Blogs Don’t Write Themselves!

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

giphy-downsized-5

Oh the irony! I’ve just been sitting here for a couple of minutes, with an empty screen, not knowing what to write, with no title in mind, and then just near the publish button a red note flashed up ‘you haven’t written anything yet’…like seriously give me a bloody break already! I know this!! I’m here and trying – and even the platform is giving me hell for being wordless! haha.

Seriously, though, I am yet again very aware that time is motoring on and I have written nothing here again. There’s been a lot of really good (but hard) stuff going on in my therapy and yet I just haven’t made it here to log it/blog it. Look, I know the earth isn’t going to fall off its axis if this blog suddenly dies but as I frequently keep saying, I actually enjoying writing it and want to keep this going if I can.

Next week is actually the start of the school Easter break here in the UK so I think I might actually get some time to sit and drink coffee and type (kids permitting!)…and lord knows once Em goes on her holiday I’ll have plenty of content won’t I? #therapybreak #abandonment #arghhhh! So hopefully I can get myself back up to speed.

It’s not helped that this last week I have been struck down with a monster lurgy and have basically been surviving on a cocktail of painkillers and sleep (my teaching hasn’t been up to much!…present in body and that’s about it!). It’s not even funny. I honestly thought I had dodged the bullet this winter having avoided getting anything that involved snot and/or too much coughing but no – it all went to shit on Saturday night at rapid pace when I was out with a friend for a belated birthday celebration.

It’s typical. I NEVER go out in the evening for social things because 1) I am usually working or 2) I am too tired…but my friend and I booked ourselves a date two months in advance (as you have to when you have kids! – spontaneity died in 2012 with the birth of my first child!) and we had a lovely evening planned. The evening was still nice but I felt like I had a neck full of razor blades and so swallowing and talking was a bit of a challenge.

Sunday was Mother’s Day in the UK….and what did that entail? Family time? A nice meal out? Memory making? Ah nope. I basically stayed in bed all day sleeping and my wife kept bringing me hot drinks and pain relief at intervals. Fortunately, I had been out with my mum earlier in the week so hadn’t had to cancel any plans or go to something feeling rotten.

I felt quite a bit more human on Monday morning (compared with how it had been on Sunday – I felt more or less ok I just sounded funny) and went to my therapy session and then to work. However, I think in fairness, I should really have cancelled my day because by the time I got home from my kids’ swimming lessons in the evening I was dying – it all caught up with me and my symptoms had got worse – cough, sore throat, running nose, weepy eyes, burning ears…and now I am panicking that I might have passed it on to Em. I really hope I haven’t – I wasn’t coughing or sneezing or anything in session – I wouldn’t have gone if I was like that but …. argh. I hope she is ok.

Tbh she seems to be made of tough stuff. She has never cancelled a session because she’s been ill and there’s been maybe once or twice in the whole time I have worked with her that she’s looked a bit coldy but otherwise she seems hardy! haha. I guess maybe working with so many people all the time you get a super immune system. When I worked in schools I was wiped out in the first year but after that was like some kind of mutant super-hero so far as bugs were concerned.

Anyway, I am completely rabbiting on here. Note to self- no fucker cares about your physical ailments they want to know about your crazy! 😉

So, like I said, recently therapy has been really good but really hard. Some stuff I had not had in my conscious mind has reared it’s head over the last few weeks. I’ve been having some horrid flashbacks and memories and wondering, now that I have remembered (and in technicolour) how I could ever have had this stuff out of mind. Anyway, the focus has been largely the time between me being 6-11 years old with some toe dipping in the early anorexic years around 14-17…

Interestingly the stuff I have been talking about I’ve just been recounting as though they are normal day-to-day events no emotion behind it imagine ‘I went to the shop to buy a loaf of bread’ (matter of fact, unaffected) but replace with, ‘I remember being taken see my aunt in ITU when I was six after she’d been involved in a massive RTA that nearly killed her and seeing her in traction from her broken pelvis and all the wounds and scars from all the surgery she’d had to have and how swollen and bruised she was and having to sit quietly on a chair and wait for it to be over and being frightened to look at her and no one ever telling me what was going on or if she’d be ok….and now I have a hospital phobia which really isn’t helpful when I so regularly have to attend hospital for my cancer follow ups….’. Or ‘My mum got physically attacked by the next door neighbour when I was ten and there was so much blood pouring from her head that it drenched her top and was all over the floor and the police came…’ You know, just by the by!

It was only after my session last Friday that I realised it’s all completely insane and ABNORMAL….because this sort of thing was all so very ‘run of the mill’ to me at the time – going to hospital to stitch my dad’s face up because mum had thrown a coffee cup at his  head and it had smashed and cut him…doesn’t every one do that?! My aunt was regularly sectioned and did some pretty extreme stuff when she was unwell and had a lifetime of pain from the fallout of the car accident and so I spent a lot of time sitting in my gran’s car in the psychiatric hospital carpark during holidays. I would be sent to my grandparents as my parents worked and my grandma visited my aunt. So.… yeah…. I dunno gotta love sitting in a hot car with a dog for hours on end!

I’m only really now twigging that how my family has historically dealt with traumatic experiences isn’t normal or should I say ‘not dealt’ with them! (which is probably why my aunt was so unstable too- intergenerational trauma anyone!)….

I was talking about the incident with my mum’s assault by the neighbour on Monday and after I had talked about it about and how I had felt at the time Em asked me how my parents had responded to it, i.e what they’d said to me.

‘Was it ever talked about?’

‘Nope’

Her face looked genuinely shocked and her tone changed and she leaned forward in her chair, ‘What? Never ever?

‘Nope’

‘Honestly? They never made any comments about it?

‘No’

‘So that’s how it was. They didn’t acknowledge what had happened?’

‘No’

‘They didn’t say something like “That was really horrible and shouldn’t have happened and I feel really angry about it and how do you feel?”‘

‘Nope. Why are you so surprised by this? It follows the pattern. No one ever said anything when bad things happened’.

‘I don’t disbelieve you. I just… I don’t know how to put it…’

Basically we talked about the insanity of the situation and how scary it must have been for me at the time and more about it and how if it were me now with my children what I would have done differently and basically Em said, ‘it’s horrendous – what happened’.

That’s a really short hand snapshot of a conversation that took about 35 minutes. I can’t explain how it felt to have someone listen to stuff like that. Stuff that just ‘happened’ when I was a kid and was never mentioned again and to get a completely different response – in fact a response and acknowledgement of how horrible it must have been. Em is not big on letting me know explicitly what she’s feeling in the moment – she’s not blank screen but she’s very measured – usually. But this really got to her. I think I have said a lot these last couple of weeks that has given her another window into what was going on in another aspect of my childhood and it affected her.

It affected me too.

Unfortuantely, feeling connected to and being seen by Em does that bloody horrible thing where suddenly all the need rushes to the surface. In those moments I just want to tell her I love her and how much she means to me – I just want to be with her in the safety of that space. She makes those memories of being unsafe feel ok…and that is intoxicating to someone who has been starved of that kind of interaction and care. But of course hot on the heels of those warm connected feelings comes SHAME and I shut down. I can’t let her really know how much need there is so I go quiet.

Em, tried really hard to figure out what was happening for me and wondered whether her reaction to what I had said was overwhelming, or too much, or felt intrusive and maybe compared with what I have been used to historically (no reaction from caregivers) it might have felt overpowering. She said that what she was feeling was complete disbelief – not that I wasn’t telling the truth, but that a parent could not have their child in mind. She said she felt angry at my parents on my behalf.

This, for me felt so connecting. So validating. And yet she thinks she’s overstepped the mark. I couldn’t tell her that actually the reason I am shut down is because I want to feel this level of connection and more but am terrified of her rejecting me or seeing me as too needy and so am protecting her from me.

I did manage to tell her I felt really sad, though.

Then time was nearly up – isn’t it always just as you hit your stride?!

And with about sixty seconds to go she told me that she felt really sad for the little girl who had to witness such horrible things. She said I didn’t get anywhere near like enough physical holding when I was small. That she felt I needed to have been picked up and put on someone’s lap and cuddled and held, or to have an arm wrapped around me and been given the chance to talk.

Yep.

But ouch.

Because whilst that is most certainly the truth. When I am there in session like that, that little girl is sitting in the room too. She’s not back in 1993. I know what I didn’t have when I was a kid. I know that my therapist knows it too. But god – when she is less than two metres from me it feels impossibly painful to not be able to reach out to her in a physical way. The words help….but they don’t quite do it. And whilst they are meant to feel in some way holding (and they do a bit) – actually what often happens is that I feel like I am untouchable…TOXIC even because she won’t hug me.

I’ve drawn another (dreadful picture) that sort of describes the process….and I’ll leave that here until next time because I must sleep! x

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One Small Step At A Time

rubberbandsandchewinggum4 Comments

Time seems to be motoring on doesn’t it?…Thank god! I am so over Winter now. I can’t even explain how much happier I feel since the sun came out this week and we’ve had a few solid days of blue skies here in the UK (well, where I am at least). January felt unending but honestly I don’t even know where March has gone?…

Today I received a text from a friend whom I had met for a coffee last Wednesday saying how nice it had been to catch up and sorry it’d taken a week for her to acknowledge that. My response was, ‘A week? Already?! I’m such a headless chicken right now! So lovely to see you and thank you for the lovely treat. See you soon!’…S and I usually meet up for coffee every couple of months but when we were chatting realised it had been well before Christmas that we had last got together.

I am usually pretty good at sending people messages after I’ve seen them to say how much I enjoyed spending time with them and yet somehow I have barely blinked, a week has passed, and there I am belatedly thanking someone for taking me out for my birthday! It’s not like me at all.

My blog is completely falling by the wayside, too. I can’t believe there was ever a time when I had space in my week to write one or two posts here each week. Now I hurriedly type something in order that I don’t forget where I am at. This is meant to be my mental health/therapy journal of sorts – but lately I feel I am missing a good deal of ‘content’ because I haven’t time to get it down on the page…and then when I do get a minute I forget what’s happened or how I felt when reflecting back – how much of that is dissociation and how much of that is goldfish memory is anyone’s guess!

I miss having a couple of quiet hours in an afternoon to sit at my laptop and write, drink coffee, and splurge my emotional stuff – pain pain pain ugh! Having said that, the one thing that has come of being so busy all the time (other than being perpetually tired!) is that there is much less time to fester on the attachment stuff during in the daytime AND THIS IS VERY GOOD NEWS. Lately, before I even know it, it’s either Monday or Friday and it’s time to see Em again and I can’t get fully engulfed in the attachment pain.

Don’t get me wrong – the attachment stuff is still there BIG TIME bubbling under the surface (Still a long way to go to earned secure attachment!), and sometimes it is bloody agonising/debilitating …but because I have so much to cram in I can’t get swallowed up by my feelings in the way that I have done in the past. I used to mope about hanging on between my sessions literally counting down the days (minutes!) to when I could see Em and felt as though I would die from the pain of being away from her (not joking) – now I have to get on with my ‘professional’ life and hold the young feelings as best I can. Sometimes I am successful at it – sometimes I fall flat on my face/arse/both.

To be honest, what seems to happen is the days are largely ok, I’m aware of the parts feeling sad and can give that some space but put it to one side… and then when I get tired and it’s close to bedtime the younger more needy feelings come up to the surface and I feel really quite sad. I miss Em. I suspect that is quite common.

Anyway, that’s not what I’m here to talk about – love the fact that I am saying how I have no time to write and then essentially write bog all for loads of paragraphs!

Soooo…..where am I?

Right now I feel upbeat-ish which I appreciate is a bit of a (huge) sea change from all the stuff I was talking about in my recent post. That either makes me properly fucking bonkers or clearly demonstrates how quickly feelings can move in and out for me. The other week I felt stuck fast in the pit of attachment pain and now… well… I don’t – not really- or certainly not in the same way as I did…and why is this?

Guess?

Because of a twenty minute conversation with my therapist!

I wish I was able to remember that when things feel bad talking about them with Em usually helps! Like duh -that’s what’s meant to happen. Unfortuantely, I seem to be hard-wired to protect myself from her – well – protect myself from being hurt by her and so we do this little dance back and forth every few months….almost like clockwork. Or, more realistically AROUND THE BLOODY THERAPY BREAKS!

The few months from January to March were pretty hard so far as painful attachment feelings went. One shit dream where Em was misattuned and seemingly abandoning sent me deep into my real life tortoise shell in my sessions. I was stuck in that place where I doubted Em, struggled to trust her, and felt disconnected which meant that sessions were ‘fine’ on the surface for a while whilst competent adult showed up and sent smoke signals to hide what was going on underneath. But before long, as things spiralled downwards, full on dissociation took hold and therapy was really really tough. I wanted to connect (that’s all I ever want) but I couldn’t and I felt like Em wasn’t seeing me because I wasn’t allowing her in. Of course, when I am in hiding I also feel like she is keeping me at arm’s length and so it’s a negative spiral where I feel increasingly disconnected.

NOT GOOD.

Anyway. Em and I did quite a lot of talking around the issue for a few weeks, i.e acknowledging that there was difficult stuff that needed to be talked about. I think sometimes those laying the groundwork sessions can feel frustrating because like, really, why can’t I just spit it out already? Why do I need to keep doing flypasts to check it’s safe to land. However, that is how it is, and eventually, after checking everything was safe enough I finally asked if I could show Em my book…not all of it….just the last picture I had drawn:

And whilst handing that image over was a big deal in the moment, in the big scheme of things this is really nothing compared with some of what I have shared with her over the years.

The response?

Exactly what I needed to hear. Em used the voice (you know the one!) and really ‘talked’ to me. She acknowledged what I was saying in the picture and how it relates to what I have said many times before – and she really understood how I was struggling with what was going on in the room between us. That the relationship, for me, has been the hardest thing. She held up her hands and took some of the ‘responsibility’ (her word) for skirting round the issue sometimes. She told me that she realises that there have been times where she has said or done things that haven’t met me where I am at, have been misattuned, and that at times this has meant I have been left feeling really horrible at the end of the session and having to carry that on my own and of course that understandably makes it really hard to open up because the fear (that was already huge) has had some level of reinforcement before.

That’s the long and short of it.

Basically, it was one of those moments where you get real human connection, you realise you are both human and absolutely doing your best but sometimes it falls short…on both sides…and that has been enough to make me feel anchored in the relationship and like she really does care.

It seems nuts really that I have been in hiding for months and a simple twenty minute ‘proper’ vulnerable conversation sorted it out….FOR NOW…because we all know this stuff has a habit of coming back round again….like in a few weeks when it’s her Easter holiday.

HELP!

So, we ran out of time that session but agreed to try and keep the connection and communication going – even if it was hard. She asked me to try and tell her when I felt disconnected or that she was misattuned even though it is really hard to in the moment. I left feeling so much lighter.

Part of me wanted to jump into the next session and show her more of the book but actually, another part just wanted to talk without an agenda. And that is what has happened. The last two sessions have been really nice. On Friday I showed Em the YouTube video that I posted here with the failed divers. It was good to lighten the mood and laugh together – but also to try and explain why I made the analogy with my therapy.

I feel like I have an A for effort but an E for execution so far as therapy goes. I turn up every week. I want to do the work….but fuck… most of the time it’s not a smooth move! Em told me that it wasn’t a performance and that I could be just how it is. On some level I know that but that also requires a level of vulnerability that I just can’t achieve.

Sooooo…to Monday and an unexpectedly HUGE session. Again, I just sat down, no real agenda, and started blathering on about work and then suddenly a load of buried stuff came out about early in my career missing a student with anorexia and the guilt that I still feel for ‘failing her’. Anyway, that developed into a massive conversation about when and how my eating disorder started in my teens. My ED is something I struggle to get to in my therapy (especially after the nightmare that happened last year) but somehow I could talk about it this week and god, it’s been so long buried, it was good to give it some light and air.

Whilst Em and I didn’t talk about our relationship at all – which has been ‘the big thing’ bugging me lately, strangely it’s kind of not front and centre at the minute. Talking about this ‘old but huge thing’ was incredibly connecting. Sharing something so personal and guarded and having it responded to kindly and with empathy was soooooo connecting.

So yeah, it’s a weird one right now. There are all kinds of things going on and there are certainly some more big (scary!) conversations to be had but right now I am optimistic about it all.

But don’t let me fool you into thinking everything is rosy in the internal landscape of yours truly. Hell no! That’s not how it is. So, it was bad from January to March because I felt unseen and disconnected from Em – booooo hiss!! BUT NOW because I feel connected to Em I feel really needy and just have that ache to be close to her. Oh the joys of attachment eh?!

FFS! Gimme a break!!! Haha…just remember this:

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Count Down To Feelings Splurge

rubberbandsandchewinggum6 Comments

So, here I am again …mild panic….deep breathing… on the verge of another big splurge of attachment pain in therapy tomorrow. Oh the shame! What I am feeling right now, and is just about to blow open again, has been building steadily since I had a horrible dream in January where my therapist basically flat out ignored me causing a huge rupture (in the dream!). The details aren’t really important but since that dream that niggly doubting part that struggles to trust Em and feels like she doesn’t really care has been grumbling away in the background.

Of course this mistrusting, angsty part is not the only part that gets activated when the negative attachment stuff (fears of being abandoned and rejected) starts swirling closer to the surface; the younger, clingy, needy parts that just desperately want to be loved are really going for it inside too. It’s such a battleground…and oh my god it’s exhausting.

It’s funny really. I can go months without dreaming about Em at all and then when the attachment button gets wedged on she is on my waking and sleeping mind pretty much all the time. It’s embarrassing and just plain ugh. I have my adult life to be getting on with, which is hectic and consuming enough without little ones inside feeling like they need to be within 3ft of my therapist at all times …and even then that’s not really close enough – I wish I could say that there wasn’t a part that wants to crawl into her lap and go to sleep! Then there’s the teen parts saying it’s time to cut and run because it’s all a crock of shit and Em is just someone we pay to listen to us and there IS NO RELATIONSHIP. I mean for fuck’s sake…this stuff is getting so old now!

The only thing that is better now is that I can see it for what is it now. I recognise the process and every time I come at this stuff it’s from a slightly different angle. Adult me diligently attends my sessions and we go through the process over and over and over until one day maybe something will be healed. And healing has been happening – in small increments. Each time we have the difficult but healing conversations a different part hears what’s being said and little by little I start to internalise a felt sense of being safe in the therapeutic relationship. Strangely though, this sense of things being ok ebbs over time depending on what’s going on with different parts. Adult me knows everything is ok but the younger parts repeatedly hit black ice and start sliding.

Em and I have been edging towards another of those ‘big’ conversations for a while now – laying the foundations for the work: alluding to big wounds and shame and embarrassment and all that jazz. There’s been a lot of dissociation but also a lot of explaining my process when I find my way back into my window (letter box!) of tolerance…and this is huge progress. I don’t just sit there in silence and in agony now…. I can, to some extent, explain the agony even if I can’t say why I am in agony! We can track the body reactions and the feelings….even if I can’t just say ‘this all comes from me wanting to be close to you’.

The other week Em asked me how I felt about things now we have been having two sessions a week fpr the last six months, and oh my god – it was horrendous. The body reaction was huge. I felt like I was going to vomit and then after a few minutes went completely numb and into my safe space. So much for giving up dissociation for Lent! We talked at length about what was going on and how every time we get close to talking about our relationship it stirs up a huge feelings. I can talk about really difficult things from my past and be fine but the moment we edge closer to what’s going on with us in the relationship- I’m gone!

We both know there is work to be done there but it’s a case of how we do it. Em made reference to staring at the sun the other day and how we can’t do it for too long because it’s too painful and maybe we can do it slowly. She also said something about letting the big  (mother)wound breathe little by little so it can heal rather than keep ripping the plaster, exposing it thoroughly so that any contact with anything feels like salt being poured in the wound and it being excruciating. I totally see what she is saying. It makes sense….

I’m definitely more of an ‘avoid- avoid- avoid- avoid- avoid- avoid….big running bomb and huge splash into the attachment wound let it all out in one go’ type therapy client. Ha. And that’s where I am now. I told Em on Friday that I have been avoiding talking to her about ‘stuff’ (code for the attachment feelings) because it’s so unbelievably painful. So we both know where we are heading. We’ve been here enough times before and yet every time I feel like I have a big thing to get off my chest it’s as though I am saying it for the first time.

To be clear here – basically the THING that chokes me for weeks or even months at a time is the loving feelings I have towards Em. Sometimes I sit in session and I just want to tell her I love her, I am grateful to her, and that I appreciate her. That shouldn’t be so fucking hard should it?- after all these years – but it really is. Because there are other (younger) parts that love her in a completely different way…that all-consuming way a child loves its mother and that’s where the shame comes in. All of it makes me feel sick. There is so much I want to say but it get sooooooo complicated.

I reach a point though, where I can’t avoid the work and even though it is fucking hellish being told, in the kindest way possible, that this is a therapeutic relationship and there are needs that can’t be met now but we can process the loss and pain together….PUKE! – it has to be done.

I bought a notebook after my (horrid) dream in January and I started writing down dreams and odd bits and bobs. The idea was I would take it to therapy and unpick it bit by bit rather than ending up texting stuff. I haven’t text Em in a long time but when the attachment/love stuff gets active that need to connect outside the session gets stronger. I thought the book would be a good tool. It has been coming in my bag to therapy but hasn’t made it out yet!

(You can’t make this shit up!)

In the last week I’ve written loads. It’s gone mad inside and I have been writing and doodling stuff – because it’s all starting to make its way to the surface…and then I ended up texting Em the picture below… So, tomorrow the plan is to try and make a start on this stuff properly….

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After I text the picture I ended up writing round this drawing I literally let it all out:

  • This is the worst week in a long time
  • Anxiety has ramped up since I text you this image (above)
  • Shame has gone insane because the need is huge
  • The attachment-related pain (stomach ache and tearfulness) are stuck on
  • I feel emotionally vulnerable
  • It’s as though the avoidance and coping strategies have gone offline and I’m left with that gaping wound
  • I am both desperate to see you and terrified of seeing you
  • I don’t want to dissociate on Friday but know it’s really likely because you will undoubtedly ask me about what prompted me to text you…and then the shame will flood in and I’ll be gone
  • I can’t bear the boundary talk again
  • When you try to normalise my feelings I feel even more pathetic. It’s as though you’ve seen this stuff a million times before and it’s almost scientific to you. This makes me feel really sad because it essentially confirms what the critical voice is always shouting: ‘the relationship isn’t real and there is no connection – it’s all just transference’ This makes me feel sad because you really matter to me and yet it’s stupid to feel anything at all when this is clearly just another example of the same process to you. I could be anyone.
  • I desperately want to connect but what is there to connect to? -NOTHING. That makes me want to run away.
  • Why do I keep doing this to myself?
  • Why do I keep hoping that one day something is going to shift and change?
  • It’s so unbelievably painful…this is why I don’t talk!!
  • Talking about our relationship is really painful for me because I am so aware of the lack of relationship.
  • I feel ashamed for needing you
  • I feel embarrassed that I care so much about someone who is just doing their job
  • Every time we talk about this  I feel like I am being kicked in the stomach and being rejected – it really hurts
  • I hate that you have all the power
  • I hate that it makes no difference to you whether I see you or not

WOWZERS …. there it all is! Yikes….

And then we had Friday’s session and it was ok and she didn’t give me the boundary talk and instead said something about us both knowing there were things on the periphery that need talking about that don’t make it fully into the room but that she gets the sense they are not on the periphery when I am out of the room….

uh huh

yep

and that spawned this when I got home:

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And that, my friends, is where I am at right now. Crazy is notched up to a solid 9 on the scale after several months of being a 4!

I guess we’ll just see how it all goes … it’s all part of the process. Man I love therapy 😉

I’m Giving Up Dissociation For Lent!

rubberbandsandchewinggum5 Comments

‘I’m giving up dissociation for Lent!’ …Ah if only leaving my unconscious ‘go to’ coping strategy behind were as easy as giving up chocolate for the next forty days… actually, giving up chocolate would be a huge stretch, too, so I don’t know why I am even saying that!

I’m not religious (at all) and so the title of this post was sarcastic rather than a real thing – and please don’t be offended by the tone of the post if you are religious- it’s not meant as a dig I am just thinking out loud and scratching my head about where I am at right now.

I always kind of wonder about why other heathen non-believers like myself seem to jump on this particular time period and say they’re foregoing something until Easter. Like what’s so special about Lent? I wonder if the idea of withholding from ourselves is so engrained that we think, ‘ah, yes, I can punish myself for a protracted period of time’. Let’s face it, most of us don’t need an event in the Christian calendar to revel in self-denial and penance. We are perpetually listing our failings and, for the anorexic eating disordered among us, fasting is second nature.

Maybe Lent is too easy then?

Maybe it’s the convenient timing too?

These days we are so fixated on body image – I’m sure it’s about now that the glossy magazines start bleating on about how to achieve ‘the ultimate bikini body’ (FYI you basically have to put a bikini on your existing body but that’s not what they pedal is it?!) – that maybe we see Lent as a time to shed those winter pounds we gained. It’s become diet season so why not have a running jump at losing the muffin top? I dunno.

Look, I totally get that seeing the next six weeks as a sort of weightloss challenge is a bastardisation of the original purpose – but this is what I am wondering about – like why when you don’t do organised religion does Lent seem to be a ‘thing’? For those people that are religious I understand it – makes sense – and I’m betting most people of faith aren’t simply shunning bars of Galaxy until Easter.

Anyway, moving on…a bit…I have been thinking about self-care, strangely, in relation to Lent. I give self-care a wave every now and then but, frankly, am pretty poor at looking after myself. I seem to come somewhere right down the bottom of the pile for care: kids, wife, other people, my animals, the dying orange at the back of the fridge, and then somewhere a little further along the line is me.

It’s strange.

I get that self-care is a REALLY GOOD THING and NECESSARY if you don’t want to be a complete knackered wreck/basketcase and yet I really struggle to prioritise my needs and myself. There’s a part of me that sees looking after myself as selfish… rationally I know that is totally fucked up but it is how I feel.

There is certainly a part of me that thinks I don’t deserve to be happy, to be looked after, to rest, or be a normal weight….and we all know who that is: the Inner Critic. I know that part of me has been doing her best over the last 25+ years to protect me and keep me functioning but these days, her ideas of how to keep me safe and working don’t really work. Trying to be perfect, stretching myself beyond my limits, and starving myself don’t really lead to things being ok or safe. I know that.

I have been really aware of my body again these last couple of weeks. You know how it is, that niggling thing where you look in the mirror and notice all the flaws – that extra couple of pounds you put on over Christmas seems to have welded itself to your hips and won’t budge…(even though you’ve done nothing to help budge it other than will it away!). And I think this is why Lent is winding me up a bit as I see people choosing now to start dieting again because actually my brain is scheming and saying, ‘Go on, jump on board with it too, here’s your opportunity, you can legitimately hide behind Lent to cover your eating disorder for the next couple of months – give up sugar…or EVERYTHING and you can lose that weight that’s been driving you mad for the last three months’.

See, this is not good which is why I am just blathering on here. I am aware of how careful I need to be when my mind starts considering any kind of restriction because it never leads anywhere good. I know I need to have a conversation with my therapist about these feelings but I feel kind of moronic talking about not eating when I am actually eating and am as close to a normal BMI as I have ever been.

It’s sad that there’s some critical voice that is saying, ‘you can’t talk about not eating when you are this weight and eating food! Like seriously, look at you, you’re fat!’ Of course I do know that this is exactly the time I need to be mentioning these feelings in therapy – BEFORE things start to spiral downwards and the ED mindset kicks in and the secrecy and denial becomes the fronting part. I don’t want to end up in the place I ended up last year  and when Em issued an Ultimatum.

I also need to work out why I am feeling like I need to take control in this particular way again. It isn’t because of Lent! 😉 I know it has something to do with the level of dissociation I have been experiencing lately. I had a crazy bad dissociative session last Friday and I know it’s because I have been edging closer to the Mother Wound again. When the young parts are a bit more present or want to come to therapy it generally doesn’t go well – not because Em says or does anything wrong, but because other parts step up to protect me from being vulnerable (or stupid!). That huge need for connection and care so easily triggers feelings of shame as well as fear of being abandoned for being too much that it just sends me into orbit. I get sucked out the room. It’s horrid.

Fortunately, Em and I were able to do some good work on Monday where I was able to stay in the window of tolerance and start to unpick some of what has been going on. Em herself said something about the fact that there is a massive painful wound that sometimes gets exposed and is so incredibly raw that it is too much to bear so I cover it over with a plaster – only it doesn’t heal when it’s covered. So the deal is we are going to try and very very gently let a little bit of air get to the wound and let it start to heal in tiny increments…and try and understand the shame too. (This is not new news by the way, it’s just we are repeating it again!)

I don’t really know what I am trying to say with this post, but basically, I think if I am going to try and give up anything for Lent then it has to be being horrible to myself and defeating myself. Rather than giving up something I enjoy (although to be fair I think the Critic is a bit of a sadist and enjoys being mean!) I am going to try and use the next few months to be kinder to myself. I am going to try really hard to trust in my therapeutic relationship with Em and accept and believe that after seven years she is still there, steady, and constant and caring…I do not need to be frightened of her. She is safe.

What am I giving up for Lent? A lifetime of bad habits that hurt me. Perhaps some of you can do the same.

EEEK! I’m beginning to wish I’d stuck with chocolate! x

 

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‘You Look Tired’

rubberbandsandchewinggum10 Comments

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I was hanging on by a frayed thread by the time it reached last Friday. I was both emotionally and physically exhausted. I literally felt as though I was running on empty and really struggled to motivate myself to get through the last few teaching sessions of the week.

It’s weird, knowing the half-term was imminent didn’t make things feel easier. It wasn’t, ‘I only have x sessions left and I can do this’ instead it felt like I was wading through treacle, ‘Please god when will this stop? I can’t do this’. To be fair to myself it has been a manic busy couple of months again workwise so I’m not really surprised I was crawling towards the finish line last week. When physical tiredness is combined with a big mental health wobble it’s never great! (When will I ever learn?!)

It felt like such a struggle by the time the holiday was actually within touching distance but it doesn’t make it feel any better knowing that how my life is structured basically saps me of everything I have and I am essentially walking wounded at the end of each term. It’s not sustainable and I really need to look at self-care again.

Fortunately, the inner emotional storm that touched down in my Monday therapy session had eased off a bit and was now more like an unfortunate patch of drizzle by the time I got to Friday’s session. I was still without an umbrella but didn’t feel as though I might be swept up and away to Oz now.

Phew!

Em and I probably had one of the best sessions we’ve had in a long while. I was able to keep a foot in the present whilst being very much aware of what had gone on earlier in the week where I had been caught up in trauma time, dissociated, and ended up self-harming. It feels really good when I am able to open up, be vulnerable, and actually take in my therapist rather than being stuck in that awful space where I feel like looking at her could burn me and am perpetually worried that she is going to leave.

I can’t really remember much about what we talked about but I know I spoke a lot and let her know some stuff about my process and it felt really connecting. I had really hoped to build on that session this week but you know what it’s like – one step forward and two steps back! I don’t know what happened – you’d think without work in the mix I would have been able to relax into my sessions and really unpick stuff – but no! Typical.

A friend of mine suggested that maybe I have slightly gone into self-protection mode as I have my cancer follow up appointment this week and so am armouring up ready for that. I suspect she might be right. I am dreading Wednesday because when I feel as tired as I do at the moment I can’t help but compare it with how I felt before I got diagnosed. I would say I feel as exhausted now as I did in the months leading up to the horror that was being told I had Hodgkin’s and frankly, that is fucking terrifying.

I hope I just feel knackered because I have a busy life but there is always a niggling doubt that it could be that I have relapsed.

Wow, that was super cheery wasn’t it?!

Back to therapy!!

To be honest, therapy was a bit of a waste of time this week. I mean I wasted it. I was conscious of the fact that I was sitting talking about shit that really didn’t matter at all. I was just letting off steam about annoyances – like about someone who came to stay who was fully ill with a chest infection and hacking cough. Sure, it pissed me off, but really? Why waste my Monday session on that stuff????

I had friends visiting all week and so I was busy with them – the first visitors drained me because I get really anxious when people are ill around me – low lymphocytes mean I get ill easily and it can take quite some time to recover but the second group of visitors was really restorative. I love spending time with this particular woman and her kids. We’ve known each other twenty years and have one of those easy relationships where months can go by without contact and then when we get together it’s like no time has passed.

Part of me didn’t really want to go to my session on Friday because my lovely friend was leaving that day (she’d arrived Weds evening) and my taking three hours out to drive to session seemed to be eating into precious time with a real person whom I have a reciprocal relationship with and haven’t seen in 18 months! Sure, I could have Skyped but I am not a huge fan of that and with both my kids and hers running around it wouldn’t have been easy to find a quiet spot. I also kind of knew that if I had cancelled the session at least a couple of parts would have had some kind of meltdown about it. They are already freaking out about my holiday in May when EM IS NOT ON HOLIDAY AND WILL BE IN THE ROOM!!!

Anyway, get to the point….

I actually don’t think there is one! ha. Oh, tiredness?

Yesterday I got it into my head that I wanted to go to the beach where I grew up – it’s about 75 mins drive and I love it there. We had a lovely time – eating fish and chips, getting an ice cream and running around on the beach…well my wife and kids ran about and I took pictures because I WAS TIRED!

It was lovely to get away from home for a bit and relax a bit. Even though my childhood was a complete shit show at times I still love that area. I feel most at home there. As we were leaving the beach I text my best friend from primary school (who is living through the hell that is metastatic breast cancer and has found its way into her bones) to see if she wanted to have a very quick hello. As it turned out she was at a local shopping mall with her mum and we met up for a quick hug. As you do! 😉

I haven’t seen my friend’s mum since I finished chemo around three years ago when I was on holiday in the area and we had all got together (my mum too). The first thing she said to me was, ‘Gosh x you look really tired’. This woman has known me since I was six years old and putting my foot in a bowl of custard the first time I went for tea after school – as a child she was like another mother to me. Again, it made me worry a bit that I look so noticeably tired that it is the first thing someone would say to me – especially as the last time she saw me I was bald and had just come off the back of twelve chemotherapies and fifteen radiotherapies…. I mean… I think I should be positively glowing in comparison!

The thing is, I know I am not.

I do look tired. Really tired. And no matter how much sleep I get I still wake up feeling devoid of energy. I haven’t exercised in a really long time now because I simply do not have it in me  and that is not like me at all. I really hope that as the days get longer and the sun appears more I find myself with a new lease of life because, frankly, this right now is shit!! I hope that some good news on Wednesday will also lift some of the tension I feel.

Anyway, on that note I need to go to bed as I am soooo tired and emotional (because I am tired!) that I currently have no clue how I will make it through the week! – apologies that this blog has hit a new low so far as being boring goes. I have lots to say, I just don’t have energy or time to get it down properly at the moment.

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Wobbly

rubberbandsandchewinggum9 Comments

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Wobbly. That’s how I feel right now. After a period of relative stability and calm things seem to have shifted into that uncomfortable space where everything feels ‘not quite right’ again and I am in danger of completely losing my balance. It’s not desperately bad (yet!)…it’s just ‘not ok’…you know? I don’t really know what’s happened; all I know is that I was fine and now I am not! Ha. Great!

Life is just my usual kind of busy: nothing is really any different to normal. There’s lots of work (more teaching taken on last week but nothing I can’t manage), running kids about, therapy, general life stuff- and yet for some reason I have gone from coping, no, better than that – living – to not really coping very well at all. I feel almost paralysed by whatever is going on inside me.

I desperately want to crawl into my bed and sleep and just hide from the world for a bit. I have very little motivation to do anything. I actually feel tearful at the thought of having to go to work later this evening. It feels like putting on the ‘professional me’ will be too much…and yet, of course, I will go and do my sessions tonight, it will be fine (as it always is), I might even enjoy it whilst I’m doing it…just part of me isn’t convinced.

In addition to this, I’ve noticed that I have shut my social circle down to essentially one poor bugger who gets it warts and all. Other than this interaction I am struggling to engage in social contact. I have a bunch of emails and messages I want/need to respond to but I simply don’t have the energy to think about appropriate messages that don’t basically end up with me looking like a self-absorbed twat.

I need to spend some time really unpicking what’s happened for me to end up here again because right now I don’t have a very clear picture. This, in part is down to the fact that I have been dissociating a lot lately (WHY?) and having periods of amnesia when I bring emotional stuff to mind. It’s like trying to catch something on the breeze,  I can see it and then it’s completely gone. I feel as though I have just been thrown out a vehicle in the middle of nowhere and have absolutely no idea how I got here, or indeed, where I am now. It’s a bit disconcerting (terrifying!).

Therapy on Monday was complete agony. I don’t know what happened. I just didn’t feel right on the way there and the moment I sat down my body started freaking out – I guess I felt fear/panic initially and then I was frozen, my vision blurred and then there were stars, and I felt as though I was being sucked out the room. I tried to hang on in there and not succumb to being pulled into the vacuum but it was so so hard.

Staying with my body when it is oscillating between pain and numbness and tingling etc is hard going. Sometimes the feeling of letting go and escaping the bodily sensations is really quite appealing (I used to do this a lot in therapy)…however ‘leaving the room’ comes with its own problems and I really do want/need to stay present with Em if I am able to, otherwise there is no hope of connection which is really what I need when things get like this.

The thing is, whatever has been triggered in me also triggers all my defences and so no matter how I want/need to connect, I just can’t – parts of me won’t allow it. I’m not stupid, I know that the core problem lies somewhere in the feelings around being needy and vulnerable and wanting intimacy but it all feeling too dangerous to be open…that old chestnut again!

The problem with the kind of sessions I had on Monday is there’s a lot of discomfort and silence and me saying, ‘I don’t know’ when she asks me questions because my brain is empty – like a void- all the stuff I want to say before I get there just vanishes. It’s not that I am being deliberately avoidant or withholding, it’s actually that everything is gone and I am just left with the body sensations. Nightmare.

Em is always really good when this happens and tries to help me ground and reassures me that things are ok, that it’s been like this before, and that we will work through it. The problem is, when it gets like it did on Monday, the shame floods in. It is so embarrassing be such a mess in the presence of someone else. My adult self is pretty high-functioning and a bit of (a lot of) a control freak, so to find myself mute and struggling is really hard for me. For my adult to have been overridden by whatever this stuff is (attachment stuff!) is really hard especially after several weeks of my adult doing therapy and getting a lot from it.

I hate that my brain makes it so that I can’t talk. I hate that when I get close to that core wound (#motherwound) that my mind does everything in its power to run away and shutdown. I hate that whilst parts of me trust Em implicitly that there are other parts that don’t/can’t and so I end up in this horrendous place over and over again. I know, because this is happening again, that I am steadily creeping towards talking about the big stuff (again). I know this pattern – I take my adult to therapy and do some useful work and the young parts get left at home. That’s fine for a while and the suddenly something happens and it’s as though the whole system activates and EVERYONE HAS STUFF TO SAY!

The problem is, I/they don’t know how to say it and are scared stiff….so generally I write something, email it, or take it to session and a discussion starts. Every time I fear the worst (abandonment, being told I am too much etc) and every time that doesn’t happen and yet for some reason I am hardwired to be fearful of being open about my feelings. Every time I let stuff out that is raw and vulnerable it feels like I am doing it for the first time. I can’t seem to bring to mind that I have said, on multiple occasions, that I sometimes struggle between sessions, that I miss Em when she’s not around, that I love her AS WELL AS the other stuff like when things are bad my Inner Critic is vile and I sometimes resort to negative coping strategies such as not eating or self-harming…

I need to bring that stuff up in session tomorrow because things felt so utterly awful after Monday that for the first time in two years I did self-harm….it wasn’t really anything, I don’t keep sharp stuff in the house these days, but the fact that I was using scissors on my skin… well, that isn’t good is it? I feel ashamed about it. I feel embarrassed about it.

Ugh.

Anyway, I really really hope that tomorrow turns out ok and I can get myself up and out of this pit of meh! There’s more to say but I have to go to work… oh adult responsibilities!

 

 

Therapy Breaks…

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How many times have I talked about therapy breaks on this blog?! Loads, right? But hey, here we go again! 😉

Last Monday I missed my therapy session because my therapist was away. It wasn’t brilliant but it was ok; I focused on self-care and wrote a blog post when I would usually have had my session and had a slow day before I had to go to work. It was fine. In fact, as I said at the time, not having to drive an hour either side of the session was quite a relief and freed up quite a bit of space for me to just potter and do not much (lie in bed with my cats and drink tea!).

So…that was ok wasn’t it?

I made it through the minor disruption, worked hard all week (sigh), and was more than ready for my session when it got to Thursday. Internally I was pretty much repeating ‘one more sleep to go’ to appease the younger parts.

Only guess what happened this week on Thursday evening?

SNOW.

LOTS OF SNOW.

LOTS OF SNOW THAT SETTLED.

LOTS OF SNOW THAT MADE IT UNSAFE TO VENTURE OUT ON THE ROADS.

FUUUUCCCCCKKKKK IT!!!

I live on the edge of a National Park, on high ground, in the S.W of the UK. Basically, despite only being a few miles from a city I live high enough up for snow (and even simply ice) to be problematic. We live in a small village and it doesn’t form part of the network of roads that get gritted so essentially if a couple of inches of snow settles no one is going anywhere until it’s melted.

On Thursday night I could already see that I would not be going to my therapy session as I had had to abandon a tutoring session in the city and cancel another in order to drive back home when my wife text to say if I didn’t leave to come home I may not actually get home because there was so much snow falling.

By the time I got home it looked like something out a Christmas movie; the school had already emailed to say it would be closed on Friday; and my kids were unbelievably excited to be having a snow day. There was an Amber weather warning for the whole country. We don’t get much snow in the S.W and aside from last year’s ‘Beast From The East’ the last time we got snow was on the day I moved into my house in 2010.

As much as I would have liked to have been able to feel pleased about the prospect of snowman building and sledging you can probably imagine what my reaction to knowing I would not be seeing my therapist in person yesterday was…

Child parts had a meltdown!

I felt instantly grumpy and so so sad. I wasn’t able to be pragmatic about it at all. I just felt bloody miserable and hard done by! I feel sorry for my wife and kids as I was such a misery guts.

I know that this reaction was partly due to the fact that I hadn’t had my session on Monday either….so by the time I next see Em it will have been 10 days since I have seen her. That feels like quite a long time especially when it’s been a while since I have really talked. I had a weird session the other week where I got choked by shame and embarrassment about a dream I’d had where she ignored me – I couldn’t connect (or even look at her) or tell her about it. Ugh. Then after that therapy bomb I had a couple of very adult sessions. So there’s stuff we need to come back to but I feel like it has to be in person not via a screen.

Yesterday, I text Em to tell her I was snowed in and asked to Skype. In theory, this shouldn’t have bugged me quite so much as it did- these Friday sessions started out as Skype calls because it’s a 9:30am session and unless my wife is available to take the kids to school I can’t do the school run and still make it to session on time. Lately, however, my wife has been off work and so I have been able to go to my sessions in person. I much prefer this. Skype is ok but it is a very different experience.

So, I dialled in yesterday and to be fair it was a really nice session. Really relaxed. We laughed and it felt easy. My cat kept getting in the camera and interrupting the therapy but it was nice to sit on my couch with a cup of tea and a fur baby and talk. It was nice to see Em too. I think I spend so much of my sessions not looking at her and instead scanning the bookshelves or looking at the door that I don’t really see her much… so in a weird way Skype is good because I can look as much as I like and I don’t feel like a weirdo.

(Oh man I have issues don’t I?!)

It’s a bit of a weird thing then: I prefer to be in the room with Em and yet I hate not being able to look at her without feeling awkward; yet I hate Skype despite the fact I can see her….I guess it’s because I am always locked firmly in my adult via Skype calls and the parts that want to reach out just can’t.

Anyway eventually the conversation came round to the missed session on Monday and how I felt about it.

Adult: ‘Fine’

[meanwhile child parts locked inside adult fortress are screaming ‘NOT FINE!!!’]

Deflecting the question again I said something about looking forward to half-term and a break from my teaching work. Em said that she wasn’t going to be away this half-term (praise be!) but that she would be off the week before Easter as well as Easter itself (groan) and would be taking a little longer in August than this last summer (which was shorter than the one before). Ugh.

Instantly my brain started whirring and thinking about the summer and the young parts definitely came to the surface.

There was a bit of silence.

I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t want to dig into how hard breaks have felt. I didn’t want to acknowledge the attachment stuff.

So I glossed over it and started rambling on about something else. Good tactic!

There’s no reason that summer break shouldn’t be ok or even ‘as good as’ Christmas break.  The thing is, there are quite a few breaks coming up and lots of bank holidays which means no Monday sessions. Basically, there’s lots and lots of small disruptions and few lengthier ones. I am going away in May half-term for a holiday and so will miss two sessions. Weirdly it feels worse that I might be away and she could still be there working – opening my space up for someone else. It feels less bad if we are both away simultaneously, like last May she was on holiday but so was I….so it was ok. Ugh. At some point I will look at the calendar and see just how many sessions will be missed – I know the time between April and September always feels yuck, though.

Anyway, I now have six and a half months warning about the summer break and this actually makes me laugh a bit. Clearly, Em doesn’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon….there’s still a lot of work to do and it’s unlikely to be completed by the summer or else why give me this forewarning?!

This got me to wondering just exactly when I will be done with therapy? I know I am making progress and little by little I am working through and processing years and years (a lifetime) of trauma… right now I can’t imagine a time where I wouldn’t be participating in some kind of therapy- that’s not because of the attachment stuff, but actually just because I can’t imagine how my life will ever feel ok enough to not need to touch base with a therapist on a monthly basis.

I guess I’ll just have to wait and see what happens.

In the meantime I guess I’ll just try and remain calm and not freak out about the summer therapy break! Only 197ish days to go!! x

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A morning of self-care (in lieu of therapy)

rubberbandsandchewinggum11 Comments

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I don’t have therapy today. Em is…. well… I don’t know, actually…she’s not in the therapy room so maybe it’s her birthday, or perhaps she’s on a course, or I dunno it doesn’t really matter does it?… wherever she is or whatever she’s up to there is no session by the sea for me today.

As most people who have followed this blog for a bit will know, I don’t do especially well with disruptions to my therapy routine. Missed sessions often (usually!) feel like abandonment and I can end up circling the pit of shame and hell that I associate with the mother wound for a while before spectacularly falling in.

Christmas break bucked the trend somewhat and, unbelievably, I didn’t end up taking a nose dive with my mental health. I have known about this ‘mini break’ (ha unfortuantely not Bridget Jones-esque at all!) since way before Christmas so I’ve been anticipating having a quiet morning off before I go to work in the afternoon for a long while but not knowing how it would feel when it came to it. When Christmas went without a hitch I rather naively thought that future disruptions would feel ok too and so have been kind of ready for today to be ok…

EXCEPT IT ISN’T!

To be fair, I haven’t been very well (physically) for a few weeks with a nasty virus that basically wipes all energy and makes your body feel like it’s encased in lead. As a result of being under the weather I have been getting really very tired doing my job and also basically just struggling to be a functioning, semi-competent human being…oh and a parent of two small people. I’m kind of on the flashing red light that says the power is about to die. I guess it’s unsurprising that I might not be quite as able to cope with my therapist being away when my ability to cope with daily life feels challenged.

This weekend I have been really aware that when I feel like this (tired, ill, stressed) I feel more reliant on my therapist and our therapy hours just to feel ok. Having sessions at the beginning and end of the week gives me something to aim towards in amongst the rush and chaos that is my life. On a Monday I feel like therapy sets me up for the week ahead and the Friday session sort of rounds off the week…it’s containing! lol!

I don’t spend all my sessions moaning about the here and now but it is really nice to have time scheduled in the week that is just for me and my well-being (although I do get how therapy isn’t exactly relaxing!). At the moment I have to be uber adult in my day-to-day life and I feel a bit like my more vulnerable self has been neglected – again, therapy gives a bit of time and space to acknowledge this part of me so I cope a bit better with the everyday existence.

So, today, no session but still work in a bit… I feel a mix of things. The young parts feel a bit confused, like, ‘Where is she? Why are we still at home? We want to see her!!’ The adult is relieved that I haven’t had to drive an hour to get to therapy and at 10:10 am back in bed with a cup of tea and the laptop having blitzed the house once the kids were on their way to school. I know that cleaning the house isn’t really what many would consider self-care but I don’t do very well with mess and feel much happier when the house is clean and tidy, so half an hour running about with the hoover and sorting the kitchen feels good to me.

Earlier in the week I had considered using this time to go and have a run, but being ill…it’s a noooooo! The idea of putting on sports gear and trainers right now makes me feel ugh. I’m definitely in a dressing gown and pjs place! And as well as this ‘no to exercise’ place I am definitely in a ‘no to people-ing’ place. I have my two cats on the bed with me and that’s basically put me in my happy place! I don’t have much else to say so I think, I am going to go nap….in the day time… before work.

How to self-care: BE MORE CAT! (no fucks given. so what if it’s your bed. sleep.)

Ooooh and I have a Spa day on Sunday with my wife!!

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To Anyone That Is Struggling.

rubberbandsandchewinggum13 Comments

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It probably won’t come as a big surprise to anyone that my social media basically is one big Mental Health zone. My WordPress, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest follows are basically all related to mental health – and I post and save a lot on my Facebook (which is personal and not related to ‘Rubber Bands And Chewing Gum’ too. Because of this, I have a steady stream of Mental Health content: new research in the world of psychology; book recommendations; new blog posts; affirming messages/memes; invitations to do a bit better with my self care whether it be diet/exercise/meditation; organisations posting strategies to feel a little bit less alone in the world- and it’s great…most of the time…

Sometimes, though, the picture I have just posted will feel a bit, I dunno, saccharine?? Of course, those times tend to be the times when I am armoured up and impenetrable or when I am doing fine (Tbh there aren’t all that many times like that in the month!) or when the Inner Critic is in situ and making me feel unworthy of care. Most of the time, these kind of messages are EXACTLY what I need to be seeing when I am indulging in some screen time. They make me feel connected and less – – fucking useless and failing at life!

It’s so refreshing to have something uplifting, motivational or meaningful on my feeds when frankly, so much of my screen seems to be filled with either what a knobhead Trump is or what a complete balls-up Brexit is! Twitter is particularly bad for this right?! I mean you can’t ignore what a shambles everything is but when you spend as much time scrolling as I do (my phone told me I was down by 21% on my screen time last week…but still averaging 3h 19 mins a day!!!!!)  it’s hard not to become overwhelmed by the state of things.

Anyway, this last week or so I have massively needed these little ‘you’re not a completely useless sack of shite’ pick me ups. I am so glad that I have structured my social media in such a way that it is constantly giving me both helpful reminders that things are going to be ok and also, importantly, that I am not alone in feeling wobbly some (a lot) of the time.

I got sucked into the sink hole of attachment misery this last week. I’ve been ill but not so ill that I should’ve fallen so spectacularly headfirst into the ‘My Mummy Doesn’t Love Me AND I Want My Therapist (Who Also Doesn’t Love Me)’ pit. I mean, it was an epic week so far as my starting point and end point went: polar opposites.

As you may have noticed, I’ve had a pretty amazing month so far as being adult and coping and being fine goes. Christmas break was — nothing —- just completely ok – enjoyable even – last week things still felt manageable. The BANG, the hint of a sniffle and a temperature and off I went careering into the abyss. The ground opened up beneath me and I was nose deep in trauma and attachment shit. I had to close my mouth because the shit line was so high.

Nightmare.

I basically went from: my life is busy but I am coping and I feel safely attached and contained in therapy TO Waaaaahhhhh my life is falling apart! Em has left me! I hate myself! I can’t do this! I need to hide…. My session on Friday was hard work we faced down that motherwound again and crikey is bloody painful.

Once I was drowning in my own special pit of emotional shit I found that I was plagued with really vivid dreams…most of which involve Em (what a shocker!) Oh how I love a #therapydream! 

Unfortunately, by Sunday (yesterday), I felt so utterly depleted and exhausted that I didn’t even have the energy to write about how shit it was feeling and ended up re-blogging a post from 2017. That was crap! But what was also crap was rereading it and seeing that despite being aware that I am a useless, needy baby when I get ill, there doesn’t seem much I can do about it even 15 months down the line.

Ah well. I guess it’s lucky I haven’t been ill for a while. I spent most of Autumn/Winter 2017 sick and so, looking back it’s little wonder I was such a mess with the attachment stuff.

So where does that leave things now? Well, it’s Monday morning now. I still feel yucky and attachmenty and frankly piss poor but I have written down my horrible dreams and alongside them the feelings I felt when I woke up. I am taking that all in with me to session as well as my blanket and hopefully I can just be how it is, explain how badly the wheels have fallen off, and try and get myself back on track.

I have way too much on this week to be stuck in with the upset primary school inside….this is also very true because if things follow the usual trend then it’s not going to be long until the secondary school bunch drop in….and I don’t want their self-loathing and anger to take root.

So, to anyone that is struggling….just to say – you are not alone…AT ALL.

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And for anyone that wants a laugh, my best friend sent me this last time I was having a similar meltdown….which actually I find equally as uplifting as the motivational things on my social media. Humour and sarcasm are my favourites!! ha x

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