counselling

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!!

Mental Health Crash: Stuck In The Hole

rubberbandsandchewinggum10 Comments

Well, shit, I have been stuck deep down in the emotional black hole this last week (again). Tbh, I am always in the hole somewhere, it’s just distinguishing in which part of it and at what depth of it I am located. Sounds cryptic but it’s not really. You see my ‘hole’ (not a euphemism so stop that!) has a very particular quality to it– it’s like a bloody endless underground cave system these days rather than an open pit! Awesome. What a gift long-term and enduring mental health issues are!

I imagine a lot of people when they hit the skids with their mental health probably feel like they tumble and fall into a dark hole. These pits all look slightly different – we all have our own personal holes that come with our own specific and individual décor! It would make for a really great issue of an interior design/mental health magazine if people submitted plans and images of their nightmare hell zones wouldn’t it?…  

Anyway…

When we fall in, I guess it’s common to get stuck at the bottom for a bit, feel pretty hopeless and alone, and then try and scrabble our way back up and out to ground level when we feel able to – maybe with the help of someone else. Assistance can certainly expediate things but unfortunately a by-product of landing face first in the hole is that we often don’t believe there is anyone else who can see us or help us. And even if there is, there is a very real fear that we may inadvertently end up dragging that person into the hole with us, and if/when we do manage to get out together, they’ll leave/abandon us because they’ll be so horrified by what they witness in that hole alongside us. (It happens, sadly).

The hole is a bit like ‘Fight Club’. You do not talk about the hole. What happens in the hole stays in the hole. Because even though the hole itself is fucking terrifying enough on its own – how we behave in the hole can also be problematic. It can be a place where we fall into self-harming behaviours, self-neglect, and addiction to name but a few issues – and let’s keep that shit secret! Well, that’s what our shame would tell us, anyway.

We are not always our best-selves down in the hole – we’re simply trying to survive using whatever tools we have available to us in the moment and, honestly, even after years of therapy, my go-to self-care strategies often feel completely out of reach when I am suffering in the depths. It’s amazing how quickly I can slip into negative coping strategies just like a comfy pair of slippers…only, actually, these ones are full of thorns and hurt every time I move!

The goal, then, when you find yourself stuck in this cess pit of doom is to get the fuck out of the trench as quickly as you can. Of course, that’s much easier said than done. There can be a lot of slipping, sliding, and stumbling on the way back up because the way out isn’t easy and it’s fucking exhausting work trying to drag your dead weight back to relative normality.

I really feel like the struggle isn’t understood or appreciated enough, and I think sometimes people make the assumption that we must like being down in the hole, or that we are deliberately careless because we keep tumbling in and spend such a lot of time in there. It’s hard enough when friends and family might hint at this sort of thing but it’s especially awful and shaming when therapists comment on how “stuck” you are and that maybe you’re not trying hard enough to get out… FUCK OFF!! (I’d forgotten about this until now, and so that’s just given me the rage when I am already in a rage!!!)

Of course, if and when you successfully make it out the hole, it’s super important to try and be mindful going forward. I really try and scan the path ahead. I’m constantly trying to spot any future holes so that I can try sidestep them should any come into view – but we all know it isn’t that simple! My life has been riddled with concealed hole entrances and at times it can feel like an endless landscape of craters waiting for me rather than solid ground. It’s inevitable that I will, at intervals, be unlucky and end up in the dark…and actually, I have been consistently feeling my way through the dark for almost two years now and so it’s hard to imagine what it’s like not being in the hole.

So, what’s my hole like? (stop it!) Well, I suppose my hole isn’t really a hole at all, rather it’s a series of holes or dark rooms stacked on top of another linked by unseen trapdoors going deep into the depths of the earth. The further down we go, the spaces stop being dark rooms with manmade walls and instead become cold, dark, damp caves almost like prison cells buried deep into rock. I’ve spoken about falling through endless trapdoors before, and this analogy far better fits my experience of being in the dark depths for me than in a singular sticky shit hole.

So how do I end up in this place?

Imagine being at ground level, wandering along the street, minding your own business, living your day-to-day as best you can, occasionally getting your foot stuck in a puddle that actually turns out to be a pot hole, twisting your ankle, but generally maintaining momentum and keeping in touch with the world and people around you. You’re functional even if you have a bit of a limp. You can usually feel the sunlight on your skin – well, more likely it’s a dark and cloudy day, but you at least have sense that it is daytime – it’s ‘good enough’. Life above ground isn’t perfect by any means but it isn’t terrible, either.

Then imagine, unexpectedly, falling down an open hole – you know, like how pubs have cellar trapdoors outside in the street? Well, that first fall down into the dark is bloody shocking and painful and you want to scream “OUCH!” but generally it doesn’t take too long to assess the situation and start looking for a way out. You brush yourself off, check for any broken bones, and start shouting up to the world above “HELP ME!!!” because you can very clearly see the sky and the people walking along outside and you believe that there is a way out. You’re probably only 12 feet below ground at this point and a return to the world above is completely possible.

The problems really start to come when you repeatedly fall down the hole. Bones break. Bruises never quite seem to heal before you fall again. Fatigue kicks in from the endless effort of trying to escape. It gets harder and harder to crawl back out the more times you fall. At times it can feel completely pointless even trying as you know it’s only going to be a matter of time until you’re back in the dark and honestly, I feel like maybe I should just accept that the hole is where I actually belong and make the best of it.  

Sometimes, there’s a complicating factor – especially for those of us with childhood trauma and relational injuries. I can be doing absolutely everything right. I’m checking every step I take and can be wandering along quite happily and then some fucker (who I really trust) deliberately pushes me down into the hole and runs off! I mean that’s just fucking horrific.

That’s where I am now. Only, it’s worse than that because I wasn’t at ground level to begin with when I got pushed. I had Anita in a mid-level hole with me having worked our way up through quite a few levels after Em had done a fab job at leaving me for dead down in the depths in 2020. Anita was holding my hand and it felt like we were successfully navigating our way through the dark…and then she decided to leave me, but not just leave me on level -5 of the hole, she forcefully pushed me down through another trapdoor.

As I have fallen, I have kind of rolled and rolled and unfortunately found more and more trapdoors. I’ve passed the place where Em left me and have kept tumbling and tumbling. Surely, I must be pretty close to rock bottom now. There simply can’t be any more trapdoors to fall through, can there?

The saddest thing about all this is that it isn’t just adult me in the hole. I could cope with that. But there are all the child parts too – and they are so scared. Every single one of them is terrified of the dark and it is totally pitch black. There’s not even the tiniest bit of light where we are. It’s like their worst nightmares playing out in waking time and as much as I try, I don’t always have to ability to contain them all. No matter how I try to reassure them and say we are safe and that it will be ok, it just doesn’t land…because I am not sure I really believe that either, now.

To say that it’s really not nice in the cave/pit/hole would be a huge understatement. My brain can attack me/us with some pretty shit messages about being “a burden” and “unlovable” and “too much” or “not enough” – the list is literally fucking endless…! If you’re reading this, then you’ve probably been there. You know the drill. Basically, you’re stuck in the dark with a sound system that only plays your Inner Critic’s hit list on full volume and on repeat the whole time you’re down there.

Just glorious!

I mean who doesn’t love their deepest wounds and insecurities coming at them on loop? Who wouldn’t want to be told that “you’d be better off dead” or that “no one would miss you if you were gone” and that “even your ‘friends’ only tolerate you” or that “you’re disgusting” or “pathetic” or “worthless” or a “fraud” or that you “deserve this” and “what kind of loser can’t even pay someone to stay and care?”… and then of course throw in real life soundbites from people who have really hurt you, “you’re so sensitive and defensive”, “you’re too dependent”, “your child parts are adhesive like a tick” and … well… it’s not brilliant is it? I could go on and on and on but you all know your soundtrack and will be familiar with how hearing it makes you feel. I mean it is a total immersion in the shit and shame isn’t it?

The messages of doom and isolation have never really changed much since I first found myself in my dark place back in my early teens – perhaps the messages are more insistent and louder than they were initially, and the shape and dimensions of my hole (honestly, every time I type that I am giggling like a fourteen-year-old kid!) have definitely changed. As I say, these days it’s not just a hole or cellar – it’s a much more complex subterranean structure. It’s not a dark hole with a consistent depth and bottom – I’d take that any day of the week.

Despite how crap it is, I’ve come to accept that this multi-floored/roomed/cave system is just part of my internal landscape now. I know that I can’t avoid it, it can’t be filled – there is not enough concrete in the world for that! – all I can do is tread carefully and try my best to keep feet on solid ground if I do ever make up to ground level and I will continue to put things in place for the next fall.

When I am in the dark, feeling scared and really suffering like I am now, it’s really really important to try and remember that the Inner Critic is only trying to protect me. As loud and terrifying as it is, it really doesn’t want to harm me – it’s scared too, it just doesn’t know how best to express it. Perhaps there is a little bit of comfort in knowing that all my system is ever trying to do is look after me – it just has some pretty fucked up ways of doing it.

When it is awful, like it is now, I need to trust that it is always worth taking the chance on screaming and asking for help even if I believe that no one can hear me, because there are people who care and who do want to help…and have ladders and torches… I just need to let them know where I am rather than cowering silently in the dark.

Last week, before our session, I pre-warned Elle that I was in the hole and unravelling – which felt like a big thing to do. I needed to do that, though, because False Adult is so skilled at pretending that everything is ok and denies that there even is a hole (A ‘Fight Club’ hole pro!), let alone that we may be stuck in it. As I result of letting Elle know quite how bad it feels, I’ve been hit with some huge feelings of shame and panic. I feel like I’ve dragged her down into the hole and am terrified that she, too, will freak out and run off, but not before giving me a hearty push down through another trapdoor. She’s given me absolutely no sense that this would happen…but my brain can’t help but worry.

It’s really sad that I feel this way and it hurts a lot to know that my trust is so fragile. For now, Elle and I are just sitting together, waiting for some of the painful injuries to heal a bit before trying to make a plan to find our way out of this mess. It doesn’t feel quite so cold and scary with her sitting beside me and the dark doesn’t feel quite so overwhelming when I can physically feel her holding my hand. The problems happen when I lose contact for a bit (you know, like the six days between sessions!) and can’t immediately find her…it doesn’t take long for the Critic to get back in my head and the panic to take hold.

I will write a post about why things are particularly hard right now, next time. But needless to say, it involves Anita… bleurgh.

Sending love and light (candles, torches, flares!) down into your holes. Whatever your Inner Critic may have you believe, you are not alone and you are worthy of love and care. x

A Year With Elle – Now The Fun Really Begins!

rubberbandsandchewinggum9 Comments

Well, fuck, I’ve got so far behind with this blog and everything again that it’s hard to know where to begin – such a lot has been going on, in various ways, and part of me just wants to bring you up to date by saying ‘same shit different day’ and be done with it! The ‘same shit’ being my impressive ability to live as an emotional kangaroo and trying to navigate all the mess that goes with bouncing around like that.

Things are still an absolute colossal steaming pile of shite in my everyday adult life and the last month or so has really been all about survival and wading through the general bollocks that is my existence! My son is still sick, it’s back in the full flow of term and teaching, and then last week my estranged grandmother died so it’s felt a lot just to keep my head above water.

Of course, alongside this there’s all the stuff that hides beneath the surface that’s always pulling at my ankles dragging me down – namely the crazy mental health stuff, the attachment stuff, and trying to move through all the pain from, well, all of it really…

I imagine a lot of us feel like this, but I find I am way more capable of managing my inner world when the day-to-day stuff in my actual adult life isn’t going down the toilet. If daily ‘life stress’ picks up and reaches a critical point then it starts to get super bumpy on the inside. The safety features in my internal mini-bus seem to be a bit hit and miss, and would certainly fail a MOT, when the road gets lumpy and full of pot holes. Like sometimes all the seatbelts just unclip all at the same time and then I’m completely and utterly deep in the emotional shit.

Usually, if one or two parts of my system are in a panic I can just about hold their hands, keep them safe, and remain broadly functional…but if everyone is unstrapped – including the driver (me!) then…yikes. I mean big YIKES!

Some things never change, eh?!

I guess, there are some positives to be had … maybe? I feel, these days, when my system gets triggered, I am far more able to move through it and get out the other side of the worst of it in a ‘reasonable’ time frame…whereas, back in the day I could get stuck for weeks and weeks in the emotional hell zone and be totally hijacked by my system. Now, it’s a bit like doing the hokey cokey – and having one foot in then one foot out on repeat!

I’d like to say that I know myself so well these days that I don’t get upset or triggered by ridiculous things, but that would be a total fallacy. Small things can still act like a massive wrecking ball and send me sideways. I think it’s probably this kind of thing that I struggle with most-  knowing full well that whatever is upsetting me is tiny in the big scheme of things – but my system feels like it is enormous and runs off into catastrophe canyon. I still have an impressively speedy set of runners who bolt when things feel off.

Knowing my response is sometimes like that of a toddler having a big tantrum because they can’t get ice cream evokes feelings of shame and embarrassment but it is what it is and it is all information isn’t it? I suppose, now I am far more accepting of my system no matter how it is presenting in the moment. Like today I am really aware of the needy little ones who desperately want a cuddle and to connect with Elle…and that’s fine…just hard to feel because it’s so visceral.

So, where to begin with this catch up?

I guess I should mention the fact that Elle and I made it to a year working together back in August without any serious mishaps or ruptures (go us! … although it’s the three-year mark that things generally go to shit with my therapies so let’s watch and wait!) AND immediately after this birthday/anniversary we also got through another therapy break without me completely losing my shit (I only partially lost it – small triggers and big reactions again!).

I wish I was better at keeping up-to-date with the ins and outs of my sessions because the content of it all sort of melts away pretty quickly afterwards and then I can’t remember what happened when. I guess, this might be seen as a positive – like nothing really massive and disastrous is going on and my brain can let the sessions go rather than filing into my long-term memory bank alongside ‘like a tick’ and ‘too dependent’! However, it feels more like an unwanted amnesia tbh because I lose all sense of EVERYTHING.

Elle more or less falls out of my universe altogether when I can’t physically see her and it’s tough going. The object constancy stuff is just fucking dire. I feel sorry for Elle. I don’t imagine for one second that when she first met me, she would have thought the person she sees now was in there hidden away! I think at this point she must be wondering what the fuck is wrong with me. Like I leave a session, appear completely fine, and the next minute I am freaking out and texting her, asking her if we are ok or not. It’s horrible.

I hate that I need such a lot of reassurance…but I am not really surprised given how people (therapists!) go from being ‘ok’ to ‘not ok’ in the blink of an eye. As much as Elle gives me no reason to think she’d just fuck off one day without warning – my system doesn’t trust anymore after what’s happened to me, and because I am invested in the relationship and am attached to Elle now, all this crap has gone live… I hoped it wouldn’t but it has… with alarm bells on!

This round of therapy has my brain doing something that has never really happened too much before. I don’t know if it’s dissociation or what, but I find that not only do I forget the sessions and lose Elle to a degree – but even if I can hold onto the fact that she and I exist and have a relationship, I have zero recollection of the times when I have been really vulnerable/open/honest with Elle both in the room and outside it. So, I lose her, but I guess my brain thinks that she loses me too. It’s hard to explain this…

Like sometimes I’ll email her the unfiltered version of what’s going on in my brain and when I see her, I have no sense of that big stuff being in her field of vision at all. My brain likes me to think that she has only ever experienced the capable, together person …and that is SOOOO not the case!

I wonder if it’s a protective thing? My system somehow needs to feel in control and so hides the bits that make me feel exposed when I get to session? It’s frustrating, though, because I think I waste a lot of time edging my way closer to being how it really is underneath, tentatively peeking out from behind the sofa, and Elle already knows me and all this stuff. In the moment none of that is there, though.

Isn’t it amazing what our brains do to try and stop us from feeling unbearable feelings. I think I am so sensitive to rejection and abandonment that my system is doing all it can in person to prevent that happening and sadly, it must feel like the young parts of my system are a liability and need hiding away until we figure out what is happening on the day in the session.

I can’t lie, it is incredibly difficult doing therapy in the wake of what has happened with Em, Anita, and Hannah. I think my poor system was sent spiralling off into orbit last year. The string catastrophic fails in my therapeutic relationships on top of childhood trauma have done something terrible to my onboard circuitry. Elle and I are trying to do our therapy with a busted circuit board and wiring system and we’re desperately trying to rewire as we go but it’s a challenge. If we were just dealing with childhood trauma I think we’d be ok but things are so massively complicated by the shit that has happened with therapist…what shall we call it? Shithousery??!!

The problem is when lights should be green my system shines red…and the smoke alarm feature is constantly screaming because there’s a hair or cobweb over the sensor. I can’t differentiate between true danger and a malfunction now. Sometimes Elle feels like she’s a decent enough electrician and sometimes I worry she’s just another cowboy tradesperson (this isn’t because she’s done anything to suggest that though!) and I’m about to have my tentative renovation project demolished again.

Anyway, there have been some really lovely times with Elle – the problem is – I forget! So, instead of building on something great from week to week, I instead, seem to not notice that works have been carried out already. I seem to yo-yo between False Adult and days where my armour is off. Still, there have been quite a few ‘armour off’ days over the last couple of months and I guess these are important to recognise.

You might remember a while back I was brave and told Elle that I loved her in an email (!) which was a huge deal because I’ve been guarding my little broken heart very carefully this last year knowing that it doesn’t have much hope of withstanding very much more hurt and wounding. The problem is, I feel like the only way to really heal a broken heart is to let love in (and out) but if you’re always in hiding and armoured up how can you? I guess this is where my texts and emails have been doing some heavy lifting behind the scenes.

I’d been slowly gaining some momentum here and there in my sessions … you know, one step forward three steps back, four steps forward…and so on. But in one particular session I must’ve been feeling particularly safe and connected, or unguarded. I was cuddled into Elle’s body (I know I have said it SOOOOO many times over the years but physical touch sends a clear message to my system that things are safe – I don’t have to do any guesswork at all). and a very quiet, “I love you” crept out.

Fuck!

It’s one thing typing it into a screen and hitting send (and then wiping it from your consciousness and having several days until a session) and something altogether different saying it to someone when you are right there with them and being physically held by them. And even though parts of me know how Elle feels about me BECAUSE SHE’S TOLD ME ENOUGH TIMES in various ways, I nearly cried when she replied, “I love you too”.

Like…thank fuck. No rejection there. No bristling. No change in body language. No “I’m just your therapist”. It was all just really fine. Like yep, of course there is care between us – duh! I wish I could hold onto that better. Now that I have Monty I do have a constant reminder of Elle with me and that does help a bit, but there is a little part of me that fears that Elle will change how she feels towards me if she really ‘sees me’ and that is scary.

I think it was that session- I’d been in a bit of a state (although can’t remember why) and stuck in my own personal hell until I managed to ask for her to come sit with me and have hug. She’d been gently stroking my head and it was almost time to go when she asked me to give her my arm. She took the bracelet she was wearing off and tied it around my wrist. She said it needed to be on my left wrist as it was closest to my heart … honestly, it was such a lovely gesture and I wear it all the time (although in this picture Monty was wearing it as a necklace!).

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

So – I may have more evidence than ever that Elle is real and we are ok enough AND YET STILL I FUCKING HAVE TO ASK WHETHER OR NOT WE ARE OK!!! – but this is because people change (Anita) and one minute you’re safe with someone and they say they care about you and love you and the next they are completely gone.

I was quite excited about getting to a year with Elle because about a month beforehand I had stumbled across something I thought she would really like and was desperate to give it to her as a gift but it really was something that needed an occasion. I wouldn’t necessarily say that gift giving is one of my primary love languages but I think in this case it was a definite expression of love. I can’t really say what the thing was here because it is sooooo niche that it would be pretty identifying. She seemed to like it, though, if an excited “holy shit, you’re kidding me!” and “this might be the most impressive thing anyone has ever got me!” is anything to go by.

I think I have probably been so cagey this year that she couldn’t really miss that this was a huge expression of care and thanks. Like so much goes on in my head but I realise I’m like an iceberg and Elle only gets to see a bit of what I show her.

And then it was summer break.

Damn!

The break itself wasn’t desperately bad. I had a lot going on with my son and as much as I missed Elle, we did have some contact whilst she was away. The morning of our first session back I must’ve been on a roll with bravery because I had text Elle and asked her if she might spray Monty with her perfume when I saw her. I had pretty much figured out that that is what she had done when she gave him to me and so decided to ask. Elle didn’t bat an eyelid and at the end of our session sprayed Monty and me and that was that.

You’d think that would be proof enough that things were really ok between us and that the little parts were acknowledged and more than welcome too… but the age-old problem of physical distance had proximity cropped up the moment I saw her and it sent me spiralling.

Breaks are hard because they are a total severing of physical connection, so when I return to the room, I am looking for evidence of what might have changed or if things are still safe. Elle did nothing wrong by sitting in her chair (because that’s her fucking chair!) the first couple of sessions back – she, after all, at that point had no clue that I read so much into where she is in relation to me and how difficult I find it to ask for her to come closer to me – especially if there’s been a break. But for me, her being across the room and behind the coffee table sent the littles into a panic.

As a result, things in the bus were getting more and more dicey, seat belts were unclipped and the terrain was getting bumpy…and we were travelling much too fast. I think when I was leaving and hugged Elle at the end of the session (like always) I hung on for a reaalllly long time because I was devastated to have missed the chance to actually be how it was and connect in that physical way during the session. I’d done a tremendous job with False Adult and it was only at the end, when I was clinging on like a baby monkey, that I think she picked up that I wasn’t ok and said something about having a really long hug the next session.

I cried on the way home and ended up texting her when I got back because my system was in freefall. I think we can just about hold it together in breaks but it puts a tremendous amount of pressure on that first session back. If that session isn’t ‘enough’ then the water that has been building up behind the dam during the break floods out. I actually feel like sometimes I could do with two sessions the week following a break in order to ensure that I feel properly reconnected.

This is what played out that day:

I feel like I can’t find you at the moment and I’m lost. I know it’s a post-break thing – because I find them really hard and the disconnect feels like a total severing of connection. It feels really bad now and scary x

She replied almost immediately with a heart and:

I feel sad hearing that because you felt very connected to me before you left the room. Let’s think about how to use the time better next week. I wasn’t joking about the hour-long hug btw…

It was a quick message between her sessions to not leave me hanging and it was enough to open up the flood gates. Now came the ‘how it really felt’ message… brace positions everyone!:

I’m really a long way off my ok place at the moment. Like, yep, my life is a complete fucking shitshow on the outside so it’s understandable, but it’s much more than that. My internal world is in meltdown and week on week it’s getting worse. I feel as though I’ve been furiously spinning plates this last year and now, I’ve just reached a point where there are several crashing to the ground all at once as I don’t have energy or capacity to keep it all going and it feels like I’m watching everything go wrong in slow motion.

I feel really far away from you – or like I can’t find you – and I get that this is me and not you, but it doesn’t make it any easier to navigate even knowing what the problem is. It feels really terrifying being in this place and it’s not just emotional – it has a massive physical quality to it, too. 

I find breaks really hard and actually I find the time between sessions hard on its own and so coming back off a break is always really hard for me. It feels like I’m starting from the very beginning and lose all sense of things being ok or safe or actually that you have any idea of who I am at all or that we have any kind of relationship- which is obviously really shit and I feel really dysregulated. I can’t really put into words how bad it feels.

I don’t suppose this is evident at all. I probably appear ok, calm, present – but I’m anything but. Inside I feel panicked and fearful and like I’m going to cry. I struggle a lot with feeling like you are far away in your chair – even though you’re not- and my brain tells me it’s because you don’t want to be near me and that it’s because I am too much and it just spirals.

Occasionally, I can find a way round it and ask you to come sit with me but I find this especially difficult if there’s a sense of being very disconnected and it will always feel like this if there’s been a break and so I need to find a way of quickly reconnecting after breaks- and actually, really, just week to week. 😞

I hate feeling like this because it totally derails me and then just getting through the usual life shit feels extra difficult. And I get that it’s a lot and it’s really hard to not get engulfed by shame. Lots of the time I am just about capable of outrunning this stuff … and then other times I get caught up and start to drown.

So, yeah… another one of ‘those’ messages that I wipe from my conscious mind.

Elle replied with some very holding messages that really soothed my system and that week we had quite a lot of contact as I limped my way through the week and into the next session where she sat with me from the very beginning and asked me if I wanted to hug.

Around that time, I wrote my last blog post about what a perfect therapy room would look like and I sent it to Elle. She seemed to like it and replied to the message and at the same time asked if it would be ok to share with her supervisees and people starting their own practice which is nice…what was less good was that she also told me that the bear I had seen in the room one day (that I had mentioned in the blog post) actually belonged to someone else and that it was still there in the room but put away – and I am guessing we don’t need to detail how that landed.

OH MY FUCKING GOD!

The runners were in full Usain Bolt mode. It was really fucking awful. Like of course I knew that’s what it would be – but ugh. Any mention of any other clients just sends my system into a full-blown meltdown. Adult me is fine (just about!) but eek – the littles just weren’t. I think it’s because I have found it sooooo hard to get anywhere near my young parts in the sessions with Elle and then I learn that actually the very things that would help she’s already doing with someone else.

Fuck my life!

I had just about gathered myself back together by the time I saw her, because of course there are other clients working out their own shit in a way that works for them and if I was a bit braver then I could too…and I swear to god, next week I am taking my bloody elephant out the fucking bag even if it kills me! (it won’t kill me).

The session after all that I walked in and she said, “I was thinking of moving the table but seeing as I’m going to sit right here with you, I haven’t, as it’s not in the way between us.” And the second clock was gone, too! And then she said she’d ordered a new couch for the room and was wanting to get a load more cushions! I don’t suppose the new couch was off the back of my blog but it felt nice that she had really listened to what I had said. She said she was really keen to get the space right for me and this felt … lovely. And the irony about that whole blog post really, is that the space doesn’t matter at all so long as I feel connected to Elle.

This is getting really long so I’ll end it here for now – but let’s just say, we’ve leapt forward quite a few steps… I guess, I just need to be myself in all my messy glory so Elle can respond to what’s there!

What Would Your Perfect Therapy Room Look Like?

rubberbandsandchewinggum18 Comments

The other day I was chatting with a friend who has recently qualified as a therapist about therapy rooms. She’s about to embark on creating her own space and asked me- as a seasoned therapy goer- what I thought makes a good therapy room and wondered if I might write something that she could share with other therapists starting out.

Having sat (and dissociated!) in many different spaces over the years, I have some pretty strong opinions on what have and haven’t been the kind of environments that have felt conducive to good therapy. Here are some of the ideas I have had over the years with my other wonderfully mental friends about what we’d like to see in ‘the room’ – other than our lovely (or not so lovely) therapists of course!

I’ve seen way too many therapists (!) to talk about every room I’ve been in – although I do remember each of them clearly! (fucking Brian brain never forgets shit!) and will talk about some of the best and worst bits from some of the more recent ones here.

Something that might seem a bit weird, is that a big part of what I recall about the rooms isn’t actually visual at all. I’ve come to realise that I am quite a sensory person…and some of the things that can really bother me/make a difference are smells, sounds, and textures…! Like these things are a really big deal in addition to what I can see and how the room is laid out.

Oh but of course it would be this way, wouldn’t it?! I am, after all, the client who has her therapists spray her transitional object with their perfume or wash my stuffed elephant so it smells safe and familiar, and likes everything to be snuggly soft to touch and the lighting to be ‘just right’ and… and… and… (I could be an extra in Goldilocks And The Three Bears!).

It’s no wonder that I’m going to notice every fucking detail then is it?! Honestly, I don’t think many people or therapists have any idea about the sensory overload we can be dealing with just from being in the space, and that’s before we even get working with the human sat in front of us and all the interpersonal shit that brings up…it’s a wonder we ever get to talking about what our issues are – or maybe not – I certainly take my fucking time. Elle and I have been working together a year now and I think it’s safe to say I’ve been going at a snail’s pace after the fuck tonnes of preceding shit with therapists.

Right, let’s do this! I literally have no idea how to approach this -space by space or issue by issue…? We might bounce around a bit…just like my mind…so sorry!

I remember vividly the smell of the therapy room when I originally started working with Em in the NHS – it was that kind of hospital smell mixed with a sort of ageing decay and staleness of a space that desperately needed gutting and redecorating. The Psychotherapy Department was in a gorgeous old, stone building but one of the downsides of it was that the tiny rooms were set north facing. The windows were almost like arrow slits and didn’t open and so it was always cold, dark and kind of damp feeling.

I think over the years the brown, utilitarian, super hard-wearing carpet (that had the texture of a brillo pad) had soaked up years of grime and had that sort a pervasive musty smell. The smell became familiar but never comforting but it was not entirely offensive either.

The rest of the room was no better. Because there was no natural light, or air, we always had to have the light on – and of course being the NHS it was one of those fluorescent overhead office lights (no floor standing lamp with a soft glow here!). To add insult to sensory injury, the room was painted a lurid yellow colour – it almost looked like gloss on top of the woodchip – and was just totally jarring and seemed to not only reflect the harsh light from above but magnify it. The walls were bare and the whole room just felt sterile and devoid of life.

Like many therapy rooms I have been in, the seating was just two pretty uncomfortable chairs facing each other about two metres apart. I am lucky that I am reasonably average build but for anyone plus sized the seating would have caused real issues as the seat was narrow but had moulded high arms.

I know this two chairs facing each other is not unusual but, honestly, I find that set up really triggering for lots of reasons. I struggle to settle and feel comfortable in a therapy room and so being stuck in a narrow rigid seat is hard. I like to take my shoes off and tuck my feet up under me. And… as you all know by now, there are times when I absolutely need my therapist to sit beside me, hug me, hold my hand etc and single chairs just don’t allow for this at all.

I can’t tell you how many times I have drifted away into a painful dissociative state because I have not felt in close enough physical proximity to my therapist. Having said that, if you are a therapist who has no intention of ever getting physically close or offering that kind of reassurance to your client then stick with that set up because fuckkkk it’s painful to be on a sofa and have the therapist tell you that they’ll never sit beside you when you build up the courage to ask them to.

This is what happened to me when, a few years after finishing in the NHS, I made the catastrophic choice to go back and see Em in her private practice in her house.  Initially, she had the two-chair set up – you know the trusty Ikea ones that almost everyone has? Those chairs were more comfortable than the NHS ones but still felt distancing and I felt like I couldn’t move.

Em also had the matching footstool and would place it between us – so it felt like another barrier to being near her and like she was trying to barricade herself in. (I have lots of issues with positioning of furniture – even now with Elle!). Sometimes the feeing of disconnect and distance would make it feel like I was staring at an empty chair – like the little girl in Oliver Jeffers’ book ‘The Heart And The Bottle’ and that was really hard too.

About 18 months into the second round of therapy with Em, she changed up the room. It was better – previously she had really grim dark red curtains that weren’t quite long enough for the window, some pretty shit net curtains again that didn’t quite reach the window sill by about three inches, and odd green walls but it was ok enough. The window was behind me, so I never really had to look at the curtains or see anyone passing by in the street. Although if anyone ever came to the door to deliver something to the house I’d jump out my skin because the front door was essentially next to the window…and I couldn’t see.

The room itself was filled with lovely, reclaimed bookshelves and so I had plenty to let my eyes wander over when eye contact or even looking in Em’s general direction felt too much which was better than the sterility of the god awful NHS room.

Em’s revamped room was nicer, the shelving and books stayed and there were now neutral walls and curtains, and a much more comfortable cornflower blue leather sofa. It wasn’t very cosy, though – especially in winter! I think one of the things I would say is that Em’s room mirrored her personality type – cold and austere! A couple of cushions to hug to my body when things felt shit, or a blanket folded over the back of the sofa like Elle has, would have made it feel like there was some comfort to be had – especially as she was so anti offering anything of herself.

Another thing that was there throughout my therapy was a sick-looking spiky houseplant that was in good need of a repot and feed. Bearing in mind I saw Em for three years that poor plant never got any care and looked like it was at death’s door the whole time. Now, sure, it’s only a plant, but I think as a therapist if you are going to put plants in the room make sure they look healthy. If you can’t look after a plant, how will you care for your clients?!

The room was the room, though – and it was a marked improvement from anything I had been in before in college, university, at a local charity, and the NHS. But as I said, sensory stuff is an issue – and it was very much the case at Em’s house. Sometimes I would arrive and the lingering smell of the previous night’s cooking had made it into the therapy room – her kitchen was next to the therapy room and I think she must have been a fan of Thai Red Curry and Fish! Occasionally, the smell would be really strong and totally off-putting the moment I walked in the front door.

That’s not to say I am advocating for air-fresheners, plug-ins, or sprays or whatever else in the therapy room. I think people have quite strong preferences and reactions to smells and I’d be really cautious of trying to have any noticeable smell at all tbh. I think airing the place out is a good move, though, and the room should feel and smell clean just not strongly of anything in particular.

OMG! An aside… I remember one time (fuck me I am so fucking picky) but there was a crumpled up, used tissue under the book shelf beside Em and it was there for four weeks…

Anyway…

Back to the story!…

One of my friend’s therapists has scented candles that she asks the clients to smell when they meet and if there are any that they like they light that one for them in the future sessions and I think this is a really nice idea – as it gives the client the choice…to have something or nothing.

Photo by thevibrantmachine on Pexels.com

Another thing that would be a bit distracting/off-putting was external noise at Em’s. She seemed to like to put a load of washing on first thing on a Monday and Friday morning – I guess cashing in on her private practice wfh days – and the machine would always reach its spin cycle in my session. As I said, the kitchen was next to the therapy room and sound really travelled around the house, so it was very noticeable and not ideal. There was that, but what was worse was her husband wandering around in the hallway outside sometimes and often I could hear him chatting on the phone.

I’d like to say that other people coming and going is an unusual event in therapy but in my experience it isn’t. This has been way less of an issue with Elle because I see her in an office away from her home and so any footsteps are only from people who work in the building, but with Em and Anita I had too many uncomfortable experiences with family members.

You might remember me mentioning that when Anita’s adult daughter moved back in, she worked from home in her bedroom that was just down the hall from Anita’s therapy room. I could often hear her wandering around to go to the bathroom next to the therapy room or when she was on work calls… not good! If I could hear her, then there can be no doubt she must be able to hear me. The have been times I haven’t used my session time as I’ve wanted to knowing that I might be overheard – and that just should not happen.

It’s not just what’s going on in the house. It’s what happens when we arrive and leave, too. Do you remember the month where I met Anita’s daughter twice on the doorstep?…the second time we had a conversation whilst waiting for Anita!!… FUCK ME THAT WAS BAD!! Or the time I ran into Em’s husband as he mis-timed coming back from his bike ride?? Yeah, that was crap, too, and really unsettling especially at the end of the session which had been really difficult.

I think therapists who work from home need to be really careful about protecting their clients’ privacy and anonymity and need to have clear boundaries with the people that they live with to ensure that when they are working the family understand the importance of client confidentiality and expectations of therapy.

I feel like I am really moaning now and being critical – but this is my real experience and I’ve spent fucking thousands on therapy over the years so it’s probably worth saying!

Do I need to talk about barking dogs? Or can we just agree that this shouldn’t be a thing…particularly not three of them for half an hour at time!

Umm…what did I like about Anita’s room then if not the outside world? Lots. The room was light and airy.  She had a sofa and a chair in the room – which meant that she could always sit beside me if I wanted that. The room had stuff in it but I guess what you might call therapy stuff: rocks, crystals, shells, books…things that would/could be used as transitional objects. There was a nice picture on the wall, too. The space was clean and uncluttered but felt warm and welcoming.

She had a small fish tank in the room too and I used to like watching the fish. Although, sometimes if I was silent and/or dissociating I would become VERY aware of the sound of the filter running! But that’s probably just me. Essentially, the room had Anita’s personality in it but wasn’t personal – no family pictures or stuff like that (thank god!). It was the opposite of sterile, though. There were tissues in easy reach – although I never used them, as I would only ever cry when she was cuddling me and so she would end up with a damp top instead – lol!

If I ever went for an evening session the room was lit with a couple of salt lamps and a soft side light…at my request. I once turned up and she had the ‘big’ ceiling light on and it just felt way too bright and so instead we put on all the low lights and it felt way gentler. I think basically I am always needing to be in a space that goes softly on my nervous system.

Downsides to Anita’s room were that it was pretty small and so there was not much space to be anywhere but the couch. I quite like sitting on the floor sometimes. I like to draw, or write, or do activities with objects (like when Elle and I did the buttons) or maybe do breathing/grounding exercises and it would have been really too cramped for that and so it could feel a bit rigid being on a chair all the time.

Photo by Boris Hamer on Pexels.com

Obviously, she couldn’t make the room larger and honestly for such a long time that room was such a sanctuary and holding space that other than making it a few feet bigger, there’s not a great deal I would have changed.

I was thinking recently again about rooms before my friend asked about it and I think a really good way of approaching therapy room set ups is to imagine you have a neurodiverse child that you’re tailoring the space to because actually most people would benefit from some or all of the provisions. Lots of therapists only work with adults and so gear their room up as an adult space and I think this is a massive error.

I like that Elle’s room has fidget toys and some games on the shelves even if I choose not to use them. I think having things like paper and colouring pens visible in the room is a nice idea, too (Hannah had that – I’ll give her one positive as the rest was utter shit!) as it lets the client know there is potential for all sorts of work to be done in the room.

Photo by cottonbro studio on Pexels.com

All my recent therapists have had Russian dolls in their therapy rooms- it must be a thing! Ha – if only more of them actually entered into doing active parts work, eh?! I think having little figures or maybe a variety of toys would be a great idea for this.

A while back there was a teddy bear sitting in Elle’s therapy room one session, but I don’t know where he is now. I think one of the things I would really like to see in therapy rooms are a few soft toys. I think signalling to the client that their inner child is welcome is hugely important as so many people new to therapy have no idea what therapy can be…and soooooo many people have work to do with attachment and yet believe that it’s only ever their adult that is welcome in the room!

How nice would it be to see a friendly bear in the corner or sitting on a chair? Especially if you need a hug…and especially if the therapist is not necessarily a hugger. I can imagine how holding it would feel to be feeling vulnerable and small and a therapist asking if you’d like a bear to hold. Like what an invitation to that small part to remain in the room rather than flee. So many of us try desperately to push that part away – especially when we’re new to therapy – as we often associate those feelings as being shameful and unwelcome.

I think seeing a soft toy in the room would also let the client know that they could bring their own soft toys to session too (if that’s what they want – obviously some people would totally not want this at all!). I can’t tell you how many years I went to therapy with Elephant in my bag when I saw Em and not once did I feel brave enough to get her out … and there were times when I seriously could have done with being able to self-soothe with her soft ears as Em would never reassure me or try and get me back out of a dissociative state and would instead leave me in agony.

It would be lovely if sometimes therapists would say, “If you wanted you could bring a blanket or a teddy in – I’ve got these here and you’re very welcome to use them, but I also know sometimes we have our own special items and they are most welcome here.” Because even now – as an almost pro client I sometimes find it difficult to open the bag. Elle has not met Elephant yet – and there’s huge work around this plushie.

I mean I am edging closer – and am actually amazed that I asked Elle for Monty (transitional object) and then last week after a month brought him back and asked her to spray him with her perfume. All these things are possible, but it’s taken me YEARS to get here, and I think therapists could really help with this.

It’s not only about toys, though, is it? Ok, I’ll put my inner child to one side for a minute!

I like Elle’s room – it’s a nice size and feels containing and private. I like that her room has nods to what kind of person she is. She has a little pride flag in her pot plant (which is very much alive) and I think that this visual cue let me know immediately that I was safe with her. I know therapy school would probably say “don’t give away anything about your political beliefs or views on contentious issues” but finding out Em was a tory Brexiteer late on in our work was hideous. I would NEVER have worked with her had I have known our feelings on particular issues were so far apart and knowing Elle is an ally is really important to me.

But that’s a whole other story.

What don’t I like about Elle’s room?! I have mentioned it a few times now, but I fucking hate the coffee table that sits between us. Like I want to literally throw it to the side of the room…unless of course we are using it to do something with buttons or whatever! It’s something to do with feeling like there’s a deliberate physical barrier between us – can anyone see a recurring theme here?! I think also it stops me sitting on the floor.

I think the longer I have been in therapy the more I want to not be always stuck in a chair. Over the years, friends and I have said how nice it would be to have an area of the room that is deliberately floor based – whether that be floor cushions or beanbags – just a different kind of a space. I guess sometimes I would like to almost be in a nest! But just sitting comfortably cross-legged on a cushion would be nice, too. I think the more options there are the better as you never really know what you’re going to want or need when you go to your session.

If there was space in the room, I think it would be totally awesome to have a blackout tent with cushions and blankets and little fairy lights inside – again – think neurodiverse child need. Lol!

Elle has two clocks that seem to tick at alternate times – sometimes I can tune them out and other times they are all I can hear. I imagine most people wouldn’t even notice these things, but I have always been hypersensitive and hypervigilant and so literally EVERYTHING that goes on inside and outside the room registers with me…and it’s frankly exhausting!

There’s loads more I could say but I think I am more of less done here for today – 3500 words – yikes!

So, I’m going to undo everything I have just said in a paragraph!

Of course, the room is really important in creating an environment that feels containing and safe enough for us to open up in but, you know what? I would happily sit outside on the cold concrete in the pouring rain so long as I could sit beside Elle and be with her and talk to her. Because, you could have the absolute most perfect therapeutic space to work in but if your therapist isn’t a good fit and the relationship isn’t there – it’s a complete waste of time!

True stuff.

I’d love it if you could comment with some of your own ‘hits’ and ‘misses’ for therapy rooms as I’m sure this would help my friend a lot. There’s so many things – like drinks? Elle has water out if you want it. Some therapists do cups of tea. Some think you shouldn’t do any of this. What a frigging ridiculous minefield!

The Struggle Is Real

rubberbandsandchewinggum20 Comments

*not my finest hour of writing!

I think I might be having a breakdown guys…honestly, I am just so fucking sick of living in my head right now. (Tell it like it is, eh, RB?!). I actually don’t really even know where to begin because it’s just fucking whining, really – another big heap of ‘woe is me’. And frankly, who cares? No one wants to listen to this crap AGAIN. I certainly don’t!

The place I am in right now is driving me mad so why burden anyone else with this endless bullshit? I am so bored of feeling this way – bored of myself – bored of ending up stuck in this shitty emotional place time and again – I’m just so fucking bored of the perpetual fucking struggle to be alive. Like what’s the point?! Ooffff. It’s tough. And, it seems, exceptionally sweary today!

Deep breaths… count to…eleventy billion… think of the sea… imagine your feet on the sand…distract with music…take a bath…light a candle and try not to burn the house down!

Nope. That’s not working today. Fucking useless bullshit grounding exercises. Lol! I don’t need that. What I need someone to take hold of my hand, breathe with me, BE WITH ME, and help me regulate.

Actually, really, what I really want is Anita (the old one not the new faulty Shein version). I want to be safe in her arms, to listen to her regular rhythmic heartbeat, to feel her steady breathing, breathe in her familiar safe smell, and to be able to properly rest. I want for her to read me some of our stories, and to look at the pictures together…and not feel like any of that is weird or too much. I miss it, and her, such a lot.

Being endlessly hypervigilant is exhausting. To think I used to see Anita twice and week and get that consistent co-regulation, it’s not surprising that after fourteen months without her/it I am at breaking point. I so want a safe place to put down all the shit and be…seen and held…as I am…and right now – ‘as I am’ is in a right state. The littles are not ok but to be fair, none of me is ok. Adult has been through the wringer recently and there’s just nothing left to hold me together. My rubber bands have perished and snapped, and the chewing gum is dried out, rock hard, and now crumbling.

I’m done.

It’s hard not to keep spiralling downwards when you feel completely hopeless. I feel like perhaps this is bottom – again. But as I have said many times before, there always seems to be a few extra trapdoors ready to fall down through!

I think this blog is something like seven years old now – and what’s different from back at the start, really? Some of you have been here since the very beginning and have been alongside me for what?…three failed therapies…some growth (perhaps)… but essentially it’s the same old me tapping away at the keys struggling with the same old shit. Here I am, once again, circling the emotional drain and on the limits of what I can reasonably manage. And you know what? – it’s really depressing. I’ve tried so hard to get myself into a better place over the years but look where we are…

Slow clap RB. ‘A’ for effort ‘E’ for execution.

In some ways, this, this…’bonkers rage depression crap spew’ today… is probably really needed – and yet writing has been out of reach for a while now. I just can’t even bring myself to turn on the laptop…even if writing is helpful a lot of the time. There have been no words.

This last week or so I’ve been almost paralysed with depression and that awful attachment panic and disconnect that the young parts struggle with so much. It’s been pretty rough for the last few weeks but reached its peak on Thursday and that upset of – what? – abandonment, rejection, all that horrific stuff – has been visceral. When it’s like that I’m instantly thrown into the cold, grey wasteland and my three-year-old self is terrified. It completely overtakes me. There is no adult self to help, and it feels incredibly isolating.

I stupidly looked back over some messages from Anita and the instant physical pain in my chest and stomach was immense and I just fell apart crying. Everything caught up with me. There’s such a lot of grief still to process…and probably, new grief coming if we can ever find a time to meet and end but I’ll save that stuff for another, more together post! But suffice to say, the moment I get anywhere close to that stuff I’m done for. It’s been too much to hold for too long now and I guess life throwing in a whole lot of stress has meant that my capacity to hold this stuff just isn’t there.

Alongside all this, the desire to reach out and connect with Elle has been huge but there’s another part of me that wants to run for the hills and never see her again at the moment. I get this is because actually my need for connection is sooooo BIG and so the fear of not being met where I need her to meet me, or worse being completely ignored, or in some way rejected feels too much. It’s a mess. I’m so sensitive to even the slightest hint of rejection … or no… just subtle shifts in energy…that it’s a disaster. Any normal person wouldn’t even notice this stuff…because it’s probably not even there – but… ugh…complex trauma is just the gift that keeps on giving isn’t it?

It’s embarrassing to even have to try and explain why I feel like this because from the outside there would seem to be nothing wrong at all between Elle and I…because there really isn’t anything wrong! In fact, so much is really right – and this is where I begin to despise my wonky brain and the attachment trauma and the legacy that Em and Anita and Hannah have left for me in terms of therapy, and trust, and *all the things*.

Honestly, when I look back over the last few months with Elle it has been so good on so many levels…and then…my system has to go and complicate it all.

You know what it’s like – when you feel really close to someone for a moment, that’s how you want it to feel *always*, and any perceived slight difference in the room feels rejecting. (EVEN if there IS NO DIFFERENCE other than sitting in a fucking chair that she’s sat in ALL YEAR!)

I imagine you’re all thinking, ‘What the fuck are you talking about RB??!’

Ok, so here we are again…been here before…no change there, then! Ugh.

Some of you might remember how after about nine months when I was working with Anita, we’d reached a place where the walls came down and there were those mammoth sessions where the young parts finally made it into the room and Anita held me and told me she loved me? It was incredible and did amazing things for my nervous system.

But then one day she started a session back in her chair rather than beside me on the couch and I immediately felt far away and disconnected from her. I was thoroughly dysregulated and then dissociated because all the parts that so desperately needed proximity and physical reassurance saw the distance between us in our chairs as a signal that something was now wrong, that the young parts weren’t palatable, and I must be too much. I think she had a cold or something and didn’t want to pass it on, but I saw it as a rejection. It felt horrid.

And of course, none of it was about rejection or abandonment but my system is hard-wired to view things in this way. Fortunately, I was able to bring that to Anita and from then on, we had it that she’d sit beside me on the couch this is how it was for the next three years.

Yep… so I’m in the same fucking mire again… only this time with a couple more episodes of being abandoned and rejected under my belt and so the sensitivity levels are massively high and so it feels really difficult addressing this with Elle.

A few weeks ago, around the anniversary of my dad dying, I left my session and literally within seconds had that crushing feeling of separation anxiety and panic. I had wanted to ask Elle for a hug in the session because my system was going mental but instead False Adulted my way through the session and I left with a hug – but we all know a goodbye hug is not the same…in fact sometimes it feels really hard because that closeness is so short-lived and then you’re out in the world again.

Anyway, July is always a shitty month but that day I really couldn’t see how I was going to get through the next week in one piece and less than an hour later sent Elle a message telling her that I was in a mess and asking if she had any space to see her again that week. I have really noticed lately that one session a week is just a little bit of a bridge too far. By Friday I am on my knees and it’s a real struggle – it’s the object constancy stuff and it really fucking causes me difficulties. Elle works online and face to face, but she didn’t have an f2f that week. She offered a zoom call as stop gap or if I’d prefer, said I could write to her, and she’d reply.

I decided that a zoom call probably wouldn’t help because actually what I really wanted in that moment is to be in the same physical space as her. So often I’ve found online triggers my system when I am like that…it almost makes it worse. I guess maybe it would be good to try again at some point as it might feel different with Elle and be helpful -but it didn’t feel right then.

My brain has been so frazzled lately that writing has been almost impossible – but I did manage to send something late that night explaining how lost I felt and how the minibus is out of control. It was ok but the next morning I realised that the bit I really needed to say was missing and so sent it:

Oh and I think the bit that’s missing is that actually because it feels so bad internally right now there’s huge anxiety about being too much. Because actually when I see you, I feel really far away and feel like I just want to be next to you and hold your hand so I don’t drift away.

It’s weird. It can feel so risky sending this sort of vulnerable message in the moment because I completely forget ALL the lovely messages and things that Elle has said in the time we’ve been working together and how accepting of me and whatever I bring she is. Like how can I not remember that she replied to my message telling her that I love her with ‘I love you too’? and all the other incredibly holding attuned messages over the last year?

I know it’s my brain trying to keep me safe but it’s actually a hindrance – especially when I feel like I do now- because I really struggle to dredge any of this up to the surface and just see her as someone who doesn’t care – and barely exists. As much as this blog today has been a sweary rant so far, it’s actually done me some good because I have remembered this and some other things…and that actually has settled something a tiny bit.

Phew.

That day she responded with the most perfect holding message. I hope she wouldn’t mind me putting this here – but it feels important – to remind me that there is good. I actually feel like I should make a scrapbook of our emails and text for when I am having a meltdown!:

Sitting next to each other and holding hands seems like a really good place to start. Maybe we could do that when I see you next?

When I was reading your description I remembered how my mum used to always tell me that – if I ever got lost – that I should go back to the last place I saw her and wait there, and that she would find me. Maybe we can work out a safe place where we can always return to to find each other, and then breathe together for a good long while as well. It’s incredible to me how learning to breathe in using my whole lungs and then breathe out super slowly like I’m trying to move an invisible toy sailboat has an almost immediate effect on my nervous system. It’s like having a release valve on all the internal pressure.

I like your (horrible) mini-bus analogy, even though driving the bus and being responsible for the safety of all those passengers feels like a lot, especially when you’re well into overtime having already driven a full day’s shift. 

I know these are just words and that you’re reading them not hearing them, so it’s that much harder to feel them, but you are safe with me. I am a safe person, because I know very well how to keep myself safe and I work really hard at it all the time.

Not everyone is good at keeping themselves safe, because from the outside it can sometimes look like the opposite of ‘really caring deeply’ which invites judgment (both internal and external), but it’s an essential skill in order to show up again and again and to be able to tell you with authority and total honesty that I’m here and will continue to be here for you. 

Waiting in the safe place. 

With a Chupa-Chup.

Elle x

There has been such a lot of this over the last few months that…I suddenly feel a bit of a wally for wobbling like I am now. To feel so much upset and disconnect when there is so much evidence that there is no disconnect is really hard. But this is the problem with parts when they take over and adult loses the capacity to hold them and be alongside.

I get that some of this horrible feeling of panic and fear of being abandoned will be complicated by the fact that Elle and I have a break coming up soon. Adult me has no problems with this – of course – but the young parts are just not ok at all…because it opens up space for more of *this*.

I really don’t want the young parts to be in long-term distress so that the protectors feel the need to step in and go on bouncer duty. The young parts have experienced too much pain for too long now and the protectors have come online to do what they think they do best…but it isn’t best. It’s not helpful. Attacking myself and unpicking anything good with Elle isn’t protective. It’s damaging.

I hate this!

It’s insane to see notice how different I feel writing now, to when I started an hour ago…yikes…but I have had weeks of really vocal young and protector parts and seemingly have lost my grip on adult and that’s what comes out. Frustration, upset, despondency, hopelessness… and I get it. Adult feels it all too – but just not quite to the point of feeling like self-harm might be a good idea… ugh.

Anyway, back to the stuff about seats putting the heebie-jeebies into the system.  After my reaching out to Elle that week I just about made it through to Tuesday and by that point realised that I really needed to do something to help the young parts – alongside holding hands. I sent Elle a text on the morning of our session and asked if maybe we could look at doing something with a transitional object. She responded that she loved the idea and would bring in some things unless I had any particular ideas of what I wanted.

After all the hell with the pebbles with Em and the months of shit round that, it felt really nice that Elle had responded so positively and as though it wasn’t a weird thing to request. I know Anita had always been amazing with this kind of thing but it’s hard to know how people will respond and it’s easy to hold on to the worst-case scenarios and panic.

That week between sessions seemed quite massive in lots of ways. There’d been between session contact that felt like it really moved things along. I had taken more steps towards Elle and opened up more about the struggles I was having and now we were going to do a transitional object… and we all know transitional objects are really for the littles so I guess this was my way of showing Elle that there are parts in the mix now that require attention.

When I arrived, Elle sat straight down beside me on the couch and pulled me in for a cuddle. It was exactly what I needed. Only, typically, it was a warm day and I felt too hot! So, as much as I would have loved to have stayed snuggled in close I couldn’t. Instead, we sat together, I leant up against her, and she got out some items that she had brought that she thought might be good transitional objects. She told me the stories behind each of them and then put them on the table and I reached for her hand and held it. It felt really lovely, and my system settled right down.

Of course, when it came time to leave, I picked the soft toy option. A little mouse called Monty.

I think Elle had sprayed him with her perfume because he smelled really nice- it’s fading a bit now so I think I may have to be brave RB and ask her if that is what she’d done and if she might do it again before her holiday…and if I am wrong, I can just die in a pit of shame can’t I?!

I decided to make Monty his own Instagram account and take pictures of him out and about…because I am completely fucking unhinged! After the first week I shared the link with Elle. She responded really positively to it and actually it felt really connecting. Like maybe I am not a complete weirdo and she gets it? Or maybe she’s just kind! Lol.

If any of you want to see what Monty is up to then this is the link:

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

hmmm not sure that’s working but the handle is montys_awesome_adventures

As I said, off the back of all that it’s opened up a lot of the young stuff inside again. So, imagine the bloody horror of walking into the last two sessions and Elle sitting in her seat across from me and the table being there between us. The table isn’t a new thing, but it does always feel like a barrier between Elle and I.

So, yeah, the distance thing has triggered my system into this fucking mess…well, not just that, but it certainly hasn’t helped. It’s ironic really – I’m probably closer to Elle than I have ever been but because of that, my vulnerability is off the charts. The moment the hurt parts and needy parts have been properly exposed the whole thing has blown up… but it’s not surprising that my system would want to protect me – I don’t want to be hurt again. More than ever, I need proximity and reassurance until the littles and the rest of my system understand that they are not imminently going to be dumped. I don’t think Elle would have even the slightest clue that this is what’s going on behind the scenes.

Although, maybe she does… the other day she referred to something in session that I hadn’t told her that she could only have found out from Monty’s page. I have absolutely no problem with that at all – in fact I think that it might be a really useful tool for Elle to see what I am posting via Monty…as it gives an insight into what’s really going on. But then this made me think about this blog.

Does Elle ever read it? She has the link to it, and I’ve sent her specific posts before to read. But I wondered the other day if she’s ever gone off and read any other the other stuff here. It’s in the public domain after all.

When I first approached her with the idea of maybe working with her, I obviously mentioned the blog straightaway and what had happened with Hannah because I needed to be sure that whomever I chose as my next therapist would be ok with me writing about my experiences of therapy. I didn’t want to get two months in to work again and then be told it wasn’t ok.  Elle said she was completely fine with my writing and also asked if she might have the link just because she’s interested in MH regardless of whether we ended up working together.

Thinking about this the other day I realised that there are probably quite a few posts that I have written that I would really like Elle to read because I think it would give her a good insight into what it’s been like for me –  you know, the uncurated mess of it all!…and then there are others where I would probably want to the ground to open up and swallow me whole if she were to read them…which probably means they would also be useful for her to read! It would be nice for her to see some actual writing rather than ranting…which is really what this blog has descended into this last year or so!!

Tbh I can’t imagine she has the time or energy to read any of this, but I know I would find it really hard to know that someone might be writing about me and no want to see what was being said!! Lol.

Anyway, this is long… and… bumpy! If you made it to the end – kudos to you.

Next week will be a year since Elle and I started working together and I think it’s safe to say the work has well and truly begun!