holding it together as I journey through therapy – a personal account of what it's like to be in long-term psychotherapy navigating the healing of C-PTSD, childhood trauma and neglect, an eating disorder, self-harming behaviours, as well as giving grief and cancer an occasional nod.
After two or three sessions of trying to figure out what to do with Anita after she dropped the bomb on me that she was stopping the therapy (forever? for a bit?… who knows?) it was painfully apparent that we were getting nowhere in the ‘ending that isn’t an ending… or is it?’ and it was increasingly painful going to see her and for her to not be able to hold the work, the space, me… but also to not have any kind of a plan on how to handle whatever ‘this’ was. I would just end up crying and she would keep saying she was “sorry”. It was all utter shit. Traumatising, really.
As much as I didn’t want to see another therapist (and still don’t), I knew that whatever ‘this’ is/was with Anita there was definitely, and minimally, a protracted break coming, and I would need some support to process what is essentially a massive abandonment and rejection from my attachment figure…again. No matter how you look at it, Anita has handled ‘this’ all appallingly and I have been left reeling and just utterly bereft. It’s hard to put into words just how awful this has been, but it feels like every part of me has been body slammed and then left for dead. Ugh.
Whilst Anita and I were still seeing each other, I started hunting online for someone who might be able to catch me as I fell headfirst out the nest. I’m sure many of you have scrolled through therapist’s profiles on the internet on therapy platforms and kept scrolling and scrolling looking for a face that looks at least half-way like someone you might want to sit in a room with. It’s funny – credentials are important, but I literally scrolled pasts loads of people without clicking into their profile because I didn’t like their photo! And of course, I didn’t really want to see any of them…because the only person I want is A, or Anita before she lost the fucking plot!
When looking for someone, there were a few things I definitely avoided this time. I didn’t want anyone in the ‘mum’ age category, and I also wanted the therapy to be in a space that wasn’t in the therapist’s home. I didn’t want to go anywhere close to replicating the experience I have had with Anita (as good as loads of it has been I’m left with a bitter taste in my mouth). I know attachment wounds are kind of unavoidable and transference happens, but I didn’t want to accelerate that stuff if I didn’t need to. I’m there to process what happened with Anita not to replicate the relationship. That’s done. It’s burnt me really badly and, frankly, my young parts will never be coming out again in a therapeutic setting as they did with Anita. I’m not interested in cuddles or stories or any of the stuff that was so helpful with A, because to have it suddenly ripped away is just horrific and worse than not having had it at all.
I feel like she took me in, symbolically adopted the child parts, encouraged the attachment, started to reparent them, and then when her life got hard, decided it wasn’t for her and has sent me away – but not even to a ‘foster’ family, just turfed me out onto the street and closed the door. Her and Em have more similarities than I realised.
Anyway, back to therapist shopping…I decided that if I am paying for a time and space (which is what it is, right?!) then I don’t want dogs barking, the postman banging on the door trying to deliver stuff, daughter walking around outside the room or bumping into her on the doorstep, navigating my way past mum on the driveway…NONE OF IT. All of these things were annoyances with A but worth it in the big scheme of how it felt with her in the room (before it went to shit)…but now that’s gone I just want a simple place to be that hasn’t got any baggage attached to it. AND this time I wanted a therapist who would just do therapy and hold the frame and boundaries and all the other stuff that has got so lax with Anita. Basically, I wanted therapy 101 – back to basics. Dare I say it, I almost wanted an Em…only Em with a little more relational capacity!
So, I found a therapist who looked nice enough. She seemed to be around my age and had a profile that seemed ok. Given that I am not looking to do long-term, deep work, I just wanted ‘good enough’ and someone who might have space to meet before I was completely cast adrift. I emailed Hannah asking about her availability and outlining what had happened with A and why I wanted to see her. She responded warmly and we fixed up a meeting a couple of weeks ahead. Phew. At least there was something in place.
Things, obviously, got no better with Anita. I was breaking my heart and she just couldn’t give me anything. It was headed to the end of May, and she offered to keep working with me until the end of June. As much as parts of me would have loved to have seen her for nine more hours – I just couldn’t do it to myself – or more specifically all the child parts that were absolutely devastated. On the 2nd June I resolved before I went to see Anita that it would be my last session. I simply couldn’t keep hurting myself and when it came down to it, I couldn’t justify the money to keep doing it for another month. To be honest, I really don’t feel like I should have paid for any of the sessions in May either – it wasn’t therapy and it wasn’t about my need.
About five minutes from the end Anita apologised again and acknowledged that she probably seemed distant and cold which wasn’t what I needed but that she was in self-protect and survival. I knew definitely, then, that I had to leave. Through tears (of course) I said to her that I didn’t want to drag this out anymore because she wasn’t up to it, I didn’t want to make things worse for her, but that this was really hurting me. So, I asked her if I could just leave things as they were and maybe get back in touch properly in September and see how things were after the summer, not to continue, but to see if she was in any better a place to do a proper ending that fully honours the work we have done and the relationship. She agreed and said she just didn’t know how she was going to be and as much as she would like to give me something to hang onto she thinks she’s probably going to have to give up her job altogether and retire. And then I got up, gave her one last hug, and walked away.
The pain has been unbelievable.
The grief. I mean… there just aren’t words.
Almost immediately after the session I sent her a text. I know. I know. One of the books we read together a lot was ‘No Matter What’ by Debbie Gliori – it’s gorgeous… but… well, it all seems like empty words now…
This is what we’ve exchanged since we finished. I don’t even really know what to think.
I have so much to say and so much left hanging that part of me thinks, “Well fuck it, surely she can cope with a couple of texts here and there on her work phone when we’ve gone from two hours a week and between session contact to this. It’s not like she’s not ‘working’ she ‘s just not working with poor fuckers like me who really need her.” But I’ve stopped texting now, I think I needed to reach out when it was all so fresh – and I’ll maybe get back in touch in September – but more likely I’ll just ask to arrange to get my books back.
There are so many feelings of hurt and anger coming up and the more time goes on the worse it’s actually getting and I think what might come next if I gave it space would be really fucking mean – and I don’t really want to do that – even though the teen has some choice words ready to fire!
Right now, I don’t see there’s much to be gained by maybe eventually meeting again. The hurt is too big and there’s no going back. Ill or not, I deserved better than this. So I need to try and process this with Hannah and let Anita go. I don’t want to reopen a wound – and if I saw Anita and she was still in self-protect it would send me over the edge – I don’t need cold, still face…
It’s not easy writing that – but she’s let me go – and all the trust and care and love that I thought were real…well… what was it? Really? … ‘therapy’…
Anyway, I’ll leave that there for today and come back and introduce you to Hannah next time.
After two sessions where Anita and I had essentially got nowhere with processing or dealing with the bombshell of her needing to end the therapy and my, essentially, listening to how hard everything is/was for her, “This is meant to be your therapy not mine” (!), I had to find a way to get her to hear my side, my feelings, my experience because I was absolutely falling apart.
At home, in the car, anywhere I was alone, I was hysterically crying and just couldn’t function. It was so hard trying to hold it together and parent and teach and just generally function, and A just wasn’t able to be there to hold the space or the work…or me… at all – hence the need to end. It was patently clear that A was not up to doing a proper ending and I refused to participate in it- I actually said that to her! I kept telling her we needed to come back to it/us at a later date because I refused to have a half-assed ending but it was a long time coming to that point where we finally left it that later down the line we’d get in touch.
Honestly, it’s really not great having to navigate a broken therapist when you are the one that’s meant to be in therapy! (Although, clearly Anita needs to be in therapy if she isn’t!) I’d spent the two sessions ‘adulting’, trying to hold us both together but it was absolutely killing me. Endings are so important in therapy – in some ways I think they are one of the most important elements of the whole thing given so many of us experience deep-rooted feelings of being rejected or abandoned. A decent ending can perhaps show us a different narrative of how relationships can end – it’s a time where the work and relationship can be celebrated and honoured. And, yet, here I was staring down another unwanted and unsatisfactory termination. Just perfect.
I (well lots of different parts) wrote a really messy, emotional letter to Anita because I needed to give space to my feelings. It’s young, it’s broken, it’s desperate, it’s confused, it’s heartbreak – but this is how it felt and these parts and feelings deserve to be heard because this is where the work is, has been, and if I can’t let it out in therapy then where else can I do it? I knew I would never be able to read what I had written to her in the session because I would fall apart. Instead I recorded it and asked her to play it whilst I was there with her.
Having felt so far apart those previous two sessions I asked her for a hug when I arrived. I spent the entire session in her arms, listening to this, then sobbing my heart out – I mean absolutely sobbing, huge fat tears and convulsive breathing. I wish I could say that the letter had any impact or changed the situation with A but it didn’t. We just sat – broken – together, crying – saying it’s not what either of us want but that she has no choice. Honestly – heartbreaking doesn’t even come close to how it felt.
Anyway, here’s the thing – this is what lurks beneath the capable and coping exterior… I get it doesn’t make lots of sense but it was like trying to get down the thoughts and feelings of the entire mini-bus and everyone was speaking crying at once. I can really picture my new T’s (yeah – I must be mental) face if she saw this.
How this feels…
It’s like being thrown out the nest too soon. It’s like haven’t got the right feathers in place to fly the nest yet. It feels like this is all really wrong.
I think you need time off sick but does it have to be the end? I personally don’t think you’re in a place to be making massive decisions as I think you’re in survival – and flight mode. I think you are panicked – and justifiably so – you have a massive amount on your plate and the last few weeks have really been terrible. It’s no wonder everything is too much. You’re crumbling under stress and so any demands on you are going to break you and feel beyond your scope to cope.
I’m not asking to keep it as it is right now because you’re not up to it. In normal run of things you’d be signed off sick by the doctor and I genuinely think that’s what you need. I know you think things are not going to get better any time soon and that must feel scary and suffocating but I also think that things will improve if you can actually just give yourself a bit of time to breathe. You seem to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders and yet the burden is not yours to carry alone.
I saw this coming months ago. I told you you’d burn out and have a break down. Perhaps it was unavoidable, but here we are.
I can’t let you go, though, Anita. Not fully. Our work isn’t done, and our relationship isn’t done either. The relationship we’ve created is important. I can’t just move onto another therapist. I do need therapy – you’re right about that – but I need it with you, not someone else. I love you and I’m attached to you. My healing is happening in relationship with you and because of you. It’s you that I have learned to trust. My young parts love you. It’s with you that I feel safe. I don’t want to have to grieve you if I don’t have to. And I certainly don’t want to do this again with anyone else. The only person I want to read me stories and cuddle is you. And I can’t give that up. I can’t lose another ‘parent’. Not yet. I’m not ready yet.
If we end now the message I get is that I am not good enough or worthy enough to stay. That I don’t matter. That what I thought we had isn’t real and everything that’s been said and felt is a lie. I’m not prepared to trash 3.5 years of therapy that has been so transformational and put in on the pile of the same narrative Em and my mum have given me.
The thing is, you are nothing like them but this ending makes it feel like that. When it comes down to it, I am expendable. I am put back out in the cold. It’s the rescue dog being left at the side of a road because the owner can’t cope with it. The pain round this is different than with Em. It’s actually worse because you have actually loved me. I’ve felt it. You’ve shown it. And the thought of losing that is too devastating. You haven’t been withholding, you’ve always been right there holding my heart in your hands so carefully, and delicately because you’ve known how fragile it is. And yet despite this, somehow it’s not enough.
When you said we’d carry on until I found someone else it felt like you were really diminishing our relationship. I don’t want someone else. It’s not like going and finding a new dentist. Instead, it’s like saying get a new mum – and I just can’t. Because you are it. I can’t replace you. You said I need someone who can really hold me. And we both know that’s not possible. There is absolutely no one that would be with me how you are. If I were to see someone else, I’d always be comparing back to you and everything would feel less than. So I can’t do it.
You need to get you well. You need to function. I need you. But I can do without you for a while if I know you’re still there. I really don’t want to have to test the invisible string or the hugs sent in raindrops like in the books but I will…if it means you can get better and deal with the horrors you face right now. I don’t want to put additional pressure on you. I don’t know what that means or how it looks and I feel like right now you’re really not even capable of having the kind of conversation we need because you are so stressed you can’t see the wood for the trees. I’m trying really hard not to freak out and meltdown but this is really really hard for me.
You know me better than anyone. I asked you once how you heal this deep wounding and you said that you were going to sound like Carl Rogers but it was all about the relationship. And you are right. The problem is that wounding happens in relationship, too. And this is not just a bit painful or a bit rejecting to me. It’s huge. Not only does it feel like a complete abandonment and like my trust has been decimated, but it feels like when my dad died. It’s grief. A loss. I had no choice in the matter. I just had to carry on as if it was ok. And it’s not ok Anita. It’s so far from being ok. And it’s not your fault. I’m not blaming you but this isn’t just a simple goodbye. We don’t have a run of the mill therapeutic relationship, the work we have done has been so intimate and deep. You’ve been reparenting me – and yet now you’ve decided that it’s too much.
The stuff we’ve been through together surely can’t just be gone. Can you really honestly walk away from me after everything we’ve been through? I trusted you with all of me – every part- and now every part is being devastated in its own way. When we keep parts concealed, we’re not fully vulnerable and there’s a safety in that but also it prevents really being seen and true emotional intimacy. But it means that when things go wrong there are parts left intact to pick up the pieces. I have let my guard completely down with you and that’s been terrifying but so healing. But how do I mend this wound now because no part of me is not involved there is no part left unaffected. I kept nothing back. Even The Critic was convinced it was ok to stand down because you made me feel good enough and loved and no matter what things would somehow work out.
I’ve been beyond devastated this last week. I don’t know how I have any tears left to cry. I feel so sad. But I also feel so shit about all the times I’ve shutdown or been silent or not looked at you. I don’t look at you because I don’t want to be seen and for you to judge me to be too much. In all those times that you’ve thought I am keeping you out, or angry, or whatever it is it comes across as – all I’ve ever wanted to do is be close to you – that’s all it’s ever been – every time I’m quiet or start to disappear it’s because more than anything I want to be close to you and I am scared of being pushed away. You never have pushed me away, you never have refused a cuddle or to hold my hand, and yet the shame I feel is still so there lots of the time- it’s the legacy of so much of what I experienced in the past with others.
I said when we met that this would be a hard, long process, and it felt unfair because I’d be testing you and putting you through stuff that was not your fault because I had been hurt. And we really have been through it where that’s concerned. And you haven’t budged. You said you were a wall I could push against, but you wouldn’t break. You were a boomerang that no matter how I pushed you away you’d always come back. But now that’s not the case. The thought of not being able to see you, to hug you, to look at your face it’s actually breaking my heart because I’ve missed so many opportunities sitting in my own pain less than a metre from you when you were there waiting for me and now, you’re not going to be. Like that’s how it feels. I feel like my heart is shattering into a million pieces.
There have been so many days when I have come here and … I dunno… filled the space with stuff that hasn’t mattered when all I want to do is come and just be with you. I don’t want drama or even to talk or unpick things because just being with you is so healing to me. Literally just holding your hand or cuddling makes everything feel bearable and regulates my system. I just want to be close to you. I have missed you so much lately. I thought we’d ride this current phase out, though. I don’t want to do trauma processing or fill the space with words. I just want to be with you. And I know I’ve been having wobbles about it all because this stuff has felt big – massive – but when I am faced with the prospect of ‘no’ you or a reduced capacity you – suddenly the things that I’ve been worked up about seem ridiculous. Like so what you haven’t replied to a text…rather that than no contact at all.
I just want to be with you. How many times can I say that?! And that’s not just the young parts, although obviously this is very much about the young parts and the work we have been doing with that early trauma and loss. There’s nowhere I feel safer than with you. And all my panic about you being far away or changing was fear. And it’s like that fear is now being truly realised in the here and now. This is what I’ve been so scared of. But the sad thing is, you weren’t gone then. I might not have been able to connect but you were always there and now you’re not going to be and I can’t get my head round that. I literally can’t see how I can be without you.
I talked about my mini-bus careering down the hill without a driver before the break and when you went away it kind of crashed into the lake and filled with water. I had horrible nightmares the first week you were away. All about this kind of stuff. I really sensed you were not ok when you were away but I didn’t want to bombard you. I really really hoped that you going away would be enough to give you a bit of something to keep going and I am so sad for you that your holiday was so terrible and your health has deteriorated so badly. I wish there was something I could do to help you.
I’ve been trying really hard to not fall apart since Wednesday. I am struggling really hard to get my head round this but the parts are just… freaking out:
The baby – is crying, hungry and uncontained and there’s noone to pick her up and soothe her.
The two-year-old is lost in the cold, grey wasteland and no one is coming she is scared.
The four-year-old is trying to be a good girl because maybe that way you won’t leave and maybe the cuddles and stories won’t have to stop and maybe this mum will stay.
Seven is terrified and frozen and badly needs to be held because she’s been here before and knows it gets worse the longer you’re left alone.
My eleven-year-old self is hiding in the dark underneath the bed trying to disappear and make it all go away.
Fourteen wants to self-harm and not eat.
Seventeen who would usually be raging and angry is just standing – silent tears streaming down her face broken- because of all of them, she needed you the most and whether you realise it or not, her trust was the hardest won because she holds all the others and it’s a heavy weight.
The Critic – well you can imagine the level of sadistic shit it’s coming up with.
Adult me is just so fucking sad because I cracked myself wide open despite the hurt that Em inflicted because I trusted you and you made me believe I was safe with you. We got right into the yolk of the egg -and now what do I do? After Em I was terrified of being seen and rejected again. I was just a parasite that needed to be got rid of. And now you say you’re not rejecting me… but you are – I am a “stress” you have to “cut out of your life”. I understand why but those parts of me that believed the “no matter what” and the “I wish I could have been there then, but I am here now and I won’t let you go” seems like empty words.
But how can they be? And I get I have an Adult self and that part of me is stronger than it’s ever been but it’s still not able to do it all alone. I just can’t be without you – not yet.
Everywhere I look there is evidence of you around me at home. I’m in here too. Will you just sweep it all away and act like I never existed? Is that how it works? You are the rabbit that listens but if I’m not here does the rabbit go, the egg, the pebble from the beach, the dream catcher, windchimes…the ornament…all the other fucking bits of shit that are all around us?
You made me feel like I belonged here and with you and now I suddenly don’t. I don’t get how you can get rid of me but still work with other clients. When I ask you “what have I done wrong?” you say I haven’t done anything wrong and it’s you and your capacity but how can you sit there with someone else next week or next month who has nothing like the level of relationship that I have you and choose that over me? When you know what you mean to me and what I thought I meant to you? And knowing all that you know about me, of what has happened to me? It blows my mind. I know depth work isn’t easy, but I certainly prefer my long-term students where there is a relationship is established and we ‘know’ each other than starting up with new people. Maybe it’s because I know you and see you that’s the problem. You can’t hide with me.
I don’t know what else to say – but it feels like the scaffolding around my building is ripped off and without you I think the whole thing will crumble. And maybe that makes me too dependent but maybe it just means we weren’t done yet. I don’t have the answers and right now I don’t think you do either. But please don’t leave…
You keep saying you need to cut stress out your life. I don’t know if you know how that sounds or feels but it’s not a million miles away from Em’s tick comment. I’m the stress. I’m too much. I’m too needy. I’m the hard work. Mentioning my ‘I miss you’ message just feels like a kick in the stomach. I didn’t reach out first in your holiday – it was you that messaged me. And telling me that my simple reply felt too much right now is just shit. Like any of my feelings about you are too much. It’s such a massive contrast to the person that sent me the message before you left with hearts.
I get when you’re burnt out and sick and stressed and overwhelmed you swing like a pendulum but this, now, is absolutely killing me. I’m trying to be the adult here and be understanding but you have to know that my child parts are in agony Anita. You don’t seem to acknowledge or care what this is doing or going to do to me. I know this is because you are so unwell that you just aren’t fit to be working. You keep saying “we tried”. I don’t understand what that even means. I know you can’t give that care and compassion you usually do as you’re in your own survival hole but this is why we can’t end now like this – because ending like this is harmful. I’m clinging on tight to what I think we had but it’s being decimated right now.
This is attachment work. And you are severing that attachment with a machete. You don’t want to do anything to try maintain it. You don’t seem to want to try and help my parts get through what is a massive shock. It’s like I’m already dead to you and it’s triggering the hell out of me. It’s like the bloody still face exercise. I’m searching for you and you’re just not there…you say you are in self-protect and you know it’s not what I need but if you know that why are we doing this?
Is it really your world outside that’s the issue or is it something I’ve done? Was it the birthday present I gave you that sent you over the edge?
This is another ornament in the set – I gave A ‘Self-Compassion’ on our 1 year anniversary. They’re made by an artist in Ukraine and I love the style.
Because that was symbolic – it’s what you have done for me. You have held that small part safe. It doesn’t mean I actually think you are my mum – in therapy sure- I have said a lot of times you are the closest I have come to a positive experience of mothering and you have welcomed that, acknowledged that, encouraged it even,but I know outside the room that’s not the case.
But it’s left me wondering is the idea of me just repellent to you now like something you have to untangle yourself from. Or remove like a tick? Because that’s what it feels like. Are you really and truly terminating others or is it just me? You tell me you are authentic with me and that there’s no one else you work with you’d tell what you’ve told me – so can’t you understand then that you have built a particular kind of relationship with me that has let me in to so much of you and now it’s like “Nah, fuck off”. I just can’t get my head round it. Like what we have is special and important…only it’s not?
I didn’t think you could suddenly stop loving someone or being able to or wanting to connect but that’s what’s happened and I don’t understand. I know you have the need for space right now and time because you are drowning. But I can’t really understand how you are willing to cut me off altogether because I love you and you have told me you love me too – and not just once but weekly for years. You sounded like I was weird for saying at I can’t imagine you not in my life last week. I’ve had almost daily contact with you for three years…we’ve been through such a lot together…we’ve survived a fucking pandemic… what do you expect me to feel? You said you’d be there for the long termand I believed you.
I can’t help but think about all the things you’ve said to me over that time. I mean I am not insane for feeling this way, surely? You said you’d never let me go, that even when you retired you’d still have a practice because you couldn’t leave your long term clients, you said even if your house fell down you’d work online… you’ve said so much over the years. And I get this is a tricky situation now, and things have changed – but to be so unwilling to say we’d even try and work this out down the line is just mind blowing and it makes me wonder who you even are.
I get you’re totally overwhelmed but surely you must see how damaging all this is to me, too. Surely, you’d want to find time at some point to help me with this down the line if I’d meant anything to you at all. Can you really have said and meant all that and now run as far away from me as possible…especially knowing my history. It just doesn’t make sense.
I don’t know how I’ll cope without you. The routine of seeing you twice a week keeps me level. I wish there was a middle ground, less frequent sessions, a quick WhatsApp call, anything really. Removing all support is going to be hard as my life is about to undergo some big changes anyway and there’s stuff I haven’t been telling you because I just want to keep going. I can feel the abyss inside opening up. You’d always have grabbed my hand but now you won’t, but I need you to try and meet me in this right now. … there’s such a lot to say.
And that’s that… Anita dissociated, I think. At the end of that she said that she’d heard it all but her mind had gone blank to answer. Not even kidding. As I say we just hugged, and cried, and then I came back again…and it was just more disaster zone but I’ll come back with that later.
x
These lyrics from Tiny Love by KT Tunstall have been stuck in my head lately:
And this tiny love Couldn’t have been more true Oh, searching for A home in you I guess you never knew
It’s a lovely track.. I guess the mistake I made was thinking we can find home in another when we need to find it in ourselves.
So, after the break in May I was feeling a bit anxious but largely just really looking forward to seeing Anita and reconnecting. I’d had a bit of a wobble during the break and the mishap with the return to sessions wasn’t ideal, but the fact Anita had rescheduled so I didn’t need to wait until Friday meant that I felt ok enough and was just really ready to process some of my stuff. I’ve been holding onto such a lot for such a long time.
When I arrived on the Wednesday I sat down and took a minute – you know what it’s like after a break. It takes a while to ground back into the space, to settle, to let the parts know things are ok and safe. I began by telling Anita I was a bit stressed, told her a little a bit about something that had happened with my kids, students etc and then think it must have been a couple of minutes in when I dropped False Adult and said, “It’s been hard.”
There was a little bit of silence and then Anita said, “Well done for coming this morning…” I didn’t reply but it felt like we were getting on the page quickly to start to work through the break…wrong! There was maybe fifteen seconds and then she started, “I also need to have a difficult conversation with you – I ended up in A and E when I was on holiday because I couldn’t breathe, they thought it might be my heart. The Doctor says I can’t take any more stress…and my mum’s in hospital, she might die… I am really sorry and I know it’s not we wanted and we hoped I would get through this, but I am going to have to bring the counselling with you to an end…”
I tried really hard to take it all in and not disappear. Whilst part of me had feared this (ending) for a while, there was another part that was utterly stunned. I felt completely pummelled. The night before she’d sent me a message to tell me she was looking forward to seeing me and now this? Wtf?
Anita went on, “I know it’s not what either of us wanted. It really isn’t what I wanted.” And then she told me more about her health concerns, what had happened to her mum, and her very real fears about the future. Her voice was strained and I could hear the wheeze in her chest had got much worse since I had last seen her. She looked utterly exhausted. Broken, if I am honest.
I went through the whole range of emotions in seconds. I was sad, angry, upset… you name it. The parts were going insane. How I didn’t dissociate I have no clue. There was another part, though, that is really good at problem solving and that wanted to fix everything for her and strategically find a way forward – although I know I can’t.
Anita said she was happy to work with me until I found someone else. This sparked Teen off and I angrily responded – with “Shut up!…Have you any idea what you’re saying? What this feels like?…”
Anita replied, “Pretty shit. Devastating. Rejecting. All of it. I don’t know how to change it. I know this isn’t what either of us wants. I’m so sorry.”
I just sat there. It might not be what we want but it was going to happen regardless. I couldn’t believe this was happening.
I don’t know who said this – maybe all of the parts, but I whispered, “What even was this?”
Like honestly? What had this relationship even been if it was so easy to walk away from it now?
Anita was defensive and felt closed down, “It’s not easy for me as well, you know – I haven’t wanted to do this. This is last thing I have wanted to do.” There was a definite sadness in her voice but also, I felt like she was removed – probably in self-protect (which is something she later admitted to).
There was a period of silence. My mind was all over the place. “I just didn’t think you’d do this to me” I sighed.
“I tried not to, but I can’t help it. I can’t carry on like this. I have to get better…”
Adult me stepped up and in. I took her hand and held it for the rest of the session. It was a complete role reversal and at one point Anita even said, “This is meant to be your session, not mine.”
After more of Anita telling me basically that she’s utterly fucked I asked, “Does this have to be for forever?” Anita said she didn’t know. She was so … I don’t know … just in a state of collapse that it was really difficult to get anywhere. All these ending sessions have been impossibly hard because I’ve been dealing with someone who is having a breakdown not with a therapist who is doing a proper ending based on client need. She has no idea what she’s doing or how to get from one minute to the next so she has no idea of the future because right now she can’t even cope with the minute in front of her.
At one point a young part came forward, “What have I done wrong?” I’ve been really struggling to get my head round what’s happening given the quality of the relationship we had. Like how do you go from everything we’ve got to nothing?
Anita replied, “Nothing – you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s my situation, my ability to cope. It’s me. Not you. It really isn’t you. I am broken. My soul is broken right now. I have nothing left to give. I was hoping it wouldn’t have to come to this. I really did hope it wouldn’t come to this. But I don’t know what else to do…It’s a shame we met like this because if we’d have met as friends we could stay friends. Ethically, we shouldn’t have anything to do with each other for two years after we end. It’s all a pile of shit basically…”
“This doesn’t feel right,” I said.
“I don’t know what to do” replied A, “I can’t carry on. I’ve got to cut the stress out of my life.”
There was another silence. “I can’t just go” I sobbed. “I can’t just disappear. It’s not nothing to me” and I broke down in big tears.
“It’s not nothing to me either,” said Anita.
“…Unless I am completely delusional? If that happens it undoes everything that I thought that this was.”
It was absolute agony. Both of us just hanging on by a thread. There is so much in this relationship but also… not enough it seems.
I haven’t gone into the detail of this session because honestly 90% of it was about Anita and her situation – which isn’t relevant…it doesn’t add anything.
It was coming to the end of the session. I had no idea what was going to happen. Was it just going to end? Earlier in the session I had said there was no point in continuing but at the end Anita said, “Let’s find a way of still connecting. I think we need to come back to this and figure something out”.
I left the session sad but hopeful – like maybe there would be a way to not completely sever the relationship altogether even if the therapy had to stop.
There has been so much up and down, push and pull, connection and disconnection…it’s been an absolute head fuck if I am honest. Part of the problem is Anita didn’t come at these endings with long-term clients with a clear vision of how it would look. I don’t think she and her supervisor have really properly thrashed out what needs to happen and … it’s felt like she’s been winging it on burnout. I feel like she got really scared on holiday, literally thought she was going to die, her mum is really sick in hospital and she’s just panicked and felt like she has to stop. She does but she needed to go off sick – not try and botch endings.
After two sessions of pain and … well… just going round in circles, I realised we were getting nowhere. She was increasingly checked out. It wasn’t intentional – she is very ill. But it means that when I tried to say things she couldn’t hear me and would react from a place of defensiveness. Also, I was trying to rescue her. I’ve been trying to rescue her for a year, really.
It reached a point, though, where I needed to get my feelings heard even though I knew it wouldn’t make a difference. The pain I was going through was/is off the chart and I was not going to leave this therapy silent and suffering like with Em. I at least needed to give me and my parts a voice even if it wouldn’t change things. I sucked up so much of my hurt with Em and although this situation is different this time, and perhaps Anita in less of a place to hear me than Em was, I was still paying for this mess… don’t let’s get started on that!
So, I wrote a letter and recorded it as a voice note. I knew I wouldn’t be able to read it in session on the Monday (3rd session of trying to figure out what the hell to do) so I asked A to play it on her phone. It was twenty-five minutes long. We cuddled the whole time (it’s so hard when there is so much love there) and I sobbed. I was wondering if this would be the last time she’d ever hold me. If this would be the last time I would hear her heartbeat, be able to breathe in her safe smell. To say that it was utter agony is an understatement.
I still don’t know how I will survive without this… this proximity, closeness, intimacy – call it what you will. How do you replace that? I can’t and don’t want to.
I’ll leave that here. I have the voice note letter ready to go in another post which I’ll post soon (check me out with my organised blogging… lol!). And big thank you to everyone for your support. Yet again this tribe have my back. Big hugs. x
So, last time I was here I was midway through a therapy break and everything with A – or in A’s life- had been unravelling in a big way in the lead up to her break. She really needed the holiday and I had hoped that a couple of weeks abroad would do her the world of good even if I would wobble in her absence. We were both banking on her coming back restored and well. Sadly, things got worse for her, and because of that – us. Before the break, I posted something about feeling like I was watching a slow-motion car crash…well, that crash ended up happening in a huge way, at speed, when she got back and I am essentially in intensive care trying not to die right now.
I realise that it’s been a couple of months since I have posted and that’s because such a lot has gone on. It’s my intention to try and write a few posts over the next couple of weeks or to try and break up what’s happened into manageable chunks and get some kind of clarity on all that’s gone on. I’m not going to beat around the bush and keep you all in suspense, though, whilst I sift through the wreckage. I’m guessing most of you will have worked out that this lengthy absence, here, hasn’t come about because I am busy. I am. But it’s not that. I’m really gutted to say this, but Anita and I have ended the therapy. Or should I say, Anita did.
It’s been a right fucking mess (understatement) and I will get to it bit-by-bit when I can. Suffice to say I am absolutely devastated and just haven’t been able to go anywhere near this on the blog because it’s been survival. I honestly don’t know where to start or what to say. I know that for lots of you who have followed this blog, and me, for a long while will probably feel bloody gutted too. It’s felt like my relationship with Anita has been a beacon for lots of us with C-PTSD, proof that some therapists can go deep, do the work, and are safe.
Turns out, that’s not the case.
Anita is human first, therapist second.
Her handling, or should I say, mishandling of it has utterly broken me. I’ll be ok. I’m a survivor. I just … well… I just never imagined I would ever be writing these blog posts. Part of me feels so fucking stupid for letting my guard down, trusting, believing all that Anita said, allowing my most vulnerable parts to be seen and to be in relationship with her, only to have them discarded and thrown out into the cold again when it was no longer convenient for her to do the work. It’s more complex than that and Adult me understands – sort of – but there are lots and lots of parts that don’t and cant and won’t understand.
My inner critic is having a field day right now, “You fucking stupid moron! Do you never fucking learn? Therapists and you don’t mix. You’re too much and you make them leave. No one can cope with your tick-like need that bleeds them dry. You’re a clingy, pathetic mess. Three years and look what happens, you fuck them up. You fucking loser!”
Yeah, so that’s really fun. Mind you give me the Critic over the screaming young ones… I can’t soothe them or make it any better. Every last one of them is crying out for A because it is only A that knows how to help. Only … she’s gone. So now what?
I know, now, that the critic is only ever there to try and protect me and so right now feels like it’s really needed. The level of devastation is hard to put into words but let’s just say, when Em and I ended it was terrible, but this, with Anita, is just utterly crushing. Everything I thought the relationship was, has gone up in flames…and as much as parts of me know this isn’t my fault. It’s still me that’s ended up being dumped.
So, let’s rewind to the break…
I knew Anita was on her knees headed into her holiday and I had decided very consciously to leave her well alone during her break. The last session before the break she was really sick and had a to take a call mid-session with the emergency doctor. I knew about it beforehand and whilst it wasn’t ideal, with the NHS as it is, you never know when a call-back will happen and I was glad, at least, that Anita was finally getting seen.
During that session A assured me she’d be coming back and we’d be ok- the usual reassurance before a separation. I gave A her birthday gifts for her to open when I got up to leave, gave her a hug, and walked away for what I thought was a three week break.
The next morning she sent me a text:
As you can see, I sent her a GIF on her birthday and then left her to it. Just over a week into her holiday A sent me a message with photos of her holiday:
I was having a tough time by this point. My internal minibus of full of child parts was careering at speed, downhill, without a driver but I really didn’t think sending a long message would help any of us at this point so I just said, ‘looks gorgeous. I miss you x’ and then left it at that. It’s a world away from what I might once have sent but I also knew that Anita was teetering on the edge of complete burnout so didn’t want to add to her stress.
On the Sunday night before A came back I sent her a message to have a safe flight – just as she had when I was away in February and began my countdown to Friday and seeing her again.
So imagine my surprise when on Monday morning, I was dyeing my hair, and when I had finished I saw two missed calls from Anita at 10:07, one on my phone and one on WhatsApp. Wtf?! She’d left a voicemail asking me where I was? Apparently she was expecting me.
Fuck.
When she told me she’d booked her holiday way back in February she’d said she was going for two weeks and was flying on her birthday… I did the maths and this meant she’d be flying on a Monday and returning on a Monday so we’d end up seeing each other on the following Friday. She never gave me dates but this is what I thought a two week break meant.
Nope.
My heart absolutely sank when I received that message. To think I could have seen her and would now have to wait until Friday just sent me through a loop.
I text Anita:
I was so looking forward to seeing her on the Wednesday even though there was a part of me that was upset and hurt that she hadn’t checked her messages before the (failed) session on Monday– had she have done that she would have seen my message about the flight and realised I had thought she was away still. She could have text and told me she was back and I would have been there in a flash. But like everything lately, Anita has been so removed from her work that things have slipped. I was also sad that when I had text her in real time that morning she didn’t say to ring her or to quickly check in knowing I was having a meltdown. It just felt like there was a massive disconnect yet she then sent me the message the night before telling me she was looking forward to seeing me. Maybe it was ok after all.
Nope.
I’ll break here with this as that next session was – well – it broke me really.
Like I say, I am going to try and get up to speed with this all over the next few weeks but it might take some time because such a lot went down and I am really struggling with it.
A couple of years ago I left a therapy session with Anita and as I walked towards the gate, her son had his head in the bonnet of the car on the driveway. He was fixing something for A. Fortunately, he didn’t look up and I was able to leave without being seen. I didn’t feel much about it at the time, and I have literally only just remembered that this had even happened as I lead into the main bit of this post! Isn’t it weird, then, that a chance viewing of one of Anita’s children had absolutely no impact on me at all…and yet seeing the other (her daughter) set all kinds of shit off?! Hmmmm, I wonder why that might be?!
Let’s be clear, Anita is not a blank screen in my therapy AT ALL. Indeed, she is the complete antithesis to Em who revealed absolutely nothing about herself during the time we worked together. I know Anita has two adult kids and some grandkids – she mentions this on her website and occasionally mentions them in session. Most of the time that’s fine…ish (!). It really depends how I am feeling in myself and in the relationship with Anita in the moment.
If I feel settled and secure, then it really doesn’t bother me for her to reference her kids or something she might have done with them but other times (when the young parts are feeling vulnerable) it feels like she’s pouring salt directly into the mother wound. This feeling has got significantly worse in recent months, in part, due to the fact that her adult daughter has moved back in with her so she’s there nearly all the time working from home when I am having my sessions.
As I said in a recent post, sometimes I can hear her daughter moving around the house and it can feel … I can’t really explain it… awkward, I guess. There’s a kind of jealousy, perhaps, too. I feel jealous that I get so little of Anita’s time and attention these days, and so I really don’t need to be reminded of her daughter being there. I think I also feel a bit weird if Anita is reading me a story and I then hear daughter moving around. Because let’s face it, whilst we are working with my child parts in those sessions – it must sound a bit fucking weird hearing your mum reading kids’ stories to an adult.
Anyway, it is what is and I don’t let this get in the way of me getting what I need in the sessions – I just wish she wasn’t there (read into that what you will!). I try not to bristle when A says something about her family. Her family are clearly really important to her – as they should be. I guess, for lots of us though, when we know our therapists are close with their family, and involved with their kids and grandkids, it can feel like another reminder of exactly what we don’t have.
Like, “Look what you could have won… but didn’t.”
Therapy, at times, can feel like a brief escape into a fantasy world of what it might have been like had things been different (what we needed) when we were kids. Having someone who actually pays attention to us, listens, sees, and responds to us and meets some of our needs, is in so many ways the basics of interaction and caring for a child, but when it’s been missing our whole lives it feels like a magic balm receiving it as an adult! Having an attuned therapist has done such a lot for me…even if I am, yet again, whining about something that’s happened!!
Of course, therapy isn’t just playing at getting the mum we wanted. Well…it’s not only this (LOL!), there’s tonnes of work and pain to sift through as well. Often, it’s the fantasy relationship that triggers the sore points in us so that are then ready to be worked through and with (so long as the therapist is open to that and can cope with attachment stuff). I mean mine and Anita’s relationship is real, not just in my head, not only fantasy, but the child parts definitely see her as a mother figure. Adult me knows she’s my therapist but that’s an important role too and that client therapist relationship is valuable.
I am phrasing this really badly– wandering as usual! – but basically because Anita and I laid some pretty robust foundations at the beginning of my therapy, when the child parts and attachment stuff finally went live in summer 2020, we were well placed to deal with it. All the work we’d done at the beginning when I went to her when Em and I were hitting the skids and then terminated really left a clear map of what was likely to come up eventually between A and I. Anita’s absolute calm, care, and empathy hearing the absolute state of it when we first met meant that I knew that there was space for whatever might come AND THERE HAS BEEN A LOT!
I think this is really different to when I worked with Em and the aching need and attachment stuff came up and I had no idea what was going on, or why, or how to even deal with it. I was just drowning in shame week in week out. But Anita could see from the get-go that I had gone headlong down the hole with Em and triggered all my wounding in the relationship with her. Transference 101.
Anyway, get to the point RB…
So, we all know that my relationship with Anita is…deep? Yeah. It is. It’s close. It’s human and it’s fucking MESSY at times. We work through stuff in the room and it’s very specific to me and my need and my trauma. As we also know, a significant amount of my trauma stems from my mother wound…which leads to fun times! The bits that hurt the most are the bits where the young parts are triggered and feel unseen, unloved, inadequate, ‘less than’ – [insert endless negative feelings list here]…
Sooooo, a few weeks back it was absolutely pissing rain and I arrived at therapy at my usual time. I never arrive early – always bang on 10am – because I know what it’s like when students rock up early and I am still doing something else. Also, I figure if I arrive on time then Anita should be ready for me. So, that particular morning I had driven to therapy feeling a lot of feelings. It was right smack in that time when Anita’s wheels were falling off and my child parts were going wild inside but I had been keeping it to myself for fear of sending her over the edge. I had intended to go to that session and try and articulate what was happening for me because I was out of coping – I was in the zone and ready to go.
So, imagine my shock when I was head down trying to keep dry, little parts on the surface, and I walked through the gate, looked up, and there was Anita’s daughter coming out the front door.
Fuck.
I mean what a fucking fuck?! Of course we know these people exist. Of course I know she bloody lives there! But there’s something really different between having the knowledge of someone or hearing them moving about to being face-to-face with them unexpectedly. I instantly snapped into adult and pasted on a friendly smile and said “Hi”. A’s daughter smiled back and apologised for being there and then carried on out. All the while Anita was at the door – so she saw the whole thing.
Ummm.
Let’s be honest. This completely threw me. I got into the room and expected A to make some reference to it. It can’t just be me that thinks that’s a fairly big deal knowing exactly what we work on? I mean basically I saw the ‘sibling’. The favourite one. In the normal run of things I would have said something to Anita but given how it was then, and her total lack of capacity to hold anything I wasn’t about to bring the, “Seeing your daughter and talking to her felt really weird and it’s upset me a bit because the young parts want you to themselves and I feel like these days I get less and less of you”. Basically, it was the fantasy meeting harsh reality. And of course I know the reality – I guess I just didn’t want to be faced with it like this.
So, that was weird.
Really weird.
But then it happened again a few weeks later.
Are you fucking kidding me?!
This time we had a bit more of a conversation – nothing massive but she recognised me. She must be thinking, ‘There’s that client that’s here all the fucking time and never leaves my mum alone!’
So yeah. That was unexpected and uncomfortable. I mean, I guess sometimes parts of us would like to feel more included in parts of our therapist’s lives – but I can categorically say, that the part I am absolutely not wanting to know or come face-to-face with is her beloved children!
Anyway, I don’t have much more to say on that, I just thought I’d let you know as at this point I don’t think you can make it up! I mean I could unpick the psychology behind it but we know it don’t we? Ugh.
Anita is now away on holiday so it’s a three-week break – just marvellous. I’ve got another post swirling in my brain, so I’ll get to that sometime soon – suffice to say my internal mini bus isn’t in great shape.
They say procrastination is a trauma response and if the lack of being able to write this blog is anything to go by then, yep…! I mean I agree with that statement anyway – I am the queen of avoidance and procrastination and it definitely stems from trauma, a fear of failure, the list goes on…
I have been meaning/wanting to write for ages but every time I think about actually typing what’s been going on I recoil and find something else to do, or do nothing – actually that’s a lot more accurate! – so much time mindlessly scrolling through social media to distract! If I do make it as far as grabbing the lap top I turn it on and just have it sat next to me open and can’t type. There’s a part of me that wants to process and share what’s happening but there’s another part that feels, I dunno, perhaps that if I write it makes it all the more real? And I don’t especially want the last couple of months to be real.
In addition to this, I feel almost like I can’t formulate my thoughts in a logical, readable way and I aware that so many weeks have gone by, and so much has happened, that it’ll come out in a non-sensical mess. I don’t really know why that bothers me – perfectionist streak maybe? Not wanting to be judged by others? I know I used to write so much ‘better’ than I do now. These days it’s about whacking it on the page when I can, whereas before I think I actually crafted stuff before and had stuff to say that was a bit more interesting. Maybe no one else notices and I am just critical of myself, but it is something I am aware of, and I feel like maybe this blog, like my therapy, is in its death throes.
Since my last post where I listed all the random ball dropping that Anita seemed to be doing i.e not holding the frame very well: dogs barking, people wandering around outside, wet hair/not seeming ready, forgetting to put the books out, and of course forgetting to call me before my holiday things got much worse. I guess you could say all the things I have been noticing have really been symptoms of a much larger problem and it was only a matter of time until the bomb went off. However, if I am the Queen of Avoidance I am beginning to see that Anita, in certain aspects of her life, is the High Priestess!
The last year or so has been up and down. We’ve navigated our way through whatever’s come but, frequently, I have felt like what’s been happening is not necessarily ‘my stuff’. Of course, ‘my stuff’ gets triggered in relation to Anita, that’s the nature of what we are working on…but the rupture we had (in err, was it November??) where she said something about me being ‘too dependent’ (which she later swore blind she hadn’t said) felt really off. I felt (and knew) already that her personal life was difficult from a previous ‘honesty session/rupture’ but it seemed now that she was funnelling her frustrations into me and my therapy. It’s easier to feel that a client is too needy than admit her kids, parent, and all the other people that place endless demands on her are causing her to sink. Clients can be moved on and let go, family …less so!
Anyway, therapy this last year has been, I dunno… not especially therapeutic maybe? I mean, on a level it is, because regularly seeing Anita does a lot for the parts of me that fears people disappearing out of nowhere. There are parts of me that feel that after three years we can ride out whatever comes up between us and there is enough of a sense of safety in the relationship to allow me to get on and do what I need to do in my life and in my healing without the need for her to be there 100% of the time. There is an invisible string at work.
So much of the progress I have made with my mental health has happened as a result of the relationship with Anita but the work doesn’t just happen in the room. However the security that is built in the room and the safety that I feel in the relationship and in myself now means that I have been able to do so much better out of it. And of course there have been plenty of really connected sessions over the course of the year. So it’s not all bad. Far from it!
I think the early days of the therapy were really intense with Anita. I had just come out of the HORRIFIC termination with Em and there was a lot of massive stuff coming up and out then. The therapy felt really huge and helpful. Tbh it was pretty life-saving. I was so broken by what happened with Em that Anita saw me warts and all from the beginning. Anita’s approach was so different to Em’s and it felt so nurturing and holding and basically a massive fucking contrast to what I was used to.
It felt like I was having an enormous corrective experience from the get-go with Anita and she didn’t even know me. The compassion and care just came out of Anita is endless waves. I couldn’t not take it in even if a lot of it bounced off – enough of it was able to trickle down through the cracks and soothe the hurt places. The best thing about seeing Anita in the early days is there was no guess work involved for the young parts. Anita said exactly what she thought- and felt- and saw and it was so unbelievably refreshing. She didn’t hide her emotions from me, nor was she afraid to tell me how she felt about me. It wasn’t ‘love’ at that point but I was someone who was lovable and worthy of her time and care.
Then the pandemic hit a couple of months in, and we moved online for all those looooonnnnggggg months which meant there was a lot of time to get to know Anita without the room dynamic. She got a lot of my back story and bit by bit parts of me started to trust her. And then of course the attachment stuff went live (!!!) about six months in, but magically I was able to tell her (!) and it was completely accepted, welcomed even. The return to the room was unreal for the relationship and so so healing. The first session back saw our first hug. I’d spent years sitting across from Em dying inside because I felt so unlovable and untouchable and here was A opening her arms to me and pulling me into a proper, deep squeeze.
That, first, barely twenty second hug at the end of that session will stay with me forever. I felt like years of trauma was being released. The biggest thing was that she didn’t let go. It was me that pulled away and it has continued to be that way always – she never lets me go. Then of course actual massive holding happened in the sessions and this led to the me and the young parts being able to tell her I loved her in words to her face and having that reciprocated.
I mean ALL of that was massive and did such a lot to help heal the wounded young parts of me. Then there’s the heart necklace she gave me…
all the gifts over the years…the texts, check ins… there’s just been such a lot of ground work that’s been put into the relationship. The healed ruptures have been instrumental in my growth, too. It’s been far from easy at times (embarrassing as hell but never shaming) but Anita has been there rock solid throughout. I could go on and on but most of you have been here a long time and have been alongside me for the journey, so you know.
And…being realistic about things, my therapy – even now, despite all the changes – is still what a lot of people dream of. The level of intimacy there is in the relationship is … huge. And so no matter what happens I am just eternally grateful for what I’ve had, and what the relationship has allowed in terms of healing. When I think about what it would be like to not have A and start again I literally can’t imagine doing it. I don’t want to be without her. I don’t want to build another therapeutic relationship. I also know that no matter how good the next person would be I would probably negatively compare back to A because what we have/had has been more than I imagined possible and has held me through some massive emotional stuff. I can’t imagine anyone else doing the work A has with the young, traumatised parts.
I mean, perhaps now I wouldn’t need or look to another therapist to do the things Anita has done for me, because to an extent I don’t look to Anita in the same way for those things anymore, either. Our relationship is different now, or I am… we both are. I have deeper roots and am more able to withstand storms and there is a level of trust and knowledge of her care and love that means I bounce back quicker when things go wrong.
The intensity of the young part/s to need to be endlessly connected to Anita isn’t there in the same way now because we’ve moved through that stage a bit (!). Of course, that part still wants to be close and the cuddles and stories in sessions are really important – but what’s different is the need for holding ‘all the time’ (because that’s how it used to feel) or the hanging on desperately for sessions because the need to be connected and attached in a tangible physical sense was so intense and the time between felt painful. It’s not like that now.
I am not triggered out my brain when she doesn’t respond to a text whereas there have been times when I have gone belly up in the early days (you’ve seen the posts, so you know! Cringe!) and whilst I miss her sometimes I don’t feel like my life is revolving around those couple of hours a week. It’s taken a long time and a lot of work, but it is possible to move through this stuff. I don’t think I could ever go back to needing her like I did.
I want her in my life, and I want to continue on with the work (if possible) but I don’t think my world would fall apart if I go in on Monday and we have to end. I’d be gutted. Of course, I would. But I also feel like the work we have done so far has been game-changing for me. When we started the work, I needed her to keep me from drowning because I was sinking under the water. Whereas now I can swim doggy paddle. I’d like to think with more work I’ll be capable of butterfly, but I know that if she goes now that I won’t drown. And that’s huge. That’s a massive gift. Her love and care has been internalised enough so that I can actually live well.
I can really see how far I have come and how much work has been done on the various parts of me that were so wounded where previously the slightest misstep (perceived or real) on A’s part felt like vinegar being poured straight into the open ulcerated (mother) wound. That’s not so much the case now. Case in point is when she didn’t call me in February before my holiday. That would have been absolutely unsurvivable for parts of me a couple of years ago, but now, it hurt some parts but not enough for me to have a complete breakdown about it.
It didn’t completely derail me and the therapy altogether. I wasn’t caught circling the drain of being unlovable and unimportant. I didn’t spend months and months silently brooding in pain about it. That’s not to say there was no reaction – there absolutely was but it was just part of the story. I (and the parts) reacted to Anita’s poor handling of it at the time but then, I think most importantly is that I was able to bring it to Anita and tell her exactly how I felt the next session with adult telling the story and thank goodness I was able to be adult because that was fucking fateful session…
Yikes…
Soooo….here we go!!! … y’all ready?! Deep breaths.
What I hadn’t banked on that next session after my walking out, coming back to repair, and having a cuddle, was Anita hitting burnout and breakdown. Like I’d sensed she wasn’t ok – well more than sensed it, I felt it – but at the end of February it came out properly in that session. It was a session that was not therapy but was at least honest and allowed me to know what was happening. In some ways it was good to finally hear the truth. It made me feel less mental, actually. But crikey it was once of those situations we all dread. I spent a lot of time fearing being ‘too much’ in therapy but I hadn’t really ever banked on my therapist falling apart. FFS!
Sometimes I think it’s possible to join dots in the wrong ways and get in a muddle in therapy. It’s a tendency of mine to feel like something is off and then look for reasons that it could be my fault. What is it that I am doing wrong? Why does Anita feel distant/far away? It must be because her feelings towards me have changed or are negative and it sets the young parts off in a panic. I mean it’s more complex than that but that’s a simplified version of what can happen. Only it wasn’t me. It isn’t me…not this time (mind you was it me with Em, either?!). Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the situation though – because even though what’s happening is nothing to do with me, it’s my therapy, and my relationship that is teetering on the edge of the abyss.
I can’t tell you how many times over the last few months I have said to Anita that she’s changed or that I have felt that she’s not there. My antennas are so honed and are perpetually scanning for threat of abandonment that I pick up on the tiniest thing. Anita has acknowledged that this both a superpower and a burden for me at times but knows that she can’t hide from me because I see stuff before she even does. Thanks trauma!
She’s sworn blind this last year that nothing has changed and that everything is ok, even so far as saying “I am not in the place I was last year” at one point (EYE ROLL!). And I suppose on a level that’s correct in so far as her feelings towards me haven’t changed but she has changed. Her capacity has changed, and she is on her edge and no she is not where she was last year…in fact it’s much much worse than she was last year – she’s so overwhelmed she said that sometimes she can’t see a way out of her situation.
To be fair, I think when we’re in an impossible situation our minds hide the extent of how bad it is from us…or at least I think this is what’s happened with A. But as I said, none of this fucking helps me, or my therapy which has hit the skids as a result.
Anyway, I’ll try and condense this as it’s just a long drawn-out pile of shit to be honest with you. I had thought of typing the transcript of the bomb drop session but I am not sure there is anything to be gained by it. I might post it separately another time.
Basically, what happened was that I arrived and quickly felt a bit sick and unsettled but I couldn’t locate any reason for it in me. I told Anita I felt off and she said, “I wonder if you are picking up on my being overwhelmed?” This set alarm bells ringing but also another part was like, “Phew I am not going mad, after all!”
Anita told me she was really struggling to the extent that she was wondering whether she might have to take a break from work altogether. She said she was having extra supervision but didn’t know how things were going to pan out. She told me she’d cut her client load down significantly and hadn’t taken on any trauma clients in over a year… she was on the verge of tears and I took her hand and held it for the duration of the session. Inside part of me was panicking at what this might mean for me and another part was ok. Thankfully, there is that part now that feels strong enough to withstand the thing I have always feared most – being left.
The session was hard. A was not in a good place at all but we spoke a lot. At one point I asked her whether she wanted me to leave (as in end the therapy). She emphatically said no, that wasn’t what she wanted. And I believe her when she says that’s not what she wants at all…but that she also said doesn’t want the therapy to be detrimental to me and she has to be in a good enough place to hold the work and she wasn’t sure that she was.
Anyway, it was a weird session because on a level it wasn’t about me at all, but on the other hand it allowed me to see exactly how things were and see that my anxiety was 1) founded and 2) I was not nuts. It was heartfelt and gut-wrenching session. There was talk about the love and the care and how none of that stuff has changed at all between us. What’s happening for A is nothing about our relationship (but our relationship may end up being collateral damage). It’s everything to do with her own life. And that fucking sucks balls, but at the same time there’s a part of me that can accept that life is a bloody rollercoaster sometimes and we can’t predict the future.
By all accounts A has tried really hard to protect me and my therapy through her life collapsing around her ears. I haven’t been let go and she has tried really hard to be there as much as she can be. She told me she is committed to me and to being there, but she is also aware that that may not be enough for me. Over the last few weeks, we keep coming back round to the same thing, and it’s her saying that she doesn’t think what she offers is enough because it’s so much less than she used to give. It’s interesting. Of course, I miss what we’ve had but at the same time we are not in the same place that we used to be.
I told her that I feel like a lot of this is her stuff and not coming from me – i.e it’s her guilt perhaps about knowing she isn’t how she was rather than me having a meltdown about it in the here and now. I think she wants to be able to give more, perhaps feels I deserve more, and feels like she’s failing me or causing me harm because she can’t give it. As I say I might at some point write up part of that session because it was HEAVY and REAL but we’ll see. Time keeps marching on and as I said at the beginning I’m not finding it very easy to write.
Don’t get me wrong – I (and the parts) did fully have a meltdown starting in Feb 2022 for a fucking really long time about ‘everything’ being taken away and the feeling of her stepping back – but I am not there in the same way now but I can imagine that A is very aware of how much I have struggled. Sometimes stuff gets triggered – of course it does. When I am wobbling I long for the old Anita who I could reach out to and who would reply almost immediately, offer an extra session, or a longer session – but at the same time, I know that I can be ok without all that I had before because what I have got is still valuable and I have moved a long way since the time when that need was really there.
As I have said what I still have is what a lot of people wish for: the outside contact (never had a shaming boundary talk about that with Anita – unlike with Em), Anita and I still have regular contact, she sends me Gifs and replies to my messages, the physical touch and holding, the stories for the young parts, transitional objects, washing my elephant, the safe enough space to express my feelings – I can’t tell you how big a deal it is to be able to say “I love you” most sessions and to have it responded to with the same, and the gifts (despite being mired in shit she still remembered my birthday the other week and bought me some really lovely presents)…
I mean there’s loads of stuff that is so much more than your average therapy and so it’s about taking a reality check – it’s still more than I could ever have hoped for when I was with Em.
So, although I haven’t spoken in detail about that session what I can say is it wasn’t easy and left me feeling a bit unsure of the best course of action. Anita and I agreed that neither of us wanted to the therapy to end but that we had to keep checking in with where things were at. It turns out that is easier said than done! I took False Adult to quite a few sessions and talked about stuff like work rather than us or where things were going… which was a mistake. I think I was trying to be the ‘easy’ client and not give Anita any reason to feel stressed by me so she wouldn’t pull the plug on us. I recognise that this is a well-worn pattern – autopilot if you like. I have spent so many years of my life in hiding that I don’t think I always recognise when it’s happening…until there’s a kick back from other parts. Which is what happened.
A few weeks after the session where it felt like things might end, I had worked myself up to a state of high anxiety. Basically, I’d kept the young parts out the room altogether, hadn’t hugged Anita at all (although she had offered hugs), and felt really far away. The first ten minutes of the session were small talk and then I told A that I was having nightmares and struggling with sleep. The conversation meandered a bit and then A asked, “Are you feeling anxious?” I nodded. Part of me felt relieved that she’d ‘seen’ me and what was going on because I had been masking so well. I felt like I needed to be able to let out my fears and just be held and give space to those little parts who were feeling scared. Of course, this is what Anita would have done previously when she was fully functional…but that isn’t who I have right now.
Instead, the other shoe dropped. It’s what I had been panicking about and why I had kept False Adult front and centre. Anita continued, “Are you anxious about us?” Again, I nodded. “Wondering if I have got the capacity?” Another nod. Then came the sucker punch. “Yeah, I’ve been wondering about that too.” I felt my stomach fall through the floor. “And I think the saddest thing is my situation is going to get worse, not better” …
Silence.
“I’m wondering if it’s – and as much as I don’t want to and you don’t want to – I’m wondering if it’s time to start looking around for someone else who has got the capacity – and I really I don’t want to say that – I really don’t but I think you are feeling the same aren’t you?…what are you feeling?”
I was feeling sick. This couldn’t really be it could it?
I replied, “I feel like I am watching a car crash in slow motion.” Anita looked really sad and then simply said, “Yeah, I get that.”
Then she said, “Can I give you a hug?”
I was a bit blown away tbh. Teen sullenly replied, “What’s the point?” I mean wtf was going on here? Was she ending the therapy or what?
Anita was on the verge of tears at this point and with so much feeling in her voice said, “It’s not what either of us want. It doesn’t mean I don’t care. It doesn’t mean I don’t love you. It really doesn’t…this isn’t what I want. Do you believe me?”
The adult that had been available to me in the last session was not there in the same way this time. I felt like I had been upended and went into myself to protect myself, but I stayed as present as I could because despite how fucking scary it felt there was still a part of me that felt like it might be ok. Maybe I was delusional?! But it allowed me to stay and to listen and to try and make sense of what was going on.
Anita and I battled on through the session. It was heart to heart stuff. There were tears. I mean it was fucking hideous but at the same time it was absolute stripped back, honest, and real – and because of that…connecting. I explained what I thought was going on about her feeling like she’s not giving enough, and she agreed that she was really struggling with feeling like she wasn’t giving like she used to. I said that lots of that was her not me. Time was up and I left feeling exhausted.
I sent Anita a message after the session:
If it was down to me, you know I would never let you go because I can’t imagine my world without you in it. But I get it’s not my choice and I don’t want to be the thing that pushes you over the edge because I love you way too much for that. I’ve clearly not got it right lately. I’ve been hiding to try and give you space. That’s what’s unsettled me. I haven’t wanted to talk or fill space at all with general life irritations. I’ve just wanted to be close to you – to cuddle and ride it out quietly. But I have kept away because I don’t want to break you and haven’t known what’s ok, or if you even want me to be there. It’s the distance in the room that panics me. I know it’s of my own making. You have asked me if I have wanted hugs. I just want you to be ok.
We kept in touch back and forth that week with short messages and gifs and it’s felt ok. Anita has been poorly and so I’ve been keeping my distance because she has been really breathless with asthma and a chest infection. It’s not been easy for the young parts because I really want to cuddle and be close and reconnect after all that’s been going on but don’t want to put any additional pressure on A when she’s not well. Having me stuck on her when she can’t breathe wouldn’t help would it?!
Then it was the bank-holiday weekend and a break (yuck!) and so we did Tuesday instead and a bit of a bumpy re-entry. I wasn’t feeling great, and I kept her at arm’s length which is pretty usual territory round breaks. She’d asked if I wanted a cuddle early on, but the protectors were having none of it. Some things never change! GROAN!
However, I’d got over myself a bit over the course of the week and on Friday she asked me again if I wanted a hug at the beginning of the session. There was no internal resistance at all, and I shuffled across the couch and we spent the entire hour cuddling. I said only three words in the entire time, “I love you”. Anita replied, “I love you too” and held me even more tightly.
A few times over the session she asked me what was going on for me or if there was anything I wanted to say… but I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t say anything. I just cuddled her tighter, listened to her heartbeat and allowed my system to take her in and relax. At the end she said it felt like we had had a really grounding session where we had reconnected after a long time…and sometimes we don’t need words. And, she’s right. That hour was so needed after the last couple of months.
I know that is really long-winded and probably doesn’t make a lot of sense. I’ll try and keep up with this a bit better going forward! So really I don’t know what’s going on. Maybe we’ll make it through this, maybe we won’t. However, if it does end it won’t be for the lack of love.
So, it’s been another while since I have posted again… This is mainly because life is so unbelievably busy that I simply haven’t had time to sit and write – but it’s also because really I haven’t found my feet back in therapy since the Christmas break (yes – I know it’s almost March!). It’s felt like there’s been a catalogue of ‘mini-disasters’ in the room with Anita since the holidays which has made it feel difficult to drop into feeling completely safe – or at least safe enough to address some of the lingering murk that always rears its head in the early part of the year – namely the catastrophic end that Em and I went through three years ago … THREE YEARS AGO!!
Because that stuff around Em (and by extension the mother wound) is so huge, and so painful, I have to feel so completely contained and safe in the relationship with Anita to be able to go anywhere near it….and I just haven’t. Parts of me have gone into hiding and it’s not helped things in the room at all. I mean it’s been ok, but just not ok enough for me to get to the parts that are requiring attention and care…and because time is rolling on and those parts are not getting what they need, it’s making it feel crappy inside. I feel abandoned and rejected – and part of that is my doing because I haven’t let Anita in, she doesn’t know what’s going on.
My system is having a bit of a malfunction and it feels really disappointing to be in this place tbh. I am trying not to judge myself and just accept that whatever is coming up is just part of what needs to happen right now – but I can’t lie, I am not enjoying the levels of upset and dissociation that has crept back in. I know that I need to find a way to get properly back to A this coming week because I can feel myself starting to fall down a hole that I haven’t been in for a long while and I know that if I don’t send out an SOS cry then I am going to be…well…I just can’t go there again. I feel really lost. And the young parts – particularly the teen is not ok.
I tend not to write mid ‘crap’ on the blog these days. I prefer to write and process things a bit after whatever was going on has run its course and things have resolved a bit…basically when things feel a bit more together. I want to reflect from my Adult self rather than post in a triggered state – but the rate things are going it could be 2024 before I am able to do that so I guess I’ll just do a quick catch up before this blog dies altogether. I know I keep saying this, but I think I need to carve out some time somewhere for me to be able to write – even if it’s not blogging- because it has been such a helpful tool over the years…I just don’t know where that time will come from!
Anyway, here goes…
It’s clear as day to me that I am swimming (drowning) in the shit infested emotional seas right now. I feel like I am lost. And where in the past I’ve used the analogy of Stevie Smith’s poem, ‘Not Waving But Drowning’ – where people on the shore mistake the drowning swimmer for someone who is waving at them so they don’t respond. However, right now I feel like I am not even trying to get noticed – I couldn’t be mistaken for waving because I’ve almost resigned myself to drowning. Well not that, exactly, but I am not sending up the signal to show that I am not ok because the fact is there is no one standing on the beach watching. There is no one to notice the distress to come and help. There is no one to save me, and so I am trying hard to muster the energy to save myself but it’s not easy when you’re exhausted.
We’ve all been here.
We know we need to do better but sometimes all you can do is just keep treading water until things ease off…but it’s hard. Fortunately, I am a strong swimmer and I have been in choppy waters and rip currents enough to know that the sea will calm and I will find my way out of it…eventually.
I seem to be triggered left, right, and centre- and just as I feel like I am getting my head above water I get hit with something else. I really don’t think perimenopause is helping with this– and that’s not me playing the crazy hormones card, but honestly I am finding that my emotions are very heightened alongside my cycle now. I feel so bonkers around ovulation, and even paranoid at times – so, I am sure that’s an exacerbating factor in all this, too. Unfortunately, there’s not a great deal I can do about that other than up the self-care, be mindful, and take the supplements, eat better, and try and get the sleep in. Ah sleep…that elusive balm. Again, I am sure this is perimenopause. ARGH!!
Anyway, I am struggling a bit and the reality is, the anniversary of mine and Em’s end really hit me hard this year. I don’t know why – you’d think the further I get away from that the easier it would be, but sadly, “like a tick” is stuck deep in my young parts’ psyche and whilst Adult me knows what she said was completely out of order, as we well know, a hurt young part holds onto these negative soundbites like a security blanket confirming why we are unworthy of love and care.
Christmas was especially hard this year, too, when my mum failed to acknowledge me, my wife, or my children. And whilst our relationship is patchy at best these days, it felt like a deliberate and calculated kick in the teeth – a punishment for I have no idea what…?
Let’s be clear – I am in therapy because of my mother wound and whilst events in the here and now aren’t the end of the world (and they really aren’t) what these rejections or abandonments tap into is all the pain I experienced as a child and it seems to pour petrol on the fire. And that’s when it all goes wrong!
So, my mum not really engaging with me anymore is what it is – no worries – I have a wonderful little family unit and we are happy as we are – but to the little parts that are so hurt it just twists the knife again into that wound…and of course that then plays out in my therapy with Anita as I search and scan for evidence that she, too, doesn’t really care and would rather not be around me. And of course, breaks do this. Again, breaks are just breaks to Adult me…but breaks to the young parts…well, it’s not great is it?! #therapybreakhell
I think sometimes as an adult you can really sometimes doubt your childhood experience and wonder if you are just stuck and locked in victim mode and perhaps it wasn’t really that bad. I mean, seriously, I am getting really bored of navigating this emotional territory over and over but I am not doing it on purpose! I am not choosing to be here. I am trying hard to heal this stuff so I don’t keep falling flat on my face…and it’s working…I think. But some weeks are better than others. Today just happens to be part of one of the bad weeks but there have been months of much much better weeks.
Adult is gaining power, but the young parts are obviously still very much part of the system and I think will continue to be. I don’t see the goal as ‘getting rid’ of those younger parts – they are there to give me information about my feelings and need listening to – and dare I say it, are welcome…even the critic! The more I can give them space whilst being able to keep a foot in adult the better.
The biggest difference that I feel now is that where previously the young parts could completely steam roller me and almost take Adult hostage (kind of how it feels this weekend), there is a move towards Adult being able to communicate with those small parts and hold and soothe them to a degree. I mean obviously I am not the preferred Adult/parent but this is a million miles further forward from when I was working with Em. Back then I could see and feel these distressed young parts but I could do absolutely nothing to help them. Because of the work I’ve done with Anita I know what it is to feel held, loved, cared for and can now copy that, sort of.
Anyway, back to actual therapy:
The first session back after the break was 9th of January…which felt like an eternity after Christmas. So, it had been a looooooooong break – not ideal. My mum had been shit – again, not ideal. It was knee deep into the anniversary period of the notoriously bad time when Em and I colossally collapsed – not ideal…and so, yeah, I was very fragile, sensitive, and hypervigilant heading back to A… I was desperate to see her. I mean the little ones were absolutely in need of hugs and stories and reassurance that everything was ok.
It’s been such a long time since those early sessions that I can’t even really remember the details of what happened and I can’t be arsed to go back and listen to see what happened. What I can tell you is that there have been a few hiccups that have meant I haven’t been able to quite settle into the therapy. You’ll laugh when you read this, because I think on their own these things perhaps aren’t a big deal – but cumulatively they’ve felt big enough to stop me doing the work I really need to do. It’s felt like the safe container is a bit of a leaky bucket and so I’ve been waiting, poised in false adult a lot of the time waiting for ‘safe Anita’ to be there consistently.
Tbh I can’t quite remember the chronology of the little things that happened with Anita but I know the first session back she opened the door and her hair was still wet. “Big deal” I hear you say, but what that signalled to me was that she wasn’t quite ready for me, had been rushing, and probably wasn’t in the zone. Perhaps she was not wanting to be back to work and would not on her A game. I know that’s a lot of projection but that’s what we do isn’t it? When we feel vulnerable and uncontained, we really badly need our container (person and space) to be robust and any hint that they may not be sends things off.
The next session her dogs barked loudly for almost the entire session and I just couldn’t relax at all. I was jumpy and stressed out. I’d needed to talk the first session back but it was just filler and False Adult and now it felt like she wasn’t providing a safe, calm therapeutic space. I felt angry that day. I had stuff I really needed to dig into and I was left feeling like she didn’t really care enough to make sure the space was ‘therapeutic’.
In another one I could hear her adult daughter wandering around in the corridor right out outside the room which again made me not be able to relax (I think this is the one that pissed me off the most!).
In another she’d forgotten to put our stories out, which again signalled that she wasn’t really ready – or more over, didn’t have the young parts and me kept in mind. She forgot the books once before a long while back and I went belly up about it. It was a big rupture. This time I didn’t say anything – teen me was just thinking “what’s the point?” because we were traversing this weird not quite right space and quite frankly, I didn’t have the energy for it. But of course, the little parts were upset and disappointed.
In and of themselves these things above don’t seem like that big a deal but as I have said, cumulatively I just felt so off – such a departure from the Anita I used to see. So, False Adult turned up to lots of the sessions because I just did not want a rupture…but inside there was a lot up upset and unrest. The head injury I sustained at Christmas really affected me for most of the month of January too. I felt dissociated but not. My short term memory was awful and I would forget trains of thought and words and….well basically it was a nightmare. There was one session where I just sat there. My mind was completely empty. Peaceful even (Wow!). But it meant that there wasn’t really much therapy. I wasn’t sad about it though because I was so cognitively zoned out. I literally had no fucks to give!
Then anniversary of ending with Em rolled around and I didn’t speak about it despite the fact it was swirling inside. It was mine and Anita’s three-year anniversary but I felt awkward somehow. I gave her a gift, but it just felt a bit…I dunno…strange this year. I think that’s definitely me, not her.
That’s not to say during this period A and I haven’t connected. We have had a few hugs and stories – it’s not been completely distant…but I just haven’t felt quite right. Stuff was building up and up and up and then I had a very bad dissociative day and it hit me afterwards that it was the actual day of ‘tick gate’. The body remembers even if the mind isn’t quite on it!
The next session I was determined to go and talk things through with Anita. You know when it’s just built up to a point where you have to? Avoidance is out. You just need to do the work. You need to take a risk and oftentimes when you do that that’s when things feel most held and connected. Anita is not a mind reader and so if I come in in False Adult I think she can think I am ok…enough. If I actually show her or tell her I am struggling then she’s there. Sometimes I think I don’t give her the opportunity to meet me, but then there’s another part of me that feels like by now she should know me and my patterns well enough to spot when I might be hiding away.
So, that day a few weeks back (the ‘let’s do it’ day) it felt like the internal fog had lifted, the mistrust and crap about not feeling held or contained was gone. Anita and I have been together long enough for me to know that she’s there. She cares. And she’s human. (Am still fucked off about the disruptions though!) But it wasn’t serving me to keep stuff to myself. The child parts needed to be seen and held and to talk through the break and all the feelings of being left and abandoned.
It’s a 45 minute drive to Anita’s and I had just arrived in her town when I got a phone call from my wife telling me she needed to go to hospital urgently but didn’t think she could drive. So, that was therapy out. I text Anita just 15 minutes before my session and cancelled. I was gutted, but obviously my wife’s health and well-being take precedence. When I arrived home, I saw a message from A saying she hoped everything was ok and she was sorry not see me. I spent the day in hospital with my wife and it triggered a lot of the trauma from being young and also when I had to have all the chemo and radiotherapy for cancer- I wasn’t in a very good place and also so sad about not being able to see Anita when I had REALLY needed to and was REALLY ready to let stuff out.
I text Anita in the afternoon explaining what was going on (bad) and asked if she might have time for a quick check in before Friday and…she didn’t reply until the afternoon of the next day. That triggered me. Ugh. But not only that she said she didn’t have any space for me.
Ouch.
I wasn’t asking for a f-2-f session, I literally just wanted a five minute phonecall to touch base and she was too busy.
I was really upset about that. I mean really upset.
The next session was quite shutdown I think until I started crying and told her I had really needed to see her on Monday and then all the stuff about hospital trauma and stuff from being little came out. I thought Anita knew about this part of my story, but I think I must have shared it with Em (this is one thing I really hate about having switched therapists – I feel like so much of my story is held with Em). A responded with lots of love and care but, despite this I wasn’t able to tell her how hurt I felt about not having a check in. She’d brought it up and said she was sorry…but I was hurting a lot and the young parts just felt like she would have made time in the past.
I was due to go on holiday in half-term and so that was creeping ever closer…another break. Another disruption. I was flying on the Friday before half-term and I had asked again in a text if we might be able to check in. Again she said she was full. When I saw her in session she said she was sorry that she had no space in the week. I moodily replied, “I don’t want to see you, I don’t have time this week either, I just wanted to talk to you.” Anita hadn’t realised the check in I was asking for was a phone call and said that she could talk to me on the Wednesday evening before I went. It’s a day she has her grandchildren overnight but once she’d got them in bed we could talk. That sounded good to me.
So I left on the Monday feeling sad that it would be two weeks until I saw A, but grateful that at least we would talk and the child parts would get a bit of reassurance on the Wednesday.
Wednesday evening rolled around…and my phone didn’t ring. There was no text. Nothing. I went to bed upset but also kind of resigned to the fact that she’d not remembered me. On Thursday my phone remained blank. No contact.
By the evening part of me was panicking that something had happened to Anita…but more voices were shouting, “She’s forgotten about you. She doesn’t care. Out of sight, out of mind! You’re just not that important anymore.” – that stuff on a loop. I felt really sad. I went to bed on Thursday ready to fly on Friday and when I woke up at 3am there was a message from Anita on my phone sent at 11pm Thursday night:
I am so sorry about last night. Not only was it children, but our electric kept tripping off on the sockets, so (partner) had to come down to sort it. I hope you have a lovely time away and can fully recharge xx (heart).
I looked at the message and was just really fucking mad. Like, really? Sure things go wrong and perhaps it all got chaotic that evening. But the thing that really hurt me was that she was only acknowledging this more than 24 hours after we were meant to check in. It hurt because the reason I had asked for the check in in the first place was because there was a break coming up and the little parts get so distressed. Anita knew this. And so that message just felt shit on so many levels.
In the past I would have replied to that message and fired something back showing just how hurt and upset I was. But I didn’t. I just didn’t reply at all. I was sick for the first part of my holiday which was a real pisser and I was having nightmares with Anita in them. By Monday evening I was really struggling with the little parts. I sent Anita a message with something from Carolyn Spring about shame and the link to a song, a friend had shared with me by Sia which really encapsulated how I was feeling.
I heard nothing from Anita.
In the past when I have been away and it’s been our session time she’s sent me a text to tell me she’s thinking of me. Not this time.
On Friday she sent me a text wishing me a safe journey home and sending a hug…but by that time I just felt really cut off. Like, really? Can she really not know how upset I am.
Ugh.
Monday ended up a complete shitting disaster. I could barely speak to her and dissociated so badly that it felt like there was literal grey fog in the room. I couldn’t see properly. I was quiet. I was hoping Anita would say something early on about the missed check in but she didn’t and this shut me down even further. I had expected her to say something – surely that text wasn’t adequate and she couldn’t feel like that was the matter closed? The pain inside was intense and A just seemed to leave me in it. She didn’t reach out, ask to hold my hand, see if I wanted a hug, enquire which parts were there. At around the half hour mark she asked if what was going on was due to gap or her not calling on the Wednesday.
I couldn’t speak.
And then she said, “In hindsight, I won’t do that again. I should have said no in the first place.”
With that I got up and said, “I’m so done. That’s not fair.” And walked out.
I was so upset.
Maybe she shouldn’t have offered the check in, and maybe with hindsight it was a mistake but the mistake has been made and surely it’s up to her to try and find a repair and allow the hurt parts to talk about what it felt like to be let down and seemingly forgotten about. Instead, it felt like I was being punished for her cock up. My reaction was making her uncomfortable, obviously another example of being ‘too dependent’, and so rather than look at that, just withdraw yet another thing that helps. We don’t do longer sessions anymore, now check ins are off the cards. I am waiting to see what happens with bank holidays. Previously, we’ve always rescheduled to another time in the week but I am guessing now I’ll just miss the session…that I have paid for.
Oh, and don’t get me started on that. She’s upped her prices too.
So, yeah. It’s all been a bit bumpy to say the least. We have managed to repair things a bit. I went back after walking out and a glimmer of old Anita was there. She had softened a lot and told me she cares, loves me etc etc and held me in tight hug for the remainder of the session…
But…
Ugh…
It feels like we are a long way off base right now.
Part of me is wondering how much of this has been triggered by all the stuff I am carrying emotionally and so I am just being over sensitive. Another part is wondering if I just need to be realistic and adjust my expectations of the therapy. Anita’s capacity has changed. She isn’t the same as she was, but I still get a lot… I dunno. And after all, she is just a therapist.
I guess we’ll see. Apologies that this is just a moaning rant of nothing. I don’t have much reflective capacity right now. I just feel sad. I’ll get through it, though, I always do.
So – it’s been a very BIG month, or so, with Anita and therapy. I mean, wow – talk about rupture! I will try telling you all about it as ‘calm me’ after you first see the ‘not calm me’ below, in a sec (which was written in the thick of it) but since ‘calm me’ is now back online all that transpired has all gone a bit hazy – or deliberately dissociated?! I feel like I might be a bit of an unreliable narrator now (no change there, then!). And since things are largely resolved and settled again it is hard dragging my mind back to the stress of the rupture and the detail of it.
I’m in that post-Christmas fog of procrastination and borderline depression, too, so I need to be careful not to pick at a scab (throwing myself back in to remembering details of the horror) when it’s still a long time until I actually get to see Anita again because man, I am really feeling the ache right now. I really miss Anita (no surprises there!) and am consciously trying to ensure I don’t fall down the hole of doom when there’s still 10 days until I see A again…10 DAYS. Argh!
Still, I thought I would write a post today (beware it is absolutely mammoth) to try and keep a log and update where I am at because it all moved so fast, is more-or-less resolved, and I realise that I won’t have logged this at all. Next week work will be back up and running and I’ll be busy, busy, busy again so it’s now or never. This blog was always intended to be an online therapy diary, but over the last year I have had less and less time to write and so I don’t really know what it is anymore…a webspace I pay for?! Lol! I have noticed that lots of people I follow are writing less regularly these days, but I am always glad to see their posts when they show up on my reader, so I hope that that is still the case with this blog.
Anyway, I have just got to the computer and seen that this is not the first time I have tried to start a post about the rupture. Ummm, that’s news to me! Shit… I know I was dissociated and it’s been a very bonkers time with two sick kids, a broken-down boiler, car packing up… [insert endless list of mishaps HERE]… as well as my therapy falling out its arse all before Christmas break, but really? What the actual fuck is/was going on in my poor little brain? Ah, yes, system meltdown. My absolute favourite.
This…this…’mess’..below…well I don’t even remember typing it! I can see how disjointed it is. How panicked it feels…and yet, as I said, I have no recollection whatsoever of writing it. So, here it is. It won’t make sense, it doesn’t even make sense to me! But I think it’s interesting to see just how bad it gets on an unfiltered level. So, bear with me – I’ll, (usual blogging RB) be back after this:
Honest to fucking god, I think I’ve done it this time. Just lock me up and throw away the fucking key where therapy is concerned because, frankly, I’m shit at it and shouldn’t be let loose on therapists… I feel sick. I’ve had the ‘therapy’ shits (ffs!). My heart is racing. Basically, my nervous system is in free fall and my body is freaking out.
So, here I am again. Facing down a massive rupture. But this one feels really scary…usually I meltdown and Anita is solid – but she’s wobbled this week. She doesn’t feel grounded. She is frustrated and that doesn’t feel safe AT ALL. The end of that session was – bizarre, to say the least. I can’t believe she just cut it dead like that. How did she think I would react? You can’t just randomly drop information like ‘I know I’m going to be getting married at some point and I don’t know what I’ll be doing’ in an argument, three minutes before the end of an already hideous session -and there not be some fall out.
I’ve listened to the session on my way home, and she says all the right things, but it just feels like empty words. Like it’s therapist 101 not the Anita I have a relationship with. To the outside world it probably feels and sounds fine…but it’s not…It feels like she’s distancing. And the end – well that was just a fucking disaster.
And that was where it ended….my typing in the moment freak out. But how did I get there?
I had been having a panic about something that had happened between a friend and her therapist– I was basically fearing that the same would happen to me and Anita and it had sent the child parts into a right state. I didn’t tell A about it in the week between sessions because I felt it could wait. But by Thursday evening I was really desperate to reconnect with Anita and see her in person to ‘confirm’ everything was still ok and to settle those panicking parts…and basically have a cuddle. The week had been hard – everything was tough, you know? Like every day was like trudging through treacle. I even managed to slam my finger in my car door! It was just one of those weeks.
Then, Anita cancelled our session Friday session last minute late Thursday night. I didn’t actually see the message until I woke up on Friday morning. I was gutted. And so I think that maybe acted as a catalyst for the acceleration into this rupture but it wasn’t the reason for it. I wasn’t angry that she was sick or anything, she can’t help that, and I really understood her need to cancel. In fact, that day I ended up taking a nap on the couch for two hours when I would have been driving to and from therapy, so it wasn’t like I sat crying about it. However, what the last-minute cancellation meant was that I had more time to work myself up about whether A and I were still solid because there was now going to be a longer gap between sessions.
The Monday session was a bit meh, it was hard to connect, and I left feeling disappointed because I think essentially ‘False Adult’ had taken over when I really really needed for A and I to be close. It was that annoying thing where the momentum of the therapy was interrupted and the need had ramped up, but alongside that so had the fear of being too much and so I failed to allow A in.
Things felt really crap and on Tuesday I sent Anita a message that on reflection didn’t make it massively explicit what was wrong as it was wedged between nothing stuff. Anita didn’t see it and didn’t reply. But from my side all I got was radio silence from her. No, “I hear you, I am here, let’s talk about this properly on Friday” or “We’re fine, I promise”. Just nothing. On Thursday night I was worked up and texted – “Are you ok?” No reply. Then in the morning a few minutes before our session, “Yes, just really busy”. Ffs we’ve been here before. Too ‘busy’ to pay attention, running about like a headless chicken, dropping balls…I sent a message, “I don’t want to come today”…and she obviously didn’t check her phone.
The message wasn’t an “I’m not coming” it was really a “I don’t want to come because I can’t face any more of the feeling of you letting me drift away and us not connecting”. I did go to session, though. I hoped that at least being in the room would enable us to talk things out. I arrived both angry (teen) and anxious (little ones). I sat down and just froze. Silent. Ugh. Not this again. I reached for Anita’s hand and started crying. Told her I felt like I was drowning, and she was just standing watching. I told her that it felt like everything was broken. “It doesn’t have to be broken” she soothed. But it just felt so fucking crap – I was too far gone.
In a barely audible whisper, I asked for a story and of course Anita got the pile of books from the table and asked me which one I wanted. I said I didn’t mind and she selected, ‘Dragon Loves Penguin’ which is a REALLY lovely book that we’ve had for a couple of months now. We’ve read it quite few times and the child parts ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. The story is really beautiful, and it’s been so connecting. BUT not this time.
FUCK!
Why?
Well, simple.
SHAME.
Yep. My longstanding best-friend decided that today was the day to bulldoze the very thing that is so helpful in connecting young parts to Anita.
It all started to go wrong when Anita didn’t invite me in for a cuddle when she opened the book – or I didn’t shuffle in like I might usually…I was already in a state of freeze, though, and really needed her to reach out to me. As Anita began to read, I felt more and more distant from her and more and more distressed.
But why?
Why did I suddenly feel shame listening to a story with Anita after so many years of listening to stories snuggled in close to her? Even after listening to this very story several times in the last couple of months? Well, the previous week we’d been reading and cuddling and generally just talking and she’d said something about me having a massive inner child. It wasn’t meant unkindly, rather it was acknowledging the vulnerability of the young parts and the need. But you know how it is. There’s always that internal searchlight scanning for change in the relationship, change in Anita, change in how she feels towards me…and my system clocked ‘massive’ as a potential negative and obviously put it in the bank for later.
That later was this story time. I wish I had been able to tell Anita what was going on when she asked what was wrong/happening – but I was deep down in the shame zone, drowning in the dark by then. And so, it all started unravelling from there. RB was triggered and off we went down a road that really wasn’t a lot of fun. I felt upset that Anita didn’t seem to be ‘there’ (she was there) and trying to ‘connect’ (she was trying) but you know how it is when things feel really bad. It can feel like you’re on the other side of the world to the person sitting barely two feet from you and there seems no way to bridge the gap. This distance always makes me feel abandoned even when Anita isn’t abandoning me and so EVERYTHING she says gets filtered through a lens of mistrust and fear.
I’d been sitting there silent internally crying out for her but externally stonewalling her. At one point Anita asked me what I get from therapy – it was an open question but it felt accusatory. Like “Why are you even here?” A snarling, angry, (hurting) teen part replied, “Oh, I don’t know, nightmares, anxiety, and panic attacks!” Anita took that and seemed to run with it without realising it was coming from the hurt teen who felt unseen and abandoned and was lashing out.
Anita said it wasn’t ok, and if therapy is detrimental to me then we needed to look at that. Which is all perfectly reasonable but to the part that was freaking out it came over as if A was about to dump me/us. Anita later asked, “What keeps you in therapy?” – this kind of question made me wonder what the fuck is going on and who the hell is sitting in front of me. Like she surely knows, right? Surely, she must know after all these years WHY I am there. Because I love her, am attached to her, and want to heal my mother wound through our relationship. Because therapy is helping me work through this EXACT shit. That her steady, consistent support is allowing ALL of my parts to come to therapy and do the work (even if it is fucking cringey). But when she asked the question, I could say nothing. When the child parts are feeling like abandonment is imminent there is no chance of me saying that to her.
And then it went SOUTH in a big way. I said that I felt she’d changed (she has changed the boundaries this year and is less responsive than she used to be due to changes in her personal life) and she said she hadn’t changed, that she didn’t feel like she’d changed. Then said that perhaps there was a pattern developing because I had felt similar with Em. She said that I had been anxious and panicked whilst seeing Em and stayed. What Anita meant by that and how I received it were worlds apart. She was coming at it from a place of not wanting me to stay in something that was damaging for me (if that was what was going on) BUT how I heard it? Oh my fucking god!
I was absolutely raging. I felt so upset that she seemed to be suggesting that this was a ‘me problem’ and that the common denominator is me and therefore it must be me that’s causing these issues and ruptures. I was silent for a bit but also so fucking angry. I told Anita I felt insulted because the relationship I had with Em and the relationship she and I have built are poles apart. Yes, the same issues are coming up but fuckkk it is just not the same. Anyway, my angry teen part went to town. It escalated and after telling me she might not be around forever, and that she was going to get married soon (great time to throw that in the mix!), A shut down the session really abruptly at the end (SHE HAS NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE). I told her it was bullshit and left. She was clearly frustrated, and a bit rattled at the end – actually it turns out she was anxious.
Looking back now, actually I think what I can see coming from all this is two people converging on something that escalated and there was a lot of transference and countertransference. I don’t like ruptures AT ALL but having now worked our way through the bracken and weeds and back onto a clearer path I can see that really it comes from care: my not wanting to lose A, and A not wanting to hurt me. But being human can be incredibly messy at times and things got worse before they got better.
When I got home, I decided to make a voice note to send to Anita trying to outline what the fuck had just happened and why I was so upset. Despite it feeling really bad it wasn’t so bad that I thought we were done. I guess that’s the one thing I can always land on or take comfort in. No matter how bonkers I feel, or what I throw at Anita, I don’t think she’s ever going to do an Em on me. I feel safe enough to really ‘bring it’ to her and feel confident enough that we will come out the other side.
By the time I had done that and sent it I saw a message on my phone from Anita:
I feel really sad that we ran out of time this morning and wondered if you would like to speak on the phone later today or I have a free slot at midday tomorrow?
That went some way to alleviating the panic of needing to wait until Friday to begin to sort stuff out but also showed me that A recognised that how things had been in that session/how we had left it wasn’t great and that it wouldn’t be ideal leaving it for the rest of the week. This was also sent before I had sent her my voice message. Basically, it showed me that even when it is messy and difficult, she’s still there and still cares. I asked to see her in person on the Tuesday as it really felt like we needed to be f-2-f to work this stuff out and I didn’t think a phone call would cut it when a sense of physical connection is so important to be able to even talk.
The session on Tuesday began with a long cuddle the moment I arrived. I started crying and felt so sad but also really relieved to be there. Anita and I sat down on the sofa, she opened her arms up and welcomed me in for a cuddle. If only that had happened in the last session! We said nothing for ten minutes, I just listened to heartbeat and eventually our breathing was in time and it felt calmer. Then I said, “I don’t want to lose you.” She replied, “I know.” Which did absolutely nothing to allay my fears about things going down the shitter and her wanting to find a way to end. My heart started to race again, and I felt a sense of panic flood my system.
Everything was so easily triggered.
Anita said she was concerned and was worried that the therapy was becoming detrimental for me. She then said something about wondering about growth. This pissed me right off, but you’ll see why in the letter that I wrote later…because in my view there is a LOT of growth. She was trying to find words and basically said the absolute kicker – that lodged like a thorn in my brain for weeks. She said something about wondering if I had become “too dependent” and then corrected herself and said “no, that’s not the right words.” But this ‘thinking out loud’ at that particular time was not what I needed to hear. She told me a bit later that she had thought that this rupture had been caused wholly by her cancelling the session the other week and had run off down a path of thinking that I was stuck because I was freaking out over her having one day off sick and that her not being available had sent me into a massive spiral and it that she felt like it was going backwards. Of course that wasn’t the case at all!!
At this point I didn’t know where all this crap was coming from. All I had heard so far was “where’s the growth”, “I feel like we’re stuck” and “maybe it’s become too dependent.” I felt really hurt but also really confused because ostensibly my needs haven’t changed. It has been Anita that has changed, her life that’s become more demanding, her that has become more thinly stretched – and as a result it is my therapy that has suffered the consequences of that. We don’t do the longer sessions anymore (that were so containing and helpful) and we have way less between session contact than before (again removing a level of containment).
These changes haven’t happened because I no longer need longer sessions or contact. It hasn’t been something we’ve contracted for or mutually agreed. It’s been something that’s been done because Anita’s life and capacity changed so dramatically last year. I realise I still get a lot more than most people in my therapy and so I would never leave based on those changes, but it seemed really unfair to say I was (potentially) too dependent when actually she gives me less now and I have stop asking for what I used to have.
To be honest, when it was all coming out it felt ‘off’ but it still hurt because I couldn’t really work out where this was all coming from. What was going on really didn’t feel like it was about ‘us’ in lots of ways. On my side it was certainly a re-enactment of stuff around my mum. I was feeling unseen, unimportant, and just vulnerable as hell. It’s also a shit time of year because it’s around this time that the wheels started to massively fall off with Em. Naturally I am hypervigilant, but at this time of year I am poised for another ‘tick’ situation. And a ‘too dependent’ came pretty close, I can tell you!
And for Anita, the stuff she was saying (it turns out) wasn’t about me. Really it came back round to her family’s endless demands on her, and her feeling trapped by her mum’s level of need. It was countertransference 101. It’s easier to make a client who you see 2 hours a week and has a need the problem though, rather than fully acknowledge that the family member who has made your life unrecognisable from what it was a 18 months ago and now lives with you makes you feel trapped and stuck. It wasn’t me and Anita that were “stuck” and it wasn’t me that was making her feel “trapped.” Anita is usually so ‘together’ and ‘grounded’ but she wasn’t – but I can understand it. I guess my needing her or my feeling like she’s not there when she feels like she is giving me all that she can probably feels frustrating when she has such a lot going on.
Arguably, this shouldn’t have happened. But at the same time, it is a very real and human relationship, and it takes place in real time. As much as we’d like to think therapists have completely got their shit together and are totally ‘on it’ so far as knowing what’s going on with them, I do think we all have blind spots. Fortunately, like I say, there is a strong enough foundation to our relationship that we can weather the storms and talk things through and afterwards it feels like we’ve made another load of progress.
It’s not comfortable by any means but it is another lesson in ‘you can go through hard things, act up, act out, shout, and it doesn’t mean the relationship will end…and not everything that happens is always about you and not everything is your fault’. I would rather Anita be able to put her hands up and tell me what’s going on when we have these things happen (when she is aware of it!) than have a situation like with Em where stuff would happen and I’d be completely in the dark and left thinking everything was always my fault because she was such a blank screen – or the fact she’d blame me for everything!
Anyway, we limped along for a few sessions. I was so exhausted with work, end of term, life…that there was one session where I just turned up and said, “Can we just be together today. I am too exhausted for this, and it can wait.” And so we had a lovely hour of cuddles, gentle chat, and stories. I get how nuts that sounds. To be in the thick of a rupture and then go, “Ah fuck it, it’ll work out, we are ok really, let’s just catch our breath!” But that is the lovely thing about where Anita and I have got to. It is safe enough to do this. We can have a rupture. I know it’ll repair. On a core level no matter what’s being thrown up, and what chaos I am working out, underneath Anita is there, my rabbit that listens.
I do wonder if I sound completely unhinged. Like how can I hold so many seemingly opposing ideas at the same time?! Ruptures used to absolutely terrify me. My nervous system still gets thrown through a loop even now. It’s old programming. But there is a toe out of the water that knows there’s dry land and I am not going to be fully swept away by the storm. So, yes, parts of me freak out, have their reactions, go through the motions of it all…but there is another part that’s like, “RB you are ok. No matter what happens, you’ll be ok…because you have YOU now.”
Anyway, after a gentle couple of sessions I built myself up to tell Anita that she had hurt me with her comment about “too dependent”. It was about three minutes before the end of the session (nice one RB!) and I was snuggled into her chest when I said it. Anita went rigid and then swore blind she hadn’t used those words. But of course, she had…even if she’d corrected herself immediately and there was no intention of hurting me. The session ended and I went home and typed up a letter than I decided I would send as a voice note. It had been several weeks since everything had started and I felt like I wanted to get stuff of my chest.
It is not always easy to do that in session. Especially when young parts are so present. So, here’s what I wrote and sent to her:
What I’m left with-
Is it really only since you got sick you feel we’re ‘stuck’? Has it really just gone to shit in two weeks?
You said I was “too dependent” and although you backtracked and said “maybe that’s not the right words” that’s sent waves through my system because I don’t know how to fix that other than take myself away and I really don’t want to do that because that is the very last thing I need. I know you said it because you thought my meltdown or struggling to reconnect had come from you being poorly – it wasn’t – but even if it was that it feels like a really shaming thing to say. I do know that’s not how you would have intended it to come across but also using words like “unhealthy” as well just really hurt me. And adult me can sidestep it but the younger parts do feel hurt and so I need to tell you.
I can already feel the protectors stepping in to protect the vulnerable parts from being hurt more- I already feel a lot of shame about my “huge” inner child (again something I don’t think was meant to be shaming but it’s how I received it and that impacted how it felt reconnecting after you were sick) but I genuinely thought it was ok with you to work with this really vulnerable needy stuff.
I was struggling to feel like I was in the room with you the other Monday when it all blew up. I asked for a story because I felt like I was floating away, you started reading, and I could just feel myself face plant in shame and instead of feeling closer to you, I dissociated – because I felt too much, and that the inner child need was too “huge”, and it really went downhill thereafter. I really like listening to you read stories and so this felt absolutely hideous because it’s been something that’s really helped, does help, but in that moment it felt like I was pathetic and too needy.
I feel stupid. I’ve heard that “too dependent” (and you did say it) as young parts are not welcome, that I’m not ‘growing up’ quickly enough and obviously it’s all too much. I now really worry it’s going to be a problem this Christmas if I so much as struggle with the break (and of course I will struggle because duh – two weeks at this time of year always feels hard – it’s a time when I am acutely reminded of exactly what I don’t have). I’m worried that my missing you or having a reaction to you being gone now makes you feel ‘trapped’ and want to get away from me and so then that sets off a panic you’ll take the care away/step back even more.
This happened on Friday just gone – you told me about your Christmas break and I felt myself freeze – not because you are will be away but I was panicking that you will find me having any kind of reaction to it “too dependent” or “unhealthy” and that’s just fucking awful. I feel I have to hide what I am feeling so that I don’t get branded negatively and that sucks.
Even if I had have had a meltdown about the cancelled session the other week in the way you think I did (rather than panicking about what had happened to my friend maybe happening with you)- I think the issue is less about being too dependent but what or who is being triggered by you being gone suddenly. Why is that young part so affected and impacted by separation? Is it really being too dependent and therefore deficient – or does it make sense in the context of a caregiver being unexpectedly absent, unavailable, and un-contactable. We both know this comes back to my mum and my childhood – years of hanging on for Friday and feeling profoundly lost and lonely in the week…and then of course, my dad just dropping dead and never seeing him again three days into a separation doesn’t help.
I have spent a lifetime hanging on to see people I love and then being overlooked or forgotten about or worse, them never returning. It might not seem logical or proportionate of a response when I struggle with your absence but it is rooted in trauma and it feels really shaming to think there are things I might do that are seen as ‘too dependent’ and ‘unhealthy’ because I can’t help how I feel and I should be able to bring that to you if it was the case – it doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it. You can’t help getting sick, you are more than entitled to take time off, have holidays – be a human – but equally my reaction (if there was one) doesn’t make our relationship suddenly unhealthy, stuck, or problematic. And again – adult me can see how much of a reaction I am having to all this and that it’s all going to be ok…but the young parts are less certain.
And this is really evident – with this bit I wrote a couple of weeks ago because I know that you are still here- mostly, it’s felt fine the last couple of sessions, but it really didn’t the other week – and this is what I said:
I feel embarrassed and ashamed to have let you see that need for you when it’s now seemingly ‘too much’. I don’t know where you are. Where is the Anita that talked about going to the beach and having an ice cream so the little parts could just play and be kids for once, the one who said she wanted to tuck the young parts up in bed safe and take all the pain away, who said I didn’t need to stay out in the cold anymore, that her cupboards were full of chocolate, that said she understood trauma doesn’t always work on a timetable, that said I was easy to love and who kissed me on the head and held me close and said she didn’t want to let me go and could hold me forever, who noticed when I felt cold or shaky, the A who washes my elephant and bought me a beating heart necklace because you know separation is hard and hearing your heart beat makes me feel safe, and the squishmallow, the bunny that represented the rabbit that listened, a salt lamp to help me sleep… so many things… the A that reads stories- where did she go this week? Part of me feels like I’m insane and imagining a relationship that simply doesn’t exist. But those things have been said and happened – so what happened this week?
All that steady acceptance and reassurance and relationship building that you did, we’ve done, made it feel safe to bring the small parts to session so why am I now too dependent? Why is it now stuck? It’s years of relational trauma that needs working through in this therapy. I’m not getting a divorce! I’m not a bit stressed out at work. I’m not feeling a bit lacking in self-esteem. And there are loads of parts and therefore lots of perspectives, fears, and triggers. It will take time. There will be hard times it doesn’t mean it’s stuck or unhealthy.
Do you still love me… and the parts you worked so hard at connecting with? And if so, can you please explain that to them again and reassure them because right now they’ve got another mother figure who can’t tolerate their need and is leaving them alone and seemingly feels trapped. And I know you’re not my mum, you’re not my family, I wish you were. As I’ve said lots of times, you’ve given me a better experience of mothering than I ever had growing up which is why this all feels so confusing and painful now.
And yes, I get I need to parent these parts by myself but I am trying but I have needed it modelled to me. I’ve needed your care and compassion to begin to feel any compassion towards myself. But whether you like it or not- you are my attachment figure. And right now, I don’t want anyone else and I don’t think we’re done. And unfortunately for you, I do think you are the right person for me.
When you asked me what I get from this- I was upset and hurt and told you it was anxiety, panic, and nightmares. That’s definitely something that teen part experiences and has been really present at times lately. But there’s clearly more than that. If it was only that I wouldn’t have stayed. There is no way I would stay if I genuinely thought a pattern was repeating and it was heading the way things with Em went. But how things are with you and how they were with her couldn’t be more different. What do I get from this? I thought I was getting a relationship with you. I believed you loved me. I believed that you were safe to heal wound with, venture into that egg yolk with… and now I’m not sure if I’m even welcome and would you just let me go?
One day are you just going to tell me it’s over?…because I don’t get how we can have been through all this together and it just be in my head that this relationship means something – that this is just run of the mill therapy. I don’t believe it for one second. This therapy doesn’t look like anyone else’s I know. But then perhaps I am just delusional.
Also. Please know you are interacting with lots of parts right now. I can even feel the shifts as I’m writing this now. As I said, the teen has been about in a massive way that week and she is fucking angry but underneath she’s just really hurting and crying “please not again” and wants to connect. Yes- I have had nightmares and panic attacks and God knows what else but it doesn’t mean that’s all there is- but in that moment for that teen that’s how it felt. I need you to recognise that, and not panic that suddenly everything is detrimental for me and that this isn’t working. That teen needs to be heard but also, I need you to hold that in the wider frame of all of me. Sometimes I think it isn’t very clear who is in front of you but maybe ask. Because my quiet can be for lots of reasons…or for none at all! And whilst I can be really grumpy – there’s plenty of times when I tell you how much I value you, and love you, too because more than anything they are the dominant feelings.
And so, here’s some questions- Why does it make me too dependent to want you in my life? Why would I actually choose to have to not have you in my life when I have experienced so many losses already? It feels human to need to connect not wrong. I can’t help that you’re ‘just’ my therapist. I wish I could turn myself into a robot so not care about you or the relationship we’ve created and turn off my feelings when I’m not in the room …but I am not a robot, I’m a person and you’re a person too. I’m not wrong for how I feel and yet all of a sudden something that felt so good feels dangerous – and that’s how it spirals down. I don’t want to be too much. And I don’t want to feel like we’re broken. You usually sound so steady and certain when I am wobbling but you didn’t the other week.
And the thing about growth or lack of it- really feels quite shaming and insulting too. On Friday you said it was about ‘reviewing’ but when it was all going off it didn’t feel like a review, it felt like a threat or an ultimatum – your ‘concern’ came across in a way that made me feel like you didn’t see me or understand where things were. I shouldn’t need to justify why I am still in therapy or explain- and for you to insinuate or worry that there’s no growth because you thought I’d had a meltdown about our session being cancelled feels really shit. I shouldn’t feel like I am taking too long or not doing therapy right or not working hard enough – but that’s what that implies to me. Where is the growth? It’s fucking everywhere!
I’m sorry if my fear of abandonment flares up and my child parts still need stories and hugs. I’m sorry if I like being with you and feel like these hours each week help me actually just survive in the world. I’m sorry I’m not someone who rapidly transforms and fucks off into the sunset after six neat, easy sessions. I’m sorry that I need a deep and authentic connection. I’m sorry that my trying to repair a completely broken and fragmented structurally dissociated system has led to you feeling me too dependent and you now seem resentful of that.
Where’s the growth? I came to you with an eating disorder that had been rife for twenty years, where I had never once achieved a healthy BMI and been stuck in chronically underweight anorexic state. My body image was so screwed up. I had systematically starved myself for years, used exercise as a weapon and my inner critic was rampant. That voice has settled so much and I’m now in a healthy weight range. I eat what I want when I want and even though I’ve put on loads of weight I just bought bigger clothes – I didn’t try and go back. I accepted it. That’s huge on its own.
I haven’t self-harmed in years – even when the urge has been there, I’ve chosen a healthy option. I have reached out for help believing I was worthy of love and care rather than punishing myself.
I am able to work and manage my kids despite the stress of it all and always being up against it.
The constant fear of my cancer returning has eased a bit and I feel like I am more present in my life and can enjoy things where I never used to feel anything other than ‘I should enjoy this. I should feel something’.
I can actually tell you how I feel rather than keeping everything inside – you may think I don’t talk, or shut down and keep you out, but I have told you such a lot. I can be angry with you – I genuinely believed I wasn’t ever angry as it wasn’t an emotion I connected with but I do now. Not because you make me angry(!) but I feel safe to express anger with you. So that’s good- even if you don’t like me shouting at you and telling you everything is bullshit … that is massive progress and growth. I could never express that kind of thing as a kid. I’d have been flattened. But growth too is also telling you all the feelings – it takes a lot to tell someone you love them, especially when there’s a good chance they’ll reject you for it. I’m scared now that my telling you that ‘I love you’ is my being too dependent and that actually makes me want to cry.
I had started to believe what happened with Em was not my fault – that I’m not actually a tick because you loved me and therefore there must be good in me. Now I’m not sure- so perhaps that is a sliding back but it’s not surprising when it’s been like this this week.
So growth? My growth and healing isn’t necessarily obvious (although lots of people say they see a big change in me). It’s the deep deep wounding that’s repairing. I didn’t come to therapy with a surface wound. You can’t see a scab forming. But deep inside there’s so much change. It’s like a tree in winter. It looks fucked and dead above ground, but so many roots are stretching out beneath the earth ready to send nutrients up in spring to grow and create a canopy of leaves and fruit. It’s not spring yet but it’s not stuck or dead. I want to be an oak with huge, strong roots that can weather any storm rather than a tree with a shallow root system that will get battered by the slightest bit of wind…and that is what is happening…even if you can’t see it.
From James Norbury’s ‘Big Panda and Tiny Dragon’
Sometimes stuff happens and it looks like I’m back to square one…but I’m not. I would hope you would know all this and I’m sad that my expressing upset and telling you how stuff has been has made you think it’s crap. I don’t know what to say but I need you to recognise my growth even because sometimes I can’t and be proud of that and celebrate that change with me. I don’t need you to shame me because there’s change and growth that hasn’t come yet. I’m a tortoise not a hare. And I know you aren’t shaming me, it’s my response…
You asked what keeps me in therapy? I do. You do. How I feel about you keeps me in therapy. My attachment to you keeps me in therapy. But not because I am stuck but because I feel like our relationship does me good. I love you. And the love has made huge shifts in me and how I perceive myself. And I’m sorry if that’s too much or makes you feel trapped or that I’m too dependent. I never wanted to make you feel like that.
You said once you were like a boomerang because no matter how much I push you away you’ll keep coming back. I am worried I have broken you in half and now you’re just a stick. I hope not.
So that was an outpouring from so many different parts – you can clearly see how fixated I got on some of the words Anita had said even though Adult me knew what she meant and her intention. The issue, though, is therapy isn’t just for my adult self…and that’s why it gets so messy.
Anita listened to the message. She really heard what I had to say. And we really processed what’s happened together. I mean talk about ‘the work’. Fortunately, we got the bulk of this out the way before Christmas and left feeling connected and safe. And to be honest, writing this out and reading it all…I think I just feel a bit like, ‘WTAF happened?!’…I think another thing I am going to have to really look at is my menstrual cycle…because guess when this all kicked off? Yeah – ‘then’.
Humph!
I am not enjoying the Christmas break AT ALL. I have been struggling quite a lot but also really conscious of not reaching out to Anita unnecessarily (I will talk to her about this on the 9th). However, what was really lovely was that on Christmas day she reached out and sent me a message on WhatsApp first. It was a GIF saying Merry Christmas and a message sending ‘lots of love xx’ This in addition to the lovely Christmas gift she sent really helped settle the young parts that just miss her A LOT. Yesterday I sent her a message with a quote from a book that I gave her for Christmas called ‘The Journey’ by James Norbury, the second book in his series about the two friends Big Panda and Tiny Dragon (I highly recommend both):
and today she has sent me some photographs of a place she’s been. It feels good…although obviously I wish I could see her in person!
Anyway, this was a really long long post which really could be summarised by this:
RB wobbled in November/December. It should have been called ‘Rupture Season’ not ‘Christmas Season’ 2022. This year RB and Anita had a humdinger. But it’s all ok. They got through it. Oh, and C-PTSD is hardwork!
If you made it to the end of this – there really did ought to be a prize. Wishing you all a happy new year…let’s see what 2023 brings eh?!
As 2022 draws to a close I just wanted to pop in and wish you all a …well, I guess I want to say Happy Christmas/Happy Holidays and a fabulous New Year…but I know for many of us this time of year is really difficult and sometimes that upbeat message can fall flat or feel almost like a full-on smack in the face dose of toxic positivity (and I really don’t want to do that!). We look to be happy at this time of year, long for it even, but the truth is this- Christmas can be massively triggering and for many of us it can feel more like survival than the joyous time the movies would have us believe it is/should be. At this time of year, we spend a lot of time trying to look ‘fine’ when we are anything but.
I’ve worked hard over the years to create a Christmas that I want rather than one that feels obligatory (with family)- but it’s been hard won! Really, for as long as I can remember, Christmas has always felt tough – well certainly since my parents separated when I was a kid. Splitting Christmas between mum and dad was tough. Feeling like my loyalty was split. Then being carted off to my mother’s boyfriend’s parents’ house on Christmas day and feeling like an outsider as the ‘real’ grandchildren were spoiled by their grandparents and I sat there feeling like a cuckoo in the wrong nest – it was hard.
Then there was returning to my actual family on my dad’s side a couple of days later and being overlooked by my own grandparents. I was frequently gifted things from charity shops that didn’t fit or were so well-worn they had to go in the bin. Yet, at the same time, I’d get dragged around the city Christmas shopping with my grandmother who would gift herself diamond jewellery and expensive perfume: “Don’t tell Grandad, if he asks say it’s Cubic Zirconia.” I’m not knocking charity shops at all, what I am saying is that my grandmother always put herself first no matter what. And in a family that couldn’t express love in words they were also pretty shit in deeds…but then of course it wasn’t love. As much as I wish it wasn’t the case – sometimes family is just biology and blood doesn’t mean love.
Looking back, there was no Hallmark quality to those childhood/pre-teen years.
Then as an older teen I felt just…what?…desperately lost and alone, isolated, unseen – and that, of course wasn’t solely restricted to Christmas but I think it all becomes glaringly apparent in the holiday season doesn’t it? It’s a time when you look around you and see ‘seemingly’ happy families enjoying time together and there I was…out in the emotional wasteland. It feels a bit like that 80’s show Bullseye, when the host would say, “Look what you could have won!” as the contestants stared at the speedboat and ‘his and hers’ shell suits disappointedly having failed to answer a question correctly. Only we didn’t long for the speedboat – for us the prize was that… magical thing, the bond, the love, the feeling of belonging, being safe in ourselves and held safely by others…it’s the absence of that thing that has left that gaping hole inside us all these years that seems impossible to fill or repair. And the laugh is, it shouldn’t be a prize to be won, something that some people are blessed with, and others aren’t. But it is. And the fall out is hard to put into words…but if you know you know.
OMG I am really a Debbie Downer today aren’t? Thanks RB for the uplifting Christmas post!
Thankfully, meeting my wife changed things up massively so far as Christmas goes and having my kids has been a massive game-changer, too. But despite the special family Christmas and the new traditions I have created with my little family I still find this an incredibly tough time. I am already bracing myself for the period between Christmas and New Year which I guess I should really refer to as my ‘Signature Depression Zone’ because without fail, that lull point hits me really hard. I am much better at self-care for all the parts of me now but no matter what I do, there is a still a little voice in there somewhere that wants someone else to bring the love.
This year’s Christmas build up has been hard, too. Anita and I found ourselves navigating a complicated rupture over the last month (fucking wonderful!). It has dragged on a bit and has taken a lot of talking and processing. I haven’t got around to writing about it yet and I didn’t want post anything whilst we were in the thick of it because it seemed to be so dense and hard to make sense of and at times I was really triggered and didn’t even make sense to myself but I will get to it now that we seem to have come through the thick of it (just in time for the CHRISTMAS THERAPY BREAK!)
I think (now that I have come out the other side a bit) the ‘Mother Wound’ stuff all started coming to a head with Anita because once again the relationship with my own mum was thrown into sharp relief. Or should I say the lack of the relationship? Oh and of course it’s the anniversary of the shit hitting the fan with Em (ex-therapist) which is essentially ‘mum’ stuff. So, yeah, it’s been a tough month, really. Of course I got to play out stuff with Anita that was maternal transference 101 – which I guess is the work. I just don’t think I realised quite how much my relationship with my mum is hurting me even now.
I genuinely thought I was getting better at managing how she (my mum) affects me. But this year, once again, I feel like that little girl who’s been left: not important enough, not valued, not kept in mind. As I say adult me does a cracking job of looking after my kids and as part of that, I give my inner child all kinds of experiences that I know she would have loved and it goes some way to a repair for that sad little part of me. A visit to see a Father Christmas show and meeting the Big Guy in his grotto this week was enjoyed by me probably more than my kids!…but it doesn’t completely take the edge off for that little girl that just wants her mum to fucking show up and care.
The end of November and December have been hard (not just the rupture with A). We’ve been running the gauntlet as a family with various illnesses – the flu-like cold from hell was bad (still dragging on) but then norovirus was the absolute fucking pits. I won’t drag it out here but basically, it’s been another occasion where my mum just hasn’t been there in any tangible way. I have told her how hard it’s been and how much of a struggle we’ve had. Silence. Asked if there’s anything she wants for Christmas. More silence. Adult me doesn’t care – but I feel her lack of interest and care for my kids acutely. Her disregard for them feels like a repeat of the disregard she had for me.
It’s sad.
It’s also really compounded when I’ve been going to see K and she’s said she is so sad for me and wishes she could be a mum/granny to my family as we deserve so much better. And despite the recent wobbly bits with Anita, again she has, as I repeatedly say, given me a more consistent and positive experience of mothering than anyone else. She has been there now for nearly three years and seen and held more of me, my pain, than anyone.
Today is Christmas Eve and yesterday I finally received a reply to my messages to my mum from mid-December (one of which was about my brakes completely failing on ice on the school run…literally had nothing!) “Sorry for the delay…” to tell me she’s bought a present and will get it to us in the New Year. Again, adult me doesn’t care…but kids at Christmas? You have grandkids. Do better. That’s what Amazon is for. Tbh I am just so done now. And to be honest it’s not even about gifts. We don’t need things. We don’t need money spending on us as proof of care. Like I said the other week my love language isn’t gift giving. All we have ever needed is quality time, care, to be celebrated for who we are… a relationship. But it isn’t forthcoming.
I realise the only person that can break this cycle of pain and disappointment is me. I have to find a way to stop letting this stuff hurt me over and over – because I am repeatedly allowing my young parts to be hurt and keep in a pattern that was forged long ago – but the one I am in the therapy trying to heal. And I have to make it so that my kids don’t end up hurt too. I’m not sure how to do it though? How do you stop caring that your mother really doesn’t want you?…even as an adult.
Anyway, this wasn’t a therapy post was it? But it’s the core wound again. I won’t babble on too much longer as it’s just morose and depressing.
Thankfully Anita is solid. We had our final session of the year yesterday which was really nice, settled, calm…which I am very glad of (you’ll see why once I post about the rupture stuff!). We had a story and a really lovely long cuddle and easy chat that felt really connecting. It felt like just putting everything to bed for a bit…or at least trying to. Anita is off until the 9th so it’s a pretty long stint and I know it’s not going to be easy this year.
It’s sad that my therapists both gave me Christmas cards sending their love and presents this year – and my mum hasn’t. I am trying really hard to take on board that I am valuable and worthy of love and care, and am recognised by people that mean a lot to me. But the stab of rejection feels so acute by my mum. Does anyone else feel this way at this time of year?
When I opened the package from Anita yesterday, one of the items was this coaster:
And honestly, I love it. I love it because it’s true. And I love it because she gets it. And I love it because it represents so much of what we have built together and shows how simple a need it is. There is no shame to be had from needing that or expressing love through touch. And I am so lucky to have found her. However, she’s not my mum, she’s not family, I can’t access her when I need her. I can’t call her up and say, “A I don’t feel good can you come?”…because it’s therapy. But then I don’t have that with my family either so…it’s better than nothing isn’t it? A lot of the time it is easy to get caught up in what therapy isn’t or can’t be…but actually what it IS is A LOT.
Anyway, sending so much love to you all this holiday season. Take good care of yourselves wherever you are and whatever you are doing. Solidarity to those of you in complex family situations, trying to fit in and yet feeling like you stand out like a sore thumb. Love to all your young parts who are reminded of the pain of your childhood and navigating triggers whether through being in contact or not. And sending care to everyone who feels alone whether in actuality or emotionally. We’ve got this – our adult selves can be there hopefully enough to hold the hands of the little ones that feel so sad x
Argh – so I began writing this on the 17th October…and then…well… time evaporated again and it’s now midway through November and it’s just been festering in the hard drive like so many other blog posts I’ve started over the last year or so. So much for the idea of being able to find the time to post more ‘regularly’! – Ah well, rewind a bit and I’ll take you back to the first session post two-week therapy break!
——–
So, this morning I felt a bit out of sorts as I drove towards therapy. No bloody surprises there! It was the first session back after the break and here I was, again, nursing those horrible feelings of isolation and disconnect that I am so familiar with. I guess, it was self-imposed, forged out of panic. My system so massively fears the potential of there being a true isolation and disconnect enacted by Anita (which essentially amounts to an abandonment) that I get in there first. It’s a protective withdrawal on my part. If my system checks out first, it beats Anita to it, and therefore, she can’t hurt me. Only…my being distant ‘first’ does hurt me…so how is that any better?!
Of course, it’s not better, ESPECIALLY when Anita ISN’T trying to be disconnected or distant -far from it. She wants to be there for me and to connect. But when will I stop reacting from a place of fear whenever we come back from a break? Not today, it seems. Sadly, that anxiety spring is coiled tightly in my nervous system and it’s taking a long long long LOOONNNGGG time to convince my system that in the here and now things are ok, and that Anita is not going to repeat the relational pattern I have come to expect.
I am so shit at this (therapy/relationship) game of snakes and ladders, aren’t I? Honestly, I really messed up when the rules of life and relationships were being explained to me. I must have been napping at some of the crucial junctures because I keep hitting the same pitfalls over and over again. More often than not, I roll the dice I land on a snake and go sliding on my arse back to the beginning again. The thing is, I don’t think this is all my fault – I am trying so hard to navigate the board, to make it so that I go up ladders, make positive forward movement and dodge the snakes…but it just doesn’t always work out.
I think, perhaps, the problem came from the fact that relationship rules were explained to me by people who also didn’t understand how to play the game (my family) – and yet, because we all followed the same ‘made up rules’ it wasn’t apparent there was anything wrong until I ventured out into the world and tried to play the game with other people and they were like, “This isn’t how to play the game!” So, in order to make it through life and relationships, I’ve found some work arounds – paid attention to how it’s meant to be done. I continue on in the game but not, always, in the usual way, I don’t think – especially when there’s been a break.
I trusted that Em knew how the game worked, but it turns out that she, too, had some random, off brand, version of the rules and so that was really fucking confusing for me because I tried to play the game her way but it wasn’t right. Anyway… that’s a fucking bizarre metaphor that’s run out of legs…sorry!
I arrived a bit early to Anita’s and sat in the car scrolling through my phone – trying to settle the parts that were having a bad time, panicking that it wouldn’t be ok when I went in, fearing that something might have changed, and dreading a rupture because the parts were not in a good place. I had elephant ready in my bag to take in, but there was a part that was baulking against taking it to the session. I knew, however, that if I left elephant in the car there would be zero chance I would let the young parts out. Even if elephant stays in the bag in the therapy room it’s very clear it’s in there and if Anita has eyes (reader- she does) then she’ll know young parts are at least somewhere in the vicinity and hopefully will be able to reach through protective barriers and to the parts that so need reassurance and reconnection.
As I walked up the drive, I felt a bit checked out, on that path towards dissociation but not quite fully there. I was kind of apathetic and “What’s the point?” You know – disgruntled teen. Anita opened the door and smiled at me and asked me how I was, “tired” I replied flatly. That is my go to…because I am ALWAYS tired but also it’s just how it is: no energy, done in, running on empty. I wandered into the room and sat down on the couch. From what I could see, everything was still the same, my story books were out on the side, Anita sat on the couch beside me, there wasn’t anything ‘obviously’ different. I had no idea how it was going to be, though. I felt a bit overwhelmed and was all set for false adult to dive in and take the session and then for the teen to shut it all down at some point, but the moment I sat down A said, “I’ve got something for you from my trip” and handed me a little fabric bag with a chocolate lolly attached to it.
I was not expecting that. At all.
I said, “thank you” and put it to one side without looking in the bag and immediately asked for a cuddle. Whilst I was intrigued to see what was in the bag, I was more desperate to physically reconnect with A after the break. That couple of seconds together, to hear she’d thought of me on her trip, took a sledgehammer to my apathetic self and the young parts just wanted to be as close to her as possible (Cringe!).
I’m not a big fan of Autumn and Winter (I’m actually really struggling with SAD this year really badly -it’s either that or a colossal whack of post-viral fatigue) but the one positive about the changing season is that the temperature has really dropped these last few weeks and so there was no fear about it being ‘too hot’ to touch (hug) which is what happened over the summer and triggered the young parts…
The young parts immediately relaxed into being with her. It felt so nice to snuggle into her warm body, to be back in that familiar safe space, to hear her heartbeat, to breathe in her comforting smell of fresh washed clothing and clean hair (look don’t judge – you know how it is!). All the armour was off, everything I had been holding for the last few weeks could be put down, and I could just rest for an hour. So, that’s how it was for the entirety of the session – I just cuddled into Anita and it was exactly what I had needed.
We chatted about all sorts of stuff: her holiday, my being very ill, an episode with a wetsuit, my delinquent puppy and menace of a kitten, random life stuff – it was just really nice and connected. We laughed a lot. Anita asked me midway through if I wanted to look at what she’d given me and said that it wasn’t much, but she’d thought of me. Even half an hour in I just didn’t want to move from the safety of her arms. I guess after the separation I felt like I needed a huge top up of touch. I told A that I didn’t want to let her go and didn’t want to move, which I would have had to do to get the bag, and she held me tightly to her and instead told me about the pebble and shell that she’d found on the beaches whilst on her holiday and that she’d brought home for me. When the pebble is wet it sparkles from the quartz that is dotted on it.
She said that she’d been walking, the tide had just gone out, so the pebble was wet, and it had shone out on the beach reflecting in the sun. Knowing I collect pebbles (I had given her one that I had found for her from my favourite beach recently) she picked it for me. Then she told me about a beach she had been on that was completely made of shells and had picked one for me too. She also collects pebbles and shells and so it’s something we connect with. It’s a fucking world away from pebblegate with Em, that’s for sure!
I can’t really explain how cared for I felt in that moment with Anita but it felt healing. During the week before the session, she’d sent me a video of where she’d been, and then to know she’d consciously been thinking of me when I was out of sight (and I feared ‘out of mind’) was really, I dunno, special? I so often believe I am forgettable, unlovable, and frankly just not very important and yet here was really clear evidence (again) that that wasn’t the case at all. It was so nice because I have been wobbling such a lot over recent months on and off – almost creating a narrative that Anita wasn’t interested in me anymore – and yet here was a clear demonstration that Anita, the Anita I have built a relationship with over nearly three years, really is still there – invested – and she really cares.
I know that the doubting and the anxiety and the protectors are all there on loop. And whilst it is sometimes (always!) frustrating that despite doing this steady reparative work for so long, I still get plunged into the hell zone because of the attachment trauma, I guess there’s another part of me that can see that my panic and fear of abandonment can be heard, seen, and metabolised with Anita. I don’t have to live in fear of even telling her what’s going on for me (like I did with Em…WTAF was I doing in that therapy?!). Now, lots of the time my system is settled. Being with Anita is lovely, we do the work, her presence and care is so regulating for my system – there are plenty of ladders. But when stuff is triggered and awful and painful and I am sliding my ass down the snakes, there’s something really comforting in knowing that no matter how bad it might feel in the moment, A isn’t going anywhere. She tells me this often enough. And enough of me must believe it to have to meltdowns and throw ALL MY crazy into the ring.
In one of our very first sessions together we talked about the importance of building strong foundations so that we could weather whatever storms came our way – and we have done just that. The number of times I wanted to tell Em how I was feeling, to be able to express the most vulnerable parts of myself to her but got choked and dissociated was just hideous. It’s so different with A.
Towards the end of the session, with about ten minutes to go, and after a few minutes of calm silence, a young part quietly murmured, “I missed you” into Anita’s chest. She responded with, “I know.” Part of me baulked at this and that perfect peace was fractured. To at least some part of me it felt, I don’t know, dismissive somehow. I guess, it’s that thing about having unrequited feelings; fearing that my feelings are too big, too much, not reciprocated in any way. There I was being vulnerable and rather than replying with “I missed you too” which is what Anita has said a million times before, she came back with that. Had something changed? It was literally a split-second reaction in me – but it really goes to show how instantly the system can be triggered despite all the evidence to the contrary. The next words out of Anita’s mouth, literally continuing on the sentence were, “I’m back now. I still love you and still care about you…very much…I really, really do.” And with that the panic that flared up dispersed and everything was ok. BUT MAN…what a reminder of the work there is to do.
Of course, there’s been nearly a month since this first session back…and it wouldn’t be me if it had been plain sailing – lol – but it’s been ok. More than ok. There’s been lots of attending to the young parts through reading stories, plenty of hugs, and plenty of connected silence where nothing needs to be said because so much is ‘felt’. I’ve been so used to excruciating, dissociated, painful silences in therapy over the years but I have to say, I love that quiet, connected, safe silence where there are no words needed, when it’s just calm and safe. And frankly it’s good that we are in this sort of semi-rest phase because I have nothing at the moment. I am running on fumes.
Of course, there’s just one bloody problem – and the irony isn’t lost on me! – It’s going well, it’s safe, connected, and loving but MY FUCKING GOD it’s SOOOOOOOOOO hard to leave A and be thrown back into the real world to face the relentlessness of life. I am on hyperdrive in my day-to-day life and I am really on the edge of burnout after being so poorly and so of course the young parts are activated in the week and are yearning for that safe, holding space with A more than ever. Yikes! I really really need it to be Friday.
I hope you’re all hanging on in there. Yet another ‘brief’ 2500 word update! So concise 😉
Musing on counselling-related issues in the UK. I am a counsellor/psychotherapist and a client too. As the blog title suggests, my counselling journey began in the client's seat. For information about my counselling and psychotherapy practice see my website: www.erinstevens.co.uk
holding it together as I journey through therapy - a personal account of what it's like to be in long-term psychotherapy navigating the healing of C-PTSD, childhood trauma and neglect, an eating disorder, self-harming behaviours, as well as giving grief and cancer an occasional nod.
Rubber Bands and Chewing Gum 
You must be logged in to post a comment.