Go away, go away (she left me)

Wednesday, after I waste so much time — too much time— talking about nothing at all, Bea asks if I have paints out again, and if painting helped the teen. I cover my face, embarrassment hitting me like a sandstorm, rising up out of nowhere.

“I….yes, I think the teen really liked painting. And felt like….it was okay, even with not having words,” I mumble.

“Well, her painting was awesome. So much emotion captured in it! I could feel the chaos being caused by something the girl in the painting had no control over.”

I shrug, feeling vulnerable and too seen. So, I do what I do best, and distract. “Kat has been really angry lately. I think it might even be rage, not anger.”

Bea goes along with me on this tangent for a little bit. We discuss the differences between anger and rage. I see anger as a signal that a boundary has been crossed, and also as nothing dangerous or mean because it’s just a feeling, not actually anything you are doing. I say that we don’t have to act on anger in a mean way. Bea taught me this. I’m proud that after so many years, I not only understand this, but believe it. I’ve gone from the girl unable to even acknowledge her anger to understanding anger is just an emotion, and one that is okay to feel.

Bea adds that rage is sort of like anger that is out of control, that with anger we can stop ourselves from acting, but rage just sort of takes over. Then she steers it all back to the teen (as she is so good at doing). “I think that rage is what I would call the teen’s reaction to the kenny and the window memory.”

“I wasn’t mad, though,” I say. “How can hurting myself be rage when I wasn’t mad?”

“Well, I suppose you are thinking of rage turned outward, right? It looks mad and out of control. Like if you had grabbed a baseball bat and gone after Kenny, that would be seen as rage, right?”

I nod my head.

“So, instead, you grabbed a baseball bat and went after yourself. Rage thrown inward.”

“No. It wasn’t like that. I wasn’t mad. I was just, I don’t know.” I sigh.

“Okay. You weren’t mad. Can we pull that apart a little more, figure out what you were feeling?”

“I just wanted it all to stop. I didn’t….he kissed me. And I felt….I wanted the thoughts, and these crazy things in my head and the feelings…not in my head but feelings you know, to stop. I’m gross. And it all just needed to go away, to stop.” I’m far away when I am telling Bea this, but not as far away as I’d like to be. I feel uncomfortable in my body, like all I want to do is crawl out of my skin.

“That sounds like being caught up in a tornado going on in your head. That’s a terrible way to feel. No wonder you wanted it to stop. I can hear a very definite need for it all to just stop.”

When I don’t say anything, Bea asks me if I’m here.

“Yeah. I’m here. Just tired.”

“Did you go to bed late last night?” She asks.

“No, no not really. I had this dream. Stupid dream, crazy, really. But I just……I couldn’t go back to sleep after. That’s all. Sorry.” I stumble in my explanation. I want to tell Bea about it, but at the same time, it’s a ridiculous dream.

“If it distrubed you enough that you couldn’t fall back asleep, then I don’t think it is stupid at all,” she tells me gently.

I try to talk, to say the words that will describe the dream, but I can’t. In the end, I cover my face and cry.

“It made you sad. I think the things coming up for the teen are really sad. It’s okay to let that out.”

“It’s not sad,” I say, and my words have a bite to them.

“It’s really important to someone that it not be sad, maybe it doesn’t feel safe to the teen to let the sad in. That’s okay, that’s okay. I do wonder if not sad, then what is the teen feeling?”

“Lonely.” I whisper the word, on a sob.

“Lonely, yeah. I was thinking how alone you were, trying to hold all those feelings, and what had happened with him. That makes me sad how lonely you really were. You had no one to go to for help.”

“Maybe I’m supposed to be lonely. At least, that’s how it was supposed to be in my dream.” This time the words are a challenge as well as a message that I am fine on my own.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because I’m not…..I can’t….I don’t….I’m not good enough.”

Bea waits, but when I don’t say anything, she asks if the dream was about Kenny not choosing me. “You had all these feelings for him…this crush, and this hope of marrying him—“

I cut her off. “Just stop, just stop talking right now. Right now. Shut up. You don’t talk about this.”

“Okay. I won’t talk about it.”

“You don’t know. Don’t talk about things you don’t know about! And, you are wrong. Just wrong!” I shout the words at her, and my voice has a hard edge to it.

“I hear you. I’m wrong, I didn’t get it. But if I wasn’t wrong, if some part of you feels that way, that’s okay.”

“Shut up. It’s time to go, hang up.”

“I don’t want to leave you like this. Can we just ground a little first?”

“No. Go away. Hang up right now. I need you to hang up.”

Bea refuses, again, to hang up. She tells me that I don’t have to talk, and asks if maybe I would write and take pictures of my notebook to send her.

“Go away. Go away. I don’t want you here. Just go. I need you to go.” I repeat the words like a mantra, begging Bea to leave, to go away. “It’s past ten. You have to go. Just go.”

“Okay. Please write me if you feel like it. I’m here.” And then she says goodbye and hangs up.

She left me.

Maybe I don’t always need words

Monday morning, I set out my paints and my paper, paint brushes and oil pastels before I log into therapy.

Bea logs in, and we talk for a while about nothing type stuff until she asks me if I bought paint.

“Yeah. I bought paint for myself.”

“What kind of paint did you get?” Bea asks.

I hold up a watercolor palette with close to 30 colors.

“Ooooh, nice. I love all the colors. Did you want to paint together today?”

I shrug. “I guess I can paint while we talk.” The teen is way too cool to say what she really wants to— yes, I absolutely want to paint, I’m desperate to find a way to let out all the ick inside and words aren’t working and I just really need you to get it.

“This is hard,” I tell Bea. “I don’t know how to paint feelings.”

“What about a color? Is there a color that feels right to you?” She asks.

“I don’t know. I mean, yellow is happy and red is mad and blue is sad and black is probably depressed and I think green means peaceful…….”

“Why?”

“Because the rules of our culture say so?” Even though it’s not really a question, the words come out with a sassy teenage lilt to them and the valley-girl-esque way of speaking with every sentence sounding like it’s a question.

“Well, that’s true,” Bea laughs. “I think that is the logical way of doing art you were talking about in your email. But this….we want to try to focus maybe more on the process than the end result.”

“I guess I can try.” I pick up an oil pastel and draw lines on my paper to make the corner of a room. I’ll draw me, sitting on the floor doing therapy. It’s a straight forward thing to paint, and I need a plan. I use a pencil to quickly sketch out a human shape sitting on the floor. I can use paints to draw the rest.

“Can you pull up my emails?” I’m not looking at Bea when I ask this, I’m carefully painting hair on the girl in the painting.

“Yeah, sure. I have them right here. Did you want me to go through them like your notebook writing?”

I nod my head, and Bea starts the familiar rhythm of her reading my words and responding to them.

I’d written: I think, looking at the whole of what is stirred up in my head, there is a theme here. The window memory, I don’t know if that one fits, but the rest, it’s this theme of being in trouble for the something that happened. It’s a lot of out of control feelings and shame, and I don’t know what. Maybe something to do (and I’m cringing writing this, wanting to hide or maybe throw up or both) with the whole ummm, you know growing up and curiosity and figuring things out stuff. Ugh. Ick. 

“I think so, there is a theme of blame and shame. A lot of shame for feelings that were normal, and for things that happened that were not your fault. It makes me sad for the little girl, the teen, that they didn’t get to experience these normal feelings in a safe way.”

I’d written: And from the teen because well, she’s just so here and stirred up right now: So maybe you are right and it was something. But it’s not as bad a something as the real somethings. So is it okay to even be upset like this? Do you think I’m over reacting? I don’t know for sure what to think. But you were right about one thing and I hate it that you were right because I just don’t want it to be true. The crush feelings. They were like not there at all and then he was smiling at me and telling me I was too pretty to be smoking and that cigarettes kill people and then he kissed me and all those disgusting feelings were there. So quick. You don’t know how bad that feels. I can’t even put it into words. But it’s very bad feeling. 

“Yes, I really do think the window memory was something. I really do think it is okay to feel however you feel about it. It makes sense to me, that you would have a lot of feelings and overwhelm about it. I know it feels really bad and really confusing.”

I don’t look up from my painting when I speak. “I just…there were no feelings about him at all, I wasn’t scared when he walked up to me, even. Well, maybe I didn’t want him to tell my parents that I was smoking. And then, he kissed me. And I just….ick. It’s just ick. I can’t breathe, or think. I just…it’s so confusing, everything in my head and it just needs to stop. I can’t……” I trail off, absorbed in the process of putting paint onto my paper.

Bea says something, but I’m not so focused on her right now. I’m no longer painting a planned out picture, but swirls of dark purple and blue and grey. I’m upset, overwhelmed, confused. And suddenly I am painting feelings. I finish painting, and look in the container for a black oil pastel. I sketch out what I couldn’t paint. When I look up, Bea is there, waiting patiently.

“Sorry….I wasn’t listening to you,” I whisper.

“No, no sorrys needed. You were really intent on your painting,” Bea says.

“Yeah, I….well…” I look then, really look at it and while it’s not technically good, and it is painfully obvious I don’t have a talent for art, the painting looks like I feel. “I didn’t paint what I planned.”

“No? What did you plan?”

“To paint me, doing therapy in the guest room. It’s all big easy shapes to draw, so I figured painting them should be pretty easy.” I shrug.

“Ahhh. That makes sense. What did you end up painting?” Bea is asks the question with curiosity and no judgement.

“I…well….it’s…” I shake my head, and finally just hold up my picture. I hide behind it though.

Bea looks, and then says, “I love it. There is something so safe and protective about it.”

I feel like she’s slapped me in the face. Safe? I painted my pain, and I know I am not the best artist, but where does she get safe from? I pick up a pillow, hide behind it. I can’t look at her right now. This was a horrible idea.

“Alice, where did you go? What happened?” Bea notices right away that something has gone very wrong.

I shake my head, feeling miserable. “You don’t get it. It’s not safe. I don’t think you even looked. Just never mind.”

Bea doesn’t respond right away, but when she does, she sounds cautious. “I want to get it. I did look at your painting, but maybe I didn’t see what I was supposed to. Could I look again?”

I sigh, and hold up my artwork again. This time, I stay hidden behind the pillow. Bea doesn’t say anything for what feels like forever.

“Oh, yeah,” Bea says slowly. “I really missed the point. I didn’t see the hand reaching or the face screaming. It’s creepy, isn’t it? And feels like the girl in the picture is doing her best to hide from all the chaos. It’s like she’s trapped in the center on a tornado she can’t stop.”

“Yeah,” I whisper the word. I feel something lift inside me, Bea does see, and she gets it. For today, it’s enough to feel understood, even if I don’t have any words all.

Maybe it is something, not nothing

The teen is raging this morning, livid with Bea for continuing to insist that the memory at the window was not “nothing”, that it was “something”. I had typed a response to Bea’s last email of the day yesterday, and then realized before I sent it that it was all teen sass and frustration. So I held it until this morning, sending it as I log into therapy.

We say good morning, and then it’s silent. I hate silence, especially right now, and to fill the uncomfortableness of it, I start chatting. I tell Bea some things I’ve learned about how neurodiverse brains work, and why I think Kat is struggling so much to finish a task like cleaning her room. We talk about this new (to me) piece of information, and I tell her how I plan to help support Kat if this is indeed part of the challenge.

Finally, I take a deep breath and say, “I don’t want to spend all my time talking about Kat. I just….”

Bea picks up where I trailed off, “Need to ease into things and make sure I am here and me. I know. And, this is good information, so I am glad you shared. But you know what I was thinking?” I shake my head, and she continues, “I was thinking how great it is that even with so much coming up, you have been able to focus on some other tasks, that the grown up has been able to sort of step away and give everyone a break from the yuck.”

My face feels hot and I shrug. “I guess. I just….I don’t….parts don’t like it when…..well, I mean, I guess it is better than it was like three or four years ago or even a year ago, but I don’t like….I just….”

“I wasn’t really thinking ‘better’. Maybe more that you are able to get to a regulated place and not be swallowed by the ick all day, everyday. That this is different than it was in the past,” Bea explains.

“The thing is, it is better. But it’s not….the parts don’t really want you to…” I keep trying to say the words, to tell her I don’t want her to think I am fine now because that might mean she will decide to leave me, but they keep getting stuck. It feels too vulnerable making to say that right now.

“To think everything is better and for me to put expectations on them?” Bea asks.

“Yeah. Exactly. But it is better, sort of. It’s like certain things….specific things I can focus on and sort of step away from the ick. Like cleaning or organizing or trying to find solutions to help Kat, or being social, like when one my girl scouts stopped by to pick up more cookies. That sort of stuff. Playing with Kat or being really engaged and present, maybe not so much. But those more specific things, I can focus on those and function.”

“I can see that. It makes sense, really, because those were always Miss Perfect’s sort of things she did to distract and function, right?”

“Yes,” I say slowly, “but it’s not Miss Perfect, not this time. It’s just me. Or, I think it is just me. Because Miss Perfect is more….everything is scheduled. I mean, I used to clean the grout in my kitchen once a week with a toothbrush and vacuum hourly so there would be literally no pet hair anywhere. People who knew me used to joke about me having OCD, but I don’t think it was OCD like for real. It was just trying to control everything. Everything was a routine, a schedule and Miss Perfect couldn’t function if something screwed that up.”

Bea tells me she remembers this, how it was, and how it is no small thing how much that has changed.

“I emailed you this morning,” I blurt the words out before I can decide to shove them back down.

“Oh! I’m sorry, I didn’t see it. Can I look at it now?”

“I sent it just when I logged in. It’s more of a list, and then…well, a sort of response, I guess to your last email. I just thought, if I sent it and you read it now, it was like my notebook, sort of. An email notebook.”

“Yes, a virtual notebook. That’s good, that’s great. Let me pull it up now.” So Bea pulls it up, and after checking that it’s okay, she starts to read.

Bea starts to talk through each list point as she reads them, but I stop her. “Just read it all first. Please. Because there’s….well, the teen.”

“Okay, I’ll to read it all the way through.”

When she looks up from reading, I hide my face. The teen has probably made a big mistake and everything is really going to fall apart now.

“I think we need to let the teen be heard and seen right now, and I’d really like to tell her something.” Bea’s voice is soft, her tone is gentle.

“I….I…okay,” I stumbled over the apology I want to say. The teen was not nice, she was blunt and angry and half shouting in what she had written.

Here is the short email exchange I had added to this morning’s virtual notebook. (trigger warning for a few blunt explicit details)

Bea: I do think the window memory was bad even though “nothing” happened. He still violated boundaries and imposed himself. That’s definitely “something.” Just being in your life at that point was “something.” Triggering without a doubt:(

The teen: UGH! You don’t get it. Just stop, okay? You don’t know anything! It was nothing. Nothing. It didn’t matter. Why don’t you get that? I keep telling you and telling you and you won’t believe me. You aren’t listening. Do you even care? Something was when I was 5. Something was when we played secret games. Something was when he wanted me to pretend it was a popsicle even though it wasn’t. Something was when I was 8. Something was when we were at the cabin. Something was on the Ferris wheel. Something was a hundred different times. Do you get it now? Because that night? That was NOTHING. I was old enough to flirt and to kiss. And that’s literally all it was. A kiss. Nothing. Not something at all. And definitely not something I get to be upset about. It was nothing. So just stop, stop all of this fake shrinky nice thing you always do. I hate it! UGH!

“It was something. I know it feels like nothing in comparison to all the many somethings you listed. I know it feels like you were the age when flirting and kissing were okay, so that makes it nothing. And maybe, it feels safer to yell and work really hard to convince me it was nothing, rather than taking a risk to see if I will hear and see and understand the hurt and pain that night did cause you.” Bea speaks slowly and carefully, but her tone is serious. She means what she is saying, and even with all the teen’s resistance, I can feel her words sinking in.

“It was nothing. It should be nothing.”

“But it wasn’t nothing. You had all the somethings from before, you know. You inherited all of the somethings from the little girl. Even if it wasn’t all conscious, even if you couldn’t label it as more than a game, it was all there. So how could you not be triggered when he violated boundaries and imposed himself on you again?” Bea is still speaking so calm and her voice is full of compassion.

I smush myself as far into the corner as I can and grab a pillow off the floor to hide my face. “It’s just stupid anyway.”

“Right…because you were being a drama queen, just over reacting, making a big deal out of things, right?” Bea says this in such a way that I know, like really know, that she is putting voice to my silent unspoken words.

“Yeah. And, everyone was flirting and kissing then, anyway. So it’s not like I was a little kid anymore.”

“No, maybe not, although I would argue there will always be a power imbalance between you and Kenny. I would also argue that if a boy your own age had been flirting with you and kissed you, you wouldn’t have had a reaction to harm yourself.”

“Maybe. I think it would still be confusing. Because…well…I just…it would have been confusing.” How do I even begin to explain the swirling mess of confusion that flirting and kissing and everything that goes with that?

“Yeah, of course. I think it would have been confusing for you. It might have even been triggering, but I don’t think it would have been as triggering as this situation with Kenny. I don’t think it would have triggered you to hurt yourself like that.” Bea starts to say something about fight parts being triggered or something about why we hurt ourselves like that, but I interrupt her.

“No, it wasn’t like that,” I look up at Bea, and even though she had started to go down a shrink sounding path, she’s just Bea. “I didn’t want to die. I just wanted everything to stop and to go away. I was just so confused and all these feelings…… I couldn’t shut my brain off. I just needed it to stop for a little while.”

“Ahhh, mmmhmmm. It was too much to hold by yourself. Of course you wanted everything to stop.”

“I just…I was so confused because of how I….” I stop, mid-sentence, feeling stupid and ashamed.

When I don’t continue, Bea asks, “Because you felt those crush type feelings in that moment in the window?”

I don’t speak. I just bury my face again and start to sob.

“Oh, Alice. Of course those feelings came back. It would be normal for you to have a crush or even several crushes at that age. How could those feelings not exist after the hope of him marrying you and the crush you had on him? How could they not come back after he kissed you in your window? It’s okay if they did.”

“I didn’t have crushes. Not then, I couldn’t.” I say the words sounding fiercely, harshly. Crushes are not allowed. It is not safe.

“No? It would be normal if you did.” Bea speaks casually, as if she is commenting on the grass being green or the sky being blue. Her voice says it is okay, that it’s not a big deal and I don’t have to be scared to have this conversation.

“It just….crushes feel icky.” I sound like a whiny version of my teen self, but I don’t care.

“I can see that. It probably didn’t feel safe, and it would be understandable if the exciting, good feelings of having a crush on someone with the not safe, icky feelings was really confusing. I can see it would be easier to just cut that part of you off.”

“I just…yes. That night, in my window, yes, okay? You win. Yes, all the feelings came up and it was just confusing and not good and I just…I needed it to stop.” I’m shouting at Bea, mad that she is right, and hating myself for how I felt.

“I know. It’s okay that those feelings came back. There’s nothing wrong or bad about you.”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I whisper.

“Okay. We can talk about it more when you feel ready,” Bea assures me.

“No…it’s not like that. I just…I don’t know how to do this.”

“You are doing it, right now.”

I roll my eyes. “You always say things like that. It can’t always be true.”

Bea chuckles at my sass. “I think it is true when I say it. I know it doesn’t always feel like you are doing a lot but you are doing hard work.”

“This feels different though.”

“How does it feel different?”

“Because…..usually it’s the words that matter….but it’s all about feelings right now.”

“Yes, the feelings and finding words for them is really important to you,” Bea agrees with me. Except she’s wrong, that is not what I meant, and she doesn’t get anything after all.

I shake my head, disappointed and hurt that she doesn’t understand. “You really don’t get it.”

“I want to. Can you tell me again? It is important to me to get it.”

“Fine. Whatever, I’ll try to explain it again.” I’m huffy and maybe a little rude, but Bea ignores that and waits for me to speak. “Always, always, the thing that matters when I’m triggered is the words. The story of what happened. That’s the part that always feels most…..important. It’s the biggest thing. But now…..this is different. It’s not….I mean, I know what memory things are sort of linked to, but it isn’t the part that I need to….feelings, thoughts, those are the things that are so big right now. It’s not even the what happened that seems to matter, it’s all these feelings.”

“Yeah, the feelings are really front and center right now, aren’t they? The story needing to be told, I wonder if that was because you needed to be heard and seen and held, and for that to happen you needed me to know the story, to know what happened. This, with the feelings, maybe that it a more vulnerable place for you, it’s another layer of the work. And when we share our feelings, that can make us feel deeply understood.”

Bea isn’t wrong about anything she says, and writing it out now, I think she is spot on. But in that moment, the teen was really running the ship. “Of course you would think sharing feelings is the way to feel understood!”

“That is a little shrinky like, isn’t it? But it’s also true.” Bea doesn’t miss a beat, and she doesn’t get defensive. She is so good with this confused, sassy, sometimes raging teen part of me.

“Ugh. Fine.” I don’t want her to be right. I don’t know how to do feelings. “But I don’t know how to do therapy like this. This isn’t how I do therapy. I write, I find the words. I don’t….ugh. I am not good at feelings.”

“We can figure it out together.”

“Shouldn’t you already know how to do this?” I retort.

Bea laughs again, but in a nice way. Somehow she always enjoys the teen, instead of hating her. “Well, I suppose I do already know how to work with my feelings, or how to start the process. But I know what works for me. We can figure out together what works for you.”

“But I don’t know what to do!” I protest.

“Well, you like words, right? Maybe we can try to find the words for the feelings.”

“I suck at putting words to my feelings. That’s why you made me use the kimochis for so long.”

“Awwwwww, the kimochis! I love the kimochis,” Bea says happily. “And you have gotten so good at knowing what words to use to describe your feelings. Maybe in this case, though, words just don’t seem enough to convey the feeling?”

Slowly, I nod my head and look at Bea again. “Words aren’t working. And I don’t know what to do with that.”

“Well, maybe we could do some art therapy if you felt up to it.”

“I have lots of art stuff. Would this be one of those times you would have just got out paint and paper and stuff if we were in your office?” I ask.

“Probably.” Bea smiles at me. “Would you want to get paper and paint out next time and see if that might work?”

I shrug. “I never painted when you did that.” What I don’t say is that I wanted to, I just wasn’t brave enough to try and I wasn’t sure where to even start.

“Well, maybe it wasn’t the right time then.”

“Okay. I’ll get paints out next week.” I whisper it, afraid to agree because what if I fail? What if I can’t do it? What if it doesn’t work?

“Good! It’s a plan then. We’ll try some art therapy next week.”

“What if I don’t know where to start? I’d like a map or instruction book or something. I’d even take one of those hard to make sense of ikea type instruction manuals,” I say it all jokingly, but I am also really serious.

“Well, maybe start with thinking about what colors seem right for all the feelings,” Bea suggests.

“Maybe. But if I don’t….”

“Then that’s okay, too.”

We wrap things up pretty quickly after that, and for the rest of the day, I am surprised at how many things make me think “That’s how I feel”.

When I am out running errands, I see a small weeping willow tree with no leaves standing alone in a pile of snow and ice that hasn’t melted yet. The sky is grey and dark, no sun shining through at all. That’s how I feel, like that tree.

Listening to an old playlist while I clean, Fiona Apple’s Sullen Girl resonates with me.

Looking out my back window when I let the dog outside, the crumpled muddy, dead brown leaves strike me as how I feel— dead and forgotten and no longer worth anything.

When I try to think of a color to paint for how I feel, I picture a watermelon pink covered with black, trying to hide.

Maybe I can do this. Maybe there is a way to express feelings when words just don’t seem to be enough.

Snark, Sass, Memories and Feelings

It all started when I found my daughter’s Barbie dolls (Skipper and Ken, to be exact) in a rather, um, compromising position. I found the dolls like this Monday morning, just before therapy so I didn’t really have time to think, or process, or write about it. So after stalling and wasting time and not talking, I word vomited what I found and the feelings and the memory those dumb dolls triggered. It didn’t really end there, though. That one memory just triggered another and another, with no rhyme or reason to it. I mean, I am sure there is a pattern, something they all have in common, but I can’t for the life of me figure out what that pattern is. So, Monday, I was so all over the place in therapy, and even though I was talking, I wasn’t the most coherent I’ve ever been. I kept telling Bea a few words, maybe a sentence of what was in my head and then I would be too far away to find words. It was a lot of grounding and Bea trying to keep me present. Monday’s session ran over by 38 minutes because I just couldn’t calm down, or get grounded. And when I was more here than there, I felt like I hadn’t even shared what I wanted to.

This was one of those rare sessions that made me really miss being in person. If we had been in her office, we might have sat on the floor together. Bea might have held my hand (staying on her side of the rug because I am weird about people being close to me, but she will reach across to me if I say I want her hand). Bea might have gotten out paints or coloring pages to help me be more here. Monday was just hard.

We’ve emailed since then, and that has helped. Writing is so much easier than speaking. I miss writing in my notebook and giving that to her at the beginning of therapy. But emailing helps. I wrote that it feels like there’s too many things coming up from all over the place—like someone took all my memories, put them on pieces of paper, mixed them up in a hat and parts are just drawing them out one by one and then playing it in my head like it’s a 3-D movie but with feelings and stuff. She said she knew parts were all stirred up and feeling a lot of big feelings. I suppose when I’m jumping all over the place and talking about different points in time, I shouldn’t be surprised she was aware of how messy my head is feeling right now.

There are so many memories coming up, but it’s more than that. It’s a lot of feelings and thoughts. There’s this memory of my barbies and the story I always played out, over and over and how Kenny just twisted that story. There’s a memory about bad things happening, but the focus is almost entirely on watching my barbie house. So, those aren’t so weird given he situation with Kat’s dolls. But then there is the memory of kissing him when I was Kat’s age, and the memory of kissing him in front of my mom in the pool when I was maybe 12 (he pushed me away and I got in trouble for being inappropriate) and there’s the memory of sitting in my window, smoking when I was maybe 14 or 15 and he came by, walking his parent’s dog, and yelled at me for smoking. Then he flirted and kissed me. *******TRIGGER WARNING ******** He left, and I slit my wrists. . *******END TRIGGER WARNING ******** The window memory is one with a lot of feelings and confusion coming up. It belongs to the teen, and she is so triggered. I think she wants to talk about it (even though it has been talked about in therapy before) and yet she keeps shouting (in email) at Bea that nothing happened, it wasn’t even a big deal, it’s not like before with him. She insists she over reacted and was a drama queen and that she doesn’t even know why this nothing thing is coming up now.

The teen is full of snark today. She is not happy with Bea. She sees Bea’s certainty that we will make sense of things and that we will calm down the sick feeling in my belly and the insane asylum feeling in my head as Bea being a know it all. She sees Bea’s curiosity about what is coming up and why it might be coming up as questioning her in a not nice way. Neither of those things are true about Bea, or who is she is, I know this, but the teen is snarky and annoyed. She’s even annoyed that Bea won’t fight with her. The teen has sent a few emails full of sass in the last two days, and each time Bea has been patient, and kind and loving. Unfortunately, Bea’s patience hasn’t diffused the teen’s anger towards Bea even a little bit. At least now I am able to recognize when it is the teen feeling something, instead of confusing those thoughts and feelings as belonging to my grown up self. That, combined with Bea not getting mad or defensive seems to be helping other parts not freak out about the therapy relationship ending or Bea leaving. Maybe tomorrow’s therapy will help. I think the teen needs fo talk, but she won’t let herself be vulnerable if she can’t feel connected to Bea. I’m not really sure how to solve that problem right now.

The Non-rupture part 2

I’m still hiding under my blanket, too afraid, or ashamed or some feeling I can’t name, to come out of hiding. So Bea reads, and I hide.

(I’ve tried to label the email as to who is saying what because Bea and I have this habit of writing our responses directly into the email, so it becomes more of a conversation, a back and forth.)

Alice (email 1) So. Every time I try to write, I can’t find the words, or I delete them before I can share them. Stupid editor part. I’ve written this stupid email 3 times today. 

Parts are all stirred up. Ms. Perfect is….well, I don’t know. Unable to run the ship all the time like she used to. I think this….all the triggers and stuff, and school starting and needing to be, I don’t know, not crazy…..maybe the editing part is what is keeping me acting normal and hiding all the ick. Except it’s not helping, not really, not like Ms. Perfect and the bubble. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) It’s interesting that now this Editing Part is a thing.  Is it the same part that cuts off the words when you try to speak?

Alice (response to Bea) Yes, I think it is the same part. Maybe it’s not even a part. It just feels like a part, a part that is erasing or stopping or rewriting or ignoring all the ugly things. It feels like a part that is, I don’t know, maybe like my mother in some ways. But it’s not like Ms. Perfect. Ms. Perfect does things, is always go go go. Even with covid, I could see her scheduling out blocks of time for things like bible study, cleaning, exercise….still always go go go. The editing part, she doesn’t care what I do as long as the ugly is not acknowledged or shared. If I laid in bed all day and watched movies, as long as the ugly stuff was being shoved under the rug, the editing part would be happy. Ms. Perfect would never be okay with that level of laziness, or with that much screen time. 

“It’s almost like the editor has taken Ms. Perfect’s place,” Bea murmurs.

It’s not like that, not really. I shake my head, but of course she can’t see me. “No….not exactly,” I say softly.

“Can you tell me more about this part?” Bea asks.

“I…..the editor is…..I don’t know. It’s not….she just needs things to be buried, ignored, not thought about or said out loud or anything. I don’t know. She doesn’t care about things being perfect and right and good, not like Ms. Perfect.” I try to explain it. It’s not easy.

“So, the editor doesn’t care about what is happening on the outside, as long as all the scary trauma stuff is hidden away even from yourself?” Bea asks, trying again to see if she gets it.

“No….it’s like…” I sit up straight and come out from under my blanket. I look at Bea. “I still hate the enneagram and I do not want to talk about it ever, ever again, but for this one instance, this one time, I think it will help. Ms. Perfect is the one that cares about how things look to others but also really cares about doing things perfect and good and right even if others don’t see that, or know it.”

“Thats a one on the enneagram, the perfectionist.” Bea interjects.

“Yeah, what you insisted I was for like ever and ever. And I’m not.”

“No, I don’t think you are, either.” Bea agrees.

“Okay. And the editor is the one that just kind of goes along and doesn’t like to acknowledge hard stuff or yucky feelings and hides from conflict.” I tell Bea.

“That would be a nine. So the editor is a 9 and Ms. Perfect is a 1,” she says slowly, as if she is thinking. “So, okay, what you are saying is that even though Ms. Perfect and the editor have the same job, Ms. Perfect is more of an external showing, and the editor is more internal. For me, Ms. Perfect feels like a part I know really well, it is is easy to recognize when she is running the ship. The editor, she feels more shadowy to me, I don’t have a handle on who this part is.”

“Yes. You get it. Its not the same, not exactly, but it is the same, sort of.” I smile because of the absurdity of using the enneagram to help sort this out is funny to me.

Bea (response to Alice email 1) It’s probably good that this part is being spoken of as a part—then we can work with it! Not that it wasn’t here before, but it didn’t have a name. Nice to meet you!

Alice (email 1) I write about what the creepy cousin comment means and how confused I am. And then I delete it all.

Bea (response to Alice email 1) I would love to read that if the editor would ever allow it.

Alice (response to Bea) I can’t share it. If I were writing in a paper journal this would be a folded over and taped shut page. Instead it just gets deleted. Ugh. I try to write a journal on my iPad so I can share it and end up just deleting everything. Ugh. 

“Yes, I remember your folded over journal pages taped shut. We had a lot of those in the beginning.” Bea says.

I hide again, and whisper, “But then we did open some eventually.”

“Yes, we did. When you were ready and felt safe enough to do so. And you will be ready and feel safe enough to share this, too, one day. You just have to be patient.”

Ugh. Patience. I am not good at being patient with myself, or the parts. It’s really hard when some parts want so badly to talk and others are just as desperate to never share any of it. Ugh.

Alice (email 1) I write about all this mad inside, and how it all came out at kat and then hubby yelled at me for it and there is so much guilt around this and shame and it just is awful. And then I delete if before I can share it. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) I’m sure that felt bad:(  It makes so much sense why it would come out that way, but of course I know you don’t want to dump it on kat.

Alice (email 1) I write about the bad memory. I write the pieces I remember, even the fuzzy parts and the parts that feel awful and the confusing parts. Then I delete it before no one can know. I can’t tell. Not ever. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) I know this is a very difficult memory. And you don’t have to tell—we can work with what is happening now because of it instead. If some of it does need to be shared, that’s okay too.

Alice (response to Bea) I need you to make the confusing bits not so confusing. Those are the worst. Scary and confusing and it doesn’t really make sense because why would this be what happened, except it’s how I remember it…ugh. I feel like I explained this a few weeks ago. 

Bea starts in on some talk about how memories work, or how trauma memories can be weird or how they form different or something. I don’t know, I just know she’s not getting it.

“No. No. You aren’t listening. You don’t get it! We talked about this already, why don’t you remember? Ugh.” I feel like I’m shouting at her, but I’m in the weird space of here not here, so I could just be whispering or actually shouting.

“Can you tell me what we talked about exactly?” Bea asks.

“Because you forgot,” I say, sadly.

“Because I need a little help to jog my memory. You are important to me, and I want to get this right. I do remember talking about memories and how they can be weird and confusing sometimes, but I don’t remember exactly the explanation of what helped before. Can you share that again?”

Okay. Okay. She didn’t forget because she doesn’t care. I can say it again, I can do this. “Um….you know…it took a long time to talk about what happened before my mom found my underwear…..”

“Yes, that was a very bad memory. So many scary pieces for the little girl. It was really hard to talk about. You needed to know I was a very safe person before you could talk about it.” Bea is reassuring and present and caring.

“Well….I um….do you remember how I said….I told you that it was confusing because I felt…….pain….and I couldn’t move…..so much weight on me……I couldn’t move at all……..it hurt down there but his hands were by my face, both hands and I thought maybe he did something to hurt me before his hands were on my face but all I could remember then was his hands holding my face and pain…it hurts, it hurts so much, I think maybe I am dying or being cut in half, maybe he did something with my scissors except they are on my art desk so that’s not right……” I’m talking too fast and too mixed up and I’m so far away. I hate this memory. I hate that this is part of my life story. This crazy making stuff. I hate how easily I can be back there again.

“Yes, I remember that day, the first time you told me this memory. I remember it very well. That was a hard time for you. You were so hurt. He hurt you so badly, I was so angry that had been done to you, I wanted to kill him,” Bea tells me.

Her admission of anger and of wanting to kill him, pulls me back to present day. “And you called it something. The word I don’t say.”

“Yes, the *R* word,” Bea says.

“Yes….and that was…..it was awful because I didn’t know that was…..that that happened in that memory when I was so young……and also because it was….I don’t know, just bad and it was real after you said that but….also, the really confusing, weird bit of that memory made sense to me, to grown up me, after you called it that. I didn’t…..I couldn’t see, the grown up couldn’t see what…..couldn’t make sense of what the memory really was.”

“Yes, yes, I remember. You didn’t have a grown up version of the memory, just the little girl’s trauma memory and she wouldn’t have known that he raped you in that memory. She wouldn’t have words or context for that. She would only know what she could make sense of. So you are saying that this memory that is coming up now, you need a grown up to help you make sense of it? Because then the confusing bits won’t be so scary, because they will have a context, and maybe make a little bit of sense. Is that right?” Bea’s voice has that excited tone people get when something clicks and they finally understand something they weren’t fully grasping before.

I nod. “Yes. I need you to help me.” I cover my mouth as soon as the words are spoken. Did I really just tell her that I need her? Why did I do that? What is wrong with me?

“I’m here, and I will be here to try to help make sense of this when you are ready to share it, okay?” Bea tells me. Her voice has so much love in it. That’s the only way to describe it. She cares and she is going to be here.

Alice (email 1) I write that I wish I hadn’t said I didn’t want more than an hour for video therapy and that I wish I could ask you to have my old time back because an hour doesn’t feel like enough to talk about those awful things. But I can’t ask for that because the teen and the little girl are so afraid of and so hyper sensitive to rejection (real or imagined). Then I delete that, too, while I beat myself up for needing too much, and for wanting more than I should. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) We can plan in extra time if we want to work on those difficult things. I don’t always have more than an hour, but sometimes I do.

Alice (response to Bea) I hate this. The adult is all like, yep, that sounds good to plan extra time if I need it and it’s an option. The adult knows that early on during covid, the extra time would have been crazy, because she was not really talking about anything. The teen is just mad. She wants her time back like it was. She feels like there was no talking about stuff early on because by the time she had the sense that you were you and really here, time was almost up because through a screen it feels so much harder to feel that you are here and still her safe person. She’s mad you asked about making video therapy an hour and that I agreed without thinking it through or asking about what happens if I need my time back or anything. She just wants things back how they were. And she’s sad that this is just how it is. And she hates everything right now. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) When I come back from up north I think the following Monday I have group. So we could do 7:30 to 9:00 that day as one option, for example.

Alice (response to Bea) The grown up thinks yes, let’s try that. The teen wants to just scream never mind, forget it. 🤦🏼‍♀️

Alice (email 1) On Monday, I wrote that the little girl feels like you don’t want her to talk. You offered a longer time on Wednesday and then in the same breath said it’s not a good time to dig into things, and that just felt like you didn’t really want to hear all the mess that I keep writing about and then deleting. It felt like a big rejection to her. I deleted that, too, because my instinct is still to hide my hurt and pretend it’s fine.

Bea (response to Alice email 1) Oh, I’m so sorry about that! I said we had more time, then remembered as I said it that it was our last time before my vacation, so I was just thinking out loud. I was only thinking about not stirring things up too much when we have to miss three sessions right after. It wasn’t/isn’t about me not wanting to hear about it, but rather it was about keeping you safe.

Alice (response to Bea) I feel like I say this a lot but it doesn’t matter if we talk about it or not, if it’s all there under the surface and messy, it’s there even if we both ignore it. And it’s almost worse if we both ignore it and don’t talk about something so you can “keep me safe.” I feel like all this does is let you feel better about things and not have to worry that we dug up something. Because either way, it’s there for me, whether you talk with me about it or not. Why don’t you get that? It’s all dug up. It’s dug up on an almost nightly basis. 

“You’re right. Trying to keep you as safe as possible does let me feel better about going on vacation and missing 3 sessions in a row. It doesn’t mean that I won’t think about you or worry about you, but yes, trying to keep you safe is about you, but it helps me feel better, too. If I didn’t try to keep you safe, I would be a bad therapist. But of course it’s there for you even if we don’t bring it up. I know that. I do know that. Let me check something…..” Bea’s voice trails off for a second, and then she’s back. “It looks like I will have wifi there, so I can email and could probably even do a short video call check in, if you needed. You know how spotty cell service is there. I know you won’t use my backup therapist while I’m gone, but now I know you can contact me if you need to. I still think trying to keep you safe and going slow, waiting for all the parts to be okay with telling is important. But I do know it is always there for you right now and that it is very hard for you to have this editing part stopping you from speaking.”

“Okay,” I respond. I feel like I should say more, but my thoughts are messy.

Alice (email 1) I write that I really hate that you are leaving. I know you will be back but this is the first time in a long time that you leaving is triggering all these fears and feelings of abandonment. I delete that, too, because there is so much shame around needing anyone. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) It’s okay to need people,

Alice (response to Bea) Ugh. I can’t. I just can’t right now. This does not feel okay. It’s not a good idea. I just can’t. So please stop. It’s not okay, not safe.

“I know it really doesn’t feel okay. I promise it is though. People need people. We are made that way. Can I ask if there is something specific making it feel bad that I’m going on vacation?”

“I don’t want to talk about this.” I whisper.

“Okay, we don’t want have to talk about it,” Bea agrees.

Bea (response to Alice email 1) and I used to feel like this when my therapist left, too. This is a vulnerable time for you for a lot of reasons.

Alice (email 1) I just can’t do this. I can’t do it anymore. I can’t pretend okay, and yet I can’t stop editing everything. I feel stuck and alone and I hate this. I hate that you kept saying how much better I seemed and how much more in the present I was and whatever. I hate that you kept telling me you sense a transition. No. No transition. Just me, doing my best to feel in control and the editing part stopping me from saying all the things that I want so very badly to not be alone with.  I hate that I couldn’t talk last week and that I can’t seem to talk this week and it’s all just hard. 

Bea (response to Alice email 1) Sounds really frustrating, for sure.  Also sounds like I didn’t spend enough time talking to the parts yesterday. Let me clarify: I didn’t say “better,” I said “regulated,” and the positive thing about regulated is that most people can find words better than when they’re out of their window. The Editor may not allow that, of course.

Alice (response to Bea) Well it felt like you just cared that I was acting better…sorry, acting more “regulated”…because that’s much nicer to deal with than crazy stirred up messy Alice.  

“I like dealing with all parts of Alice. I wasn’t pointing it out because I didn’t want to deal with the stirred up parts. I was just hopeful that feeling more regulated would help you find the words when you wanted to talk.” Bea explains. She is so patient. How many times has she had to reassure me over the years that the messy crazy stirred up me does not frighten her or worry her? Way too many to count, and way more often than she should have to.

Bea (response to Alice email 1) The transition I was talking about was the real one—school starting. I don’t just sense it—it happened, and that made left-brain stuff come on line. 

Alice (response to Bea) Yes fine. School started. I acted like a functioning adult. That doesn’t mean any of this is better. It means that I obsessively cleaned and organized to ”an extreme” (not my words, hubby’s words when I was still cleaning— using an old toothbrush to scrub the grout in between the tiles in our entire upstairs—- at 2am one night). It means that in order to manage to function and get Kat to school with a good start to her day, and to pick her up and act like a mom, I have to have this extra organized house and life with every routine and schedule planned to the last detail. Because I need to control something, anything, or I’ll lose my mind. And this is something I’m great at controlling. But I wouldn’t call it a healthy left brain transition thing. I’d call it crazy with a purpose maybe, but not healthy. Yes, sure, I know on the outside it all looks healthy and positive and regulated. But it does not feel that way. I know, without it happening, that if one thing does not go according to my schedule and my very organized plans and routines, I’ll lose it in a not pretty way. This does not feel regulated or better or positive to me. It feels awful. It feels like falling apart from the inside out and no one even sees what’s right in front of them.

“Oh….oh, I see. I didn’t see on Monday, did I? I’m sorry. That must have felt really awful. This doesn’t sound like it feels very healthy or regulated at all. It sounds hard.”

I breathe a sigh of relief. She gets it. “It’s really hard.” I start crying then. I needed her to see, to get it, that I’m not okay, that I’m using every not so great tool I have to hold it together, that I’m trapped alone in my nightmare and I can’t get out, so all I can do is frantically try to regain some kind of control over everything.

“What’s coming up right now?”

“I told you on Monday,” I sob. “I told you I was….that it wasn’t regulated and you just kept telling me how better I was and something about left brain and I just…..”

“Oh, yikes. I really stepped in it, didn’t I? Of course you were mad! I didn’t listen or see you, did I? I’m sorry. I think I was just feeling so hopeful that this would be a time that you could feel a little more in your window, and I am sorry that I was so focused on that, that it caused me to have blinders on.” Bea means it. She messed up and she is willing to accept that responsibility.

“But now you see?” I ask.

“Yes, I see now that things do not feel grounded,” she answers.

“I was so mad. I’m not mad now, though.” I peek out from my blanket. Bea is just Bea, the same as always.

“It would be okay if you were still mad,” Bea teases. It is kind of a joke between us, because I hate mad so much.

“Well, I’m still mad about the editing part. I just….it’s so hard. I hate this.” The tears start again, and I hide my face with my hands for a minute before I give up and hide under my blanket again.

“Can you say more about what this is?” Bea asks.

“The….some parts wanting to talk and then the editor not wanting to talk. It’s just so hard. I can’t keep doing this.” Frustrated, I pick at my fingers until my thumb starts bleeding. Oops.

“Do we know why the editor doesn’t want some parts to be heard?” Bea wonders. She’s doing the curiosity thing, but whatever, I don’t care.

“Because…..it’s not a good idea, bad things would happen then.” It’s not grown up Alice who answers, but I’m not sure if it’s the teen or the little girl or another part.

Bea says something in response, but I don’t remember what. I’ve been dissociating off and on to different degrees all session and things get very fuzzy at this point. I know that somehow, maybe from questions Bea asks, I’m telling Bea that the editor does not want to be seen, and it physically hurts because other parts of me need so badly for her to see them.

“Yeah, that is really hard, isn’t it? Even if I don’t know the words that need to be shared, I do know the little girl and the teen, and I see them.”

“I know…it’s just so hard and I feel so alone.” I know I sound whiny, but I can’t stop myself.

“Do you know why the editor doesn’t want to be seen?” Bea wants to know.

I sigh. “It’s so hard not to edit answers about the editor!”

“Hmmm, yes, I imagine that would be very true. I’m sure the editor doesn’t want me knowing too much about her.”

“Ugh,” I mumble. And then, interrupting Bea, and speaking very quickly, I say, “Real answer, no editing, first thought after you asked that is because it’s dangerous.”

“Being seen is dangerous, yeah. It feels very dangerous. If I see you, I could reject you. If I see you, I can hurt you. Yes, being seen is scary because it can feel so dangerous.” Bea sympathizes.

I don’t say anything, but I am feeling very uncomfortable and way too vulnerable.

Bea (response to Alice email 1) I keep dozing off and starting to dream, so I need to go to bed, and I hope there’s nothing weird that doesn’t make sense. See you in the morning!

Alice (response to Bea) And now that the mad has been let out…….Are you mad with me now? please just don’t leave me okay? Please tell me you are coming back and you will still be you and it will be okay. 

“No, I’m not mad at the little girl or the teen or any parts of Alice. I’m not mad at all. And I will be back, and I will be me, just me. It will be okay.”

Shame heats my face. I hate that I need this reassurance.

“Alice? Are you still here?” Bea asks.

“Yeah….just….embarrassed. I’m sorry.” I whisper.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about,” Bea declares. “Can I tell you something?”

“Okay,” I say.

“I was worried earlier that I would mess this up and you would leave. You worry about me getting mad and leaving you, but I worry about the same thing sometimes.” She stage whispers this, like it is a secret.

It takes a minute for her words to sink in. “You would be sad if I left?” The little girl needs to check that she is understanding this right.

“Yes, I would be sad. This is a relationship. It’s real, even if it is a therapy relationship. I would be very sad if you left.” She affirms.

I am finding this to be unbelievable. “You really would be sad?” I question again.

“Yes! You matter to me. You matter to lots of people. You are important, and you have value just for being you. Yes, I would be sad.” Bea assures me.

“Oh,” is all I can say. I’m surprised, but Bea sounds authentic. She means it. I matter to her. All of a sudden, things feel a little more equal. This is no longer a relationship where I am needy and pathetic and attached to Bea and she could take me or leave me. It’s no longer a relationship where she is one of the most important people in my life and I am nothing to her. (I know Bea has never actually felt like I am nothing to her, but when those attachment and abandonment feelings kick in before she leaves for a trip, it feels like I am just an interchangeable client.)

The rest of the day, I keep returning to this idea that I matter to Bea, that she would miss me and be sad if I just suddenly left therapy. Just like that, the rupture I was so scared we were careening towards, has been avoided. We’re okay.

The Non-rupture part 1

Tuesday, I email Bea. She writes back, and it’s only then that I realize a part of me is so angry at her for not seeing how bad I really feel. I respond to her email, but it’s so snarky and mean, I can’t send it. I want to send it, I want her to know I’m upset with her. On one hand, I don’t want to her to leave for vacation while I’m so angry, but on the other, I am so afraid that we are headed for a rupture and I really don’t want to have this huge blow out rupture right before she leaves. Maybe it would be easier to just pretend everything is okay.

Wednesday morning, after I’m all settled on the floor with my blanket and pillows and Stitch, I read my response to her email one more time. And then, without even thinking about it, I hit send. Crap. Why did I just do that? I didn’t really want to send it, did I? Ugh.

When I log on for therapy, I don’t even want to talk to Bea. I’m behaving like a snarky teen, showing up to therapy because I am being forced to go. In my mind all I can think is that Bea can’t force me to talk.

When Bea logs on and says hello, I want to throw my iPad across the room. The teen is so angry at her.

Bea talks about her dog, asks about how school is going for Kat, and says hello to Hagrid. I know she is trying to get me engaged, to look at her, to respond. Instead, I stare at the floor, refusing to look at her. I sit with my knees pulled into my chest and my arms wrapped around them. My responses are monosyllabic, and my voice is hollow, with the words clipped and short.

Finally, Bea says, “I’m feeling a little bit anxious and I think I better take a minute and check in with that feeling, see if I can reassure it. Otherwise I am afraid that I won’t be fully present with you.” She does stuff like this, sometimes. It’s good modeling for me. It is actually really helpful to see Bea’s process of checking in with herself. I do this sometimes with Kat, this pause to check in with yourself so your stuff doesn’t get in the way of what the other person needs. It’s a good skill to have, I think. But today, I am annoyed. I don’t care how Bea is feeling. I want her to shut up and leave me alone. I also desperately want her to see me and to get it.

Bea talks through her process out loud, and soothes her anxious feeling. “This anxious feeling is really worried I am going to mess this up, and it feels so important to me that today be a good session so that when I leave for vacation you can still feel connection and safety.”

I shrug. I don’t care.

“Okay,” Bea takes a deep breath and continues, “That feels better. I was glad to get an email from you, and I hope my response made sense. I kept dozing off, and then trying to finish writing, so I hope there wasn’t anything weird there.”

“There wasn’t.” My voice is cold, and I still can’t look at her.

We sit in silence, and just when I think this is going no where and I should just hang up, I tell Bea I sent a response to her email. “But don’t open it. You shouldn’t read it. I just…I don’t know.”

“Okay. I won’t open it yet. Can we talk about it?” She asks me.

“I…I was mad.”

“Yeah. That’s okay. You can be mad. Mad is just a feeling.” She sounds so sure, so certain that mad is okay.

I shake my head. “I was mad at you. I don’t want things to, well….I don’t want that to make a mess of everything again. I don’t want to fight.”

“Ahhh. You’re worried that you being mad will make me defensive and we will have a bad rupture. I’m not feeling defensive, only curious about what made you mad, and hopeful that I can help sort out the mad and repair anything I did or said to make you feel like this.”

Her words sink in, slowly. She sounds real, and not upset in the least. I still can’t trust it, though. “Maybe you should just delete it,” I suggest.

“I could do that. But I wonder if the teen would be upset then? If she would feel unheard, and alone because I deleted her words? I wonder if I read them now and responded to them if that would help her to feel less hurt and angry?” Bea is gentle when she says this, but there is a tone in her voice….not a bad tone, maybe more like a serious tone….like a mom tone that says *I care and I think this is important so please pay attention*.

“I don’t know. I don’t want to ruin everything and I was so mad at you.” I pick at a corner of my blanket as I speak, still refusing to look at her.

“I don’t think your mad feelings are going to ruin things between us.” Bea pauses, and then says slowly, “I had a new client recently, we had only had a few sessions, and she got angry with me. A big rupture happened, and she ended up quitting. When that happened, I thought of you, and all the ruptures we have had and worked through to repair, and I realized how very important it is to have a strong relationship as a foundation for when these things happen. I mean, of course I know the relationship is the most important thing in therapy, but this contrast just really stood out to me. I’m telling you this because I want you to know, to really see that our relationship is strong enough to withstand the mad. I can handle the mad, and so can this relationship.”

I shake my head. I’m so confused. I don’t know what I want. I feel like I have all these conflicting feelings and thoughts going on inside. “Just delete it,” I whisper the words, and they come out mumbled and muted.

Bea hears *just read it* and so she begins reading. I don’t realize this right away because I’m still looking down, refusing to look at Bea.

Bea reads…..

okay…I wrote this, the purple, last night…I’m just going to send it now…even though I sort of just want to smile and pretend everything is fine. But I’ve learned enough to know that does not work, so…..here goes. I’m feeling really vulnerable this morning. 

I’m not sure about sending this. Some part of me feels like it would be better to just pretend everything is all okay. Even if I send this, there’s no guarantee that the editing part won’t stop my words in the morning anyway. But, I thought if I send this you can read it and we can talk about it in the morning. I just don’t know if it’s a good idea. 

The teen is mad and being snarky and mean. I feel that…….the be so angry and make you go away so it won’t matter if you hurt my feelings thing happening. But then after the mad and the snarky and the mean is still the fear of being left. But there’s a lot of mad here, right now. I hate being mad at you. Why does this mad seem to happen every time the really bad memories pop up? 

I don’t realize Bea is reading my email until she says, “I knew the teen was here this morning.” She says it in this happy voice, like she is glad to have this mean, snarky, sulky teen around. “I know there is a lot of hurt and fear under that mad, and I’m not scared of any of your feelings. I really believe we can talk about it, and that there will be no ruptures today. I know how much you want to pretend it’s okay, but I am really glad you didn’t.”

My head snaps up, and I look at Bea. Then, I throw my blanket over my head and say angrily, “I said to delete it, not read it!”

Bea immediately apologizes. “I’m stopping reading right now. I’m so sorry. I thought you said to *just read it*. I am very sorry I misheard. I can delete it right now if that’s what you really want. But I sure would like to know what you were thinking and feeling.”

I sigh. I could get really mad right now. She didn’t listen, she betrayed my trust, she read the thing I told her to delete. I could get mad, be full of righteous indignation. But do I really want to do that? Do I want to get angry and push her away over something that was an honest mistake? And really, now that she has started reading, do I want her to stop or do I want her to read it all and understand how mad I am? I don’t know. I can’t decide. Both options seem reasonable to me, and they each seem like an equally good choice. Today, at this moment, I can see that acting furious and causing a rupture over Bea *betraying my trust and not listening* was clearly all about protecting myself from further hurts.

I go back and forth, unsure what to do. “Just read it,” I finally snap at Bea.

“Are you sure? I won’t be angry if you tell me to delete it.” I think she is trying to be reassuring and to make sure I am making choices based on what I want and not what I think the other person wants me to do.

“Yes, just read it.” I’m exasperated and it shows in my voice.

“Okay, then,” Bea says, and she starts to read.

What enactment means to me and Bea

I read the 2 pages that covered enactments in the SP book, and I freaked out. I spent an hour googling and reading about enactment. I managed to calm myself down by reminding myself that I was the one who had seen the parallel between my mom’s behavior and Bea’s behavior during the spring rupture. I reminded myself that I brought it up, and that even though we had talked a bit about it, Bea had stayed present and connected, not shrinky. Then, I freaked out again about the whole maternal transference thing, googled that. Eventually, I realized what I wanted was to find some story about someone who felt like me. I wanted to read about transference and enactments from the client point of view. All the articles and medical papers, therapy books, those weren’t helping me. So, I came here and I asked you all. And I got great comments. I finally felt like I was okay, not crazy, and not alone. So much of my struggle with this stuff isn’t the….well, I guess the enactment in and of itself. Its the labeling, the clinical feel, the fear that labeling makes none of this real, the shame that comes with that. And you guys get it in a way no one else does. (Somebody really needs to write an educational book about this stuff from the client view point.)

I read your comments and I did a lot of thinking, and writing. It wasn’t easy, because the teen was hurting and pissed off about the whole thing, and wanting to avoid all the awful feelings coming up while at the same time wanting to make sense of it all and understand the feelings, the why of it and the reason all these defensive feelings come up.

I finally decided that I understood enactment to be this: Enactment happened because something in some part of me (or (and) Bea) got triggered by similarities between the past and the present in the relationship. Basically, I got so upset and rage-full because what hurt me in the present (spring 2018) was a similar hurt from the past (my mom).

I emailed Bea, just trying to make sense of it all, and we wrote back and forth a bit. I asked her why, even if I can understand what enactment is, can see it, then why does it hurt and upset me so much? Why am I so afraid of you calling something an enactment or transference or whatever other shrinky thing? Why is it so triggering to discuss this that I have to go far away to even think of talking about it? She offered up some ideas, and nothing really hit home.

Restless, I tried distracting myself. When that didn’t work, I got out pen and paper and wrote. I decided to just allow the teen to write whatever she was feeling or thinking. I didn’t censor anything, and I didn’t let Ms. Perfect censor the teen, either. And so much came out. It wasn’t a lot of writing, but it was so much. I knew I had to give it to Bea. I emailed Bea and told her the teen had important writing to give her, and asked her to please not let me avoid it, because I was scared but it needed to be talked about, and I would be upset if we didn’t talk about it.

Wednesday, when I get to Bea’s office, I feel sick. Bea doesn’t waste anytime, either. Once I sit down and get settled she says, “I’m really curious to read what the teen wrote. Would she still like to share it?”

Instantly, I’m gone. I’m so far away, I don’t answer, I don’t hide my face, I don’t do anything but freeze.

Eventually, I realize Bea is speaking. “Alice. Alice you are too far away. That really triggered something, didn’t it? The teen needs to know she doesn’t have to share anything she’s not ready for. We can wait. I’m not in any kind of hurry. We can wait until after the holidays. Okay?”

That’s enough to pull me back a little bit. “No. No, this can’t wait. If I wait, it will….It just can’t wait. It’s just hard. Because….I don’t want you to think I’m being awful again.”

“How about this? How about if I read it knowing that you were unfiltered and raw, and just writing how you feel?”

“Okay. Okay, because I’m not blaming you or being upset with you or anything like that. Okay? I don’t want you to…..just please, please don’t leave.” I whisper.

“I’m not leaving. I’m right here, and whatever you wrote isn’t going to send me away.” Bea sounds certain, and strong and so very here.

I hand her a folded sheet of notebook paper. The teen didn’t write in my notebook in case she didn’t want Bea to see it. As Bea takes it from me she asks, “Do you want your blanket?” I nod my head yes, and she gets it for me.

I cover my legs with the fleece blanket. I have cloud pillow on my lap, hugged to me. My hands are clenched, holding on to pieces of the blanket.

“Are you here enough?” Bea asks.

I’m not sure. I probably should tell her no, but instead I say, “Maybe.”

Bea smiles at that and shakes her head a little. It’s a gesture adult Alice makes often with Kat; that sort of knowing who Kat is and maybe being a bit exasperated by it but also just, well, loving who she is and being so glad that she is able to be authentic. It feels real, that smile and head shake and I sit in that feeling, that Bea is here and she is herself.

Bea doublechecks it’s okay to read, and when I give the go ahead, she opens the sheet of paper.

Enactment means the relationship is not real. It means that the hurt in the present is not real. It means that you didn’t do anything to hurt my feelings and I’m just crazy. It means that I screwed up. It means that I can’t trust my feelings. It means that I am bad, that I didn’t behave appropriately and it means that I really am a drama queen who overreacts and is over sensitive about everything. It means that all my feelings, worries, hurts, thoughts, all of it can be dismissed or ignored because it’s not real anyway. It means it’s all my fault and it means that you don’t have to deal with me because it’s my issue and so I’ll be stuck dealing with it all alone. It means that I’m exposed and vulnerable and all the hurt in the past is all dug up and there’s no one to help me with it and I can’t do it. It means that you don’t care, that I’m just something to be dealt with because none of it has anything to do with you anyway. It means I’m dumb for not realizing what was going on and you just get to presume to know and see everything because you did see what was going on! It means I somehow screwed up AGAIN and overreacted AGAIN. It means that you WILL leave me. Because why would you want to deal with a mean drama queen teen who is blaming you for things you never did? Why would you stay and try to help someone who won’t trust you because of something you didn’t even do?

It feels like a very, very long time before she’s done reading. It’s excruciating sitting there, feeling so vulnerable and exposed.

“This sounds so painful. It sounds horrible, and it’s no wonder enactment and all the shrinky things are so triggering. If this is what they feel like, of course it’s going to be awful for you to have me talk about this stuff.” Bea’s words offer me some sense of safety. She’s here, she’s not ignoring me, or yelling at me for overreacting. She’s not mad and she’s not gone.

I want to tell her I’m so thankful she sees it, that she is able to see why this is such a terrible topic. I don’t, though. Instead, I bury my face in cloud pillow.

“Does it feel to you like if we talk about enactment, that I am hiding behind this therapist wall? I get the sense that the shrinky stuff really feels like a wall between us to you. Maybe even like we are separated in different rooms and only I have a viewing window to observe you.”

“It is a wall.” I didn’t think I was whispering, but my voice is so quiet, so tiny. I don’t think I can speak any louder, though.

“Yeah, it really feels like a wall to you. I wonder if I can explain how I experience it?”

“That would be okay, I think.” I’m hesitant because I don’t want her to get shrinky.

“It’s not shrinky, okay? Just me,” she reassures me, almost like she read my mind. “I see it as….you and I are surrounded by the walls of enactment. We are in the center, we are in it together. I have to be able to see the when the walls are up and around us, but I’m right there with you.”

“Not separate?”

“No, not at all. It’s like this….did you ever spin in circles when you were s kid?”

“Yeah.” I nod my head.

“So while you are spinning in circles, it is very hard to watch where you are going, right? It’s my job to watch where you are going. I’m right there, standing right next to you in the middle of the room while you spin, but I can’t start spinning, too, otherwise you could bump your head, or I could even crash into you. And I don’t want either of those things to happen to you. That’s why I wouldn’t want to put a wall between us, because then I can’t block you from bumping your head. But I also can’t spin with you because then I could hurt you. Does that make sense?”

I think about what she just said. It actually does make sense. It’s weird, but it makes sense to me. “It does.” I think some more, and then I ask, “So you don’t want to get away from me?”

“No. Not at all. I know sometimes it really feels like I don’t care, but I do care. I care very, very much. You matter to me, and it matters to me that you are safe.” She sounds….serious. “I’m real, and our relationship is real. The feelings are real. I want to make sure you know that.”

“I really need you to be real.” I pull the blanket to my face as I say the words, and then I slowly peek out at her.

“I know you do. And I am,” she says softly.

We sit in silence for a moment, and then she says, “You aren’t dumb. None of us are aware of it when we are reacting to our past, until…well, until we are aware of it. I don’t know more about you than you know. I really don’t presume to know everything, not by a long shot. But I have to be able to see when the walls are up around us. It’s the same as when you can see that hubby is getting defensive or upset over something that doesn’t really have to do with you. He can’t see it, but you can. And I bet now that you have seen this mom transference and enactment so clearly, I bet that you will notice the next time you are reacting to someone as if you expect them to treat you like your mom did.”

“I still don’t like the shrinky words.” I know, I know, it’s semantics, but it just brings up so much negative feeling.

“Well, what if we said the situation was paralleling one from the past? Or we could say that the past was triggered. We could even just say that the walls are up.” Bea doesn’t seem bothered by the fact that once again, I am asking her to find different words.

“Those are all okay. A lot better, actually,” I tell her.

We laugh about how we have created this language that is all our own. Bea tells me a funny story about how she called something too shrinky in her SP consultation group. “Another therapist in the group was having trouble understanding why one of her clients would get so upset when she would sort of step back and get more logical, rational. I immediately thought, ‘it’s because you are being too shrinky’. Of course, then I had to explain about shrinky. I find myself using you as an example to help other therapists in my group understand why their people don’t like something the therapist is doing.”

“Really?” I ask, surprised.

“Yes, really. You have taught me a lot. This goes both ways, you know.”

I nod my head. “I guess so.” I don’t really think……I guess I don’t think about me mattering enough to have any impact on Bea. I like the fact that maybe I have helped her see some things she maybe wouldn’t have seen, and that she can use that to help other therapists not be shrinky.

“I know we talked before, a long time ago about all the shrinky stuff like transference, but this time it feels better.” I feel shy, telling her this, but I want her to know.

“I’m really glad. It feels better to me, too.”

“Bea?”

“Yeah?”

“I was looking through emails last night trying to find the ones where we talked about transference. I couldn’t find them but I….I saw how…..well, the little girl emailed you a lot. Like every other day was the most time between emails…..just to ask if you were there, to make sure you weren’t leaving…..I just….” I trail off, uncertain what it is I want to say.

“Did that surprise you?”

“Well….yeah. I mean, I know she emailed you more than me (the teen) and I know the little girl is more…..she’s better at reaching……but I didn’t know she wrote that much. And you answered. Every time you answered that you were still there.”

“I did, yes. I hope you know you can email, too. It’s okay if you need to.” I swear, I can hear all the care in her voice. I do matter to her.

“I just…..I feel like I should apologize for that. I mean, it was like the first two years, everyday, emailing to see if you were still there. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no sorry. I wasn’t bothered by it, and you― the little girl― needed that reassurance to feel safe. I knew when I made the offer of emailing when you needed to that that could mean multiple emails between appointments. I was okay with that.”

I think about it. Bea might respond a little differently to the little girl than to the teen, but she’s still always Bea. The difference is that for the little girl, a short *I’m here* email was enough, even if she had written a lot. The teen finds danger in not having her words directly responded to. The little girl just wanted the reassurance that Bea had not left her or forgotten about her. The teen needs to know that she isn’t being ignored or dismissed and she frequently approaches situations with the assumption that she is being ignored, that the other person isn’t really there and the other person needs to prove they are there and that they do see her and can handle her.

“I’m glad you were…..that it was okay with you.” I hide my face again, embarrassed.

“It’s always okay with me,” she says. “Speaking of, we are going to have to stop in a few minutes, but I want to make sure all the parts have what they need, that they are okay.”

“They are. I feel okay. I’m glad we talked about shrinky things. I was afraid it could go really wrong and that would be awful right before a break, but it didn’t go bad and I feel better. I think I get it now.”

“Okay. If the any of the parts do need to reach out, they can. I plan on doing a lot of lounging and eating cookies. I can lounge and eat cookies and respond to emails.” She sounds so cheerful.

“Okay,” I tell her.

We spend a few more minutes talking about Christmas, and I share some Grandma and Grandpa stories. It feels good to talk about them, and grounding to end the last therapy session of the year like this.

We say Merry Christmas and I head out the door. Even with a two week break, I feel okay. I know Bea is still there, even if I’m not seeing her twice a week, and she will be there when the break is over. I trust that she won’t forget about me, and I can see her lounging with a good book, a mocha and cookies. And I believe her that she will be there if I need her. I’m okay.

All the shrinky things

All the shrinky things keeps popping up in my life. In my last post, I asked some questions about enactment, transference, how you all felt about those concepts, those words, how you deal with it, how you experience it. And I am so grateful for all the responses I received. They helped immensely when I sat down to write in my notebook, and when I talked with Bea.

I want so badly to tell you all about Wednesday’s session, but first I think that I need to back up…..

Therapy has been all about the teen lately. A lot of it has been trying to build a relationship, trust, between Bea and the teen. The teen is so suspicious of everything. A few weeks ago, as the teen and Bea talked, Bea asked if there was any part of the teen that maybe wanted to be seen, to have connection? I couldn’t answer that when she asked it. Later, though, I sorted some thoughts out, and the next session, we talked about it.

“I know we said there were two teen parts, but that’s not right,” I tell Bea cautiously. I’m always afraid that she is going to tell I’m wrong.

“Can you say more about that? About what does feel right?” She has that bright curious tone in her voice. She really does want to know.

“Well….I just….what if you think I’m wrong?” I hide behind a pillow as I ask her this.

“Well, I don’t really think anything, except that you are the only one who knows how your parts are organized. I may have guesses, but even then, I don’t have an idea of *this is how Alice’s parts are*. But I would like to know, to understand,” she says, kindly.

“Okay. Okay. Well….I think……no, I know, there is one teen part. It’s all one part. Its just like….there are, maybe pieces of her….not really enough to be a part, but also they are separate in some ways. I don’t know.” I mumble my way through this, feeling dumb.

“That makes sense. Really good sense, actually.”

“It does?” I ask, surprised.

“Yes, it does. Can you tell me about the pieces?”

I nod, still hiding behind the pillow. I have my blanket covering my legs, so I can hide under it if I need to. “There’s the vulnerable piece. That’s the piece that is afraid of you leaving. There’s the shame piece, and that’s the piece that just feels….well, shameful for even existing, and shameful for needing anything, or for being, well, I don’t know what I’m trying to say. And the angry piece. The angry piece of the teen was the one running things this spring. But they are all the teen, all one.”

“That makes a lot of sense to me,” Bea tells me.

“I do want……the teen does want….connection. I just…..before, we tried and it was just this…..it all blew up. I screwed up. I can’t….I won’t be able to….” I cannot finish my sentence. Shame washes over me, and I have no words left.

“You won’t be able to what?” Bea prompts.

“I can’t answer that right now. I just don’t want to get mad again. I don’t want to be mad and have you leave.” I yank the turquoise blanket over my head.

“I’m not worried about that,” Bea assures me.

“Why?”

“Well, because I know that mad wasn’t about me. Anytime there’s an overreaction like that, it means that one of our issues has been triggered.” Her answer is simple, and her voice is straightforward. There’s no blame, no anger, no distancing in her tone, but I shut down anyway.

Devastated. I feel devastated. I thought we had agreed it was about both of us, that it was both of us who messed up, and that it wasn’t just all about me and my past. What happened? Did she just agree with me so we could repair the rupture before her trip? Did she trick me into believing her? I can’t believe she is saying I overreacted. I can’t do this.

I stayed far away and shut down the rest of our time. Bea tried to get me to talk, but I couldn’t be present enough to get any words out. In the end, she told me to email or call if I wanted to talk before we met again.

I don’t reach out, but by the next appointment, I have lots and lots of writing for her to read. Bea reads, and responds as she reads. I hide under my blanket, and squeeze cloud pillow.

*I thought we agreed the rupture was about both of us. I thought we agreed that we both made mistakes.*

“The rupture in the spring was about both of us, we do agree about that,” she says gently.

“Then why did you say that?” The words burst out of me.

“Can you tell me what I said?” She asks.

“You said that the mad feelings weren’t about you, that was why you weren’t worried about my mad making you leave, because it had nothing to do with you! And you said I overreacted!”

“Oh…..okay.” Bea takes a deep breath. “I wasn’t speaking about you directly when I brought up overreacting. I’m sorry you heard it that way. I wasn’t trying to personalize it, not at all. I just meant that in general, when people have overreactions, it usually means something from their past has been triggered. For me, it’s usually emotional overreaction, or it means me getting very defensive. Those overreactions aren’t solely directed at the person or event that caused them. It helps me to see that, so I don’t react badly. That’s all I was saying. I wasn’t pointing a finger at any part of you.”

Shame, blame, and hurt all flood me. I don’t say anything.

After a while, Bea asks if she should keep reading and I tell her that she can.

*I thought we agreed that my reaction to the awful Monday was very big and that you experienced it as very out of proportion because you expected the adult to be on board and to help control things, to function and cope as well as she had been but that in reality there was no adult on board and hadn’t been for several days, it was just me on board and I didn’t have a really secure relationship with you, just this very new, fragile, tentative, sort of testing out trusting you thing, and with that context the big reaction and big hurt made more sense. Lashing out, being mean, none of that was acceptable and there were better ways to express myself and tell you I needed help and was really hurt and scared, but put into context it you could understand why I had all the big scared feelings on the bad Monday.*

“I agree with all of this, about the adult not being on board and that your reaction made a lot more sense to me once I knew that.” She says.

“Because I failed,” I say, tears streaming down my face now.

“What do you mean you failed?”

“I….I screwed up. I failed and I don’t want to do that again. I don’t want that to happen again.” I sob.

“How do you think you failed?” Bea asks gently.

“Because…….you…..expectations. I can’t meet them. I’m not good enough.”

Bea doesn’t respond right away, and when she does, she sound sad. “My expectations were, well, they were more about how things had been going, not about me needing you to meet certain expectations. It was an assumption I made, a wrong assumption that the adult had been doing such a great job using her coping skills, I assumed she was on board and those coping skills would kick in. I shouldn’t have made that assumption. I was wrong.”

“You said you had to lower your expectations. I failed.” I’m wailing and whining now, but I can’t stop myself. This hurts.

“Yeah,” she says sympathetically. “I hurt your feelings really badly, and I’m sorry. This is painful. What I should have said was I had to adjust my assumptions, that I had gotten used to the adult being on board and using all her tools to cope and function. I needed to adjust because it wasn’t the adult on board, was it? It was you― the teen. And you are at a different place than the adult. Does that make sense?”

“Maybe. Maybe.” I’m a little calmer, but then I think of something awful, and the wailing starts up again. “What if I can’t meet your expectations this time?”

“This time, I can honestly say that I have no expectations beyond you just continuing to keep working on this stuff. I’m still getting to know this part, and you are still getting to know and trust me. Right?”

“Okay. Okay. Maybe.” I sigh. “I’m still worried. And scared.”

“That’s all right. It’s okay to feel like that, we’ll keep talking about it and just take things slow. There’s no rush.” Her voice is sincere. She means it. I feel calmer with her words.

Later, at home, I start to think about overreactions. I think about it a lot and when I sit down to write, hundreds, thousands of words pour out of me onto the paper. When I finish, I can’t believe I’ve written this, and I am filled with fear and shame and anxiety. But I take it with me to therapy, anyway.

When I arrive, Bea greets me and tells me she has something she wants to share with me from the SP book. Inwardly, I groan. I need her to not be shrinky today. Everything I have written could turn really shrinky and and I need that not to happen.

“What is it?” I ask quietly as I sit down.

“I’d read it before, but it seems so fitting right now. There’s a whole section about enactments and overreactions. It’s nothing bad, nothing scary,” she says as I hide my face with cloud pillow.

“I think maybe you should read my notebook first. It might….well, I just….it might sort of go together,” I tell her quietly.

She suggests that maybe the SP pages might give some context, and so I agree that we can look at those first. I don’t want to, but I also can’t give her my notebook when she feels so disconnected from me.

Bea pauses for a minute. “Do you want to look at the SP thing, or do you want me to read your book first?”

I shrug. “I don’t care. Whatever seems best to you.” I sound far away, and almost robotic.

Bea notices, and just like that she is back to being Bea. “I sort of think you agreed to reading the SP pages because I wanted to read them. It feels to me like you might have some important things written down that you really want to look at today.”

“It doesn’t matter.” I can’t un-disconnect myself.

“I think we should work with your notebook first. That feels important.” She says softly.

I get my book out of my bag, but then I can’t hand it over.

“Alice, how far away are you right now?”

“Far….sort of far.”

“Okay. Okay. Maybe it felt a little scary to have me bring up SP?”

“I don’t know. I just….I don’t want you to be shrinky. Okay? Because…..it could….you could go….” I trail off.

“I’m here, and I’m not shrinky. I can see how hard this is for you. I’m sure me bringing up SP stuff right away this morning didn’t help with that. But I am here with you.” Bea’s words comfort me. It feels like she sees the problem and is here.

I flip through my book, scanning the pages I had written. “This shouldn’t be so hard.”

“It is hard. This work is hard. It’s hard to let someone in, especially when we already feel vulnerable. It’s hard.”

“Okay,” I breathe, “Okay.” And I hand my notebook over.

First, I don’t like that word. Overreaction. It feels bad. It brings up all the other words my mom like to use..,.drama queen, over sensitive. It feels the same. Overreaction makes me feel blame and shame for not being perfect, for feeling what I feel, for not being able to ignore my feelings and behave. My mother’s favorite thing to tell me, anytime I was emotional. “Don’t be a drama queen.” “Oh, Alice, she just always has to be the drama queen.” Even jokingly, said in a playful tone, “Oh! She’s our little drama queen!” Or, “Alice has always tended towards the dramatic.” That’s the first thing, it’s hard to even get past that word, the blame and shame and the feelings that word means, that I should not feel how I felt, that I am out of line.

Bea stops reading, and starts to speak. I stop her before she can form the words. “Just read all of it please. Just read it all first.”

“Okay. I can do that.” Her voice is soft, reassuring.

I would have said, even a week ago, I would have said that my reaction to that bad Monday (which actually was a Wednesday but was the first appointment that week) was not an overreaction. I would have agreed that everything later was, but not that day. I would have argued that showing up to therapy, triggered and vulnerable and needing you to be there, and you not being there was awful and that my reaction was in line with that. I would have argued that having a therapy session ―when I really needed you― and me not even needing to be there, because rationally, logically, that session was not about me. It was you, processing insurance stuff, and the email you had just read, and trying to figure out how to handle the insurance stuff, but initially, it was not about me, I didn’t need to be there.

I’m probably saying this wrong and I will probably be in trouble for being blaming, but please, just keep reading. I’m not blaming.

I would have argued that my reaction to that, my fears that I had needed too much and broken you, my hurt that you weren’t there, my fear that you were looking for a way to get rid of me, was not an overreaction. I still hate that word. But maybe it was. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and maybe I did overreact.

Maybe it’s more fair to say that I wasn’t reacting just to that day. Don’t get shrinky here, okay? Because it was about you in some ways. Even if the events that day hadn’t been extremely triggering, I still would have been hurt, and there would have been mistrust and fear. But I don’t think as much.

That whole day parallels the way my mom reacted over and over and over to me. I’d go to her, panicked or sad or mad or whatever, with all these feelings and no idea how to handle them, just drowning in them, and she would just check out. It was terrifying, to be left so alone with everything. She’d be there, right next to me, but not there, talking and talking and talking about something that had nothing to do with me, she could have been talking to anyone. And if I even dared to get upset or mad about that, she would accuse me of being a drama queen. She would blame me, “Don’t be such a drama queen. Life isn’t that hard.” If I didn’t stop my behavior, if I didn’t straighten up my act then, there would be the silent treatment until I did. Ms. Perfect would take over and fix everything. Things would go on as if nothing had ever happened.

It seems so clear now, how much that day parallels my Mom’s actions. I wouldn’t have been so upset and hurt if I hadn’t experienced that over and over and over. Me showing up distressed, and emotional, you not being present. Me getting upset and you not understanding why because all you could see was that you were just talking about insurance. Me freaking out and being angry, and you choosing to ignore my rage. Ms. Perfect finally taking over.

But what happened with you is different. Because you came back. That was hard to trust for a long time, because that was new. And you wanted to talk about what happened and hear what I really had to say. That was new, too.

I’m afraid to tell you all this, because I don’t want shrinky Bea. But I think this has to be worked through before anything else. Even little things, like when I tell you I am sure that my feeling ABC is silly, that’s my way of preempting the drama queen accusations I still expect to hear. All the uncertainty around you being able to handle my stuff and really be there, that is from this mom stuff. So. That’s it, that’s all of it. And I’m sorry for all of it.

Bea sets my book down on her lap, and lets out a deep breath. “I don’t like that word anymore, either. Overreaction is not a good word, and I am cringing that I used it. I am so sorry that you felt blame when I used it. I think a better thing to have said would be to call it disproportionate.”

“That still feels bad,” I whisper.

“Yeah. I get that. Can I say something? Remind you of something?” She asks.

“Okay.”

“I did mess up. Your feelings were, and are valid. I hurt your feelings, and you were really scared. Just because my misattunement brought up all the feelings you had every time your mom checked out and left you alone with your emotions, that doesn’t make your hurt over my actions less real. It’s an and, not an or. Does that make sense?” Bea asks.

I nod, and then realizing she can’t see me because I’m hiding under my blanket, say, “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

“It was really scary for you to feel so alone, with me and with your mom.” Bea says quietly. “I can see how my actions mirrored hers, almost perfectly. Even my first attempt at setting a boundary, at not reinforcing the distortions……in my attempt to not reinforce those beliefs, and my worry over behaving like your mother, I did just that.”

“But we figured it out. And you won’t ignore me anymore.” I whisper.

“No, no I won’t, not as a choice. I know that wasn’t a helpful boundary for you. But I can’t promise that I won’t have days where I’m misattuned. I hope though, that if you are feeling ignored, you will be able to tell me that.”

“Maybe. I’ll try.” I can’t promise that I will, because I can so easily fall into the dark and twisty place when I feel ignored and left alone. But I can try.

“Good. That’s good.” She says.

“Bea?”

“Yeah? I’m here.”

“I’m so sorry I behaved so badly.” I’m sobbing now, as guilt and shame and grief threaten to pull me under.

“I don’t think that’s fair to say. You reacted. You were scared. I know that.”

“I was awful. I’m terrible, I’m so, so sorry. It wasn’t fair and I’m mean and bad and awful and I am so, so sorry. I didn’t mean to do it.” I can’t stop. I’m on a rollercoaster going downhill and I can’t stop the tears or the pain at looking at my behavior. I was terrible. I treated her terribly.

“You are not mean. You said some mean things, that does not make you mean. You are not bad, or awful, or anything else. You reacted emotionally, and yes, it was disproportionate, but it was real and I did hurt you. I can hold that, and at the same time know that all the rage and mean wasn’t about me. That’s what I was trying to explain the other day. It’s okay. We are okay, and you are okay. All right?” She’s stern now, kind but stern. She needs me to hear her.

“I’m still sorry.” I say the words through my tears.

Bea murmurs soothing things until I start to calm down. Then Bea wonders if different parts had a different relationship with my mom.

We talk about the parts and their relationships with my Mom. The little girl loves her mom, and just became who she needed to be to be loved. She just locked away all the questions she had about not being protected and not be good enough to be herself. There’s grief there, sometimes, but overall, the little girl knows it wasn’t about her, it was about her mom’s inability to cope, and she just holds all the good parts of her mom and none of the blame or shame of not being good enough. The adult is able to have this easy, on the surface friendship with her mom. She knows her mom’s flaws, and can even accept them. She doesn’t expect emotional support, or even authenticity or depth from her mom, but she likes chatting with her and hanging out.

The teen’s relationship however, is a mess. As I try to describe it, Bea says, “That’s part of where this push pull dynamic comes from. The teen’s…..probably even really once you were a preteen….all teens have big emotions, and confusing feelings and thoughts, but the Kenny stuff, the abuse added to that, and all teens start to separate from their parents, but it was maybe harder for you, because the teen didn’t really have that secure base, she didn’t have that soft place to land as she went out and explored. And teens need that. They need someone who is bigger, stronger, and wiser that can let them go, and yet still be there. Teens need to push boundaries and question things, and they need a safe person to be able to do that. They need a safe grownup to turn to and they need to be seen. You really needed to be seen, because so much of you was hidden for so long. All teens feel this sort of self conscious shame at times, but your shame was so much bigger and all encompassing, partly from the abuse, and I think, too, from not being seen. That’s how we beat shame, by being seen.” Bea is doing that thinking out loud thing again, but it’s okay, because she gets it. She gets how I feel, why the teen’s relationship with her mom is such a mess, and why that makes it so hard to just trust Bea to be safe. As she’s talking, I can see exactly why the teen part of me feels the way she does and acts out the way she does. All those “borderline traits” make sense.

When it’s time to go, I realize we hadn’t read Bea’s SP thing.

“We can always look at it next time if you want to,” she assures me. “This was much more important.”

“I could read it. I do have the book.”

“That’s right, I keep forgetting that. I’ll write down the page numbers for you, okay?” She offers.

“Okay. Thanks,” I say.

When I leave therapy, I feel pretty grounded. It’s only later when I read the SP book that everything gets all stirred up again.

When the undertow grabs hold

On Monday, the teen was feeling really embarrassed that she had told Bea how feeling cared about brings up all these icky, bad feelings, and wasn’t sure she wanted to go to therapy. Things were floaty and just off feeling, and it was really hard to stay grounded and connected.

Once I am settled in my place on the couch, and we chat for a bit, Bea asks me who is here today. I tell her that I don’t know, because I don’t. I feel odd, not here, and sort of numb, not real. I feel almost like a ghost or something, like I don’t quite exist. We continue on with the surface talk, mostly because I keep directing us back that direction. This sucks. I want to feel connected to her, and right now I don’t feel connected to anything.

Finally, Bea asks if I might want to look at my notebook. I get it out and flip through it. “There’s sort of old stuff in here. From October 22. Because we didn’t look at my book for a while.” I keep flipping pages as I am talking.

“Well, we can start at the beginning or with something more recent. Really it’s whatever you need to talk about, whatever is coming up for you,” she says softly.

I shrug. “It doesn’t matter, I don’t know.”

Bea waits, and I continue to just flip through pages. I’m wasting time, I know it, but I can’t seem to stop myself. (Thinking back, I think the teen was wasting time, not wanting to feel anymore exposed.)

The silence starts to make me feel panicked. “Just read the last thing I wrote and then go back to the beginning. Okay? Because it doesn’t really matter.”

“All right. We can do that.” Bea leans forward a bit, and I hand her my notebook. “This is a new notebook. It’s so pretty.”

I nod. “It’s the Harry Potter limited edition moleskin notebook. I love it.”

“Can I read from the beginning? Would that be all right?” Bea asks carefully.

“Sure. It’s fine,” I tell her.

It doesn’t take long for her to pause in her reading and look up at me. “The teen was really mad at me, huh? I can understand that. It’s really painful to have me sort of show her what she didn’t get from her mom growing up.” Bea sounds sad, and understanding and calm and kind and just so very much the Bea that the teen loves, it sent me spiraling. Or, rather, it sent the teen spiraling.

“No, no. I’m not mad anymore, I really wasn’t mad at you. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.” Panic fills my voice. I’m not floaty or spacey anymore, but I am definitely out of my window.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry about. You are allowed to be mad at me.” Bea says firmly. Her words are kind, though, and I’m able to calm down enough that I can breathe again.

“I said I hated you,” I sob. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t.”

“If you did, that would be okay. I can handle it. I’m strong enough to handle all your feelings, even hating me.”

“I don’t hate you. I didn’t hate you. It was just….I was mad and I hated that you weren’t my mom. No….that came out wrong. Wait. I mean, I hated that….it should be my mom, not you. I was mad, I hated that it wasn’t her.”

“I know. I know that. I understand. It hurts. It hurts so much that your mom didn’t have the capacity to give you what you needed.” When I peak out from behind cloud pillow (when did I even grab him and hide my face?!?!) she’s sitting criss cross applesauce in her chair, and leaning in towards me.

All of this came about because I had been able to stand up to someone and set a healthy boundary in a kind and respectful way and feel safe and supported while I did it; something I have never experienced or done before. I had been alone when this happened, but I knew Bea would support me. Even if she disagreed with me, I knew that she would still be there for me, that she would try to understand my viewpoint. I can’t really explain it, but even though she wasn’t there, it was like she was there, helping me feel supported and contained while I spoke. I didn’t become dysregulated once. Afterward, I thought to myself, *this is what secure attachment feels like. This is what it feels like to have a secure base.* It was exhilarating and at the same time devastating. It didn’t take long for all kinds of feelings to pop up for the teen. Mostly, those feelings were anger and pain over the fact that her mom didn’t give this to her growing up.

“I want to be mad at her, you know. But she….she just couldn’t do it. She couldn’t handle anything. I can’t be mad at someone so broken. So I don’t know who I’m mad at. Not you. Not my mom.” I sigh. This is so hard.

“Maybe no one. Not being mad at me, that might be a new experience for the teen.” Bea suggests.

“That’s not fair. Yeah, she’s angry alot, but she isn’t always mad at you. And most of the time when she is mad at you it’s because she is scared.” The adult comes back just enough to defend the teen, which is unexpected.

“That’s true. I’m sorry,” Bea says.

“Okay. I’m not mad right now, okay?”

“Okay. What are you feeling?” Her voice is curious.

“I….just….I can’t be mad at her. Mostly that is what I feel.” I’m hiding behind cloud pillow still. I would really like to have a blanket to hide under, but I don’t want to ask, and Bea hasn’t offered, and it’s probably time to go anyways.

“Why not? Why can’t you be mad that your needs weren’t met? Thats a legitimate thing to be angry and rageful about.” Her tone is matter of fact now, like this is just something everyone knows.

“Because…….” The words get lost before they are even fully formed.

“Because why?” Bea asks. She is annoying me (the teen). Doesn’t she know? Can’t she put two and two together? Do I always have to spell things out for her?

“Because I don’t get to be mad. I’m not good enough! I didn’t try hard enough to do things, to be what she needed, I was always always needing more. I don’t have the right to be angry when all I ever did was screw up and make things hard for her!” I shot the words at Bea, and then hunch into myself, hugging cloud and crying.

“So only people who are good enough ―as defined by your mother― have the right to be angry?” Bea asks. Ugh. She has this innocent, playing dumb tone to her voice. I hate her again. She is asking me questions to prove a point and I don’t want her to prove a point.

“No. That is not even what I said. But all she wanted was me to be normal and I couldn’t even do that.”

“From where I am sitting, a lot of your feelings and thoughts were just like a normal teen. And you were totally normal given your history.”

“I hate it when you say that.”

“How come?”

I shrug. “Don’t know.”

“Maybe because if you are normal then you aren’t special?” Bea asks.

“No. It’s not like that. No one want to be special like this. I feel crazy. Its crazy making.”

“What is?”

“Me. My stupid feelings. I want to be cared about but then when I feel cared about I end up….well….feeling icky. That is crazy.”

“Well, it feels crazy, and it is normal for you, for what you went through.” Bea says. She sounds like Bea again and the anger towards her dissipates, but I still hate being called normal.

“It doesn’t make sense to me.” I shake my head.

“Well, I think that you had to be so defended for so long, and being cared about for so long came with strings attached, expectations, and the knowledge that you would only be cared about if you were behaving and performing well. Listen, okay? This is important. I don’t have strings or expectations. I care about you just for being you. I’m here because I care about you, about all the parts. That’s it. Okay? I know that is hard to trust, and it is difficult because as soon as you feel my caring all those defenses kick in. If you can try to just let in one little drop of caring, just allow one drop to make it past your walls, then you can feel cared about and still feel safe.”

“Maybe. Maybe I can try.” I whisper the words.

It’s not long before it’s time to go. We went over time, and I tell Bea I’m sorry.

“I’m not,” she says, “There was some stuff the teen really needed to get out.”

“Okay.” It’s all I can get out.

We say goodbye, and Bea wishes me a good day.

I really don’t know why therapy felt so off. I am pretty sure it was me, though, not Bea, considering I had been feeling off kilter for several days. It’s more than the eating thing. I still feel weird. I tried to journal and nothing really came out. I don’t know what my deal is. I probably should tell Bea that things (and me) felt weird and off on Monday and that there is so much going on with the teen, all these crazy, strong emotions and this self hatred that is so huge I (the grown up) can’t begin to fight it, and how the teen’s feelings are like an undertow, drowning me. I’m just not sure I can. I feel really apprehensive that if I try to explain, she will make a thimg out of something that is not a thing, or she will somehow inadvertently say something that feels invalidating to the teen, and then the teen will freak and we will be right back in the middle of another rupture where Bea claims its all about the past and the teen feels more and more unseen by her, and everything spirals out of control. The worst part is, I’m not sure if those are my feelings or the teen’s feelings. Because they feel like mine, and yet…….it could be the undertow taking hold.

When the teen thinks your doctor called you fat

Monday was weird. Therapy felt weird. (I’ll do a separate post about therapy.) I was sort of numb and tired and just not really with it. I’ve been feeling weird and off kilter since Thursday or maybe Friday. I’ve gotten so much stronger and capable in the last five years. The teen is still really strong though, and her feelings are like a tornado roaring through me and destroying any grip I have on reality. The thing is, there is a thing that the adult think needs to be discussed, although she is feeling quite embarrassed over it. The teen is adamant that it not be discussed or acknowledged, and she is feeling so much shame and self hatred over this, it’s unbearable. I saw my doctor on Tuesday. It was just a med-check appointment because of all my fibromyalgia meds.

Trigger warning! Talk about eating disorder and weight. If you continue reading, I ask that you please try not to judge my behavior. Please be kind. This is such a sensitive and embarrassing topic for me, a lot of my eating stuff ties into my mother’s eating disorder and the shame I felt my whole life over not be thin enough for her.

***

***

***

***

***

***

***

***

For the first time in my life, my doctor brought up concerns about my weight gain. Always, always in my past there have only been concerns about weight loss. But now this.

I know I have gained weight, I know I haven’t been making healthy choices, and I know there have been so many times that I have binged but not purged in the since the awful rupture in April. I know I have spent a lot of time avoiding exercise and hiding in my bed these last 6 months.

The teen is livid with herself. She hates everything about this body. She is ashamed and disgusted and it was awful to have weight brought up like that.

My doctor is wonderful. She was kind and not judgmental at all. But it doesn’t matter, not really. That discussion was all the teen needed to take over and unleash ED. Sometimes, my eating disorder creeps up on me, like when I realized that I have been binging since the rupture. Other times, it sneaks up on me like when I have the best intentions to eat right and exercise, and before I know it I am restricting and only eating a limited number of foods without purging. And then there are the times, like now, when the teen takes over and begins severely restricting right away.

It’s only been a few days, but the thing is, the teen feels better, less overwhelmed and crazy. Things feel slightly fuzzy and distant all the time when you are restricting and that feels safe. I’m not sure I want to stop this, to stop her. I’m not sure I can stop it. I know this is a bad path to go down. I know it’s not healthy, or smart. But really, I just want to lose the weight and show up to my next appointment not so fat. I don’t want another talk. I’m not sure the teen can handle another talk.

I know I should talk to Bea. I know this, and the grown up me wants to. The teen though, is so, so strong, and she does not want to talk to Bea about any of this. She does not want to tell Bea that her doctor called her fat (okay, not exactly what happened, but for the teen, it’s exactly what happened) and she doesn’t want Bea to agree with her doctor. There’s also this little voice in her head, in my head, that says I am too fat, no one would believe that I have been restricting for the past week. The voice says that if anyone did believe it, they would be glad, because I am gross.

I don’t know where this leaves me. I guess I just needed to write about this, to try to sort it out, to at least not lie to myself.

.