One final goodbye.

cont. from the previous two posts.

After my call ended with Anna there was this deafening silence. This physical aching. A vacuum where hope and love used to be. The worst pain. I couldn’t even think any thoughts I was swimming in this physical agony. I could only imagine one way to deal with it and that was to end my life. I wanted to die. I think for the very fortunate people who have not experienced developmental trauma or attachment trauma… those who have never needed to form an attachment to a therapist, may find it unfathomable, the pain I was in. But for those of us unfortunate enough to be carrying with them this motherwound that their therapist is lovingly guiding them through the healing of, you all will understand. This was my worst case scenario. I learned to love through this woman. The most powerful and beautiful attachment I have ever felt, gone. I don’t remember the few hours that followed but I’m told I text my husband to tell him, ‘Anna has had to stop working with clients and I will never see her again. I’m going for a shower. Please don’t talk to me about it. I can’t.’ I then silently howled on the floor of the shower for an unknown amount of time. For the past year or so I have had this little routine in the shower, where I draw a heart on the glass and smile thinking of the blue heart crystal Anna gave me as a gift, a tiny transitional object that meant the world to me and kept me connected to her between sessions. On Tuesday, I couldn’t bring myself to draw the heart. I just cried and cried on my knees under the heat of the water. ‘I should never have let myself love her. I should never have opened my heart to this. I knew she would leave me. Everyone leaves.’ At some point I must have got out the shower, dried myself, walked downstairs and past my kids and out the door. I got in my car for the first time in two months and I text my husband to tell him I was going for a drive and I promised I would come home.

I drove the forty minute journey I know by heart and parked up outside Anna’s office. I sat in my car and cried for over two hours. I emailed Linda and asked her to be gentle with me in my session with her the next day. I told her, ‘This morning I spoke to Anna. I’m sure she’ll have spoken to you too. I can’t even bring myself to write it out. I’m in my car outside the office, I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing. I just wanted to feel closer to her even though she’s not here and will never be here again. I can’t face going home. I know you probably feel lumbered with me now. I won’t make you work with me long term if you don’t want to but please just help me get through this grief. I don’t think I can cope with this on my own.’

At some point I made my way home. I phoned the doctor and cried down the phone at her that my therapist had died and I needed something for the grief. I couldn’t bear having to explain what had happened and I needed her to know what I was going through. It didn’t feel like a lie. To me she had died. My doctor got the prescription to me two hours later which was amazing. I spent the rest of the day in a haze. That night I stayed up until 4am writing the following email to Anna. I got up again at 7 and proof read it over and over through tear filled eyes until finally sending it at 11.30am. Half an hour before my session with Linda. I text her to let her know to look for the email and asked if she could please reply so I would know she’d read it. I then stated that I understood I must not message her again. Another fracture to my weary shattered heart.

Hi Anna,

There are some things that I would have told you if we’d had more time to work to an end and if I’d had more time to process the news. I feel like I just presented you with a stunned silence and tears for most of the call… there was so much more I wanted to say to you. After two and a half years of deep attachment work, how could we possibly say all we needed to say in under fifteen minutes. I know how you work and I know that you’d hoped to be able to let me have the ending I wanted – the fact that this brief ending was all we had tells me that you have had no choice.

As soon as I read your text, I knew in the pit of my stomach what you were going to say. I almost wanted to ignore the text just to delay you telling me the inevitable. I knew that the minute the call started it would be the beginning of the end. And as you were speaking, I didn’t know what to say to you. I wanted to beg you to change your mind. I wanted to tell you I’d wait for you. I wanted to ask you why we can’t just do phone sessions, I don’t need to ever sit in a room with you again, I’ll take phone calls over zero contact. But I could hear in your voice and in the words you were saying that this has been an impossible decision for you. And I know from the work we’ve done together that the last thing you wanted to do was stop working with me abruptly like this. So, I know it must be serious and difficult and I didn’t want to make it any more difficult for you.

I’ve been grieving since our phone call as I am sure you will understand and perhaps this is a grieving process for you too. The end of an era for you, not just with me but your counselling career in general. I am so sorry that you have been put in this position where you’ve had to stop. You are an amazing therapist and it’s a real loss that you’ve had to step back. I really hope that something happens soon to make it safe again for you. You deserve to be well and to be doing the job you love. I realise I only know you in the context of therapist but you are an amazing therapist and it’s clear to me that you were meant to be sitting in that chair.

After our call I got in the car and drove to the office. I parked up at the end of the street and cried for nearly two hours. I know you weren’t there and you’ll likely never be back there but the place connects us and I needed to feel closer to you. I imagined you sitting beside me telling me, ‘I know it doesn’t feel like it but it’s really so good that you’re feeling the feelings and letting them out… I’m proud of you, well done… did you hear that Lucy..? Well done!’

I want you to know that the impact you’ve had on me is immeasurable. You said on the phone that we’ve built the foundations together and that’s true, but it’s foundations that my whole family stand on, not just me. You showed me how to mother my kids by mothering me. I don’t know how you feel about love in the therapy room, you never seemed to bat an eyelid when I told you how much I loved Paul. I’ve thought so much about this recently, what is love and is it real when it occurs in the therapy room. It had been on the tip of my tongue in session with you so many times in the last few months, to tell you that I love you, but I was always too afraid, too ashamed. It is really clear to me now though that me loving you is the work. There is nothing more vulnerable and trusting than to love someone and there is nothing shameful about it either. Of course I love you, the way you’ve treated me week after week.. 126 sessions, several phone calls, hundreds of texts, the hugs, a blue heart crystal and perfume for Luna, Baby and Suki… how could I not love you. Since the phone call yesterday I’ve been so floored by the grief of losing you that I’ve had moments of wishing I’d never let you in, because of the loss I’m feeling now. But then I look around at my life and I can see that loving you and letting you in has brought colours into my life that were not there before. And whatever we call it… unconditional positive regard, deep care, therapeutic holding… the way you treated me was loving. Your kindness and patience and care. The way you respected and understood my defences. The way you thought carefully about what I needed, the way you listened, the way you offered heartfelt apology if you missed something or unintentionally hurt me… that is a form of love. It is the verb – to love… love in action. You showed me how I deserved to be treated and as you said on the phone, that doesn’t just disappear. It’s changed something in me permanently. I will carry that inside me forever. You have given me an example of how to treat myself. It impacts how I treat Gracie, Reuben and Adam. And I often see you in the way they treat each other now too. The impact of your therapeutic love will reach far beyond our awareness.

I’m obviously familiar with the grief and longing for a childhood lost; something in the past you will never be able to change or get back. I’m familiar with the grief of losing someone you love. Now I’m noticing that grief is about the future too. The plans I’d made and the way I thought things would unfold. There is a grief for all the sessions I wanted to have with you. So many things that I planned on taking to you in time. Memories I held on to that I thought I’d get to ‘one day’… so many drawings in my folder that I still wanted to share with you. So many things I foolishly held back on, thinking we had all the time in the world. And I know you would say that patience is important and timing is everything and we went at the pace that was right for me… and not to regret going slow or holding back because that is what I needed at the time. But maybe also I could learn through this to not let fear hold me back from getting what I need when it is right in front of me… all those hugs I didn’t ask for. Maybe I could learn to not be complacent and not assume things will always be as they are.

Anna, for the past two and a half years you have held hope for me. Whenever something came up that felt overwhelming I would feel calmed with the knowledge that I could take it to you and we’d work on it together. I am really sad and angry that through no fault of either of us, we won’t get to continue the work the way we both planned and it feels like I have lost my hope. On the one hand I can hold the knowledge that when Paul stopped working with me I didn’t feel anything. In contrast, I am feeling it all right now… that in itself is very painful evidence of progress. But on the other hand, I feel like I can’t go on without you and I’ve lost any strength I had.

I will work on the raw edges of this grief with Linda and see how things settle between us. She is very different to you and for a few reasons I’m not sure if her style of therapy is right for me. I also don’t know if I could face walking into the building without you being there to greet me with your smile and arms open wide. I know I should continue in therapy but it will take years to build up the trust again with someone new. I will remember what you’ve said. That I am not too much. That you are proud of me and how I bring more than 100% to my healing work. That I impacted you. That you felt privileged to work with me. That you are not rejecting me. That you will always be with me and that you will not forget me. I’m typing this through tears Anna, I am not ready for this to end. I wish I could find two full PPE uniforms for us both and hug you one last time!

I wish I’d met you in a different capacity, so that I could still see you. It’s really hard grieving the loss of you knowing that other people get to see you and spend time with you. But if I had met you as a work acquaintance or neighbour I would never have experienced the side to you that I did. I am grateful that I was privileged enough to meet that part of you.

As you know, I have written out every session we ever had, in detail. (I actually used to imagine that we’d one day write a book together.) Having it all written out is such a powerful, physical reminder of what we experienced together. I am so glad I can revisit your words. I can be reminded of the laughs we had, the analogies, the terrified words spoken for the first time and being met with compassion and understanding… the quiet, gentle moments of me feeling and you witnessing, containing, comforting. I remember probably over two years ago, the session when I told you that as a small child trapped in an argument filled car on a long journey I would stare out the window and imagine the rolling hills were like blankets and I’d lie out there in my mind imagining God holding me, and you repeated it back to me and I felt the pain of it all in my flesh and bones for the first time ever. I remember the session with your cards and I chose the bear coming out of her cave. And you said the bear was me… she is strong, protective, with a kind face. I think that was the first time I felt truly seen by you. Maybe by anyone. Anna, thank you so much for encouraging me to draw again. From that very first drawing of the Mumma Bear and her cub that turned into a cushion that is beside me right now to the near hundred drawings that followed. Drawing has been a catalyst in building my relationship with my child and deepening my healing journey. It started as the only way I could process and share my thoughts with you and it will always be a deeply special thing between us both. I remember the time you asked me if I’d ever imagined hugging you (because my nail technician had hugged me) and it threw me into a shame spiral that you very carefully coaxed me out of… and then finally months later I braved asking you… you looked overjoyed that I’d asked and unquestionably opened your arms to me. I’ve never been held by anyone the way you held me Anna. And sometimes at the end of a really intense session when you would very subtly rock from side to side (I don’t even know if you were aware that you were doing it), that 60 seconds of holding and swaying was like you were reaching back in time and scooping baby Lucy out of her cot and soothing her. I wanted to hold on longer and longer with each hug. Remember the session when we both had the giggles about the mac n cheese on the floor. And the time you came and sat on the floor next to me and told me it wasn’t my fault and that you were sorry for what had happened to me. All the times you let me drag that chair right up beside you so there wasn’t even any room for our legs anymore. And the time you sat beside me and told me, ‘you don’t need to hurt yourself for me to know how much pain you’re in, I believe you when you tell me how you feel.’ That was fucking powerful Anna and I have repeated those words to myself hundreds of times the past couple of months. All the times you’ve told me I’m a good mum when I have struggled so hard to believe it. Generously offering me reduced rates, gladly allowing me two sessions a week… everything Anna. I remember all of it. Every smile. Every gentle hand on my arm. All the sessions you watched me so carefully and the times where you would respectfully look down when I asked you to not look at me. I remember your tear-filled eyes as you showed me that you feel for me, that you were feeling with me. I remember every single session, every text and phone call. From the first, to the last.  

If we’d had time to work to an end the way we both wanted, I would have given you a tiny Luna Panda as a parting gift. I would have drawn you a picture that in some way represented all the growth and progress I’d made, thanks to you. I would have made you a card and written some words of gratitude inside… maybe thrown an analogy in there too! I would have hugged you and thanked you and probably cried while hugging you which is something I wished I had been able to do during many sessions. I would have told you how thankful I am that I walked into your office on the 16^th of September 2017. Thankful that I am not numb anymore and that I have a voice.

Please look after yourself and if you find a way in the near future to continue your practice, please contact me so we can have some sessions to work to an end together the way we’d both hoped. I want to beg you to change your mind, Anna. I want to suggest that we just have a break of how ever many weeks or months you need, with me not contacting you and then when you start back up again I want to work with you again. I’d never build a relationship up with another therapist in a few months like the deep connection we have made over the past two and a half years. I’d stop with them and go back to you in a heartbeat. The pandemic won’t last forever, surely there is a way to keep our work going. I haven’t eaten since you called and I’ve cried almost non stop. I really wish there was another way, I’m struggling to make sense of any of this because you said we would get through this together. I’m left wondering if someone has pushed you into this… how can it be ending like this when I know you didn’t want it to end this way? A brief phone call with no warning just doesn’t feel right as a way of ending things, I’m sure you must feel that way too. If you feel able in the next few days or weeks please could you let me have even just one phone call to try to process an end with you. I was blindsided by your call yesterday and can’t believe it’s going to end like that. I want to hold on to everything we’ve worked on but there are moments where all I have is questions and It’s unbearable to imagine never talking to you again.

That being said, I want the main message in this email to be of massive gratitude. I want you to know that I will never forget you. One day when the kids are adults, I imagine telling them who Anna really was. The woman that mummy visited every week for two and a half years… and how she changed my life and theirs. 

Thank you.
Love Lucy x

I then had my session with Linda at 12 noon which I will write about in another post.

At 6.36pm I received this…

Hi Lucy

I want to thank you for your email which touched my heart and I will treasure it forever. Your words mean so much to me and I want to thank you for sharing your thoughts. It is unfortunate, yet it was necessary, that our ending had to be by phone yesterday.  I am grateful to have this final contact by receiving your email today and my reply to you.

Please be reassured that no one has ‘forced me” into ending my practice. I cannot say when or even if I will return. I will commit to you to let you know, if I do start back counselling. However, it is really important Lucy that you carry on with your own therapy journey, as there is no guarantee if, or when, I would return.

Please know that I also will never forget you.  It has been a huge privilege to work with you and I have learned so much from you.

I will be closing my email account down now, so please know that I will not be able to receive or send any further emails.

I wish you well on your continued journey and growth.

Love Anna

(see part 1 here)

On Tuesday 19th May I wrote a text for Anna in my notes that I planned to send that evening during our missed session time. In it I explained, ‘…texting you twice a week feels like a lot but the reality is that I think about talking to you hundreds of times a day and limiting it to just two texts a week is actually really hard. I feel a lot of shame around this longing for you but in my defense, my therapy isn’t finished yet. I still need support…and I miss the sound of your voice and the way you make me feel.’ I never got to finish or send the text because I received a message from Anna at half ten in the morning asking if she could phone me. As soon as I read her text I knew in the pit of my stomach what she was going to say. I almost wanted to ignore the text just to delay the inevitable. I knew that the minute the call started it would be the beginning of the end. And as she was speaking, I didn’t know what to say to her. I could hear in her voice and in the words she was saying that it was breaking her heart just like it was breaking mine.

She sounded ill and tired and emotional. She said, ‘I’m calling you today, Lucy, because as you know I am in a very high risk category and I have to do what is right for my health. So, I’ve made the very difficult decision to stop practicing as a therapist and not work with clients anymore.’ I felt the panic rising and I sat silently listening with tears slowly streaming down my cheeks. I wanted to beg her to change her mind, it didn’t feel real. Doesn’t she know I can’t live without her. That I don’t know how to mother without her mothering me. That I have so many more things I needed to talk to her about and process with her. WITH HER. Instead I just made listening noises, saying, ‘okay…’ quietly… and listened some more.

Anna explained that with things the way they were she wasn’t able to meet clients and it wasn’t fair to keep things going. I wanted to tell her that I would wait as long as it took but something silenced me. I just listened to her. She told me that I am strong and she reminded me of the toolbox I have made, things like mindfulness, meditation, journaling, drawing and that I am now able to ask for help. She said, ‘I will hold you in mind Lucy. I will always remember you. Little things like how we both love talking in analogies, every time I explain something in an analogy it makes me think of you and I smile. And when you’re working with another therapist. If they don’t get the analogies – you’re creative, you’ll find another way to be seen and heard, you’ll find a way with another therapist. You have a voice now. When you started working with me you didn’t have a voice and now you do. I want you to use that voice. Use that voice to get what you need out of the sessions and out of your therapy.’ She said, ‘this is not how I wanted things to end Lucy and I’m so sorry you’re not getting the ending that you wanted. You didn’t get it with Paul and now you’re not getting it with me.’ I couldn’t really speak because I was crying. She said, ‘don’t let this be the end of your process, this is an ending with me but it’s not the end for you – take this to Linda. Don’t just draw a line or put a lid on the box of our work, be honest with how you feel about us ending like this and talk it through with Linda, all of your feelings, don’t just leave it here…’ I said, ‘I wouldn’t be able to do that anyway…’ and I started to cry heavily.

It started to sink in and I felt like the air had been pulled from my lungs. I said, ‘So this is the last time I’ll speak to you and I’m never going to see you again?’ She said, ‘Yes that’s right. I’m closing the practice and won’t be counselling anymore. You will notice my details come off the psychology sites, I’m not going to be working with any clients. I am not rejecting you Lucy, I wish it could be different but there is no other way. I am making a decision for the good of my health.’ She sort of hesitated and there was a break in us talking then she said, ‘Lucy, I never planned any of this. This has been the hardest decision to make and one that I have thought very carefully about, Lucy this is coming from the heart, I am so sorry we are having to end this way… Please know that this is not your fault.’ I told her that I could hear it was hard for her too.

She had this deep gravity in her voice as she said, ‘I want you to listen very carefully… I want you to know that you are not too much Lucy, you are NOT too much and you were never too much. And if you are ever working with a therapist and you start to feel like you’re too much I want you to know that THAT is the work. That’s where the work is. Tell them. Tell the therapist everything that you’re thinking and feeling. Because you are not and you will never be too much, Lucy.’ There was some silence and then she said, ‘You know, because our work is ending, unfortunately that means…’ I interrupted and said through tears, ‘I know. I can’t message you again. I know I can’t message you if you’re no longer my therapist.’ She made agreeing noises. I took a breath and said, ‘I’m going to have so many things I want to say to you… as soon as you go I’m going to think of them all… Anna, I want you to know… (crying) I want you to know that you changed my life Anna, working with you has changed me. I want you to know that… and I’m thankful. So thankful for all your patience and your care. And I’m so sorry that you’re ill and that this has happened and that you’ve had to make this decision. Shit this is so awful.’ I cried a little more here. She told me she was so grateful for my words and she knew how hard this is and that it was hard for her too.

Anna’s voice was cracking. She sounded ill and emotional. She said, ‘If you remember nothing else from this phone call Lucy, I want you to remember that this is not me rejecting you. I am doing this for my health, not because of you. I am so very proud of you Lucy. And I want your child to hear this, I am so so proud of her. She’s done so well through all of this. I’ve watched you grow so much in two and a half years. Working with you… it’s a two way thing, I learned a lot from working with you and I know you can only ever have 100% but you always gave 100 plus percent… you’ve amazed me… it’s been inspirational to watch, you gave your all, every session, week in week out and between sessions.’

She continued, ‘Remember Lucy, be patient. This deep work takes time. I know you want to rush through it sometimes but be patient. It’s like building a house. We built strong foundations together. That doesn’t just disappear, it’s there inside you forever now. And I am always with you. Everything I’ve said and the patience I was able to give you. It doesn’t go away. It’s always with you. And you are with me. I want you to know that you changed my life too Lucy. Working with you changed me. It has been a privilege to work with you and watch you grow. I care deeply about you Lucy and I will never forget you.’

We told each other to take care and that was it. Goodbye. Forever.

And as the call ended, my heart was ripped out. The waves of grief kept punching me in the gut and drowning me all at once. I was just thinking, ‘how do I even get off this bed and walk downstairs to my family… my beloved therapist who I adore and who has been more of a mother to me than my own ever was is now gone forever. The only woman I ever learned to trust… my worst nightmare has come true… I hope she knows that I love her.’

I posted for the last time on Instagram and my blog on the 9th May. At that point Anna had let me know that she was taking another break from sessions, she was ill with her asthma shortly after the last episode and needed to look after her health. I hadn’t sat in a room with her since February 29^th. We’d had a few phone and video sessions then I had 6 sessions with Linda before going back to Anna again. In that time we were able to have three sessions which felt collectively very connecting and left me feeling emotionally close to Anna, secure in our attachment. I was feeling strong and present and wanted to spend some time living mindfully, focusing on the present moment. I didn’t feel the need to go back to Linda but I did contact her and she made it clear that if ever I wanted to get in touch with her that I should, without hesitation.

The 25th of April was my last video session with Anna. Since then I have sent her a text during each missed session time. I shared with her what I was doing to keep on top of things and I let her know of times I had been reminded of my growth. At some point into the second week I began to struggle with missing her. I reached out to Anna and she sent me a beautiful text in which she said, ‘It’s been lovely to hear how you’re looking after yourself. It’s okay Lucy, we are okay, hold on to that.’ Shortly after that I arranged for a session with Linda. I realised I was trying to push through life during a pandemic with a lot of stressors I wasn’t accustomed to without the support I usually would have in far less stressful times… it had began to feel punishing, why struggle alone when the help was there? Although unable to articulate it back then, I was aware of a sense that the support would be needed. I am constantly reminded to not underestimate the power of intuition.

Linda and I had two sessions that week where we confirmed that we would work together short term until Anna was well enough to start up again. Though I had this same ache in the very centre of my belly telling me I would never sit with Anna again. In the first session on the 13th May Linda was keen to understand why the change of heart. I wasn’t able to articulate what exactly had changed, I just felt the need to reconnect with her. The session saw me quickly rattling through some sort of blow by blow account of my early traumas in a very disconnected way. Linda kept reminding me to take my time as she noted that I was sharing one massive thing after another with no emotional expression. ‘Hello dissociation!’ I joked. She shared with me that it felt almost like a warning to her – this is what you’re dealing, with, are you up for it? I told her that’s exactly what I did when I started working with Anna and she said it made sense but to remember that she is there in the interim, until Anna returns.

The next session on the 16th I was very much in my feelings. We spent some time connecting to the discomfort in my chest and the pain in my throat. We focused in on what the sensations were telling me. That the ache in my chest was attachment pain – longing, and the pain in my throat was unexpressed grief and the need to keep it all down and not let it show. I spoke about anticipating the loss of Anna and Linda reassured me that Anna was not leaving me, though she understood that the fear was very real and valid. I was cycling through a lot of very negative self talk. I could feel Linda was connecting to my pain, she was empathising and her tone and words were very compassionate. But she was very direct with me and said a few things that were hard to hear.

At one point Linda told me it must be so painful to constantly hear these very cruel and unforgiving criticisms that I aim at myself constantly and that she can tell that I rarely get a break from the filter in my mind that distorts everything she is saying to me. At one point she told me, ‘it feels like there are 3 people in this session, me, you and your inner critic… it’s frustrating for me that she keeps getting in the way of your therapy… I wonder what it would feel like to have her step outside the door?’ I was aware of two very powerful responses to this. One voice of gratitude, ‘wow, she does actually want to reach me?’ and the other voice of anger, ‘how dare she feel that after 8 sessions she will be entitled to reach me without the protector being present!’ I decided to shelve that response for another day and quietly responded, ‘…actually there are 4 of us here… you, me, my inner critic and my child… there’s a very young part of me here and she’s the reason I keep dragging myself to these sessions. She needs this intense, caring gaze from a therapist.’ Linda immediately softened and said in a really clear and firm voice, ‘and I want her to know that she is always welcome here. Your child is always welcome with me, Lucy.’

There was another poignant moment where Linda addressed one of my self-criticisms. She said, ‘it really struck me when you said you feel like you’re ‘textbook’, I want you to know Lucy that there is nothing textbook about you. Nothing.’ She linked this to something I had said earlier (directed by the inner critic), that this all feels like a game… that therapists just say and do what they think needs to be said and done for the client to ‘heal’. She said, ‘it actually triggered a response here for me…’ (she put her hand on the centre of her chest)… ‘this is not a game for me, Lucy. This is very real. I could not do this job if I was faking, I could easily go get another job far less taxing… I’ve had plenty other jobs that were way easier than this… I choose to do this because it is the most real job I think I could ever do… and not a game at all!’ I really believed her, I could see and feel her sincerity.

As I reflected on the session I was aware of a sense of frustration and disappointed that Linda seemed to have completely misunderstood the fundamental basics of the nervous system – that my inner critic/protective part is an automatic response that my system has perfected over the years in response to perceived threat and not in any way a conscious decision. I wrote an email to her that I didn’t send but committed to talking to her about it the next time we met. I sent her a shorter email telling her that I’d had a kickback from the previous session and it was important to talk about it next time.

Despite this misalignment, my overall feeling of the session was that of connection and holding. I can feel deeply that Linda is a very sincere and grounded person who has a really clear sense of herself. I began to feel a deep awareness inside myself that I have begun investing a lot in this relationship… I didn’t know back then however just how much I was going to need it.

(see part 2 here)

• 

I am going to take a break from this page and my blog. It might only last a few days or it might be a few weeks. I’m going to continue interacting for the next 24 hours and then I’ll remove the apps from my phone so I’m not tempted. I need a break from the technology, the distraction, the constant pulling me away from my life and my feelings. I’m okay, I feel strong and clear headed but I’m also holding a lot of pain missing Anna more than ever. I’m going to have a session with Linda this week to help me unpack some things that have come up this week.

Before I go I want you to know… I’ve received many messages since my last post from people telling me that my page helps them make sense of themselves and they’ll miss me. They’ve said that what I write helps them feel less alone. I want you to know that you are not alone in your experiences. I’ve had the privilege of receiving hundreds of messages over the past year from people sharing their experiences and struggles and therapy journeys and I can tell you, WE ARE ALL THE SAME. Deep down, we all want to be seen and heard and loved for who we are. We’re all carrying deep pain and a longing for connection. I want you to know that however you are feeling makes total sense. Your coping strategies and defences make total sense. If I could give one piece of advice to those of you struggling with various things in therapy, I would encourage you to say that exact thing to your therapist. Tell them what’s not working. Tell them how you feel. Write it down, whisper it if you need to. Text it to them while they’re sat in front of you. Try any way to communicate your thoughts and needs… your therapist should meet this honest authenticity with total respect, safety, attunement and care. Anna has always gently encouraged me to share every thought and feeling and I believe that is the key to the progress I’ve made.
If you look at the pages I follow you’ll find some incredible therapy related accounts that you may not already be aware of. I really enjoy the connections I’ve made on here and the genuine friendships fostered. I really care about you all.

I’ll be around until this time tomorrow. 💙🌱🌸🌿🐼

On the 4th of May I was reminded by my WordPress account that I started this blog and insta page a year ago on that date.

It made me reflect a lot on the journey I’ve been on. Not just the past year that I’ve shared but I also looked back on the past two and a half years with Anna. I read over some session notes I made since the first meeting we had. I then looked at notes I made from sessions with my first therapist which started in Feb 2013. It made me reflect even further back to my teen years when I started looking into self help off the back of a very brief interaction with a child psychologist.

My life has changed beyond recognition since then. And even in the past 12 months things have changed so much. My daily life is different, my mental health has improved. My self awareness has grown. My needs are different. But also… it made me wonder what I’m looking for… and what do I get here that I could be getting in my ‘real life’ if this wasn’t here. My avoidant tendencies quite enjoy the anonymous intimacy of the page but I could do with pushing myself to step outside the comfort zone a bit with the people I live with… namely my husband.

I’m considering taking a step back from the social media side of my therapy journey for a while. I’ve been thinking about these plates Anna is always talking about that I’m spinning and the gears Linda encouraged me to move down. My life is busy and somewhat stressful and very full. And the people in front of me need my full attention when often I am pulled by the bright lights and neat little squares of Instagram. I’m curious to see what happens when I take away the distraction and self medication of the screen. I’ll probably still keep my private pages going though I might take a break from that as well. In the past when I’ve had a digital detox, only good things came from it. I’m feeling the need for another.

I know there are a number of people who talk to me regularly on my Instagram page so I’ll give notice before I make any decisions to disable the account but I guess I’m just sharing my thoughts here. I think my family would benefit from me spending less time online and quite possibly I would too!

‘Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable,’ David Augsburger

Anna and I have agreed that I can send her a message during our usual session time to touch base and let her know what’s going on for me. It was my idea. It helps me to know that she is reading my words. It’s a poor substitute for a session but it’s better than nothing. Under normal circumstances I would have seen her tonight and the intensity of my missing her grows massively on these days. I remember reading once that attachment work in therapy is meant to closely mirror the mother infant dyad. The theory behind having regular, predictable sessions at the same time every week is that it mimics the regular, predictable feeding, holding and rocking of the infant. The tiny, completely defenceless baby has these very basic needs for shelter, warmth and milk and is completely reliant on the mother (attachment figure) to meet those needs. The baby learns to trust that her mother will meet these needs. It’s also important that there are small breaks and ruptures in this dance. The infant needs to tolerate a bearable amount of distress and then be met with her mother’s calm and confident nervous system so that she can learn to co-regulate. When a person hasn’t had this reliable attachment figure and they haven’t had the opportunity to co-regulate, their dysregulation very quickly escalates to hyper or hypoarousal. Then we find ourselves in therapy… learning how to coregulate as adults. So my messages to Anna on therapy days, I guess, are like having the cot rocked, a nursery rhyme stuck on and a bottle shoved into my hands. Not quite the same as being lifted, sang to, cradled and fed at the breast, but it’s better than nothing.

When Anna was ill at the start of the lockdown I worked with Linda because I felt in my heart that Anna would never come back to me. Reluctantly I went to Linda because I couldn’t cope with the overwhelming grief of losing Anna. It wasn’t because I couldn’t bear a break in therapy, it was because I couldn’t hold the loss by myself. This time I know Anna has not deliberately left me and that we will resume our work together so I don’t feel like I need Linda in the same way. Having said that, life feels a bit frozen right now. It’s like when someone hits the pause button on tv at a really awkward moment and everyone’s facial expressions and body positions look uncomfortable and impossible to hold, slightly out of focus. I’m still holding awareness of the moments of total peace and contentedness I’ve had recently, but that’s not how I’m feeling right now. Sometimes I feel as strong as an oak tree and others my resilience feels tissue paper thin.

I’ve been reading over previous session notes to ground myself in the work Anna and I have done and I’m reminded that one of the goals in therapy is for the therapist to show the client that they are worthy of care and kindness and love. So that not only do they learn to expect that from other people, but most importantly they learn how to give it to themselves. I feel like I was just learning to let Anna’s care and kindness in. Just learning to let it feel safe to let my guard down and feel worthy, then the lockdown happened. It’s been 9 weeks since I sat with her. I’m writing out the things I would normally share in a session but it’s not the same.

I read this the other day; ‘Being heard is so close to being loved that for the average person they are almost indistinguishable,’ by an author called David Augsburger. It stopped me in my tracks because I realised that’s what’s so intoxicating about therapy. I have conflicting feelings about that. Because on the one hand, the therapeutic relationship feels like the most loving exchange I’ve ever experienced. On the other hand, I wonder if I’ve been tricked by the technique of active listening, to feel that there’s love there when really it’s just one person doing what she’s trained to do and another person desperately trying to get her needs met. I’m reminded of another thing I read in the book, ‘Maybe You Should Talk to Someone,’ by Lori Gottlieb. She’s a therapist and talks about difficult people (including difficult clients) and she says that it’s impossible to get to know someone intimately and not find things to like about them. So maybe the active listening, that feels like love to the client, also fosters some sort of love in the therapist.

I’m noticing the duality of my feelings a lot this week. There is a carefree ease knowing that I’m not spending my days either preparing for or processing a session. Alongside that there is an emptiness and a longing to sit in that room with Anna and talk and think and feel and be known deeply. There is gratitude that I am safe and well, that I have all this time to spend with Adam and the kids. While simultaneously there is a burning desire to be by myself, get in the car and drive somewhere, have the normal routine of my old life returned to me.

Nights are really hard right now because Grace has been up screaming and crying and then she wakes Reuben and inevitably Adam and I run out of patience. Sometimes it takes hours of sitting with her before she calms and falls asleep. I’ve read that it’s to be expected that some children will regress in times of stress and I believe that emotionally Grace is going back to younger behaviours in an attempt to increase the intensity of support we give her. But there is such resistance inside me. I have had moments of shouting at the top of my voice at her. It breaks my heart. And I know the key is in the repair but really I’m feeling my way in the dark with all this. I haven’t got a clue how to override my instinct which seems to become instantly triggered by her fear. It’s really hard to meet her emotional needs right now. When she’s crying the last thing I want to do is comfort her. I have an inkling that in order to get through this time without Anna, I’ve closed myself off to my younger parts and it’s virtually impossible to ignore my inner child while meeting the needs of Grace. My Little Lucy is watching and she rages at the injustice.

Yesterday Adam and I sat down with Grace and talked about her fears of us dying and all the changes that have happened in such a short space of time. Last night I sat with her until she fell asleep. She stayed calm and didn’t get out of bed all night. I was proud of her but then wondered if I’m just teaching her to internalise her feelings like I was made to do. It seems I’m only happy when she is quiet and not overly emotional.

Last night, Adam went through to Reuben’s room because he had been up through the night and he must have fallen asleep on his floor. I couldn’t quieten my mind and suddenly found myself flooded by emotional flashbacks which I haven’t experienced in months. We’ve spent the past few days talking a lot about moving house in the near future and I guess my mind had wandered to memories of when I was 7 and we moved from house (again). I felt the grief of leaving the only place I was truly happy as a child. I was crying heavily for hours. I remembered the session when Anna helped me understand that my childhood ended when we moved from the farm and that ‘7’ had been abandoned in that empty cottage. I held Baby and just let myself cry. It’s the sort of crying that has a certain smell and energy about it. Like if someone had walked into the room they could sense it was full of grief. In an attempt to comfort my younger part, I tried to imaging going back to the farm and meeting ‘7’ and holding her hand but I couldn’t do it, she didn’t want me, she huddled into the corner of the old empty bedroom and hid her face from me. Instead, I put my hand on my arm and imagined it was Anna sitting with me on my bed. I remembered the session when we were processing my feelings about ‘4’ and Anna said, ‘I just want to scoop that little girl up and give her a big hug.’ I imagined her saying that about ‘7’ and could easily see in my mind ‘7’ being comforted by Anna. I heard the church bells ring three times and realised it was 3am. I must have fallen asleep shortly after that.

It strikes me that there is a parallel between my experience and Grace’s. At night time our biggest feelings come out. My response is to hide under the covers and cry silently, like I always have done. Whereas Gracie storms out of her bedroom, loudly thumping each foot to ensure we hear her and screams and sobs at the top of the stairs until we come up to her. When I worked on this with Linda she said to me, ‘how wonderful that she felt that scared feeling inside her and screamed out for you knowing you’d come.’ I still feel such guilt knowing that I often meet Grace’s screams and sobs with frustration and pleas for her to be quiet and go to sleep. What is behind this inability to sit with her dark feelings? Is it the ghost of my child’s desire to silence my mother, with all of her overhwelming darkness? Is it my trapped child’s jealousy, feeling like if she must stay silent then so must Grace? Is it my critical parent interpreting Grace’s dysregulation as a criticism of my parenting? If I was meeting her needs through the day then she wouldn’t be so upset at night? I’m noticing a desire to talk these things through but right now I don’t want to go to Linda. Anna knows me and I want to be able to pick this apart and process it with her. She would know the right questions to ask me to help me figure all of this out. Part of me is wondering if my reluctance to go to Linda this time round is because I was aware that it felt a little like I was betraying Anna by going to Linda and that was reinforced by Anna saying she had felt jealous that Linda and I were working together. Anna enthusiastically encouraged me again this time to go to Linda if I need support and I have been in email contact with Linda who has made it very clear that she will be there for me if I need her. Right now I feel stable enough to walk through this by myself and I am flexible enough and aware enough to know that I can change my mind if I need more support.

I’ve been taking things a little slower today. Repeating reassuring words in my head and turning away from the inner critic. I’m holding the grief and longing with compassion. It makes sense that I miss Anna. It makes sense that I want to share all of this with her and that I’m very sad that I can’t. I am grateful for the busyness of family life that keeps me occupied so I don’t dwell on these feelings which I know would only make them fester and grow inside me. I’m remembering to focus on the next step… baby steps. I’m remembering meditation, warm baths, walks in the country and sleep. Reminding myself that we are living through a pandemic that is not over yet, despite things feeling a little less frightening now we’re 6 weeks into lockdown. The uncertainty of not knowing how things will pan out is the uncomfortable thing in all of this. That includes the uncomfortable uncertainty of not knowing when Anna will come back to me.  

A pause in my therapy sessions.

Since my last video session on Saturday with Anna something feels like it’s shifted inside me. The session itself felt very healing and was one of the most connecting, emotionally open conversations I’ve ever had. I felt we were both sincere and honest. No self consiousness, just a desire to connect, hear and be heard. It has flicked a switch inside me (though I imagine it’s probably less like a switch and more like a bolt on a screw that has been slowly turned tighter and tighter over the past two and a half years without me even noticing each individual turn… this kind of change doesn’t happen overnight or without a hell of a lot of effort). I’ve noticed that my obsessive tendency to be completely preoccupied with thoughts of Anna is not there anymore. It feels like our relationship doesn’t need me constantly watching over it anymore. As always with the ebb and flow of the recovery process I am aware that nothing is perminent. These observations are true of this moment.

My personal experience of disorganised/preoccupied/avoidant attachment has been a torturous game of walking a burning tightrope knowing I never felt safe where I came from or where I was going and I certainly wasn’t safe on the rope. I never felt safe inside myself but as long as I kept watching and worrying and thinking about Anna, then thoughts of her might keep me safe. The hypervigilance felt like an integral part of who I was. It’s like that terror I would feel as a new mother with my brand new fragile baby. I would watch her constantly for fear that she would suddenly be lost forever. Regardless of where we were and who we were with. My mind would trick me into thinking she could vanish into thin air if I didn’t keep my eyes on her all the time. ‘babies have been stollen from their cots in the night…’ it consumed me… anyway, back to Anna… My insecure attachment with Anna made my brain keep thoughts of her close all the time, for fear of it slipping away from me if I didn’t constantly watch over it.

I’m noticing a new reality where I leave Anna in the corner of my mind while I go about the day thinking about and concentrating on other things, with this felt sense that she hasn’t left me, she’s still there, just not in my line of vision at the moment. Hand on heart I don’t think I’ve ever, ever felt this before. I can feel her existence and my connection to her despite us being far apart, despite it being 9 weeks since I sat in the same room as her and the fact that I don’t know when I will speak to her again. I don’t feel a pang of empty aloneness as I remember her like I used to. If my mind does brush against her memories, thoughts of the blue heart stone she gave me come to mind and her perfume on my bears… her endless reassurance. The phone check ins. The encouraging words. The hugs. The layers and layers of evidence I have to support my belief that our care for each other is valid and real and impacts us both in a profound and positve way. Just because these things are not currently happening, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen. They did. It happened. It mattered. It was real and is still real. She holds me in mind and now I know what that means becaue I feel it deep inside. The sentence I am about to write would have broken me a few months ago, whereas right now I’m feeling content and actually pretty happy. For now my sessions are on hold and I don’t know when they will start up again. I will explain it all in this post.

Since our last session I’ve had a few moments of clarity that I am struggling to articulate clearly because they were a bit trippy. They’ve happened when my mind has been completely empty which I’m not sure has ever happened in my whole life. I’ll try to explain in imagery because analogies are my best friend! Imagine sitting in a hot car, gasping for breath, the sun is beating in and your skin feels hot to touch. The suffocating warm air surrounding you makes you feel light headed and clammy. You’ve been fiddling around with the aircon for a lifetime and just can’t figure it out. It’s letting in a slow trickle of lukewarm air and you’re feeling impatient. After what feels like a lifetime you sit back in total exhaustion, exasperated you throw your head back and right above you is a huge sun roof that you’d never noticed before. In an instant you reach up, flick the lock and slide the sunroof wide open. A rush of fresh air pours in and surrounds you in cool relief. This single moment of pure oxygen makes the journey you’re on feel so much more manageable. This is how things in my mind feel for me just now. Like I’ve been scrabbling around with my head down struggling at life, hot and bothered, forgetting to look up. I was so intently focused on the therapy that I often wasn’t even aware of everything else around me. I’m on this amazing journey and therapy is only a small part of that. It’s not a perfect analogy because if the air con is therapy then it should be working powerfully… however it is slow and often frustratingly uncomfortable so maybe the analogy does work! But what I mean is… life can be just as healing as sessions… I just needed a break from focusing my attention so intently on the sessions to lift my head and look around me. Therapy is a very important part of my life but it does not define me. The past couple of months have been a profound lesson for me in my own resilience and inner sense of safety.

The other day Adam let me have a couple of hours break upstairs while he played with the kids and took them for a bike ride. I laid on my back on the bed with my head tipped off the edge to see if it would release some pressure on my neck and I watched the blue sky out the window, upside down. Watched the few white fluffy clouds sailing by. I felt this overwhelming sense of belonging and connectedness with the whole world. It was really powerful and completely physical. It feels awkward and clumsy trying to put words to it. In this split second I felt this awareness of my heart beating in this body lying on a bed inside this house in a village nestled between rolling green hills on the edge of an island surrounded by a vast body of water on this great planet suspended in our mighty solar system purposefully spinning and hurtling through time and space in a universe almost entirely undiscovered. I felt my place in the universe. I felt myself connecting to all the other beating hearts and souls and in that moment I felt in my bones that everything is okay and right. It felt like peace.

There’s quite a lot going on at the moment. I just finished writing 20 reports about a group of wonderful children that I haven’t seen in nearly 6 weeks. Every time they send me a little video of themselves showing me what they’ve been working on it brings a tear to my eye. I am connected to these kids and their families, we are all important to each other and this virtual community we’ve set up is so special. I’m attempting to keep on top of the learning activities being sent home from Grace’s school and Reuben’s nursery. Trying to be mummy and teacher to them. Add to that two therapy sessions a week and all of the journaling and reading and blogging I do. On top of this I have badly hurt my neck. It’s this niggling ongoing ailment that I’ve struggled with on and off for a few years now. Issues with tension, pain, trapped nerve, weakness and tingling… from my neck, down my back, shoulder, arm and hand. It has become worse this week and I have very limited mobility now. I’ve organised a video consultation with my osteopath to help with some stretches and exercises. Also, the past couple of weeks as a family we’ve been struggling with conflict, anxiety and stress. I signed us up for weekly webinars to help us deal with these lockdown related issues which has definitely helped. I have carefully considered and laid down some boundaries with my extended family and friends around video calls to help prevent me from being burned out by the intensity of it all. I’ve been walking or running for about an hour every day and I’ve balanced our days more so there is a greater focus on play and creativity. There are 4 very strong personalities living under this roof and it can get very busy and heated. We have made a few modifications to make sure we all feel safe and calm. I’ve introduced family meetings where we all get a chance to feel heard and ask for what we need. These are things that my parents never considered doing. I am making changes. Breaking the chain.

I hadn’t prepared for my next session. I was just going to let it take it’s course… something I was never able to do just a few months ago. Then yesterday afternoon Anna text me, ‘Hi Lucy, I would like to call you. Could you give me a suitable time that is convenient to you please. Thanks Anna.’ I was in the middle of a zoom call to my mother as it’s her birthday and as soon as I read the message I knew Anna was going to cancel our session. I ended the zoom chat fairly rapidly and replied, ‘Any time is fine, I’m free now.’ A minute later she called me.

In the call Anna told me that she has taken unwell again and that she was very sorry but she was going to have to cancel our session which was meant to be in a few hours. I listened as she explained that she was gutted that it had happened again so soon after the last time. She said, ‘I’m really sorry that my health is impacting your therapy so much Lucy, I am absolutely gutted… and that’s coming from the heart.’ I said, ‘I feel that. I hear what you’re saying and I believe you.’ she said, ‘it’s really important that you know it is not you, it’s not your fault that I’m unwell.’ I said, ‘I know, thank you… thanks so much for calling me instead of texting!’ Anna said, ‘well I heard you when you told me it didn’t feel nice to have the session cancelled by text. I thought about it.’ I said, ‘I know it might not always be possible to phone when you’re ill but it really does make a difference, I really appreciate you listening to me.’ Anna said she had been in touch with Linda and she would be happy to work with me again. She didn’t have any time available tomorrow but could see me on Saturday. I said, ‘to be honest Anna I’m not sure that I’ll need it. This time feels completely different. We had such a connecting session on Saturday and I really believed everything you told me… I know it’s not my fault you’re ill, I know you won’t deliberately leave me… I don’t feel that desperate panicky abandonment pain I felt the last time.’ Anna said, ‘I’m really glad to hear that, you know the support is there if you feel you need it.’ I said, ‘yeah and that really means a lot. I know I can ask if I need the help. I’ll get in touch with Linda and let her know what I’m thinking… this really feels different… I really so appreciate you phoning. So are we looking at this being another few weeks?’ Anna said, ‘you’re welcome, I’m glad I phoned as well… yes I need to speak to my doctor but it will probably be another few weeks. Sorry Lucy I really am gutted. I’ll be in touch with you when I’m well enough to work again and if you still want to work with me we can arrange a session,’ I said, ‘Anna, none of this makes me want to stop working with you, I’m not going to stop working with you until it feels like we’ve done the work!’ She laughed and said, ‘well I can’t assume!’ I said, ‘well I’m telling you… we still have work to do!’ As I write this out I’m aware you can’t hear the tone. It didn’t feel like I was having to reassure her, it felt more like a bond, an agreement… like we were contracting to come back to each other. It felt nice.

We told each other to stay safe, rest up and look after ourselves and ended the call. And I actually felt okay. My world didn’t fall apart. I didn’t collapse on the floor in a heap. 5 weeks ago the worst case scenario happened. In my mind, she died and I had to deal with that grief with someone I didn’t know and cope with the abyss that my unanswered messages would float off into. Now it all feels very different. I know that Anna is suffering quite a lot with her asthma at the moment. I know she wishes she could continue working with me and that she plans on coming back to me. I have a powerful felt sense that this pause is okay… it’s meant to be here.

A few hours after the phone call I sent this:

Hi Anna,

Thank you so much for speaking to me on the phone. It feels so different to receiving that news in a text. I really appreciate you taking on board what I said.

I want to say (though I’m certain you know this) that the most important part of my therapy is specifically the relationship with you. Talking about and making sense of my life and thoughts and feelings is important but doing that within this long term relationship with you is what deepens the healing. It’s not like having a supply teacher who can pick up the syllabus where you left off. I will always come back to you until we decide together to work to an end and I’m no where near ready for that just now.

Whether I decide to work with Linda in this period or not, when you’re well enough to work with me again I’ll be there. Linda is like a puncture repair kit, you’re teaching me how to change the wheel. (Haha… these analogies make me laugh.)

Anyway, I hope you’re okay with me sending you the occasional update like I did before. You told me you liked receiving my texts so I’m choosing to believe that you were telling the truth. Keeping you up to date helps me maintain a connection with you.

I’m sending you a section of my journal from Saturday’s session because I want to share with you the impact it had on me.

Please look after yourself. I’ll be thinking of you,

Lucy x

Part of my journal entry from 25.04.20

By the end of the session I felt so hopeful about things between us. I am so grateful Anna reflected on things and was prepared to share her vulnerability with me. Her being open with me and sharing parts of herself has made me see that knowing ‘her’ more is not going to damage me. My boundary doesn’t need to be so rigid. I don’t need to protect myself from her. That boundary always belonged between me and my mother. I was so hurt by mum and her over sharing that I built a wall between myself and Anna to protect myself and I built a wall between myself and Grace to protect Grace. Anna sharing a part of her emotional experience with me did not make me feel violated, it actually made me feel closer to her. It deepened my trust in her. I am so guarded with Grace, hiding almost all of who I am for fear of hurting her. Maybe I can share more of myself with her, in a careful way, without damaging her. Maybe if I’m more open with Grace, it will help me feel more connected to her.

The effort Anna put in to help mend this – taking me to supervision and really reflecting on my experience of it all… It’s made me realise that the wellbeing and balance of a relationship is not the responsibility of just one person. I was trying to solve all the problems by myself and I can’t do that. I was spinning plates and analysing and over thinking it all by myself in the hope that I could present a finished solution to her. But there was no need because she is not playing games with me – she’s prioritising connection. It’s like being on a tandem bike pushing hard on the peddles thinking you have to do it all by yourself, then you look up and realise the other person just lost their footing but they’re just about to get started again. The thing that felt impossible when you were struggling to do it by yourself, now feels effortless with the help of the other person. Anna went away and thought about everything I’d said and adapted how she was handling things and it has changed my experience of things completely. I’m not doubting her care anymore. I no longer believe I’m too much for her. I don’t believe that her being ill was my fault.

Growing up, the people in my life were defensive, rigid and selfish. Family harmony was not as important as my parents getting what they wanted. They would choose to prioritise their own needs over mine and over the good of the relationship every time. It’s obvious to me that Anna prioritised our relationship. This is actually mind blowing for me.

I didn’t see it before but I now clearly see… there are two people here, one standing on each side of this glass wall and we are both making an effort to connect.

And Anna replied…

Thank you Lucy for your texts. I’m very touched by you sharing part of your journal with me, lovely to read. I was very tickled by your analogy, I’ll remember that one with fondness. If it helps to send updates that is fine.  Although I won’t reply, I will read them. I too am pleased that we spoke on the phone. I will hold you in mind. Take care. Anna

I sent her a blue heart as a reply.

I spent a night and morning considering the situation fully and then sent Linda the following email.

Hi Linda,

I hope you and your loved ones are well.

Anna let me know yesterday that you guys talked about her being unwell and she told me you’re happy to work with me again if needed.

I’ve had a think about it and for the time being I’ve decided to hold off. Thankfully Anna and I were able to have three very connecting sessions before she became ill again. We were able to do a lot of repairing. This time feels nothing like the last time.

If I feel myself needing support over the coming weeks then I’ll get in touch with you to see if you have any availability but right in this moment things feel secure and settled.

Thanks for making yourself available to me Linda, it means a lot to me.

Take care,

Lucy.

Linda replied…

HI Lucy,

Many thanks for your email. It does indeed sound like you are in a different headspace now, that’s great to hear.

Please take care of yourself and if you decide to return at some point in the future then don’t hesitate to get in touch.

All the best to you and your family.

Kind regards,

Linda

I then sent this text to Anna.

Hi Anna,

I wanted to let you know that I’ve sent Linda an email. I’ve thanked her for making herself available to me again and told her that for the time being I’ve decided to hold off. If I feel myself needing support over the coming weeks then I’ll get in touch with her to see if she has any availability but right in this moment things feel secure and settled.

It feels quite liberating to make the decision to take a side step off the conveyor belt of therapy for a short period. To focus my attention and energy on what’s right in front of me without always working so hard at looking deeply into everything.

I plan on spending a bit of time reflecting on my journey so far over the past two and a half years and I also want to look at where I’d like to take things in the future with you.

I’m well aware that I may wake up tomorrow in the depths of despair and change my mind and reach out for Linda but currently this decision feels right. It’s good to know that I can ask for support if needed.

I hope you’re able to rest well and that you’re being looked after. I’ll keep in touch with you.

Take care,
Lucy x

I feel really good about this decision. It feels like the fresh air is rushing in and I am secure in my decision to pause. Take a breath and let the sediment settle. Sometimes the spaces are just as impactful as the sessions.

Last night as I sat on my daughter’s floor as she fell asleep I came across the following poem I have always loved but had forgotten about.

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveller, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less travelled by,
And that has made all the difference.

It moved me to tears as I read it. The thought of how it applies to my journey, the road I have taken. The different turns, the hidden and only half visible paths. The changes I’m making to mend the inherited motherwound and break the intergenerational trauma chain so that future generations aren’t so greatly impacted by past pain. Anna said to me recently, ‘not everyone chooses to do this work Lucy. For some people it’s enough to do a few sessions and then move on with their lives. You are doing deep work and the ripple affects will reach further than you will ever know.’

So there was a fork in the road and I chose to take the road less travelled. I thought very carefully before deciding to pause my theraputic work. I could easily have picked things up with Linda, it would actually be nice to see her again. But something is pulling me down a new road. For the time being… until Anna is well again.

Let’s see if it makes a difference.

There are two people here, one standing on each side of this glass wall.

I was feeling quite numb this morning. I’ve spent the majority of the past four days processing what’s going on between me and Anna. Going over the conversations. Looking at it from different angles. Talking it through. Trying to figure out how I’m going to make myself feel what I need to feel so I can persuade her to believe me when I tell her that the 4 weeks without her were absolute hell. I have noticed how my mind is picking her apart, urging me to grind her down. I know I’m going to need to share all of this with her in order to break through the well worn patterns of my attachment issues and give a new pattern a chance to develop. But the apathy had swallowed me whole and I could no longer find a thread of any thoughts or feelings.

One minute to go, I quickly glanced over some old journal notes and then clicked to join the meeting. She appeared on the screen and couldn’t see me initially. I’m going to need to fiddle with the zoom settings coz that’s quite annoying. I fixed it and we both asked, ‘how you doing?’ at the same time and instantly laughed. She then asked me how I’d been since Tuesday and I said it had been a very heavy few days and that I had been doing a lot of reflecting. I told her that yesterday had felt better, probably because I knew I had a session today but Thursday in particular was very very difficult. I noticed myself drifting off as I tried to explain it to her so I sat straight on to the screen and said, ‘It’s important I say this out loud… I am making a commitment to work hard at connecting with you today, I need to focus on looking at you and work hard at feeling a connection, I need to talk TO you rather than talking to myself in front of you… I’ve noticed I’ve been doing this thing where I talk and reflect and present my already well processed thoughts to you as if I’m just filming a video with little regard for you sitting there. It’s important that I engage with you today otherwise I’ll leave the session feeling like you were never even there.’ Anna asked me if I would be able to bring awareness to the desire to do that when it happens, even if at the same time we hold the fact that I don’t want to stop doing it… ‘perhaps you could just let me know ‘I’m noticing that I’m reflecting and talking as if you are not here but it feels safer to do that right now’ do you think that would be possible?’ I nodded and said that would be really helpful. She said it made sense that I would want to protect myself, that it feels less vulnerable to talk as if she’s not there, that I don’t need her to help me. We came back to this later and talked a bit more about the way my dissociation keeps me separate from things that feel threatening and therefore keeps me feeling safe yet isolated. I told her with total certainty, ‘I really want the dissociation to stop getting in the way of connection!’ and she said, calmly, ‘it will when you feel safe.’

She then said she too had been reflecting a lot since Tuesday and she had some things she wanted to say to me. I immediately started to panic thinking she wanted to stop working with me, surprise surprise. She began, ‘what really stayed with me after our last session was this belief you were holding on to that it was your fault I was ill and even when I reassured you that it wasn’t your fault you didn’t believe me. I’ve thought a lot about this and I’ve decided it’s very important to clarify this with you.’ There were these agonizingly slow milliseconds where I was trying to read her blurry face on the screen and her crackly audio… I asked her to readjust her microphone because every time it brushes past her clothes it crackles and I can’t hear her. She moved it to her chest and propped it on the scoop of her top and I joked, ‘just stick the cable between your boobs,’ and she laughed and said, ‘we won’t dwell on this too long but I’d hazard a guess that my boobs are a bit lower than yours and they won’t hold this microphone up!’ it was this funny little giggle in the middle of this very intense conversation. This next sentence she said with a serious tone, ‘so, I want you to know that I have asthma.  A lot of the times I’ve had to cancel our sessions it’s been because of the asthma and this time this was also the case. And because of everything that’s been happening with covid19 I was quite worried. I wanted to make sure I was completely better before starting up our sessions again. It was important I didn’t come back and then go off again. Obviously the covid stuff is new to everyone, we are all stressed and anxious about it, scared about it. It was important I’d moved past all that before coming back to you. I did not want my stuff to impact you.’ I was sitting intently listening and watching her, feeling so relieved that she was reaching out to me and sharing this with me. It felt vulnerable and real.

I said, ‘one of my theories was that you had asthma. I said to Linda actually that I thought you might have had asthma or some sort of underlying health condition that would make this a very scary time for you… it’s amazing actually that she managed to listen to all my theories and not let on that she knew… she did ask me to look at why it was important and I said it was because my brain was trying to fill in all the unknowns, you know. It felt really unfair that I wasn’t allowed to know. Like, I know I’m not your family or whatever and that logically it makes sense that I would be the last to know if something happened to you but you’re so important to me, it hurts to know that.’ Anna said, ‘I was really pleased when you sent me the text saying that you’d asked Linda to tell you if I was still alive and she’d reassured you. I was so glad you were able to ask her. I said, ‘yeah well she kind of lead that one but I did ask her, I was just absolutely beside myself. I cant even really put into words Anna, it was the worst I’ve ever felt… very dark… suicidal thoughts and I just was out of options.’ Anna said she was glad that I looked after myself and that I’d asked Linda for clarification.

She continued with quite an intense expression, ‘Lucy, I really missed you when I was off. We’ve worked very closely together for the past 2 and a half years and I know you may find it hard to believe but this work is very important to me too and you are very important to me. I care very deeply about you and wanted to be there for you. I held you in mind throughout our time apart and especially during our usual session times I actively thought about you, hoping you were doing okay.’ She sort of paused and then made a very human looking face and said, ‘I actually felt quite jealous of Linda, that she was getting to work with you. In the last week before our first session back I worked on it in supervision, took you to supervision, and really focused on how I was feeling about it. The thoughts of whether you would choose to stop working with me and instead decide to work with Linda. But you know, I have seen you change beyond recognition… so much change… from the girl who walked in my office 2 and a half years ago who couldn’t tell me what she needed, it was like that for a very long time, and here we are in a moment of worldwide chaos and I am on the brink of abandoning you and you then reached to tell me you need to work with Linda in my absence. You figured out what you needed and you met that need – that is our work WORKING! That’s everything we’ve worked on together, coming together. That despite feeling very much that you couldn’t lean on anyone else in my absence, you took a leap and tried it out. That is massive and I am so so proud of you!’ I had silent tears rolling down my cheeks and I thanked her for being so honest with me. I said, ‘I cant believe you really think about me between session, thank you so much for telling me all of this you have completely disarmed me… I came to this session with so much resistance to opening up to you, all I had was anger, like this pain and sadness I felt would have to be turned into conflict and that you and I would have to battle through it to get to a point where one of us backs down. I spoke to my friend the other day and she reminded me that my feelings are valid no matter what the facts are but it’s really hard to believe that in my body when all I ever experienced was the opposite to that.’ Anna was listening and nodding and taking it all in, saying she understood.

I said, ‘this is amazing Anna, I mean obviously I don’t want you to feel jealous but you telling me about those feelings you were having and that you took it to supervision tells me that you did want me to come back to you and that you do want to work with me, you hoped I wouldn’t move on to Linda… it’s so good to hear that because I really felt like you would be glad to see the back of me.’ I said, ‘there wasn’t a single part of me that would choose to leave you right now. I only felt a resistance to coming back to you because I was so hurt. But I am really committed to this and I know there’s very deep stuff going on here. It’s triggering a massive amount of old unprocessed stuff from mum and dad that I need to unpick.’ Anna talked about how we have many different types of relationships and we behave differently in each of them. That just because I’m not her family or a friend doesn’t mean it isn’t a very important relationship. She had a powerful sincerity in her voice and I believed deep inside me that she was being very genuine.

I said, ‘talking about my raw and unprocessed feelings was never an option growing up. With my mum, if I was emotional, she would turn it into her emotion, she would become overwhelmed and I’d then have to make sure she was okay. So I learned to think very carefully about how I felt, like as if my problems and feelings were a lump of clay, I couldn’t go with it to her raw and unfinished and needing her help to fix it, instead what I’d do is figure it all out so that it was clear and articulate and processed… go with the clay already moulded. So, with my dad, he doesn’t believe in the value of emotions so with him it’s all reason and logic. He talks and argues his way round anyone’s feelings so there is no hope of feeling anything anymore. He works very hard on moving you into your intellect. So whenever I experience emotions it just feels like one way or another there’s going to be overthinking, conflict or numbing. There is this constant thinking and analysing then a battle inside me, to either come up with a very clever articulation of what’s going on with me so I can manipulate the other person to agree with and understand me. Or I numb and space away from any feelings because I know it’s hopeless, that no one will understand. So that’s what’s been going on for me.’ Anna talked about how that made so much sense and that she was really glad I was able to explain that to her. She wanted me to know that she would always work hard at hearing and understanding how I was feeling and that she believes me when I tell her how I feel. I felt this deep grief about how much I’ve missed this part of our work and I said to her, ‘I missed you so much when you were away… I really needed you. My brain immediately goes to cutting whenever I feel this much. Like on Thursday it was all I could think about. I was angry with you and just turning it all in on myself. I can’t regulate without you.’ Anna said, ‘I’m going to respectfully disagree with you on that on. What did you do on Thursday?’ I said I spoke to a friend and I watched some calming, regulating videos that helped soothe my breathing and I did some grounding exercises. I also read over some of the comforting things she’s told me in sessions before.’ Anna said, ‘what I would like you to do between now and the next session is think about all of the things you do that help you regulate your emotions when you’re on your own and write each of them down and put them in a box or jar or something. When we are triggered it’s really hard to find these ideas inside us but it may help for you to have them written down. What do you think?’ I really liked that idea and said I would do it. A bit later when I was talking about how overwhelmed I’ve been with Grace and her emotional needs Anna suggested I make a regulation box with her too. She also suggested that Adam and I spend some time talking to Grace about how we’re all feeling, to help give her some space to talk. She said that it’s hard enough for us adults to process our feelings but kids really need their parents to co-regulate.

I then said that during the time she was off I’d really struggled with Grace and really needed Anna. I had tried to talk to Linda and she had helped. I said, ‘I told Linda that she probably couldn’t help me because she didn’t have the back story and Linda had asked if she really needed the back story and maybe I could just give it a go.’ Anna smiled at this. I said, ‘it did help a bit but she doesn’t know the gravity behind these struggles… Anna, everything feels like it’s falling apart. I know this is where I go when I’m struggling but I really do know that I’m not meeting her needs right now. I screamed at her Anna, that’s what they did you know, I’m just like them!’ Anna said, ‘lets just pause there… first of all we are living through a worldwide pandemic, one that your parents were not experiencing when you were a child… you are under an enormous amount of stress and it’s understandable you’d be struggling… secondly, what did you do after you shouted at her?’ I told her I apologised and tried to mend things with her, that I listened to how she was feeling, told her I loved her and that it wasn’t her fault. Anna said, ‘exactly… and that is where the very important difference is between you and your parents.’ I said, ‘I know I’m failing her…’ and my voice faded. Anna gently said, ‘take your time Lucy,’ and I began to cry. I pulled my mic earpiece out so I wasn’t sobbing right in her ear and when I calmed and put it back in she quietly said, ‘are you scared?’ I said, ‘I’m terrified. But not about the virus. I’m scared this is all going to cause her permanent issues… there’s this big gap between us and I don’t know how I can mend it.’

I said, ‘this whole thing is giving me a window into why I am the way I am and what life was like for me as a kid and how confusing it all must have been for me… in the middle of it all when you were off I was really struggling with Grace, she was just up crying all night and it felt relentless. All day with her then all night too. And part of me wants so much to be there for her but another part of me… my cups empty! The only time it gets filled is with you and you weren’t there.’ Anna said, ‘I hear you. It’s important we work on ways for you to fill your cup when we’re unable to meet.’ I nodded and said, ‘One night I felt so alone with it all I uncharacteristically reached out on a family whatsapp group we have. In the group are my cousins, my brother and my dad. After a few messages and with my dad sending a generic, ‘you’re doing great’ I sent this message…

‘I’m not doing very well with the gentle / respectful parenting. End up with no patience left by the evening. I shouted at her. The message I’m giving her is, ‘you’re too much’. I don’t want her to feel that, ever. I want her to know she is unconditionally loved by us day and night but what I’m saying is, ‘I’ve had enough of you by the evening and you’re too much and I need a break from you’. It’s a really horrible message to give her but I’m done.’

My brother and cousins actually said some very sweet things. My brother private messaged me saying, ‘I want to reassure you with the strongest emphasis that you are not doing to your kids what mum and dad did to us. You cant see it coz you’re in it. these are two children who are very well adjusted. They show no signs (other than Grace’s understandable reaction to the lockdown) of having any issues remotely near like we did. You are a parent. Many times parents shout. Phillipa Perry even wrote in her book about shouting. The person you need to go easier on is yourself and that’s not a cliché. It’s a downwards spiral otherwise and you know that. The more you feel bad about not being perfect, the more stressed you will be, the less you’ll sleep. The more you’ll try to be perfect during the day with the kids thus creating a vacuum and an internal pressure to watch everything you say and do. Then when there’s a problem it will all come out. You are human and the big picture is that Grace knows she’s loved. You’re doing a great job with her. What you need to do is keep asserting boundaries and give yourself more time to be human.’ I was blown away by his thoughtful, considered and caring message. It really helped. Daniel and I are a team. We always have been. He gets it.

Then the next day my dad sent me this:
‘Something you said yesterday has stayed with me. About loving unconditionally. Loving unconditionally isn’t responding to someone’s every little whim. It’s responding to their needs. And one of the greatest needs is the need for self reliance. The ability to look after yourself, to respond to your own needs, to enjoy your own company. There’s no greater gift that giving someone the gift of self reliance instead of dependency.‘

He is trying. My dad’s done some work on himself and he is trying but he just doesn’t get it at all. I spent a lot of the day writing out this reply.

Morning dad.
Thanks for thinking about this and messaging me. I don’t feel that what you’ve said applies here. Grace is only 8, it’s unrealistic to expect her to be self reliant. Even emotionally healthy adults need to co-regulate. It’s not emotionally healthy to be completely self contained, that’s a shutting down of emotional needs and leads to emotional numbing and avoidance. Healthy emotional processing involves expressing and having our need to be heard met. It’s not about meeting every whim. You can meet an emotional need to be heard and seen without bending to unrealistic requests. Love is an action. Love doesn’t scream in the face of another person. There’s a complete lack of love in telling a person ‘your emotional needs are too much for me’. This is deeply personal for me and something I swore I would never do. On this occasion I know undeniably that it’s not okay the way I responded to her and it can damage her and our relationship. But I’m working on it. It’s just very very hard right now.

In the end I didn’t send it because I realise that this is very close to the bone. I’m struggling with all of this because this is how I was parented. The reason I know how unlovable you feel when you’re being screamed at by your parent at night is because that happened to me. I refuse to think this is okay. It’s not okay!’

Anna said, ‘that’s a beautiful message you wrote and if you consider sending it to your child, what wonderful validation to her that she didn’t deserve to be treated the way she was and it wasn’t her fault. Your understanding about emotions and regulation is far deeper than your parents understanding.’ I said that we need to spend a lot of time on this and she said we can.

Anna said, ‘I just want to make another observation. I know you’ve drawn an analogy with me being your therapy mum and Linda being your therapy aunty and I want to just point out that your mum hurt you massively and then I hurt you… it’s just something to notice…’ I said, ‘except the important thing is that I believed you would hold space for me to tell you how I felt about it… I don’t think my mum has ever held space for me to share my feelings with her.’ I went back to what Anna had said about enjoying working with me and referred her to the phone call we’d had prior to her going off when I had told her I care a lot about her and she’d said she cares a lot about me too. I said, ‘you definitely did say that?’ and she nodded and I said, ‘coz my mind tears these things away from me, tells me I must have imagined it, that there’s no way you would have said that.’ Anna said, ‘oh right, uhu.’ In a very concerned voice and continued, ‘if that happens again I’d really invite you to ask me. Let me know that you’re questioning what was said and ask me.’ I said that I would and then said, ‘I just don’t get it though, why would you enjoy working with me? I bring the worst bits of myself to you, why would you like me when I’m a moany, relentless, miserable person when I see you?’ Anna said, ‘Why do you come to therapy? What is the drive to keep coming back?’ I said, ‘Because I want to heal.’ She said, ‘Why?’ and I said, ‘So that the parts of me that are hurt don’t hurt other people, so I don’t hurt my kids and so that I can feel freed from it all too.’ She said, ‘Yes and that desire to mend the parts of you that feel broken, the parts of you that are in pain, that is powerful and admirable. I feel very strongly that I am lucky to do this work with you. That part of you that want’s change and growth and to heal… that is what makes this work so special.’ I felt really moved by this and I don’t even know how to explain what I was feeling from her. Despite it being just a video call I felt very close to her, it just really felt so real and powerful. I really could feel her authenticity. She was being very real I almost forgot we weren’t in the same room.

All of a sudden it was time to finish up. Anna said, ‘okay so I’ll see you at 6 on Tuesday?’ I nodded. She said, ‘I was thinking about you saying you wished we could hug at the end of the session and I wondered, I know it’s not the same thing, maybe we could reach towards each other like this,’ she put her hand to the screen and I smiled and did it too… it felt a little awkward but also felt nice to know she’d been reflecting and wanted to suggest a way for us to hold that connection with each other. I held up Baby Panda that I’d been stroking off screen and told her I would also be cuddling my bears and she smiled. We waved and ended the call.

I am left feeling so much more hopeful about things between us. I am so grateful she reflected on things and was prepared to share her vulnerability with me. It’s made me realise that the wellbeing and balance of a relationship is not the responsibility of just one person. I was trying to solve all the problems by myself and I can’t do that. I was spinning plates and analysing and over thinking it all by myself in the hope that I could present a finished solution to her. But there was no need because she is not playing games with me. She’s prioritising connection. She went away and thought about it and adapted how she was handling things and it has changed everything. Growing up, the people in my life were defensive, rigid and selfish. They would choose to prioritise their own needs over mine and over thegood of the relationship. Anna prioritised our relationship. This is actually mind blowing for me. I didn’t see it before but I now clearly see… there are two people here, one standing on each side of this glass wall and we are both making an effort.

Is it posible to repair this rupture?

I sent Anna this text just after our last video session.

Hi Anna,

It was so good to see you today. I genuinely felt that you were happy to be speaking to me which was so lovely and unexpected. I barely slept last night worrying about what it might be like to reconnect with you again, I was really upset at the thought that everything would feel different. Once again it’s like I forgot how nice you are! I think in the long run (although this has been so hard) it might actually strengthen our work together and our connection. Because I believe that you’re going to hold space for me to share my whole experience of it all which has the potential to be very healing.

It did feel different, I am sad that we can’t sit in the same room together and that you can’t sit next to me or give me a hug. But I’m so grateful that we are both able and willing to connect on video call. Thank you for coming back to me, Anna.

I hope this isn’t overstepping the mark but I have a couple of observations…

Would you be up for repositioning your device so that I have a better view of you? If you sit your laptop (or whatever it is) on a box or books or something so that it’s the same height as your face and if you were able to sit a little further away from the laptop so I can see more of you. Also if there was a way to bring more light to your face so that I can see you a bit clearer? With a lamp or you facing the window. I think it might help me feel your presence if I can see you better.

l’m sure you’ve done this already but you can set up a trial zoom session without inviting anyone. That way you can test out what it looks like for the recipient. You just click on ‘host a meeting’. You can see yourself on the screen and move things about in preparation. I did that before we spoke this morning.

Anyway, it’s up to you of course, do whatever feels comfortable for you, I just thought there’s no harm in asking and sharing my reflections on the experience. Even if you change none of that I’m obviously happier talking to you on video than not talking to you at all!

I wish the audio was as clear as it is on the phone because it was hard to hear you sometimes. I guess we’ll just have to play around with it and also just get used to it being different. I’m going to look online to see what the best settings are so that we get the most out of the sessions.

Hope the rest of your weekend is good. I hope you’re able to enjoy this lovely weather.

See you Tuesday.

Lucy

Zoom session number 2

We connected and her visual popped up on the screen. Immediately I could see she had changed things up as per my message, I thanked her for moving things around but I felt weird about it, uncomfortable that I had to ask. She was sitting a bit further away from the screen and the lighting was better. Everything about it was so much better. I said I hoped she wasn’t offended by my message. She said she wasn’t offended but she wondered why I hadn’t felt able to tell her about the visual and audio problems during the session. I said, ‘I don’t think I was really that aware of it in the call, it was only in retrospect. I put the lack of feeling connected down to it being ages since we spoke and I assumed it would feel like this from now on, there will be a big gap between us because of all that’s happened… but when I was reflecting on it I realised that seeing and hearing you properly is really important for me to feel a connection.’ Anna said, ‘I was wondering if you are trying to recreate the space we have in the therapy room? With the distance we have between us when we’re sitting opposite each other?’ I said, ‘I can’t even put it into words, it just feels better seeing more of you, it feels like I’m sitting with a human being,’ she said, ‘instead of a floating head?’ and we laughed. Honestly, I’m feeling annoyed just typing this out, why is this so hard for me to explain and for her to understand? It’s really not that deep or complicated, I just wanted her to sit in a well lit room where I could see her… has she never had a video call with someone before? Has she never seen anyone’s home filmed videos on youtube? This is basic video call 101… make yourself seen and heard and make yourself comfortable! But then I knew she’d not be great at it. She is not technically minded and she is not visually self conscious. This is triggering me because I don’t want to see these weaknesses in her. I want to respect and have total faith in her. I know that my inner critic will take these details and weave a fucking magic carpet for me to ride away on. All of the reasons that she is incompetent and can’t help me.

Anna asked me what I wanted to focus on today and I said I didn’t know what to focus on. I said, ‘there is just so much and I think it’s going to take us weeks and weeks… and I don’t even know if it’s possible when we’re doing it this way, on video, it’s very weird and just doesn’t feel the same.’ She said she understood and said, ‘I am here, I’m listening and we will work on this for as long as you need. What feels important right now?’ I said, ‘I was really disappointed in the session on Saturday, I didn’t really connect to you. I wanted to. I was really glad to see you, like relieved that you were alive. But… I really wanted it to be more sort of… I imagined crying, I imagined this big moment when I saw you and it wasn’t like that and it feels like, why? Why would I cry with Linda and not you? I’ve got so much more with you I should be able to trust you enough to feel the feelings with you but I don’t feel anything, it’s all numb.’ Anna said, ‘why do you think that barrier might be up for you right now?’I said, ‘well I talked it out with myself this morning. I thought about crying with Linda so easily and how first of all it was right there, I didn’t have a choice, I was grieving you dying and the tears just kept coming. Also, I don’t have any attachment shit with her so there was nothing to lose. Also, hasn’t hurt me. It was easier to tell her how I felt about you because it wasn’t about her!’ Anna asked me what the fantasy was that I’d made up in my head about what would happen if I said it all to her. I said, ‘I feel that I will tell you how angry and upset and absolutely beside myself I’ve been feeling and you’’ listen and you’ll sit there and say you are sorry it was so hard for me and that it makes sense that I feel this way and I won’t believe you. You’ll say all the right words but I just don’t believe a word of it, it all just feels like bull shit. You’re just saying what needs to be said… client says x, therapist says y. It doesn’t really mean anything anymore. Maybe it never did.’ I can’t remember exactly what she said here but it was something about noticing that this is a pattern for me – not believing her, feeling that she’s just doing her job and that it’s not genuine care. I was reflecting on this on my walk this morning and I realised that this is a multi-layered belief from many many abandonments growing up. It comes from my mother never being sincere in here life. Saying anything just to get her own way. It comes from my dad saying anything to keep the peace as his temper rises hidden inside him then suddenly explodes unexpectedly, terrifyingly. My parents emotionally abandoned me numerous times and then physically turned their backs on me as soon as possible. The only people in my life who were safe, at school, my teachers who I really believed cared for me, who were there for me time and again and never turned me away when I went to them for help and support, the day school stopped that support stopped too. And I was left with nothing. They only cared because it was their job too. Just like my mum would say, ‘I don’t like you and I HAVE to love you because I’m your mother…’ people only ‘care’ when they HAVE to. And Anna doesn’t really care about me. The minute she is ill or something else happens she’s gone. I know it because it happens. And I’m not feeling sorry for myself I’m feeling very strong in my position that I am right, I shouldn’t let people in.

Back to the session. Anna said, ‘so if this is the therapy and the importance of therapy is in the reparative nature of the relationship, that you get to express a whole spectrum of emotions and we focus on working through it, then is there a way that you can safely begin to express how it was for you?’ I said, ‘I just feel like it’s a total waste of time and actually also it scares me because I think it’ll push you over the edge again.’ She said, ‘what do you think I might say to you.’ I said, ‘that you hear that I’m angry and feel like there’s no hope and that I’m right and it’s probably best to not continue working together.’ She responded really quickly with, ‘so, how likely is it that I will say that?’ I said, ‘really fucking likely actually coz it already happened and you were away for 4 fucking weeks!’ she nodded and again responded quickly with, ‘so the worst case scenario already happened.’ I looked away and said, ‘yeah it did. It really was the worst.’ She said, ‘and you survived.’ I said, ‘I survived, but WE might not.’ I started to feel a bit dissociative and took a drink of water and stretched and looked out the window.

I said, ‘It’s almost like it happened to someone else I can barely remember it. I had to look back over my journals to remind myself just how broken up I was by it all. I could barely function. I completely went into myself. I didn’t tell Adam I just got in the car. When I got your text I got in my car and drove to the loch. I sat there crying my fucking eyes out in the car, sobbed, it was the worst pain in my chest like total panic and fear. I got out and walked a bit and I could have walked right into the loch and never gone back to the car. I was physically shaking from it all, from the emotions. I felt completely beside myself and alone in these very dark empty feelings. I was certain you were dying and now looking back I can see it seems ridiculous that I went to such an extreme but…’ Anna interrupted and said, ‘no I don’t think so, this wasn’t some far fetched fantasy, it was a very real scenario, the virus, everything was moving very quickly and there is a possibility that people we are close to will die. It didn’t feel ridiculous to me, it’s a real concern.’ I said, ‘so in that case… I mean, I don’t even know if you had the fucking virus so if you didn’t then you could still get it and you could still die for it, so it isn’t even over with!’ Anna said, ‘yes uhu.’ I said, ‘so your response makes me think you didn’t have the virus… fuuuck this is going to drive me insane and I don’t even know if it’s a self imposed boundary or if it’s a boundary of yours and I cant even ask you… fuuuuck why is it so hard to ask the fucking question?’ she said, ‘because you don’t want to hear the answer.’ I took a big breath and I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes. I told her I was feeling spacey and I shifted about and took a drink of water. I pulled Luna onto my lap and stroked my fingers into her thick fur. I’m thinking about this now and I don’t even know if how I feel about this is valid or not. I feel like she was wrong to hold this boundary. If she didn’t have the virus, yet she knew that I was going through this deep grief and panic, why wouldn’t she tell me she didn’t have the virus? As a friend said to me, these are completely unusual times and boundaries aren’t rules they are flexible and they change depending on the circumstances. These were not normal circumstances. She knew I was in crisis so much so that she remind me of our crisis arrangement… referring me to fucking a&e if I was suicidal. She knew I was going through hell. In the session I said to her, ‘you didn’t just have a cold, no one has a cold for 4 weeks… but if it wasn’t a virus then I assume it was a mental or emotional thing, that you weren’t coping with everything and then I cried down the phone at you twice and it was too much for you.’ She said in a firm voice, ‘you didn’t make me sick, Lucy!’ I said, ‘I don’t believe you.’ She said, ‘well you don’t have that power.’ I’m thinking in my head now… burnout happens! But burnout is not because of a clients needs it’s because of a therapists lack of boundaries… so that brings me to not knowing if I’m being unreasonable or not. Maybe she needed to maintain the boundary for herself. At some point she said that I really like boundaries, they help me feel safe. This is true but also it surely isn’t black and white. How does she decide when it is appropriate to bend the boundary and when she should hold it? I said to her, ‘I think we’re using the same word but it holds a different meaning for each of us. I’m hearing you say boudnaries as if it’s a caring and nice thing but when I talk about boundaries it feels punishing and withholding.’ I don’t remember what she said there. I feel like the video call makes it harder to take in what is being said or maybe I’m better at remembering when I am feeling safely connected to her and when I feel more guarded and protective it’s harder to absorb what she’s saying.

After I said I felt spacey Anna said, ‘is this reminding you of your mum?’ On reflection I know she asked me this because my mother is usually the one that triggers my dissociation. And just writing that made me have some sort of split second realisation that this… just this statement ‘my mother is the main trigger for my dissociation’ – what more proof do I need that she was abusive? I instinctively invalidate myself so much but my body tells me all that I need to know. I didn’t ever feel safe with her. So, Anna asking me if this reminded me of my mother angered me. I didn’t know it at the time but looking back I can see that it felt invalidating, as if she was saying, ‘your anger here is disproportionate to what is happening now so it must be transference from childhood’… I’m sure she wasn’t saying that but I will need to bring this up with her because what I said to her was, ‘it may be something to do with my mum but it doesn’t feel like that right now,’ when what I want to say now is, ‘this is fucked up, difficult and painful shit and I’m hurt and angry at you, your behaviour was the thing that hurt me even people without mother issues would find this painful, don’t blame it on my mother it was you!’

I said, ‘what it is bringing up is the really painful reality that this is your work. You are so fucking important to me but I am just your work. I mean you know so much about me, you know more about me than anyone else on this planet and I know fucking nothing about you and I’m not even entitled to information about why you have to stop working with me instead I just have to sit here wondering and worrying, asking Linda every few days if you’re alive. I mean you told me you were sick in a text… I don’t even deserve a fucking phone call to tell me that you’re dropping off the planet for god knows how long, instead you just send me a generic text because I’m not owed anything!’ at this point she moved or made a noise, I was ranting and not looking at her but she responded in some way. I think maybe she had thought that the texts were good and useful and boundaried and hadn’t considered that I’d want more than just a text. I can’t remember where this led but I went on to say that the two phone sessions were really hard. She said something about boundaries in the therapeutic relationship being important and I said it felt rejecting.

I said, ‘I was so upset in the phone sessions, I’ve never cried like that with you before. In fact I’ve never cried with anyone like that. Sobbing on the phone and in the last one, I don’t know it’s like I’ve enmeshed you and me and it feels like you were feeling what I was feeling and I don’t even know what is real and what is not. You just didn’t feel like the normal you and I felt like you were just as upset as I was and like it was too much for you. I believe that you already knew you were going to be off and you were preparing me for that, it was really intense but it felt like you couldn’t contain it all for me and you were struggling with everything that was going on and you thought to yourself, ‘I need to put up a barrier here between me and this girl because she is causing me to feel worse’ and that was it, no more contact.’ Anna thought for a moment with a sort of puzzled look on her face and then said, ‘I didn’t know I was going to be off, I was still working at that point.’ I said, ‘I’m sorry but I don’t believe you.’ Anna said, ‘Shall I tell you what my thoughts were on why I was telling you to prepare for me being ill?’ I nodded and she said, ‘The covid stuff just suddenly started ramping up very quickly and I wanted to make sure we had that conversation just in case anything happened. I was still working at that point I wasn’t ill I didn’t know I was going to be ill but a lot of people were getting ill and it was important that we had a plan in place. I’m sorry that I got sick right after that phone session, it wasn’t good timing, but I am really glad we had that conversation and we were able to talk about it being Linda. Then in your text you said that if it was going to be more than two weeks you would want to work with Linda. I felt it was good we’d had that talk.’ I said, ‘I didn’t feel I had a choice, I wasn’t able to cope by myself I don’t feel like I can fully express to you what it was like.’ Anna said, ‘it was important that I look after myself and it works both ways. Prior t the phone sessions you had to take a break from the sessions when you were ill. You were looking after yourself. A year ago you would have come to your sessions ill, you would never have cancelled 3 sessions.’ I said, ‘I wish I had come but I wasn’t well enough.’ I feel like it’s not the same thing, I told her what was wrong with me. I had a virus with a cough so I needed to stay in the house. It feels like she is using this against me. as if to say – you cancelled these session so I did it back to you… I don’t see the relevance in bringing it up. I hold my tongue too much with her I need to just say what’s on my mind because that is where the healing will happen.

We moved on and I said, ‘It was really weird working with Linda. I had to very quickly connect with her to get the most out of working with her. It was good and helpful but then I’d have moments of feeling really guilty talking about you. I didn’t want to betray your trust… most of the time I was just really sad and grieving, I wasn’t bitching about you and I’d ask her permission before talking about you…’ Anna smiled and said, ‘Lucy, it’s okay! It’s okay… you’re allowed to talk about how you feel. It really is okay.’ I said, ‘at one point Linda said that we were obviously doing very deep attachment work and that made me feel deep shame and…’ Anna said, ‘lets stay with that feeling of shame for a bit, do you know where the shame came from?’ I said, ‘well yeah that’s just therapy speak for you’re fucked up. Like when I’m writing reports and I’ll say something like, ’Dylan is energetic and very sociable,  when what I actually mean is he can’t sit still and won’t shut up’ Anna finished that sentence with me and smiled and said, ‘That’s not what she said though is it. You know about attachments, you’ve read about it.’ I nodded and said, ‘but it still means like oh you’re doing hard long deep work because you have massive issues…. God the inner critic is having a fucking field day with all this, telling me you and Linda think I’m intense and needy and no wonder you wanted a break from me.’ Anna said, ‘and what do we say to the inner critic?’ I paused for a bit and then said, ‘I’m feeling a compassionate response actually, I don’t want to tell her to fuck off.’ Anna said, ‘okay lets hear the compassion!’ I laughed and said, ‘right… um… well… okay maybe I would say, I know you’re trying to protect me, thank you for that, thank you for trying to keep me safe, I know you think you’re going to get hurt again but it’s not helping here. I want to try to connect to Anna…’ Anna was nodding and smiling and said, ‘yeah it makes sense that the protective parts are there, I really let you down.’ I said, ‘but I didn’t feel this walled up with Linda,’ and Anna said, ‘she was there for you when I wasn’t. She didn’t hurt you like I did. You talked to her about the wall between you and me, you boarded that wall up. That makes sense. I imagine you didn’t want to come back to me,’ I said, ‘yeah, I didn’t… I read your text telling me you were ready to start up your work again and actually I just felt like saying, ‘fucking good for you! NOW you’re ready? I’ve only had to wait 4 fucking weeks with no replies and now you’re ready? Great! Well maybe I don’t wanna come back…’ I told Linda I was in no rush to go back to you. I didn’t want you to come back before you were ready because actually things were working fine with us.’ There was a silence and I sort of glanced at her. She said, ‘so what made you come back?’ I felt a wave of something when she said that, like a sadness. I said, ‘because I like you and we have worked hard at this and I want to try to make it work and because I do have this overall perspective you know, I do know that this is my main core wound and that I need to work at this rupture with you I need to give you the chance to heal it with me.’

I said, ‘I don’t know if you remember our last session in the centre. It was February 29^th and you were sitting beside me and I was talking to you about how I could never tell my mum anything because she would tell everyone and you said to me that you completely understood why it was so hard for that small part of me to trust you and then you said that you hoped she was listening as you told her that she could test you any way she wanted… and I remember thinking for ages, how could I possibly test that? We don’t know anyone mutual, how could I test that you won’t talk about me to people, that you won’t betray my trust? Then the universe threw this massive fucking curveball and I suddenly had Linda there in front of me who did know you. I asked her what you had told her about me and I don’t know if this is the truth but she told me that you hadn’t told her anything about me, I don’t know if that’s true but she said all you said was you asked would she work with a client of yours while you’re off and that was it.’ Anna said, ‘yes that’s right. That’s all I said. I told her I was sick and that I had a client who needed some support and asked if she could help, told her you were agreeable and said I wasn’t sure how long I’d be off. She said yes could work with you and that I could give you her email address so I told her your name and that you planned on getting in touch with her. She told me when you emailed her and that was it.’ I nodded and wasn’t quite sure how I felt about that. I think it’s one of those situations that feels like she can’t win because it almost feels rejecting if she didn’t ever ask Linda how I was’ but also I want her to be professional and not disclose anything. Maybe this is like what my friend was saying earlier about boundaries… they are flexible and responsive to the changing needs. Anna could ask if I was doing okay and Linda could say that I was coping with her support without going into details that breach my privacy and confidentiality. Maybe they did have that kind of interaction but it possibly doesn’t feel right to share that with me. or maybe I’m being very egotistical to imagine they wouldn’t have anything better to say than talk about me. Also, I don’t know what Anna meant by ‘agreeable’. Did she mean ‘in agreement?’ I told her that I found it easy to build trust very quickly with Linda, that it felt like I was starting off a few steps up the ladder because I knew that Anna knew and trusted her. I said, ‘I don’t know why I brought that up,’ and she said, ‘I think you do,’ I tried to retrace my steps and she said, ‘It shows trust, you could trust me and my judgement and through trusting me you could trust her…’ I said, ‘oh yeah I mean that’s absolutely the case and I did feel supported by you through Linda… coz she knew you and you had connected us.’ Anna was smiling and nodding and saying she was pleased about that.

At one point I told Anna that I’d discussed the texts with Linda and that we had this boundary where you wouldn’t reply. Linda had told me she doesn’t normally do that with clients but would I want to do that with her. I said, ‘…and I immediately said NO, no… I do not want to start the messages with you!’ and Anna laughed knowingly and I laughed too. She is right, I do like boundaries. It makes me feel safer when I know where I stand. I don’t want there to be the possibility that I can take things too far and push someone away. She asked me what was going on for me coz I think I was smiling and I said, ‘I like it when we laugh together, it reassures me that things might be okay between us… I may not know details of your life but the person that has sat in front of me for two and a half years, whatever makes a person who they are, the responses and the way you are with me, I do know that about you… maybe that’s what is meant when people say they feel a connection with someone.’ Anna said, ‘yes it’s knowing someone and connecting and being familiar.’

It was quiet for a moment. Maybe even a full minute which is quite a long time when you’re being watched on a screen. In this quiet stillness I sort of calmly asked, ‘When I was crying on the phone to you… did you feel overwhelmed by me?’ She said, ‘I felt very moved Lucy.’ I said, ‘I upset you?’ and she said, ‘no, I was moved and honoured, knowing how hard it has been for you to share your feelings, that you were sharing your feelings with me. I’m really sorry that the last phone session felt unsettling for you, that must have made it feel even harder for you to then deal with me going off.’ I shrugged and sort of curled the corner of my top lip. I said, ‘I do feel pretty fragmented. Part of me wants to just say it’s all fine and to forget it. Another part of me can barely look at you she’s so angry, she just wants to tell you to fuck off. Like why would I ever trust you again? It feels like it’s all gone to shit and it can’t be repaired. I will never trust you again. Maybe I never did. There’s all this confusing noise in my mind… one part of me saying what’s the point of talking about all of this you’re never going to believe her again just fucking cut and run, then there’s another part that feels like my life’s fucking turned upside down and I need to be talking about the very real shit show that family life is right now. Gracie’s lost the plot Anna and I do not know how to parent her. Everything’s blown out the water and I need to work on that in therapy!’ I was aware we only had ten minutes to go. Anna said, ‘What’s the important thing here? I’m not saying Gracie’s not important, she is, but what is the really important thing right now?’ I said, ‘that we mend this? But then I think maybe we can just deal with all the family stuff without mending things between us because you’re still a good therapist and I can still get that worked on. Coz I feel like I’m having to waste my fucking precious therapy time dealing with this rupture that wasn’t even my fault, I didn’t cause this and now I’m having to spend my time working on it.’ She said, ‘can you think of a reason why it might be worthwhile to deal with it?’ and I said, ‘Yeah coz this IS the work I mean THIS IS IT! This is the core of it all. The pain of this. It’s all attachment stuff… its lacking trust. It’s wanting to walk away when things go wrong. It’s believing nothing will work out, we will never move past this, I will never forget and I can never trust you again.’ She nodded and said that it absolutely was the work and it was testament to my strength and determination that I did go back to her and that I am prepared to do very difficult work to get to where I want to be.

In the last couple of minutes I shared my analogy with Anna that I had explored with Linda about the therapeutic journey being like a car. Before this break I believed her to be the engine and that I would break down if she wasn’t there but through this ordeal I have begun to see that she is a guide, a co-pilot and I am the driver. She said it was a really good analogy and that she was glad that I learned through this that I am in charge of my own healing. That she wished it hadn’t been this way but was glad that at least I was able to see how resilient I am and capable of pushing through, asking for help, looking for solutions and hoping for repair.

At the end I said I wished I could have a hug and she smiled and said, ‘I know.’ I said, ‘do you think we’ll ever be int hat room again… she asks with 60 seconds to go!?’ and Anna said, ‘I hope so but who knows what will happen… businesses are being affected by this too.’ I said, ‘but if they go bust will we have to stop working together?’ she said, ‘there are other therapy businesses.’ I thought for split second she meant I could find another therapist and she said, ‘I would just go and rent a room from somewhere else.’ I nodded and smiled and said, ‘I just wish everything would go back to normal I hate the uncertainty… anyway… thank you Anna… see you Saturday.’

…we found our way back to each other.

Yesterday I met with Anna on video call. I hadn’t seen her in 7 weeks and our last phone session was 4 weeks ago. That is the longest I’ve gone without talking to her in two and a half years. The night before our session I was crying in bed. Big silent tears rolling down my cheeks and pooling in my ears imagining seeing her face again for the first time after going through the very real grief of believing she was dying or dead. I placed my hand on my chest in an attempt to comfort that small part of me and whispered to her, ‘you can show Anna these tears, you will be able to tell her what it’s been like and how much it has hurt’.

As I write this I am aware of the many kind souls who have checked in on me since yesterday morning, curious to know how the session went. I feel like I want to give you an account of this spectacular reunion full of tears and relief. Like crashing waves against rocks. What actually happened was more like a tentative reaching out towards each other. Like the lapping froth of a tide that’s moving so slowly, you barely notice. I was very nervous all morning running up to this session and by the time I’d organised Adam and the kids upstairs and out of the way and sat down to my laptop, all of the pain and grief and panic seemed to belong to someone else. I was just glad to be reconnecting with Anna. I imagined her feeling nervous about what it was going to be like to speak to me. Not only will she be holding the awareness that this has been very hard for me but also, on a technical level, I know she isn’t confident with doing video calls. My attention was turned towards her rather than turned inwards. This is a familiar coping strategy which keeps me in my adult.

I’m trying to encapsulate what the first few seconds of the video call was like. I expected I would burst into tears at seeing her but that didn’t happen. My video wasn’t coming through for her so I could see her ‘waiting face’ but she couldn’t see me. I faffed with it and tentatively said hello. I knew she wasn’t going to be very good at setting herself up for the call and I was right. The visual was kind of dark… not great lighting. Most of the light was coming from the screen she was viewing me on. Whatever devise she was using (let’s say it was a laptop) was on a surface that was about her shoulder hight (so awkwardly high) but with the screen tilted back so that it was viewing up at her. So she was kind of peering down into this high up camera…. it didn’t look comfortable, she didn’t look relaxed and grounded like she always does in sessions. It looked awkward and as if she didn’t know what she was doing. I hate that feeling. All of this in three seconds. Or maybe even one second.

I still have an inkling that her other clients have stopped working with her and it’s just me left. I can’t remember if I’ve blogged about that before. Anna has a day job and does her therapy job one evening and one morning a week. I think she only ever had 6 or 7 clients max and over the last few months she’s made a few slots available to me that previous had clients in them. Then judging by the last few texts before we stopped I get the impression she was offering the option to other clients for them to pause their work with her until the lockdown is lifted. Basically, for a number of reasons I feel that I am now her only client. That brings up some interesting feelings that I might explore here later. Also, Anna has her supervision sessions over the phone so, this could be the first time she’s done a zoom call with anyone. She did say to me in our last phone session that it’s lucky I knew how to use technology confidently before all this happened because ‘some of us are scrabbling around trying to sort this all out in a panic’… she isn’t confident with any of this.

She was in a corner of a room with the edge of a cupboard or wardrobe on one side and a door behind the other half of the visual. The audio wasn’t great and I kept hearing the kind of interference you get when the microphone is trying to limit outside noise as if someone had the tv on in the other room. Again, all of this in the first few seconds. I was pleased to be talking to her but there was an underlying discomfort. I want to feel that she knows what she’s doing. I think it’s about feeling safe with her because if I sense a need in her my caretaking instinct pops up and I immediately become ‘capable, able, helping, empowering’ Lucy. I want to teach her how to do things better so that it makes me feel safe. FUCK. Wow. Okay… I just took a minute, hand on my chest as I let that sink in and the tears came. Wow. I did that all my life. Trying to fix my mother so she could love me the way I needed to be loved. Oh that poor little girl who tried so hard, in vein. She never received the love she was looking for from the person she so desperately tried to empower.

Back to the session. The audio was jumpy, the visual wasn’t that great, but she was there and I was there. I was initially a bit awkward (because of the very quick overall impression I got while clicking on) and she said, ‘hi Lucy, it’s really so lovely to see you, ooh I’ve really missed you!’ and I could barely take it in. I just kept saying, ‘yeah’ quietly and nodding. I took a big breath and said, ‘I’ve really fucking missed you too… it’s so good to see your face. I haven’t sat with you for 7 weeks Anna… it’s been a long time.’ She agreed and said, ‘and I am so sorry for that Lucy, I’m so sorry I haven’t been there for you. I have wanted to be there. I never forgot about you, I held you in mind.’ I said, ‘I really wish I could feel that holding…’ She asked me how I’ve been and I said, ‘I actually don’t even know where to start, this is so weird and everything has gone out my mind… so… are you okay now?’ She smiled and nodded and said she was fine now and thanked me for asking. I didn’t ask her what was wrong with her. I don’t know if she will ever tell me. I told her I wished I was sitting in a room with her. She said she wished that too.

Anna talked about how we can set things up before the sessions so that it feels like a session. Though it annoyed me a bit when she said this because I felt like I’d done more setting up than she had… at least she could see me clearly! Anyway, she suggested I light a candle like she does and that I take some time before the session to relax into things. I told her I missed driving to the session, I missed being in my car. I talked about other things that I miss that have gone from my life because of the lockdown. I shared some of the thoughts I’d explored in my last blog post, about the lockdown being retraumatising to me. I told her how it felt like it did when I was a child and especially when I was a teenager and the only safe space (school) ended and I was left with nothing. I told her that I was plunged into these emotional flashbacks and then just when I needed her the most, she was gone. She said, ‘I am hearing you Lucy, I hear that everything was stripped from your life and it felt very familiar to you. Then I left you alone in it. I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you.’ I just nodded and told her it didn’t really feel real. I said, ‘I was able to talk a lot about that with Linda.’

I thanked her for encouraging me to work with Linda and she said, ‘I was so proud of you that you took a leap and sought the help you needed…’ I told her I felt like I was cheating on her with Linda, I said, ‘it felt like I was betraying you, I wanted it to be you, not her but I had to dive into working with her because I really thought I was never going to see you again. I really believed that you were either dead or dying.’ Anna said, ‘that must have been so devastating.’ I just nodded and kept talking. My guess is I wasn’t ready to share just how awful it had been because it didn’t really feel like anything anymore. I sort of felt over it all. I said, ‘…yeah so I guess that’s why I sent you the texts because I wanted to give you a window into what we were doing, I wanted you to know I was still anchored to you but buoyed by her in the interim.’ Anna nodded enthusiastically and said, ‘I got that, yeah I got that… I was really pleased to get your texts.’ I said, ‘really though? Coz I just imagined you lying there getting really angry with me thinking, ‘for fuck sake Lucy stop texting me, can you not give me a break!’ either that or I imagined you were dead and one of your relatives would keep seeing my messages flashing up on your screen… but I find it so hard to believe that you were happy to read my messages.’ She said, ‘that must have been so hard to have been alone with those feeling. I was really happy to read your messages, really. And when you told me that Linda had entered into our analogy of the glass wall! I was so moved by that. I was so glad that you weren’t alone in your analogies… I know it works for us but I was really grateful that Linda was able to step into that with you and it must have been so comforting to have a visual for how we were protecting our connection through distance by temporarily boarding up the glass doors.’ I really felt that she meant this. She was very sincere and I got this feeling that she really fucking cares. It makes me feel a bit uncomfortable to imagine her caring deeply about me, this must be the ever present remnants of my disorganised attachment… ‘don’t get too close!’ It’s like my inner critic is saying, ‘wow she’s a weirdo for liking you, get away from her!’

I said, ‘I’ve been reflecting about this boundary of mine, the one I imposed right at the start about not knowing anything about your life…’ Anna nodded and smiled. I spontaneously laughed as I said, ‘you know I learned more about Louse in 6 sessions than I’ve learned about you in 2 and a half years. Not everyone is good at holding that boundary!’ she laughed and I said, ‘I never really gave you the chance to show me how you would normally work because I was so firm with that boundary immediately. You may be completely different with other clients. I always thought it was you who was walled up behind this boundary of being a blank slate, when really it was me who made that happen.’ She was smiling and nodding and I realised that actually, Anna is a soft and gentle person. She has never been this harsh and unforgiving, easily angered and unpredictable dragon I imagined… that is pure transference. These imaginings fill me with dread and fear. If I take a moment to imagine what I must have endured as a child, for this to be what I expect from a person who has only ever shown me kindness. That’s very sad. I said, ‘in the first session Linda was telling me that she isn’t TA trained but that she had been on a day course and she kept checking in with me which was really sweet. She also would ask me, ‘what would Anna do or say here that helps,’ which was also nice.’ Anna said, ‘aw that’s lovely,’ I said, ‘she told me that you guys work at the centre together and then she said that you were a bit older than her… I don’t know why she told me that,’ we both laughed and Anna laughed a lot. I got the feeling that they have the kind of friendship where they can take the piss out of each other which is nice. I said, ‘so that’s where I stopped her and explained the boundary and asked her to not tell me any more… she still proceeded to tell me where she lives, that she has cats, that she worked with the police before becoming a therapist… honestly! Haha.’ Anna laughed. I continued, ‘she’s got on her website how old she is so then it makes it easier to work out how old you are!’ Anna said, ‘do you want to know how old I am?’ I thought a lot and then said, ‘you know, part of me does! This self harm obsessed part of me desperately wants to know everything about you… but no, I know this is what I need right now. I need to not let any of this be about you. You give me your age and then I have a ballpark for how old your kids could be and I can imagine what era you grew up in and stories in my mind about your life and I just can’t let myself go down the road of feeding that obsessive preoccupied part of me.’ Anna said, ‘that’s okay, it makes sense, it’s not important, you don’t need to know about Linda’s cats or how old I am, this is your therapy and your session and it’s not about us, it’s not about me.’ I said, ‘I’ve reflected about this and written about it. I’ve talked to other people online about their experiences and some feel that it’s unnecessary for me to have this very firm boundary. Some are happy to know bits and pieces of their therapist’s lives. But I just really feel that for me it would be too painful. Maybe at some point I will be able to let a little of that in but right now I know I need to keep this boundary.’ She said, ‘for you it makes perfect sense and I respect that.’

I continued, ‘with my mum, I had to bend and mould myself to her needs. I liked what she liked, I believed what she believed… hated what she hated. I had to be what she wanted me to be, to keep the peace and to make her like me. Then with Paul, it was the same. He told me the music he liked and I bought it and listened to it and made myself know it by heart. He told me where he’d lived and holidayed and I researched the places and looked them up on street view to the point where I felt I’d been there myself. I tried to make myself a version of him to try to make him like me. And then with you, you let me have this boundary. And it took a long time, but by giving me this space, you allowed me to find myself. Not a version of me that was likeable to you. Just me. A ‘me’ that I didn’t even know was in here. So, it has been very powerful, having this space to be me with no knowledge of what you like and don’t like, no knowledge of what your beliefs are.’ Anna said, ‘it has been a very important part of your work. Enforcing that boundary and upholding it. You have had your boundaries violated in so many ways, it was vital that I respect this.’ We just sat with that for a bit.

I said, ‘I can’t even begin to tell you what the past few weeks have been like, it feels like it’s been a year or more. It’s been so hard. Things in the family have been hard… things with Grace, oh my god that’s been hard. She has found this lockdown so challenging. Nights with her up screaming and shouting that she hates herself, Anna, it’s been heart breaking and I couldn’t be there for her. I screamed back, it’s been awful. I tried to mend it but I feel like we are in the middle of this very hard time and it’s impossible to see how it can be made to feel better…’ Anna said, ‘you said you couldn’t be there for her but I’d encourage you to think about the bigger picture here. This has been a very unsettling time and you lost all normal life and you lost me, it makes sense that you’d find it hard to hold space for her.’ I said, ‘Yeah I talked to Linda about this, though that was hard coz she doesn’t know me like you do and I didn’t want her to think I was a horrific person, she asked me how old I felt at the time of shouting at Grace and I told her I felt about 8 and she said it made sense that I found it hard to support Grace, how could I mother her when I felt like a child myself. That really helped me understand what was going on for me, but I still need to work on it you know, it’s still happening!’ Anna seemed pleased that I had talked this through with Linda and she talked a bit about how these are unsettling times for us all and that the four of us spending all our time together was bound to bring certain things up. She talked about the importance of scheduling in time for breaks and exercise. She talked about giving my mind a break when I physically take a break. That when I’m having a bath for example, I need to let my mind switch off and take a break from the constant conversations in my head. I laughed and said it wasn’t so easy for me and said she knew that and that’s why it’s important.

I said, ‘I’m trying to remember what it was like… well in the first couple of sessions I was really struggling with thinking that it was all my fault, that you were off because I had broken you… I told Linda that my adult knew it wasn’t possible for me to hurt you just because I cried down the phone for two sessions but my child really felt like she’d been too much for you. But then Linda reflected that back to me and asked if I thought it really was my child or perhaps my inner critic… which obviously she was right.’ Anna looked sort of concerned and sad and said, ‘I knew that’s where you’d go. That’s your biggest fear, that you will be too much for me and you will break me,’ I nodded and told her I still feel like that’s what happened. I said, ‘Linda pointed out my tendency to polarise… to go to black and white thinking. I was going over and over these thoughts I was having about you. I’d said to Linda that I imagined you either had the virus and you were at deaths door, in hospital on a ventilator and I would be the last to know when you died… oh my god Anna it was horrendous I had the worst nightmares about you dying… then I would go to this other extreme imagining you lying on the sofa just kind of taking a break from things, choosing to not be there for me, glancing at your phone looking disinterested at my random texts… and Linda would be like, ‘hmmm are those the only two options?’ haha but then the more I explored it the only logical solution I came up with was that you had a breakdown and I had caused it. I was too much for you, too fucking needy and emotionally unstable and you couldn’t handle it and it triggered something in you so you had to stop working with me.’ Anna said, ‘hmm and what helped?’ This is one of those times when I think to myself – that’s really not a helpful statement Anna – but what I sense is happening is that she doesn’t know where to take it, she doesn’t want to tell me things I’m not directly asking her, she’s going slow and gentle and she’s just sussing things out, making a connection again. I think she will reflect on what we’ve covered today and she will have more to say about it over the coming weeks. I answered her question. I told her it helped to be able to tell Linda how I was feeling and just have her accept that. But also that it helped that Linda got me to reflect on whether it mattered why Anna was ill. Also I said, ‘but you know Anna, really nothing helped! Not really… time just passed and then here we are.’ Anna said, ‘I wonder if you would have felt differently if we hadn’t been going through a pandemic at the time of me having to go off?’ I said, ‘absolutely! It would have been hard but it wouldn’t have felt annihilating like it did! But I think we need more time to explore that one!’ She said, ‘we will make the time.’

At one point I said, ‘I don’t want to take your kindness in, I don’t want to believe that you are being genuine when you say you thought of me or that it’s nice to see me. I mean, I can hear you and I can see that you’re being genuine, I believe it in this logical part of my brain but there’s a block here at my throat and I feel none of it in my body.’ Anna said, ‘yes, that block has been there before, why do you think it’s there now?’ I said, ‘because I don’t want to believe it and be made a fool of.’ She said, ‘yes, you don’t want to be fooled into trusting me and then have me hurt you again.’ I looked puzzled and she said, ‘I really let you down. You needed me and I left you. That hurt a lot. You don’t want to be hurt again. You’re protecting yourself.’ I said, ‘I think it’s going to take a while for me to really open up to you about that.’ Anna asked me what ‘that’ meant and I said, ‘the past few weeks… and my pain… um, well the anger really, the anger.’ She nodded and smiled and said we could take all the time needed to work through it. I said, ‘I completely lost you from inside myself. There were points where I couldn’t feel any remnants of you at all… I said that in a text. I’m sorry for inundating you with texts!’ She said, ‘you didn’t send that many texts, just a couple!’ I nodded and said, ‘there were points where I felt like we never actually ever met… it was like I’d made you up. None of it felt real.’ Anna asked me what I had done to help me and I said, ‘I read over old session notes and really tried to absorb the words I’d written about our time together and how connecting and real it all was.’ Anna said, ‘well done for doing that. Well done for finding a way to feel the connection again! That was a really good idea.’

I said, ‘we had six sessions, me and Linda… and the first couple of sessions I cried so much.’ Anna said, ‘yeah I sensed in your text that the crying took you by surprise?’ I said, ‘well yeah I mean, I never found it easy, you know that, but it was right there in my throat all the time, like this living hell in me, this living grief… and the only person I could process it with was her and then when she told me you were okay the relief was immense. You know I could never have talked so freely with her had this happened a year ago…’ Anna nodded and said, ‘what helped Lucy? What helped the grief?’ I said, ‘talking about it and letting myself feel it… I felt it massively. It feels far away from me now but it engulfed me you know? And I felt weird talking to Linda about it… she didn’t really process any of the grief or anger with me she just gave me the space to talk about it and kept saying things like ‘isn’t it wonderful that you’re going to have so much to work on with Anna when you guys start working together again’ and then that would make another wave come because I really felt that I would never see you again. Linda never went into it with me she kept referring me back to the fact that I could take it to you.’ Anna said, ‘she held space for you, I’m glad she held space for you.’

At some point in all that Anna said, ‘it was a little weird for me too, knowing you were speaking to Linda, but it’s your therapy and I was glad… I trust her you know, I knew I could trust her with you, it was important that you had someone, I didn’t want you to feel alone in all of that. I knew it would be very difficult for you and it was so good you had someone. So, it was weird for me but also I was glad.’ I smiled and said it was interesting and reassuring to hear her say that. It felt like there’s this shared sacred bond there that felt like it should be protected. But that we momentarily let someone else in, just in this crisis, and now we’re working at patching up the damage.

I said, ‘I was thinking of texting you before this session. I was going to tell you that I was feeling a whole world of different things and I needed us to go slow and gentle… but then I realised I could just say it to you in the call… and I think it’s going to take us weeks to work through this but I do believe we will.’ Anna smiled and said she was proud of me for how able I am now to express my feelings and needs. How frightened I used to be to speak my mind and that has got easier.

I said, ‘It’s been interesting to work with someone different. I prefer the way you work. I like how you look deeply into stuff, you analyse with me and you turn me towards my emotions. Also, you know me… Linda kept dropping these bombs with like 60 seconds to go!  And by the way 50 minutes is so not as good as 60 minutes! So, yeah in one of the sessions she said she’d noticed a pattern of what I do when there are gaps… I had told her about the time when I first started working with you and you went on holiday so I arranged for a skype session in that time with Paul to have some sort of closure with him and then the past few weeks you weren’t available to me so I filled the gap with Linda. I guess she was trying to get me to look at why the gaps were so uncomfortable or what was it about the gaps that made them seem intolerable to experience on my own. I told her I felt defensive about this.’ Anna said, ‘good! Well done you!’ and I continued, ‘I said that there were reasons… for one, Paul never gave me the chance to end things properly with him and it felt like the right time to do it because I knew I had your support. And this ‘gap’ did not feel like a gap to me it felt like an ending. Obviously Linda knew what was wrong with you so maybe it was clear to her that I would eventually go back to you but for me, I really felt like I was never going to see you again and I needed to somehow adjust to working with someone else and process the grief with her, so it didn’t feel like a gap I was filling it felt like a transition, reluctantly!’ Anna said she understood and I don’t think we explored that much further.

The last ten minutes were spent having a laugh about me cutting my hair and all of the baking and eating I’ve been doing. She asked if I wanted to put dates in the diary and I laughed and said, ‘is it not the same every week?’ we agreed on that and I said, ‘okay then, that’s us… time up… thank you for this. I’m so glad we’re speaking again.’ She said, ‘me too Lucy, enjoy the rest of your day, speak to you Tuesday.’ And I closed the meeting window.

So that was that. I feel like it’s going to take some time to build up the trust and connection again but I’m okay with that. It won’t feel exactly the same as sitting with her but I am so grateful that we can both do video calls. I sent her a text last night thanking her for coming back to me and then (as politely as possible) giving her suggestions for how to reorganise her laptop and seating arrangement so I can see her better. I hesitated before sending it to her. I didn’t want to seem bossy and controlling. But then thought – why not!? I need to be able to see her properly and I need to relax into the session knowing she is comfortable and not sitting awkwardly. My brother said to me, ‘this is a service you’re paying for, it’s totally fine for you to ask her to make some modifications so that it suits you better!’ a friend said to me, ‘she’s always asking you if what she’s doing or saying is working for you so she will welcome this feedback.’ So yeah… she hasn’t and won’t reply but I will see on Tuesday if she took my advice!

Before Tuesdays Session I’m now going to read over my journal notes from the past few weeks in an attempt to tune myself in to how difficult it all was. I need to bring it to the surface to be able to work on it with Anna. Also, interestingly, I’ve had a desire to email Linda and thank her again. To let her know that I’ve reconnected with Anna and that the work she did with me helped so much. I won’t be doing that but I’m noticing the desire. This attachment stuff is so complex and confusing sometimes!