Monday: part one, the messy list

Between Saturday Friday when I sent Bea the email about relationships, and Monday when I saw her, I did more thinking, and a lot more writing. It’s like as though I can not turn my brain off. I didn’t much sleep on Sunday night; really the whole weekend. I’m having nightmares again and I’m in this agitated, sort of hyper active afraid to sleep state. 

I arrive at Bea’s early, and take Hagrid for a walk. I don’t feel like walking, I don’t feel like doing much of anything but hiding, or maybe crying or sleeping. So it’s a good thing that I’m forced to take Hagrid for his walk this morning. After his walk, he runs up the stairs to her office, and she is waiting, as usual for us. 

I say hi, and sit down. I feel antsy, like there is too much to say and not enough time; there is this pressure to talk right now, as though if I don’t I will never have time again to get it all out. I try to take a deep breath and tell myself that isn’t true, but the feeling won’t dissipate. And that feeling of no time makes me freeze inside, and I’m unable to talk at all. I sit in a sort of criss cross applesauce, with one knew bent up right, Hagrid in my lap, and I bury my face in his fur. 

I’m thankful that Bea knows me pretty well by now. She takes one look at me, and says, “Did anything more come up after your email on Friday?”

I look down and try to find words. Why is it so hard to speak sometimes? I’ve been talking in full sentences since I was two. This should not be so hard. “I…there was…..I wrote this….messy list. I didn’t send it….I wasn’t sure…I don’t know…I couldn’t decide…it’s messy…and….I just wasn’t sure…”

“Do you want to get that out? Or maybe I should get out your email? I know I said there were things we would talk about on Monday.”

I realize I’m digging my nails into my ankle, and force myself to stop. I look down and see deep marks left behind. I’m still disconnected from myself. I wonder if Bea noticed this, and I hope she didn’t. I hate that I catch myself doing these things at times now that it’s harder to pick at my fingers. I can’t figure out what to say. I look around Bea’s office, but keep my gaze focused on the floor. There aren’t any answers to be found. I shrug. I don’t know. 

She waits a moment, maybe trying to figure out what I need. “Do you want to start with a 2 minute update on Kat’s session on Friday, since hubby brought her?”

I nod, relieved. 

Bea fills me in on how Kat was letting out a lot of anger on Friday, anger that Bea would call rage. I confirm that Kat was very angry all week with me, and it seems she is having trouble with managing it. Bea agrees, and says that it felt like to her that Kat simply needed someone to hold and contain her anger because it was too much for Kat. I nod. I’m sure Kat needed that. Because I don’t hold her anger very well at all. It triggers me, and scares me. I react to it. I don’t do well with managing my own anger; I push it away or react too much– how am I supposed to hold and contain and help regulate my child’s anger? This is all so hard and unfair. I should have learned this lesson long ago. Bea tells me everything is okay, Kat is okay, it is all okay and is a process. Because we are talking about anger, and I am struggling with huge feelings of guilt, I’m having trouble staying present, but I know she says something about it all being a process and we will see how things unfold, or something like that. 

I end up getting out the messy list and giving it to Bea. “I…there’s too much in my head. I don’t know….it’s…I’m not sure what to even start with or how to get through it all……so I just….I don’t know….can you just read this and you read my email and just decide what to talk about? Just….I don’t know…do something…because it’s too much,” I tell her. Then I hide my face and cry a little. I hate feeling like this. But it’s almost as if I have been waiting all weekend to cry. All the anger in me from the weekend was really covering all this hurt and fear. Now I am in place where it is safe to let it out. It’s sort of amazing that it took me until now– I’ll be 32 this month– to find a safe place like this, to be able to feel my feelings, to be able to do any of this. But of the other hand, it’s sort of amazing I am doing any of this at all. 

————I’m going to continue this in pieces, because the rest of the session was Bea responding to my messy list. If I include even just parts of the list and what happened in session this is going to turn into a very long post. We covered so much in this session. So, to be continued.