Go away, go away (she left me)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I nod my head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah. I’m here. Just tired.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why do you think that?”

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

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

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

“Okay. I won’t talk about it.”

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

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

“Shut up. It’s time to go, hang up.”

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

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

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

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

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

She left me.

Maybe I don’t always need words

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

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

“Yeah. I bought paint for myself.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No? What did you plan?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe it is something, not nothing

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It was nothing. It should be nothing.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“You are doing it, right now.”

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

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

“This feels different though.”

“How does it feel different?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“We can figure it out together.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Maybe. But if I don’t….”

“Then that’s okay, too.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Snark, Sass, Memories and Feelings

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

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

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

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

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

The Non-rupture part 1

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I shrug. I don’t care.

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

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

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

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

“I…I was mad.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bea reads…..

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

What enactment means to me and Bea

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Are you here enough?” Bea asks.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Not separate?”

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

“Yeah.” I nod my head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Really?” I ask, surprised.

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

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

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

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

“Bea?”

“Yeah?”

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

“Did that surprise you?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay,” I tell her.

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

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

All the shrinky things

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“It does?” I ask, surprised.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What do you mean you failed?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Far….sort of far.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That still feels bad,” I whisper.

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

“Okay.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Good. That’s good.” She says.

“Bea?”

“Yeah? I’m here.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Okay. Thanks,” I say.

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

Teens and shrinky cupcakes

So, we talked about the shrinky cupcake. I had been okay all week. Emailing had given me my connection to Bea back, and up until Wednesday morning, I was okay. As I walked into her office, though, the teen’s anxiety, embarrassment and hurt took center stage in my head. I did what I always do in those moments; I shoved the teen aside and let Ms. Perfect run the show.

Bea isn’t fooled by Ms. Perfect any longer, but she will let Ms. Perfect have her bubble of perfection for a bit before Bea pops that bubble. We talked about Halloween and school activities I had organized, and I showed Bea pictures from the Halloween festival in our town square. (Side note, I would love to live in Stars Hollow because the town seems so great with all their wacky festivals, but in all actuality, the town that hubby and I live in is very much like stars hollow― complete with the town square and a gazebo, a diner with great coffee and many, many festivals for weird and wacky things)

Eventually Bea said, “I think Ms. Perfect is here today. I can tell because of the here-not-here feeling and the upbeat chatter. I’m wondering if there are other parts that would like to talk but are feeling scared or upset?” Bea really doesn’t pull any punches anymore when Ms. Perfect is around. I hate it sometimes, but it is a good thing because if you aren’t straight forward like that, Ms. Perfect is very good at avoiding things and changing the subject.

As soon as Bea outed Ms. Perfect, all the teen’s feelings rushed back in. I looked at my hands, picked my fingers, and didn’t answer.

“We need to talk about the cupcake.” Her tone was gentle and calm, but firm. She wasn’t going to budge on this.

I grabbed blue cloud pillow off the couch and hid my face. “Maybe you do, but I don’t need to talk about it.” The teen’s words shot out from my mouth before I could gain control of the situation.

“I know. You really don’t want to talk about this. I just think that I upset you, and you have every right to be mad at me. But we do need to talk about this.”

“Why? Why do we have to talk about something that wasn’t even a thing until you turned it into a shrinky thing?” I snapped.

“I guess, well, because I did turn it into a thing and we need to talk about that. Otherwise, it is like how you grew up, and that can feel lonely and awful. I think its better, even if it feels hard and uncomfortable, to air things out. I don’t want things festering and sitting between us, and I know you don’t like it when things feel like that. It makes the relationship feel unsafe.” Bea answers slowly, like she is trying to find the words to explain to me why she thinks it’s important we talk this out.

“But I wasn’t upset! I was fine. It was all fine until you turned it into a shrinky thing. I wasn’t upset until you did that.”

“It really upsets you when I make things feel shrinky. I wasn’t trying to do that. I know did, and I’m sorry. I was worried, and I wanted to make sure you weren’t stuck with bad feelings, like worrying that I was expecting something of you because I gave you a gift, or feeling like I crossed a boundary that you had set by telling me earlier in the week that you were ignoring your birthday. I didn’t want you stuck with that all week.”

“But I wasn’t! I was fine! I didn’t feel any of those things! I wasn’t stuck with any bad feelings until you made everythung go shrinky right before you were leaving and then I was stuck with those feelings for a week!” My face is buried in cloud pillow, and I feel like I am yelling because there is anger in my voice, but while the words come out short and snappy, they are said barely above a whisper.

“Okay. I thought you looked uncomfortable when I gave you the cupcake. Maybe that is my stuff, and not yours. Can you tell me what you felt when I gave it to you?”

I sigh. “That it was nice of you.”

“What about below the surface?” Bea pushes, just a bit. The way she says it, it’s like a gentle nudge.

I stare at the floor, at my hands, at the bin of stuffed toys sitting on the floor near me. After what feels like forever, I ask, “Can I have the blanket?” Sometimes I say *my* and other times I say *the*. It seems to be the little girl and the grown up who will ask for *my blanket*, and the teen who refuses to call it hers, even though Bea calls it mine.

“Sure.” I hear her get up, and then she covers me with the blanket.

I sit there, hiding and not wanting to talk, trying to find the words. Realizing that my parts all felt differently, I decide I can safely and easily talk about the little girl and maybe the grown up’s reactions. “The little girl……for her, it really was simple. She was happy to get cake.” I shrug.

“It makes sense that different parts felt different,” Bea says. “I’m glad the little girl was happy.”

“The…..the grown up……that was…..well, she thought it was nice of you, but it also made her….sad…..sort of nostalgic for…..I guess for birthdays in years past, for the time when she would have danced in here singing about her birthday and expecting a cupcake because, well, I guess because Grandpa believed she was a gift and should be celebrated and she believed it because he did. And thats not……it doesn’t feel like that anymore. The last time my birthday felt like that was six years ago, before Grandpa was sick. I don’t……its sad because things won’t feel like that again. So maybe that is what you saw. It didn’t have anything to do with you. Just sadness and nostalgia for the way things used to be.” My voice cracks as I mention Grandpa, tears streaming down my cheeks as I speak.

“He loved you so much. He really did. And you do deserve to celebrate and to sing and dance on your birthday if you feel like it again. You lost a lot, and it is understandable that you would be sad about it. If that is what I was picking up on, I am truly sorry for making it a thing and upsetting you. And I apologize for not fully picking up on that sad feeling.” Her voice is warm and caring as she talks to me.

“It’s okay. None of the parts are really upset or mad anymore.”

Bea waits, to see if there is more, and when I don’t she asks, “And what about the teen? How did she feel?”

I groan. The teen doesn’t want to discuss this. “That it’s fine. She’s not mad anymore.”

“If she was, that would be okay. And I understand why she was mad with me,” Bea says simply.

“I’m not mad.”

“Okay.”

We sit quietly, Bea waiting patiently, and me trying to find the words, to figure out how to put them together to make sense. “I don’t…..the teen doesn’t….(I was having a lot of trouble keeping the grown up in charge, so while I did try, the teen was definitely running the show.) ……like talking about relationships with the person……you know?”

“I know. It’s incredibly uncomfortable for her.”

“Why is this so hard for me? It’s impossible,” I grumble, frusterated with myself.

“It definitely feels that way, doesn’t it? Why do you think it’s hard?”

Frustrated, and feeling like Bea literally just did the shrink thing of turning a question back around, I snap, “If I knew that, I wouldn’t be asking!”

Bea chuckles softly. She enjoys the teen’s snark. “Very true. I think it’s because for so long the teen had no voice, no one but Ms. Perfect had a voice, and so some of it is learning that it’s okay. I think some of it is when the teen did use her voice, it wasn’t very well received. I want to know what she has to say, and I promise to listen and to try to understand.”

I sigh. Take a deep breath. “I……..I thought….” my voice wobbles. “I thought it was………………. nice. I liked that you thought……………. about me not just here (in Bea’s office). It….it was like……it made me feel like you cared. It……….felt……..good.” I feel vulnerable, exposed. This feels dangerous. I do not like to tell people when they make me feel cared about, or that I like feeling cared about.

“I do care,” Bea tells me, in her serious voice. “I know this feels vulnerable, and uncomfortable, but these are all good things to feel. And it is safe to feel them.”

“No. No no. This isn’t……not good. It’s not okay.”

“Because it feels like too much?” Bea asks.

“No. Yes. No.” Frustrated, I snap at Bea again, “I don’t know! Okay? I just don’t know how to explain this.”

“That’s okay. Just take your time. There’s no rush.”

“When……..as soon as……if I feel cared about then…….I think what you felt, what you noticed was…..I felt like you cared, and that felt good but right away, then I feel bad and I can’t…….it’s just…..so then it just has to go away, all the feelings I just have to shut them down.” I shake my head. I’m not making sense.

“Why do the bad feelings come up?” Bea’s voice is the soothing one she uses for the most hurt parts of me.

“Because……..” I don’t want to answer this. The teen doesn’t want to answer this. I feel tears falling again, shame heats my face and every muscle in my body is tense and shaking. I only want to run away. This feels too painful to say.

“Because…..?” Bea prompts.

“I…..it’s like……..I don’t get to……I mean, because I don’t have the right…………………. to want ………..people ……….to care…………..about me……………I’m not good. I can’t……I can’t do this. I’m sorry, I can’t.” Huge, wracking sobs come pouring out of me. I can’t stop shaking.

“You don’t feel like you deserve to be cared about. That is painful. And it is not true. You do deserve to be cared about.” Bea has tears in her voice. I’ve made her sad.

I want to tell her it’s more than that. I want to tell her that bad things happen when you feel those good feelings of being cared about. I want to tell her that I desperately want someone to care about me, just me, even with all the bad and messy and complicated pieces that make up who I am, that I want that, crave that, but it’s not okay. It’s not okay because I don’t deserve that, and when I think I have it, very bad things happen. So I can’t. I can’t feel the warmth of being cared about without all the icky feelings creeping in. I want to have a way to explain this without sounding like a crazy person. But I’m unable to weave the words together in a way that makes sense.

Bea doesn’t ask for more explanation, and she doesn’t tell me to stop crying. She just sits with me, letting me cry until my sobs slow and I can breathe again. She murmurs things about the teen really not liking herself, and how that is painful, and how the teen got so many negative messages about herself, and how she really does enjoy the quirky, snarky teen. Bea reminds the teen that if the teen were 21, she is someone Bea would have a beer with (this was something Bea told the teen a long time ago when the teen accused Bea of liking Ms. Perfect and only wanting the teen to be like Ms. Perfect.)

As awful and painful and uncomfortable as it was to talk about, and as unfinished as the conversation felt to the teen who still feels a need to explain better, strangely, I feel lighter. Nothing bad happened, Bea is still here, she didn’t call me crazy or seem confused by the complicated mess of my feelings around being cared about. And, the teen wants to write some in her notebook to share with Bea. She want to sort it out. She doesn’t want to feel bad anymore.

Shrinky 10-24

A week ago, I had a birthday. Well, almost a week ago. It was hard. I tend to cope by avoiding my birthday. This year, I really wanted to avoid it. I miss my Grandparents so much, it still hurts. Bea, however, had other plans.

Wednesday, October 24……..

I walk into Bea’s office, acting like it is any other day. I have stuff to deal with, namely this collision of attachment stuff and my mom and my Grandparents and my uncle dying unexpectedly and Kat’s challenges, and all of this, and the time of year have collided to trigger the teen like nothing else. Of course, there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to deal with any of this. It’s painful.

Bea greets me like normal, and when I am settled on the couch, she hands me a small bag. “I don’t usually do this, but I was thinking about you yesterday, and so I did.”

I take it and open the bag to find a carrot cake cupcake. My heart feels warm. “Thank you,” I tell her.

“You’re welcome,” she says, and then I start talking about Kat, and regular things. Bea tries to interject a few times, to switch the subject, but I don’t let her. At one point she makes the observation that while I had been really, really far away on Monday (I had just come back from a three day trip with my mother), today I am far away, but it is more of that here-not here variety, where I seem very present but am really still far away and talking nonstop seems to be a way of controlling what is happening around me. I ignore her observation, though it isn’t wrong. Before I know it, she is telling me we have about 15 minutes or so left, and she wants to make sure we haven’t missed anything because she will be out of town Monday.

I sigh. Pick my fingers. Look at the floor. Whisper, “I did write.”

“Do you want me to read it?” Bea asks.

“I dunno. I don’t, there isn’t time to talk about it now.” Suddenly, I just want the hour (yeah, we only got an hour today which is unusual) to be over.

“Well, we could take this opportunity to do some work in the present moment. We talk about reach, and grab or push, and attach in SP. I gave you a cupcake for your birthday, and that is a type reaching.” Bea is speaking slowly, and I don’t like it. I don’t like what she is saying, and I want to tell her to shut up. But I don’t. I don’t say anything at all. So she continues, “What did it feel like when I gave you the cupcake?”

I shrug. I don’t say anything. It’s a cupcake. It was a nice thought. The little girl and the teen liked that she thinks about me even when I’m not right there. That meant something to them.

“Well, I want you to know that you don’t have to take the cupcake, you could tell me no. And I guess I should tell you, it was from my heart, I wanted to do something for you, but also, I guess I was thinking that it is sad you don’t want to acknowledge your birthday, and I wanted the little girl and the teen to know it’s not forgotten and your day still matters.” She says the last part gently, carefully, as if she knows it could set the teen off.

And it does set the teen off. “Stop it. Stop being shrinky! I hate it when you get all stupid and shrinky! Why are you making a thing out of something that wasn’t even a thing? You always do this. Just stop talking. I have to go.” I start to sit up, to put my new perfect fall boots on.

“Will you wait? For a minute? Please. I’m sorry. I wasn’t trying to be shrinky. I really wasn’t. It was shrinky though. I just wanted you to know you didn’t have to take something from me, that whatever reaction you had was okay, and that there weren’t expectations around it.” Bea says. She is calm, grounded and so very much here and present and the teen hates her for it.

“Ugh. You didn’t……you always ruin everything! Just when I was feeling like you are here and safe and it is okay, you do this! And you do it just before you are leaving so now I get to feel like you are gone (out of town) and that you aren’t even here (emotionally). I hate this. I can’t do this right now. And it’s time to go anyway.” I stand to leave. The teen wants to throw the cupcake at Bea, but instead I leave it on the couch. I don’t want it anymore.

I walk out, and Bea doesn’t try to stop me. That feels bad, too, even though I am the one leaving. If she had tried to stop me, I would have been really mad. As I leave, she gently but firmly says, “I am here. I’m not leaving you.”

The rest of the day passes by quickly, and Thursday does, too. It’s Friday before I email her, and then only to request a schedule change for Kat. Bea doesn’t respond and I am hurt, until I realize she wouldn’t just ignore an email. I email again to see if she got my first email. Bea texts me in response, and she is just so very Bea. Something has gone wonky with her email and so her emails are not being sent. But she had gotten them both. We text a bit, and she gives me a different email address to use if I want to email more this week.

We end up touching base a few more times, and while we don’t go much below the surface, I feel more connected again. Now it’s Tuesday night, and I will see Bea in the morning. The teen’s anger has dissipated, and all that is left is embarrassment. I feel anxious about seeing Bea tomorrow. The teen is afraid Bea is mad at her for acting like a brat. She’s also afraid that Bea will bring it up, and she would rather forget it. But she wrote about it, so if Bea reads her notebook, she will see that the teen was really upset. The teen knows that it will probably be talked about, and deep down she knows it will probably be okay― uncomfortable, but okay.