetting it’s when all the wheels fell off with Em.

So, I decided that I would bite the bullet and try again to get this shit sewn up once and for all. I saw Elle for my session on the 12th November and when I got home, I sent a WhatsApp message to A:

A, are you around at all, soonish, to see each other and get my things back? I’d rather do it not right upon Christmas as I don’t think I’ll cope very well. Or if this doesn’t work right now, can we maybe arrange to post my things for now and maybe meet when it’s better? X

I felt that it gave her options, she could use the ‘get out of jail free card’ and say that now isn’t a good time for her to meet but agree to return my stuff. She could continue on in her avoidance but at least I’d get my things back and could start to process that with Elle.

But there was no reply.

Ummm.

I don’t know why I hadn’t expected that, it’s pretty true to form at this point, but I just hadn’t anticipated radio silence on such a simple request.

By the following Monday I was upset because I could feel time slipping away for my processing before Christmas internal deadline – and honestly, I just think it’s fucking rude, too, especially as I could imagine that she’s replying to potential new clients in a timely fashion whom she has no relationship with. I just feel like I’ve got so lost in all of this. Anita has put me somewhere in her mind that she can forget about – and that would be fine if she wasn’t in possession of my stuff, or if she wasn’t actually working and advertising her services…but she is.

So, I’ll be honest, this wasn’t one of my finest moments but I have been so sure that Anita has lied to me about how she’s working (despite saying the other month that she doesn’t work with trauma etc – even though it’s on her updated website…) and I thought, ‘fuck it, let’s see what’s really going on, here’…

So, I set up a new email address and posed as a new client – look, I’ve been fucked about for 18 months – something had to give (and it looks like it was my sanity!).

So, here’s what I sent. A very thinly veiled RB if we’re honest:

Hi Anita, I’ve found your profile/s here and on Psychology Today. 

I was wondering if you have any availability for face-to-face counselling? I’m fairly flexible with times/days as am self-employed and work from home.

I am struggling with the breakdown of a relationship. It’s been a while now but I find that I am not able to move on from it because there hasn’t really been any proper closure and I wasn’t expecting the breakup. They’ve moved on and I am stuck.

It’s brought up a lot around rejection and abandonment which I think probably plays into some childhood issues/trauma and I notice that I am reluctant to trust anyone and am second guessing all my important relationships.

This time of year is hard for me – I don’t like the dark and it seems to make everything a million times worse for my anxiety and depression. And, of course, Christmas is always tough when you are alone. I am no contact with my mother so there’s a lot, really.

I have been in counselling before but it was only short-term so I think it probably didn’t really go deep enough. I think I am in a place now where I want to do the deeper work and make some serious changes.

Best wishes,

Stevie

So, reading between the lines, Stevie isn’t going to be a short-term client, she wants to do depth work… depth work takes plenty of time and a decent relationship and Stevie has already said trust is a problem. Stevie has also alluded to childhood trauma, rejection and abandonment issues, as well as a MOTHER WOUND…Stevie has the ingredients for Complex Trauma, doesn’t she? All of these SHOULD be big NO NOs for Anita given she no longer is able to ‘work in that way’ and has had to let go all of her trauma clients and completely change the way she works (or so she says).

But guess what guys? In less than 48 hours Stevie got a reply:

Dear Stevie,

Thank you for your email. 

Unfortunately, I am currently at full capacity. You are more than welcome to be added to my waiting list although it maybe a few weeks before a space becomes available.

I also need to let you know I will be semi retiring at the beginning of April 2025 and moving all of my clients to online therapy only.

If you prefer to see an alternative therapist, there are links at the bottom of my home page  [website link]  one of the best websites is The British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy www.bacp.co.uk

Whoever you choose do make sure they are on the Professional Standards Register, I have attached an image of the logo to this email.

Many people are unaware that our profession is unregulated meaning unqualified or struck off therapist and agencies such as [two places locally that have practising therapists who have been removed from BACP register for misconduct] can continue to practice unethically.

Please do contact me again if you would like to be added to my waiting list. 

I am so sorry I can’t see you sooner.

With warm regards,
Anita

I guess at least she is now being clear that she is moving to online working but she said she was doing this over a year ago (another reason we couldn’t come back to our work – alongside the fact she’d moved to COUPLES work which is more “head than heart”…) and it still hasn’t happened and Stevie isn’t a couple, either.

It is kind of funny that she’s warning about unethical practice, though.

The fact that Anita is ‘so sorry’ that she can’t seen Stevie ‘sooner’ is an absolute kick in the teeth because she sure as shit hasn’t been ‘sorry’ to not make an hour available for us to meet, sit together and process a goodbye, in the last 18 months.

So. Yeah. Ouch.

I just honestly wish A had the balls to meet with me and just say:

 “You know RB, I am sorry. I fucked up. I lost control of your therapy and my feelings and things got really blurred. I should have taken more supervision and gone into personal therapy when stuff started going wrong with my mum and I felt like I was burning out. I am sorry that I haven’t known how to deal with what’s happened with you and me, I know that this has caused you more pain. I have been working with a new supervisor and although I have taken on clients with similar issues to yours, I am very conscious of how I am working now. I am sorry that I have hurt you and I understand how painful this must be.”

But it’s just lies upon lies. I surely deserve the truth.

I decided it was probably worth being honest with Elle about what I had done and sent her a copy of my WhatsApp from the 12th and the email from Stevie and Anita’s reply.

She replied:

Maybe try saying a specific day/time (or suggest a couple) that you could meet for collection, and ask her to choose one? Sometimes a simple ‘this one or that one’ choice is the thing that unsticks someone incapable of making a decision.

Sending her enquiries feels painfully like trying to catch her in a lie though, and I want you to know that you don’t need to prove that she’s deceived you in order to feel justified in feeling angry and hurt. 

You have every right to feel angry and hurt and sad, and whatever else you feel.

I am here for all of it.

Elle xx

My initial reaction to that was that I felt judged for sending the email to Anita – but actually it’s probably because part of me was judging myself for having done that, and actually part of me knows that Elle is right – I don’t need extra evidence to prove how shit it’s all been…but part of me did need to have it in black and white.

I replied:

It’s not really about catching her in a lie – I know she’s lied in so many different ways. It was more about seeing how quickly she is able to respond to something and then continue to ignore my request. She’d say something like she’s been busy or away…and it’s not true. It’s just avoidance. I don’t want to meet her. I’ll just ask her to mail the stuff and deal with however that lands. I am so over everything right now.

So whilst Stevie was being offered to go on the waiting list, there’d still been no reply to my WhatsApp from 8 days before and so I decided to send Anita an email:

Hi Anita,

I don’t know if you got my message last Tuesday on Whatsapp:

[copied the previous message here]

I’m guessing that now is a bad time, or you’re busy, or you just don’t want to see me. So can you please send my stuff to my friend’s address but addressed to me please and let me know how much the postage is. [details of where to send it to]

In the meantime, I was texting my friend and was telling her what I had said to Elle and the sort of excuses I’d expect from A for needing to chase again, and then low and behold this came in:

That’s no problem, I was away from my diary last week and since have been trying to figure out a time to meet as it’s very full on at home at the moment.

I will send your things to your friend probably via Evri.

With very best wishes,
Anita x

Soooooo…. that was as expected, I should have made an Anita bingo card and ticked off the phrases. It’s sad, but also my friend reminded me that this is a bullshit excuse because even if Anita was away from her diary there was absolutely nothing preventing her from saying, “Hi RB, I haven’t got my diary with me at the moment but I will be in touch when I have” rather than just ignoring it for over a week until pressed her again.

It’s all just so utterly disappointing.

So, where are we now then? Well, this all happened on the 20th….and today is the 30th and I have just had a delivery notification and picture showing that the box is now at my friend’s house.

I didn’t expect a picture of a box to make me burst into tears – but it did. So, who knows what opening the box is going to be like? I can’t imagine it being easy.

I’ve been messaging Elle about it here and there over the weekend and she has been so lovely:

Here’s hoping it arrived intact and we can spend some time repatriating/re-consecrating everything.

And when I told her I had cried and felt sick when I saw the picture:

oh lambkin 😦 never was a box so anticipated and so dreaded in equal measure.

Maybe sit with it a while when you get it

and think about how you want to handle the insides.

I’m thinking very slowly and very carefully

As befits such a box.

Tightest of hugs to you.

Elle xx

So, I know she gets it. She really does. I just don’t know if she’s ready for how I am going to be when I turn up on Tuesday with this box of who knows what? I have cried small tears with Elle a couple of times but I have never sobbed or completely given into the big feelings with her – part of me is terrified of the little parts just crumbling and sobbing uncontrollably and having a complete meltdown. This doesn’t fit with the RB I try and present most of the time. But it’s all in there.

After Anita replied I asked her if she still had baby elephant and if she could please send him home in the box too. She said that she would and signed her email off, ‘with love and care xx’ which felt less cold than ‘with very best wishes’ but again, there’s not been much evidence of love or care in the way that this has dragged out.

So, I know elephant is coming back, and I know my books are coming back… I just seriously hope that she hasn’t put ‘The Rabbit Listened’ in or any of the other books I actually bought for her as gifts like ‘The Hug’ or ‘Big Panda, Tiny Dragon’. ‘The Rabbit Listened’ actually has a note in the front of it from me to her on our first year anniversary of working together.

I also don’t know what to expect. Will it just be a box of my things – and only my things? Might she have forgotten what is actually mine and what I have given her? That room has so much stuff from me in it. Might Anita put a note in the box? I don’t know what would be worse – nothing at all, or a note that says, ‘with best wishes, Anita’.

Part of me would like to think in having to physically handle these items when she boxed them up to send them that she’d be reminded of what it was like with me once upon a time and have taken a moment to feel something, too. I’d like to believe that she would have wanted to write something meaningful to me and put it in the box. She absolutely won’t have done that, though, because that version of Anita doesn’t exist for me anymore. It’s just all very sad isn’t it?

All I know is, realistically whatever is or isn’t in that box on Tuesday is still going to hurt like fucking hell. It’s the reality for the little parts that Anita is well and truly gone. If Anita doesn’t have the books anymore then Anita can never read them a story again can she? Adult me KNOWS all this. Of course I do. But the young parts that have been so tied up in all this have got a sucker punch coming to the gut the moment that box opens, because these aren’t just my books, they’re ‘our’ books, they’re ‘mine and Anita’s’ special stories.

I can’t see Anita agreeing to meet with me down the line to end because if I now have my stuff there’s not much reason to meet is there? – even though an end would have been nice…months back!

So yeah. A bit of a weird update today.

I’ll let you know how Elle and I get on. x

Also – I’m not posting here massively regularly because ‘time’! But Monty is pretty active over on Insta and you can see what we are getting up to:

https://www.instagram.com/montys_awesome_adventures?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

Procrastination? A Therapy break. And Musing On The Cost Of Failed Therapies. Part 2

rubberbandsandchewinggum6 Comments

Right – so – part 2 – ummm so this actually ended up being 4500 words on its own and I don’t have the mental wherewithal to break it further… so…yeah…maybe grab a coffee or something?! Here’s the stuff about what’s been going on recently with therapy as we headed into a bastard therapy break…which ends today…PRAISE THE LORD! Phew. Man am I ready to see Elle…anyway, let’s fill in the gaps!

*I went into a freeze hole with with the US election so this is a bit delayed posting.

A little while ago I was writing about how I was struggling with the therapy container with Elle not feeling big enough – or me basically ‘being too much’ and having ‘too much to process’ and not enough time and space in which to do it (same old same old! I was actually thinking of getting myself a t-shirt made with ‘same shit different day’ on). I can’t lie, I have been in an absolutely horrible place with it all. And it’s not Elle – it’s ALL of it. EVERYTHING has flooded all at once and there is just TOO FUCKING MUCH TO COPE WITH.

The last month heading into this therapy break (me being away not Elle – pray that she isn’t going to spring a break on me anytime soon, please!) I really did start to unravel and it was bloody awful. I mean I literally was sliding downhill on my arse, at speed, and it was fucking painful despite sessions with Elle having been really good. Like really good and holding…. and just lovely, actually.

I mean it’s really brilliant that we aren’t lurching from one shitty rupture and misattunement to another and that sessions feel safe and calm and useful – but it’s really hard when therapy is really going well that things outside the room feel so fucking hard. Complex trauma – as I have said soooo many times – really is the gift that keeps on giving.

Elle and I seem to have connected in a really deep way (or at least it feels that way to me) and it feels very safe and just nice when we are together…but the problem with that is that it’s really brought the young parts up to the surface and when they’re here it’s a LOT. There is so much need (and grief) and as I keep saying, the week between our sessions is tough going.

I think part of it, is that it’s almost like everything with this young stuff has been on hold for the last year-and-a-half since everything went south with Anita and it is only now that the trust is really there and the solid foundation has been built with Elle that my system is prepared to let it all be seen again. Until relatively recently much of this stuff has been in hiding or protected (and understandably so!).

So, whilst it’s starting to feel a bit like an emotional rollercoaster inside again, I do understand why. I’m finally letting the lid off a pressure cooker that’s been madly boiling away for too long a time and it’s not surprising the contents are a bit hard to handle. Elle seems to have a good solid set of oven gloves so I don’t appear to be burning her in the process which is really good, and I do, at least, feel like my sessions are useful and not fucking traumatising or triggering which is great!

Sitting together on the new and bigger sofa all the time has been a game changer in how I allow myself to be – or who I let be- in the room with Elle…it’s so much better than her being in a chair across from me. I know all I needed to do was say, because any time I have asked for her to come closer to me she has, but it’s been a real slow and steady process after everything that has happened before with Anita and Em, and I haven’t always felt able to ask express what I need. There’s always been that very real fear of not wanting to be ‘too much’ or come over as ‘too needy’. Elle assures me that I am fine however I am, but of course it’s not only her voice I have rattling round in my mind, is it?

It’s very hard having a need for someone who ‘appears safe’, now, because I thought Anita was safe and it turns out she absolutely wasn’t – or she was, and then she wasn’t. It really is like doing tiny baby steps with Elle – thankfully she is a very patient person and she meets me where I am at and doesn’t push me too hard, but is right there ready alongside me when I want to go to the hard places…I think it’s really clear to her that this is delicate work and I am very fragile after all that has happened. We aren’t in any great rush and I am determined that this time I do not end up worse off than I went in.

I mean basically this is like exposure therapy, isn’t it? I’ve been bitten by three separate dogs in the last four years and here I am, in a room, with another dog. Fortunately, this latest one is a golden retriever trained as an assistance dog and will just sit beside me calmly for as long as I want them to. Well, that’s the impression I’ve been given. I can’t see Elle suddenly becoming vicious or running off…

I wonder what breeds Em, Anita, and Hannah would be? Em?…are there any dogs that just genuinely hate people and savage them for even wanting to pet them? Anita?… something that looks soft and cuddly but in actual fact is nippy and has a tendency to bolt- but when you find them they’ve snuggled up to new people and pretend they don’t know who you are? – some kind of terrier perhaps? And Hannah?…ummm… maybe a dog that isn’t very used to humans yet and is flighty and doesn’t trust?!

Anyway…back to the story-

My system settles so much quicker at the start of sessions than it did because of the physical proximity I now have with Elle and I am not bothered by the fucking table between us because it isn’t between us! I still do the internal safety checking at the start but it’s nothing like as bad as it was. I don’t think that will ever go away with a history like mine. I am always going to need to scan for danger before letting my guard down because the reality is people change, people drop bombs on your heart, and I would be foolish to not be cautious.

A key difference being beside rather than across from Elle is that I am less likely to let False Adult front the show. In fact, that hasn’t happened at all since we’ve changed things up. When Elle was in her seat I could sometimes find it hard to figure out where we were at and so talk endlessly about stuff (that was relevant but didn’t leave space for the vulnerable parts to connect) and this would sometimes mean that I would head into dissociation (very well disguised and still carry on like nothing is wrong) because I’d feel like I wouldn’t get what I needed until we said goodbye and could feel the session slipping away.

Goodbye hugs are not really enough and would often leave me feeling bereft that I didn’t get more of what I needed in the session (even though we would have talked about useful stuff for at least some parts of my system) and now had to wait until the next week to try again. This really is one of the crappy things about one session a week. It seems to put a lot of pressure on the session being ‘enough’ whereas two sessions means that if things don’t feel quite connected enough that there isn’t an age until the next contact which means there’s less time to catastrophise and for Brian to go wild.

I like that now, instead, I will come in, sit on the sofa and already be close to Elle… The other day I was having a bit of a freeze and shut down (anticipatory dread for the upcoming break that was still a couple of weeks away). Elle had got the playdoh out that I had brought with me and left with her at the end of the previous session. She had it all set up when I got in the room which should have delighted me but instead I was just sat still, I didn’t even reach for the play doh but did discuss colours and textures and was generally chatting so hiding the extent of the hell I was feeling inside – like it wasn’t obvious I was having a hard time.

Why was I upset? Because it was a day where I just wanted to come in and cuddle into her and sob. I had been totally overwhelmed and in a panic, and I didn’t want to play at all – or not right then, anyway. I think Elle sensed something was up even though I was doing a good job of hiding because as she was making a frog she moved her leg over a bit and rested it against mine so we were touching so that I could feel that she was there.

This was enough for me to come out of wherever I had gone and made me realise (again) that I am safe and Elle doesn’t mind me being close and that we are connected. I really need that almost continual reminder that I am not unpalatable and disgusting at the start of each session because that’s the message so many parts of me now carry. They feel that I am easy to discard and it must be because there is something wrong with me…like I have always felt that from the beginning but it has been heavily reinforced by Em, Anita, and Hannah and it’s hard.

So, being next to one another, I can edge my way closer to Elle as and when I want to. I can reach out and hold her hand, or shuffle over for a hug, or I can just lean up against her and be in physical contact whilst we talk. It REALLY helps…and makes me realise how bloody awful it was all that time with Em when she refused to come anywhere near me… it was sooooo terrible for me and my nervous system. It’s bizarre to think that in all the years we worked together we never touched once, not even a handshake. For someone that struggles with feeling unlovable and untouchable it did a whole load of damage – especially as there was no emotional holding either. Crikey.

Elle and I talk in a way that I haven’t been able to with any of my other therapists. She is smart and insightful and funny and kind and makes it very easy to just be me with my jump around brain that is always changing direction. Sometimes I talk a lot and other times I say little, or nothing at all – and not because I am being withholding, just because it’s nice being with her and feeling my system rest a bit.

So therapy with Elle feels really comforting and connected but also like I am wading through all kinds of stuff in a very safe way. It’s different to with time with Anita – although it probably sounds exactly the same. I feel like Elle has a much better sense ‘the work’ and me, like, she’s not just phoning it in and having an easy time if I choose to ask for stories or cuddles or whatever. I get a sense that she is thoughtfully in the space with me. I think Anita really used to be at the beginning, but I think towards the end when she was on her slow spiral into burnout and breakdown, she was just grateful if I turned up and didn’t want anything from her but a hug because she could zone out and I wasn’t being challenging or difficult.

I would sometimes ask Anita what she was thinking when we were having a quiet time, imagining that she’d say something like “I was just thinking about when you said x or y” but often her brain was on things like taking the dogs to vet, or what she had to do later that day or… empty and nothing at all. And this always felt a bit shit. Like I get our minds wander but I think when we are paying someone to be in our experience with us, you’d think they’d be tuned into us and what was going on for us…not mentally making their shopping lists. Again, this was not how Anita was at the start – she couldn’t have been more attuned in that first 18 months or so.

Still, back to me and Elle because fuck me – what else can I really say about Anita? (Loads I am sure, but fuck it for today!). A really lovely thing that has happened in the last couple of months (basically after I shared the post I had written about what a perfect therapy room would be like with Elle) is that she seems to have really taken it on board. One day she came in with new packs of colouring pens and asked if I wanted to draw a version of something I had sent her in an email. She has also brought in story books she thinks I would like, that she liked as a child, and has read them to me so there’s been some lovely sharing of things we’ve liked back and forth. Elle is really good at reading too – and does such good voices – and the little parts of me really love this.

I think after how it all ended with A I didn’t imagine that I would ever be in a position to be safe with someone in this way again. I am now really hopeful that when I eventually get my stuff back from Anita that Elle and I will be able to do some work with the stories and maybe move that all on for the little parts of me. I know there will be a lot of tears if Elle reads me ‘No Matter What’ or any of the books, actually – but I think it’ll be a safe grieving process and something that really needs to happen. I need those little parts to be able to reclaim those lovely messages and have them held with Elle because right now it all just feels really upsetting.

Sooo…the break? Shall we venture into that shithole territory?! Well, it was fast approaching and there was just a lot of stuff coming up especially after Anita’s most recent message about how her life hadn’t been as she’d imagined and how she was now working that came around the time I noticed her website had changed. Talking through that was really helpful but stirred up a whole world of pain.

Then the next week I had left a session that was soooo lovely (the same one with the playdoh) but also really opened up a lot of deep emotional stuff – we’d read a new book ‘Following The Moon’ by James Norbury and both of us cried at the end of it. It is really moving. I had told Elle how much I hated my brain because I had been so anxious about coming to the session and had feared something bad was going to happen (the only bad thing was the upcoming break but my brain was having a meltdown).

I asked Elle if she was real and she had said that she absolutely was and reminded me of the bracelet on my wrist that she had given me. She said that I could message her to check she was real anytime I liked and said she might get another bracelet to remind herself that she was real too – or that I am real – but then corrected herself and said, actually she has no problem remembering me at all. It was all very connecting but I was immediately aware that I was going to experience a fucking huge therapy hangover from the session You know when it’s so raw and vulnerable that it is hard to put yourself back together afterwards because part of you needs that stuff to be exposed but safely in the room and shoving it all back down and carrying on with everyday life feels impossible?

When I got home, I sent an email and asked Elle if she got a cancellation if I could see her. She said she would let me know but if there was going to be a cancellation it would most likely be Friday…because apparently, she’s now working Friday mornings too.

For some reason, that week I didn’t check in with her like I would usually. I don’t know why. Perhaps I was trying to prove to myself that I could do without her and that as a break was coming, I needed to be less needy… I don’t know. So because I had disconnected (despite absolutely needing to remain connected) I was already not in a brilliant place by the end of the week and so when I didn’t hear from Elle until late afternoon on Friday I was pretty awful. Obviously, no space had opened up to see her and honestly, I felt like utter shit. I don’t ask for extra sessions if there isn’t a reason for it and even though it wasn’t Elle’s fault, I felt like I just wasn’t seen and it felt abandoning to the parts that needed her.

Elle messaged me saying she was sorry that no space had opened up and attached picture of the Russian doll set from the room – apparently the little one had been returned (months back she’d realised it was missing but didn’t know where) as an outgoing client had left that day.

This was absolutely a million percent not the right kind of message to have sent me. I am so fucking sensitive to ‘other clients’ but that day in particular it just felt like Elle totally didn’t get it at all. But then why would she – for the first time in months I had not reached out in any way at all. I was probably fine, right?!

Nope.

As I stared at the picture and the lack of anything that felt personal to me and her I just felt at a complete loss and I replied. “I don’t even know what to say to this. I am million miles away from ok. See you Tuesday”

She clearly clicked that shit was hitting the fan… (it totally was) because I am not really a three short sentence type of a communicator – lol – and replied:

I’m so sorry to hear that flower. I hate to think of you feeling so far away from safety and warmth. 

I wish I could hold your hand right know, and tell you how loved and important you are, but please know that I’m thinking it.

Elle x

When Elle sends me messages that use affectionate terms like ‘flower’, or ‘sweetpea’, or my best favourite – ‘lambkin’ it cuts through to the places that really need to be seen and heard and everything that feels very wrong sort of just melts away. I want to tell her this at some point but it just feels a bit cringey!

Of course, the disconnect had felt fucking awful that week alongside my panic about the break and so I bloody did a running bomb and decided to be brave and send her the post I had written about the container and asked her to read it.

Shiiiittttt. Go big or go home RB!!:

🥹😭❤️‍🩹

Can you read this because it’s got much worse even since I wrote it. I feel like a snow globe that’s been shaken so violently that even the scene inside has come unstuck and is tumbling inside the glass. I’m going to bed because I’m sick of myself x big hug 🤗

So, I took myself off to bed and tried to sleep…in the morning when I woke up, I had such a thoughtful and holding reply – I don’t think Elle would mind me posting this here and actually it’s one of those things that would be useful to have here so I can find it quickly in the future when I am wobbling because it was exactly what I needed in that moment – she is soooo good at these kinds of messages when I let her know how I am actually feeling rather than hiding behind random memes:

Oh lambkin. My heart proper hurts after reading all that.

And the first thing I want to say – to maybe give you even a tiny corner of reassurance – is you cannot burn me out. 

I never say things I don’t mean, and burnout is not something you need to worry about with me. I did burnout on a grand scale about 12 years ago, learned some very hard lessons from it, and will ever allow myself to approach burnout ever again. I take very good care of myself, and part of that care is making sure I never work harder or give more to people – friends, family and clients alike – than I know I have to give.

People who burn out do so because they try to give more than they can, usually because they feel they have something to prove to themselves (or the world), and I have nothing left to prove to anyone. I know who I am, inside and out, and I’m enough as I am.

You carry this story that you’re so very much, so messy and overwhelming to deal with, but all I see is this lovely human with many many facets. 

I don’t see confusing jagged ugly parts and separate fun sunny delightful parts, I just see RB, in all her beautiful complexity. And I think she is amazing and brave and smart and vulnerable and sweet, and sometimes she’s terrified and frozen and shutdown and hiding inside herself, and all of that is equally beautiful to me. Because it’s all you.

So you can tell your followers that you let me read that entry, and I said it was wonderful, and that I am super proud of you for putting all your confused thoughts into such eloquent words and then being brave enough to tell me to read it.

And I feel like some of the suggestions they gave you in comments were great, but let’s talk about what else might be great when I see you on Tuesday.

Tightest of all possible hugs and the biggest of all loves to you beautiful girl.

I hope you sleep well.
Elle x

And honestly, that just settled the shit inside right down. It felt like a massive cuddle in an email and every time I read it is has had the same settling effect.

I replied to this when I woke up and we exchanged a few messages over the weekend about other things. I tend to do the big ‘hoorah of vulnerability’ and then head back to adult and hide in normal life not the emotional mess that is my inner world. It’s an interesting dance and it’s hard because I think Elle generally responds to what I put in front of her.

When I am clear about what I am feeling and needing she never fails to respond how I need. The issue comes, then, where I reach out with something fucking random and innocuous like a meme and expect her to know that I am not really ok. I do get this is something I need to work on and clue her into…and I will.

So, what next? Well, that weekend was fucking awesome as I got a sick bug and was absolutely wiped out. Fortunately, by Tuesday (the last session before the break) I was well enough to go see Elle but also just totally on empty. She came to get me and I hugged her immediately in the corridor, she commented on how washed out and knackered I looked, we sat down in the room and I just snuggled into her in a kind of floppy heap. She asked me if I’d like to read a story that I had brought in previously but we hadn’t read yet and I said actually I would like to read a different book instead so that’s what we did.

I was so exhausted and done in that we didn’t really get on to talking about the blog or the struggle between sessions or any of the big stuff but what we did do was a tonne of containment and holding. We read some stories and Elle brought up my dreams (something I had mentioned in the blog) and how I have been struggling with the ones I have where she is horrid to me or pushes me away or gets angry. She said she’d seen something about dream completion, which is something where if you keep getting stuck in loops of horrible dreams that you can try and rewrite the ending so it feels better and maybe we could do that together?

I was cuddled into her and the reminder of the sort of dreams I have set me off and I just started crying. I think I was also really aware that I would be leaving the room and her in about twenty minutes and just didn’t want to be out in the world for two weeks. So, Elle just talked to me in a really soft, soothing voice, and told me what she would say to me if we were continuing the dreams and honestly, I just cried and cried. It was so lovely and so reparative (even though she’s not actually done anything to hurt me!) and made me realise just how many of these conversations I have needed with my mother over the years…but will never have.

As well as this, we made a plan for how to get through the break and how we would check in every couple of days…and we have. The break hasn’t felt great because…it’s a break…but it’s not felt horrendous either. We’ve had a lot of ‘light touch’ contact – I’ve sent her photos, linked her to Monty’s page and shown her what he’s been up to, and had general ‘hi’ type messages – but then on Friday when I got home, I crashed. Totally out of energy. I’ve got a stinking cold. And the wheels came off…but I think I actually have done pretty well given how much crap has been swirling lately to get nearly through the break in one piece!

I sent Elle a message saying ‘it feels very very Friday today and Brian is wreaking havoc’ with a picture from a page I follow and asked for a vibe check. She sent back another totally perfect reply and it’s carried me through the weekend…

Crikey, this is soooo long so I’ll leave it here for now…there is a lot to get through and process…if I can ever get my brain to fucking work.

One more sleep! I really hope I don’t go in and be a distant weirdo tomorrow…which is very possible! x

(I do totally get these two were having an affair btw – and it’s NOT meant this way for me with Elle!)

Procrastination? A Therapy break. And Musing On The Cost Of Failed Therapies. Part 1

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

Oh my god…this was meant to be a single post but once I got going I was up at 5000 words and had to split it into two posts – so it’s a bit slow going with this first bit… sorry!

Do you know what? I just don’t know how to label what it’s like in my head at the moment other than ‘bleurgh’. I feel so completely lacking in energy and oomph that I don’t know whether it’s an ongoing depressive episode, burnout, illness (I’ve just got a nasty cold and been in bed for three days but this is merely the cherry on top of things!), generally just being shit at life, or what?

I have been thinking about writing here for a while but it’s taken me nearly all weekend with the laptop sat open beside me for me to now, at 5pm on Sunday, start typing anything. I’ve been doom scrolling social media, watching the day sort of disappear from my bed, and having absolutely zero will or motivation to do anything outside of attending to my kids. I haven’t even showered today…or got dressed! This is so far removed from how I usually am…but I have got NOTHING TO GIVE.

To be fair to myself I have had an utterly bonkers week away from home and have crashed and burned as a result of too much peopling and visits and location changes and juggling the needs of everyone else AND being unable to sleep … sounds dreamy doesn’t it?! Of course, all of this overstimulating away from home ‘vacation’ (?!) stuff has also meant that I had a dreaded THERAPY BREAK. But I’ll talk about how I haven’t (!) managed that a bit later.

Lately, I find myself more and more in the worst kind of procrastination – not just with the blog, but with pretty much everything…even really simple tasks feel absolutely impossible – even things that will make my life EASIER feel beyond me. A prime example of this is work admin. I need to make a spreadsheet for payments – and I just can’t – it’s honestly a ten-minute job but I feel like I am running at a concrete wall – I just can’t get through it.  So instead, I am juggling twenty students in my head rather than having it easily on a screen. FFS RB!

Another ridiculous thing just like this, was the new laptop I bought last December but only took out the box and set up in September. Nine months! Wtaf? And the only reason I got to it in September was because I absolutely had to before the new term began as it the old one was crashing left and right…AND Elle had pretty much coached me through it the session before I did it.

I can’t tell you how many times Elle and I spoke about what I needed to do in order to get it sorted though–  like lots of times over that nine months – she even suggested taking my old laptop and new one to someone who would transfer everything over and set it up for me- but I simply couldn’t bring myself to do anything with it. It’s not that I didn’t want a laptop that was reliable, didn’t overheat, or have keys that would work consistently. It just all felt totally overwhelming even thinking about it and so I went into a ridiculous freeze and watched the monthly direct debit leave my account paying for something I wasn’t even using.

AND IT IS A REALLY GREAT LAPTOP…and I love it for work now, even if I find it hard to use for anything other than work.

I wonder a bit if I have some now conscious (but until literally thirty seconds ago unconscious) associations with my laptop. I work completely online these days and whilst I like my teaching job, I find it exhausting and draining. I give a lot to my students and working 1:1 day-in day-out on Zoom is hard. I wonder if there is a little part of me that wanted to push the laptop to the point of extinction so I had a legitimate reason to not work for a day or two? Like I just wanted something to happen to ease my pressures a bit.

Probably.

I wonder, too, whether I am now finding it hard to get on the laptop and blog because it symbolises work, I spent twenty hours a week on Zoom and then goodness knows how long around my actual contact time farting around planning lessons and making resources etc… but also there has been so much pain written and explored here it’s not only about work?

As much as writing and the connections I have made here have been absolute lifelines, it’s hard seeing so much hurt in post after post and to know that most of you guys who regularly comment have survived longer than my therapists! There are a handful of you who have been here from the very beginning and sometimes I wonder what keeps you following along when all I seem to do is lurch from one crisis to another. Like I am not exactly a great advert for therapy… more of a stark warning of the pitfalls of therapy and all that can go wrong!

I recently screenshot the last few years of blog titles and sent them to Elle…and you know what, it’s tough. It’s hard seeing and knowing how much struggle there has been. It’s hard seeing how much I invested into therapies and seeing where I am now. I tallied up how much I spent on therapy just with Em and Anita the other day and it was a staggering £37,000 …

Deep breaths into a paper bag RB!!

I would have ZERO credit card debt, or car loans, AND would have some savings in the bank had I not gone to therapy with them. In fact, had I found someone who could have done the work with me and stayed the course, I might not even be in therapy at all now!

That’s really hard to take in and metabolise. I suspect there are a few of you, too, who would wince at how much you have spent on your therapy, how much you have sacrificed or gone without in order to attend sessions, only to end up dumped and hurt and damaged.

It’s hideous.

I am a big believer in attending to our mental health, but you know what? I am not sure the ‘investment’ was worth it. I went into therapy with Em and Anita with past Trauma and came out additionally retraumatised TWICE over.

This is never right, is it?

Like in what other situation would you go and spend significant amounts of money only to come out worse? If you bought a faulty product you’d get a refund; or if the product you bought exploded and damaged you then you’d get compensation…not with therapy. We just have to suck it up, pretend like it never happened, and try and make the best of a bad situation. Harm in therapy is really a big deal, it’s widespread…and nothing ever seems to happen unless it’s something to do with inappropriate sexual conduct because that’s easier to prove…I guess.

So, here I am in therapy with Elle, working at a painstakingly slow pace just trying to recover from past ‘therapy’…we don’t really even go anywhere near the trauma I went to therapy for in the first place! I mean we do, because let’s be real – lots of it is relational trauma and the mother wound – but there’s a lot of stuff from my past I need to talk about but we are constantly trying to bail out my boat from the massive amount of water that’s flooded in due to the shit tonne of bullet holes that the hull has been peppered with over the last four years…well longer – I started seeing Em again in 2016 and it wasn’t great from the beginning, was it?!

I probably sound bitter. I’m not. I am just sad. I am sad for all of me. I am sad for the little parts that trusted and loved and got so badly hurt. I am sad for the protectors who stood down despite feeling it was a bad idea because Adult Me insisted that it was safe and believed Anita’s promises of love, and care, and staying for the ‘entirety of the journey’. I am sad for my family who have not had the things they could have had: holidays, treats…no debt!! It’s gutting on so many levels.

And here I am. Still trying. But out of energy, now. As I say, the effect of living with the battery light flashing red for such a long time now is that I feel like this is just how it is to live. I have no idea how to get enough charge to start functioning more effectively because it feels like existing just takes way more than ever gets put back in. I do get that I am sick right now, too, so have hit a really low ebb – but honestly, I cannot remember the last time I felt really well, energised, and happy. That sucks.

It’s really hard to explain just how eroding the experiences/endings with Em and Anita have been – although I have given it a damned good go here on the blog! It’s actually hard feeling into it because the pain is so all-encompassing. But what I can see very clearly, even if there aren’t words, is how all this crap has impacted my day-to-day functionality…or should I say lack of functionality.

I am not a lazy person at all but I am really struggling to move through my weeks and do what I am supposed to. I am not even sure procrastination really fits what is going on for me a lot of the time. I am honestly in a complete freeze or dissociated…or in survival really. That’s really more reflective of the current state of things. I absolutely am pushing myself up hill and just can’t seem to make much forward progress.

So yeah…it’s not great.

Happy gloom-day RB! I bet you are all really glad I decided to start tapping away today like a suicidal Eeyore!…1800 words in and I actually wanted to talk a bit about the therapy break and the rocky road into it… cut to the chase eh?! —

I’ll break this here, and I promise that the next part is actually somewhat more interesting and about my therapy and break with Elle and not just me whining on about how fucking tired I am – I’ll try and pop it up tomorrow – although if I shut this laptop down it could take me a week to be able to turn it back on and get back to this – GROAN!! x

An Updated Website Full Of LIES And Glowing Testimonials, Triggers RB’s Rage As Well As A Significant Wobble!

rubberbandsandchewinggum17 Comments

Can I start yet another blog post with, ‘well fuck’? Because WELL, FUCK!… FUCK ME!… You just can’t make this shit up. I’d love to say that this blog was a fictionalised version of an imagined experience of therapy with serious levels of embellishment to make it all the more appealing to the reader…but it’s not. It’s just the sodding truth of what ‘therapy’ can look like and an insight into how some therapists ‘work’ and the untold damage that they can do. *Not Elle, she’s great (thank goodness).

At this point I feel like Anita is the equivalent of a drunk driver in charge of an ambulance. She’s ‘driving’ whilst on her phone or half-asleep, not paying attention, and is veering all over the shop. The rear doors keep opening and closing at intervals and people keep tumbling out onto the road, sustaining further injuries, but she doesn’t care or even notice. Instead, she continues speeding along the road totally oblivious to the carnage she’s left in her wake, believing all the while that she’s doing a sterling job.

There’s a reason that paramedics work in teams (for the safety of the patient!), but Anita is seemingly operating as a one-man band and her co-pilot is actually a magic fairy that lives up in the Shetland Isles! I imagine her co-pilot fairy has little idea what kind of driver Anita actually is because for all intents and purposes she appears to have a clean license. “I’ve never had an accident” she’d say and I’m sure the co-pilot would take Anita at her word because why would you doubt someone that waxes lyrical about the importance of ethical behaviour and safe driving?

There are quite a few bodies lying injured in the road now, though… it’s not just me, apparently, because it turns out other ‘paramedics’ are picking up the pieces of Anita’s mistakes, and talking to each other. Anita is getting a bit of reputation in our area which is both validating and absolutely fucking terrifying…because even though people know what she’s doing/done there seems to be no effective mechanism to deal with these rogue paramedics unless the injured person goes through the long and arduous act of reporting to the governing body that actually seems to be completely on the side of the paramedic and dismisses the injuries of the patient – maybe even suggesting that they threw themselves out the ambulance on purpose and are overplaying their injuries.

It might be different if all the injured patients could get together and take on a class action but sadly, none of us know who each other are, and this is why these people like Anita (and all the other people you guys tell me about) keep getting away with what they are doing.

Ok let’s stop with this metaphor shall we?

We all know she’s not a paramedic (thank god, can you even imagine that?!) but it seems that Anita is now getting a name in therapist circles.

She’s hurt a lot of people.

It’s shit.

Fuck her.

Still, I am not here to talk about that because I don’t know them, but I do feel for them…because I know what she’s done to me and how much damage it’s done and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

I’ve been thrown through a few loops again this last month or so with all this ‘stuff’, ‘shit’, ‘disaster bollocks’…but the good thing is I am, at least, safely supported by Elle. She is helping me loads. We’re bandaging the wounds and waiting for the broken bones to heal and gently sitting with it all. Elle’s really looking after me and when I am not triggered out my brain I can see it so clearly. I feel really lucky that I have someone like her to help me manage whatever fallout there is with Anita and I feel like the steady work we’ve been putting in over the last year, or so, is really starting to pay off now. It’s been slow-going on my part but I’ve needed that time to build trust and safety with Elle – it couldn’t have been rushed.

Anita can’t do me too much damage now, the worst has already happened, but there is lots of processing to be done. Our sparse interactions pretty much always feel upsetting in some way, but it’ll be over soon because there is movement with it all (finally!)…I am just mad that this ‘end but not’ hash-up as dragged out for as long as it has. I wish that when we hit the three-month mark back in September 2023, she’d have met with me as we had agreed, to end properly, rather than saying she wasn’t “in a good enough place”.

Chasing her on and off for the next six months and being fobbed off or totally ignored until I mentioned bringing in her supervisor or a colleague made things much harder than it needed to be. It’s been such a long, drawn-out process simply trying to get her to even agree to meet with me that it’s felt exhausting and upsetting and it should never have been this way. Like terminating is bad enough but ending without a proper end is awful! Surely, this isn’t how you treat a long-term trauma client that you’ve been seeing twice a week for three-and-a-half years…? But apparently you do if you’re Anita…and sadly, it looks like I am not the only one who’s suffered her…what’s the word?… Carelessness?

The whole thing sort of ebbs and flows so far as my coping goes around this stuff. It’s been a fucking mess these last few weeks again, and it’s totally impacted how I have experienced my relationship with Elle outside the sessions. I have been so anxious and fearful — and it’s ALL because of Anita and nothing to do with Elle at all…and I can completely see that now.

It’s nice to be writing from a reasonably calm place today rather than from deep in the hole or spiralling through anxiety like my last post. It’s Friday today, and I haven’t yet hit the panic of ‘disappearing Elle’ … at the moment she still exists in my mind, I just miss her a bit. She reminded me on Tuesday (a huge erecting of scaffold around me and shoring up my foundations sort of a session) that the bracelet she gave me that I wear all the time is “evidence” that she “exists” and I can literally see that…and Monty, too, like I just need to use my eyes sometimes. We all know it’s not quite as simple as that, though, don’t we?!

https://www.instagram.com/montys_awesome_adventures?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

It’s been hard being really massively triggered lately, and I feel really sad that my brain (Brian) hasn’t been able to differentiate between real life threats from Elle (there aren’t any), and the fears that feel massive but are not rooted in the here and now about Elle hurting me in some way. I am terrified of being abandoned and rejected and it’s because all the feelings of being abandoned and rejected have been reactivated by my recent interactions with A – like I say none of this is anything to do with Elle.

So, what’s caused the utter chaos in my system this time? – You know, aside from my being fucking mental?!

Well, turns out I really don’t do well with the feeling I am being lied to.

You might remember I had my own health stuff going on earlier in the year just as I had been in the process of trying to negotiate a meeting to end (remember Anita’s ‘walk and talk’ suggestion?!) but as it happened, I got shoved onto the rapid pathway referral for cancer investigations (all clear – phew!) and had all the blood tests and hospital stuff to do instead, so told her I’d be in touch to arrange to meet once things were more settled and my work had settled down after the crazy exam period in May/June. Then of course my son got very very sick and has been basically in and out of hospital since May and that has been an enormous amount to hold and cope with.

The summer just evaporated into medical appointments and caring for my little boy and then somehow, I found myself in mid-September, term had started again, and I realised that I still hadn’t got in touch with Anita to end but also realised that I was in no place to deal with her/us/this with so much stress in my daily life. I would have to be feeling pretty robust to see her and also have a degree of confidence that she wouldn’t make a total balls-up of any meeting which would actually set me further back.

I’m now basically 90% sure that I am just going to arrange to get my stuff back and not bother with a meeting at all because I have zero faith that she can end in a way that honours the work we did or our relationship but it’s taken this last few weeks of shit and also talking with Elle for that to really crystallise…so how did I get here?…

On the 15th September I sent Anita a message to say that I had been going through a lot of shit over the summer in one way or another and didn’t feel like I was able to meet with her just yet -this is the last bit of it:

None of this is really important but it’s just that I don’t really know what to do with meeting and getting my stuff back from you because I don’t feel like I have much capacity to hurt any more right now and actually that’s all there is. I feel so sad that all that we worked on over the years has been reduced to a sick feeling and another rejection added to the pile.

Like literally everywhere I look, it’s abandonment and rejection or just fucking horror and I think seeing you will only compound that right now. So, I don’t know what to do really. I feel like something has to shift because it feels like limbo and it’s painful but I am out of ideas on how not to make this feel any worse than it already does.

She replied a couple of days later with another of her stock feigning personal but actually pretty blank replies:

O my goodness, I am so sorry to read your message. I really do understand and will wait to hear from you to decide what would be the best way for you. Thinking of you with love and care, Anita x

When it came in, I didn’t really have much of a response internally. It is what it is. More of the same. I didn’t reply. What was the point?

So, lord knows what got into me on the 27th but I decided to check out her website – you know as an act of active self-harm it would seem.

Anita’s website hadn’t changed at all in the entire time I was working with her (since 2020) and low and behold it’s just undergone a MASSIVE overhaul. This would make sense seeing as she’s changed how she’s working wouldn’t it? It would make sense to update and remove any mention long-term work, or trauma work, or face-to-face sessions if you have stopped with long-term and complex clients, and are moving your practice online…so of course she’d need to do that, I’d say it’s well overdue 16 months after she dumped her long-term trauma clients.

Only this isn’t what’s happened to her site at all.

I suspect you might already have joined those dots and noticed a hint of sarcasm.

So, what’s the site like then?

Well, there’s lots of new/additional pictures of her looking really smiley and happy. There’s a fuck tonne more ‘glowing’ testimonials (I could fucking puke!). There’s an updated listings around her work etc. But absolutely no mention of her plan to move to online sessions only or the fact she won’t do long-term work or work with trauma anymore – in fact it’s the complete opposite.

I’d love to type up some of it here verbatim, but I know that could be searched in Google and despite everything I won’t compromise Anita’s confidentiality even though it is sorely tempting to at times.

To summarise, she waxed lyrical about being a member of the BACP governing body in the UK, her commitment to creating a “safe environment” and the importance of ethical working (warning clients about a local therapy organisation that has therapists practising who have been struck off from BACP). She mentions her ability to be flexible with appointments both face to face and online, even at weekends, as well as working on an “open-ended basis”. She then explained how “passionate” she is about her work and her commitment to providing a safe and caring space…

Ha!

It was particularly galling to see listed among the issues she works with:

  • Past and childhood issues
  • Abuse past or present
  • Post-traumatic stress disorder

Perhaps the most hard to swallow thing was a quote by Jung:

Know all the theories,

master all the techniques,

but as you touch a human soul,

be just another human soul.

Is she fucking serious?!

I swear at this point I was incandescent with rage.

The only soul Anita is right now is an arsehole.

Too much?

I told you I was mad!!

I basically lost my shit, and fortunately a good friend of mine who knows all about this saga was there to let me rant on Whatsapp. It was a lot! A useful bonus to this ‘unravel at speed’ and ‘rage’ was that it was all there ready to be screenshot!

Despite the big feelings and the embarrassment I felt about it (not with my friend, she totally gets it) we decided that it might be a good idea to let Elle see what I had written and how I had felt because it gave a really good ‘real time’ insight into what I was feeling and was a really good springboard into starting the conversations Elle and I have been having lately which have started to really metabolise this stuff.

Of course, reading Anita’s website made me feel so angry but also just really let down. Because all this time I have been patiently waiting for her to be ‘well enough’ to see me to end and then here she is with the time and energy to go into massive personal promotion, extolling how much she enjoys her work and what a privilege it is…and here I am in the fucking black pit of doom, battered and bruised.

So, well, umm, I decided to reply to her message:

I think the problem is there is no best way because however you look at it, this is not what I wanted or ever imagined would happen. All the years of work just feel like a joke and the words of love and care mean nothing because I don’t get how if you actually loved or cared about me we’d have ended up here.

The fallout and damage that’s been done is enormous and that’s especially the case because you didn’t just stop working because you were sick you stopped working with me and continued on with others. Even if I sometimes can get my head around needing to end so you could have space to recover, I’ll never recover from how big an abandonment and rejection this has been.

I’ve never been so emotionally upset for such a protracted period of time and it’s made me really ill. I’ll work through it but it’s been utterly awful and completely impacted my ability to trust in anyone but especially my therapist because I’m just waiting for the same to happen with her.

I know this is a big rant and I’m sorry. I just can’t believe that we ended up here.

I obviously didn’t mention her website or anything like that – there was no point- but after having been such a ‘good girl’ for so long I just felt like I had to say something. Because I feel like she’s pretty much washed her hands clean and feels like we are ok now – and we just aren’t.

I didn’t expect a reply. Anita has a habit of burying her head in the sand when I bring up anything remotely challenging.

And ten days went by and there was no response. Not that it really asks for a response. If there was going to be one it would have been nice to hear something like:

I know that our ending has really hurt you and I understand how much pain this has caused and I am sorry. I never would have wanted this for you but I accept that I have hurt you in a way that has tapped into your original wounding and I know that this is incredibly painful. I would like for us to come together and spend a proper period of time working this out so that we can move on from this with a degree of repair and get some proper closure. I have been thinking we could meet in my office for 1-3 sessions to enable us to properly tie our therapy up and to give you the space to collect your things. I know that this won’t be easy for either of us, but I want to honour the work and relationship we had, too, and feel in a place to be able to do that now. I know that this is not what you wanted and I understand that this we need to take this gently.

I mean that’d be hard but fine…

So, this is what came in last week just before my session with Elle literally a week and a half later:

I know it’s hard to believe but my life has not gone the way I planned. My practice has completely changed and, yes, I am still working as I can’t afford not to. I am in the process of moving to online only, and I don’t work with complex trauma anymore. I am unable to give my clients myself as much as that work requires and I can feel the protection of myself as a survival mechanism is very much there because it needs to be, whether I want it or not. My website is still the same as it gives me a platform to inform clients about the lack of regulation and [therapy practice] in an effort to try to keep clients safe even if it’s a very small way. So yes, I am still working but not in a way that you feel I am and I had to end with the deep emotional connecting work as I just can’t do it anymore.

This message came in a 4:50pm and I immediately sent it to Elle. When we were talking about it in our session this week, she said it had the feel of a 2am WhatsApp message not something written in the working day because it seems so defensive. I laughed. Defensive and reactive!…and yet again nothing at all to do with my experience of what’s happened.

I think it’s interesting that she made reference to her website, though – because as I say, I never have. I wonder if she was aware that it’s changed and that I may have seen it. But why lie about it? It’s not the same. It’s updated and yet also inaccurate.

Imagine finding Anita’s website, contacting her, and her saying something like “I only have online availability at the moment” but thinking you’d start like that and then hopefully move over when she freed up space – only to discover she doesn’t, in fact, work face-to-face. Or thinking you’d go and see how things go but with a view to there being long-term work and you’ll eventually get to your childhood trauma and PTSD once you’ve addressed some immediately pressing relationship issues and work stress if it feels safe to go there and then finding out actually that’s a no go zone.

I don’t for one minute think she’d end with those clients. I actually think she’d just a fucking massive liar.

It’s hard reading her message because as much as it isn’t personal – it is . I am ‘Complex Trauma’ and apparently, it’s that (me) that is triggering her need to protect herself as a “survival mechanism”. I know she would be horrified to think I would read it in that way, but that’s basically what she’s saying. And ending with “deep emotional connecting work” isn’t an abstract concept. She ended with me. She abandoned me when we were right in the thick of the work because she just couldn’t do it. All the words of “It’s not what either of us want” and “I love you so much but I have to get well” feel utterly ridiculous don’t they?

Anyway, that’s why I have been a colossal wreck for a few weeks. Elle has been steady and available and actually really just helpful. We’ve looked at this stuff quite a bit and that’s huge given how much I have shied away from bringing it to session over the last year.

Having had a lot of space to turn this over in my brain with Elle, and seeing how much it’s all upset me, I have pretty much decided that I am going to ask to get my things back and leave it at that for now.

As much as I would love to go and meet Anita and really lay out how badly this has all affected me, I have absolutely zero confidence in her ability to hear that and not somehow throw it back in my face. I don’t need her reacting defensively. I need for her to be able to hold the space.

A while back Elle suggested getting another therapist to hold the meeting with us and act as a facilitator. I think this might be a good idea but I can’t see Anita ever agreeing to it.

So, the next plan that Elle and I are figuring out at the moment is finding a way to get my things back. Again, Elle has suggested using someone as an intermediary – so she wouldn’t meet her. I am wondering if she might be thinking the person that shares her office on the days she’s not using it. To be honest, Anita works over the road on a Thursday and she could just drop a box of stuff in to the hall/reception and it could be taken in at some point during the day if they knew it was coming. Still, this is something to think about…

Ooofff. This is long again… x

When The Container Isn’t Big Enough: How Much Therapy Do You Need?

rubberbandsandchewinggum25 Comments

I’ve been struggling a lot with therapy, lately… Actually, no, that’s not quite right -therapy is fine, good, really good (when I am there!)… but what isn’t so good is the *time between sessions* and the shitstorm that can (and does) blow up in the gaps between seeing Elle.

My system seems to be perpetually activated these days, and I find it thoroughly exhausting and stressful navigating the nightmares (usually with Elle in), the intense panic, and the heightened fear of being left or abandoned that escalates in intensity as the week goes on.

There’s always the huge separation anxiety that builds and builds during the week before triggering the protectors at the weekend which sends me through a whole other set of loops. I don’t know what’s worse, the small parts sad, lost, and crying or the angry protectors wanting to burn everything to the ground.

Like today, Monday, I feel like I just want to quit therapy altogether because this emotional cycle feels so painful and too hard. I feel thoroughly disconnected from Elle and the idea of even going tomorrow feels impossible because my mind has convinced me that I am set for rejection and that there is no solid base or relationship and so I am wasting my time.

The sensible thing would be to reach out and tell her that this is happening but what’s the point? (Is that the teen? Probably).

I will go because I know that I need to, but pushing through the wall of protectors to even get there means that there will there will be consequences. I will struggle to sleep tonight, mind you my sleep is appalling anyway so I guess that’s nothing new. When it feels bad like this, there is always a total and absolute physical terror in my body. Sometimes it’s just on the day of the session, but today it’s really live, too, and I feel horrible.

To get to my session I have about a ten minute walk across town from where I park my car, and the whole time my heart races, I feel physically sick, and my mouth is dry even though parts of me are desperate to see Elle…it’s honestly fucking horrific. When I am waiting for Elle to come and get me, I feel completely terrified and like I will burst into tears and often my body trembles. It’s so hard. My entire system is in chaos at that point – and yet you’d never know. Externally I appear completely fine – but that comes from years of hiding how I am really feeling in order to survive in the world.

Let’s be clear, this hellscape isn’t because of anything that Elle is or isn’t doing – like there’s no suggestion that she’s suddenly going to end, or leave, or suddenly be horrible and attacking and do something to hurt me (I need to make a big sign with this on!) – it is simply because my system has been triggered off its tits after what happened with Anita and Em. Because of what’s happened with them I can’t get a sense of feeling safe or ok in myself at all – let alone safe with Elle when I am not with her – and of course I am not with her for quite a few days at a time. I know it’s only a week between sessions, but my system just doesn’t cope at all – it’s too long.

Part of the problem is that I struggle a lot with ‘forgetting’ Elle between sessions even though we have a reasonable amount of contact during the week. When I finally see her after a week it can feel like I don’t really know who she is, or whether she’s safe, or… basically it’s the object constancy stuff isn’t it?! Not only that, even if I can hold onto Elle as someone who is safe there is the constant worry that she might change…I think probably we need to do some work with the scared parts so they understand she isn’t Anita or Em…teens particularly just see her as ‘therapist’ and therapists cannot be trusted.

Because of all this, it can take me quite a while to settle into the session because I feel like I am doing my fifty-point check to assess where we are at. Thankfully, generally speaking, when I am actually with Elle it feels fine – especially now that she sits on the sofa beside me rather than in the chair across the room. This, at least, removes the need for any additional mental gymnastics about whether or not she feels disgusted by me and wants to keep her distance which of course are all part of the internal narrative that gets super loud during the week.

I am really glad that we do a ninety-minute session because it can take a good half an hour to relax into the space when I have got myself so worked up (I have no idea how I used to cope with 50 minute sessions with Em- oh of course, I didn’t cope at all!!!) .

It obviously takes a while to trust that the person in the room with me is the same one that I saw last week (and for the previous fourteen months) and that nothing has changed – because therapists do change and drop unexpected bombs (mentioning no names!). I guess to the protector parts it’s important not to remove my armour prematurely in case I get an unexpected grenade launched at me – you know the type that rolls and lands just under my ribcage and stops just where my heart lies – Boom! It’s happened before and I really hope it doesn’t happen again.

If False Adult doesn’t take my session, then it’s all good. At least in the session it feels safe and connected. But no matter who turns up to the session, I feel like when I leave, I almost instantly fall into a panic, not because anything is especially wrong in that immediate moment, but more because I know what’s coming. I only see Elle once a week despite us having a really decent length session (and I really know that I am so lucky to have that), by the time it gets to Friday it’s really not great inside. The wheels on my mini-bus have pretty much fallen off and all the littles have unclipped their seat belts and someone has to take charge – and that’s the dream team of protectors. It’s awful.

Basically, by Friday, my ability to hang it together feels massively reduced and the days until I next see Elle seem to stretch out endlessly. I feel like I am always stretching that bit too far between our sessions and so never really feel properly settled/safe. It feels a bit like a fuck tonne of water is building up behind the emotional dam but the release valve is never activated early enough and so there’s always going to be a flood – despite the high-tech flood management system I have in place.

I am really conscious of not being ‘too needy’ or ‘too much’ or ‘too dependent’ and I really don’t want to run the risk of burning Elle out or, probably more apt for this metaphor, drowning her! So, what do you do when the container isn’t big enough to hold everything from week to week?…or rather, what do I do when I seem to be too much for the container I’ve got?

I have no fucking idea.

It feels like an impossible bind. I don’t want to stop the therapy because actually what all this is telling me is that I need more therapy at the moment, not less…but making what there is ‘enough’ is a challenge especially when I am already exploiting every self-care strategy I have available to me. I don’t just sit and mope about in the week (well, perhaps I did a bit this weekend!) and still this stuff is activated in the biggest way.

I guess part of it is that it feels like there is never quite enough time to get through all the things that I need to talk about or that need space and attention. For example, it might be that we do some really great work on big important stuff. Last week we spoke at length about Anita (which stirred a lot up on its own), but because of this, the young parts that need a degree of reassurance and a different kind of interaction weren’t attended to (even though I was leaning against Elle the entire time and she held my hand…ugh…make my Brian function better please!) and that has unleashed carnage inside this week!

Whereas the week before last, I was in a right fucking mess and so we read a lovely story and had a really calm, nurturing session. It was absolutely what I needed, but then there was all sorts of adult stuff that didn’t get space that really could have done with some time, too. Neglecting adult is far less problematic than neglecting the little parts – and it’s not even neglecting, it’s simply time – but it all needs space and time and there just isn’t enough…even with ninety minutes (talk faster and get to the point sooner, eh?!).

So this is why there is always too much building up behind the dam wall… then throw in the hideous attachment shit on top and frankly, I’m fucked.

This would be a really useful conversation to have with Elle, wouldn’t it? But the problem is, I can’t see a solution to my problem. Elle only works face-to-face two days a week and is always busy. So, what I think would help (i.e another session) and what is actually possible just doesn’t align at the moment and so I have to keep trying to make this work as it is.

The feelings of shame are huge right now. I am so sick of being like this. I hate that I seem to need so much more fucking input and care than everyone else. Like, part of me gets there’s been a lot of trauma and then all the more recent shit on top with therapy going wrong really hasn’t helped…but still. Like why can’t I just be relatively fucking normal and behave like a fucking adult and be bloody fine on a session a week. Why do I seem to spend my life in the fucking hole? Like this week I feel like I have got my legs dangling over the edge of another trapdoor and rather than edging away from it, the protectors want me to jump in the next dark pit.

Ugh…

I used to see Em and Anita on Mondays and Fridays and that spacing felt really good. Like there was enough time between the sessions to process whatever was going on, but there wasn’t too much time until the next session for things to get too much or go too wrong.

I feel a bit like a toddler that’s learning to walk. I can do quite a few steps on my own but by Friday I need a hand to hold for a minute to stop me falling on my arse before I can carry on again. But there is no hand on Friday and so I find that I fall down and it is pretty painful over the weekends.

Every now and then when things are hard, I have asked about seeing Elle for an extra session on the Wednesday but she is always booked up. To be honest, Wednesday probably wouldn’t really help with this problem long-term, as it’s the longer time between sessions that is the issue and this would still leave a big gap the other side.

Elle has offered to so a Zoom session on a Friday before – but I have a feeling (given my online therapy track record) that this might actually make things worse. When I am struggling with distance and connection seeing Elle through a screen rather than in person would likely only intensify the feeling of being far apart and left and lost and all the other shit. Perhaps I need to suggest it here and there, though, because I don’t think I can do many more weeks like this one and perhaps I am only basing my expectations of what online sessions were like with Em and Anita.

This weekend has been terrible. I’ve felt so tired and overwhelmed but I couldn’t seem to rest or sleep because it’s felt like all the little parts of me are crying. There is no soothing that. And I have really tried. I get that this week has probably felt harder because Elle and I properly ventured into the Anita territory in the session and of course that would send seismic waves through my system because there is such a lot of pain there that needs to be looked at. The saga is ongoing with A and it’s just so upsetting.

It feels really difficult. Like I know when I avoid the ‘big’ stuff I am much better equipped to manage the week between sessions. The thing is, I am in therapy to work through this ‘big’ stuff and it feels really helpful to look at it with Elle. I can’t avoid it for much longer because it has a way of catching up with me, anyway. I don’t really know what to do though, because the moment we go there the whole fucking place is underwater as a result. I’m equipped to deal with high tide but this is a fucking tsunami heading my way.

I have no idea what to do. Maybe I should write more? Try and process more that way? Although that doesn’t solve any of the internal panic about Elle, does it? The more we look at Anita and Em the more wobbly I am going to feel about Elle.

I just don’t know. what to do.

What I do know is that this level of activation and upset is crazy-making and exhausting and scary because when this stuff isn’t contained enough I know that I am much harder work, more demanding, more likely to end up in rupture territory because everything is out of control inside…and you don’t have to go too far down the path to see where this can lead. I don’t want to be difficult or create a dynamic where Elle dreads seeing me… I just wish I had a different brain and the ability to make one session and a week between enough!

Right, that’s enough of that… I don’t think there’s much more I can say tbh. Does anyone have any ideas to help with symbolically increasing the capacity of my container??…Any ideas that don’t actually involve me having to bring this to Elle and see me die in a big pit of shame and embarrassment would be lovely! 😉

I get that at some point I am going to have to bring this up because I know the longer I don’t the worse it’s going to get… ffs! HELP!!