She said, ‘what your mum did was cruel and not loving at all. I’m so sorry Lucy, so sorry that you had to go through that… what a brave and strong little girl you were to withstand that, to not show her any emotions until you knew you were safely away from her. Of course you’re worried I will hurt you and of course you hide your feelings from me… you’re very good at looking after yourself.’ I said, ‘but I just feel like you’re being dramatic, it’s not that bad…’ I tailed off saying, ‘I don’t even know why I told you…’ Anna interrupted, ‘I don’t think you really believe that. I think you know. It shouldn’t have happened, you didn’t deserve it… it’s amazing the love and care you show your children – the exact opposite to what you received.’ I whispered, ‘It’s not fair…. but that sounds so entitled… why do I deserve anything better..?’ Anna said, ‘I don’t think it’s entitled to want to have parents who love you. I think it’s a given that when you have children, you choose to have them, it’s then your responsibility to look after them, make decisions in their favour, care for them and love them, feed them, clothe them, be kind to them… every child deserves to be loved.’ She continued but I’d started to drift further away as I lowered my face into my hands and everything around me faded into the fog. Waves rising in my chest. I held my breath. At some point she slowed to a silence and we sat there for a while with me not breathing. She asked if I’d like her to put her hand on my arm and she gently told me we had 5 minutes left. She said, ‘I think, Lucy, that actually those two words are perfect. I think they beautifully sum this whole thing up. Not fair. And the adult can stick the ‘f’ word in the middle… it’s not fair and I think you’re very brave to come here and trust me with this…’

I told Anna of the realisation I’d had after reading Carolyn Spring’s blog post about responding to emotional pain with self harm. (When I mentioned it I noticed an expression on Anna’s face, initially my frightened child interpreted it as anger but I actually think she was just thinking, it was quite a blank expression. I know from my internet browsing that Anna follows Carolyn Spring’s facebook page and so she is aware of her work. I wonder if she was thinking about how it might relate to the work she’s doing with me. I told her that through all of that crying I had been desperate to hurt myself. Then I realised that if I had hurt myself I would have been punishing that little girl for trusting me with her feelings. That it’s taken her a very long time to trust me enough to cry like that and what I really want is to bring that pain to a session and cry with Anna from the core of my child. If I were to self harm it would push my child away again, hurt her for being hurt… I was rambling through my thoughts and looking all around the room trying to formulate sentences to build a sense of what I had learned over those two days. I finally looked at Anna and she was kind of red in the face and had tears in her eyes… probably the most emotional I’ve ever seen her. She said, ‘oh Lucy it’s so wonderful hearing you talk about your child like that, looking after her, really so lovely…’ her voice cracked, ‘she so deserves to be loved and looked after.’ She smiled through her tears and nodded me on. I was hesitant, told her that it really hurts to see emotion on her face because it makes me so acutely aware of what I might be feeling underneath it all and also it hurts because I wish someone had attuned to me like that when I was little. She said she knows how painful that is. She asked me if I’m able to take it in, how she was being with me. I covered my face and said, ‘yeah a little.’ She said, ‘good… Lucy, when you are away from me and your small part struggles to feel connected to me, I want you to remember my face, remember the emotion you can see here. This cant be faked, this is real. I wouldn’t feel like this if I wished I wasn’t working with you.’