Transcript: Episode 350
350. Surface Pressure
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[Short piano piece is played, lasting about 20 seconds]
I just need to share that I'm in a place in therapy where we are—I am—starting to trust her? Reengage, maybe? Feeling walls come down that I've worked so hard to build back up over the last two years. But having eye movements for the grief and the loss and the confusion and the trauma drama of losing my previous Kelly has helped so much so that as I go about my normal days, little pieces of insight just click into place. Things my brain knew that I didn't know I knew. Things that helped me see clearly, clearly enough to stop going back. The eye movements have helped with those intrusions of thoughts, those flashbacks that are so painful, and the emotional overwhelm that has tried to drown me for two years. My head is now back above water and the Earth is beneath my feet again. I'm standing on my own, aware that it hurt. I have not forgotten, and it has not gone away, but it is something that happened to me in the past. It is not something I'm living right now. And so I feel better even though the trauma hasn't changed. And there is distance between me and it that gives me enough space to respond instead of being in it. This has desensitized me from the pull of returning to what hurt me, and the strengthening of me where I am now when I am here.
I can hold on to the good, the things that were helpful, the things that meant something, what I thought our relationship meant, therapeutically, and keep that progress. But my life does not depend on her. And my truth does not depend on her understanding me. And my voice is not silenced by shame.
I will always miss who I thought she was, I think. And I will always be grateful for the work that we did there, learning about who we are. And the months and years we spent writing in notebooks with different colored pens.
But time moves forward and I want to live now. And my getting better doesn't stop. And I don't want to forget to move forward because of looking back. I am not a pillar of salt, despite the sea of tears that I have cried. And a new therapist, who's not new anymore, who has been patient and cautious and careful to meet me where I am, to hold space for all of who I am, has taught me that therapy is mine. She is not the boss of me. She is not God. My value and my worth do not depend on who she calls out to front or how well she thinks I'm doing.
She says she knows nothing, because it is my experience and she's just here with me. As we get curious together about what is happening and why it has happened, and what I want to do about it or not,
and what all of that means to me.
She does not favor parts. She is not only pleased with certain ones. And yet I find myself masking, covertly, for fear of being seen, but also being seen anyway.
When we talked about JohnMark struggling and spending the last year in therapy trying to protect us, trying to test the waters, and trying to get our notebooks back. So that we stayed nine months after the footprints episode until in a warzone, we gave up. Our new therapist says that that was not behavioral or naughty or a distraction. She said that in therapy, whichever part or alter or piece of me, or one of them, is most equipped for a situation handles it naturally most of the time. That it's a process our brain goes through, not something we choose to do or should be punished for. She said anytime in anywhere in any situation, even when it's unexpected, whoever is there out front is there for a reason. And that I could be curious instead of shaming, and have compassion instead of judging or trying to push them away. Because I've gone to therapy for six months trying to be present. And I don't know how to hold that balance of having a consistent presentation externally, or being covert enough that no one knows what's happening inside, or masking how unwell we are with all of us here, waiting for help. And how to balance that with knowing they are there and have stories to tell and things they need and healing to embrace. I don't know how to stay present, and also accept them. I don't know how to function and also let them be.
And I feel we have been on pause for two years, maybe three. And someone has hit the play button in therapy. It scares me because it's been so messy these years. It scares me because last time we tried that hard in therapy to let what comes up comes up and just go with it. Things fell apart. And so it feels dangerous. But I need to breathe, and anxiety swallows me. And I want to be a good mother because the faces of these outside children matter to me. And none of us should be ruled by irritability.
We are reading a book for book group that said irritability is passing off our shame onto others, and my therapist said, “I don't think so.” She said irritability and anxiety are white noise that fill up the space so that we don't have to fill, so that other emotions are harder to hear and not so clear.
We told her about our throne of swords. And she was blown away that we had labeled them even if we didn't want to talk about them. She said that sometimes with DID time does not exist at all. And it's a hard thing to reclaim, and that timelines sometimes are too difficult to put together. And I thought of my out of order book that says all the things I need to say but cannot say. And she says these swords count. The swords are the story. And we can talk about them a little at a time.
And that's when I realized that under the stand that holds up the laptop for telehealth, therapy on Zoom, my hands were wadded in a satin baby blanket. But I didn't remember picking up much, less tying in knots. But I knew those were the knots of my stomach at the thought of talking about things. And I don't know what it looks like to let them come back and surface again, to tell those stories of swords.
I know that I am not me who was me three years ago. I know that I am not them, and they are not me. I know we are here. I know there is one body. I know there is one brain that we share. I don't know how to struggle into the place of peace with us, together, accepting each other, listening to each other, talking with each other.
In the skills workbook they call it communication and cooperation and collaboration. In a class, my friend John was presenting and he said that when we don't do those things, we try to be over controlled. And that control leads to conspiracy. And conspiracy leads to coup. And that that's when things fall apart internally and externally.
There is war in the world and it is scary. There is war in the world and I am afraid. There is war in me and I don't want to see. I want to build a community of safety inside and in groups and in friendships and in my world around me, instead of walls suffocating me. But that requires courage and tenacity, vulnerability and transparency, but also boundaries. And it's messy as we learn and try, and I don't know why it is easier to do this for others with others, then it is to do it inside. But I feel them coming and I see the walls coming down, and I'm remembering places inside and having access to those places again, if I just stepped in. Like walls coming down or curtains going up, or arriving to a clearing after a long walk and maybe what I see is me.
[Piano music of Jessica Darrow’s song Surface Pressure]
[Break]
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