Transcript: Episode 304
304. Dreams and Roses
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
Therapy is still hard, but I still like her. And we keep going back. She says that that's part of it. That both can be true at the same time. That we have anxiety about therapy, and also we feel better when we go. She said that's actually part of what's happening, that we're increasing our capacity to hold both. That therapy can be good for us even though it is also uncomfortable. I think uncomfortable is downplaying it a little bit.
One of the things that our therapist keeps reminding us is that when we feel shame or have emotional flashbacks, our body is reminding us how we felt as a child. Not just how we felt as a child, but the worst we felt as a child. And it gives me some context for how can I possibly manage these feelings in the present, and so how hellish must it have been as a child. Of having the same big feelings but only being 17 years old. To be so young and dealing with so much. It gives some context for what we were really up against, and be only 17, or 12, or four, or even younger. And it gives some context for how hard it really was back then, and how much better things are now, even though those feelings can still be big and overwhelming. But remembering that the feelings are from the past too. And that part of why I'm feeling them now is because I am an adult with adult resources. She keeps saying that. So that now I know how to manage those feelings. Not that I want them. And not that I caused them. But that I'm actually safe enough, and well enough, and strong enough to finally process these things that my brain has had on pause for years and decades. That's kind of a big deal. Even if it's far more unpleasant than just uncomfortable. It's hell, really. And I hate therapy still. Even if I like her.
The other big thing that we've been talking about in therapy are Kellys. Having that word to just say Kelly and refer to any previous therapist at all has taken the level of betrayal out of it so that we can just process our experiences and what we've been through in therapy that went wrong, without actually feeling trapped or as if we're betraying anyone. So again, thank you to Maureen McEvoy for giving us that word, both to talk about cases publicly in appropriate clinical settings, and how we've applied it to be able to talk about past therapists. Not in inappropriate ways, but in therapy to be able to share without upsetting parts, or having as much conflict about betraying or tattling or getting ourselves in trouble, which so easily triggers that early childhood dynamic of secrets and not being able to tell, or getting in trouble if we do, or something terrible happen because we did. It's been a big breakthrough for us. I almost wish that it could apply to our parents and other abusers. But that's a different thing. And I don't want to use the same word as we do for previous therapists. So when we say Kelly, we mean a previous therapist, any one of the many we've had over the years.
But practicing that with therapists, many of whom were really good people, having that practice in a safe setting to talk about how “when this happened, I felt this.” Even if what we're talking about is therapy, it's giving us really good practice, actually, to talk about other things, too, from childhood. About “when this happened, this is how I felt.” And so, by default, we've come full circle, where those Kelly's from the past are still helping us now, in the present, as we start to process things and learn how to talk about them out loud.
Our therapist is Jungian, which means we pay attention to the stories that we tell, and the characters we play in those stories, and what it means to us, and what our brain is trying to tell us. It means we pay attention to the therapeutic relationship and what that saying too, and talking about it explicitly along the way so that we don't reenact some of the things that have been so difficult in the past with other Kelly's. And that's helping keep it safe enough that we can keep moving forward.
But for the first time, we've had a dream that this therapist thinks is significant. And she wanted to tend to it. And so we talked about it.
I dreamed I was driving a van, the family van, I guess, and going to a friend's house. A safe friend, the one who has a son with leukemia and is friends with our daughter. She's a significant person in our life, and so that got our attention too. But in our dream, when we got to her home, and we got out of the van and walked up to the front door, we were somehow aware of and realizing that we weren't actually at her house. We were at her friend's house. And we walked down the sidewalk past the porch up to the front door. And as we knocked on the door, we could see our friend sitting in the window talking to someone that we could not see, who I assume was her friend whose house it was.
And then the dream kind of turned into a nightmare, but not in a scary way. But it was only scary relationally, I guess. Our friend could see a standing there, and we could see them standing there, but they wouldn't come to the door. And we could see her talking to someone about us, and could feel what she was saying even though we couldn't hear what she was saying. I don't remember now what it was actually about. And I don't think that that part was important. I think it was the relational dynamic, which our therapist agrees with. That's what matters.
But then I realized as I waited for her to come to the door, that the other person she was talking to—her friend, I think—was holding a child out of sight. And then I could hear the child screaming. A little child, a very young child. And the more that they screamed, the more aware I became that they were preventing them from running to the door, that the child was trying to get to me and they wouldn't let them come. Until finally, the child broke free and ran to me at the door. And then my friend's friend came out, and I could see that she was frustrated and irritated with me and with the child. Because the child had gotten away because I had knocked on the door. That that's when I woke up.
It's true. And in Jungian theory, all of these different pieces matter and tell me something about myself.
So the therapist said that the thing that is important, first of all, is that I was driving my own van. That no one was forcing me to go there, and no one else was putting themselves in charge over me. I was in charge of myself, and making my own choices, and driving where I wanted to go, and aware of where I wanted to go. Which is a big deal with dissociation, right? But there was still some incongruence between being aware of where I was going and in charge of going there, but still also not ending up where I thought I was going. Which is more about dissociation. So that seems true to my experience.
Next, she focused on the relational piece about me waiting outside the door of the wrong house and seeing them talk about me. She asked what I thought that was about. And however uncomfortable this piece of therapy is, it seems kind of obvious in the dream that I am outside the wrong house because I don't belong inside the right house. Or any house really. And I'm on the outside because I'm not included. But I'm also aware of that and so don't go inside the house myself. And so I'm just waiting. Which is what the last year has felt like. Not waiting for permission, exactly. But not knowing how to proceed either. So all of that part makes sense.
She asked me about what they were talking about, the part where I could feel and understand what they were saying even though I couldn't hear them. I tried to laugh it off as a joke that I couldn't hear them because I was asleep and dreaming, which meant my ears were not on. So of course I couldn't hear them. But my heart could feel and my heart could understand. And so she asked me again, what was it that my heart could understand and what could I feel when I saw them talking? And I told her that I understood they didn't want me, and the outside was about not belonging.
So then we talked about rejection and abandonment. Because it's a theme in our life. Part of what gets reenacted over and over. Part of what we're most afraid of. Part of what unfolds from our childhood as we learn our own story. And we talked about how that's what was toxic about last year. It wasn't the people. The people in my life were good people. And it wasn't the pandemic. The pandemic happened to everyone and was hard on everyone. What was toxic for us was the waiting, and everything being on pause, and not knowing how to proceed, and not being able to resolve things. Because it left us outside, not belonging anywhere, but also not invited in and waiting on the doorstep. Unable to rescue a child inside, but also being aware that that child is me. And I'm being held back from being let out. I am holding them back from being let out.
And that hurt me. Because I know from The Women Who Run With the Wolves, which is a book that we love, that even in a dream we play all the parts. It's not really about my friend, or her friend, or a random child. They're all me. All those parts of the dream, even the house, the door, the distance, it's all me. It's me talking to a part of me that I don't recognize or feel close to about how I don't belong. It's me holding a child back from disturbing me, who feels overwhelmed by the distressing screams of the child. It's me who is the child waiting to be released, waiting to be let out, seeking comfort and nurture, and instead being locked away. All of it is me. Parts of me. All of me.
And the dream wasn't just a dream, but an increase in awareness. And a metaphor and a visual of seeing what that's like, and how it plays out, and what I'm doing to myself, what we are doing to each other. My therapist talked about how we can't abandon ourselves in that feeling. That we have to do something to show up, even for those children. To not abandon them. To cope together.
She asked me how old the child was. And I didn't know because I woke up before I got to meet the child. I only saw them running towards me, and that's what startled me awake. But when she asked me, the vision that came to my mind was that picture of us under the high chair, crying out and reaching out. The one that's in the back of the book. The one from foster care. [Short pause] The one that DHS says was taken by Mrs. Lowe [Short pause] when she had us the first time after our grandfather died. [Pause] A moment captured of distress, but also comfort. A child hiding, and also crying out.
Our therapist went and got the book off of her shelf and brought it back out to look at the picture, and held it up to the camera because we're still on telehealth. And she said, “That child can't be two, even. Maybe one. Somewhere between one and two.” “That is such a little baby,” she said.
I don't think of myself as a baby. Even when I know those young parts, or know of those young parts, or hear of those young parts, I don't think of them as a baby. Because when you say “baby,” you're saying innocence. You're saying something sweet and tender, something from a picture. Other families that are not mine, where babies are loved and cared for intended to.
That was not our experience. [Short pause] We were alone. We struggled to survive. We had no one to connect to. Which meant death hovering over us always, regardless of other ways that we were hurt or harmed or in danger. Because when a baby does not have a caregiver, they cannot stay alive.
All of these thoughts unfolded before me as fast as she could snap her fingers. And the feelings that go with those thoughts came back to me. And my stomach grumbled with hunger, and tears were pouring down my face, even though I was not crying. Someone was, from long ago.
And I thought, I have never been a baby. Because a baby in my environment would have died. I have always been ancient. Ancient in the struggle to survive in ways that now they call independent, productive, introverted, but that my therapist says means traumatized, neglected, abused. And I never thought of myself as a baby because I could not see myself as the victim or I would have died. That's how dire things were, even before the fire, even before the cameras. [Pause]
A baby is a person. A baby is a relationship. A baby is someone you love.
I did not have relationships. I was not loved. I was not cared for. I was an object. A machine maybe. No different than a mobile hanging from a crib, turned when a button was pushed, left for the entertainment of others, and only noticed when it was time to be touched, and not in ways that tended to me. [Short pause]
So through this I met a child part of me I didn't know that I had and I don't know what to do with. And I don't know how to find them because it was all just a dream. So it's not really real or really me, except that she is. That I was. That I am.
My therapist asked me, “If this were my daughter, how would I treat her and what would I say to her.” And while she meant to help me care for that part of myself, what filled my mind was guilt and shame for how I have tended or not tended to my own children. And 1000 moments passing before my eyes in another split second, so that I live lifetimes in only a 50 minute hour. Questioning and wondering and pondering and seeking out moments of whether I even did tend to my own children. And there's evidence that I have sometimes, but I fear that I have not sometimes. Because no one told me that children are people. And when we get down to it, my desire to care for my own children is why I'm still in therapy. Because I cannot get healing fast enough to intervene differently for the next generation to parent differently than what was done to me. Even though in so many ways, even though I have tried so hard, so explicitly, so directly, to do differently.
But our therapist talked about 18 month olds, and one year olds, and two year olds, and what they can do, and what they like, and what they need. She reminded us that a child that age can speak if they have language access. And that they can color and scribble even if they can't write. And to think about what resources that part of me as a child has access to now, in my environment, that we did not have access to when that was my age, the body's age, her age. She talked about coloring books, and snacks, and funny straws. And the thing that came to mind were bubbles.
And a friend of mine had just sent my outside children a bubble wand that makes slow giant bubbles, the kind bigger than my six year old, the kind that float heavy in the air like clouds, the kind that can dance around before they pop. And so that's what we did after therapy—bubbles with the children, bubbles with my children, bubbles with me—just to try and tell that part of myself: “Hey, I see you. I know that you're here. I'm sorry that it was hard. But we are safe now. And we are happy. And we have the things that we need. And we play with children because that's what children need. So come and play bubbles with us. See the magic of the world in a way we never got to experience before. Dance under the sky. Roll in the grass. Run up the hill and slide down again. Chase the chickens. Feed the fish. Pet the animals. Run with bunnies. Pick some flowers. Pull the petals. And play with sticks. Let's spread out a quilt and listen to a story. Let's snuggle in the sunshine and the spring air, and in the fresh air and sing our favorite songs. Let's not be independent. Let's be connected together with others. Let's not be productive. Let's stop and play and rest. Let's not push through work without bathroom breaks or stopping for lunch. Let's eat something that nourishes us, and care for our body, and move and stretch in ways that feel good. Let's not do more. Let's just be together, connected, provided for, and cared for. Let's laugh and giggle. Let's fall asleep under the stars. Let's be happy. Where we are safe. When we are attended to. As we care for one another. As I care for all parts of me.”
My therapist says that it's a reenactment to not reach out when we need help. My therapist says it's a reenactment not to respond to our body's needs for food, or the bathroom, or sleep, or play, or rest. My therapist says it's a reenactment to isolate ourselves from those who care about us. She reminded us of our CPTSD book that we're reading together, and how these are learned responses by a baby who was neglected, and uncared for, and hurt. That these were missed developmental tasks, not something that is wrong with me. But only something that we never got to do, or experience, or receive. Which is very sad, and there is grief in that, but there is also still time to do, and experience, and receive. It is not who I am, but something I experienced. This neglect that causes such big emotional feelings, this neglect from the past was something done to me, not who I am now. Which means I can change it, rather than continuing to do it myself. My parents have been dead for 10 years. There's no reason for me to still be neglected, or uncared for, or abused. And if it is true that I am safe, that all of me is safe, then it means I use my adult resources to keep myself safe. Which includes healthy relationships, and regular nourishment, and rest, and play.
She also reminds us that re parenting happens by committee. And not just all of us inside working together as a team. But that pets count, chickens count, books count. Our group support that we go to and appreciate counts. Healing in relationships by being with a safe partner like the husband counts. Friends who stay count. Seeing my own children dancing, and laughing, and smiling, with giant bubbles count. Having friends who send you bubbles or salsa, or drops off clothes for your children, or food boxes during a pandemic, all of that counts.
It's hard to care for myself because caring for myself means admitting that I need care. And admitting that I need care means admitting that I was not cared for. And so it's holding both, she says, at the same time in an object relations kind of way. That the roses across our front yard are beautiful, but they also have thorns. But knowing that they have thorns does not make the roses unbeautiful. It's okay that there's both.
But also those thorns are not ours. So like a Kelly said before that they're not our secrets, this therapist says they're not our thorns. She says our own toxic shame, these big feelings that come with emotional flashbacks when we don't even know what triggered them or why it happens, or what memory it's even associated with. Because that part of me did not have memory yet the way that we have memory as adults. And having those emotional flashbacks now tells me that those are those very little parts who needs a whole lot of care. Very gentle, careful, protective care. And what's wrong with them is not what's wrong with them. It's not their thorns. She says, the therapist says, our parents made us feel about ourselves how they felt about themselves. She said they take what they-. She said they took what they didn't like about themselves, and put it on us. The disdain, the contempt. And we have been carrying these things that never belong to us. They aren't true. They're not our thorns. They're not our secrets. It's okay to let them go.
Therapy is like learning to pick a rose without getting stuck by the thorns.
And dreams, she says, are a way that our unconscious brings medicine to our souls through symbols, not literal things. But everything means something. And I learned that through our favorite book in the world. Like scripture to us, The Woman Who Runs With the Wolve book by Clarissa Pinkola Estés.
And so in our dream, we are the ones driving—I am the one driving—moving us forward. I'm in charge of driving myself forward, and I am aware of it. That's progress. That's healing. There are friends in my dream that at one time felt safe, and now don't always anymore because of the pandemic, because of distance, because of not knowing, not understanding, not experiencing reception, invitation or responsiveness. Not from our friend in real life, but in the dream those themes that I'm doing to myself, reenactments from my parents, and how they felt about themselves, and how that was put on me. And how it keeps looping over and over, like the car driving around the corner in Dr. Who.
And it represents my relationship with therapy, where it once felt safe until it didn't. And what that felt like, being taken away. And me driving towards reclaiming it. And moving forward. And establishing it on my own terms. And resolving it in my own way. And my standing at the door of my own consciousness, demanding that we work this out. Showing up for myself even when parts of myself thought I wasn't able to or not ready. It's me, there, knocking at the door, saying, “I'm here. Let me in. I don't want to be left out anymore.”
She says, my therapist, says that's me announcing I'm ready for more co-consciousness, for more awareness, a decrease in phobia of parts, of the past, and in dissociation. That it's me showing up, seeing them, hearing them, knowing them, and being aware of it. And remembering it. Because I remembered my dream, and what I told myself, and what I told the other parts of myself—what I told me—that I'm here.
And so there is shame in relationship wounds because of the shame placed on me as a child. And it's loud and messy in relationships because I'm still there, under that high chair, crying and reaching out, but also hiding under, and trying to be safe. And recognizing that there are little, little, little tiny parts of me who still don't feel safe in relationship. Because relationship has always meant danger. And that those little parts of me still have a lot of catching up to do. And it's going to take time, and caution, and gentle care, attending to, for healing to happen.
But also, I'm there at the door, knocking, saying, “Let the child out. It's time we care for them. I'm ready to care for them.”
My therapist says that in relationships, our adult self experiences the relationship, but that it triggers the child self. And the adult self feels the child's self-response. So my mother and father did such and such, and now this person in my life is doing this thing, and so now I feel what my mother and father did to me. As opposed to my feelings being in the present.
I think I've always thought it was only memories that were in the past. Maybe body memories, because that's happened to me before. But it's feelings too. Flashbacks without memories associated with them. Relational wounds that go back before I ever had words. And in my case, the traumas of losing the few people who did try to care. They're the only reasons I'm physically alive. Because they saved my wife.
But also I lost them. So early. Too young. So wrongly. And for me, in my particular experience, that makes it challenging. That makes it hard to believe that even good people can stay. And when good people try to stay, then I get those feelings of loss. Which is what feels so crazy in the present. Of why does good hurt so much? Why does staying terrify me? It's because of the fire. It's because of what I experienced as a child. When I could experience and feel long before my brain could even organize memories. And the shushing in my dream is about not being heard and not being seen, my needs not being heard and not being met.
But my adult self can talk about that. And my adult self can do something about that.
My therapist said, reminded me, that a baby who is one, and not even two yet, is learning about the world being a place that they can trust or not, but also about themselves whether or not that they can navigate that world and get their needs met. And there is shame when the world is not safe. And there is self-doubt when we are not able to navigate the world and get our needs met. So she says this child is popping up in my relationships. That the wreaking havoc and the self-doubts and the fear that makes it so hard to step into, to turn toward, is because this baby that's still waiting, that doesn't know, who's feeling memory is not caught up to adult self-awareness.
She said we need to go back to that dream when we're alone, when we have privacy and space, without responsibilities for work or outside children, and that we need to close our eyes and go back into that dream, and open the door to pick up the child and to take the child home, and to let her know that she is safe, that we care about her, that she's important, that she matters. And to find what it is that they need, what it is that she needs, what it is that I need, tending to.
I don't know how to do that. And I feel anxiety and fear just thinking about it. But she says it's like the roses again, that it will feel good to the child and bring relief to me, even though it also feels scary to try. And so I do. I did. When the husband was home doing an activity with the children, and it was our day off work, I went to the back porch to our swing by the fish pond, which feels like maybe our safest place in the world, and I sat on the swing. And I sat there for a long time swinging before anything happened. Trying to be quiet, trying to be still, trying to just feel and to tolerate feeling.
And I realized maybe that's why I like the swing so much, because a swing is something that comforts a one or two year old child. And maybe that's been something I've been doing to regulate, to care for that part of me, to make it safe enough for them to come forward, for me to see them. Because for a year, I have been swinging every day. And I felt a flood of relief at that. I felt peace at that. That there was meaning and purpose. I was already doing and already trying in my body and in my mind, meeting needs of parts of myself in the best way that I can, even while also it is so very hard and so very scary.
And so I close my mind. And so I closed my eyes while I was swinging. And I imagined that little girl from that photo as if she were up on the swing with me the way I swing with my daughter. And the rest of what happened feels too sacred to share here right now. But it was good. And she was safe. And I was safe. And when I got to the question about what do you need? I was shocked by the answer that came because it was the blanket that came with us the night of the fire. Which you know the story from the book. But with three bunnies in our pocket, about what happened when we were four. But that night, taken out of the house with three little bunnies in our pocket, which are, which we still have and are on my desk every day while I work.
There also came with us a small tiny baby blanket. Not a large swaddling blanket. But a small satin blanket. Like a dolls blanket, maybe. And even as I'm telling you this now, I can now see the doll that it went with. And literally until saying this in this moment at this recording, I did not know about that. But it comes to me now. And we lost the doll. The doll was left behind, but we have the blanket. And I knew where it was. And I went and I dug it out, and I pulled it out, and slept with it last night tucked under my chin, and woke up with it this morning still there. But feeling safer. Feeling happy. Singing all morning. Songs on my heart, songs of peace, songs of love, songs of safety.
I don't know what it all means or what happens next, but it's a shift for us. It's something new for us. It's something good for us. Caring for that smallest one.
Caring for me.
[Break]
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