rupture and repair

My Wobbly Brain, Lots Of Vulnerable Emails, And A Phone Check In/Session

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This is loooonnnng – so grab a snack, a drink, and a cuddly blanket and settle in for the ride!!

So last time I was here I was trying to catch up from all that happened with the BIG RUPTURE and get back on track more-or-less to the here-and-now on the blog… I’d just come off a phone check in with Elle that had come about because, once again, I had fallen head first into a doom spiral and had, at least, had the bravery (and sense) to ask to talk rather than to continue on down a path of emails where I was getting myself more and more panicked. But, how did I get to the point where I was requesting a phone call and what was the panic about this time???!

Well, you might remember I said it had been a about a month since Elle and I had repaired the BIG RUPTURE, things felt fine, the sessions since then had been connecting, but because we hadn’t doubled-back to what had happened during the break and the rupture my brain was starting to wonder if things were really ok or not. Part of me was looking for a bit of reassurance – you know, just in case behind the scenes Elle was harbouring something and I didn’t know about it. I think when things go wrong, I need to re-tread the ground several times just to be sure nothing terrible is lingering beneath the surface. I don’t want to find myself down in a hole unexpectedly.

Elle has always told me that if I need to reach out and check that she’s ‘still there’ then that’s absolutely fine to do that anytime. In various ways I do this a lot, but maybe not in quite so explicit a way as asking, “Are we ok?” We maintain a connection between our sessions but this will usually be by my communicating everyday stuff. I very rarely say, “I am feeling disconnected and need to know we are ok”. That sort of thing generally happens in the big splurge emails that come after protracted periods of ‘light’ when all the feelings bubble up and it all spews out in a huge vulnerable mess. Those messages are not a very regular occurrence…but they’re often enough.

A couple of weeks after the rupture/repair I did find myself asking for the tangible reassurance via a text. My Monday morning text reminder for our Tuesday session had come through and even though it was most definitely my lovely Elle, I wasn’t able to feel into it or find her in it. It had been Father’s Day that weekend and I think I was just feeling really vulnerable and sad and disconnected. So, I replied, “Are we ok? I totally get that [ref to message] should mean yes, but I’ve wandered away and got lost.” Elle assured me that we were completely fine and I felt lots better.

It really doesn’t take a lot to settle things down but even now, almost two years in, I still struggle to ask for the support and reassurance I need. I think after so many years of feeling the fear of disconnection (that comes with disorganised attachment) so acutely in my therapy with Em where I was actively chastised if I ever reached out outside of the session and then completely ignored, there’s a part of me that still feels like I am doing something wrong when I ask for something from Elle.

It’s not just Em’s legacy that impacts how I relate to Elle. Anita wasn’t like Em. I was able to message her, but there’s a different kind of fear that comes from this. I think in some ways I find it hard to trust Elle is genuine and means what she says because Anita made promises and then suddenly things changed and I was left high and dry. Anita was warm, and accepting, and encouraged me to ask for what I needed… until the day I was “too dependent” and there was a definite pulling back.

So, with both these therapy experiences always bubbling away in the back of my mind, it’s hardly surprising I struggle to ask for what I need with Elle. It’s no fun feeling like you’re ‘too much’ and I am so mindful of not wanting to overstep the ‘boundary line’ – although I am not entirely sure where that is. I guess I hope I don’t find out the hard way one day although I think it is entirely possible that at some point it will happen.

Having asked for reassurance the day before the session I knew that my internal world wasn’t functioning at its best and I was so glad to get into the room that week. I cried quite a lot – there’s a lot of sadness floating around at the minute with loss and grief and it’s coming out a bit – not full-on sobbing, but just slow tears…which for someone that never really cries in session, that is huge. I still can’t fully let go and let it all out but I feel like I’m edging towards that place. Elle says that she thinks there’s a lot of crying inside, from the young parts, but that I only let it out in small amounts – she’s right of course.

It’s felt like I am holding a lot lately and my need for safety and holding feels enormous and therefore the feelings of shame have built up around that. I don’t want to be as needy as I am…and as much as I try to remind myself that we are only as needy as our unmet needs, I have a hard time feeling compassion for those parts of me, when I know that they are the ones that seem to make therapy explode in my face.

In that session, Elle asked me what had prompted me to check if we were ok. I was cuddled in to her and I didn’t say anything, I don’t think. Sometimes there aren’t words in the moment. I was feeling so so sad and not because of anything between us, but I think sometimes when I feel safe with her, in that space, I stop defending myself against my feelings and they come…and bloody hell…it’s a lot. Sometimes an extra wave of grief comes up as I realise that the time with Elle is only short and before too long I will be on my own back in the world. The young parts of me feel devastated.

Elle asked me where I was feeling the sadness in my body. I didn’t answer again – I just cuddled in and clung on even more tightly to her. She understands now, that my silence isn’t avoidance or shutting her out. Actually, it’s really me minus the armour and often when a very small part is there…pre-verbal probably. Part of me really needs those very small parts to have space and time in the room but another part of me is terrified that it’s all too much.

After the session, I had time to think about everything, adult was back online rather than the littles being front and centre and I came up with this and sent it as part of a longer email to Elle:

I feel like I am almost drowning in shame at the moment or in a spin cycle with it. You asked me what had happened to text you on Monday to see if we were ok and if something had happened. Aside from more shit dreams, which don’t help, nothing had happened. The reality is I could send you that message every week, and don’t because … I am trying really hard not to be too much (not massively successful in that right now). But actually, by the time it gets to Friday my entire system is falling down a hole – and it’s all the time not just every now and again.

I try and remind myself that this isn’t new – like I know where the panic comes from – being left when I was small for so many years and then my dad dying after being away for three days … like it’s just really hard because my brain sort of knows that things are ok but how I experience it in my body is a different matter. So, I spend a lot of the weekend in a horrible place of feeling like something is wrong or bad is going to happen. And that’s shit…and then we head back into the shame thing because… I really get how clingy I am and well, then that takes me off on another path of doom…so it’s a lot.

The feelings reside in lots of places. There’s the pain/ache in my solar plexus, the big black hole in my chest that feels like its edges are ulcerated and burning, the tight feeling in my throat, the heaviness but also tingling in my legs that makes me feel like I need to run, pins and needles in my hands…. the hot feeling behind my eyes….sometimes all of those all at once…  I think that’s probably why I would dissociate for the longest time. It’s far easier to feel nothing and sit outside your body than actually be in it. 

So there was that… another big splurge of the vulnerable and more pieces of the road map offered up.

Elle and I remained connected as another week rolled around and then I left another lovely holding session with Elle on the next Tuesday. We had talked about a lot of things. Elle had bought a book I had mentioned and brought it to session for us to read together. You’d think that that would more than show that she wasn’t experiencing the heebie-jeebies post rupture… nope.

Almost as soon as I got out the room, I realised I had neglected to bring up the main thing I wanted to talk about that week…it wasn’t conscious avoidance, though. It just totally left my brain. I do think this is a form of dissociation. Like, part of my system is worried that something is wrong and so wants to protect me from poking at it just in case my fears are confirmed. After the session I felt ALL THE FEELS – you know the big loving ones? – ugh – and decided to send this email – let it all out RB! – looks like this last month or so has been big on the big emails, actually! haha:

I really missed you this week and it felt hard 😞 . Before today I wanted to ask you some things and tell you some things but actually by the time this morning got here I just really needed a cuddle and for the panic in my system to settle down and to feel safer and to reconnect with you…when I am with you I feel like I just want to soak it up as much as I can because the ‘leaky non-existent bucket that’s only just a handle now’ situation means that that feeling is quickly gone when I can’t see you. It’s like trying to hold water in my hands or it’s like sand slipping through my fingers… and it’s really difficult. 

And although it was meant in totally different kind of context today, when I was talking about *friend and her wanting a relationship with me and you said about how hard it is when someone hands you their heart and you have to gently give it back to them…reminded me of something I said to *best friend a few months ago about how I feel really pathetic and sad with you. Like I feel like I have taken my heart out the bottle and am handing it to you like it’s a gift and actually it’s so broken and in pieces and damaged that no one in their right mind would want it. And yet, it’s all there is left…and I feel like I’ve exposed this really vulnerable bit of me, there’s no protection whatsoever, and it is so terrifying because given the state of it, I don’t think it will survive being dropped, stamped on, or in a hit and run again. 

And I think the saddest thing is I feel like love is perhaps the biggest gift we can give or receive and yet I feel like my version of it is like an unwanted Christmas gift, that’s quickly discarded or seen to have no value. I imagine it a bit like when a kid makes something at pre-school out of air-drying clay and brings it home and although it most certainly is the most magnificent snail in their eyes, unfortunately they’ve selected brown clay and the coiled-up shape resembles a turd. It’s ok because I always know it’s a snail – but not everyone does… and then of course it doesn’t take long until it’s starts dissolving into dust and parts start breaking off. 

Part of me doesn’t even want to say this because ugh huge shame 😳 but also there’s a bit that feels really sad when I feel like this and I don’t say. Like it feels a bit like there’s all these parts of me in the room watching and wondering why I don’t let you know they’re there or how it’s been. Although I think you probably do see them because I think these days rather than being locked in a cupboard or hiding behind the couch they’re really just hidden under a flimsy piece of fabric. Or maybe more like when kids cover their eyes and think you can’t see them…🙈

So, I wanted to ask how things are after last month 😬 and I wanted to talk to you about what’ll happen if we end up in that place again. And also, I think we need a code word for when things are bad or a symbol. And then just for added fun content I was going to mention that Brian is having a bit of a meltdown about living in my body right now and whilst I’m on top of it I thought I was over this shit – or maybe it just goes dormant. 🫠 There was something else but I can’t remember now… which bodes really well for teaching – I feel like a hologram.

Elle sent a really lovely expansive reply – here’s some of it:

Hello my sweet girl 🙂

I think you’re right about all of that stuff being totally present in the room, even though it’s not explicitly stated. I absolutely do feel the responsibility of holding your beautifully broken and fragile heart, and I think take that responsibility as seriously and with as much sensitivity as that warrants. I don’t imagine me telling you that holds much weight at all, given that you’ve been told almost the exact same thing many times before, but I always hope that is something you can feel in the room.

She went on to tell me that she promises that she’ll never ‘blindside’ me because when she takes any kind of action it comes from ‘months of consideration’. There was reference to what we spoke of at the time of the rupture. And then she talked about how we got to where we did. Then came:

I think seeking out information about each other that hasn’t been given freely is never helpful in terms of deepening connection, and instead of building closeness I think it has the potential – for you – to create an even more profound sense of isolation, rather than the closeness that is so badly wanted. If there are things I can provide for you between sessions to help you feel connected to me when you feel distant – I was thinking recordings of me reading our stories for example? – then let’s come up with some that feel like they might work. You also mention notes to open, and I think that’s a beautiful idea. Maybe I could write some affirmation cards that feel like they are uniquely special to us? I really like that idea.

The entire email was actually just really considered and thoughtful and lovely … could my brain take it in?

HA! Could it fuck?!

It fixated on two small areas of the message and went into full scale panic.

Firstly, I was wondering what kind of ‘action’ was coming? What could that mean? Was she turning something over in her mind and waiting to see whether or not to act based on what I was doing?

And then I locked on and fixated on the part about “seeking out information about each other that hasn’t been freely given” and it sent me into outer space in terms of panic and shame. I felt like this was a thinly-veiled comment about what had happened with our recent rupture and that she was in some way mad that I had been overstepping boundaries because there are some things I have found out about Elle that she hasn’t expressly shared with me – but then, it was information that was freely available online or that she had reference in an oblique way and I had found as a result.

Great.

So, I decided to reply to her with details of what I was worrying about – it couldn’t wait a week.

Elle replied and tried to address my concerns and she is really considered and careful in how she responds to me.

At the end she wrote:

I can feel myself getting tense as I was writing that, and am now worrying that I’m not communicating all this to you in a way that will land as I want it to, so I’m going to stop now.

I found out when we were in the thick of the big rupture that she has a thing about being misunderstood and says she can sometimes overcompensate to try and be clear and then feel like she’s making it worse. So, the message that she was going to stop didn’t feel like she was refusing to engage with me, rather that she was trying to reassure me but wasn’t sure if it was working and recognised that she didn’t want to make it worse.

I was still pretty activated and overnight had horrible nightmares but had a word with myself and realised that none of what I was experiencing was desperate… but that tying myself up in knots trying to explain what I was feeling in an email wasn’t actually meeting the need underneath. What I needed was to ‘hear’ that Elle and I were not running off in different directions, that she wasn’t annoyed with me or harbouring something from before, and that I hadn’t done something wrong… child parts much??!!

There was absolutely no way I was going to make it to Tuesday in the state I was in and so I text Elle first thing on Thursday morning asking if she might have time for a phone check in sometime before the weekend.

She got back to me immediately and said we could talk that morning… and we fixed up a time. Phew.

I felt nervous picking up the call, but as soon as I heard Elle’s voice, I could hear that there was nothing wrong between us. I could feel that that she was there. She asked me how I was feeling in my body and I replied that I felt like I was locked in a vice and tensing in a brace position. She said she really got that, and the actually she felt the same.

The talk we had was really really helpful. The instant connection and the honesty and being able to ‘feel’ Elle and the safety settled my nervous system so quickly. I felt my body starting to relax, the tension in my solar plexus went and I was able settle into the call.

As we talked, I was able to recognise that I am really good at latching onto the tiniest bit of ‘scary’ and lose all sense of the good in our communications – but it all comes from a place of fear. Elle said that she, too, can worry that she’s getting it very wrong with me when I let her know about the bits that don’t land in our communications and then she worries she’s making it worse for me.  

I told her that it might seem like I am taking the whole message as ‘wrong’ but the reality is I am genuinely only looking for clarification and reassurance on the small bits and that at least part of me knows we are ok to be able to keep going over things with a fine-toothed comb otherwise I wouldn’t bring it to her to begin with and that her messages really really do help me. I am aware, though, that my attention to small details might come over as my being critical at times. But really, I’m just overthinking.

I think this is not just a complex trauma thing; I think there is an element of neurodiversity playing out here, too. Both my kids are autistic and the more they grow the more and more of myself I see in them (both as ac child and now) and so understand how my brain works. Talk about little mirrors! It’s complicated. There’s trauma and there’s neurodiversity, or neuro-complexity, and then there’s the space where it all overlaps… no wonder it’s fucking hard for me sometimes!

The good news is that Elle works with a lot of neurodiverse clients, and has close family members who are also autistic so I know I am not too much for her. When we first started working together, I said about my sensitivities to noise, and smell, and all the other various ‘things’ I struggle with and she said she was definitely somewhere on the bell curve, too. We connect on a level that I don’t with other people. Like I don’t really need to explain some of my ‘weird’ because she’s the same and gets it. Thank god.

One of the reasons I like working with Elle is because I think we are both very invested and committed to deep, authentic, clear communication. Like whenever I bring it to her, she more than meets me in it. I just wish my brain could remember this! – but my trauma history keeps jamming sticks in the spokes of my bike wheels time and again.

Speaking on the phone, then, was so good because it allowed us to clear things up so I wasn’t sitting with my panic and getting more jumbled and disconnected over the weekend.

After the call I sent this, and then carried on with my day like a normalish person!:

Mainly, I think I want to say that when I’m focusing on my scary 1% that absolutely doesn’t mean that I don’t see the 99% and that what you say to me doesn’t land. Because it does. Like it really does. And I am also really conscious that my saying I’m freaking out about the 1% can make you feel not enough – and that really really isn’t my intention at all because actually it’s not about you, it’s me panicking about thinking you’re going to disappear… and you are so right about the too much/not enough runners. I feel like I have magic jet pack running shoes when I think I’ve done something wrong, or that I’ve upset you, or mainly that I am going to lose you because I’ve said or done something off. 

And when I get in that place it’s really hard to remember that things are ok – even though part of me knows it – and I can just disappear off like the Roadrunner leaving a dusty haze in my wake.

So, speaking to you really helps because it reminds me that Brian is frightened but his version of what’s happening isn’t necessarily the reality. 

The weekend after the session was much more manageable than how weekends usually are. Cutting the time down between actually talking made a massive difference despite the panic situation I had got myself into. The emails and texts definitely do help but actually it was speaking made all the difference.

I know I have been talking about it for a while, the need for an extra session or a check in, and this really highlighted to me how needed it was, and I resolved to ask for us to see if there was a way of building a check in to our weeks going forward.

The next Tuesday came along and OMFG it was hotter than hell and I thought I was going to melt when I went to my session – like blimey the UK is in a serious heatwave right now and I hate it. I can’t concentrate and it’s absolutely terrible for cuddles!!

We weren’t many minutes into our session when Elle told me that she had enjoyed talking to me on the phone and she wondered whether I might like to figure out a time when we can speak each week. I said that would be lovely and she said we could talk about it the following week when we had two face-to-face sessions booked in. Yes two!

Why?

Well, during the rupture repair session when Elle came back from break, I had commented how ropey May and June felt due to the Anita ending anniversary stuff and how that had undoubtedly made our rupture a billion times worse… but that July was a different kind of hard due to the anniversary of my dad’s death and the month following that had some very complicated shit happen. Elle asked me then when the hardest bit of July was and I told her. She said, that we would book in an extra session on that day (the actual anniversary of my dad dying) and have two sessions that week if I wanted.

So that’s what we did, last week…and I’ll tell you all about it next time. We had a picnic! It was lovely.

The BIG Rupture: What Happened Next…

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I realised something this week – and that is, because I blog way less frequently than I used to (although my summer resolution to myself is to make time to write again), that often I post about HUGE OUCH things that happen in therapy and then don’t come back here and talk about the ‘what happened next’ for ages, if at all. For example, a couple of my more recent posts have been about ruptures in my relationship with Elle (remember the slogan t-shirt debacle and then finding myself on a therapist forum? – groan) and this is the first time I have returned to discuss the repairs Elle and I have made, and so these ruptures are sort of left hanging on the blog.

I imagine it’s starting to look like Elle and I are lurching from one terrible mishap to another without any sense of there being a resolution in between. That would be fucking terrifying, wouldn’t it?!…and it simply isn’t how it is. Thank goodness! Let’s be clear – I am not the same client I was back in the day with Em where she would say or do something to upset me, we’d be in massive rupture territory, and I’d just tough it out on my own because I was so frightened of her reaction to what I might say and the potential for abandonment and rejection that it felt safer to keep it inside (or here on the blog with you guys!) than talk to her. I didn’t dare raise my head above the parapet for years – turns out that wasn’t completely stupid given what happened when I did! #likeatick

It’s so funny – not funny haha, just funny TRAGIC looking back on that total mess (shitshow) with Em. In therapy, so much of the work is about building trust and working through/round your defences and so the main advice we generally see online for people when they are struggling about something in the therapeutic relationship is, “Take this to your therapist and try and have the difficult conversations because THEY WILL BE ABLE TO HANDLE IT. They are trained professionals, have done their own work, and see this stuff ALL THE TIME.” Only it’s not always the case, is it? How many of us have had therapists who have shit the bed the moment you challenge them, or tell them you’ve been hurt by them, or tell them you love them? How many of us know what it is to feel the walls go up, the air in the room drop to below freezing, to get the ‘boundary talk’, or worse – terminated?

So, the advice to bring the tough stuff to the therapist ‘should’ absolutely be correct – but I think really it also needs a caveat: if you think your therapist is safe enough to hear it.

The thing is how do we know if a therapist is safe?

Blimey, isn’t that a question?!

There should be that ‘felt sense’ of safety with your therapist (eventually), but sometimes that doesn’t come…and then all we are left with is a therapist saying, “You can trust me” – #Icallbullshitonthat – and a desperate hope that it’s an ‘us problem’ rather than a ‘them problem’.

Safety never came with Em – even though the really strong attachment (disorganised of course) did. The parallels between her cold, detached personality and the almost literal begging for evidence of care mirrored my relationship with my mother so perfectly that it’s little wonder I stayed for so long. Therapy felt horrible but so fucking familiar to me. This is how relationships were, right?

I was stuck in a place of paralysis waiting for my protectors to stand down, wanting to trust her, and after a few years of feeling more and more unsafe I found myself forcefully working against my protectors – hitting override again and again – making myself jump into the shark infested waters… and no doubt that might work (in a safe therapy where there are no sharks)…but it can be catastrophic in a ‘disaster therapy’. I used to laugh about getting the ‘therapy shits’ before sessions – but what a ridiculous situation to be in week in, week out – anxiety was sooooooo high that I felt physically sick before every session… and yet I wrote that off as ‘part of the process’. Fuck me. That’s never right.

I think one of the things I regret most about working with Em was that I went against my gut ALL THE TIME. I felt her frustration at how little I shared with her and how strong my protectors were (queen of dissociation!)…but I realise, now, that I must’ve had a sixth sense about how things would eventually go because when I did push myself to BRING IT ALL to her, the shit hit the fan on high speed didn’t it? My bravery and vulnerability were met with stone cold still face, topped with thinly veiled psychobabble insults “adhesive like a tick, taking whatever it wants, like you almost need a permanent breast, pushing the boundaries with no regard for what I want”  … Ouch.

So – yeah – building trust and feeling safe is so hard, especially when you’re in therapy working with core messaging from childhood about being ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’ and perhaps never having even known what safety would feel like.It’s understandable that sometimes we, as clients, are scared stiff and the idea of being vulnerable freaks the living daylights out of us. It’s hard sometimes when we hit the skids to figure out how much of what we are feeling is because, “I recognise on an emotional and somatic level that this person is not safe!!!” and how much is the wonky brain making you think past patterns are repeating when actually things are fine.

It’s all the harder when you have also experienced harm in therapy as well. My therapists ALWAYS trigger complicated mother transference in me (ugh!) – but poor Elle also bloody triggers SHITTY THERAPIST transference too!

After my recent experiences with Em and Anita, Elle is basically doomed because in so many ways she isn’t like them but SHE IS A THERAPIST and Brian (my brain) doesn’t really trust therapists anymore. Thankfully, enough of my system does trust Elle…wholeheartedly…and so this means I can bring ALL OF THE THINGS TO HER EVEN IF IT FEELS SCARY OR UNCOMFORTABLE.

It’s taken a while but we have built a strong foundation of trust that can withstand my wobbles. It feels like I can safely show up and work through the ruptures or miscommunications we have because every time I do it’s more evidence that I am safe to be me, bring my feelings, and that Elle is committed to working whatever it is through with me. As she said the other day, “I’m here for it all”.

Thankfully, I am not in that horrible place that I was with Em where I felt that there was no choice but to hide my feelings and hope that things would work out without my saying anything…and to be honest, that’s how it got with Anita towards the end. I was so conscious of her wheels falling off that I tried to be as little work as possible for her. Didn’t exactly work out, though, did it? That’s definitely a throwback to my early years – suffer alone and get over it – but it’s so sad when you think that I have been paying for therapy for so long and been in hiding for so much of it trying to make it so the other person can stay. UGH. I am still really mad with Anita…but that’s for another blog post as this is sure to be lengthy enough as it is.

It’s no secret that I absolutely am still ridiculously sensitive to perceived rejection and abandonment but the difference is I ALWAYS tell Elle when I feel there is something wrong between us – even if it’s just that she’s turned up in my dreams and hurt me – and even then, she’s kind and lovely about it and not weirded out! But it’s all these little moments of connection and understanding that ultimately build the trust so that when there is something bigger, I have the confidence to tackle it.

Bear with me, I’m circling back round to the point – of ‘WHAT HAPPENED NEXT?’ – slow burn…

So, as I said earlier, I think at the moment my writing here makes it look like my therapy is just one long protracted shit show/mess when actually it’s mostly just steady, consistent, safe work but also it’s not really all that interesting. I mean, it is interesting to me, but the safe, familiar, connected, conversations and sessions aren’t really exciting to read about. We talk, we connect, sometimes we read stories, we laugh, we cry, we cuddle, we do the work…mostly.

Week in week out I show up, she shows up, and we keep going deeper and deeper into the deep darkness of my psyche, but we’re holding hands and, generally speaking, there’s a candle to light the way and so it feels safe because I am not doing it alone anymore.

I think, therefore, that ruptures take me all the more by surprise these days because Elle and I have such a solid relationship and so it completely knocks me for six when things go wrong. When we lose connection it feels like our hands separate and the candle blows out for a minute and it’s fucking scary because I really don’t like it in the dark on my own.

But I guess there are ruptures in any therapeutic relationship – I mean there’s so much written on rupture/repair in therapy that it would be naïve to think that any therapy is perfect. The important thing, though, is that ruptures aren’t too frequent and that the repair is effective and fast. Just like parenting, therapy on balance needs to be ‘good enough’. Elle is really good like this. She doesn’t leave me hanging when I tell her I am in a pickle and to date, she has always received whatever I have to say with openness and curiosity.

Until recently there hasn’t really been anything ‘major’ happen outside the normal run of me getting angsty and upset around breaks, or feeling disconnected and so the rupture has been triggered by my attachment issues rather than something being properly amiss. I might be activated and upset but not because of anything that Elle has done ‘wrong’. This last couple of months, however, has seen us step up a gear in working through some big rupture content. Like it’s not “Like a tick” (Em) or “too dependent” (Anita) – but it’s felt like it was in that sort of sphere and that triggered the shit out of my system.

The good news is Elle has been so receptive to what I have to say when I bring it to her. She doesn’t run and hide. She knows how to apologise and take responsibility/accountability for her part in things. She never shames me (which is huge), and as much as we have had some really BIG conversations lately, it’s honestly really refreshing to be working with someone who is able to reflect and is always wanting to do the best by me and really invites me into bringing EVERYTHING to her even if I am swimming in shame and embarrassment.

This is especially helpful after Anita became so incredibly defensive and avoidant in the last year of our work together. Of course, I would rather not have had these ruptures with Elle but at the same time it feels like we a doing some serious rewiring of the system when I see that I can bring my big feelings to her and she will do her best to repair. She shows me again and again that I am important to her.

I won’t lie. The most recent rupture when I found reference to my work with Elle on a therapist forum (albeit anonymous on both sides) really floored me and it was a right fucking mess. I truly believed that the person I thought I know and loved was someone other than she had presented herself to be – and that felt so upsetting and dangerous to my system. To think that Elle was feeling like I was some kind of pathetic client who refused to see that we were in a therapeutic relationship was so painful…even though that isn’t what it was at all.

My ability to take really small snippets of info and join a handful of dots and turn them into a spectacular constellation of horror is nothing if not impressive. I wish that I could see the 99% of brilliant alongside the 1% of terror – but when I am in the scary zone I can’t remember anything good at all. My fear takes over and all my stories about being too much, and being unlovable, and that I can’t trust anyone get really loud…but mostly I feel my system collapsing internally because this is how we get left isn’t it? This is the start of the abandonment playbook.

Elle being away on holiday and it all tying in with the anniversary of the end of seeing A was just the icing on the cake really, like if I was ever going to be primed for being sensitive to perceived abandonment and rejection – this was it.

So, what happened after I posted the blog?

OMG RB are you actually going to cut to the fucking chase? – after 2000 words?!

Well, I sat on my hands for a few days, tried to keep myself busy, and basically got more and more upset at the idea that I had misread the relationship that I have with Elle. I know I am client but I had never imagined that she felt that I was a problem, or that I didn’t understand the boundaries of the relationship, or that she saw me very much in a black and white way as a ‘client’ that needs to understand I am just paying for her time.

Seeing that online post title (but not being able to see the actual post as it was deleted) and the replies from other therapists hit me so hard because…well, it sounded so much like something Em would have said…and nothing at all like how I have experienced Elle in the room. It confused me, but mainly it devastated me, because in that week I was completely unable to reference any of the last nearly two years of work with Elle where she has demonstrated care and that she is a safe person…and instead my Inner Critic went, “See, this is it, behind the mask, it’s all just a façade to get you to part with money each week and make you keep coming back. The reality is you’re a fucking loser and here’s another therapist that can’t tolerate you.”

As we all know, part of complex trauma means it takes me a very long time to trust people and yet I really and truly believed that I could trust Elle…and now here I was…once again falling face first into the reality that there’s something wrong with me. I felt like my barometer for safety had royally let me down. Like, given EVERYTHING that has happened with Em and Anita, you’d think I’d spot inauthentic communication and relationship a mile off…and yet I hadn’t. In fact, I’d completely missed it. If anything, all I have found with Elle is someone who seems to be really honest and real.

So yeah.

It stung.

Then I started down the spiral. Maybe I’d just let my guard down too much. Maybe I was hurting so badly after what happened with Anita that I would overlook anything to feel safe and held. Maybe my search for ‘mother’ meant I’d latched onto Elle’s care that simply wasn’t there and created a version of her that simply wasn’t real – it was all just wishful thinking that maybe, just maybe this time someone would see me as I am and love me for it.

But that simply isn’t the case because she is real and I feel her care. If anything, Elle has had to work three times as hard to earn my trust BECAUSE of the damage that has been done by others that have come before her. My protectors are elite level royal marine commandos at this point, not sleepy security guards.

I wrote that post about what I’d found on the Saturday and by Thursday night I was … down in the depths of the spiral. I was swimming in shame. I was so hurt. I was so badly disconnected that I had no idea how I would come back from it…and my runners were ready to run.

So, thinking Elle would be more or less back from her time away because the thing that her and my friend do together was happening that evening, I sent the blog by email because I just couldn’t wait another five days to see her or start to try and fix it.

And then I heard nothing.

Fuck.

This was not like Elle AT ALL.

(Of course, I didn’t know she was still away with patchy signal up a mountain…)

Twenty-four hours after I sent the email I got a long email in my inbox. It spooked me a bit because well, there was a lot and my scared little heart was scanning for rejection and also I know that that post was A LOT. I can see now that she was really trying to reassure me and explain as best she could what had gone on whilst also being aware we were not in the room and that this wasn’t going to be an easy fix via messages…

The end of the message said:

I feel sorry you don’t believe that I love you and that my care for you is anything other than a real human emotion grown from knowing everything about you that I do, but I think I really do understand why.

And just because you don’t believe me, and even try to find evidence that I don’t, that doesn’t mean I’ll stop, or punish you for it. I am a person who loves you and wants to support you, that’s all I’ll ever be, and every decision I’ll ever make is based on that.

And you can ask me anything you want about any of this on Tuesday, and I promise I’ll answer you carefully and honestly from that same place.

And I can see that this, and the paragraphs that came before it all come from a really caring place. But because my system and runner ducks had had almost a week’s head start on her, my protectors, my teen, all the hurt parts simply replied:

I don’t want to see you anymore.

Fuck.

And then there was more silence from Elle’s end which freaked the absolute living shit out of me because what if she took that at face value and was so hacked off with me that she would let me go.

When she finally did reply, it didn’t sound enough like the Elle that the littles needed – and it panicked me. I realise now what was going on but in the moment the fear was massive on my part. She didn’t do an Em on me, by any means, and she did tell me that she felt sad and heavy and that she understood that it felt too much for me but that she was there and would always want to see me if I wanted to and that she very much would want to see me on Tuesday if I felt able to… it didn’t land how I needed it to, but I was able to see enough that she was trying and not giving up but I could also read that she was struggling too.  

Fortunately, her message was enough of a way in for me just do the vulnerable and tell her what I needed in no uncertain terms – that I was scared, that I needed a hug, for her to hold my hand and to hear her voice – and then she replied with exactly what I needed and it sounded like her:

I’m super conscious that – halfway up a mountain with shitty reception, broken glasses, and just my phone – I’m in the worst place to be reassuring you that I’m close to you right now, but I am, and yes, very very definitely holding your hand.

I’ve had lots of feelings about this, but not one of them has been to let go of it. I also wish I could be there for an all-encompassing hour-long hug, but I absolutely promise from the side of a windswept mountain that I will be again very very soon. xxx

It wasn’t until this point that I realised that she wasn’t actually home yet and had been communicating with me as best she could from a tricky location. I felt bad because the one thing I had wanted to avoid was encroaching into her holiday time with this mess…and it turns out I had.

On the Monday morning, I got my personalised session reminder telling me that she was just home and looking forward to seeing me the next day. I felt way more settled even though we were still going to have to talk it all through…and repair…and it wasn’t going to be an easy session by any means.

As I said earlier, this whole thing was made so much worse because we were on a break and the break also coincided with the anniversary of Anita telling me she had to end therapy…I was looking for danger and seeing it EVERYWHERE. If we could have sorted it out immediately when it was happening it would have been so much better, but that’s the sod’s law of therapy (and my world) the shit rarely hits the fan at a point where it can be contained and not cause much damage! It ALWAYS comes about when I am a million miles away from a shower.

I braved up when I had seen Elle’s morning text and sent her a message which alluded to something she wrote in her original email response to me where she has said something about how it was her job to always think carefully about what she shares of her process and only telling me what she thinks is beneficial for me to hear:

Glad you’re back safe. I feel really anxious and like I have inadvertently thrown a grenade in between us that’s just about to explode. I need you to be honest with me tomorrow. Not ‘honest but couched with a “this is beneficial for you to hear”’ like the actual truth even if I might not like what you have to say because I’d rather that and know exactly what’s going on rather than some half-truth and also it’s absolutely fine to walk away if that’s easier.

At the exact moment I sent the text I got a notification came up on my phone that Elle had sent me an email.

And talk about synchronicity – what she sent me couldn’t have been more real and honest if it had tried. I knew from that email that we were going to be fine, and actually will continue to be fine as we bump along down this road together.

By the time it got to Tuesday I was just desperate to reconnect and sort things out.

And we did.

It was a proper digging in deep, honest, raw session that felt really connecting. We talked about such a lot of stuff. Elle apologised for the post and explained where she had been coming from. And of course, her intentions and my version of her intentions couldn’t have been further away from each other.

I won’t go into lots of detail about the ins and outs of what was said but what I will say is that it is incredibly refreshing to be able to bring the biggest scariest fears and hurt to someone and for them to own their part in it, and be completely present and willing to talk about ALL of what has happened. No blaming, no shaming, no putting it squarely back on me, no clipboards, no withdrawal or freezing me out – just getting in the tough stuff together and forging a deeper understanding of how we impact one another and what that means for us going forward – and how to manage things in the future.

I don’t like ruptures… but I am confident in Elle’s ability to make repairs. And this is a lot of my work having grown up in an environment where I could never speak up about how hurt I was, or if I did so much as show hurt or dissatisfaction it would bring on another barrage of abuse.

One of the things that Elle and I have committed to is trying to bring stuff up in closer connection to each other. I write a lot, and it is helpful, but I think we both find it hard reading about ourselves in the third person… I mean, she’ll never write about me again and has shut down that social media account altogether now, but I know she doesn’t find it especially easy reading what I have to say without my being there either… because just like I focus in on the scary 1% rather than being able to hold in mind the 99% she’s human and does the same sometimes especially if it looks like she’s really hurt me and HASN’T MEANT TO.

She’s really good at doing her own internal work but we’ve figured out that we have similar stories around being too much/not enough. So, my ‘too much’ can often trigger her own countertransference about being ‘not enough’ or being ‘misunderstood’. And so sometimes sending things in written format can make it so we don’t see the entirety of what’s really happening. The good thing is we are now both really conscious of this and so can work with that explicitly.

And this week, yet again, this stuff was tapped into.

It’s been a month since we repaired the rupture, but we haven’t returned to it explicitly and I think sometimes I need to keep doubling back and checking in on this kind of thing. So, after my session last Tuesday (which was lovely and holding and connecting) part of my system piped up and started wondering where we were at now. Was everything really ok, or was anything festering on Elle’s side. So, I decided to ask Elle where we were at and what would happen if we found ourselves in that place again in an email.

I’ll write about that next post because this is insanely long already. But one good thing to come out of the haze was that rather than continuing down a road of trying to find her in the fog, I just asked for a phone call to check in…and that was gold. So, that’s my next plan – try and build in a regular check in at the end of the week regardless of where we are at.

I’m sure this post is vague…and frustratingly lacking in detail about the rupture… but mainly I wanted to come back and say that it’s all ok. I wanted to write this sooner, but I have been really struggling with going anywhere near the laptop to write about it even though it’s fine. It’s weird. Sometimes I can just write and it comes freely and other times my brain just won’t allow it.

Anyway, if you got through this, well done!

Final Blog Post Of 2022: Final Therapy Rupture Of 2022!

rubberbandsandchewinggum15 Comments

So – it’s been a very BIG month, or so, with Anita and therapy. I mean, wow – talk about rupture! I will try telling you all about it as ‘calm me’ after you first see the ‘not calm me’ below, in a sec (which was written in the thick of it) but since ‘calm me’ is now back online all that transpired has all gone a bit hazy – or deliberately dissociated?! I feel like I might be a bit of an unreliable narrator now (no change there, then!). And since things are largely resolved and settled again it is hard dragging my mind back to the stress of the rupture and the detail of it.

I’m in that post-Christmas fog of procrastination and borderline depression, too, so I need to be careful not to pick at a scab (throwing myself back in to remembering details of the horror) when it’s still a long time until I actually get to see Anita again because man, I am really feeling the ache right now. I really miss Anita (no surprises there!) and am consciously trying to ensure I don’t fall down the hole of doom when there’s still 10 days until I see A again…10 DAYS. Argh!  

Still, I thought I would write a post today (beware it is absolutely mammoth) to try and keep a log and update where I am at because it all moved so fast, is more-or-less resolved, and I realise that I won’t have logged this at all. Next week work will be back up and running and I’ll be busy, busy, busy again so it’s now or never. This blog was always intended to be an online therapy diary, but over the last year I have had less and less time to write and so I don’t really know what it is anymore…a webspace I pay for?! Lol! I have noticed that lots of people I follow are writing less regularly these days, but I am always glad to see their posts when they show up on my reader, so I hope that that is still the case with this blog.

Anyway, I have just got to the computer and seen that this is not the first time I have tried to start a post about the rupture. Ummm, that’s news to me!  Shit… I know I was dissociated and it’s been a very bonkers time with two sick kids, a broken-down boiler, car packing up… [insert endless list of mishaps HERE]… as well as my therapy falling out its arse all before Christmas break, but really? What the actual fuck is/was going on in my poor little brain? Ah, yes, system meltdown. My absolute favourite.

This…this…’mess’..below…well I don’t even remember typing it! I can see how disjointed it is. How panicked it feels…and yet, as I said, I have no recollection whatsoever of writing it. So, here it is. It won’t make sense, it doesn’t even make sense to me! But I think it’s interesting to see just how bad it gets on an unfiltered level. So, bear with me – I’ll, (usual blogging RB) be back after this:

Honest to fucking god, I think I’ve done it this time. Just lock me up and throw away the fucking key where therapy is concerned because, frankly, I’m shit at it and shouldn’t be let loose on therapists… I feel sick. I’ve had the ‘therapy’ shits (ffs!). My heart is racing. Basically, my nervous system is in free fall and my body is freaking out.

So, here I am again. Facing down a massive rupture. But this one feels really scary…usually I meltdown and Anita is solid – but she’s wobbled this week. She doesn’t feel grounded. She is frustrated and that doesn’t feel safe AT ALL. The end of that session was – bizarre, to say the least. I can’t believe she just cut it dead like that. How did she think I would react? You can’t just randomly drop information like ‘I know I’m going to be getting married at some point and I don’t know what I’ll be doing’ in an argument, three minutes before the end of an already hideous session -and there not be some fall out.

I’ve listened to the session on my way home, and she says all the right things, but it just feels like empty words. Like it’s therapist 101 not the Anita I have a relationship with. To the outside world it probably feels and sounds fine…but it’s not…It feels like she’s distancing. And the end – well that was just a fucking disaster.

And that was where it ended….my typing in the moment freak out. But how did I get there?

I had been having a panic about something that had happened between a friend and her therapist– I was basically fearing that the same would happen to me and Anita and it had sent the child parts into a right state. I didn’t tell A about it in the week between sessions because I felt it could wait. But by Thursday evening I was really desperate to reconnect with Anita and see her in person to ‘confirm’ everything was still ok and to settle those panicking parts…and basically have a cuddle. The week had been hard – everything was tough, you know? Like every day was like trudging through treacle. I even managed to slam my finger in my car door! It was just one of those weeks.

Then, Anita cancelled our session Friday session last minute late Thursday night. I didn’t actually see the message until I woke up on Friday morning. I was gutted. And so I think that maybe acted as a catalyst for the acceleration into this rupture but it wasn’t the reason for it. I wasn’t angry that she was sick or anything, she can’t help that, and I really understood her need to cancel. In fact, that day I ended up taking a nap on the couch for two hours when I would have been driving to and from therapy, so it wasn’t like I sat crying about it. However, what the last-minute cancellation meant was that I had more time to work myself up about whether A and I were still solid because there was now going to be a longer gap between sessions.

The Monday session was a bit meh, it was hard to connect, and I left feeling disappointed because I think essentially ‘False Adult’ had taken over when I really really needed for A and I to be close. It was that annoying thing where the momentum of the therapy was interrupted and the need had ramped up, but alongside that so had the fear of being too much and so I failed to allow A in.

Things felt really crap and on Tuesday I sent Anita a message that on reflection didn’t make it massively explicit what was wrong as it was wedged between nothing stuff. Anita didn’t see it and didn’t reply. But from my side all I got was radio silence from her. No, “I hear you, I am here, let’s talk about this properly on Friday” or “We’re fine, I promise”. Just nothing. On Thursday night I was worked up and texted – “Are you ok?” No reply. Then in the morning a few minutes before our session, “Yes, just really busy”. Ffs we’ve been here before. Too ‘busy’ to pay attention, running about like a headless chicken, dropping balls…I sent a message, “I don’t want to come today”…and she obviously didn’t check her phone.

The message wasn’t an “I’m not coming” it was really a “I don’t want to come because I can’t face any more of the feeling of you letting me drift away and us not connecting”. I did go to session, though. I hoped that at least being in the room would enable us to talk things out. I arrived both angry (teen) and anxious (little ones). I sat down and just froze. Silent. Ugh. Not this again. I reached for Anita’s hand and started crying. Told her I felt like I was drowning, and she was just standing watching. I told her that it felt like everything was broken. “It doesn’t have to be broken” she soothed. But it just felt so fucking crap – I was too far gone.

In a barely audible whisper, I asked for a story and of course Anita got the pile of books from the table and asked me which one I wanted. I said I didn’t mind and she selected, ‘Dragon Loves Penguin’ which is a REALLY lovely book that we’ve had for a couple of months now. We’ve read it quite few times and the child parts ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT. The story is really beautiful, and it’s been so connecting. BUT not this time.

FUCK!

Why?

Well, simple.

SHAME.

Yep. My longstanding best-friend decided that today was the day to bulldoze the very thing that is so helpful in connecting young parts to Anita.

It all started to go wrong when Anita didn’t invite me in for a cuddle when she opened the book – or I didn’t shuffle in like I might usually…I was already in a state of freeze, though, and really needed her to reach out to me. As Anita began to read, I felt more and more distant from her and more and more distressed.

But why?

Why did I suddenly feel shame listening to a story with Anita after so many years of listening to stories snuggled in close to her? Even after listening to this very story several times in the last couple of months? Well, the previous week we’d been reading and cuddling and generally just talking and she’d said something about me having a massive inner child. It wasn’t meant unkindly, rather it was acknowledging the vulnerability of the young parts and the need. But you know how it is. There’s always that internal searchlight scanning for change in the relationship, change in Anita, change in how she feels towards me…and my system clocked ‘massive’ as a potential negative and obviously put it in the bank for later.

That later was this story time. I wish I had been able to tell Anita what was going on when she asked what was wrong/happening – but I was deep down in the shame zone, drowning in the dark by then. And so, it all started unravelling from there. RB was triggered and off we went down a road that really wasn’t a lot of fun. I felt upset that Anita didn’t seem to be ‘there’ (she was there) and trying to ‘connect’ (she was trying) but you know how it is when things feel really bad. It can feel like you’re on the other side of the world to the person sitting barely two feet from you and there seems no way to bridge the gap. This distance always makes me feel abandoned even when Anita isn’t abandoning me and so EVERYTHING she says gets filtered through a lens of mistrust and fear.

I’d been sitting there silent internally crying out for her but externally stonewalling her. At one point Anita asked me what I get from therapy – it was an open question but it felt accusatory. Like “Why are you even here?” A snarling, angry, (hurting) teen part replied, “Oh, I don’t know, nightmares, anxiety, and panic attacks!” Anita took that and seemed to run with it without realising it was coming from the hurt teen who felt unseen and abandoned and was lashing out.

Anita said it wasn’t ok, and if therapy is detrimental to me then we needed to look at that. Which is all perfectly reasonable but to the part that was freaking out it came over as if A was about to dump me/us. Anita later asked, “What keeps you in therapy?” – this kind of question made me wonder what the fuck is going on and who the hell is sitting in front of me. Like she surely knows, right? Surely, she must know after all these years WHY I am there. Because I love her, am attached to her, and want to heal my mother wound through our relationship. Because therapy is helping me work through this EXACT shit. That her steady, consistent support is allowing ALL of my parts to come to therapy and do the work (even if it is fucking cringey). But when she asked the question, I could say nothing. When the child parts are feeling like abandonment is imminent there is no chance of me saying that to her.

And then it went SOUTH in a big way. I said that I felt she’d changed (she has changed the boundaries this year and is less responsive than she used to be due to changes in her personal life) and she said she hadn’t changed, that she didn’t feel like she’d changed. Then said that perhaps there was a pattern developing because I had felt similar with Em. She said that I had been anxious and panicked whilst seeing Em and stayed. What Anita meant by that and how I received it were worlds apart. She was coming at it from a place of not wanting me to stay in something that was damaging for me (if that was what was going on) BUT how I heard it? Oh my fucking god!

I was absolutely raging. I felt so upset that she seemed to be suggesting that this was a ‘me problem’ and that the common denominator is me and therefore it must be me that’s causing these issues and ruptures. I was silent for a bit but also so fucking angry. I told Anita I felt insulted because the relationship I had with Em and the relationship she and I have built are poles apart. Yes, the same issues are coming up but fuckkk it is just not the same. Anyway, my angry teen part went to town. It escalated and after telling me she might not be around forever, and that she was going to get married soon (great time to throw that in the mix!), A shut down the session really abruptly at the end (SHE HAS NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE). I told her it was bullshit and left. She was clearly frustrated, and a bit rattled at the end – actually it turns out she was anxious.

Looking back now, actually I think what I can see coming from all this is two people converging on something that escalated and there was a lot of transference and countertransference. I don’t like ruptures AT ALL but having now worked our way through the bracken and weeds and back onto a clearer path I can see that really it comes from care: my not wanting to lose A, and A not wanting to hurt me. But being human can be incredibly messy at times and things got worse before they got better.

When I got home, I decided to make a voice note to send to Anita trying to outline what the fuck had just happened and why I was so upset. Despite it feeling really bad it wasn’t so bad that I thought we were done. I guess that’s the one thing I can always land on or take comfort in. No matter how bonkers I feel, or what I throw at Anita, I don’t think she’s ever going to do an Em on me. I feel safe enough to really ‘bring it’ to her and feel confident enough that we will come out the other side.

By the time I had done that and sent it I saw a message on my phone from Anita:

I feel really sad that we ran out of time this morning and wondered if you would like to speak on the phone later today or I have a free slot at midday tomorrow?

That went some way to alleviating the panic of needing to wait until Friday to begin to sort stuff out but also showed me that A recognised that how things had been in that session/how we had left it wasn’t great and that it wouldn’t be ideal leaving it for the rest of the week. This was also sent before I had sent her my voice message. Basically, it showed me that even when it is messy and difficult, she’s still there and still cares. I asked to see her in person on the Tuesday as it really felt like we needed to be f-2-f to work this stuff out and I didn’t think a phone call would cut it when a sense of physical connection is so important to be able to even talk.

The session on Tuesday began with a long cuddle the moment I arrived. I started crying and felt so sad but also really relieved to be there. Anita and I sat down on the sofa, she opened her arms up and welcomed me in for a cuddle. If only that had happened in the last session! We said nothing for ten minutes, I just listened to heartbeat and eventually our breathing was in time and it felt calmer. Then I said, “I don’t want to lose you.” She replied, “I know.” Which did absolutely nothing to allay my fears about things going down the shitter and her wanting to find a way to end. My heart started to race again, and I felt a sense of panic flood my system.

Everything was so easily triggered.

Anita said she was concerned and was worried that the therapy was becoming detrimental for me.  She then said something about wondering about growth. This pissed me right off, but you’ll see why in the letter that I wrote later…because in my view there is a LOT of growth. She was trying to find words and basically said the absolute kicker – that lodged like a thorn in my brain for weeks. She said something about wondering if I had become “too dependent” and then corrected herself and said “no, that’s not the right words.” But this ‘thinking out loud’ at that particular time was not what I needed to hear. She told me a bit later that she had thought that this rupture had been caused wholly by her cancelling the session the other week and had run off down a path of thinking that I was stuck because I was freaking out over her having one day off sick and that her not being available had sent me into a massive spiral and it that she felt like it was going backwards. Of course that wasn’t the case at all!!

At this point I didn’t know where all this crap was coming from. All I had heard so far was “where’s the growth”, “I feel like we’re stuck” and “maybe it’s become too dependent.” I felt really hurt but also really confused because ostensibly my needs haven’t changed. It has been Anita that has changed, her life that’s become more demanding, her that has become more thinly stretched – and as a result it is my therapy that has suffered the consequences of that. We don’t do the longer sessions anymore (that were so containing and helpful) and we have way less between session contact than before (again removing a level of containment).

These changes haven’t happened because I no longer need longer sessions or contact. It hasn’t been something we’ve contracted for or mutually agreed. It’s been something that’s been done because Anita’s life and capacity changed so dramatically last year. I realise I still get a lot more than most people in my therapy and so I would never leave based on those changes, but it seemed really unfair to say I was (potentially) too dependent when actually she gives me less now and I have stop asking for what I used to have.

To be honest, when it was all coming out it felt ‘off’ but it still hurt because I couldn’t really work out where this was all coming from. What was going on really didn’t feel like it was about ‘us’ in lots of ways. On my side it was certainly a re-enactment of stuff around my mum. I was feeling unseen, unimportant, and just vulnerable as hell. It’s also a shit time of year because it’s around this time that the wheels started to massively fall off with Em. Naturally I am hypervigilant, but at this time of year I am poised for another ‘tick’ situation. And a ‘too dependent’ came pretty close, I can tell you!

And for Anita, the stuff she was saying (it turns out) wasn’t about me. Really it came back round to her family’s endless demands on her, and her feeling trapped by her mum’s level of need. It was countertransference 101. It’s easier to make a client who you see 2 hours a week and has a need the problem though, rather than fully acknowledge that the family member who has made your life unrecognisable from what it was a 18 months ago and now lives with you makes you feel trapped and stuck. It wasn’t me and Anita that were “stuck” and it wasn’t me that was making her feel “trapped.” Anita is usually so ‘together’ and ‘grounded’ but she wasn’t – but I can understand it. I guess my needing her or my feeling like she’s not there when she feels like she is giving me all that she can probably feels frustrating when she has such a lot going on.

Arguably, this shouldn’t have happened. But at the same time, it is a very real and human relationship, and it takes place in real time. As much as we’d like to think therapists have completely got their shit together and are totally ‘on it’ so far as knowing what’s going on with them, I do think we all have blind spots. Fortunately, like I say, there is a strong enough foundation to our relationship that we can weather the storms and talk things through and afterwards it feels like we’ve made another load of progress.

It’s not comfortable by any means but it is another lesson in ‘you can go through hard things, act up, act out, shout, and it doesn’t mean the relationship will end…and not everything that happens is always about you and not everything is your fault’. I would rather Anita be able to put her hands up and tell me what’s going on when we have these things happen (when she is aware of it!) than have a situation like with Em where stuff would happen and I’d be completely in the dark and left thinking everything was always my fault because she was such a blank screen – or the fact she’d blame me for everything!

Anyway, we limped along for a few sessions. I was so exhausted with work, end of term, life…that there was one session where I just turned up and said, “Can we just be together today. I am too exhausted for this, and it can wait.” And so we had a lovely hour of cuddles, gentle chat, and stories. I get how nuts that sounds. To be in the thick of a rupture and then go, “Ah fuck it, it’ll work out, we are ok really, let’s just catch our breath!” But that is the lovely thing about where Anita and I have got to. It is safe enough to do this. We can have a rupture. I know it’ll repair. On a core level no matter what’s being thrown up, and what chaos I am working out, underneath Anita is there, my rabbit that listens.

I do wonder if I sound completely unhinged. Like how can I hold so many seemingly opposing ideas at the same time?! Ruptures used to absolutely terrify me. My nervous system still gets thrown through a loop even now. It’s old programming. But there is a toe out of the water that knows there’s dry land and I am not going to be fully swept away by the storm. So, yes, parts of me freak out, have their reactions, go through the motions of it all…but there is another part that’s like, “RB you are ok. No matter what happens, you’ll be ok…because you have YOU now.”

Anyway, after a gentle couple of sessions I built myself up to tell Anita that she had hurt me with her comment about “too dependent”. It was about three minutes before the end of the session (nice one RB!) and I was snuggled into her chest when I said it. Anita went rigid and then swore blind she hadn’t used those words. But of course, she had…even if she’d corrected herself immediately and there was no intention of hurting me. The session ended and I went home and typed up a letter than I decided I would send as a voice note. It had been several weeks since everything had started and I felt like I wanted to get stuff of my chest.

It is not always easy to do that in session. Especially when young parts are so present. So, here’s what I wrote and sent to her:

What I’m left with-

Is it really only since you got sick you feel we’re ‘stuck’? Has it really just gone to shit in two weeks? 

You said I was “too dependent” and although you backtracked and said “maybe that’s not the right words” that’s sent waves through my system because I don’t know how to fix that other than take myself away and I really don’t want to do that because that is the very last thing I need. I know you said it because you thought my meltdown or struggling to reconnect had come from you being poorly – it wasn’t – but even if it was that it feels like a really shaming thing to say. I do know that’s not how you would have intended it to come across but also using words like “unhealthy” as well just really hurt me. And adult me can sidestep it but the younger parts do feel hurt and so I need to tell you.

I can already feel the protectors stepping in to protect the vulnerable parts from being hurt more- I already feel a lot of shame about my “huge” inner child (again something I don’t think was meant to be shaming but it’s how I received it and that impacted how it felt reconnecting after you were sick) but I genuinely thought it was ok with you to work with this really vulnerable needy stuff. 

I was struggling to feel like I was in the room with you the other Monday when it all blew up. I asked for a story because I felt like I was floating away, you started reading, and I could just feel myself face plant in shame and instead of feeling closer to you, I dissociated – because I felt too much, and that the inner child need was too “huge”, and it really went downhill thereafter. I really like listening to you read stories and so this felt absolutely hideous because it’s been something that’s really helped, does help, but in that moment it felt like I was pathetic and too needy.

I feel stupid. I’ve heard that “too dependent” (and you did say it) as young parts are not welcome, that I’m not ‘growing up’ quickly enough and obviously it’s all too much. I now really worry it’s going to be a problem this Christmas if I so much as struggle with the break (and of course I will struggle because duh – two weeks at this time of year always feels hard – it’s a time when I am acutely reminded of exactly what I don’t have). I’m worried that my missing you or having a reaction to you being gone now makes you feel ‘trapped’ and want to get away from me and so then that sets off a panic you’ll take the care away/step back even more. 

This happened on Friday just gone – you told me about your Christmas break and I felt myself freeze – not because you are will be away but I was panicking that you will find me having any kind of reaction to it “too dependent” or “unhealthy” and that’s just fucking awful. I feel I have to hide what I am feeling so that I don’t get branded negatively and that sucks.

Even if I had have had a meltdown about the cancelled session the other week in the way you think I did (rather than panicking about what had happened to my friend maybe happening with you)- I think the issue is less about being too dependent but what or who is being triggered by you being gone suddenly. Why is that young part so affected and impacted by separation? Is it really being too dependent and therefore deficient – or does it make sense in the context of a caregiver being unexpectedly absent, unavailable, and un-contactable. We both know this comes back to my mum and my childhood – years of hanging on for Friday and feeling profoundly lost and lonely in the week…and then of course, my dad just dropping dead and never seeing him again three days into a separation doesn’t help. 

I have spent a lifetime hanging on to see people I love and then being overlooked or forgotten about or worse, them never returning. It might not seem logical or proportionate of a response when I struggle with your absence but it is rooted in trauma and it feels really shaming to think there are things I might do that are seen as ‘too dependent’ and ‘unhealthy’ because I can’t help how I feel and I should be able to bring that to you if it was the case – it doesn’t mean you have to do anything about it. You can’t help getting sick, you are more than entitled to take time off, have holidays – be a human – but equally my reaction (if there was one) doesn’t make our relationship suddenly unhealthy, stuck, or problematic. And again – adult me can see how much of a reaction I am having to all this and that it’s all going to be ok…but the young parts are less certain.

And this is really evident – with this bit I wrote a couple of weeks ago because I know that you are still here- mostly, it’s felt fine the last couple of sessions, but it really didn’t the other week – and this is what I said:

I feel embarrassed and ashamed to have let you see that need for you when it’s now seemingly ‘too much’. I don’t know where you are. Where is the Anita that talked about going to the beach and having an ice cream so the little parts could just play and be kids for once, the one who said she wanted to tuck the young parts up in bed safe and take all the pain away, who said I didn’t need to stay out in the cold anymore, that her cupboards were full of chocolate, that said she understood trauma doesn’t always work on a timetable, that said I was easy to love and who kissed me on the head and held me close and said she didn’t want to let me go and could hold me forever, who noticed when I felt cold or shaky, the A who washes my elephant and bought me a beating heart necklace because you know separation is hard and hearing your heart beat makes me feel safe, and the squishmallow, the bunny that represented the rabbit that listened, a salt lamp to help me sleep… so many things… the A that reads stories- where did she go this week? Part of me feels like I’m insane and imagining a relationship that simply doesn’t exist. But those things have been said and happened – so what happened this week? 

All that steady acceptance and reassurance and relationship building that you did, we’ve done, made it feel safe to bring the small parts to session so why am I now too dependent? Why is it now stuck?  It’s years of relational trauma that needs working through in this therapy. I’m not getting a divorce! I’m not a bit stressed out at work. I’m not feeling a bit lacking in self-esteem. And there are loads of parts and therefore lots of perspectives, fears, and triggers. It will take time. There will be hard times it doesn’t mean it’s stuck or unhealthy. 

Do you still love me… and the parts you worked so hard at connecting with? And if so, can you please explain that to them again and reassure them because right now they’ve got another mother figure who can’t tolerate their need and is leaving them alone and seemingly feels trapped. And I know you’re not my mum, you’re not my family, I wish you were. As I’ve said lots of times, you’ve given me a better experience of mothering than I ever had growing up which is why this all feels so confusing and painful now.

And yes, I get I need to parent these parts by myself but I am trying but I have needed it modelled to me. I’ve needed your care and compassion to begin to feel any compassion towards myself. But whether you like it or not- you are my attachment figure. And right now, I don’t want anyone else and I don’t think we’re done. And unfortunately for you, I do think you are the right person for me. 

When you asked me what I get from this- I was upset and hurt and told you it was anxiety, panic, and nightmares. That’s definitely something that teen part experiences and has been really present at times lately. But there’s clearly more than that. If it was only that I wouldn’t have stayed. There is no way I would stay if I genuinely thought a pattern was repeating and it was heading the way things with Em went. But how things are with you and how they were with her couldn’t be more different. What do I get from this? I thought I was getting a relationship with you. I believed you loved me. I believed that you were safe to heal wound with, venture into that egg yolk with… and now I’m not sure if I’m even welcome and would you just let me go? 

One day are you just going to tell me it’s over?…because I don’t get how we can have been through all this together and it just be in my head that this relationship means something – that this is just run of the mill therapy. I don’t believe it for one second. This therapy doesn’t look like anyone else’s I know. But then perhaps I am just delusional.

Also. Please know you are interacting with lots of parts right now. I can even feel the shifts as I’m writing this now. As I said, the teen has been about in a massive way that week and she is fucking angry but underneath she’s just really hurting and crying “please not again” and wants to connect. Yes- I have had nightmares and panic attacks and God knows what else but it doesn’t mean that’s all there is- but in that moment for that teen that’s how it felt. I need you to recognise that, and not panic that suddenly everything is detrimental for me and that this isn’t working. That teen needs to be heard but also, I need you to hold that in the wider frame of all of me. Sometimes I think it isn’t very clear who is in front of you but maybe ask. Because my quiet can be for lots of reasons…or for none at all! And whilst I can be really grumpy – there’s plenty of times when I tell you how much I value you, and love you, too because more than anything they are the dominant feelings.

And so, here’s some questions- Why does it make me too dependent to want you in my life? Why would I actually choose to have to not have you in my life when I have experienced so many losses already? It feels human to need to connect not wrong. I can’t help that you’re ‘just’ my therapist. I wish I could turn myself into a robot so not care about you or the relationship we’ve created and turn off my feelings when I’m not in the room …but I am not a robot, I’m a person and you’re a person too. I’m not wrong for how I feel and yet all of a sudden something that felt so good feels dangerous – and that’s how it spirals down. I don’t want to be too much. And I don’t want to feel like we’re broken. You usually sound so steady and certain when I am wobbling but you didn’t the other week.

And the thing about growth or lack of it- really feels quite shaming and insulting too. On Friday you said it was about ‘reviewing’ but when it was all going off it didn’t feel like a review, it felt like a threat or an ultimatum – your ‘concern’ came across in a way that made me feel like you didn’t see me or understand where things were. I shouldn’t need to justify why I am still in therapy or explain- and for you to insinuate or worry that there’s no growth because you thought I’d had a meltdown about our session being cancelled feels really shit. I shouldn’t feel like I am taking too long or not doing therapy right or not working hard enough – but that’s what that implies to me. Where is the growth? It’s fucking everywhere! 

I’m sorry if my fear of abandonment flares up and my child parts still need stories and hugs. I’m sorry if I like being with you and feel like these hours each week help me actually just survive in the world. I’m sorry I’m not someone who rapidly transforms and fucks off into the sunset after six neat, easy sessions. I’m sorry that I need a deep and authentic connection. I’m sorry that my trying to repair a completely broken and fragmented structurally dissociated system has led to you feeling me too dependent and you now seem resentful of that. 

Where’s the growth? I came to you with an eating disorder that had been rife for twenty years, where I had never once achieved a healthy BMI and been stuck in chronically underweight anorexic state. My body image was so screwed up. I had systematically starved myself for years, used exercise as a weapon and my inner critic was rampant. That voice has settled so much and I’m now in a healthy weight range. I eat what I want when I want and even though I’ve put on loads of weight I just bought bigger clothes – I didn’t try and go back. I accepted it. That’s huge on its own. 

I haven’t self-harmed in years – even when the urge has been there, I’ve chosen a healthy option. I have reached out for help believing I was worthy of love and care rather than punishing myself. 

I am able to work and manage my kids despite the stress of it all and always being up against it. 

The constant fear of my cancer returning has eased a bit and I feel like I am more present in my life and can enjoy things where I never used to feel anything other than ‘I should enjoy this. I should feel something’.

I can actually tell you how I feel rather than keeping everything inside – you may think I don’t talk, or shut down and keep you out, but I have told you such a lot. I can be angry with you – I genuinely believed I wasn’t ever angry as it wasn’t an emotion I connected with but I do now. Not because you make me angry(!) but I feel safe to express anger with you. So that’s good- even if you don’t like me shouting at you and telling you everything is bullshit … that is massive progress and growth. I could never express that kind of thing as a kid. I’d have been flattened. But growth too is also telling you all the feelings – it takes a lot to tell someone you love them, especially when there’s a good chance they’ll reject you for it. I’m scared now that my telling you that ‘I love you’ is my being too dependent and that actually makes me want to cry. 

I had started to believe what happened with Em was not my fault – that I’m not actually a tick because you loved me and therefore there must be good in me. Now I’m not sure- so perhaps that is a sliding back but it’s not surprising when it’s been like this this week.

So growth? My growth and healing isn’t necessarily obvious (although lots of people say they see a big change in me). It’s the deep deep wounding that’s repairing. I didn’t come to therapy with a surface wound. You can’t see a scab forming. But deep inside there’s so much change. It’s like a tree in winter. It looks fucked and dead above ground, but so many roots are stretching out beneath the earth ready to send nutrients up in spring to grow and create a canopy of leaves and fruit. It’s not spring yet but it’s not stuck or dead. I want to be an oak with huge, strong roots that can weather any storm rather than a tree with a shallow root system that will get battered by the slightest bit of wind…and that is what is happening…even if you can’t see it.

From James Norbury’s ‘Big Panda and Tiny Dragon’

Sometimes stuff happens and it looks like I’m back to square one…but I’m not. I would hope you would know all this and I’m sad that my expressing upset and telling you how stuff has been has made you think it’s crap. I don’t know what to say but I need you to recognise my growth even because sometimes I can’t and be proud of that and celebrate that change with me. I don’t need you to shame me because there’s change and growth that hasn’t come yet. I’m a tortoise not a hare. And I know you aren’t shaming me, it’s my response…

You asked what keeps me in therapy? I do. You do. How I feel about you keeps me in therapy. My attachment to you keeps me in therapy. But not because I am stuck but because I feel like our relationship does me good. I love you. And the love has made huge shifts in me and how I perceive myself. And I’m sorry if that’s too much or makes you feel trapped or that I’m too dependent. I never wanted to make you feel like that. 

You said once you were like a boomerang because no matter how much I push you away you’ll keep coming back. I am worried I have broken you in half and now you’re just a stick. I hope not.

So that was an outpouring from so many different parts – you can clearly see how fixated I got on some of the words Anita had said even though Adult me knew what she meant and her intention. The issue, though, is therapy isn’t just for my adult self…and that’s why it gets so messy.

Anita listened to the message. She really heard what I had to say. And we really processed what’s happened together. I mean talk about ‘the work’. Fortunately, we got the bulk of this out the way before Christmas and left feeling connected and safe. And to be honest, writing this out and reading it all…I think I just feel a bit like, ‘WTAF happened?!’…I think another thing I am going to have to really look at is my menstrual cycle…because guess when this all kicked off? Yeah – ‘then’.

Humph!

I am not enjoying the Christmas break AT ALL. I have been struggling quite a lot but also really conscious of not reaching out to Anita unnecessarily (I will talk to her about this on the 9th). However, what was really lovely was that on Christmas day she reached out and sent me a message on WhatsApp first. It was a GIF saying Merry Christmas and a message sending ‘lots of love xx’ This in addition to the lovely Christmas gift she sent really helped settle the young parts that just miss her A LOT. Yesterday I sent her a message with a quote from a book that I gave her for Christmas called ‘The Journey’ by James Norbury, the second book in his series about the two friends Big Panda and Tiny Dragon (I highly recommend both):

and today she has sent me some photographs of a place she’s been. It feels good…although obviously I wish I could see her in person!

Anyway, this was a really long long post which really could be summarised by this:

RB wobbled in November/December. It should have been called ‘Rupture Season’ not ‘Christmas Season’ 2022. This year RB and Anita had a humdinger. But it’s all ok. They got through it. Oh, and C-PTSD is hardwork!

If you made it to the end of this – there really did ought to be a prize. Wishing you all a happy new year…let’s see what 2023 brings eh?!