Transcript: Episode 334
334. Jessica’s Colt
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
We've made it a whole month with a new therapist. And maybe it's working. It feels high risk. I told her that in journaling, not in person. I didn't say it out loud until now. Because my heart was so broken by what happened before. And because there's so much happening now, externally, with the children home from school again because of the pandemic, the husband away because of his parents, and I'm just tired. More than just tired. Weary. I don't think that I would get out of bed at all if it weren't for the children.
My body feels so heavy, weighted down, pulled by gravity with currents of despair. I'm not giving up. Things are not as dark as they once were a year ago or two. I don't even remember. But it's heavy and I'm tired of swimming in it.
I've missed groups. I've not gotten to talk to my support people. And things have been difficult with the children. They're okay. I'm okay. Because being okay is what we do. But also there are days when I'm honest with myself that I don't feel okay, that I don't know if we'll ever feel okay.
But that's our starting place this time in therapy. That if we're going to do this, we have to start with why it's hard. Not just in Memory Time, but because things are difficult. But because things with therapy have gone so wrong so many times, and it's hard to believe that I'm helping myself instead of setting myself up again. She asked if I was feeling conflicted and I said, “no.” And then I thought, “Oh, wait. I didn't realize that was the word for it.”
She said in therapy what we talk about is protected. That it's okay to talk about things. That we don't have to worry about other people's feelings or retaliation. And maybe that's part of what went wrong in therapy before. I was so worried about her feelings; I wasn't thinking about mine. Maybe that's part of fawning. Maybe that's part of the reenactment. Taking care of my caregivers instead of anyone taking care of me. And I think sometimes that's hard to fight. Because when you stand up to that, it feels selfish, or it's easy for them to feel uncomfortable and then it seems like you've caused harm. And so you feel shame. And I think most of us would do anything to avoid feeling more shame. But they're not my secrets. And in therapy, I'm not supposed to be taking care of the therapist. or changing what I want to talk about to make them more comfortable. And I see that's part of what happened before. What made such goodness so toxic and not good at all, even if nothing was malicious.
I'm trying to move forward. We wrote a letter to our previous Kelly, and we said all the things. It was fierce. It was hurtful. No, my intent was not to cause harm, but I know it hurt. I think in some ways it's because she was so safe for us, and so good for us, that she's the one we could say all the things, and use our voice and speak up. But at the same time I'm aware that's not always safe to do in every situation or with every abuser. And in the days that followed with responses, it came right back to that full circle piece of taking care of her feelings, and not wanting to feel shame, and not wanting to cause harm. That that's part of what makes it so hard to speak up when threats are real or when you're being targeted in real life. But I know even in tending to that after a very hard letter that I can't do therapy there, where I'm tending to her feelings instead of mine. Because that is my entire childhood. And so it solidifies the letting go.
I keep thinking I've made progress in moving forward. But when it comes up, I still cry. We still miss her. And it's hard talking about it in therapy, even when I understand it's healthier to see the truth and to speak it, and to realize what was, and to realize that those days are gone. And that what I thought was, and that what we thought was, never was.
Maybe some of them thought that it wasn't a real place, her office. Maybe some of them thought she was inside too. So part of the grieving of her is realizing she isn't there.
My therapist now says that therapy is a relationship, not a punishment. And part of relationships, she says, are boundaries. That when we communicate our own boundaries we're doing something for ourselves, but we're doing something for others too. Caring for them in ways that help them be effective and safe for you, and that it’s part of what makes relationships healthy.
So we talk about boundaries explicitly in therapy. All of the usual ones for the therapist, but also ones for me too. She helped us come up with a signal for when things are going too fast or feeling like too much. I'm not going to say what it is because it's just mine, and it's for therapy. But it's helped, and we keep practicing it because it's hard to do in the moment. We also keep talking about transference and how we're feeling about therapy and discussing it explicitly the way we do with the dream therapist. And we count marbles in the jar, and look at what makes them marbles and how we're building trust together as we share things and we experienced her caring for us well and safely. It's progress, but also it's hard. But I'm trying.
Last week she suggested that we try journaling again because we had shared that it had been useful in the past. So we wrote about journaling, journaled about journaling. I guess if we can do therapy for therapy, we can journal about journaling. And we talked with her, and wrote about what it was like when we used to do the notebooks and everyone had their own pen, and everyone had a voice, and how sacred that was, and how much progress we made, and why it hurts now because it's a trigger reminding us of our previous Kelly.
But at the same time, this therapist is helping, and it is feeling safe and I do want to get better. And drawing the jar of marbles seemed like a beginning for journaling again. Even if we do it differently, sometimes now typing instead of drawing. Instead of notebooks, or writing on a tablet, and emailing that instead of notebooks. Or sending artwork from our bullet journal instead of notebooks.
I know that therapy is working again and that this is a good fit because I feel safe with her even when it's hard. I know therapy is working because I feel better after I've seen her, and because the days stretch long between sessions, and I'm clinging to hope until I'm clinging—barely holding on—by the time it's the next week. I know that therapy is working again because things are pouring out of me. Maybe trickling, but they're coming out again, slowly, carefully.
But in talking about journaling and the notebooks, we talked about having to get them back from our previous Kelly, and what to do with them then. And how it was too overwhelming to just have a tub full of notebooks, one for every week from the last five years. And how it wasn't safe for children to stumble upon the raw material in them. And how we spent the pandemic typing them up. And that's what became the book. Our questions about what's happened to us. What's happened to me? What hasn't? What is real, what is not real? The way Peta has to ask Katniss who I am, who they are, who we're going to be together. And so the book was born. And we've told her now with grave fear about the book and the workbook. She was not angry though. And there was much relief in that. I wonder what to think or what to feel. Part of me is glad she knows, so that everything is out on the table and we can really get to work. And part of me as scared because there are things on the table at all. And if she knows about them, and I know about them, and we agree on that, then I can’t pretend they're not there.
In discussion about these books, it came out that she is a member of ISSTD. Which means there is a place where worlds overlap. And I thought for a week or two what to do about that. And there's the context of how much exposure we've had, and how that's put our family at risk in different ways. And whether we should continue at all, or if it's time for us to withdraw. Not in fear, but focused on therapy. Letting our therapists learn from the people who know how to help me. And me letting go of using knowledge to feel safe, and starting to trust my therapist to help me herself. There is something sad about it and it's taken me a long time to find words, but there's also something right about it. And maybe it's time. I never came out to ISSTD to be a token person with lived experience. I came out to be honest, to be authentic, because I wanted them to know. But I feel like I've offered what I have to offer and that it's gotten dangerous for us, publicly, to be so exposed. And that if we have a therapist now who is safe and good and knows how to help, then it's safe to let go, to fall, to be contained.
I have thought all this time that it felt like we were on monkey bars trying to swing across from one therapist to the next. And I've been so afraid of falling. But maybe we don't have to fall. Maybe we've just finally reached the other side. And it's just okay to climb down.
We've tried to participate professionally. We've tried to stay in our lane. We've tried to offer what we could. But we've also been hated on, and doxed, and targeted besides, and so misunderstood by some. The people who have been good and kind to us, I will never forget. Some of them I get to take with me as friends, more than just colleagues. The others will be glad to see me go, and I'm okay with that. But even my job, both because of the exposure and the safety issues coming with that, and because my therapist is a member, which was unintentional but also gives me hope that this one can help. She needs her space to grow, to learn and thrive. Maybe for the first time, I don't have to take care of other people. Not even for attendance. Maybe for the first time, I can let someone take care of me.
And talking about what that looks like in therapy, and what's gone wrong in the past, we also talked about what's been right and good, and how our previous Kelly helped. And since we had already told her so much, I told her about the podcast too, the System Speak one, which we are not adding episodes to but as long as we can safely will stay up. Although subscriptions are stopping, and the funding is going down, and the danger is increasing. So I can't promise it will stay. But it's still there for now. I didn't actually tell her about it. What happened was that she asked what we learned from our previous Kelly. And because I knew it was time to tell her about the podcast, so that we really could have all our cards on the table, and everything out there unburdened from me, I sent her the link to the System Speak podcast with the episode about Emma’s Top 10. The mother's day one where we talked about all the things we had learned in therapy that were so helpful and good and healing. It makes me cry now, remembering those days, but I also know I knew then that it was goodbye. I wanted to leave while it was good. I wanted to leave while things were okay. I wanted to leave before I felt the pain and grief that I have felt the last two years. But I wasn't strong enough and it took a whole other year to play out. And it hurts my heart. But also, I think we've made it through. And so I shared that episode with my new therapist, and she wasn't angry about the podcast. She said it was brave and courageous and helpful, and I wept. I wept because no one has said that except for on the emails. ISSTD gave the award, which meant something to me because the people there means something to me.
But I've asked different therapist when we were trying to work through things and find a therapist to listen to this or that piece. I need someone to sit with me. There's so much there, more than ever in the notebooks. And I've not gotten to talk about it in therapy. But she says she listened to the Top 10 episode, and to the first three episodes, and she had questions about them. But I said I've not listened to the first three episodes, and I've not listened to the Top 10 since we left our Kelly, and System Speak podcast all the way back to win Julie used to be on. She used to ask me all the time if our Kelly was listening to the podcast, but we could never get a direct conversation about it from that therapist. It was like the question just remained unanswered.
Later, after we left her, she sometimes listened to a specific one if we asked her, but still, we never talked about it, just like the notebooks. And then since then, I think she listened to some, which is what hurt her. And I'm sorry that it did. But also I was doing my best and processing as I could, containing with the resources that I had. And through this I learned not only my own pain, but also I see that we cause pain to others when relationships are hard for us, because people are waiting on us, are wanting to care for us, or wanting to be cared for by us. And our avoidance of relationships and interactions cause harm. Maybe not maliciously, and even when our capacity is at its greatest. And I don't mean that we are bad or that people who love us and understand us hold that against us. But in an Emerging Self kind of way, for a moment I could see how hard it is on other people around us, and ways I didn't understand before. And I was truly sorry that it caused pain, that I have caused pain, because of my own hurt, avoidance or absence. Like even from the groups, for example, or my friends. So that was one thing that helped me go back to therapy. Because I cannot do that to my friends or to my family. And I'm learning not to do that to myself.
And I thought maybe that was one of the things that was so hard with that previous Kelly, who was so good at presence and yet not present. That felt like such a reenactment for me. And if it's a reenactment, and if I've learned anything from my dream therapist, then how am I doing the same thing to others? Offering groups I don't attend. Being too busy with work to be present with my children. Interviewing therapists, but not having one. And so I've stepped on the brakes and paused things. And maybe letting go of my work even with ISSTD will give me that much more time with my children. And maybe going back to therapy, and maybe staying in therapy, will help me be a better human. Just generally, and improve prove my relationship skills. Because I can't have relationships if I don't stay. So maybe it's time to learn how to stay. And if I want to stay in therapy, then maybe I need to learn how to stay with myself. I don't just mean staying present as opposed to switching, I mean staying present to tolerate the pain that I carry. And other pieces too. Like joy sometimes, or playfulness, or irritability, or any of the other feelings that I have, we have, they have, we have, I have.
I've challenged myself this week. I don't know if I can do it. But if my therapist can listen to the first three episodes and not be mad at me, or ashamed, or appalled or mortified, maybe I can too.
[Jessica’s Theme (Breaking the Colt) Piano music]
[Break]
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