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.

I think I just might punch him

I don’t know if this was ever published or not. I thought it was, but now it’s in my unpublished posts, so I’m going to re-publish it I guess. 🤦🏼‍♀️ I wrote this on October 22.

It’s Wednesday. When Bea logs into therapy, I feel suddenly shy. Bea says a cheerful hello and I look down at my toes and mumble hi.

I think we talk about the weather and Halloween and kids and technology and other random things as I jump from topic to topic. It helps, though, because I start to feel less in the far away and more here. I’m not exactly here, but I am here more than I had been.

Bea seems to know that I am more here and so she says, “I know there is other stuff for us to talk about today, and I think it’s important that we try to work on it for a little while if you feel up to it.”

My hands fly up to hide my face, but I manage to set them in my lap again. “I think….well, I think I know and you know there is bigger stuff but I’m sort of avoiding it or tip toeing around it a little bit.”

“I think that’s okay to do for a little while. In fact, I think it helps you to talk and start to feel a little more settled before we dive in.” Bea is right of course. This has been true since the beginning of my therapy, which is how I originally had 90 minute sessions. I hate that covid and teletherapy have shortened my sessions to an hour. Why did I agree to that at the beginning of all this? Oh, right, because I thought it would be maybe three weeks in total and I hated therapy on a screen. I never imagined it would be months, and probably at least a full year before we would be back in person. I also assumed that once back in person (after a couple weeks, once covid was over) therapy appointment times would go back to normal. But that didn’t happen, and now my time is shortened and I feel a little bit like I agreed to something without really knowing the full ramifications, without questioning what shortening time would mean exactly. But the last time I brought it up, Bea just said that on days when she could give me a longer session time, she would. She never answered my question asking if I could ever have my old time back. Ugh. This is all so frustrating. Today, though, she has more time to give, and so I get to do my talking about nothing thing before diving in.

“It feels a little more like you are here when we talk for a little bit of time,” I whisper.

“Yeah, of course it does. I think you need to time to see what I feel like to you, if I am still me, still how you expect me to be,” Bea agrees.

“Yeah.” I nod my head.

“I was so glad you shared the journal page with me. That really helped things click into place for me.” Bea slowly starts to shift our focus.

My head goes fuzzy again. I cover my face with my hands and this time I don’t move them away.

“This feels so hard, doesn’t it? I know you have been feeling really bad, so bad there aren’t a lot of words. But I am glad you found some words. I’m glad this part we are getting to know could share. She feels really scared and frozen and so sad, and no wonder! This memory of it’s over but not really over, it was terrible.” Bea pushes a little.

I blink back tears. “I’m being so dumb. I know we talked about this already. I shouldn’t need to talk again and again. I’m sorry.”

“No, no sorrys. We did talk about it just a little. But we talked more factual this is what happened, not so much the feelings, the intensity of how bad this really felt. You had hope, you felt free and then all of it was just yanked away. How could this not feel bad?”

“I don’t know. I just…..I can’t get unstuck. I can’t make it stop.” I sigh. I feel broken, damaged.

“I could be wrong, but does this feel like the biggest feelings you’ve really had connected to a memory?”

“I don’t know. It’s the worst I’ve felt in my whole life. I wanted to die.” Tears stream down my face uncontrollably as I finally admit to Bea that I’ve never felt worse. I hide under my blanket. I don’t like to cry in front of anyone.

“Yeah, it was really painful. It was too much, too much for you then, and you had to go away. This part, she had a really yucky job, to hold all these feelings and keep them really far away from the rest of you. She held all this really bad stuff all by herself for a really long time, but she doesn’t have to now.”

“I just really, really want everything to stop.” I cry.

“I know. She really wanted everything to stop then. She did survive, though, and it did stop. It stopped.” Bea says softly.

“It’s not stopped. Nothing can stop him. Nothing can make it better.” I don’t think Bea knows what she is talking about. Nothing feels over or stopped right now.

“It feels like that now, and it might have been true then, but it did stop. She’s safe now.” Bea tells me again.

“You don’t know!” I argue. I feel like Bea isn’t getting it, she doesn’t understand.

“I do know. I know because I am on the outside and I can see the big picture. On the inside, it feels like time stopped, and you are trapped in this really bad place, this hopeless place. But I’m on the outside, and I see how time kept moving. I know the grown up who survived because of the parts. I know the little girl, and all the parts of the teen, and Ms. Perfect and even the one the others don’t like. I know that this new part, she is not alone now, and she is safe now.” Bea speaks firmly, but it’s still caring and gentle and so very much Bea.

“But I am alone.” I whisper-whine.

“She was so alone, and it was really awful. But she doesn’t have to be alone, or scared or frozen anymore. Really bad things did happen, but they are over now. She survived.” Bea tells me again.

“No. It’s never over. It won’t ever be over.” Why can’t I stop crying? At this rate, I’m going to cry myself a lake of feelings to drown in.

“It sure feels like that, doesn’t it? But the truth it that it ended and she is safe now, and she doesn’t have to be alone now. Everything is okay in present day reality. No one can hurt her in the present. And I think if we can help her see that, if we can get this part to rest, then you will start to feel a lot less alone and frozen in your current life.”

“Do you want me to go away?” I ask tearfully. The little bit of grown up Alice that has been working so hard to maintain any bit of control is no longer able to do so.

“No, gosh no!” Bea says quickly, “I don’t want you to go away, not at all. I would like to help you feel not so alone though. I know it feels really bad to feel so alone.”

“You can’t help. No one can help.”

“No one did help you then, but people can help now.”

I shake my head. “No.”

“It really doesn’t feel like anyone can help, does it?”

“No one can stop him. He always gets what he wants. No one can so anything at all.”

“No one stopped him then, but there is a grown up now who is very capable and won’t let anything bad happen again. He won’t ever hurt you again.” Bea informs me.

“Even grown ups can’t stop him.” Does’t she see? No one is able to beat him.

“No grown ups protected you, did they? But you know what? If I were there, I would stop him.” Bea says seriously.

“You can’t! He’s too big and you would get hurt.”

“He feels all powerful, doesn’t he? But he’s not bigger than me.”

“How could you stop him?” This part doesn’t really believe Bea can stop him.

“I could call the police. Maybe I would punch him. I’m very angry for how he hurt you, how he hurt all the parts. Yes, I think I just might punch him.” Bea doesn’t sound scared of him at all.

“Because you are bigger?” I question.

“Yes, and stronger.”

“And the police would really come and stop him?”

“Yes, the police would make him stop forever.” Bea assures this scared, hopeless, frozen part that wants to disappear.

“Forever, forever? Like the real forever?” It’s definitely the hopeless part running things at this point in my session.

“Yes, forever,” she says.

“Can I ask you something?” I whisper it, shyly.

“Of course.” Bea answers this like it’s no big deal.

“If you really were there would you wait for the police to come and stop him or would you leave?”

“I would do neither. I would stop him right away, and then I would call the police. And I wouldn’t leave you alone. I would make sure you were okay.”

“I like that answer.” I’m feeling much less alone at the moment. “What if I wasn’t okay?”

“Then I would sit with you, just like I am doing now.” It’s such a simple response and it’s said like that is a given, because what else would Bea do, besides sit with me and be there?

“What if I cried? Would you be mad or go away?”

“I wouldn’t be mad or go away.”

“And if the police came?” I’m waiting for her to say that then she would leave becase the police would take care of me.

“They would make him stop for good. He wouldn’t be allowed near you again.”

“But he lives next door.” My voice is scared. In my mind, there is never any getting away from him.

“Well, they would talk to the parents, too, yours and his. And the parents would have to keep him away from you.”

“But they would not believe me. I’m a drama queen and I tell stories and I make things up to get attention. That is what she would say.” I’m crying harder now, because I know my mom would not believe me, and that hurts just as much as this despairing feeling.

“I think the police might convince her. And if they didn’t, remember, I would be there, too, and I would tell your mom that you are not being a drama queen, and you are telling the truth.” Bea’s voice is strong, and firm, and I believe her, she would have tried to make my mom listen.

“Maybe she wouldn’t believe you. Maybe he would just be back to babysit me and be very mad with me.” I tell her.

“That’s a big worry, but do you know what? There is a law in our country and it says parents have to protect kids. And if parents know someone is hurting their kid, and the parents don’t keep their kid safe after that, they can get in big, big trouble.”

“What if they broke the law anyways because they really just thought I was lying?”

“Then you would tell me, and I would believe you. I would make sure you were safe,” Bea promises. Then she adds, “And you know who else I would call?”

“Who?”

“Your Grandma and Grandpa. And I bet they would help me keep you safe.” She’s right. If they had known in real life, they would have protected me.

“Maybe I could stay at their house for more than one night.” I feel some hope creep in, and that’s scary because I know how easily hope can be crushed.

“I bet you could!” Bea says, excitedly. “And that would feel so good to be really far away from him.”

“Maybe I could stay with them for a lot of nights.” I suggest.

“That would feel really safe, wouldn’t it?” Bea asks me.

“Yeah. But maybe….is it mean to want to be there and not with my Mom and Dad?” I feel guilty that I want to be with my Grandma and Grandpa and not my parents.

“No, I don’t think so. I think it makes sense, right? You weren’t safe at home, you weren’t protected by your parents. You always felt safe at your grandparents, and they would protect you, and you would be far away from Kenny. I think it would take some time to really trust that your mom and dad would protect you.”

“Maybe….yeah, I think so,” I agree. We sit quiet for a minute. I feel calmer than I have in weeks, and the grown up me is finally able to get somewhat back online. “This is a little ridiculous, isn’t it? I mean, I know we can’t go back and you can’t really be there.”

“No, I can’t really be there, but it’s not ridiculous. When parts are so stuck in the past, they don’t know the difference between then and now. And for our brains, imagining a different outcome, just doing that can start to rewire things a little, change how we feel about a situation. If it helps that part to think of me being there and stopping him, then I am all for that. She deserves to feel protected, and she shouldn’t have to suffer alone anymore. She’s held the worst feelings all by herself, but she doesn’t have to anymore.” Bea sounds like Bea, she feels like Bea to me again. I breathe a sigh of relief as she talks.

“I did a….sort of silly thing, I guess. Yesterday, I was trying so hard to find words and I just couldn’t, because even saying that I felt really HUGE sad didn’t seem like enough, so I googled….well, I googled feeling words.” My face is a little red now but I’m still hiding under my blanket, so Bea can’t see my embarrassment.

“That was a good idea. Did you find any words that fit?”

“I made a list….I just, well, if I didn’t know what a word meant I looked it up in the dictionary and then I wrote it on a list if it seemed right. So I made this long list, but it feels sort of…..dramatic.”

“What kind of words did you find?” Bea asks.

“Do you want me to send it to you?” I don’t know if I am hoping she says yes or if I am hoping she says no.

“Yes, I would like that very much.”

I get my phone, and copy the list into email. I send it to her.

Melancholy Despondent Angst Anguish Worthless Despair Trapped Pain Anxiety Feels like heart will burst from sadness Anguish Confused Vulnerable Ashamed Hurt Scared Sorrow Loss of hope Despondent Inconsolable Distraught Paralyzed Disillusioned Betrayed Isolated Desperate Crushed Terrified Shocked Hopeless

It’s not long before Bea’s phone dings with an email, and she reads it. “Are these words in any order, or just written out? Like is the first word the most intense?”

“No, no order, just written down. I’m worried that you will think it’s over the top, drama queen,” I whisper.

“I don’t think that at all. I think this is a really terrible way to feel. Is this feeling like a soup of all these words, all at the same time?”

I nod my head, but then remember she might not be able to see on a screen like she can in person, and I say, “Yes.”

“Well, between this word soup and the journal page and talking to the new part today, I feel like I can really imagine just how awful it was for her. She was so little, and to feel like this, of course she just wanted everything to stop.” I love how Bea points out to me how *normal* my feelings are.

“So you don’t think I’m being a drama queen?” I double check.

“Nope. That isn’t something I have ever thought about you. I think of drama queen more as an action.”

“What…..what do you mean? Like…like crying or saying you are feel really bad?” I stammer out the question, feeling uncertain or confused.

“No, feeling how you feel, sharing that, crying, those feelings are not being a drama queen. That was your mom, it was her stuff that made her feel like that because she couldn’t handle big feelings, maybe any feelings,” Bea reassures me.

“So….then what is being a drama queen? I think I don’t really know…..I think…maybe it’s like I worry, I tell you I am worried you will think that because mom might think it and then she would go away but I think I ask you, I tell you I am worried because I really just don’t know what a drama queen is and I don’t want to be that way and make you leave,” I admit.

“Well, I think it is action….maybe action that is a little bigger than the feelings or situation call for. But also, it isn’t negative, or it doesn’t have to be. Yes, your mom called you a drama queen and it really hurt because it was a way to put her inability to handle feelings on you. That blamed you for having too big of feelings, for feeling anything at all. It made you too much, and it made it your fault that she couldn’t handle it. But I would absolutely call my daughter a drama queen, and it is not a bad thing.” Bea laughs, a soft quiet laugh that is nice. “Did I tell you about the hornet’s nest when she was here this summer?”

“No…”

“Well, my daughter and her boyfriend and my son and his girlfriend went out walking in the woods, and they ran into a hornet’s nest. Now, when this happened, everyone got stung, but my daughter was running through the woods, tearing off her shirt and screaming. Her boyfriend carried her home, and then she spent the day on the couch, with the rest of us bring her ice packs and Tylenol and whatever else she thought would fix it. I’m not saying it didn’t her, but her reaction was just a lot bigger than maybe one would expect. But you know, that’s just her. Or, here, there was one day where both my kids fell and hurt their legs. My son, he just went back to his dorm and rested with ice and pain reliever. My daughter, she called an ambulance, and went to the hospital. Her injury was just a cut, a scrape really that didn’t even need stitches. But my son? When he finally went to the hospital, his leg was broken in two places! That’s just my daughter, though, it’s part of who she is, and it’s not a bad part at all.”

The whole time Bea is talking, my head is spinning. This feels like a new concept, and is very different from how I think of being a drama queen. The crazy thing is Bea doesn’t sound judgmental, or like she thinks this is a very bad thing about her daughter. She sounds like she loves her daughter even with the drama queen stuff. She sounds happy telling this story. And, this idea of a drama queen is not me. I know that. “So, having feelings is not being a drama queen?” It’s part question, part statement.

“Having feelings, even really big feelings is not being a drama queen. Having feelings is part of being human. You just really didn’t get that modeled for you.”

“My grandpa wasn’t afraid of big feelings,” I proclaim.

“I bet he wasn’t.”

“Not even mad scared him. One time, I was real mad, I don’t know why but I was super angry and you know what he did?” The grown up Alice is mostly gone again, with Little girl running things.

“What?” I can hear happy curiosity in Bea’s voice.

“He got the whole entire bucket of his dog Candy’s toys and took them outside and we threw them at the tree as hard as we could and it was okay to be mad.” I smile as I remember this moment. It’s like so many other little moments I had with my Grandparents.

“That was really smart of him,” Bea chuckles.

“It is pretty goofy though, isn’t it?”

“Oh, I don’t think so! It’s what I would have done. In fact, I have a bucket of toys for kids to throw at the wall when they feel that big mad.”

I smile because I like that Bea does this, too. “I don’t know what I was so mad about.”

“That’s not the part that mattered, I don’t think. What mattered was Grandpa being okay with your mad feelings.”

Out of the blue, the intolerable feelings of being alone and hurt and hopeless hit me. “Bea?” I ask, and my voice breaks as I say her name.

“I’m here.” Her voice is reassuring, my calm in this cyclone of feelings.

“Would you really stay with me and stop him forever?” I ask doubtfully.

“Yes, I absolutely would! If I could go back and be there, I would scoop you up and get you far away from him, and not just far away in your head, but the real kind of far away, and he would never hurt you again. I would make sure of that.” She’s so certain, so positive, that I start to feel like I could believe her.

“And you are not leaving?”

“I am not leaving. I will not leave you. when if we aren’t here, together, like right now, I am still here. You aren’t alone.”

I feel like crying. It’s way past time to say goodbye, but I really don’t want to. Saying goodbye feels like all the safety and protection I have been feeling will just evaporate. I can’t hold onto Bea if she isn’t talking to me or writing with me. I don’t want her to disappear.

“Alice, I am here, even when it doesn’t feel like it. You can reach out and double check if you need to. Can you hold onto that?”

“I can try. Just don’t leave forever, okay?”

“I’m not leaving at all. I can hold you and all the parts in my mind, even after we hang up.”

“Okay.” The word comes out a whimper. I feel like Bea ending the session is breaking my heart. Why do I feel like this? What is wrong with me? I hate being this needy, feeling so alone and desperate for Bea to be there. The shame of needing, the vulnerability of it all sends me far away again.

The end of session is fuzzy. My head feels slow, foggy, filled with sand. When things get less fuzzy again, we talk about grown up things, grocery shopping and boring normal everyday stuff like that. I tell Bea the things I forgot to get at the store yesterday, and how I had a panic attack in the middle of the cereal isle and was afraid to move for what felt like a long time, so I had to just pay for what I had and go home. Bea tells me it’s okay, I can go back to the store today if I need to, it is no big deal. We make a plan for the panic. When we say good-bye, I feel sad but not like I’m dying.

Metal Walls and Black Holes (part two)

“I can’t do this by myself.” I whisper the words, a barely there ghost like whisper.

“You don’t have to. I am here,” Bea says firmly. When I’m silent, she asks, “Do you feel anymore like you aren’t alone? Can you feel me here at all?”

I think about it. I’m not sure. “Maybe…..not like I feel it but I know it….sort of logical, maybe? I don’t know. Talking with you, and you listening and then when you get it, I know that would make me feel like you are really, really here. I just don’t feel it. So I guess so it’s sort of better.”

“That makes sense. I’m glad you can at least know I’m here, even if you can’t really feel it. You don’t have to be alone now. You were hurt so bad and so alone and not protected. You don’t have to be alone or hurt anymore. You deserve to feel protected and cared for.”

“Bea?” This comes out as a question, in the way kids will say *Mom* as a question.

“Yeah?”

“If he….if before was because I mattered, then why….that night when he…..why would…I mean….why did he if I didn’t matter and he didn’t love me and I’m not special, why did he do it?” I’m tripping over my words, my thoughts and my questions tumbling together in my head.

Bea is quiet for what feels like a long time. “Well,” she finally says, speaking slowly, carefully. “Well, I don’t think any of this, before or after was about love for him. He knew, sometimes bad guys know that kids need to feel like they matter, and he used that to get what he wanted. I think that all of this was about what he wanted and his pleasure. It was about power and doing what he wanted, and he used whatever he could to get you to go along with him.” She sounds so, so sad as she is saying this.

“Oh. It was mean,” I say.

“Yes, it was very, very mean.” Bea’s voice sounds funny.

“Are you okay? Did I do something wrong?” There’s a worry there about upsetting Bea, but it’s sort of dulled down from how it would normally feel.

“Yes, yes I am okay. I just wasn’t sure how to answer your question. I didn’t want to make you feel bad. Sometimes answering questions that…the answer might hurt, it feels wrong to me. I will always answer your questions and I won’t lie to you. I just…I feel very protective of you and of all the parts, and I was feeling some….like I didn’t want to tell the Little Girl about Bad people existing. I was feeling, am feeling protective over her.”

“I know monsters are real. They don’t look scary though. Just regular.”

“Yes, you do know that, don’t you? You’ve known that for a long time.” Bea breathes, and it’s the kind of breathing you do when you are trying not to cry.

“It’s okay. I’m not really upset,” I tell her.

“No, you are too far away to feel upset right now, aren’t you?”

“Yeah…..I wish I never wanted to be special, though.”

Bea won’t let that belief stand. “You did nothing wrong. Everyone wants to feel special and like they matter. Everyone wants to feel loved. He was wrong! He preyed on that need, he was a monster. You didn’t deserve to feel hurt then, and you don’t deserve it now. It makes me so mad that he is out there free, living his life and you are still hurting because of what he did, because he was selfish and mean and used you.” Bea stops talking, and then says more gently, “That longing to matter? That is that attachment seeking system, and it is a good thing. It’s okay, it is a good thing to want to attach, to want to matter to someone. Okay? I want you to know that.”

I feel like Bea speaking about attachment and needing to matter to others in this caring voice is very, very dangerous. The walls start to feel as though they are softening. “Stop, no, no, no. Just no. Stop. please, please, no.” I shake my head, cover my eyes even though I am still hiding under my blanket.

“Okay. Okay. I know that’s hard to hear right now. We can talk about something else.”

The walls harden back into place, and I slowly peek out from under my blanket. “Did you ever play that computer game where you click on the boxes and you are trying to avoid hitting the landmines? I can’t think of what it’s called.”

Bea shakes her head. “I don’t think so, no.”

“Oh. Well, there are lots of bombs and you click on the boxes and try not to hit them. That’s what my head feels like right now.”

“I can see that. I’ll try very hard not to hit any landmines, okay?”

I shrug. “I don’t know where they are. But it seems I keep bumping into them anyway. I hate this.”

“I know. What would it mean if a landmine was triggered?” Bea asks curiously.

“I….I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Okay,” Bea agrees.

We talk about how my being able to tell her in an email that I was upset is a big change. When I say that it’s different than what would have happened two years ago, maybe even a year ago, Bea smiles. “What is different do you think?”

“Well, before, I might have been hurt but I would have seen you not noticing under the surface stuff as you not caring, maybe a sign you were leaving me, or somehting and I would have been so hurt and so upset about it that I would have emailed but probably not been very nice about it.”

“Yes, maybe so. This time, though, you just said like *hey, this really hurt when I felt like you didn’t see how badly I am feeling and how not okay I am.* That wasn’t mean at all, but it was good sticking up for yourself, it is important to be able to tell people how they have hurt us.”

“I never wanted to be mean before, it’s just so much would spin out of control, I would be so triggered and panicked and scared. Relationships really terrified me, you know.”

“I know, the very idea of any relationship, any attachment was very, very threatening to you.” Bea says. She sounds proud of me.

“It’s still a little scary, sometimes,” I say.

“Well, yeah, of course it is. You were hurt in relationships, by attachment figures, by people who were supposed to care for you and love you and keep you safe. It’s always going to be a little scary to let people in after that. But you can choose now to let them in anyway, when you know they are safe, right?”

“Right. I choose now. Mostly.” I smile at Bea. I am so grateful to her. I worked hard, but I never would have gotten to this place without her.

“Reminder. Leave in 5 minutes to pick up Kat.” Every Amazon Echo in the house blares the reminder. We’ve run way over my hour.

“I’m sorry, I made us run over,” I apologize.

“Don’t be sorry. I had the time, and I think you needed it. I’m glad we had some time to talk today.” Bea smiles.

“Thanks.”

“Are you okay to go get Kat?” Bea asks.

“Yeah. I’m okay to go get her.”

“Okay. I’ll see you and Kat on Thursday, then.”

I nod my head. I hate that Wednesday is cancelled, but I’m glad she was able to see me today.

“Bye,” we say in unison, and I log out of teletherapy.

notebook pages (metal walls and black holes)

I sent these pages of my journal to Bea Monday night, so she would have them for our Tuesday session.

Metal Walls and black holes (part one)

It’s been a long time since I have felt this detached. I’m so far away that I can’t even remember last week’s therapy sessions. I only have the vaguest sense that I spent one of those sessions avoiding everything and began a tangent of talking about big things that have changed. It’s not a bad thing to think about, and I did end up making a list of things that have changed. It’s nice to see it all listed out. Some things shift so slowly, I only really notice when I think about what’s different now.

I end up upset after therapy on Monday, hurt that Bea seems to think the triggery, flashbacky, overwhelmed mess that I have been for months has shifted, and things are feeling calmer to me. She says I have seemed to be in a more reflective mood, and that things seem more settled. They don’t feel settled to me. Things are not calm inside. I’m hurt that she doesn’t see this. I spent almost all of Monday’s session feeling trapped, unable to find a way to tell her how bad things feel right now. I open my mouth several times to tell her I feel like I’m dying, like nothing is okay, that I feel so completely hopeless and numb I can’t find words to describe it at all. Instead, I continue talking about things that have changed in the 6 years since I started therapy. Why do I do this? Is there some part of me that stops me from speaking the words I really want to say?

It doesn’t take me very long after our session ends to email Bea and tell her that I am not okay. I calmly write that I don’t feel settled, that my feelings are hurt because she thinks I am okay, because she only saw the surface stuff. I write that I feel so far away, so numb, so alone, and her only seeing the surface feels terrible. It doesn’t take her long to respond. She tells me that she knew there was more, but that she felt as if she couldn’t find a way in. She tells me that she tried fishing around for a way in, but the walls were too thick today. She apologizes, and validates my hurt feelings, saying that she is sure it is really painful and lonely to not be seen. She asks me what I and the parts need from her. I don’t know. I need her to not feel so far away, but I’m the one that is far away, not her.

We meet again on Tuesday, and this time Bea has a way in, sort of. I’ve sent some of my notebook pages to her. (I’ll put those in a separate post https://fallingdowmtherabbithole.wordpress.com/2020/10/16/notebook-pages-metal-walls-and-black-holes/).

I log into teletherapy after I get settled in on the floor with my pillows and blankets. We say hello, and chat about nothing for a minute.

“I was really glad you were able to tell me your feelings were hurt,” Bea says.

I cover my face with my hands, embarrassed.

“It’s okay. I really was glad you were able to find your voice and share that with me. And I am really sorry you felt so hurt.”

“It always hurts when……..people don’t see under the surface.” By people, I mean my attachment relationships– Bea, Kay, and Hubby.

“Yes, it feels too much like reliving your childhood, where no one saw all the hurt underneath that Ms. Perfect was hiding.” Bea says softly.

I nod. “Yeah. It feels lonely.”

“I know. And I want to say that I did know there was more under the surface. I just couldn’t find a way in.”

“Well, I….it feels like…..” my voice trails off, scared to say the words.

“It feels like what?” Bea pushes a little to try to get me to finish my sentence.

I shrug. “There’s my famous filter again.”

“Yeah, that filter is tough! And it’s protected you for a long time. But it’s safe to let the filter go for a little while. Do you think the part that filters things can trust that?”

I shake my head and hide under my blanket. “I don’t want you to think I am being a drama queen,” I whisper.

“Hmmmm…I know that is a real fear, but that’s not me, right? That is something your mom said, that she believed about you, not something I think about you.” The reminder is gentle, and kind. It could sound angry or frustrated, but the way Bea says it, it is reassurance she doesn’t feel that way.

“I know. You always say you don’t think that about me.”

“Alice, in all seriousness, everything you have been through, all the trauma, everything, it was so horrible, I believe that anything you want to do, or think, or say, none of it will ever make you a drama queen.”

I sit in stunned silence for a minute, maybe longer. For probably the millionth time I wonder, was it really that bad? I don’t ask her this though. Instead, I spit out the words I was trying so hard to say earlier. “I feel like…..you know those commercials, I can’t think of which ones, but the ones where everything is grey and awful and sad and then the people find some miracle yogurt or medicine or whatever and everything is colorful and bright and happy? I feel like the before in those commercials.”

“Ahhhh. Things feel really bad right now. I could tell from your notebook pages how terrible things are feeling. That is a good description.”

“I feel really alone. Everything is far away and muted and I’m just numb. Except I don’t know if I get to say that, because there is sad, and maybe other stuff, and its big, really big, maybe too big, and I know it’s there, it’s just too far away to feel. So I don’t know if I get to call that numb.” I’m still hiding. It might feel childish, but it also feels safe, and safe trumps childish.

“I think you can call it whatever you want, but numb is a good explanation. Reading your writing, I was struck by the way the sad was described. I think there is a lot of grief to work through. That’s a big piece of trauma work, to process that grief. Grief is vital to healing, to moving on. I know it hurts, but try to hang on to the fact that getting to a point where you can even be aware of that grief is huge.”

I don’t say anything, because it feels like Bea is leaving. It feels like what she is saying about grief is her declaring we are at the end of things to work through. I shake my head at myself. No, I tell myself, no, no, no. Bea is not telling you that you are almost done with therapy. She is not kicking you out or leaving. She feels far away right now because you are far away. Everyone feels far away right now, even Kat. This is a you problem, not something Bea is doing to you. “Bea?” I say, tentatively.

“Yeah? I’m listening.”

“You feel too far away, and this is too big and I’m all alone. I don’t want to feel like this.”

“I know, I know you don’t. I am here, and I’m not going anywhere. I know this is scary but I’m not afraid of the big feelings, okay?” She speaks soothingly, the way I might speak to Kat when she is so distressed that anything I say isn’t landing with her anyway. “Are there things we can do right now to help you feel a little more connected? Like maybe feel your blanket, it looks fuzzy and soft. Or snuggle Hagrid? Can you listen to my voice and know I’m here with you even if you can’t feel it?”

“You just feel far away. I think it’s me. I’m too far away or too numb, or something. I don’t know. It’s like I built these walls and I was trying to….it’s like the bubble but not…this is….ugh…” I sigh, frustrated that I can not find the words I need to explain how or what I am feeling.

“No, I don’t see Ms. Perfect, not today. In fact I haven’t seen her in a long time.” Bea tells me.

“Well, yeah, because Ms. Perfect is…..I don’t know. She shows up for short things, like….I don’t know….it’s not, well…the bubble is light and bouncy and well, bubbly and stuff and this is….”

“Heavy.” Bea fills in the word for me when my voice drops off, and she’s absolutely right. This is heavy. There is such a huge weight to it, suffocating me.

“Yeah,” I say. “It’s so heavy. There’s this black hole of sad and other icky stuff and big feelings, and I just….I can’t look at it, I can’t even acknowledge it really, it’s too much and I just can’t so, I tried….it’s like I tried to build a wall around it but instead I built a wall and locked myself in with the black hole and there’s no windows or doors or anything and I can’t find a way to get out….or to even open a window to let anyone in.”

“I think you must need to be really far away to feel safe. Even if it feels awful, and you aren’t okay, I think the distance you need to be from the world, from yourself– and still feeling not okay– I think that tells us how badly this hurt you, how much it felt like your very existence was being annihilated.” Bea sounds so sad. Is she sad for me?

“I thought….well, you know….I just…it was over. I thought it was over and I wasn’t even sad, or anything but….not happy, I don’t know the right word….”

“Relieved?” Bea suggests.

“Yeah, maybe. I think so. Relieved. But then…I was wrong, it’s not over. And I am not special now, this isn’t because he loves me, I don’t know why now, and it is like everything is broken and none of it will ever be okay or anything else and I can’t, well, I just….” I sigh. This is so hard to explain. “I think that it was like…..before that night, I had this….it wasn’t normal, right? The stuff with him, it wasn’t normal.”

“No, it was not normal,” Bea agrees.

“But it was my normal. A fairytale. Well, maybe a twisted sort of fairytale, but a fairytale in my head. I had a story I would tell myself.”

“Yes, it was a game, he loved you, you were special.” Bea knows the story well.

“Right,” I say. I’m speaking more than usual, but I’m detached, cold, not here and definitely not feeling any of it. The feelings all live in the black hole I am working so hard to avoid. “So, I had this story I told myself, and it was normal, everything was okay. I was okay. But then, that night…..everything changed. It wasn’t over, and I wasn’t special anymore, either. My story didn’t work anymore. I couldn’t make sense of it, there was no understanding, no nice story to tell, and so then….I think I wanted to die.”

“Yeah, I can see that. There were no good choices emotionally that night.”

We are both quiet for what feels like a long while. Maybe Bea talks, or I talk, and I’m just too far away to even remember exactly what was said. Eventually though Bea says something about how I did come back to some sort of feeling that I loved him, or was going to marry him. I really don’t want to talk about this, but the words fall out of my mouth anyway. “I had to fix it.”

“Fix what? Fix it how?” Bea asks. I think I have confused her, but I don’t know for sure. I can’t sense her. Part of it is doing therapy on a screen, but most of it is that I’m too defended to feel her presence. She sounds like Bea, she looks like Bea, but she doesn’t feel like Bea to me.

I don’t answer the question. I’m not sure how to explain the thoughts swirling in my head like a hurricane. The thing is, everything changed that night in the cabin. It was the summer before 5th grade. That’s the year that the eating disorder really started. It was a bad year. And then came the sex talk at church and I realized what exactly was going on, and how sinful and bad I really was, I had to fix it. In my mind, the only way to to fix the whole sex before marriage sin and avoid going to hell was to marry the person. Yeah, I know. It wasn’t sex, the sin was not mine, blah, blah, blah. But it felt like it was mine, and desperate to fix it, I once again had a “crush” on him, and wanted to marry him. Typing this out makes it sound crazier than it feels in my mind. I don’t explain any of this to Bea. It feels too hard, like too many words to say.

When it’s clear I am not going to respond, Bea heads in a different direction. “What happened after? Did vacation go on as planned, were you able to have fun?”

I feel confused, like my head is filled with sand and I can’t think. “I…..I don’t know.” I shake my head, trying to clear it. Things feel….wrong. “I….I really don’t know. I just….ummm…This is crazy. I have no idea.” Panic hits me, hard and out of nowhere. In an instant, I go from numb and far away and feeling like I’m buried alive to terror that I don’t remember what happened after. It’s like not remembering means I didn’t survive.

“Hey, Alice, you are okay. I know, I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you are safe now. You did survive. Not remembering what happened after, that is okay, that just tells us how far away you had to go to protect yourself and survive.” Bea’s voice is reassuring, and calm, and she’s still my safe person.

The panic doesn’t last long., As Bea is talking, I shut down again. I think now it’s because the panic combined with me feeling Bea’s presence and her being safe is too much. It threatens to melt away the heavy metal walls I have constructed, and I need my walls. I hate them, but I need them.

Connection in the midst of living a nightmare

I’m home alone, and it’s time for therapy. I get situated and log on.

“Hey there,” Bea says as she logs on.

“Hi,” I say. My voice is quiet and uncertain.

“Hey! I can hear you today. Yay!” Bea does a little cheer.

I feel relieved, but I don’t say anything.

“How are things today?” She asks.

I shrug. “I don’t know.”

Bea waits, and I finally whisper, “Yesterday was a bad night and a bad morning and I really wanted to tell you.”

“Do you still want to tell me? I’m ready to listen to whatever you want to talk about.”

“Yes, okay. I want to talk to you.” Why does it feel embarrassing to admit that Bea is the one I want to talk to? She’s my therapist, and more than that, she is one of my attachment relationships. It’s normal for me to want to talk to her, it shouldn’t feel embarrassing or like I’m broken for wanting to talk to her.

“Do you want to talk about why it was a bad night and a bad morning?” Bea’s voice is careful, cautious. I think maybe she doesn’t want to make me feel pushed into talking.

“I had a scary dream,” I tell her.

“Yeah, that can set us up for a rough day, can’t it?”

I nod. “It was the dream….it was bad. Scary. It’s funny, because I don’t think I was scared when things happened. I don’t remember scared back then. Scared happens now, when I dream or when I remember when I’m awake. That’s strange, right? Crazy?” I’m a bit scattered and messy today.

“No, it’s not strange. I think you couldn’t feel the scared back then, it was too big and too much, and your family didn’t really believe in emotions, so you had to seperate it away. But now, it’s safe to really feel the scared feelings. I think you are feeling the feelings you would have felt then. Does that make sense? I hope it does. You aren’t crazy.”

“I guess. So I had the scary dream and then, I was awake, and I really like to go upstairs and turn on all the lights and look in the mirror and see that I am grown up and I just couldn’t. I was too stuck, so I was in bed and just there and hubby got up early for this meeting and then….it was not good. Not a good morning.” I pull my blanket over my head, not even thinking about it. It seems a little silly to hide like this over a screen, but I feel safer, and I don’t have to go so far away, which is good.

“That dream must have made it really hard to be in the present. Maybe you were still stuck in the past, feeling scared and hurt?” Bea says softly.

“Yes. I was. I was scared. Hubby scared me. He leaned over me to say goodbye and I hid under my blanket and yelled at him to go away.” I start to cry softly. I feel so much shame for how I acted.

“I can see how that would happen. It was probably very scary.”

“It was bad.” I hide my face, even though I am under the blanket.

“Things have been so real and alive for you right now, it is probably very hard to seperate things out.” Bea tells me.

“We don’t talk about this dream.” I feel really far away when I tell Bea this.

“Why not?”

“Because it is….we can’t talk about it. I can’t say it. So we don’t talk about it.”

“Is it something new, or just something we haven’t talked about?” Bea asks.

“Not new,” I whisper.

“But not something we talk about?”

“No…we don’t talk about this. And it’s so…ugh. I can’t, because….I see these things in my head and it’s so real and awful but then, it’s…I mean, it’s crazy because there’s no way that is what happened. It doesn’t make sense, you know?” I’m rambling but I can’t stop it.

Bea is confused, I can hear it in her voice. “Your dreams are usually more of a trauma dream, a flashback, so they are very real. Sometimes having dreams that are the regular kind, with all the crazy stuff that happens in them can feel really weird.”

“No, no, no. It’s not like that!” I’m so frusterated she isn’t getting it.

“Okay, I hear that. Can you tell me what is crazy in the nightmare?”

“No. I….it’s…..do you remember when I was talking about what happened with him before I hid my underwear under my bed and got in trouble?” I ask.

“Yes, I remember.”

“Not like we just mentioned it but I was telling you what happened, the first time I told you all of it? A long time ago?” It wasn’t a long time ago, not really. It was maybe two or three years ago. But that feels like a long time ago right now.

“I do remember. It was one of the hardest memories for you to talk about.” Bea reassures me.

“Yeah….and I was talking about what happened but it was really….the little girl’s story….it was her…..you know, how she saw things?” I’m talking slow, and I feel hollow and numb.

“Yes, it was a child’s veiwpoint, it was all from the little girl’s perspective,” Bea agrees. She does remember and she is getting this, at least.

“So then….you said….you called it….that word. You know.”

“Yes, I called it a word you don’t like.” Her voice is soft and reassuring. She’s not judging me.

“Say it,” I direct her.

“Rape. He raped you.” Bea says slowly. Her voice is this careful neutral tone.

“Yes. But I couldn’t…..it didn’t make sense to me. It didn’t make sense to me that my memory was that word. It just….it didn’t seem like that was right. It felt crazy.”

“Yes, I remember. It was really hard to sort of blend the child’s perspective with the adult’s understanding of what happened. There were some things that the child believed to help make sense of it all at the time, and you had to really rearrange your thinking around all of it. That was a lot of hard work on your part to be able to do that. But you did it.”

“I think…..I think this might be like that. But it’s not making sense and I just can’t…..and it’s so….I’m so….I can’t…I don’t know.” I hope she understands. I desperately need her to understand.

“That makes sense. I get that. We can work on helping it make sense and be less confusing.”

“But I can’t talk about it.” The shame is that great. Once, years ago, Bea asked a question about this, kind of a *did this ever happen* question, and I answered yes, but refused to really discuss it, or acknowledge it.

“Have we ever talked about it?” She asks. “You don’t have to tell me, and you don’t have to talk about it.”

“I….yes. But not….we don’t talk about it.” I’m not sure if the we is me and Bea or if the we is grown up Alice and the parts. It just doesn’t seem correct to say that I don’t talk about it.

“Okay. I have maybe an idea of what it is.” Bea says this slowly and carefully, and I still hear no judgement or worry in her voice.

“What?” I ask.

“Well….I don’t know if I want to say it, because I don’t want to make you feel upset or scared or worried. I don’t want you to feel like you have to talk about this. I want you to be able to talk about this when you choose, at your own pace.”

I think for a minute. “No, it’s okay. I just need to know what you think it is, even if I can’t say any words right now.”

“The (blank blank blank thing because I’m not ready to share it, even here.)” Bea speaks clearly and again with no judgement.

“Yes, that. And something else. But that.” I start to sob as I say the words.

We spend the rest of my session with me crying, and Bea reassuring me she is here and not leaving. She says I don’t have to talk until I am ready, and that it’s okay. I calm down enough to say goodbye, but I stay hidden under my blanket.

I might be living a nightmare over and over in my head, but it’s not the same as when I was a little girl. I’m not alone. Bea is here, and she isn’t leaving me. I’m not alone.

Bad Connection

Wednesday was a bad day. I dreamed about the unspeakable memory. I woke up frozen. I like to get up and go upstairs to my living room and sit with all the lights on. But that morning, I couldn’t move. I laid in bed, stuck, for a long time.

I was lying there, frozen, stuck in the past, triggered and messy, when Hubby leaned over me to say goodbye. That’s when I did move. I was so scared. I flew under the blankets, hiding. When Hubby tried to comfort me, to check if I was okay, I screamed. I screamed at him to go away, to leave me alone. And eventually, he left. He had to go to work.

This is the head space I’m in when I log into therapy. I’m sitting on the floor, with my fuzzy blanket and Stitch. I’ve been crying most of the morning, and I’m far, far away.

Bea logs on, and she knows something is really wrong. “Hey,” she says softly, “What’s going on? Did you have a rough night?”

“It’s not a good day,” I reply.

She doesn’t hear me. Something is wrong with our connection and she can’t hear me. We try a few things to fix the connection, but nothing works. “I’m here, and present and I want to listen to you. And once you start talking, I can eventually hear you. I might just need you to repeat yourself sometimes.” Bea is here, I know that, but I don’t want to repeat myself.

I shake my head, and then start crying again. I bury my face and just sob. Bea talks to me because I can still hear her. I hate this. Video therapy sucks. I feel so alone, and I’m so far away and so scared.

“I know you feel really alone right now. You aren’t alone though. I’m here. I know it feels really bad right now but you aren’t alone.” Bea is trying so hard to make sure I know she is here. The thing is, I do know she is here . I know that the connection being bad has nothing to do with Bea. I know she is here, I know that this isn’t because she doesn’t want to speak with me, or listen to me. I know this doesn’t mean she is leaving me. I trust our relationship, our connection.

At some point, I pull my blanket over my head. Bea asks if I can text her. She wants to make sure I’m heard and not alone before it’s time to go. I grab my phone.

***I hate this and I feel like I can’t talk because it’s too hard to even say words one time.*** I type.

“I know. It’s hard to say the words once sometimes. I know. I’m sorry.”

***It’s not your fault***

“I know that, too. I can feel sorry about this though. I feel very badly that you feel alone right now because the connection is bad.” I can hear the empathy and care in her voice.

***I wanted to tell you it was a bad night and a bad morning.***

“Yeah. It was a bad night and bad morning. Did you have a nightmare?”

***Yes***

“What are you doing the rest of the day? Do you have plans?”

***Kay is coming here or I am going there***

“That’s good. I’m really glad you are seeing her today, that you are reaching out. That’s good.”

I type a smiley face.

“I have an opening at 3:30 again tomorrow. Do you want to try again then?” She offers. “You don’t have to decide right now. I’ll leave it open.”

***Can we just have a regular phone call tomorrow right away if the video doesn’t work?***

“Yeah, we can do that. Absolutely. I’m glad we can try again tomorrow. I feel like this is the worst session ever,” Bea shares.

I think about the session that led to the huge rupture a few years ago. ***We had worst sessions. This is not the worst.***

“That’s true. We have had worse sessions.”

***This is feeling better than earlier. Before it was like double having no voice.***

“Yeah, it is like double no voice. I’m glad that at least you feel connected and a little better. I really didn’t want to end today with you feeling so alone and awful.” Bea cares. She’s here and she cares.

***It’s time to go, isn’t it?*** I type.

“It is. If you need to reach out, please do. You can email or text.”

***Okay. Thank you***

Wednesday sucks. I hate video therapy. But the thing that’s kind of amazing? Nothing was working and it was even harder to talk because Bea couldn’t hear me and it was bad. But I know it wasn’t because she wasn’t there or didn’t want to hear me or because she left. I think that is progress or growth or something.

I hate you, don’t leave me

Monday morning, and I feel somewhat…..not better exactly, but maybe like there is more of my wise self present, enough to know that if I talk to Bea, she will help me through this.

“Hey,” Bea says, smiling when I log into therapy. I’m sitting on the floor again, snuggled in a corner that feels safe, with my big fuzzy blanket, my stuffed Stitch, and my dog.

“How was Saturday night? Was it helpful to have friends over?” Saturday we had friends over for a BBQ and bonfire. While we still are mostly isolating so that we can safely spend time with my mom, we have one set of friends we have seen regularly since restrictions lifted in June. They live down the street from us, and they have two kids (A and L) that are Kat’s age, so it works out well. The mom (I’ll call her J) and I have been good friends for a while, and hubby and her husband (I’ll call him M) started talking and hanging out at the end of last summer. Anyway, it was a good night, and I did have fun, even if I felt a little off the whole evening. Hubby told M and J about what happened with the boy and Kat because the boy lives right across the street from them.

I shrug. “It was good. Sort of hard but it was okay. I don’t really feel like I have to be anything for J or M.”

“Did you talk to J about what happened with Kat and the boy?”

“No…well, yes, sort of. Hubby told them.”

“And how did J react?” Bea asks. J has some kind of trauma history. She and I have never discussed details, really, but we both know that the other has a history and have discussed triggers and therapy before.

“She was mad at the boy.”

“Really? How was that, to hear a grown up be angry with the boy?” Bea asks.

There’s something there, but I am not sure what. I shake my head and shrug. I just don’t know.

“Does the little girl feel any safer knowing that there are grownups who are mad at the boy for this situation and who are protecting the other little girls in this situation?”

“I….maybe….I don’t know. It’s….a feeling I don’t know the words. Like I can breathe a little bit better.” I feel so stupid right now. All those years of working so hard to name emotions, to describe feelings and thoughts and sensation, and I don’t know the word for this.

“It sounds a little bit like relief. Maybe relief that this time little girls will be protected, and maybe relief that there are other grown ups to help, that it’s not all on Alice to take care of,” Bea suggests.

“Yes, yes, that’s it, I think. Relief. I don’t have to do this alone,” I say. That feels good, to not have to deal with this boy alone.

“Do you want to explore this further?”

I shake my head. It’s hitting too close to the *my mom didn’t protect me* pain, and I’m afraid to go there. I’m afraid to spend time being mad at her.

“Can I say one more thing about this?”

“Yeah, okay,” I agree.

“Things are different now, you aren’t your mom. Kat is safe, and you don’t have to do this alone. You have hubby, and Kay, and J and M to help. And you have me. Can the little girl let herself feel that there are lots of grown ups who will help keep everyone safe?”

“Sort of.” I think I can’t really let myself feel this, partly because it bumps up too closely to the pain of my mom not keeping me safe but also because the little girl isn’t so sure right now that she deserved to be kept safe. I don’t say this to Bea, though. I just can’t right now.

“I think you’ve gone a little too far away.” Bea’s voice interrupts my thoughts, and I wonder if I have been quiet for longer than the minute or two it feels like.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

“No, not sorry,” she corrects. “You don’t need to be sorry.”

“Okay.”

She waits until it’s clear I’m not going to say anything else and asks, “Do you want to look at your list, or is something else coming up for you?”

I shake my head, I just don’t know. “It’s too messy.”

“The nightmares seem to be really big right now.” Her voice is soft when she says this, but it’s kind of a neutral statement.

“Yeah,” I say. “Sleep’s not so good right now.”

Neither of us speaks for a bit. Then Bea tells me she will be right back. I barely hear her or notice she is gone. She’s only away from the screen for a second. When she comes back she says, “I grabbed this guy from my office yesterday. I was thinking the little girl might like to see him, I know she said last week that she wished she could hold him.” Bea holds cloud pillow up to the screen.

I feel cared about and it feels believable that she really does think about me and all the parts even when I’m not with her. I smile at Bea, but don’t tell her how cared for the little girl feels. Her gesture opens something in me, though, and even frozen and far away, I manage to say, “Parts want to talk but….”

“Some parts don’t?” She fills in the blanks for me.

“Some parts don’t think its okay.”

“Why is that? Do they know?” Bea asks.

I sigh and look down at my blanket. I don’t know if it’s embarrassment or shame or something else I feel. “I…it’s not allowed.”

“Hmmmm. What isn’t allowed? Is it the telling of secrets in general or something else more specific?” Bea has gotten so good at helping me narrow down what is really going on.

“I already talked about it. It’s not allowed to be talked about again.” The words come out fast, short and snappy. I sound like my mom telling me to stop being a drama queen and to just let it go. I bury my face in Hagrid’s fur. He’s warm and snuggly and safe.

“Ahhh. Yes, this is an old rule, isn’t it? But you know what? I don’t have that rule. I have different rules. In fact, I have a rule that sometimes things need to be talked about again and again until they are worked through. We might talk and talk and talk about something for a long while and then it feels better, like it’s not a sharp stick poking you all the time, and you might even feel like that memory can’t hurt you anymore. But you know what happens sometimes? Sometimes, we get older or things around us change or something triggers us and that memory turns back into a sharp stick poking us again. So then, if it feels helpful, and all the parts agree, we talk about it again. Maybe there is another layer, or a different piece to process. There are no rules about talking about memories we’ve already talked about. You are allowed to talk about anything you want, as many times as you want. I promise I won’t be mad.”

“What if…..it’s too much now? I don’t want to make you feel icky, too,” I whisper. The little girl is so afraid she will somehow infect Bea with her memories.

“It isn’t. I have lots of ways I take care of myself. Part of my job is to keep myself safe, and to know how to help contain your stuff. Does that make sense?”

“Sort of,” I tell her.

“You know how when a friend is really upset and dealing with something bad? You can listen, and you might feel sad for your friend, you might even cry or have other emotions, but it doesn’t effect you in the same way because it’s not actually happening to you?”

I nod my head.

“It’s a little bit like that.”

“Oh. Okay. I guess that makes sense,” I say.

“Do the parts feel better about talking now?” Bea asks.

“Maybe, a little. I need to think about this. Are you sure it’s a rule?”

“That you can talk about something as much or as little as you like? Yes, I am very sure it is a rule.” Bea says this like it’s a fact.

I want to tell her that there is this part of my nightmare I am obsessing over, because it just doesn’t make sense. I want to tell her I don’t understand, or what I think I understand is too painful to even think or say out loud. I want to tell her that I wake up hurting. I want to say so much, and I cant get the words out.

“It’s hard to talk again, isn’t it? You’ve gotten far away.” Bea’s voice pulls me back and I look at her on the screen and nod my head. “When you write, are you far away? Is it easier to write than talk when you are far away?”

I don’t know. Maybe. I think so. Why can’t I say this to her? Where did my words go? Right, I am too far away. I pick up Stitch, he’s big and soft and squishy. His fabric is fuzzy, and blue, a lot like cloud pillow. That’s why I bought him for myself, back in October, when my mom was diagnosed with cancer— I wanted something to hug that made me feel safe. “I can write when I’m far away. That’s why I used to joke I was going to use the whiteboard in your office when I couldn’t talk. But I never did because I felt stupid.”

“I remember. I don’t think it’s stupid, though. It has to do with different areas of the brain. That’s all. It doesn’t mean anything bad about you.”

“What’s wrong with me? Do you think….I mean, do you hate me for what I did? Are you mad at me? I don’t want you to think I am bad.” It’s very much the little girl asking. I’m so afraid that things I have already told her have made Bea think differently about me. I’m afraid that what I want to tell her will make her think I’m crazy, or lying, or something.

“I don’t hate you. I could never hate you. You aren’t bad, or gross or anything else you might feel like. You are precious to me. You didn’t do anything bad.”

“I did all those…….things,” I protest.

“You didn’t do them. Even the things that felt like your idea, you never would have done those things if someone hadn’t hurt you. If Kenny had never abused you, you would never have done them. You weren’t in control. You didn’t do anything.” She sounds so firm in this belief of hers, and in that moment, the borderline teen is triggered and mad.

“Shut up. Shut up! You’re wrong. I hate you. Take it back! I’m in control. Shut up!” I scream the words at her, unable to stop them from pouring out of me.

Gently, she says, “I know. It makes you really angry when I say that. I can’t take it back though, because it’s the truth, and I will always tell you the truth.”

“You’re lying! You’re wrong! I hate you, I hate you. Take it back right now. Right now.” I’m being mean, but I don’t care. I’m panicking. She has to take it back. She’s wrong. I did this. I made a choice. It’s a game, just a game, nothing else, nothing bad. It’s just a secret game and I wanted to play it. She has to take it back.

“You can hate me. It’s okay. I’m not going to lie to you, and I won’t take it back. That’s not fair to you, or to the Little girl. I know it feels like you made a choice, like you were in control, but you weren’t. You can hate me, thats all right. I can handle it. I’m not going anywhere.” Bea speaks calmly, and almost….lovingly? I don’t know. But she’s not yelling back, or ignoring me, or leaving.

I rage some more at her, and she sits quietly, waiting for me to be done. And eventually, I stop. The anger and fear just sort of….taper off. That’s when the tears and the guilt come. I’ve learned that intense rage is like a wave, it comes up quick and then gets more intense, but eventually, it tapers off. All that’s left now is horror at my behavior. “Oh no. Oh no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Don’t leave me, I’m sorry,” I sob.

“I know. I’m here. It’s so scary for you when I say those things. I know. I’m not leaving. I’m here. It’s okay. You’re safe. It’s okay.” Bea murmurs soothing words while I cry.

We end things with an agreement I will email or text if I want to, and that she will check in on Wednesday with the little girl and the things she might want to talk about.

Safe and loved and wanted

Wednesday morning, and my head is all over the place. I’ve been up since 3am because the nightmares are back. I can see and feel it all so clearly. It’s more than remembering, it’s like I am there, again and again, every scene played out, everything I did, every time he hurt me. I can feel the anxiousness, and the hurt and the feeling of just wanting him to be my friend again, to make it better. I log into therapy at 9:00am, annoyed that I gave up my extra half hour back when the pandemic started, because I didn’t want to sit online that long, and I hated video therapy.

Bea logs on, too, and she says good morning. I think I say good morning back. “Yeah,” she says, “This is hard. It’s hard for you to be here, isn’t it? It really feels like you have to be far away to feel safe.”

I want to tell her my nightmare. I want to ask her if she is really here. I hate video therapy. It’s so much harder to feel like she is really here, with me. It’s harder to feel her presence.

Bea starts to talk about how it was brave to tell hubby. I’m only half listening, but then the tears start to fall, and I can’t stop crying.

“Everyone is safe now, even if it still feels dangerous,” Bea reassures me.

“I wanted to pretend it all away,” I sob.

“I know,” she says.

“No….you don’t get it. I wanted to….I wanted to just ignore it. Like my mom did. She ignored everything. And I get it. I get why. And I don’t want to get why.” I can’t stop crying. It’s confusing, this mess in my head. I have been so mad at my mom for for so long, for not seeing, for ignoring all the things that should have been red flags. But I get it now. It’s so much easier to pretend it all away.

“But you didn’t pretend it away. You told hubby, and you both talked to Kat. You didn’t do what your mom did. You are different.” Bea assures me.

“He hurt me,” I sob.

“I know he did. He really, really did. He will never hurt you again,” Bea promises.

I can’t look at the screen, at her. It should be easier, you’d think, but it’s not.

“Can I say something that might be a little bit shrinky?” She asks me.

I lift my head up and nod, still refusing to look at the screen.

“A lot of your memories, especially the very confusing and the very worst, the most painful, were during 4th grade. Kat is going to be in 4th grade. This situation would be upsetting for any parent, and triggering for any parent with a trauma history. I’m thinking you are even more triggered because of the age, and because of the feelings Kat shared of just wanting this boy to like her again.”

“Maybe,” I whisper. The teen wants to snap at her that this makes no difference, and to just stop trying to make sense of every feeling I have. She’s angry, this snarky teen. She wants Bea to just fix it, to make it better. She doesn’t see why Kat’s grade level should make a difference at all.

Bea starts to list out the ways that Kat’s situation is different than my past. When she says that Kat has me— the grown up me— to protect her, I whisper, “My mom left me.”

Bea nods. “She did. She got really sick, and she went away for while and that was awfully scary for the little girl.”

“I made her sick.”

“No, no you didn’t. She got sick because she wasn’t strong enough to face what was happening to you. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Bea is using her serious voice, the one I think of as the *please listen to me and hear me when I tell you this* voice.

“I can’t, I just can’t do this right now,” I whisper yell at her.

“I know. Everything feels so big right now, like it’s all moving at warp speed and crashing down around you. I know it is so hard.”

I sit and cry and Bea sits with me. It’s almost 10am, and I don’t want her to go. “Just talk to me,” I beg, “please just tell me a story.”

Bea spends our last few minutes telling me a story about a little girl who is safe and loved and wanted. She reminds me she is here, that I can email, or text her if I want to.

“I know,” I say. And the thing of it is, I do know. Even if we can’t be together in person, she is still here, and she isn’t leaving.

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.