Apprehension.

I am a coward. What stops me from speaking out? When I was 17 my friend was groomed by her English teacher. Her father had been mad, bad and dangerous to know. He'd torched the family home, he was an alcoholic, my friend's mother gathered up her four children and fled... Seven years later my friend phoned me from the English teacher's house. She has found his photos, lots of photos in a draw. He liked to shave his most precious students, and keep the pictures. My friend had refused. He had left the house, perhaps to buy shaving foam and more razors!

I drove to his house and took her out of there.

After she finished her A levels, she went to a London university. He lived with her there... until she ran away!

But the point is, that draw full of photos. And I've no doubt he continued grooming, in the most literal sense. The point is, I didn't go to the police. I still could. I believe that he is still alive. I didn't go because my friend didn't want me to. And I didn't want to open the door to feelings of shame, or drag her into places she wouldn't want to go. The police station, the court. It would affect her education. Her life was hard enough anyway.

And nor did I want to get involved. I saw them together. I never said a word.

And I knew that he would keep on doing it. Last time I searched, he was still describing himself as an 'expert in teaching emotionally vulnerable girls'. Working as a private tutor.

I didn't do anything.

That friendship ended after fifty years, last year because I discovered that she hadn't told me something truly life changing, about my daughter. Not deception, but a withholding of truth. Same as my husband's withholding of truth when I asked him what is happening... Same as Kit's withholding of open honesty.

I blame others for not doing anything, whilst not doing anything!

So in this blog I have been open and honest about myself. I've dragged Kit's words into the public arena. I've downloaded the complaint procedure from his professional ethical body.

I've named him, to a therapist friend. That was a big step.

But a part of me is seeing myself as just having a tantrum, part of me is saying that he is an excellent therapist, and surely I imagined the minor transgressions? He couldn't have called me a minx just as I was reliving the feeling of shock when my husband first showed his cold, cruel anger. 

The negative voice goes on. Kit was right to be disparaging about my ability to write, to hold a coherent and intelligent conversation, and that his psychodynamic policy of sidestepping his human authenticity - was all beneficial. My fault for not engaging correctly.

So it was all my fault that I left his room having to be dissociated from my feelings, having to disconnect the desire to die, having survived another dose of what felt pretty much like gaslighting. 

My fault that it took me a year to fathom that his inability to engage with my feelings was due to a previous incident involving his professional ethical body...

Surely I can see beyond apprehension, beyond beating myself up, and bloody do something this time!