Letters to and from my doctor

Hi Bea, 

I sent the email to my doctor. And she wrote back. 

Dear Doctor S, 
Thank you for calling to check on me. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the phone, or return your calls, I just wasn’t ready to talk about what happened last week. I’m really embarrassed over my reaction and behavior during the exam. I’d like to explain what happened and why I reacted in the way I did. I would prefer if we can keep this between us; this isn’t information I want in my medical history. 
I have a history of trauma, and a diagnosis of PTSD. Pelvic exams are always hard for me, but I’ve always been quite good at holding things together, at sort of dissociating away my uncomfortable feelings, and not letting anyone know I’m less than okay. Having a male doctor present and performing part of the exam really triggered me. When he touched me, that just sent me back to that very scary trauma place. It was too big of a trigger for me to dissociate away, and I fell apart. I’m glad you asked him to leave, and I’m glad you covered me up. I feel so embarrassed for how I reacted, and that is going to make it very hard to walk back into your office.
I know I need to come back in, and finish the exam. I feel very apprehensive about that. I don’t want to put myself in another situation where I’m triggered and scared. I also don’t want to put myself in a situation where I need to be able to come to the doctor and feel like I can’t. I’m working through what happened with my therapist, and I will schedule something as soon as I feel okay about it again.

~Alice 

Alice, 

I wasn’t aware of your trauma history, or how difficult pelvic exams can be. Thank you for sharing this with me. I’ll keep this out of your file for the moment, although we may want to discuss adding some information so that these situations can be avoided in the future. I’m sorry you were triggered and felt so scared. I don’t think differently of you, and would like to have you come back in so we can talk about how to best proceed with any medical exams/treatments. 
Take care, 
Cheryl

Ugh. This feels awful. All I can think is she knows, she is having all these terrible thoughts about me, I can’t face her ever again, why did I send that email, ugh, ugh, ugh. I don’t want to talk to her, she wants to talk, I’m not talking. I can’t do this. I don’t like her reply. I don’t know why. Maybe I wouldn’t have liked any reply. I can’t even think to send an email back. Ugh, ugh, ugh. I’m so angry that I sent this, I don’t even know. I just. Ugh. I wanted this to be done with, I didn’t want to keep talking about it, I don’t even know. Nothing felt okay. It seemed just…ugh. I don’t know. Yesterday, I don’t know what I needed. I felt like everything was off, and I was just not okay. So alone and wrong and sad and I didn’t want to keep talking about feeling like that, and I didn’t want to hear about how it was maybe just a pattern or whatever, because that felt terrible, and like it didn’t matter or wasn’t “real” or I don’t know what. So I said lets talk abut the letter. But then I was just annoyed and didn’t want to talk about it, or hear that I needed to do something, and I didn’t want to think about it, or why it was really a big deal, and I was just frustrated and annoyed and almost mad at you and that wasn’t feeling okay, and I didn’t know what was wrong with me or why I was so upset with you, and I wanted to be done with it. So I said ‘if I say I’ll send the email can we be done with this?’ I knew it was this very teenage response, and part of me was trying so hard to just have the conversation and be okay and behave like a grown up and talk through it and send the email and be fine, but I just couldn’t keep talking about it, so I guess I just shut down the conversation as quickly as I could. It hurts too much to think. 

And now it doesn’t even matter because I sent the stupid email when I got home yesterday, still feeling irritated, and not really thinking it, just sending it in a fit of frustration and annoyance. And then after I sent it, I freaked out and wished there was a way to unsend it. And then I wanted to email you but I couldn’t because I was still annoyed. I don’t know. I just want someone to be mad at for what, I’m not sure. To blame, to be angry at for me freaking out, for me needing to tell someone else the secret, for someone now knowing and judging, for even having a secret to tell to begin with, mad because you believed her secret. I don’t know. I don’t know what is wrong with me, why I’m having this ridiculously big reaction and feelings over this. None of this feels right or okay. And I feel like this giant whiny drama queen over this, and that just makes it harder to try to talk about. I’m stuck in my head, and I feel alone and like no one understands. It’s like this crazy mix of teenager and little girl running the ship. Angry defiant teenager, but scared of being judged and thought of as a drama queen, scared of being told her feelings don’t matter, or that they aren’t real, or something. Little girl who is afraid of everyone leaving, of hurting people, of not being perfect enough, who just wants to hide, and wants someone to fix it all and make it better. I don’t know. None of this is rational. 

Alice,

My first reaction was to want to “fix” this by talking to the doctor, and if that is something you would like me to do I would gladly do it, but I don’t think it’s probably the best option. I’m still viewing this whole situation as an opportunity for growth and empowerment for you, difficult as it might be.

I don’t think you would have liked any reply except maybe, “it’s okay, I’m waving a magic wand and you will never need to go to the doctor again.” I think, objectively, that it was good reply and you can work with it to express what you need next. If you want, we can talk about that on Monday.
Your reactions make sense to me, of course. And if it helps to be mad or to blame me please feel free to do so. I am okay with that–I was pushing for this after all!

I have somebody coming in a minute, but in terms of the patterned emotions, what I think we want is just to be able identify them as such. Of course they still feel just as bad and are just as “real.” Just not genuine, healing expressions of emotion–which, when you think about it, are probably pretty rare in comparison. I don’t think you have to worry about any of that right now. Just engage in self care and self soothing if you’re still feeling yucky. This doctor thing will pass…..  

Bea

Annoyed

“And you? I’m curious how you are feeling now, if you still are feeling sad? It sounds like it was a really tough week.” Bea turns to me, changes the conversation from Kat and the school meeting and everyday things to me and how I am feeling and the email I had sent. 

I go from engaged and mostly present– or at least the normal, okay, functioning part of me was present– to feeling small and silly and ashamed. I can literally feel hot pin pricks of shame or embarrassment or something burn through my chest, my neck, my face, as Bea turns her focus on me. I shut down, looking down at the floor, wanting to hide. “I don’t know,” I mumble. 

“Is the sadness…do you know what it’s from?” She asks softly. 

I shake my head, mumble a response. 

“There are lots of reasons to feel sad. Kay, your mom, the situation with the doctor and facing your identity as a survivor. Lots of reasons. It makes sense to me that you would feel sad.” 

I sit, curled up and floaty, my hands over my face, not wanting to have this conversation. “I feel like everyone has left, or is leaving or will leave.” It’s a whisper, quiet and barely there. 

My words don’t manage to cross the space between us, and Bea says, “What was that?” 

I’m annoyed. I don’t want to talk about it, I don’t want to have to repeat myself, but I do. 

Bea doesn’t respond right away. When she does, she is honest in her response. “My first instinct is to say I’m not leaving. To reassure you that I’m not going anywhere. But of course I can’t guarantee that. I don’t know the future. I can promise you that I have no plans to go anywhere. Kay did leave, and that is really sad. She’s not giving you space to have your feelings, she shut you out. And that hurts. Your mom, not being able to be there emotionally, that feels like she’s left you again, but I really do believe this is part of her process, her journey. That she will be back. You know as well as anyone that healing isn’t a straight path. I don’t see hubby or Rory leaving, they are here. Not everyone is leaving.” 

“I know. I know that healing isn’t a straight path.” The words sound like snapping in my head, angry and annoyed. They come out mumbled and quiet. 

“We talk about patterns of emotion, getting sort of stuck in feeling, and those aren’t helpful feelings. They aren’t authentic, healing expressions of emotion. Does this feel like sadness….like when you cry and it hurts but then you also feel lighter, and better in a way? Or does it feel like a pattern?” 

I don’t know what she is talking about, but it feels like she is saying I don’t really feel sad, or upset, or something, like she thinks it is a habit, like I just need to choose to be okay. I don’t know. I feel myself shutting down, closing her out, feeling upset and hurt. “I don’t know.” I whisper the words, because it seems there is an expectation that I respond, and I’m nothing if a not a good girl who does what is expected. And then I add, “You forget the last part. Everyone will leave.” 

She says something about everyone realizing at some point that they are alone, that it’s like this existential crisis or something. I don’t know. She talks, and I don’t listen. 

Finally, I say, “Let’s just talk about the doctor letter.” 

Bea laughs softly. “Nothing like contemplating why we are here, feeling all alone, talking about existential crisis to make the doctor letter feel like a good topic.” 

I shrug. I don’t have a response. Nothing feels like a good topic. I’m ready to go. I don’t want to be here. 

“I think we should be more grounded before we talk about this,” she says. When I don’t respond, she offers up suggestions for being more present. “Do you want to color while we talk? Do you want to look around the room and name colors you see?” 

I don’t want to do anything. I want to leave. “I’m okay. I’m fine,” I tell her. 

She doesn’t say anything right away. Then she says, “Okay.” But it doesn’t sound like she believes it. It sounds more like she has chosen to pick her battles, and she is isn’t going to push this right now. 

“Both letters are good,” Bea starts off the conversation. “You know your doctor and you know how she will respond to each.” 

“She isn’t…I don’t know. She’s just real. Like you are real, Kay…Kay was real.” 

“And you said she runs late a lot, right? Because she takes the time people need?” 

I nod. It’s true. I chose this doctor a long time ago because she’s real, she’s very caring and real. She’s also really smart, but not in a way that she talks down to people. She has always behaved like we are equals, until I behaved like a child. Ugh. 

“My doctor, I would be very boundaried and clinical with her. She’s not warm and fuzzy, she’s a ‘just the facts’ kind of person. But, my old doctor, I would have told her more, she was warm and it would have felt safe to give her more information.” 

“I don’t want to tell anyone anything!” The words slip out. 

“I know. I know. The choice is to find a new doctor, or tell this doctor something.” Bea says matter of factly.

We circle around, and around. I feel myself getting angrier and angrier. I’m mad at Bea. I want her to shut up, to stop talking to just leave it alone. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” I tell her. I mean that I don’t know why I am reacting this way, why I am feeling so mad at her when all I want is to feel close to her, to feel not alone. 

“What do you mean?” She asks me. 

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

At one point she tells me I can tell my doctor what I need. I mumble that what I need is for this to not be real, for no one to make me talk to anyone, for this to not have happened. She doesn’t hear me, and so she asks me what I said. 

“It doesn’t matter,” I say. 

“I think it does matter.” 

I shake my head. “It’s not important, never mind.” 

“I think it is important,” Bea argues. 

I don’t say anything and she lets it go. I don’t know if I wanted her to push and fight with me that it is important, or if I wanted her to let it go. I have a thought running through my head, and it takes everything in me to say it out loud. I’m not sure I want to say it; the grown up part of me doesn’t want to say it, but the teen is fighting to get her words out. The teen ends up winning. “If I say I’ll send the email, can we just be done with this?” 

Bea busts up laughing, but it’s kind laughter. “That is such a teenager response,” she tells me, still chuckling. She is enjoying my snarkiness. She is not angry or defensive over it, and she’s not telling me I can’t behave like that. It’s not a response I’m used to. “We can be done talking about this,” she says, a smile in her voice. 

I don’t remember how we ended things. I do remember going home, and in a fit of anger, sending an email to my doctor. It was a very teenage feeling, a “I’ll show you, I’ll make you leave me alone” feeling. So, I send the email. Pressing the send button is like sticking a pin in a ballon– the big angry feeling deflates immediately, and I once again feel scared and alone. 

Wednesday emails

Hi Bea,

I finished the letter to my doctor. I ended up writing two. I don’t know which one to send. I still really just don’t want to deal with it. I guess I just wanted to know what you think– which one. 

The school meeting was okay. Nothing major, and I managed to keep my mouth shut. 🙂

I’ve been writing and thinking about parts, and may have something to,send you later, but right now I’m still thinking and digesting and trying to make sense of it. Anyway. Here’s the letters. 

Dear Doctor S,

Thank you for calling to check on me. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the phone, or return your calls, I just wasn’t ready to talk about what happened last week. I’m really embarrassed over my reaction and behavior during the exam. I’d like to explain what happened and why I reacted in the way I did. I would prefer if we can keep this between us; this isn’t information I want in my medical history. 

I was sexually abused by a family friend for a good portion of my childhood. Pelvic exams are always hard for me, but I’ve always been quite good at holding things together, at sort of dissociating away my uncomfortable feelings, and not letting anyone know I’m less than okay. Last week, however, was different. I wasn’t aware that the student you had with you was male, until the two of you walked into the exam room. By then, it felt like it was too late to say anything, and I really thought I could just get through it, like I always do. When you asked if he could perform part of the exam— and it is good that you asked– I couldn’t say no, because I was afraid of making him feel bad, or appearing to be mean. I was already triggered, at that point, but I still really thought I could hold it together. 

When he touched me, that just sent me back to that very scary trauma place. It was too big of a trigger for me to dissociate away, and I fell apart. I’m glad you asked him to leave, and I’m glad you covered me up. I feel so embarrassed for how I reacted. I hate that all I could do was cry, and feel frozen. I know you were trying to talk to me, ask me questions and I hate that I couldn’t answer them. I wasn’t really in the present then, I was back in a place and time where I wasn’t safe, and bad things happened.

I know I need to come back in, and finish the exam. I feel very apprehensive about that. I don’t want to put myself in another situation where I’m triggered and scared. I also don’t want to put myself in a situation where I need to be able to come to the doctor and feel like I can’t. I’m working through what happened with my therapist, and I will schedule something as soon as I feel okay about it again

~Alice  

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Dear Doctor S, 

Thank you for calling to check on me. I’m sorry I didn’t pick up the phone, or return your calls, I just wasn’t ready to talk about what happened last week. I’m really embarrassed over my reaction and behavior during the exam. I’d like to explain what happened and why I reacted in the way I did. I would prefer if we can keep this between us; this isn’t information I want in my medical history. 

I have a history of trauma, and a diagnosis of PTSD. Pelvic exams are always hard for me, but I’ve always been quite good at holding things together, at sort of dissociating away my uncomfortable feelings, and not letting anyone know I’m less than okay. Having a male doctor present and performing part of the exam really triggered me. 

I know I need to come back in and finish the exam; I’m working through this with my therapist and will schedule something as soon as I feel less triggered when thinking about coming back. 

~Alice

(Bea) I think both letters are good. I guess it depends on how much you want to reveal–do you want the doctor to be more a part of your “inner circle” who knows what happened, or do you want to set a boundary about how much you’re going to discuss it with her? The second one definitely does that, where the first one exposes much more.  

I don’t know. They both feel like too much, or not enough. Maybe I feel like I have to explain, like I owe everyone their an explanation for my (what I think of as bad or maybe inappropriate) behavior. I don’t know. Ugh. I don’t want to add to people who know. I just don’t. But I suppose she must know something, anyway. So. Ugh. 

The response you get from her will probably vary accordingly. Your decision definitely depends on what you know of her and how you want to handle yourself moving forward with her–really up to you!

I’m afraid if I give less information, then her response will obviously be….I don’t know, maybe less personal or something. And even though I don’t really want to discuss it with her, my feelings will be hurt if her response feels cold to me. I don’t know. But I don’t want to talk about anything with her. I don’t really talk to anyone but you. So I don’t know. This is hard. I feel like no matter what I need to tell her that I barely talk to my therapist about things face to face, that I write more than talk, and I really can’t talk about this. I hate this. I really, really hate this. It’s too hard. It’s too much to figure out what is okay for people to know and what isn’t. It is like being in first grade again and wanting to tell but not wanting to tell. It feels bad. I just can’t explain it. But I need to do something soon, I know. 
I feel so alone right now. I know you’re here, but I’m almost afraid to feel it. It’s like hubby isn’t really here…but he never is really. And Kay left. And my mom just…I don’t know. I feel like I never should have trusted that things were different. I really needed her, and she couldn’t be there. I’m scared. I don’t like feeling like I have no one. 

I don’t want to stop and think, or feel right now because as soon as I do, I’m scared and sad and feeling like something really really bad is going to happen. It’s not just the visit with my doctor, or anything else that has happened. I don’t have words for it, there’s nothing actually bad happening. I know this. I just…I don’t know. Something feels wrong. Really wrong. I don’t know. I keep crying. Just random tears, crying when nothing is happening. It’s terrible. I just feel really, really sad. 

I took the chart of parts you gave me….I sort of…I don’t know…..like fit the little girl, the teen, the perfect part into the chart. I’m just not sure about how I reorganized if yet. I need to think about it more. I’m just having trouble thinking. I haven’t been very…present, grounded this week. I don’t want to think. Thinking hurts. 

Hi Alice, 

I’m here and very much “normal” Bea (oxymoron!) at the moment. I wonder why this week has been hard–I wonder if it is because of your mom going back to her old self–and that’s probably just a temporary part of her healing.

Or maybe writing the letter has stirred up exactly what you described–the first grader who wanted to tell. Who was very alone.

I’m glad we’re meeting tomorrow.  

I have someone coming in now, but wanted to respond. Maybe we can get the letter situation resolved tomorrow–-that will feel good and scary both, I’m sure.

Bea

Emails and not okay

I emailed Bea on Thursday night. I knew she had training all weekend, and that she might not be able to email me back, but I was so alone and lost and confused and there felt like there was so much I hadn’t said in our session. 

So….things went like I said— go home, clean, get ready for Kat’s party, be okay, be fine because that is what I always am. Except for driving home. I cried the whole way home. It was those tears you just can’t shove down, no matter how hard you try. And about halfway home, I recognized this feeling…this crying, everything wrong, failing at life, messing everything up, can’t do anything right, too many bad feelings, overwhelmed and scared, can’t breathe or think and just want it all to stop feeling. It’s a feeling of being a little kid, alone and scared and vulnerable and really wanting mommy to come and fix it all— like I said this morning. But it’s also a teenage feeling, that desperate, overwhelmed, I need to fix this but can’t because I don’t know how or where to even start, so someone please fix it for me, and make it all stop. And I remember feeling like this, and the person I always went to when I was a teen and felt this way was Bethany– my aunt. And then she left. So I couldn’t go to her anymore. So there was no one. And then later, in college and after, Kay was the person I went to. But she left, too. I wanted to call her so badly today, driving home. But she is not here anymore. She left me. I did text her on her birthday, sent her a message that basically said I hope she was having a happy birthday. Nothing major. She texted back, asking me to please respect her wishes to be left alone. So. That was Wednesday. The day after the doctor appointment. Like I said, it was a bad week. 

Lots of loss and abandonment coming up. I’m sorry I didn’t know about Kay and the birthday text. That is sad and very tough because she’s taken away your voice. I’m very sorry to hear that!

It really isn’t “just” the doctor appointment and needing to write a letter. It’s…I don’t know what, exactly, I can’t put my finger on it. It’s just this feeling of needing everything to stop, to go away, to disappear. I don’t want to feel, I don’t want to think, I just want everything gone. Maybe, on some level, this is all about identity. I’m not angry, or defiant, over this. I’m scared. I DON’T know who I am. I’m afraid to try to even find out…..it just feels like whoever I am, beyond my perfect and nice and happy facade, is going to be ugly. Or maybe there is nothing there. That’s just as scary. I don’t know. 

Basically it’s about the okay part and the not okay part. The okay part has thrived because it avoids the not okay part at all costs. When stuff like the doctor happens the okay part is forced to share space with its foe. This is scary and confusing and not okay. No wonder your identity feels messed up. As we work through these things, however, they become less separate and unintegrated. You move towards health. We are on the right track with what we are doing. We may have more parts to touch base with is all.

There is an angry part…but it’s not what I’m feeling mostly. And when I do start to feel angry over how I’m feeling right now, it’s like that feeling you get when you barely miss being in a car accident or something. That like, heart pounding in your throat, stomach dropping, can’t breathe, anxious and scared feeling. That’s how I feel about this mad. It’s scary. And I don’t know what or who I’m mad at, or why, or where it is coming from. But it’s not okay. And it makes me scared and anxious. 

We’ve talked about there being a “fight” part. It wouldn’t necessarily feel directed at someone–just your defensive reaction to being activated.

We go to my parents on Saturday. What I wish, and what can never happen, is to just sit and cry with my mom, and for her to just let me cry and be upset and wrap her arms around me and let me cry as much as I need to, and tell her nothing is okay, and everything is wrong, and that I just need it all to stop, and then for her to tell me it will be okay and to have her fix it. But it’s stupid to feel that way, to want that. Because she wouldn’t fix it, she can’t— it would just be more secrets and lies to cover up all the bad stuff. And we don’t hug like that in my family. We give quick little, almost one arm hugs to say hello or goodbye, but we don’t just hug someone to hold them and let them cry. Not even when my grandpa died did anyone do that. It’s just not done. They aren’t touchy feely people. Even when I was little. It’s just not how things are. And crying is something to be stopped, to be distracted from, to end it as quickly as possible. Ugh. I don’t know. It is what it is. 

I think it’s good that you want that–to be held and to be comforted. That is the “attachment cry” part that I learned about tonight. Attachment is an important resource. I wish you could have that with your mom too. I’ll bet you will get some sense of it this weekend in your interactions with her, even if not as much as you are craving.

And really, you did offer to write a letter to my doctor, so that would fix that part of the problem. So I shouldn’t really even be crying over wanting someone to fix it. But I’m not 5. I’m not a little kid, I shouldn’t always need someone else to “fix” things for me. So as much as part of me really wants to say, yes, just write a letter, fix it, I don’t want to deal with this, make it better, part of me just can’t, because it feels too much like being an adult acting like a child. And I did enough of that already at that awful appointment. Ugh. 

We can tell the 5 year old that there is a grown up part ready to take action. 

Dissociation at the osteopath

I see an osteopath for pain. I suffer from migraines, which I’ve gotten since I was 14, and fibromyalgia which was officially diagnosed almost two years ago now. Osteopathic medicine is different than the westernized version of medicine, it looks more at the whole person. My MD recommended my DO, and I love both my doctors. I typically see my DO every 1-3 weeks depending on what we are working on and how I am doing.

I saw Dr. B last week, and as usual we started out talking about how I had been feeling. I hadn’t seen her for 6 weeks, so it had been longer than usual. One thing she had asked me to do was to pay really close attention to my migraine triggers, as we had them almost under control. In the last 6 weeks, I have been going through my migraine medication like it was water. I have noticed that flashbacks seem to give me migraines, as do the worst of my nightmares. It’s almost comparable to a flashback hangover.

After a few minutes of general how are you’s, Dr B. asked about the migraines and if I had noticed any new triggers. It’s amazing what lack of sleep can do to a person; without thinking, I said, “yes, I think so.”

Have you ever done something and wished you could un-do it? As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I was frantically wishing for a way to force them back inside. Dr. B waited a minute for me to finish my sentence, and then said, “well? What is it?!?”

I stuttered, I stammered. I didn’t know what to say. I finally settled on, “it’s really personal?” Yeah. It sounded like that, as if I were asking her a question. Serious face palm moment.

She sighed, and looked at me. “You do know I’m your doctor? That knowing the personal stuff is how I can help you?”

And somewhere in there is where I started to look at the floor and play with my hair, and I went away to lala land in my head. I’m not really sure how long it took for Dr. B to notice, but she did notice.

“Alice? Alice? Have you ever talked to someone about what is personal?” She asked me. I had to force myself to concentrate on her words, everything had that hazy feeling to it, like I was viewing it through thick cotton. She spoke in a way that told me she knew I was dissociated, and that I wasn’t the first person she had been around who did this.

I somehow managed to force out the fact that I’m in therapy twice a week. I don’t say anything else, and either does Dr..B. After a while, she excused herself to the restroom, was gone a few minutes, and when she came back, she sat back down just as calmly.

She talked a little bit, telling me that she wants to help, but that it’s hard to help if she doesn’t know anything about it. She says she also realizes things talked about in therapy can be hard or impossible to talk about outside of therapy. Osteopaths believe (and I believe her) they can help release trauma from the body, even if a person doesn’t fully remember their traumas— or remember them at all.

I wasn’t sure what do– I trusted Dr. B as much as I trust anyone. I just didn’t know how to tell her this. I finally realized I could show her a book I downloaded to my iPad’s kindle app weeks ago. It’s a book that Bea wants me to read. I have not even started it. I pulled the book up on the kindle app, and still unable to look at her, I handed it to her. “My therapist wants me to read this,” I said. The book is called “the body remembers”. It’s a book about PTSD and trauma.

It was enough. She’s a smart women. I risked a peek at her face and could see she had put two and two together. She knew I had suffered some form of truama, and I’m pretty sure she knows it’s some form of physical or sexual abuse. Because of the rest of our (limited) conversation she may have concluded that some of it is based in childhood, or college years, or both. I’m not sure. But she knows the general premise.

“Have you read it?” Dr. B asksed.
I shook my head no. “Have you?” I asked her. I assumed the concept must be familiar to am osteopath.
“Not this one. Several like it.” She told me.
And then. “Is someone hurting you now?”
“No! This is old. All old, old stuff.” I said.
“Okay,” she said, “I’m sorry.”
And then she let’s out a string of F-bombs at people who traumatize children and females and other human beings.
After which, she apologized. I told her not to, because it makes her real, which makes it easier to trust her, and be okay with her. She laughs at that.