Ruptured: one month later

I’m trying to sort how how I feel, and I just don’t know. Its been a month now, simce that awful Wednesday. I’m still hurt and scared and sad and mad and comfused and upset. Sometimes, I still believe that this is unfixable.

I’m afraid that Bea still isn’t seeing our rupture clearly. I don’t think I am, either, exactly, but she is supposed to be able to see things clearly and she seems to think she is. I think she is just as lost in the muck as I am.

I’ve honestly thought a lot about finding another therapist to talk to, to tell this rupture story to, to get a clearer perspective on it. On one hand, I think that’s crazy, I shouldn’t need a therapist to deal with my therapist. On the other, I feel like I won’t be able to trust Bea again without finding some sort of resolution to this. Then again, she is my therapist, so shouldn’t I just be able to tell her what I’m thinking? And that brings us back to the crux of the problem: I can’t really trust her.

I know I have lots of stuff, I know I am “crazy”. I know old beleifs pop up often and that I react to things because of that. I know that my husband can think I’m done talking and walk away, and I will be in tears, raging at him for leaving me and not caring about me and not wanting to listen to me (major over reaction). I know that I do these things, and I am embarrassed by them later, when I’m not being overwhelmed by this feeling that something very dangerous and bad is happening. I know that. I also know there are times when I feel those same things, and that even though I might want to react, I won’t. Usually I don’t react because reacting will make me more vulnerable than I am already feeling. For example, when I first started seeing Bea, I wrote an email about negative coping behaviors. I think I wrote something about earning gold stars for listing out all my issues, and Bea responded by saying no gold stars from her, that she would be doing me a real disservice if she reinforced the childhood message that I must be good, perfect and performing well to be valuable. She said that I should recognize the hard work I had done and think about how this could be helpful moving forward. I was hurt and mad by her words. I had needed to know she cared, that she wasn’t judging me not wanting to work with me because of all that I had written. I wrote an email (unsent) back to her, sayimg that she was mean and she didn’t care about me and that she didn’t even see how hard or scary this all was and that I should just quit and I hated her. I didn’t send the angry email, though, because that would have made me more vulnerable by letting her know she had hurt my feelings, that she was starting to matter to me. So, I pretended it was all fine, ignored the feelings about the email and went on as if nothing in her email had upset me at all. So, clearly, I only react towards people who already know they matter to me, or who don’t matter at all. Maybe. That seems to hold true when I think about times I have reacted (or wanted to but didn’t) with that “borderline rage”.

So what does this mean? Anything at all? And is it really Ms. Perfect that has a secure attachment? If so, what does that mean for the rest of the parts? Is that why most of me seems to be so afraid of abandonment? (And yet, I mostly hide those fears because of the ingrained need to act normal and to never give others power over me by letting them know they matter to me.) I don’t know. I’m incredibly confused.

I’m still not sure that my first email was raging or mean. I felt scared and sad and just completely abandoned when I wrote it, but mad wasn’t one of the things I was feeling. I’m afraid that Bea read it and heard rage in it, read and decided I was asking her to soak up my rage because of her own stuff. After her ignoring my feelings, I did get mad. And I did lash out. But I still think that she was responding from her own stuff. I think that my stuff and her stuff got mixed up together and created some awful muck, and we are both stuck in it. I’m afraid that she is unable to really hear my feelings around her actions/words starting with that Wednesday and continuing on with her emails because she can’t handle the fact she hurt me.

I have a feeling if someone she didn’t know walked into her office and said, “my therapist was really anxious and upset one day and her anxiety drove my session. I walked in triggered and she wasn’t even emotionally present enough to see that. Her anxiety drove her to talk about insurance matters in a really scary way and I feel so abandoned right now, and like I can’t trust her at all. I’m triggered just walking into her office, I feel like she doesn’t even think I should need to be there, like I should be over all my stuff by now and that she is just tired of dealing with me. I feel like I broke her and everytime I try to talk to her, I just get these very logical rational responses that make her seem even more gone than she felt before and I am afraid this is never ever going to be fixed ” her reaction would be completely different to the one she has shown me.

Then again, maybe not. But I have a feeling that making her choice to not deal with things emotionally all about my inappropriate, raging and mean reaction is more about her not being able to cope with her behavior causing hurt, pain and anger in me. I don’t know. I’m lost.

Maybe none of this matters. Bea realizes that the bad Wednesday was a big deal, and did hurt me alot and did cause a lot of fear and anxiety and abandonment issues to come up. I realize that I lashed out in some of my emails, and also that the bad Wednesday did trigger past hurts and fears. Maybe that’s enough. I just don’t know. Things feel largely unsettled and unrepaired. It still hurts everytime I am triggered and afraid when I realize I have no safe container right now, when I realize I have to deal with the trigger as best I can with no secure base. I still feel like Bea is someone I wish I could trust but can’t. And how can I trust her if I feel like I can’t talk to her and have to hide some of my feelings and thoughts from her?

The first thing: something I wrote

When I was cleaning and thinking, this is what I was thinking about. Here is the something I wrote, that I gave to Bea to read.
The first thing I kept thinking about is the email I sent you, and your later than usual reply. I wasn’t upset because logically I understand that things happen, you are very busy, and that you did email and even acknowledged that you had meant to write back and hadn’t had time. But, and this is that big scary but (at least for me) emotionally, it’s not that simple. It felt like I had finally let something out, after holding so much in for months, and you weren’t there. It felt like maybe you had decided I was “better” or something, so I maybe didn’t need a reply as quickly as I used to. I don’t know. And then when you did reply, some of the reply felt like I’m expected to cope all the time now, and not fall apart, or end up in the bubble, because I coped this summer. It felt like because I was able to function this summer, and able to still be aware that I was shoving things away, burying them in a box until it was a better time to deal with them, that I’m expected to function like that all the time now. Which led to thoughts of “Bea thinks I’m just a drama queen. Bea is annoyed with me and my meltdowns. Bea is tired of dealing with me. Bea is sick and tired of needy broken Alice and she likes coping Alice a lot better. Bea thinks I should be over this crap by now, and is tired of hearing me whine.” And so on, and so on. And while most of me is pretty sure those are crazy thoughts and not true, a part of me is pretty sure they are true. And I’m pretty sure you attempted to talk about some of this that next session with me; I really wasn’t very there. I think I dissociated enough that I don’t remember that conversation very well at all. As soon as you brought up the email, I felt frozen and scared and like this was too much. I know I didn’t say a lot. I hate talking about the relationship. I hate talking about hurt feelings, or stupid thoughts like the ones I just wrote down. It’s so uncomfortable. Really, calling it uncomfortable is like saying that a severed finger is “just a scratch”. But I feel like somehow we need to talk about this, i just have no idea how to do that. Just writing this is making me sick to my stomach and itchy (did you know I sometimes break out in hives when I’m really anxious or upset?). And I think the little girl is sort of wary again, in a way. Because I trust you, because logically you have never given me a reason not to, because you’ve always done everything you’ve said you are going to do, and because you really hear me, because you see me and still accept me But I think the little girl is afraid of the new expectations (possibly perceived, but still very real to her), and afraid to fail and have you go away because of that. She’s afraid if she does reach out, you might not be there now. I actually went back and forth about emailing you again, that weekend, to ask if you had gotten my email, or if you thought I was crazy, or if you were mad that I had said I just couldn’t talk about the eating stuff. I even wrote an email asking those things, talking about you not emailing back, and hurt feelings. I just didn’t send it. Actually, I think, it feels like the little girl decided not to send it; she needed you to email without her asking you to. A test, I guess, maybe. Stupid. Childish. I hate that. So. I guess this is important to talk about. But I don’t like it. It scares me to talk about all this. And that’s another thing; I don’t understand why this is all so scary and hard to talk about. And it’s not just with you. It’s with hubby, Kay, Rebecca, Jamie. (obviously my parents, but that is them as much as me, I think) It’s anyone I am close to. I don’t know. I think I haven’t really talked to Kay for months because I don’t want to discuss the uncomfortable stuff, and she will. She is fine with it. And Jaime? She hurt my feelings, not on purpose, and we talked it out through text and it’s fine, we are okay, except we aren’t because I still feel like there is this weirdness there and she is mad at me or doesn’t like me anymore or whatever. I don’t know. Ugh. And before I would have just ignored it all and pretended everything was fine, and maybe have been so stuck in my head that it wouldn’t have mattered anyway because I wouldn’t have felt any of this. But now. Well, I can’t pretend it’s all okay. But I don’t know how to talk through it either. Ugh. This is so frustrating to me, I’m angry with myself for not being able to act like a grown up and have a simple conversation. 
I thought a lot about the whole ABA tech triggering me thing because she doesn’t do any repair with Kat, and pretends everything is perfect and fine. And I thought a lot about being punished for my emotions; whether it was concrete punishment or just my parents not being there emotionally. And I just, well, I don’t know exactly what, but this all feels really very significant. These triggers, like this, over well, I don’t know how to put it, just normal daily stuff, not trauma stuff, it’s just…ridiculous. I feel like I’m being…I don’t know what. Silly, maybe. But, either way, I can see it so clearly now. Friday, watching Kat and the tech and listening to them, I could just see it, and see exactly how it could remind me of my parents and pretending everything is okay. I kept thinking how I was punished for bad emotions. Anger. Sad. Anxiety. Anything really that isn’t upbeat, happy. I don’t know. And I wonder if that is why it’s so hard for me to cry around people. I mean, I cry in front of you now, but even hubby, I run to the bedroom, and hide if I’m going to cry. I feel almost….guilty, or something, for subjecting others to my bad emotions. Maybe shame. I don’t know, exactly. It’s like I’ve done some thing wrong. And seeing, naming the fact I got punished for feelings, it makes sense why I always feel like I am being bad for feeling certain things– sadness, anxiety, fear, frustration. And anger. Ugh, anger. I don’t know what to do with anger. And I wonder if it’s because I just never was allowed to be angry. And now….I don’t know. How does a person let out the mad feelings without turning into a monster? I mean, emotions like sadness are easier, in a way, because you cry, and you feel the feelings and maybe talk about where they are coming from, but you cry and get the sad out. But what in the world does a person do to get out anger? 
I was so angry with hubby for so much of this weekend. I snapped a few times. Mostly I just made those awful passive aggressive comments– the way he usually does. And I hate that. I don’t like that Alice. I don’t want to be that angry passive aggressive person. But I just….I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. And I can’t even explain the anger I have toward him, except it’s just this general feeling of him not being there and not seeing me and not hearing me, not paying attention. It’s that trigger of “he doesn’t care enough to see me or hear me”. And no matter how many times I try to explain, he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t care to. I don’t know. 
And thinking about how much they pretended everything was okay, leads me to thinking about how they are no longer pretending. And I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with that. It scares me. Because that means the story I have told all along is real. I can’t fall back on the fact I the only one telling it, I must be crazy, I must be a liar, making stuff up, ext, ext. If means that everything was that crazy making, that ugly, that…I don’t know what. And I still….well, I think, like you said on Thursday, even though we have talked about it, it is still so taboo and it feels far away and very separate and is hard to bring up…..I think it’s because I keep it separate, in a way, like, I keep it in that realm of “this MIGHT not be real, so it’s not REALLY part of my story, not really”….I don’t know if that even makes sense. I just know I am afraid of my parents being more real. It terrifies me. Like makes my insides feel frozen, and my chest tight, and I can’t breathe and my body feels frozen, too, and I feel like I need to run away and hide. It doesn’t feel safe. It’s like my safety net is being taken away, and my story is real. Which really, really scares me. 
My nightmare is back. The boyfriend nightmare. Where he is listing everything out. Sometimes it’s different….times…but always, his voice, listing things out. I don’t know. Maybe I need to talk about this, about him. But how am I supposed to talk about this, when I can’t even write it down, because of the words? Ugh. I hate how afraid I am of certain words. It’s ridiculous. And I head his voice in my head, telling me that no one is going to want me now, I’m ruined, a slut. And then I wonder if hubby had known me, instead of fake perfect me, if he would have wanted me still? Because I sometimes think he is refusing to see me, because he is waiting for the me he married to come back.