Trauma

Not Doing Brilliantly Well: Breakdown And Burnout

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I ended up sending Elle an email yesterday:

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

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

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

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

I really really hope you do. Elle xxx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I responded to her:

💜 thanks. 

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

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

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

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

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

Were all lies. 

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

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

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

I could really use a big hug and a lobotomy 

X

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elle xxx

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

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

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

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

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

rubberbandsandchewinggum43 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

You can only imagine how that landed.

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

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

I just can’t.

I am really out of coping at the moment.

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

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

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

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

Ugh.

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

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

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

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

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

I hate breaks.

LOL.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Probably.

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

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

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

Deep breaths into a paper bag RB!!

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

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

It’s hideous.

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

This is never right, is it?

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

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

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

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

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

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

So yeah…it’s not great.

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

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

Mental Health Crash: Stuck In The Hole

rubberbandsandchewinggum10 Comments

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

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

Anyway…

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

So how do I end up in this place?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just glorious!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Trust In Your Sixth Sense (Or Is It Just Hypervigilance?).

rubberbandsandchewinggum20 Comments

When I was seventeen, I went and saw a palmist in Bangkok and he did a detailed consultation for me. At the time I was sceptical – I certainly hadn’t got into my astrology and tarot at that point! My dad had been to see him years before, when he worked in Thailand (his Thai friends all swore by this guy), and his reading had been surprisingly accurate for the past as well as what had started to unfold in the intervening time since he’d come back to the UK.

I figured there was nothing to lose so went and sat in his consulting office, put my hands in some ink and transferred the image of my palms onto paper. With the print of my hands and my date of birth alone before him, he took compasses and all kinds of mathematical equipment and set to work. I sat and watched as he methodically worked his way through one hand at time. After about twenty minutes, finished, he looked up and spoke to me and told me what my palms said.

I remember feeling like there was a lot of accuracy in the reading at the time, but then at seventeen telling me I would be in an arts field and hate maths was really a 50/50 guess surely?! He said that I would have two children – which made me bristle and instantly made me think the guy was a crock of shit because at that point I knew I was gay (I wasn’t out yet) and couldn’t imagine how children would ever be part of my life (although I desperately wanted to be a mum). There were other things, too, but to be honest looking ahead twenty years when you’re that age seems like another lifetime…well, it is now I am here!

As I walked out the door, I remember him holding my hands in his and telling me that I have a very strong sixth sense and to trust in it. I thanked him for his time and put my inky print in my bag and went on to enjoy the rest of my holiday. When I got home I put the envelope containing the reading in a box with other souvenirs and photos and there it lay for the next few years as I went off to university, met my wife, travelled the world and grew up a bit.

When I was twenty-five I got the news that my dad had died suddenly of a heart attack in Thailand whilst on holiday. It was, without doubt, the worst, most distressing experience of my life. I’ve written about it before so won’t bother again now, but the trauma surrounding that event was the trigger that sent my life into freefall and opened Pandora’s Box spewing out a lifetime of trauma that I had dissociated away. This bereavement signalled the start of the massive mental breakdown I had.

Every single day I miss my dad and, at times, even now, twelve years later, the grief rises up in me and I howl with pain or wake up in floods of tears when he enters my dreams (which is a lot lately). My anchor is gone and I struggle to accept that. Especially when, right now, I REALLY need him. It sounds daft, being an adult myself, but when I feel like I do right now (like a child), I really could do with the steadying presence of my rock.

Anyway, after he died, I was going through his stuff, clearing his house, and found his palm reading from years before. I opened it up and glanced through it. It was so on the money that I could barely breathe. When I got home, I went into my loft, found the box that contained my reading and looked to see what it said, only now viewing it with more grown-up eyes and living further in the future. It was definitely interesting. There were some parts that I was hoping wouldn’t materialise not too far ahead but others that might be a possibility. I folded it up, put it away again and carried on with my life.

Time moved on. We moved house. The box in the loft moved into the next loft and the hand prints, souvenirs, and photos were safely stored there along, now, with my dad’s copy, his passport and letters he had written me over the years. My wife and I got married. We started a family (and yes, 2 children!). I got cancer. My wife lost her job. Things got bumpy. Things got better. Then bumpy again. And then really bumpy…which brings us to now.

If you look at the picture (above) you’ll see that it’s slap bang in the wobbly red ‘SHIIIIIIIITTTTT’ area between 37-38 years old where finances are fucked. I turn 38 in a few weeks and ugh…can’t we just fast-forward to 40 where I apparently get super successful and hit the peak of my life for the next 18 years?!

I’ve been AWOL here on the blog a bit this month. Since Christmas I have written, on and off, about how hard things have been feeling (really fucking hard). The Christmas therapy break felt tough this year, but then that wasn’t surprising as I headed into the anniversary of ‘tick gate’ and the end of my therapeutic relationship with Em. Then lockdown three thousand was announced, home-schooling started AGAIN, and I had to reduce face-to-face contact with Anita to once a week and no visits to K ☹. Then my wife got COVID and was isolated from us for weeks upstairs. Obviously, the kids and I were also stuck inside – so then no face-to-face at all with A…GROAN.

Incrementally, week on week, things were getting emotionally harder to cope with. I could feel myself sliding. I just felt so stretched and anxious, and on the edge, and yet the support I needed felt further and further away. Of course, Anita hadn’t gone anywhere but it didn’t feel that way when I had to revert to complete online therapy during isolation. There’s fuck all privacy here so online sessions are often interrupted by one of my kids who suddenly need me. I can never fully relax into a session, and the parts that need help rarely show up, or if they do, they get so upset that it actually feels worse.

I am really shit with online therapy (no shit!). But it felt especially hard this time because Anita was here, she hadn’t gone away, and she had been willing to see me face-to-face this lockdown after my complete lack of coping in the November/December lockdown! No need to write more on that!! You’ve all been along for the ride. So, it just felt so fucking unfair that I couldn’t see her and I couldn’t believe unlucky we’d been for my wife to get Covid.

Things started to escalate inside over the isolation period. I felt a sense of foreboding and panic rising up in my body. It’s a familiar feeling of dread that is so visceral it cannot be ignored. It wasn’t about being unable to get to see Anita or COVID (although those stresses and attachment stuff were definitely there too). Instead, I don’t know why, but I started to feel like my wife was going to lose her job. It was such a strong burning feeling in me that I really couldn’t ignore it. On paper there would be no reason this should happen. She’s very good at what she does and has transformed the place she has been working in with recognition from the inspectorate.

Perhaps I was just being silly. Maybe I just had too much alone time. Perhaps I was just being pessimistic and was crumbling under the stress and pressure of the last couple of months…but it didn’t feel that way. I couldn’t get away from the feeling and no amount of rationalising would make it go away.

I got out my deck of moon tarot cards (definitely got a lot more alternative since that day getting my palms read!). It’s freaky what happens with them. Frequently I’ll ask a question and get a card that resonates. Then I’ll ask the same question again…and get the same card. A few months ago, I pulled the same card six times in succession on the same afternoon! I close my eyes and spend ages shuffling them about – I have no reason to try and ‘cheat’ but it always makes me feel a bit ‘eek’ when the same card keeps coming. Anyway, I asked the question three times and got the same card. It felt confirming but also not what I wanted to hear.

Two days before my wife was due to go back to work, and we had all received negative Covid tests I decided to tell her what I was feeling. It was making me ill. The fear of losing everything (which is where my mind takes me when stability is questioned but that’s the trauma brain) was making it so that I couldn’t eat and the nightmares I was having every night were taking their toll.

Usually, my wife would tell me I was overreacting and to not run away with panic. But this time she didn’t. She looked at me seriously and said, ‘You know what RB? Your Spidey sense has never been wrong in all these years we’ve been together on anything. I hope you are wrong but if you’re right we’ll be ok, we’ll find a way through together’. That helped a lot. I mean I was still stressed out beyond words but at least she was accepting that my gut was screaming and that maybe it might have a point even if there was no tangible evidence yet.

Then it happened. As suspected. On the Monday she went to work for a morning meeting and was on her way home within half an hour. Absolute farce. I told her to record the meeting just in case even though there was no reason to suspect that anything was wrong. It’s a good job she did. Our friend is a HR manager for a big organisation and listened to the recording and was absolutely horrified by what took place. The laugh is, in the UK if you have less than a year with an organisation you can have your contract terminated for no reason at all so long as they pay you any holiday owing and stick to the terms of their contract – i.e a week’s notice.

I felt so sad but also so vindicated when my feeling was confirmed to be correct. But of course, here we are again. No job and huge stress with bills etc. I text Anita the day it happened to let her know. I had already spoken to her about my worries in the weeks before it happened (she probably thought I was losing my mind and overreacting!) and told her that I wanted to see her for our planned session the next evening but from that point on we’d have to put the therapy on hold as I didn’t know how we were going to cover bills let alone therapy. You can probably imagine what that felt like.

This last year, but certainly the last few months, has been an emotional rollercoaster and to lose the one thing/person that actually helps me function felt unbearable. I felt utterly beside myself. Anita as usual was, and has been, incredible throughout but this is long so I’ll write more on this later.

So what was the point in this post? Well, what I am learning, despite the shit storms is that I can and should trust my gut. The other day I was so shut down and was isolating myself from A. It was so painful. I wanted to be close but was terrified of being too much. The fear of abandonment stuff was massive and I think this especially the case right now with all the instability at home. Anita said she thinks I know deep down, and can feel, that she is safe, but sometimes the fear that I have about what’s happened in the past comes in and impacts how I can relate to her.

I always knew in my gut that Em was not safe. I tried to convince myself otherwise- that it was my hypervigilance gone mad and that there was something wrong with me. I so desperately wanted her to be safe that I repeatedly ignored what my body was telling me. Whereas, I have felt safe with Anita from day one. What comes in when I am silent and disconnected is not that I am unsafe with her, it’s the fear that I’ll lose her by being too much – especially now, when she’s seeing me for next to nothing.

It’s a completely different thing to how it was with Em because underneath that I DO KNOW that if I let Anita in, she is there ready. She is willing to connect. She isn’t scared of me. I know she loves me. I can feel it even without my sixth sense! Sometimes my brain just doesn’t get the memo in the moment that things have changed and it takes a while to unstick the brakes.  

        `

Old Patterns: Part 2

rubberbandsandchewinggum4 Comments

Here’s the next instalment of ‘writing from the breakdown 2009’ you can read the earlier post here . This jumps all over the place, but reflects how hard everything was back then. Reading this back I feel so desperately sad for myself. I was in such an almighty mess and yet desperately clinging on to the belief that if I appeared ‘normal’ enough I would be ok and not end up being sectioned. My fear of mental health services prevented me getting the help that I so desperately needed. I wish I could go back in time and advocate for myself properly rather than being dictated by the fear of losing all control:

Here I am again, another appointment, sitting across from my doctor inwardly crying out for help but outwardly showing that I am totally pissed off at another intrusion into my life. I am reacting badly to having been referred unexpectedly and without consultation to the Crisis Team or as I fondly renamed them ‘The Nut Squad’.

The Nut Squad is quite a step up the crazy tree in mental health terms where I live. This time I had bypassed the ‘Access and Wellbeing Team’ which is where you go when you are maybe only partly crackers: I’d been there before, but this time, whatever I had said to my doctor, or maybe not said,  had been a real cause for concern and I had ended up with a psychiatrist and mental health nurse sitting in my living room asking me a series questions. Things have been really bad, but knowing how stretched mental health services are to have  the NHS send people to see me in my own home feels unnecessary.

Questions I can cope with, though. In recent months I’ve answered the same set of questions on multiple occasions and my answers never deviate:

“On a scale of one to ten, one being the least and ten being the most, tell me where you feel in terms of happiness at the moment” (or something along those lines).

“Three” I respond mechanically.

“Still three?” they exchange concerned looks. I had just reported feeling ‘better’ whilst talking in a measured fashion so as not to look manic. How could it possibly be three? My definition of ‘better’ was that I had started to notice the spring buds and had read a book, which were markers in my mind that things were improving for me. It had been months since I had been able to direct my attention towards anything or look outside myself. I thought this would be ample deflection for the fact that I’d been out and blown almost £45,000 in two weeks and pretty much decimated my entire inheritance in less than a year since my dad died.

I think it was probably this insane spending that had led my GP to refer me to the Crisis Team. It had all followed an appointment where I had splurged at the GP that what I was doing wasn’t normal. I left feeling like I had been honest for the first time, and then shat myself with ‘what ifs?’ and devised my plan of action. How I thought I was helping myself, I have no idea. I think in hindsight it was something about being absolutely terrified of being carted off in a straight jacket and being sectioned so I told them what I think they needed to hear and it seemed to work.

To an outsider that would seem like an incredible leap of the imagination that feeling wobbly could result in incarceration. A person exhibits slightly unusual behaviour and so steps are taken to help them, right? Doesn’t mean they’ll end up locked up on a psych ward. I’m sure this is the case, but I have a fear of mental health services. They terrify me. Why? Let’s just put it this way, growing up with a close family member being perpetually in and out of mental health institutions doesn’t do wonders for your confidence in the system.

I would sooner die than end up in a mental hospital. Although looking back on this, perhaps it’s where I belong? I’m sure if I had have been completely honest with all the professionals from the start I would be in much better place now – but it’s hard going from being someone who on the outside appears successful, confident, and independent, to admitting to someone that all of a sudden you feel a failure, have no self belief and feel unable to participate in life. That is the truth of my situation. When I got ill at Christmas the wheels fell off in a big way. I could not cope and yet, instinctively I felt like I had to, to pretend that I was at least managing on some level.

I know, now, that I came across as resistant and inconsistent bouncing from uncommunicative, to dismissive, to out of control, to needy and back again – often all in one appointment. Hats off to my doctor, if the roles had have been reversed I would have given up long ago.

So, back to the psychiatrist and nurse house visit. They looked around the room and commented on how immaculately tidy it was, asked me about all the books on my shelves and noted that they were all placed in alphabetical order (surely this is normal for most English graduates?!) Of course the out of control spending came up in the conversation and I tried to justify the totally abnormal behaviour as if it was normal – cue ‘telling a lie like it’s the truth’ again. Bingo. It seemed to be working:

“If you had the money wouldn’t you go and buy things you’ve always wanted?” I asked, looking at them both imploringly. It’s sort of like the question which you mull over time and again. ‘What would you do if you won the lottery?’ The thing is, I haven’t won the lottery and this money I have doesn’t make me happy. Money can’t make you happy and it can’t fill the void left by a human being. No amount of spending eased the depression or the feelings of helplessness and hopelessness but god, I was willing to try anything to take me out of that dark dark place.

The camper van I had just purchased I did want, but the £8000 diamond ring, first class airline tickets to New York, mountain bikes and snowboards for me and my partner, new windows and guttering, laptop, multiple pairs of shoes, a surfboard, and enough clothes to open my own shop were more what you might call ‘impulse buys’ – funnily enough I didn’t think now was a good time to mention any of that.

I thought I had managed the Crisis Team fairly well.  As my consultation came to a close there was a shock. I was told that I couldn’t drive. Not that I can’t drive, I am a competent driver; no, I had been advised not to drive. In that moment I stared at the psychiatrist in disbelief now stripped of my independence and my wheels. The Nut Squad had clearly taken one look at the Jaguar supercar (another part of my inheritance) outside and thought ‘no way– this one is a liability’.

As the psychiatrist left my house she told me to keep my life “boring”. “Not a problem” I replied with a wry smile. In recent months my life had become mundane and really fucking boring. At least this was one promise I could keep.

It was eventually agreed with my GP that neither of the antidepressants that I had tried had worked for me, if anything they had been to my detriment, the first killed my appetite and my will to live, the second sent me on a hyperdrive where I was like a bee in a jar buzzing around out of control and spending like I had a shopping addiction. It was decided that I should not take these pills and I was given a prescription for a different type of drug, from a different family of medications.

I was to be given a mood stabiliser or anti-psychotic. Yes, when I heard the phrase ‘anti-psychotic’ I did panic a little, which I am sure anyone would. It sounded way more intense than ‘anti-depressant’. I dutifully took the pills and slept soundly for the first time in months. As well as this, there was a further but less desirable side effect: the munchies.

It is a well documented side effect of this particular drug that you feel like you are starving all of the time. It’s like stoned munchies without the relaxation of a joint. For two weeks I swear I did nothing but eat. It was totally uncontrollable which did not make my anorexic self feel at all happy and so, I took to cutting myself to regain some of my control and exorcise my self-loathing. In that two week period I gained a stone and hated myself for it.

My body image is completely screwed anyway and this rapid weight gain really sent me into free-fall emotionally. That is the only sensible way of describing it. I have never in my life been overweight, but the moment I hit the region of 7 stone I start to feel bloated and fat. I am having a battle with my 15 year old self right now. I am determined to hold onto my body mass. I am determined to prove my GP wrong and keep myself away from the anorexic label.

Part of my new ritual is each day looking in the mirror at my naked self and telling my reflection that I am not fat. I then go to the fridge and eat my way through something highly calorific to spite my teenage self and then continue with my day. It may seem like a totally insane approach to healthy living, but right now I have exhausted ‘sane’ and this, although not healthy in the long run it works for me and it has stopped the doctors asking me about my eating! Thank god!

Awareness of physical self is something I have always tried to avoid because the moment I become aware of my body I fixate on all that is wrong with it. I know that anyone reading this will still see that I am in denial. Just because the weight is back on does not change the ideas that swirl inside my mind. I have an eating disorder, only right now it is in the stage where I have it hidden again and that is a relief. I am not a skeleton anymore but I hate myself now more than ever.

Some time elapsed after the Crisis Team’s intervention and I eventually received an appointment with another psychiatrist in the mental health hospital. The building which houses mental health services is a gothic style grey stone Victorian affair with a central staircase leading up to the entrance. It has a certain grandeur which is imposing and more than a little intimidating. It is a beautiful piece of architecture, the sort of place that a developer would have a field day with and could turn into some great apartments. But today, for me, it is still a mental health hospital and walking up the steps and into the jaws of the building saw another panic set in.

The interior of the building was dark and depressing and was exactly as I had imagined – ‘Girl Interrupted’ has a lot to answer for! It was as if something had sucked the life and light out of the place. It was eerily quiet and seemingly unoccupied except for the few staff that walked with purpose along the echoing corridors. There was a clinical, hospital smell, cold metal on metal, disinfectant, and I hated it. I have always hated hospitals. The moment I walk inside one I always feel sick to my stomach and as though I could pass out at any second, this is not because I am actually ill, I just cannot stand them and what they signify to me: illness and death.

I was directed by the receptionist on the desk to take a seat in the waiting room a little further down the corridor. It was a tiny, claustrophobic room with four chairs on each side of the door. I took in the sunny, yellow wood-chipped walls and fading green carpet and felt the tendrils of anxiety creeping over me; like a smog it saturated my being and I felt suffocated.

Someone had clearly thought that a bright colour would make depressed people feel optimistic and ‘light’ inside. The colour made me feel chaotic and overstimulated and I wanted to get out of the room as soon as was humanly possible.

As I sat there, watching the clock ticking down to my appointment I wondered what I should do?: Tell the truth about how I felt: flat, sad, depressed, anxious, sometimes suicidal or to rationalise my feelings and make light of the situation. Perhaps I should  tell them that I’m sad but I am managing it and I don’t need pills to grieve.

I was eventually called into the psychiatrist’s office and the nice male doctor sitting opposite me began asking me questions. It was those same questions that I had become so used to over the last few months. A few days before this meeting I had had a particularly dark day which saw me sitting in my doctor’s surgery bereft with depression and as close to suicide I have ever felt. For the first time I felt as though we had made progress, I showed her the depth of my pain and she seemed to get it. She insisted I kept my appointment with at the hospital and made a further time to see her to discuss the outcome. She commented on what she perceived as my lack of self esteem and I thought ‘finally, she sees me for me, minus my front’ .

I alluded to this dark day and my lack of confidence with my consultant when he asked me if I felt gifted. ‘Gifted?! Me?! Are you serious?’ I shouted inside my brain. I told him of my feeling like a fraud, like someone who by fluke had got where I had got to, and someone who was on the verge of being found out all the time. My truth.

He then proceeded to read through the notes of the psychiatrist who had visited my home and who suggested I was, in her opinion, very confident and had good self-esteem. In that moment I felt abject disappointment. I guess I should have felt pleased that my acting skills are so good that I can even fool a mental health professional into believing I am in control and happy with myself; but that wasn’t the case at all. I felt like at a time when I needed someone to see through my defences, all that they had seen was the persona.

I have become so skilled at presenting a confident, together version of myself that no one can see through it. I know it’s my own fault.

The next shocker came a little while after this bombshell I was still reeling from the notion that I was a confident person when the doctor suggested that because I was ‘a lesbian and wouldn’t be having children’ that he recommended putting me on lithium. Suddenly alarm bells started ringing in my head. I recognised this drug – my aunt having been on it for years and years. I also was shocked that a doctor would make a judgement that I would not have children because of my sexuality. Most of all though, I was staggered that I had clearly had a breakdown and rather than refer me to psychotherapy it seemed more appropriate to offer me a cocktail of pills. How can that ever be right?

I left the appointment feeling stunned and proceeded to write a letter to my GP. I outlined exactly what had happened when my dad died because no one had ever asked. I explained all the complications: dying abroad, the body being in heat of 40 degrees for a week on a remote island because there was no hospital or morgue, battling with insurance company to move him to the mainland and start a process of repatriation, the unexpected post-mortem, finding out that it could take up to six months to get cremation rights in the UK even if we flew the body home, opting for a cremation abroad and the time being moved, the ashes being flown home and then left outside on a driveway for me to collect along with my dad’s backpack, my family refusing to attend the celebration of life….and so the story poured out of me including the stuff about not eating and self-harm…in the end there 14 pages of it!

I received a letter in the post shortly after this from the GP inviting my in for an extended appointment before the surgery opened. As I sat down, she thanked me for my letter, and said how sorry she was to hear what I had had to go through and that actually she now believed that I was experiencing PTSD. She said, “Let’s remove the psychiatric label shall we?” and then  “You are just really unhappy – aren’t you – and I am not surprised. I think we should refer you into psychotherapy because it sounds like you need to talk and there’s a lot to process. You can stop taking the medication because it hasn’t helped and I agree, lithium is not the way forward especially as you want babies.”

So, that’s what’s happened. I’ve had 7 months of bouncing around and now they think I need time to heal and someone to talk to. And this is all I ever wanted, really. I just wish I could have expressed this sooner rather than behaving like a deer in the headlights. I know waiting lists are long for psychotherapy and I plan to find a therapist in the meantime and see what I can do.

x

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Grief (again): 10 Years On

rubberbandsandchewinggum16 Comments

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I’ve been wanting to something here all week but I haven’t felt able to. It’s not because I have been too busy to write (which is why I haven’t been blogging as much as I used to);  sure, I have been running about like a headless chicken, been ill, and been suffering the fall out of some tricky emotions stirred up in therapy last week, but really there’s nothing terribly new in any of that and I still usually find a way to put something on the page.

Arguably, this week, I have had a little more time on my hands than usual because I didn’t work yesterday (mind you I was very ill and even went completely blind for a few minutes so perhaps writing wasn’t really possible!) but still I haven’t been able to find words. I am floundering about now. I can feel it. The feelings are so there but the words just aren’t. It’s like being in therapy on a dissociated day- ffs!

I think it’s maybe the topic that’s the problem.

Grief.

This is not the first time I have written about grief. When my friend died after battling with myeloma last year I posted something, and when my dog died I even rattled a piece off. Both those times the grief was acute and immediate. The feelings were there, fresh, and I could tap into them, skim off the surface if you like. It’s different today.

I suppose, in reality, you could argue that most of my blog talks about grief in one way or another. Essentially, the majority of my work in therapy comes down to grieving losses: sometimes it’s the death of a loved one; sometimes it’s the loss of the image I had of who I might become before I got cancer; but mainly, week in week out, it’s steadily grieving the loss of a mother (my mother as well as the concept of the ideal mother) that I never had. The mother wound is going to take years to get over and heal. I know this.

But this post isn’t about grieving mother (although my next post most certainly will be after the internal shit storm that has blown up after my session this week!). No. Today this is all about the grief surrounding my biggest unexpected loss, my biggest tangible emotional trauma (in the eyes of a normal person – i.e an actual bereavement), the one that still gives me nightmares and accounts of some of the PTSD.

This is about the loss of my dad who throughout my life did his very best to be both mother and father to me. The one who tried to prevent the mother wound being too big, too gaping, too devastating. I suppose, given how bad things are it didn’t really work, but he gave it a damn good go!

I’ve been just about holding it together with my trusty rubber bands and chewing gum this week knowing that today was coming. It’s been a dire week in many ways. I’ve been ready to chuck in the therapy towel because I feel so stuck, so unseen, and so uncared for. I’ve been cycling through various emotions but mainly the two stand out ones are anger and devastation. But I suspect that this is in part because my feelings around my dad’s death were bubbling away underneath and manifesting in that way…I guess I’ll know more after Monday!

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So grief.

It’s really just another word we use for a response to trauma isn’t it?

And trauma is weird isn’t it? (‘weird’ – oh so bloody articulate!)

I know well enough that the trauma I am trying to process from my childhood has a kind of timeless quality. Or rather, my brain can’t readily distinguish between current trauma and past trauma. In therapy, I can be plunged headlong into the feelings I had as a young kid. I lose sense of my adult self and am right back in the moment – even if it was thirty plus years ago. My body remembers.

A similar thing has happened this week and today so far as where in time I feel. Part of me is certainly here in 2018 but part of me is stuck back in 2008 and of course others are further back in my childhood. The parts are all over the place!

Today marks ten years since I received the call that my dad had been found dead in his room by his friend whilst holidaying/teaching diving on a remote island abroad. He’d only been gone three days, literally just arrived there after two flights and a boat ride and had died in his sleep on the first night. He was 47 years old. Massive heart attack.

Even now, despite having had a decade to process this loss. I still can’t fully get my head round it.

Part of it is because I still can’t believe it. I think he’s still there having the time of his life doing what he loved. I know exactly where he was having been on holiday there myself twice with him.

I never saw his body. Not that I think I would have wanted to. He was cremated abroad not in the UK.

It’s complicated but essentially it all came down to the fact that had we have had his body flown back to the UK we would not have automatically got the body released for burial/cremation. A second post-mortem would have been needed and the pathologists over here said that given the body had been in 40 degree heat for over a week before it was moved to the mainland for a post mortem it would not be pleasant for us. We wouldn’t actually want to see the body. We were warned. It wouldn’t be him. Add to that a potential wait of six months for the body to be released to us there wasn’t really very much choice.

So, in the end, I only received a box of ashes and his dive gear a month after he died. The insurance company flew his stuff home to a local undertakers and the undertaker left the stuff out on his driveway for me to pick up as he had gone out. Imagine that. Your dad dies suddenly, you have no goodbye, and you receive a box of ashes and a bag of dive gear from a block paved driveway.

I still can’t even believe it.

How can that be? How can the person that was my rock and anchor be gone, and not only that, suddenly just become some ‘remains’ to be boxed and left outside? I can’t even … ugh.

I miss him.

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It’s weird too. Like, literally, just now I checked my emails on my phone and I have received an email from PADI about diving in Thailand. Like what are the odds? I maybe get a PADI email once a month, perhaps not even, and yet this morning I get one about diving in Thailand on the day my dad died about the place he was set to teach diving for a month. It’s weird how the universe communicates with us.

Actually I can’t talk any more about this today because this was only the beginning  of the trauma that kicked off with my family and led to an eight year estrangement and a complete mental breakdown. I thought writing might help but actually it’s just making it worse today. It’s too raw.

I know I am not especially coherent.

Today I need to take things slowly. I need to rest. I am very aware that I have one foot in the now but also one foot back in the past. I don’t want to be grumpy or short with my family and I’d like to find a way of celebrating his life rather than getting consumed by the horror and the grief of that time a decade ago.

There’s another problem with ‘old’ grief, too…people don’t really get it. They can’t understand why I could be as upset today as I was ten years ago when I found out the news. They can’t understand why I feel sick and need to cry and wail…

But that’s trauma isn’t it? It transcends time.

 

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The Mother Wound

rubberbandsandchewinggum53 Comments

Oh man, where do I start with this one? The Mother Wound. It’s a biggie isn’t it? Part of me feels like I should just throw this out there to all you therapy bloggers and we could do one of those exercises where we each write a single line on the paper, fold it, and then pass it on to the next person and by the end we’d have collected a story about the Mother Wound. The paper part would be tricky but maybe we could do it in the comments box?

I’m referring to a ‘Mother Wound’ here, but essentially what I am talking about is the damage inflicted on a child by the lack of one, or more, caregiver’s reliable care, emotional holding and containment. It could be a deficit in care or sometimes abuse/neglect by mum/dad/grandparent/other guardian or the entire family (I guess). It’s the damage that is caused by lack of safety- either emotional, or physical, or both. It’s attachment/relational trauma.

Even though everyone’s life experiences are different, and their relationships with their mothers/primary caregivers unique, from what I can work out there are quite a few of us battling very similar demons caused by this early emotional injury. I can only talk accurately about my own experiences and causes of my particular Mother Wound but I will also try and bring in some of my observations from hearing/reading the stories of others too.

The effects produced by the mother wound on an individual seem fairly standard on first inspection: at times intense feelings of anxiety and/or depression, a fragile sense of self, difficulty with trust in relationships (attachment issues), fear of rejection and/or abandonment, low self-esteem, an over-developed self-critic which often has led to the development of one or more negative coping strategies: eating disorders, self-harm, alcohol abuse, drug dependency to name but a few things. And sometimes it gets really very dark and the thought of suicide or even possible attempts at suicide become part of the fabric of life. Oh, and the shame. I can’t forget that! A deep deep sense of shame around the expression of feelings and emotion.

I understand that it’s not the case for everyone and not all elements I’ve listed above are relevant to all people and, of course, there are more issues that I haven’t mentioned. I, for one, don’t drink alcohol or do drugs anymore but this is largely because I think I have quite an addictive personality and would probably end up in real trouble if I did now. I think it is quite telling that I am so controlled where drugs and alcohol are concerned. I think people must think I am quite boring but actually I just know what I can manage and remember what I was like in my early twenties. The idea of a hangover is enough to put me off!

We are all different but when I read these blogs the one thing that stands out is that that there is so much vulnerability and longing out there. There is so much emotional pain. People, fundamentally, just want to be loved, and to love, and yet the pursuit of this ‘love’ is anything but straightforward because of what has happened in the past. The lens through which we view intimacy is faulty and distorts everything. Our perspective is tainted, even as adults, and it negatively impacts on our ability to form and maintain healthy relationships. I find all that information both comforting and utterly devastating.

I have no problem whatsoever with forming friendships but I struggle to really let people in. I am that reliable person that others turn to in a crisis, the level-headed one, the grounded and sensible one, the one that throws a good party but is also the person that sits listening to heartbreak on the phone at midnight. I am a good friend to others but I can count on one hand the people who ‘know’ me and I have let close to me.

I am not interested in making hundreds of acquaintances. I can be life and soul of the party (when I can be bothered) but more often than not must seem aloof or stand-offish in social settings. I just really don’t like big crowds and small talk. I just don’t see the point in it. I’d rather be on my own.

Since I started blogging in the summer, for the first time I feel as though I am not completely alone in my feelings and as though I finally have a space where I can express exactly what feels so wrong with me/in me. Not only that, that what I have to say is accepted and met without judgement but actually, more often than not, a huge amount of empathy and compassion. That’s massive.

To be able to finally start getting the words out after all these years and say how it feels is, in itself, enormous but for other people to go, ‘yep, it’s really tough, and I get it. You are not alone’ is life-changing, because frankly sometimes these feelings feel terribly frightening and unsettling and isolating. I really want to be able to talk stuff through with my therapist but it’s not easy when so much of what I feel is triggered by being in therapy with her. It’s so difficult. There are parts of me that desperately want to connect with her but other parts that are too scared to for fear of being mocked and then abandoned.

Sometimes it is easy to be swept up and away with how bad it all seems. It can feel like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, and there is no point in continuing. It can quickly become a negative downward spiral. A (perceived) bad therapy session can leave me feeling desperate and helpless and adds fuel to the fire of intense and difficult emotions I’m already battling.

To know that I am not alone in this kind of struggle makes me feel less weird, a little less like there is something very wrong with me, and is helping me move towards the realisation, that ‘f*ck!Things weren’t right when I was small and IT WAS NOT MY FAULT!’ How I am now is a product of what was done to me. What an enormous revelation that is!

It’s also comforting to know that other people are struggling with the constraints of therapeutic relationship (argh boundaries!), feeling deeply attached but also terribly vulnerable, repairing ruptures, having good and bad sessions, cancelling and uncancelling sessions, sitting in silence, raging and longing, moving and stagnating. We’re all giving it a good go and it really isn’t easy! I certainly never imagined therapy could be like this when I entered into it years and years ago.

Over the years, I have seen so many therapists and yet I have never got to this place with any of them – which is both a blessing and a curse! I am finally connecting with emotions after years of talking about the events of my life in a detached way – like whatever I am talking about has happened to someone else. But now I feel like I am caught up in something that I am entirely unprepared for. That’s unnerving.

I like to be in control and therapy doesn’t feel like that right now because adult me isn’t there all the time. There are young ones in the mix now and they are not quite so adept at filtering the feelings that come up. They act out. They are clingy and needy at times and at others completely shut down and avoidant. I really struggle with disorganised attachment: sometimes I totally trust and feel safe with my therapist and at other times I feel like the therapeutic relationship is dangerous and is ultimately going to hurt me.

Reading your blog posts is comforting but also totally harrowing at times: how can it be that there are so many incredibly lovely people out there feeling this way? Why should it be that such vibrant, intelligent, caring individuals who have so much to offer are living day-to-day struggling to exist in the wider world trying to pretend that they are not wounded? The attachment wound it so big it is overwhelming and yet it’s as though it doesn’t exist, or isn’t allowed to exist.

It’s like Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet when he has been mortally wounded by Tybalt. Benvolio asks if he is hurt and Mercutio replies:

‘Ay, ay, a scratch, a scratch’

(Romeo and Juliet Act 3:1)

And that’s what we do most of the time. We play it down. We cover it up. This is not for our benefit, but rather to try and keep up appearances, to not rock the boat, to not let people down…and strangest of all, to not let the perpetrator of the damage know we are even hurt.

We don’t ever allow anyone close enough to show them how damaged we really are because somehow the culture in which we have been raised makes us feel that there is something inherently wrong with us. So we try very hard to carry on with life, and we do a pretty good job at living with the wound (indeed some of us have even managed to block it from our consciousness). It’s always there, though, and depending on how we move and flex our minds and bodies dictates how able, or not, we are to go on with the show.

My goodness aren’t we great actors and don’t we have insane levels of stamina? But sometimes it gets too much doesn’t it? It’s too real, too painful, too exhausting, too bloody gory and we just cannot carry on. We finally reach a point where we must discover and face our own truth. We can’t live like this any more. We need to be honest and tell someone about our injury. We need help.

In Mercutio’s case it’s his best friend Romeo to whom he tells the truth:

ROMEO: Courage man, the hurt cannot be much,

MERCUTIO: No tis’ not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church-door; but ‘tis enough. ‘Twill serve. Ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me grave man.’

Mercutio admits that he has been injured and that he will die as a result.

Sometimes it is not immediately apparent to us where our wound has originated from because over the years there have been many, many wounds inflicted and so that the attachment wound gets overlaid with other things and becomes simply ‘depression’ or ‘anxiety’ or ‘stress’ or ‘self harm’ or ‘x y z’.

Eventually the inevitable happens: we can’t really function. We reach a time where it becomes almost life and death and we are teetering on the edge. Sometimes the breakdown is averted and other times a breakdown is exactly what drives us into therapy.

Often it is in therapy that we finally realise what the problem has been all along. Sure there are loads and loads of other life experiences that we work through and process. I would hazard a guess and say that most people don’t walk into the therapy room for the first time, sit down and say, ‘So here’s the thing, I am suffering with the fall-out of developmental trauma and my attachment systems are causing me to struggle in relationships and in my life in general’. How wonderful it would be if we did though?! I’d have saved thousands of ££$$ if I’d have really known what I was dealing with in the beginning.

Instead, over time we gently peel back the scab layers that have sort of healed over but not quite. And then we reach it. The core wound. And my god it’s fucking enormous. It’s like staring down into the abyss. How was this level of injury ever survivable? How could a small child endure such damage and still live? Well in my case it came through shutting down/dissociating, repressing memories, and freezing that little girl back in time as well as attacking myself, in various ways, for years.

I have grown up now. I have an adult body. From the outside I have the trappings of a successful adult life: some decent qualifications, nice house, wife and children. But there are certainly parts of me that have not emotionally matured. There are several parts loose and unhappy inside.

When faced with the wound, instinct tells you to run far away and try and forget about what you’ve seen. It’s too much.  At the same time another part of you awakens the moment that gaping wound is exposed to the air. Despite everything, the child is alive still. Its need for love and care and holding is still there as much as it ever was back in the past and it is terrifying to the adult. The feelings are enormous. The need is overwhelming. What on earth do you do with that?

How can you care for that smallest part of you when it isn’t your care that the child wants? Indeed, that child has no idea that you even exist. The child wants the love and care of the person who has helped uncover the hidden it. It is that caregiver to whom the child is now attached. They want the person who has taken the time to draw that wounded small child out to rescue them. Session after session of steady work, of calm, understanding, validating conversations lead to this moment. The child loves the therapist how could it not?

The child’s hopes of being loved, held, and contained unconditionally reawaken in a flash, and there it is. Hope is ignited. Maybe this time that hole, the wound can be filled with the therapist’s love. If we can just get enough of it…

Oh, if only it were that simple!

It’s only natural that when you realise that you are severely injured that you would want to pack the wound, fill it, and close it over. The desire for the wound to heal is huge and it often feels like the only way to heal it is for the therapist to pour more and more love, and time, and evidence of care into it. If we could only get more contact with our therapist, more sessions, contact between sessions, more tangible verbal reassurances, physical holding, and emotional containment then perhaps this wound will heal up. We scream out for ‘more more MORE!’ of the good stuff…

There’s a problem, though. This wound is like a bottomless pit isn’t it? No matter what you throw into it, no matter how you try and pack it, it never fills. It can’t be filled by the therapist’s love alone. We can’t sit back and watch and hope that this person can magically fix us. We have to turn around and look deep into that hole and see how it is constructed because it is us that holds the tools to be able to heal and mend it.

It is agony staring down into that dark place. Realising just how much pain it contains is enough to send you insane. Somehow bit by bit that hole will fill and we won’t feel so empty, one day. We will learn to love ourselves and feel good enough and steadily those edges will close in. There will always be a scar, though. We can never fully take away the injury. I’m nowhere near healed. In fact writing this I can feel that hole gaping wide.

From what I can tell, not many of us feel comfortable exposing this wound to friends and family in any real depth. We might be able to talk about feeling depressed, or even allude to how bad things were when we were growing up. But when it comes to the intense feelings we feel towards our therapists and how much that impacts us on a day to day…well, it’s little wonder we don’t share that. It’s totally cringeworthy.

A lot of the time we struggle to admit the feelings we have about our therapists even to them in a therapy session so there’s not much hope of letting that out to others! We can’t face the shame, embarrassment, or the pitying looks but also the lack of understanding we are so often faced with.

Despite all the recent publicity and trying to normalise mental health issues in the media it just doesn’t always filter down into families. It feels like this in my wider family: ‘yeah, mental health issues need to be talked about and there needs to be more funding for it. Isn’t it terrible? It’s lucky that no one in our family struggles with their mental health. We’re all jolly and normal aren’t we?…what breakdown? Oh no, that wasn’t a breakdown it was a gap year, she didn’t want to work. She’s fine. Anorexia? No, no, she’s naturally thin and athletic…’

There is so much denial in my family about what has and hasn’t happened, who does or doesn’t struggle, that it’s almost funny. I can sort of accept the wall of pretence from outside the house and notch it up to ‘my dysfunctional blood relations’. I find it far harder when I face criticism and/or lack of understanding at home.

I’m sure it’s not just me that gets these kind of wonderfully helpful soundbites directed at them when the blood starts to seep through a bit and the ability to hide the gaping hole is lessened:

‘What have you got to be depressed about?’

‘You need to learn to let this go.’

‘You can’t change it so don’t let it bother you.’

‘Why can’t you see all the positives you have in your life?’

‘Why am I not enough for you?

‘Why don’t you let me in?’

‘Your depression isn’t getting any better.’

‘I won’t watch you destroy yourself again.’

‘How much therapy does one person need?’

‘Your relationship with your therapist is unhealthy.’

‘I don’t see any improvement in you since you’ve been in therapy, if anything I think you are worse.’

‘You need to try harder to be happy.’

‘I feel like there’s a huge part of you that I just don’t know, why won’t you talk to me?’

‘Can’t you just put it all in a box and forget about it?’

I could go on and on and on but I’m sure you get the idea and have several of your own to throw in there.

When, periodically, faced with those kind of statements it makes it incredibly difficult to open up and be honest about how things are. I think this is, in part, why the therapeutic relationship becomes so important to so many of us. We just do not have anyone who really, genuinely, can listen without judgement. It’s hard to be your real self when your true self isn’t what people want to deal with. They like the one that hides the wound and soldiers on.

Sure, our loved ones love us and care deeply about out wellbeing, but it is also so hard for them to witness how bad things can be for us. It’s not easy witnessing so much pain and being powerless to really help. They can’t fix us. They don’t really understand us. They don’t see the child inside or if they do, what on earth are they meant to do with it? They are desperate for us to be well and happy but it’s not a quick solution…and often in therapy things get worse before they get better. I think that must be terrifying for them and so it is understandable that, at times, frustrations air.

The problem for a lot of us is that we fear abandonment and rejection so much that these kind of statements can make us hide and build our walls even higher. I, for one, am a highly sensitive person and so any kind of criticism like that really hurts me. I feel like the emerging self is not the one that people want to know. The high-functioning adult is far more appealing than the vulnerable one who can’t just cope with anything that’s thrown at it.

I’m aware that this is a massive ramble and I haven’t really said all that I want to. It is certainly a subject to come back to at some point. As I have been writing this I can feel the little parts have really started to stir. I felt very much in my adult when I began and now I feel very small and sad and lost.

The little girl inside realises, yet again that Mummy isn’t coming and the idealised replacement mummy isn’t really a ‘mummy’ to her at all. Ouch!

And so, I guess, this is the bit where my therapist would say that I somehow need to summon up my adult, the one that is a mummy to two beautiful small people, and get her to pick up that little girl and hold onto her tightly, tell her she is loved, and that she is safe. I so want to be able to do that for her. I absolutely want to soothe that part of me but right now all I seem to be able to do is watch her suffer. I have no idea how to make things better for her. I know before long I will end up attacking myself because the pain is so overwhelming and that doesn’t help anyone.

The mother wound is gaping today.

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