Culture. 7th February 2022.

I was trying to say...

I am no longer coherent or sane.

I expect there was the usual 'hello.

I expect I sat down where I always sit.

Was there chit chat?

Who knows, who cares!

Me: "I did my...'what are we for'...I mean, I stand between two cultures.

He: "For which course?"

Me: "My integrative course - the other course is done, and passed. So, I stand here as a member of two opposing cultures - and the question 'what are you for'?

He: "Was that the assignment, 'what are we for'?"

Me: "No, no it didn't have a title just a number, or it might have a title! I don't know, it was almost a work of fiction on my part! I did put myself in it to some extent, but not entirely because I found it quite a difficult thing to write about because it seemed to ask not so much for reflection, but a liturgy of things I'm supposed to have a problem with - and I really don't think that I do. Or, things that are supposed to be problematic - and they are not!"

He: "Like what?"

Me: "Cultural differences - what would you do if your client said that they were possessed by a demon, what happens if you have got a client who is pushing your buttons because there is something about your upbringing that makes you think 'Oh, it's one of 'those' people'! But it isn't my concern if it is 'one of those people! It's my concern to work with what ever they bring'"

He:  "Well I think that they want to know how you will respond to that."

Me: "No, it is more like a liturgy of things, categories of things."

He:  "Surely if they are presenting a scenario they want to know what you are going to do with it!"

Me: "They are not presenting a scenario - but standing there, I actually said to my tutor who is marking it, I have completely forgotten what the assignment is, because I'm having to do the next one and there is so much, so much. And I can't remember what I've written! But, it made me laugh yesterday as I was writing about my 'self-care' for the next assignment. And I'd been sat there all day because there are an awful lot of words and I've got three more assignments to do by March. So, I'd finally got to the self care part where I'm to write about my self care, which is great - I can write about self care. I don't know what time it was, I have had breakfast, I don't think I'd drunk anything much. My son came in and gave me a glass of Fanta in the afternoon. And then towards the evening my other son gave me half his garlic bread from his Domino's order. I was laughing...this is self care...This is the difference between writing about something and what you are actually doing. But, yeah, yeah, yeah I mean this is what I do, this is always how I've done it. I do 'having to go mad' when I do a lot of work - yeah, like learning Kreb's citric acid cycle by taking chalk outside and drawing the diagram again and again until I'd got it. I mean you just have to go into it and go kind of bonkers don't you!"

He: "So, what do you do if a client turns up and says that they are possessed by a demon?"

Me: "Well, it depends on how they are saying it for me to decide what to do. It depends on how they are saying it - it's emotions, what is the need underneath? This information is the top layer 'demon is the problem' but how are they saying it? Because it is how they are saying it that matters, is how I respond. So if someone is terrified then my response is different to someone who is - I don't know? Apprehensive or happy or...Often people are 'suffering from demons' beliefs about their identity. They know the name of what is wrong with them."

He: "Oh, that's a different use of the word there."

Me: "The same meaning though, at the heart of it for me 'I've got this thing, it possesses me, makes me - and I have to do these rituals to pacify it that 'the clergy' have given me. And they tell; me and I cannot say if they are right or wrong because I have not got a clue (only an opinion) so I ask, 'Tell me how this is helping you, what is the best thing about this'? So, it is entirely about how somebody says something. But I'm supposed to list all the things people might say - cultural differences - that I'm supposed to be worried by."

He: "Why do you say that you are supposed to be worried by them?" (he says this really fast, I have to ask him to repeat the question twice before I think I've heard it)

Me: "Why am I supposed to be worried by it? There is a whole lot of things I am supposed to be worried about!" 

He: "Tell me now."

I'm supposed to be worried really isn't the same as worrying...

Me: "The need to worry is transmitted in the way it is said."

He: "Oh, OK."

Me: "It's kind of unbelievable. It's undermining. I don't know how my fellow students cope with it, I suppose they just feel undermined by it. It's the 'when you see your first client you will feel' that sort of language."

He: "Really!"

Me: "Yes".

He:  "They tell you how you are going to feel?"

Me: "Yeah"

He: "What do they tell you?"

Me: "Just in throw away lines, tone of voice 'ooooo...when it's the real thing....'"

He: "Hmm - begs a lot of questions doesn't it about assumptions"

Me: "Well no, it's the tutor's own anxiety. I'm used to it. Still, she gave me a good mark, so that's OK. Oh what was it...about the self, about personality. I said 'I am what I do - that's it'. She said 'you are NOT your actions Xerpa!' I kinda am, I said. I am what I do and that's it, all of it. 'No you are not - that's a role that you are over identifying with'. No, I'm not over identifying with a role. I am what I do. But the only way to get out of this because it was getting a bit heavy was to say, oh! OK - I understand what you are telling me, are you saying that deep inside of me there is a pure, innocent child that I can get back to - my pristine, original self - and I'm thinking, what other terminologies have I heard for this theory, is it the soul, is it pneuma, Buddha nature? Regardless - I am what I do - or rather that is my current working theory anyway..."

A long gap...

He:  "So if you are what you do - what is acting? What is doing?"

Me: "What am I enacting? My will..."

He:  "If there's not a doer how does doing take place?"

Me: "Responding? Doing is a response? Yeah, I guess it is a response."

He:  "Always?"

Me:  "I don't know!"

He:  "If you spend a week on your own, you don't have any contact with anybody you wouldn't be responding to anything."

Me:  "Well I would - there is the floor, the air, the food, the light; colour, texture, taste, reality. If I didn't have sensory input my mind would be doing hallucination".

He: "That's B F Skinner isn't it? Operant conditioning surely."

Me: "Not conditioning but response. What else is there other than learning? And predicting, which leads to creating."

He: "Then that requires a learner. That requires a person who does."

Me: "Back to, we are the sum of our parts."

He: "If you are only what you do - doesn't make sense with out somebody doing."

Me:  "It makes sense. It is the 'I', what I am doing. I have no speculation about the totality what I am, but 'I' am what I do. If I try to define who I am, I must be what I do."

He: "So what about, as happens with some people, there is an inherent wall between their inner world and their outer world and they are trying to fight themselves to do something different. What's happening on the inside? That person isn't what they do. That person is in conflict with what they do."

Me: "Well the conflict is them as well (it is what they do). There is no separation, they are different voices within one's self."

He: "Oh so there is a self!"

Me: "There is a concept of self (soto voce) but it's not lasting and permeant, it is changing."

He: "Yes, it is a false dichotomy isn't it; are you what you do or do you do what you are?"

Me: "A performance of self..."

He: "Well, that's a false dichotomy, truth is much more complicated than that."

Me: "Yes, truth is much more complicated! But basically...I am what I do. There is no fundamental personality to uncover is what I was saying."

He: "That really is B F Skinner, that's the Behaviorists!"

Me: "Bloody behaviorists! When I went for my interview to do a psychology degree I was interviewed by a Behaviorist who asked me about my application and how I'd written about Jung. And he went off on a rant about Jung being a mystic. And I defended 'Depth psychology' as I would...anyway! He was the first 'Behaviorist' I'd ever met <laughing>"

He: "Well not only is there's no body in there, we are just a collection of actions."

 Me: "No, there is the emergent property of entities. No, entities ARE an emergent....no, this isn't fair <laughing!> I don't have a philosophy degree! I'm going to play you some music, to get out of this."

He: "I'm just trying to say that it is a false dichotomy that's all" <not laughing>

Me: "Ah, OK - I've bitten again. What's the dichotomy - I mean not what a dichotomy is, I understand the term. I mean what are the opposing versions."

He: "You are given a choice between *you are what you do* and *you can do what you are*. And that presentation is a false dichotomy." 

Me: "But the *are* is the part that is problematic. The *are* is an emergent property of all that you are. So, you / I we are an emergent thing. There isn't a soul possibly sums up best what I seem to be saying".

Oh dear - digging a hole and can't stop! I have no idea what I'm talking about and I am doing and being 'completely out of my depth' topped with a sparkly sprinkle of courage, curiosity and fortitude!

He: "Hmm. Don't know where the idea of a soul came in!"

Me: "But it is almost as if there is a soul (in how personality is understood - some original, pure self) to say people do what they are, it is almost as if there is *what they really are* and that is seen as pure, golden almost an adamantine, diamond gem, impervious and unchanging, and it is performed or enacted in the world" (which is a set of illusions that trap and confuse the pure nature into false beliefs)

He: "If that is what is meant by that's what you really are, of course that isn't true!"

Me: "Are you sure - how would you prove it?"

He: "Well, there is no evidence for this idea of souls and Plato's forms if that is what I think I hear you saying? That there is a real, true immutable self that is clearly nonsense."

Me: "Hmm, but that is at the core of it what my tutor was saying. That there is a pure personality underneath all the *conditions of worth* ."

He: "I think I'd like to know what she means by a pure personality, because if you are going to discuss something like that you need to define your terms."

Me: "That is her personal belief, just a belief."

He: "Yes, it is hard to debate what is a pure personality. I'm not even sure I know what it means."

Me: "Oh, it was never going to be a debate! So we got into a tail-spin because she is invested in her belief, and I told her that I believed something else! So the only way to get out of this is if I tell her what I think that she believes as if I believe it, and then she agrees with me. And...that was the right thing to do. And then she smiled and all was right again."

He: "Hmm"

Me: "Such is life! I should play some music. Which one though...If I didn't know what to do I could open up a pack of tarot cards  (I talk about tarot to get a reaction from him!) and look for a reflection from the outside world. Because of course I'm seeing everything through myself - don't argue with me <laugh> I'd see it through where ever I am at this moment. OK, well going all the way back to the past...

I played worldly wise Lou Reed for all sorts of reasons.

And I try to play Covenant again...and fail. Covenant represent closure. And I'm talking about how my 8 gigabytes of EBM (that was a in 2002!) came from a friend who believed that her depression was a chemical imbalance, and how through her, and quite a few of the tracks from her collection, I got it; I understood why a person would want to reframe their feelings though that lens and take the medication.

And then once more again he is talking with me, memories and.... the hour is done.

Omission. 24th January 2022.

He hands me my coffee and

I'm saying: "It's quite nice that you get a different picture on your computer screen..."

My laptop is open.

He, sitting down: "It really is cold - goodness!....so, is this part 3?

Me: "Basically I'm out of my head again, today because I've got to get my assignment done by Wednesday"

He: "Do you want to talk about that assignment?"

Me: "No, no, there is nothing to be done, the words are all there. I just need to read them all out and make sure it makes a coherent story. Just I realize what a constructivist I am, meanings are all created through relationships, and I don't know what the person marking the assignment wants me to say; do they want a liturgy of possible things that could go wrong? Well I will do that, but basically people want to be accepted and loved and when they are ostracized they feel terrible"

He: "Oh is this the 'what can go wrong in a therapy session' assignment?"

Me [laughing] "No, I think that they make us experience that in class - when it was my turn, my friend, my friend(!) Elaine, and this is meant to be about grief by the way, she sits down - we are in front of the whole class - and she raises her eyebrows as if to say, I'm on your side Xerpa, I've got something good for you. 'Hi, what would you like to talk about?' and she brings this 'I've just found out that my husband's having an affair, we have been married twenty years!' I thought Elaine! How could you do this to me! So this is a scenario - not real - but I'm in the role of therapist and she didn't have to make up that story! How could she do this to me! I can't use my 'normal' strategy, because I will risk being marked down for 'rescuing'.

He: "Well that's good isn't it, if you can't do your normal strategy?"

Me: "Not in this case"

He: "Well clients aren't going to fit into a strategy"

Me: "Kit! Stow that - I will tell you a real case - client's notes say 'Depressed, drinking too much, really want to get my life in order' that's all I've got. It was a Zoom. Client is somewhere indefinable, window behind him, I can't see him because there is no light. And he is to all intents and purposes 'my husband' I mean obviously he isn't my husband, but he has exactly the same story. He blames his wife, she is being unreasonable. But he had exactly the same story, and attitude...So, I partition that, OK I'm on your case, I'm on your side, what are we doing, how can I help you, all that... So, that's fine because that is real. But this! In class! I thought, how could you do this to me Elaine! Did she think if she gave me something I know about personally I would be a better therapist in this session? Afterwards she said, 'I saw your face, are you OK? I said, yes - I just had to take a few deep breaths, but I'm OK, but honestly Elaine, how could you do that!"

He: "But why wouldn't she? Because that's going to happen at some point"

Me: "I have just explained it to you. It has happened. I've also had a client who is experiencing stuff as terrifying as I went through. If it is real, that's fine. And when it is real, I do it the way I do it which is to focus on what is working and people's needs, so in a real situation I talk with a person about what they want to change, and what they need to feel safe. I am not going to be going into the problem, which is what I'm supposed to be doing in this session with Elaine - because the conceit or deceit is that I'm going to be working with this person for infinite sessions - but truth is, sessions are limited to six because of funding! So knowing how to be brief is vital!"

He: "At the moment you are now, but what about the future?"

Me: "I don't know about the future. But I see myself as good at crisis, I am good with people who are in a state of 'I can't take it anymore, I'm at the end and I don't know what to do'"

He: "So, not private practice then?"

Me: "I don't know - perhaps - that's the thing, I've got two people, one said ' I've seen counsellor's before and I usually have to tell them what to do' and there is someone else who I really want to refer on, I don't think I'm the right therapist. So both people obviously think that I'm doing the kind of therapy they need, then, that's up to them!

He: "It seems odd to me that you are deliberately cutting down possibilities"

Me: "I'm not cutting down possibilities. It's just that...no, this reminds me of another conversation with my other mentor. I don't have that many years Kit, I recon!"

He: "You are not ninety!"

Me: "Well, it's not that far away!"

He: "It depends on what you think of as medium or long-term therapy because there are ill defined parameters. But lets say medium term therapy, just for the sake of putting a number on it, is let's say three months. And long-term therapy is over six months"

Me: "Perhaps students from my college are the best served then! - Ooops, sorry, I'm interrupting"

He: "Well it means that you can only work in very limited contexts if you are not interested in the ongoing relationship with the client, and the ongoing investigation in to developmental questions"

So, here is why I told him that I'd fallen in love with him. The currents and flow of energy between people really matter! 

But where is his interest in the ongoing relationship with me, here and now, in this room! He can't talk about it...is my conclusion.

Me: "It struck me when I was writing that assignment that we are really all taught the wrong stuff. But what I really appreciate, having been there myself is that there are a lot of people who don't want to go to see a therapist and don't know how to find a therapist, and there are a lot of people in crisis"

He: "Yes"

Me: "That is where I started, and it is why I started - because of  my son's friend. It is that question - how did it happen - and my choice to do something, not just sit there"

He: "You can't resolve a crisis in six sessions"

The first time I spoke to someone in crisis we resolved it in three - with WhatsApp support in between...find the passion, follow the energy and resonate.

Me: "You can actually. 

He: "You can put a sticking plaster on it!"

Me: "No! I disagree fundamentally"

He: "Without doing any of the developmental stuff? Without somebody understanding themselves?"

What's to understand - I'm in so much pain and heroin takes that away, but I tried to kill myself with it. I want to live. Help me! So, shall we talk about your deficits? about what's gone wrong? Or shall we talk about your strength and courage? It is totally understandable that once someone knows how effective a pain killer is, unless they have a very good reason not to use it - they will use it! My aim is to increase the energy of I want to live! 

Me: "What you mean by developmental stuff is, I believe, is to help them get into sync with their emotions. Giving them appropriate words, and you yourself being in sync with them. That is part of it "

He: "No, I don't mean that"

Me [laughing] "We are going to start arguing about angels on a pin"

He: "No. Absolutely not [warning tone] no, absolutely not, this isn't theology (?! definitely I make him angry)  this is fundamental approach. I'm talking about a client understanding their own inner workings. What you are talking about is called empathy or attunement.

And I reply with anger ...because I feel dismissed.

Me: "What I'm talking about is giving a person - yes, 'rescuing', yes, all these dirty words in a counselling course. Rescuing, (as if that could be a problem!) confluence, cooperating. Actually dismantling their process of self-attack, by hearing the need underneath. And instead of picking up on the top level (of distress) hearing the person underneath, and I'm talking to that one. That's why the client - who had the same story as my husband -  and this was interesting for me - after this, if I can cope with this I thought, 'I can do anything now!' So what I heard was his need underneath his frustration and pain. But he isn't going to attend long-term therapy is he! He doesn't want that. He wanted someone to tell him that he wasn't going mad , and to splurge his woe to a stranger who is anonymous'"

<pause - Kit isn't speaking - possibly counting to ten.>

Me: "You would like more for me? Is that what it is? Do you feel that it is a shame, a waste? Or you feel that I'm limiting myself, or you feel that? Whats..."<he interrupts>

An invite to actually say what he thinks and feels for once!

But no, it's been kicked into the long grass.

He: "I'm just wondering, if you have never had a client for more than six sessions...have you?

Me: "No"

He: "OK, if you have never had a client for six sessions, if you have never had a client for six months"

Me: "Well I only started seeing people in October last year (3 months ago)"

He: "Yes, yes! If you've never had a client for six months or eighteen months or two years, or whatever it might be. Then how would you know what's possible?"

Me: "I don't know"

He: "When they go beyond six sessions"

Me: "I agree with you absolutely, I don't know"

He: "But you are telling me its of no use"

Oh my, did I say that? I didn't say that? I said crisis counselling, and knowing how to make six sessions effective! I also said something about increasing people's will to live by following their energy...meaning that I'm talking about people who are suicidal. 

Me: "I'm telling you that I set out with a goal - or - (it started with a) not quite a road to Damascus, but I was sat at an inquest listening and assessing, and hearing a story, and thinking that what I heard was unbelievable"

He: "Sorry, what is unbelievable"?

Me: "It is just unbelievable, the disconnect! The systems all apparently are set out to help people, but they manage to alienate the people that they say they are helping"

He: "Which system?"

Me:

"Which systems - more than one! So I thought -  you know, my son's friend is taken in for a mental health assessment in June, got out of there after three days and then by December he's walking about on the rail track. So, how did he get from there to there? This is somebody in a system and so why is it that his family feels compelled to take action themselves? Why were they not asking for help from the system(s) when he appeared to be in severe mental distress and by the sound of it, psychosis? Again how did he get from there, to there? The system must have a 'care plan' surely his family had a care plan; numbers - who to phone. Again I ask, from there to there and now he is on the rail track! Where are the police? He was first seen on the track, or close by, forty-five minutes before his death. But the original phone call for help was made at 6:30 am, he was hit by a train two hours and fifteen minutes later. How do you get from 6:30 until a 8:45 with someone walking about on the rail-track? So, what is happening? 

He: "What has the psychiatric system got to do with medium to long-term psychotherapy, because I don't understand?"

Me: "It is how I got into this. It was the statement from the GP at the inquest. She said "I asked him if he wanted to go to counselling". And I thought at that moment, listening to her description - and I think I had already done part of a mental health course, so I'd already got a handle on this attitude, which I'd already thought was not very good and decided that I was not going to be that kind of mental health professional either. I thought, why on earth would he say yes to counselling? So my decision was, to become the counsellor who can find her way into these gaps between the psychiatric assessment and the hour before he was hit by the train! It was a total disconnection, no one to help, no one to call. And at the time I thought of his family; why did you do this, why did you do that? And now of course, I know almost every second of it"

He: "I'm still trying to hear how that is connected to the question"

Me: "Because crisis is not medium or long-term, Crisis isn't about developmental, that's for someone like you! My skill is that, I don't know - perhaps I mesmerize - or I challenge in the right way, or perhaps I agree with my philosophy tutor (philosophy was part of my other counselling course) that we ask ridiculous questions, but we keep on asking them. We 'use the keys', the fundamental questions <looking now at his expression> but I shouldn't go on. Where are we <nervous laugh> here in this room. Are you clearer now?"

He: "Well you seem to be saying something more. Because what you just said was, there's this here - which is at your college - but 'my skill set' is here.

Me: "Yes, and they are 180 degrees opposite"

He: "But what I've heard you say at other points is that not only is my skill set here and that's at college, but that what I'm doing at college doesn't work and is in someway wrong"

Me: "It is only wrong insomuch as it doesn't deal with the reality that more people are in crisis, than people who want to attend therapy."

He: "Hmm do you think people like me don't see people in crisis?"

Me: "There is a pay-wall! That is a problem. There is a pay-wall! A person has to self-identify as 'I need therapy, and I can pay for it, and I will pay for it'  and that puts therapy behind a wall. So what I am saying is, there are an awful lot of people who wouldn't ever approach that wall, it's not in their culture, it's a different reality, it isn't a part of their universe. I'm not saying anything about who you see, obviously no. I do not know who you see. But all our teaching at college is set up for this long-term therapy concept. I asked - when I took level 3 - about talking to people in crisis and was told 'NO' "

He: "There is something in my experience, and I think people I have spoken to have said the same thing. which even at level 7 and level 8 is really missing. Which is - I think what you are getting at which is, what do you do with the person who is in crisis right now? And typically they get referred to psychiatric services which is going to do them no good at all"

Me: "Exactly"

He: "So that there is a gap, um..."

Me: "And that is where I'm meant to be going, you see! That's my place"

He: "Because I remember when I was training, at one point saying, 'when are we going to cover people who, right in front of us, are suicidal'? Or we know they are suicidal before the first session because they tell us so - because I always filter, use the phone, because there are legal questions I need to ask, and also I just want to have a sense of where they are coming from before we meet face to face. So, I asked the question. 'Oh, we haven't got time for that'. I'm so angry! How have you not got time for that! Because even if you have a long-term client, it may be that their starting point is ' I see you or I kill myself' that's possible. Anyway...That was all a bit of a tangent wasn't it because you were going to do something"

Me: "That's fine, reality is what reality is"

And then I'm talking about the part of me that is my protector, Trent Reznor / Doom Guy.

Mp3 player connected to my lap-top - Playing Nine-Inch-Nails: Not Anymore!

He reads the lyrics and says: "Now that sounds like your language...So this is the point at which you? The point at which you stopped to think actually this isn't everything I wanted it to be? This is too problematic. This is something in a place that I didn't want to be, and would not have chosen. But, here I am "

Me <I don't sound so sure!> "Mmm"

He: "What was that point?"

Me: "That it was there - but because I do ' we can work things out', and I'm not forgetting that there are these problems, and they are up there on the shelf, and I know what they are - and they need addressing. But, there is nothing to be done at the moment. I can't hit the destruct button until it is the right time. Because it was a question of, I don't understand. I can understand the narrative, but I don't know what the truth is about why, or anything, or what's to be done because it's not my stuff. I'm not the one who has taken the action. I'm just standing at the side of the road having witnessed my life crash, and I didn't drive it into the crash. If I'm a part of this I can't see it - I'm a bystander trying to work out what has happened. And the negative things and the positive things are weighed up and put on the shelf until I know which way to go, so...That is active rage - that song. That's like accepting the rage. And there is a freedom in that moment of not having to be nice, I can say what I truly think. No shadow of a doubt now, it was as bad as I thought. I can say it (and not be told I'm imagining things and making everything worse!). But until I know that I'm right I can't press the destruct button"

He: "When you put it like that its like you couldn't admit to yourself how bad it had got until you gave up the idea that it could be salvaged"

Oh dear, he is certain that he knows how it really was, and he just does not get it.

I was married!

Regardless of how bad, 'for better and for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health'. I'd given my word that what ever happened I wouldn't go. 

And I loved him. 

There was no denial on my part, only my husband's lying.  

Then I really put the boot into our relationship. 

Basically I was breaking my word.

Kit doesn't get this..

But yes, I threw rubbish bags crammed with his belongings into the street and shouted "She's got a family, has she. Not anymore"! (hence this track). 

I disagree completely with any 'I couldn't admit 'it' to myself'. This concept is demeaning and cruel. And a complete failure in understanding that there is more involved than 'denial'. I felt as if my husband was pushing me to give up - which meant doing his dirty work for him.

I didn't 'give up' because that meant letting him win.

And I made the end into his worst nightmare, I played the screaming harridan and not only threw his things into the street, I went round and dismantled any illusions he had that I thought of him as anything other than a cheating coward, who had used me because he was too weak and insecure to face his own true reflection.

Me: "It was a balance; not salvaging. This fits into another song. I am intolerant of lies. If you wandered why I sent you that recording it was because I don't do lying, and I have to assess things. Once I've assessed them then I know where I am with it. Then it is out in the open, and this is just how things are. I had a year of being lied to. The transformation point was when he (husband) carried on lying even when I knew the truth; one more lie - I couldn't understand it he was like an alcoholic, had to keep on doing this lying thing! But it doesn't matter after I know, if it makes sense of not! Finally I know. So, one more song...three view points and I know all of them!"

He doesn't reply about the recording. And so it was that I continued to feel lied to, by Kit - and I can't call it out, he had all the power....he could ask me not to return. This was my life and possibly my death if he got it wrong.

I am tangled in barbed wire when I remember. 

And I still dream of him.

I played another track. VNV Epicentre. 

The song that takes me back to the last night - hours later my husband was about to lie some more and go round to her house  - the air, the texture, everything about that awful evening felt explosive. Sitting on the hills, I took myself down a winding path walking away from my husband who was there but not there. He is a black, hazy looming presence in my memory, a darkness of threat and choking smoke. I sat with my back to an oak tree. The atmosphere was crushing -  Like being inside a lightning cloud, or perhaps a pressure chamber. No will left, disconnecting - letting the darkness carry me away to drown - awareness of raw agony. Awareness of catastrophic decompression. No feeling, no energy - the void of space, the murderous depths of the sea. I wanted  this, I wanted to die. I though of just sitting, starving, no drink, no movement. Then remembering the small knife in my bag, a knife he'd given me. Only the thought of my children kept me tied to this world. And as I'm telling Kit this, putting it very clearly that I felt suicidal that night. Does he remember that I didn't tell him this when he asked me about suicide during my assessment at the start?

But...I'd said that I needed to know...

He is intelligent. How many times have I repeated I need to know the truth so that I can make a decision? This absence from Kit, as from my husband keeps me bonded to him. The 'You should have known that I could never go there' isn't enough. I keep saying, truth matters, truth meant I could throw my husband's belongings out of the door at him whilst making sure all the neighbours heard 'She's got a family, well not anymore'. 

And this blog, Kit -  is the same moment for you.

Kit is quiet for a long time: "What I hear I think, is someone in crisis - asking other people not to be affected by it"

Me: "No tears, no sympathy...Yes, to be in that state I'd reached the point of , sure 'don't turn away' but all sympathy for myself had gone. It is something I understood for the first time with my first husband, his suicidal intent - the cold shutting down - was something I'd never encountered before. Friends who had said, 'Oh I want to die' but they would sob and rage - but it was emotional, emotive and alive - but he would talk without emotion, cold and mater of fact. It was real. It chilled my blood. And that is where I was that night - self abandoning - like putting your self, like an animal, down. And normally I couldn't put an animal down without emotion - so to reach that point; I understand killing from computer games, out of fear or anger, but this was cold. I didn't care. I felt it, sat by the tree; I actually don't care...But the next morning, once I knew the truth - 24 hours later - I felt immensely better. The sky was the sky, the earth was the earth again. Truth matters"

Truth matters.

He <after a long silence> "Did it help that your husband had been hit with a saucepan?"

Making light of my statement...please do not do this.

Me: "I don't know, I'm pulled in different directions about that. But I thanked her husband, genuinely, for calling it out, and he was full of shame

I've said it so many times, truth matters.

He: "Well there is something comedic about being hit with a saucepan. But there is also something about taking action, rather than saying 'Oh this is terrible, my world is falling apart. 'You did this! BANG!"

He want's me to think of this as a comedy....

Deliquescing into a room full of heavy air. 17th January 2022

A rather brittle hello from me

Again, we speak in unison.

And in the next part of our conversation I remember why I love his company - The flow, how our words dovetail and intersect. It proves nothing. I think it proves that we get on.

It proves nothing?

I make him laugh.

Then the chink of coffee cups, and spoons and cupboard doors. Falling leaves of sound, deliquescing into a room full of heavy air. Full of potential and a silence as thick as woollen blankets. This is is an old house - Each time I arrive I look at the steps that lead to the door. I put my feet down slowly and carefully in the worn out sagging stone, to match the memory of foot-fall, and wonder who else, who else? And how they were as they stepped as I step now. Happy, sad, in love - people alive, and people dead.

He "Brought your gear? It feels a little cold in here, I've put the heating on. I hope you are warm enough?"

Me - "It's been really cold, yes. Water is now 8.5 degrees centigrade - from the tap "

He -"How do you know that"?

Me - "With a thermometer!

Both laughing

He - "Why do you - why would you..."?

Me -"Because I carried on from Wim Hof breathing, I do the whole lot. I use Wim Hof's technique"

He -"Which includes knowing the temperature of tap water"?

Me - "It means having a cold shower"

He - "And you need to know how cold it is"?

Me - "It is interesting! I like to know how cold it is"

He - Laughing "Why? Why does it matter"

Me - "My reaction is interesting - it is actually easier to do when the water is colder than warmer"

He - "OK

I laugh..

Me - "So no actually, it's about running towards and not away from my reactions. So I know that I am a kind of run towards what frightens me than run away, sort of person. If something has got like 'an edge' to it, and it is irrational and doesn't make sense - because what I'm feeling is at odds with what I know -  then if my fear doesn't make sense, I will prod it and poke it"

He - "And that includes having cold showers"?

Yes Kit - it also includes being honest enough with one's therapist to tell them that they are wanted and loved. Because truth matters.

Me - "It certainly does because I was kind of convinced that the cold shower would kill me - that is what my fears said - the thought of turning the hot water to cold felt in my imagination like turning water into acid and it would dissolve me, I couldn't possibly withstand it"

He - "What literally"?

Me -"This was my feeling-sense, how I imagined it would be so terrible and impossible to withstand"

He - "OK"

Me -"There must be something that you are scared of, that is a totally irrational fear. Like a snake, or spiders, or something? But this is about when you know there is an irrational, 'over the top' aura and you say to yourself, 'I can't take that' "?

He -"And for you that is cold - all things that are cold"?.

Me - laughing!  "No, just turning a hot shower to cold is going to be unpleasant!"

He -"So why do it"?

Both of us really laughing!

He - "I mean unpleasant isn't the same as fear is it."

Me -"So in that space between anticipation and reality - and being aware of all the feelings arising - in that moment the question I ask myself is: what is it about turning hot to cold, that stops me doing it? And I have agreed with myself that I will take this action. So the real question I ask is: what am I truly feeling?  I hear the lack of reason in my irrational arguments, but my body is panicking. It is like the breath hold when I can feel as if I'm about to die from lack of oxygen - but the oximeter on my finger proves that I'm well within safe margins for blood oxygen, and my heart rate is fine - so it is truly only my mind creating fear and the physical sensations of panicking. Knowing I'm physically fine means I can start to undo the effects of mind, I find the places in me that are tense and I consciously relax them. It  is exploration! I am a person who has never taken drugs, but I've always been interested in what is happening during that moment of - something - I slow it down and look at it".

He - "See what I'm trying to get hold of, I can understand all of that in any situation we could find ourselves in. Like some people get very tense when they are in groups when there is a large number of people, so that is worth investigating if they work in a job in which there are often people in large groups, so that is every day reality, and problematic.

Me -"Why do I push the envelope"

He - " But in terms of cold showers and breathing - this isn't something we normally do"

Me -"It works...it creates a direct key to my reactions. I am very grateful to Wim Hof that I have that method. And there is a lot to be said about WHM regards benefits to the immune system - that isn't so important for me - but the work following on from Seligman's experiments, about elective shock creating a protection against random shocks - because the cold water is always a shock that will never get any easier. Well, truth be told, my body has adapted  a bit..."

He - "But why is that something worth adapting to?"

Me -"You never know what's going to happen next! Because I can adapt...so that is good"

He -"So suppose I was to become a medieval ascetic I could train myself to go to sleep on a bed of nails every night"

Me -"You could, but that would be potentially damaging"

He - "I could adapt to it - but why would I want to?

Me - "It is potentially damaging - and I can see that it might look as if it is in the same category as Wim Hof, perhaps the underlying feelings for the ascetic are of a hatred of the body and wanting to suffer. But Wim Hof isn't that at all"

He - "I wasn't suggesting that at all"

Me - "I am looking at parallels - yes, my knees were really sore when I did my prostrations (Tibetan Nundro) though I did have really strong stomach muscles after 100,000!"

He - "What, your knees were sore after doing prostrations. So, is that something worth 'running towards' again"? 

Me - "No, I just agreed with the cultural meaning, as it is part of a religious practice - so I understand the ascetic - is what I'm saying. There is more to Buddhism than sitting on a cushion". 

He - "Yes, I do know - and I remember you talking about computer games in the same way - going towards something that is problematic so that it becomes less problematic"

Me - "It is more a case of observing the process, of mapping my reaction. It is very important that I know me, and this is how it is done. The invite is realising that something has power over me, and not liking it because it doesn't make sense. So it is obviously a left over - so there needs to be compassion for that, but because it is irrational and it doesn't make sense it will need to be poked to regain my power. So you say that you do know more than that (about Buddhism) OK, that's interesting. Ha, it has just crossed my mind - am I allowed one question a week? I will leave that for another day.."

He - "I hope you don't mean that at the last minute I will have to sit an exam on Buddhism!"

Me - "No, there are four schools and we are all very different in our concepts on emptiness. That tells you all you need to know."

He - "I can't help but put it into a TA frame"

Me - "Oh, OK"

He - " That trying to bring a present tense, Adult ego state to meet the trapped in time, frightened Child - to get the Adult to have influence upon the Child is a very established, therapeutic way of working. Obviously I would think in those terms because those are the terms I think in. But, within that framework it makes complete sense. I know you are not very keen on that framework, but it sort of works" 

Me - "We construct reality, this is about giving names to phenomenon and experience. We just organize reality around symbols - words...what works matters....

Nothing more to say, listening to Tool keeps me sane!

"When you reached the point of overload and handed over to your husband what was that like for you"? 10th January 2022.

Is there a difference in his hello?

We speak in unison. 

Coffee?

The sound of cupboard doors, cups, the clink of the spoon.

He - "So where to today?"

Me -"We could do time travel."

He - "How do we do that"?

Me - "By using music"

He - "I'm still not with you"

Me - "Music is evocative - well evocative for me - we could do that"?

He - "I'm still not with you - oh, you have got some music with you"?

This is a strange session, I am talking about my identity. Talking about identity is what I do now (in 2023) with clients who feel that they are broken. I'm beginning to see it as vital, it is a key to restoring a sense of 'I am', because 'I can do x,y,z'. It is more than confounding the sense of 'I can't do anything' into 'actually I can do plenty'. The question, 'tell me about you, what do you love' often brings the answer 'I used to' - but in remembering, the past becomes present tense, the memories are breaks in the tragedy, specks of gold to be noticed and gathered.

My identity has been shattered in the recent past.

My identity is fractured, not shattering at the moment.

I need to take care of myself!

Meanwhile, he is describing our sessions as 'very word led' - wondering where all my emotion at having my home physically wrecked, and my marriage revealed as a tissue of lies and deceit, is. I wonder what has been said in supervision? Or is he thinking about last week - wondering where was rage, my tears, my frustration, my sadness and grief? But in the light of the dialogue and how I felt during it! I've no idea now what it would take for me to tell him! Right now I'm in a room with the man I've told that I love, and I have no idea what he actually feels. He has not expressed his feelings about me, or about this situation. 

But he is telling me that my feelings are missing! 

Right now he is asking me about the past, my catastrophic past. So I explain; about 'it' all that I got through, and my certainty that I got through only because I felt it all at the time - experience had taught me to stay present, don't black out.. The 'it' was my son's psychosis, his suicide attempt, sectioning, drugs legal and illegal and more - and my husband deciding that having sex with someone else would be fine. The statement - I felt 'it' at the time - is important, it is why I'm on my way to OK enough. But also I know that falling in love with him has been integral to my desire to live and carry on. Not because I needed someone. I was loved - still am loved- I feel like Penelope, suiters appear! Because I needed him. It is him I loved then - he is who I love now - no matter how nonsensical such powerful feelings appear to be, to myself or to anyone else! The beautiful, fiery and electric feelings I have for him have been integral to my healing. The hope of coffee fuelled discussions at 3 pm (as 3 am isn't such fun past the age of 50) sustained me through my darker moments for sure, and would certainly be useful. 

Yet here and now he is seeking to get me into emoting, by asking more questions about the end of my marriage? So I explain that I have no problems with being emotional. But it has to be when it is justified by situations, and when I feel safe; not just happening without any awareness of context. And nope, he's not going to pick up on those themes of not feeling safe here, or how it is that I don't feel that this is the right time and place to talk about the recent past.

What I want to ask is, why am I'm being asked to replay my feelings here and now?

Why? 

And he pushes, so this matters to him...so I am talking about how it felt to have my son sectioned when he still had unhealed fractured bones, to see him sitting white as a ghost, unable to speak and locked up in an environment like playschool, and the atmosphere of the mental hospital - no I honestly do not wish to recall. Then how we got him home - and the phone call from the hospital, telling me to bring him back. There was with no consideration at all for what we had all gone through. 

Emotion; rage, disbelief, bewilderment, sadness are in my voice. 

And there is only that 'yes' again. 

And that is all...

I feel as if my feelings have been dishonoured...minimized, dismissed.

He asks - "When you reached the point of overload and handed over to your husband what was that like for you"

What!!!

What did I hand over in his view, to my husband? 

I asked my husband to go to the hospital to be with our son when the time came for him to be sectioned - I couldn't be there because I'd have killed someone! 

My son had pleaded with us to stop them from taking him...I'd have fought to the death to stop that happening.

He is directing me to remember something that didn't happen! 

What was that like?

When my husband took over.... 'took over when I was on overload'? Well, let me see. What a lovely idea, how nice that would have been! 

My husband didn't take over, regardless of me being on overload. 

And nor did I 'hand over' anything - except my phone - once! 

I accepted that I shouldn't go to the hospital and my husband carried on without me. 

I'd done as much as I could, I'd tried talking to the mental health home visit team, I'd tried to explain to the psychiatrist...

I explain to him -"If no one else could do it I would just have had to. Like turning a knob on a gas jet to control the flame, to make it more of a laser to guide me..

He - "yes"

Me -"rather than creating a blast"

He - "Yes <pause> I know you have spoken often about times when your husband fell short, but I wonder in this situation.

Untrue. When I first came to therapy I said I wanted to repair my marriage. I spoke often about how we were friends first and foremost. 

Could it be that Kit is saying; couldn't you be grateful!?

The answer is no, I am not grateful. I might have been until I realised the depth of the lying. who knows! But my husband wasn't the one in the relationship that took over when things were too much for others. And when it came to the day of sectioning it was our responsibility to be with our son. I was broken, and my husband didn't try to help me - at that time he was mostly feeling 'weird' (he told me!) about the texts he was getting of support from 'her' as 'she had been through something similar...' I got to understand that weird was his euphemism for erection. 

And here and now I'm being directed to see things differently!

To hell with that! 

I was there and I will never forget.

Is this therapy?

I had said repeatedly that for at least 70% of our time together, in our marriage, our relationship was good. And despite the final violence, despite the final gaslighting and the chance that there could have been more infidelity than I knew of I said that I was willing to repair and work with all of it. 

I valued our marriage!

But that ended when I knew without any doubt that he was continuing to lie. This point had to be the end! Think of the film  Alien. I can't negotiate with something that has the unbridled instinct and capacity and the desire to destroy in effect me and the whole family, for its own purposes. What he did was beyond, there was no coming back from that! The cold cruelty - the lies...absolutely no more, it had to stop, it was inhuman...Blow it out the air-lock!

Falling short? 

Interesting use of words...

He hit his son, threw him to the floor more times than once, more than an instant reaction that he came to deeply regret. 

He did it again, at least three other times. 

He said he wished that he'd hit him more. 

Falling short of what, my unbelievably high standards? 

On the contrary I was scarily way too forgiving!

But what I cannot understand now as I write this is; didn't Kit know how bad it had been? Hadn't I said this before? Did he think I'd imagined things to be worse than they were whilst at the same time being in denial about how bad things were?

Me -"No, most of the time we were a good partnership, we worked well together. But part of my role was being 'the boron rods' for him - slowing down his fear and anger, restoring his sense of safety and control -  and he could not do that for me."

So, nothing similar is happening here then!

He -"It's interesting to see when you talk about it just how much of the potencies of the events is still around"

What kind of god forsaken language is that?

Interesting, potencies of the events!

Me - "Oh god yes! It will never go, but it is a lesson - it was a ceremony of degradation (turning a person into a 'service user' ) one of many ceremonies people perform, where  a person's status is destroyed. They don't mean it to be, but it is. 'Keep taking your meds, keep turning up, ask no questions'. There is no way out of this because the way out is to face all the things you can't face"

He - "That analogy is very striking - ceremony of degradation - to say, 'I'm the winner, you are the loser' and here is the ritual to show that this is so and so you know that you are defeated. Is that how that situation at the hospital felt - like that? A ritual of defeat?

Defeat? 

Who was defeated - no one. 

Nor could anyone triumph, it is simply a tragedy. 

Mine is an ordinary tale, it happens everyday. Very few of us speak about it because we think that no one wants to hear. I refuse silence, and my tale is powerful and worth telling. People think tragedy and crisis bring family together. They don't. Family's can't bear to look at each other and be reminded. Yet we didn't all 'drown' in the sea of fear and madness that overtook us. My husband, my eldest son and my youngest daughter were swept away by it. But my youngest son and his elder sister, and I, we held on tight and we got to dry land.

Me -"I think incidentally it turns into that, it isn't meant to defeat or degrade; but it does. And for the people doing it, of course that isn't their motivation, but we are dealing with belief systems  interacting with other belief systems. And the word psychosis has a lot of power, and sectioned, too, the words have connotations and they are stigmatizing....

I talk about how I process memory, how I need to remember, replay, and understand what I felt.

He asks me - "Oh what's that on your laptop, it looks a bit like a flame with an eye in it"?

And yes there is more, so much more. 

But is isn't in the words or dialogue. 

What's missing was and always will be, missing. 

A star falls in to the abyss. 3rd January 2022

Well I wonder what it's going to be

Progressive, regressive, 

"I'm flattered"

?

I'm sitting in the car watching people go by

Listening to Nadja.

Time to go...

---

3rd January 2022.

His 'Hello, come in' sounds exactly the same as normal. No 'chit chat'...The sound of the spoon, of cups, things. Lots of stirring. Spoon sounds in cups sounds...

I'm talking about it being cold...He says the heating is on. 

And so it begins.

He -"So when you gave me your card, and you left me saying something like - and looking very bashful -  and saying something like. 'I can't believe I'm giving you this'. Because it was nearly Christmas I thought, oh this is a Christmas card and there is something in it - I thought oh, it's a chocolate bar - so when I read the card...oh, this isn't Christmas at all. So then I thought, well if I listen to it before Christmas- not knowing what was in it - then I thought, I can't guarantee that I'd remember in enough detail come January. So I listened to it in the New Year - and I didn't see that coming at all"

Me - "No, you wouldn't have, because I'm good at containing my feelings. It's an important skill."

He - "There was one bit I didn't understand"

Me -"Only one bit, well that's pretty good going"

He- "My brother?"

Me - "Well that's just one way to put it, because I'm looking at this as...<he interrupts>

He - "Literally the first time you said it I thought, oh, do you know my brother?!"

Me - "I don't know your brother"

He -"Then I quickly realized that it was some kind of metaphor"

Me - "Yes, because I was assessing - and it was at the beginning of November, a while ago now - the word brother expresses a degree of liminality. It was saying that I was assessing  what was going on with me, and the term brother was a way to...<he interrupts>

He - "So I imagine this could be...well this conversation could be potentially... change a lot of things and could be quite difficult"

Me - "It could be. What needs to be done, that's the question <he interrupts>

He - "That's the big question, yes. Because I have, occasionally a client will say at the end of sessions, 'oh, we should go for a walk, or we should go for a drink?' and usually I let it pass. Occasionally I have the conversation, and the conversation is always essentially the same, which is, I can't do that because occasionally clients go away and they come back; 12, 6, 18 months later  and if there's been social contact between, then  it completely changes the dynamic, obviously. And, I was as far as your college is concerned - still am - your therapist. Regardless of what you said about I am no longer your therapist, that I'm your mentor and all that conversation we had, as far as your course is concerned..."

Metaphorically at this moment I drive along a mountain pass, a thousand foot drop to either side, my ability to see almost nil in the fog, sleet and rain. Who and what am I? I need to hold on to my identity - I am pragmatic, stoic and reality is contracted and constructed between people...so we can make this better, because so far all I've heard is - 'You HAVE TO BELIEVE ME I HAD NO IDEA'! 

Do I believe that?

I haven't heard any awareness or kindness in his words or tone of voice regarding my valour, courage in respecting his feelings by dealing with the undertow. I haven't heard any apology for not opening and reading my letter and listening to the recording. I was waiting for three weeks. Certainly I didn't expect more than a confirmation that he'd heard. But those three weeks were a very long time. I've just heard him say 'This could be difficult' and the question is for who, and why? How difficult must it have been for me to spend over a year thinking that I couldn't possibly feel about him as I do. How difficult must it have been to be honest with him, when I couldn't even say it in the room, or show any sign, clearly the whole thing has been difficult for me!

And at this moment it feels like I have to go limp, no struggling - collaboration is the only way. But I can't do it!

There is a dagger embedded in my heart...I am angry. 

Why would I ever come back as a client? There is no therapeutic relationship to protect! 

Even a negative response such as 'I just don't like you, would have been the precious and necessary missing information - for then the ice would melt, the fog lift and my path would become clear. Instead, I felt that I was still seeking a way through. I felt that I was fighting for my life, pleading for clarity - to see my next step! Feeling as if there is a 1000 ft fall either side of me...And here now? No light, only darkness. 

His non acceptance of my request for clarity, his tone of voice, the amount of energy he is putting into defence makes me very aware of the danger of his attack. So, I must do what I've had to do so many times for my husband, my son. I'm going to have to disassemble the fear, disgust, rage, panic.

Because of how unsafe I feel. 

He is in a position of power. He doesn't know how bad a state of mind I am in. Or does he know, but he's avoiding? At what point did I know how vital it is not to trust him?

Probably at 'regardless of what you say...'! 

But here and now? 

After all I've said? 

He's telling me about the client-therapist relationship?

So this is just ignorance on my part?

Really!?

I'm ethically bound to step up, be courageous and to be honest. I had to wait until I was strong enough to take whatever outcome. And no, we don't have a client-therapist relationship. 

I can't trust him as a therapist.

He reacts defensively. 

I need to reassure him.

Me - "Absolutely. Yet you need to understand how I do things, I don't do anything suddenly, and I'm an incredibly lawful person. And that's why this has been so difficult for me. And that's why I partition and assess before making any decisions. But again I want to stress, there is a degree of liminality to this"

He - "So, what I'm really saying is there is no question for me of moving outside of the therapeutic space"

Me - "Well no, of course not"

What did saying that cost me? 

At the brittle, rippling edge, fear, pain, memories, loss, threat, grief.. As the words leave my mouth - metaphorically the car is slipping over the edge of the road - it is just balancing on the razor edge of a lethal fall.

I keep my head.

I don't panic.

I gently open the imaginary door and slide out...

And the car lurches sideways, now slipping rapidly and disappearing over the edge.

I'm waiting to hear...

A sickening crash.

Me - "But then that contract ends at a certain point"

He - "Well it never ends for me - as I said, for the reason that I've said, cause, you know. Clients come and go but some of them come back. and if there's been social contact in-between, there's something about knowing the therapist only in the therapeutic space, which I think for all sorts of reasons  that I won't go into now because it's another subject, but it's really important. And if you see occasionally, in a supermarket or somewhere a client, then it's a jolt because it's not the therapeutic space "

Me - "yes - you are talking about you"

You aren't talking about me...

And my feelings are being portrayed as my ignorance, and as a harmful thing. It would cause a jolt, it would destroy our destroyed non existent therapeutic relationship. I'm being spoken to as if I had no idea that what I said was so dangerous.. 

The pain of this misaligned insanity is beginning to tear into me.

Flashback!

May 23rd 2020, about 6 pm.

I am sitting with my back to a tree - I don't feel despair, I don't feel rage. There is simply nothing left. Psychologically I am being torn open. I know there is pain, but I can't focus on it or feel the livid edges because it is happening. It is real. Nothing can stop it. My family is being destroyed. I know this. I wont feel it. Numbness, disempowerment, loss, and damage. I think I should put myself out of my misery, because if I wake up - if I feel what is happening, no one should have to feel that much pain.. It is the end anyway. So why not take the only thing left in my control...real death. The pain of living - what makes it worth fighting for? It looks too far, too cold, too hard. I have no compass. There is no star to guide me. 

Why not just stop? 

The only reason I accepted the pain of living is that I have a vow not to kill, and as I'm now at this point just another living thing - that includes me in the vow. 

So no Kit, I didn't tell you this in our first session. I'd experienced a therapist creating potentially lethal situations before. Because I'd seen what happened to my son when he had got 'help'. Therapy rules state, when there is a risk of, 'harm to self...break confidentiality' I couldn't trust you. Looks like I was right!

Resonance of then with now - lack of truth, I'm being portrayed as someone I'm not.

Back to the tree - I don't feel despair, I don't feel rage. 

Back to the tree, and now, in his room. I have explained this. I have told him this. I'd told him how my husband's refusal to be open and honest dislocated my soul. 

I played him the music that had been going round in my head as I thought about how to end my life!

He know this!

And he knows that I have to have truth, raw and real. 

I have to hear his truth and to speak mine! 

My truth is that perhaps I do know who he is enough to know, and that I know love includes accepting that he loves someone else, is gay or finds me boring and too old. 

And I don't see this ending.

But my truth has been excised from the room - it  doesn't fit the monomyth of liberation through understanding childhood trauma. 

Slowly lights go out.

Another star falls. 

Into the abyss. 

One after another - one by one - sinking into the same drowning void, carried away by a rip tide of numbness, disempowerment and loss again. 

Part of me wants to die.

He - "It was obvious from the recording that you've been holding this for a while"

Me - "A year"

He - "And I wonder what it was, that you decided to voice it"?

Me - "You want to know why? Because integrity and honesty matter - and always trying to work out what the best path is. Did I answer the question - what was the question? Because I had completed my work of my other Diploma, and was being assessed, because I'd written my account to be assessed to see if I could enter the Ovate grade - so there was a lot of 'this is what I've done, this is me' and this is a levelling, reducing the sharp divides and no-go areas to one plain, balanced, surface. Time for the unspoken things to be said. It was Samhain, the perfect time for feeling the ghosts, feeling the edges, assessing experience and converting it into words "

He - "So there were a lot of thresholds being crossed there by the sound of it"

His interpretation..it says a lot about how he sees me. Where does his term - threshold come from?  

Me - "No, thresholds are not being crossed. It is volitional. I either step up to the mark and acknowledge the thresholds or I ignore. I don't ignore things"

I have not broken any rule at all, nor have I crossed any boundaries - it was time to name the ghosts, assess, convert to words. To step up! To stop hiding and face the truth. 

But there was a feeling of ghosts? 

Is this countertransference? 

Am I reacting unconsciously to something running in him?

Ghosts are almost intangible and 'out there'. They 'don't make sense' but often need to be understood, they hang around because of unfinished business... 

Countertransference is often an uncomfortable and a pretty trippy experience! 

The term 'ghost' feels right to describe it.

He -"Which raises a really fundamental question for you and I because, having said that as far as I'm concerned the boundary cannot ever be crossed. That partly, that part of it is me...but I suppose the question for you is, is it viable to continue seeing me with that boundary in place or is that going to be too painful for you - or how is that going to be for you"?

To agree that this is too painful for me? How dare you. You want me to end this problem for you? You have added to my pain by avoiding being honest about your feelings, and you ask me 'is this too painful' ! 

No, it isn't. Because I am a person who refused to let the narrative of the psychiatric team condemn her son to a lifetime of Risperidone, to being spoken to as service user. I am a person who kept going with her counselling course despite the violence and fearing for her life. 

No, this is psychically induced pain created through meanings. 

Me - "This makes me laugh because I deal in futures. I am therefore massively cautious in how I use language when I talk about the future with other people. You have just given me an uncontained 'how's it going to be'. Yes I am deferring, maybe I'm deferring while my mind comes up with an answer. Let me think. Rephrase it: what would I prefer is a better question- in a way I feel that I'm being judged, and I want to know what you think. That's why I can't just answer. How would it be for me? I am quite capable of coming here with the way I feel and managing it. I've been doing it for a year.

He - "It doesn't mean that you can do another one"

The gauntlet again.

He wants me gone.

He doesn't pick up on how I'm feeling judged and ask what that actually feels like, he certainly isn't going to let me know how he feels - thus perpetuating the 'ghosts'.

I'm not having it, I'm not going to be told that going 'is for your own good' when it clearly isn't!

Me - "Does it not!"

He - "Well you've done a year with me not knowing. But now I know and that might change things"

I don't understand! 

How will it change him? I don't have permission to explore, I have no invite to ask questions and hold silences and give the eye contact I'd give otherwise. So we won't go there. I will never know what that meant.

Instead I'm thoroughly disempowered, on the verge of a mental equivalent to safe-mode.

Me - "Yes, so that's the main thing. I know I can"

He -"OK"

Me - "It's really hard, how can I tell you that I'm a trustworthy person"

At this point - as the lights are going out - it seemed to be all about trust - I felt that he didn't trust me? Being told that I was crossing thresholds by telling him how I felt? Something isn't right here.

He - "Yes, I wasn't really posing the question about whether you are trustworthy, it's more I was thinking about your emotional state".

Yeah? So telling me to think of never seeing you again is helping my emotional state? I'm feeling bloodless, empty, cold. He's asking me to walk away. And yet, I keep my voice steady...it feels as if I have to... 

Grief is a cold hand on my heart. 

Me - "Well I've got grief to deal with. I mean that was part of my assessment for over the year - so how long does it take before my grief wound (from husband, son, daughter...my family being shattered) how long before I can take another dose. And to go back to your question 'why now' well because the scabs, pretty well, the scabs pretty well..well, there's not so much of it left perhaps"

He - "This is the grief of the end of your marriage?

Me -"That grief, yes"

He - "And are you suggesting that me holding the boundary is another grief"?

And are you suggesting. It doesn't sound like a question. As I answer I am aware that I must not suggest that his holding the boundary 'is another grief''! His tone of voice made it clear that the only acceptable answer is 'no'! But a part of me can't help wondering if my interpretation of him was wrong? What if I'd answered from the heart? 

The word I used in the Samhain recording is love, and I do not use that word lightly. 

And I made the choice to deal with the twisted energies so that we could get to honesty.

The worst that could happen, I had thought, would be finding out that he didn't like me! 

I was wrong. 

This is worse, much, much worse. 

I cannot answer from my heart. Instead of any negotiating I am being told to accept this indeterminate state - or to go - presented as being for my benefit! '

No other option remains now...I must play the game by his rules.

I describe what will happen as the task of accepting reality and letting go of potential futures  - and mourning those futures. 

If in his world the right answer comes from what TA practitioners call Adult. I need to speak 'Adult'. I do this by removing my opinions (Parent) and my emotions (Child). Instead I take responsibility for all of this. And so I give reassurance in response to my interpretation of his need for reassurance. Giving the message that he has nothing to do with any of this! The tone of voice he used was so clear, too clear for me to risk getting it wrong! He wants a message telling him, 'you have not harmed me, you have no need to fear disappointing me. This is nothing to do with the real you, or how you do therapy. I take total and full responsibility. 

So I give an empirically accurate and correct answer tantamount to lying. Because who am I, what am, I without opinion and emotion? 

I cannot risk being real. 

He accepts my language. 

Would I accept such an answer from a client? 

This is grief, I will lose his living, breathing, uniqueness. 

The word is love! 

Breathless, animated, curious, enchanted, fascinated, inspired...

But how will I be able to mourn when there cannot be honesty? Without honesty there is no reality. My feelings will remain frozen, stuck. 

There will be no resolution unless he speaks honestly. 

By that I mean to shift from words and statements that describe thoughts, assessments, and interpretations, into language that conveys feeling

I felt cornered - trapped and confused - into making my 'unacceptable' feelings acceptable, and this felt to me like lying (powerlessness, unnerved!)  So I write the memories and access my  opinions, I switch on and record my feelings, I refuse to be untruthful - and so I write here and now, placing the missing thoughts, and emotions back into their rightful place. 

Integrity - feeling secure and alive - is vital. 

But integrity can be broken by the responses of others. Having to lie to oneself even can be a matter of life and death. As a child I learnt from my mother and grandmother, from television and from experience that it is best for everyone if girls just forget to care that terrible things happen to them. So we agree to smile, to look OK. We agree not to show hurt or angry. Because what would our outrage or despair communicate? How dare we suggest that anyone except ourselves can ever be out of order! 

And having 'asked for it' if we then get upset and don't like it that too has to be our mistake. Obviously we didn't know what we were asking for. And the best defence is to agree with your abuser until you can escape! But then there will be disconnection, sadness, depression. Until anger floods in to wash the bullshit away. 

I've been there, I've watched the internalised messages parade through my mind, and when I was younger I agreed with the perpetrator and jury that some unknown part of me chose this, and said yes - I did it all to myself!

So I must change myself - because it must be me?

Consequently - when I get to safety I always speak out...

Therefore I publish this blog.

He - "It poses all sorts of questions doesn't it, which, I think, given what you have just said may not be worth considering  in the sense of they are questions about what if, and maybes' in terms of where do we go from here. And maybe the best thing to do would be to go one step at the time at present"

I remember thinking that I'd got it right, I'd said the right thing.  My psychodynamic mission statement had passed the test, disarming his horror of hurting anyone. 

But meanwhile, under the surface, within the tone of my voice, he'd heard the truth; he had heard me say what I didn't say out loud; I will be in grief if I lose you. 

By framing the process of grief as acceptance of reality I shifted any sense of responsibility for the situation away from him, and onto me. 

Truth is I've no idea how accurate my view is - I only know my side of this. But the situation was a mess. And I'm trying to understand - accessing the black box!

He was refusing to say - this is how I feel about you. And therefore he was as good as playing Russian roulette with my life. 

Self disclosure is a difficult thing to get right. But in this case, self disclosure was absolutely necessary. 

I'd go so far as to say that relationship is the only part of therapy that is therapeutic. The modality is no more than a way to structure language. 

But for me to feel as I do about him? There have been mixed messages. And without his honesty, the different layers of reality are impossible to disentangle. I can't take any more dissonance...not after being made to feel that I was so out of order by my husband for wanting the truth. Kit is being negligent in not understanding this, and if he does understand, in not respecting it. I have asked directly for his self-disclosure. The absence makes no sense, I'd expected reason. I am falling through the gap where honesty should be, as I hear my request for a straight answer deflected again and again. 

At this point I felt as if he'd found me at the edge of the road. No shoes, lost, cold and bleeding. It wasn't better to be found, just not so bad. As if I'd been rescued, but not given any warm clothes, or kind words. But I was no longer at the fragile edge at the borders of death, I was following him back to 'the therapy room'. 

He -"I'm finding it ever so difficult to know whether to ask the questions which are in my mind because I'm aware that normally in a situation like, in this space  it would be absolutely the right thing to do because we'd be talking about your processes, which are things that are happening out there. But I'm aware that we are talking about something that is happening in here.

Me - "Well, what is actually happening here? It is two people drinking coffee, having a conversation"

My turn to be avoidant. And all sounds are the sound of the mantra' - the fragile skill of elective detachment - a benefit of 30 years of Buddhist practice.

He - "Yes, but having a conversation where I'm saying - no - essentially. No to the question whether this can be anything more than what has already taken place in this room"

Me - "Yes, you have already said that"

Why say the thing that will hurt me the most, again? 

My fragile detachment shatters!

He - "And my immediate question is wondering what that experience is like for you? And then I think that's the usual sort of question, absolutely the right sort of question"

I am exasperated! If I accessed the pain of this moment how would it be? The pain is a splintering, agony. And if I showed it? I would be described as dysregulated, regressing - angry, or any number of 'unable to cope with the pain of it' behaviours a psychotherapist has labels for, a process similar to someone kicking you and then buying you a cup of coffee and a cake, and then they tell their friends how they bought coffee and cake for someone they found in distress.

Core to most modalities is the idea that a person is in psychological distress because their idea of how life should be is disproved by the truth; their life isn't how they think it should be. 

So always ask people what has happened to them...because  9 x out of 10 there is an abuse of power creating their pain. And it might be ongoing. The power dynamic here isn't good - he has the power to tell me to go. And he has proved to me that my words have in effect no meaning,  I'm powerless. 

The only power I have is to hold fast to what I know about myself and this situation. And the best we can do now is find a way to talk that avoids crucifying me. I tell him what he should say to me!

Me - "What is it that you know about yourself that means that you can cope with this situation? And how is it that you had the courage to put that out" and those would be the questions. So a question like 'what does it feel like' would drag me into a hurt part of myself and I really don't need to go there. I am perfectly capable of going into it in my own time and understanding myself, and taking care of me. But if you want to go there"

But if you want to go there - the nuclear option! 

Or my invitation for him to play the game of, you tell me how hurt you are and I'll be a nice parent....as opposed to my 'game' of bring the light, find the truth and then recast the narrative.

But if you want to go there?

Is my challenge to both of us. 

And now I notice that he has perfected the pseudo-therapeutic yes. It sounds wise and considered, compassionate even. I now understand that he uses it when he doesn't know what to say in reply to me. 

It sounds like he's heard me, and understood. Actually I think this specific yes is used instead of saying 'I disagree with you'.

So I step out of the loops again and back to truth. As Silvia Plath put it: 'This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary'. The light of the mind casts weird contours and shadows that can't be seen using the bright light of reason, they are the felt-things, the intuitions at the edge of awareness. The mind speaks in symbol and metaphor. 

Me -"It would need to be in a Gendlin form of metaphor and image, and sensation"

He - "See that's what I see as a potential sticking point. In the sense that normally in this space, nothing is off the table really" 

Me -"Ah...so that's not 'off the table' Gendlin's Focusing is more truthful...than words"

He - "Yes"

That meaningless, empty yes again.

Me - " I think the raw impression of sensation brought to awareness through symbol/ sensation/ felt-sense is far truer, than any already conscious understanding, symbolized in iconic or, indexical words. But then, that's just my observation...

He - "Sorry, you lost me there"

---

Remember this phrase:

He - "See that's what I see as a potential sticking point. In the sense that normally in this space, nothing is off the table really" 

Because in February it will return - when I make one more attempt to get to the truth of all this.