Journal notes.2021
19th April. 2021
Not the best idea in this world, though of course cupid doesn't respect anything or anyone, not the best way to proceed, to fall in love with my therapist. A thousand and one tiny pieces of a jigsaw to be completed by me, by midnight, in a room without a light bulb.
A set of rules as implacable and illogical, as if I'd fallen for a priest.
I'm trapped as a client and unable to 'move on'.
I'm in 1001 nights, telling my tales to capture his attention. My sweet king and my executioner. Locked away inside a zoom chat... And as you may be aware, it is beginning to get to me.
But what can I do?
24th April 2021.
The question is at what point do I tell him? For certain, and for sure, I wish to metaphorically bear my heart to him, let him hear how loudly, passionately I burn with each heart beat. I want to rip down the curtains, step out of this cling-film-wrap Wizard of Oz/ Zoom feeling, I want to breath the same air as him, to walk around him, be 360 degrees
Circumnavigating, circumambulation - as if he is my world, as if he is sacred. I've got it bad.
I've pushed the 'dual relationship' thing as far as I dare.
I need to sit on my hands and be good...
I'm not being fair.
Is this really what I think!
What kind of logic is this?
In truth I am OK. In truth I can imagine that I don't really feel this way. But these words show you that I do.
Though..perhaps a revelation is exactly the right thing?
How about this?
Hello Kit,
I am going to be your client forever and ever because I will die without you.
Good idea to send it. do you think?
No.
!!!
Hello Kit.
I don't know where to begin, but there have been so many times when conversations have fallen away because you as my therapist, as a considerate and genuinely kind man, have stopped yourself from taking the subject you are talking about further, because a therapy session is the client's time to speak...And there have been so many times when I've just wanted to curl up on your chest and feel safe in your arms (oh dear, anxious avoidant-ness is coming out again).
...and that moment when you called me a mynx - he did, he really did, and I was glad it was Zoom or else I don't know what I would have done (zoom let me hide the woosh of heat that hit me as if someone had opened the oven door!..
Kit, I can't live without you!
26th April 2021
OK, seriously confused now. Undertow... I can't remember exactly why I used that word. Oh, but my heart throbs and aches so severely. Undertow, something about picking up the feelings, why did I say that? We were talking. He told me that he doesn't do visualisation, imagining, it has to be here and now alive and real. I said 'here is my diagnosis, you sir are sane, for there is no past, no future, only right now' and my heart ached, and my arms throbbed, and I set my shield to maximum. He said it was because of his childhood, and I said undertow, things going on under the surface? And if I did diagnosis I would ask, was that your protection - to focus on what is real? Does that mean living with out trust or hope? Whilst I... Did I trust, did I hope? I don't know. So see you on the 17th of May... I guess I got points for explaining Rogers, and last week, for possibly inspiring his -------- recording.
My heart aches, my arms are empty.
Undertow...
So where and what and how.... I honestly don't know.
21st May.
Slow burn. Its not getting any better. He said 'we' last week. 'we should set up the retreat rooms' for the screaming retreat... Before you wonder, this was a flight of fancy, related to those times when people, needs must, pass through times of physical pain. And music, of course there would be music.
Mine would be... Yeah, Undertow is possible!
Gentle reader, I have been feasting off that we for five days now. But in total I've been struck by this arrow, lost to the delirium of limerence, since December. That is six solid months.
27th May foggy brain - Covid 2.
OK, it hurts. Again. Again and again I've pushed my need for transparency into the background, always waiting , waiting for the future. F2f... Face to face. To feel the energy but tonight and now, paradoxically listening to a track called serotonin, this hurts. This hall of mirrors, this abeyance hurts. I'm almost at wanting out, praying I'm wrong. Almost wanting to know that this - relationship - isn't on your agenda . Then praying for you to want me. Wanting you to see the vulnerable me, to want to reach out and through, I need your arms around me, to want me, as I hold your face. For that sweet drowning as your eyes meet mine, the saltwater flood, tears releasing into joy.
Enough but never enough.
If I love you - if this is love and not 'limerence - it has to be.... And it cannot end.
31st May 2021
Him. Tight lipped - several times. Lectured at. Some disagreement about Brian Thorne but mostly I was feeling deeply, deeply hurt. Confining myself to the practical, can't afford to lose my source of serotonin, scared of what that will do to me. Desperately got to weave something positive from the shredded mess of my heart ... Is it worth trying to, or is it even possible to attack his memory here and now? To dethrone my king, to 'kill' my beloved. No, I can't bring myself to do it.
Should I be truthful, act as I feel when I next see him, as if the light has gone out of me...
Will I have any choice?
Will I manage to patch my delusion enough to stop me from continuing this fall?
I have to... No choice.
Soul dismemberment and loss otherwise.
After all the above I decided it really wasn't ethical for me to continue as a client, so I tried to change our relationship to mentor-mentee.
EMAIL:
Hello Kit,
This is a heads-up kind of email to request a 're-contracting' process, that I'm asking how we shift sideways from therapist + client, to mentor and mentee.
And...I'm writing as I'm thinking :)
My thinking underpinning this.
Sticky points / cause for thought.
- 1.- psychologically I'm not incongruent enough to be a client.
- If you have a test for this, I'm interested - psychological litmus!
- 2.Why don't I end therapy?
- I agree to mandatory therapy as a part of my training.
- What do I think that is about?
- a/ that we learn from our therapists.
- b / if the college feels that we have 'issues; we are given a list and told to take them to therapy.
- 3.Why don't I change therapists?
- My purpose would be to check how 'integrated' or otherwise my recent experiences are for me at present.
- Implied question - am I displaying 'resistance'?
- I don't believe therapy is, or should ever be 'a diagnostic' process! I value autonomy.
- Possible benefit of changing therapists.
- I would learn new approaches from someone with a different style.
- Yes - that makes sense because: I tend towards a collaborative approach to 'truth seeking', and I enjoy exploring differences - often this is a provocation to deeper thought and an invitation to synthesis.
- No - it doesn't make sense because: I believe myself to be sufficiently challenged in the uses and theories related to different modalities already.
Fundamentally:
My remit is: to do the best with what I have and I rarely seek change for change's sake (not a fan of 'Year Zero' approaches). I welcome this opportunity to work with you. I think we have a broadly similar perspective on what therapy is, and you have experience, whilst I do not. I trust you.
- 4.Dual relationship.
- This could be said to exist to a certain extent, consequence for me is positive; happiness as a consequence of talking about Aristophanes, myth, and the meanings of religious experience. Nor do I see these subjects as irrelevant to the subject of how the mind works.
What do I imagine contracting to be about in this situation?
For me...contracting to mentor-mentee means?
Roles of mentee.
- to be proactive in defining my objectives
- Commitment (expressed by my tolerance, respect, kindness, patience, diligence)
- Confidentiality.
Roles of a mentor.
- Help me to identify professional and personal growth objectives and to offer feedback.
- Establish how meetings will take place and where.
- review our agreements at regular intervals.
- Maintain confidentiality.
- Collaborative approach.
OK' that's all I can think of for now :)
Best wishes,
25th June.
I want to get to a place, real or virtual where we work together to do this mysterious, great something. Before i knew about you I saw us we are walking the Camino to Compos Stella. A pilgrimage was my original vision, but now a desire to weave a story, to be investigating together.. Exploring dark alleyways, I always have your back, and you mine. Reflected in my recontact, no longer therapist client, now mentor mentee, setting out to do truth seeking. An adventure! I condensed it down into words. And my heart froze when I read them out loud. Too late! Already sent! Oh my words to you I'm so bloody obvious. And I'm breaking rules... Or it's really what I say, I align with truth and trust... In you. My beloved, let's do the best with what we have.
EMAIL:
Hello Kit,
Thinking back to Monday, I believe you asked me 'is this another iteration of I'm a bad client'? My answer is: no, I was attempting to describe how it is.
I don't see myself as a client.
It seemed sensible to acknowledge that, it's an integrity thing.
I was, or rather I am delighted and encouraged by your reaction though. Thank you for your continuing involvement and support. I look forward to the continued flow of humour and vitality, and the inspiration our conversations engender - as I set my compass bearings for year 2.
Right - I have 'contracted' to be: proactive in defining my objectives.
Without doubt these will change and re-crystallise.
1. To define an area for research.
2. To define the question I wish to answer.
3. To define my aims, objectives, my rationale, my methodology for data collection and analysis.
4. Exploration of my expected outcomes.
5. To apply a detailed thematic analysis of the data.
The first objective may be decided tonight in college. The probability is, my several ideas will not last the night. I witnessed the launching of the research project (when I was a first time, first year, just before I left the course). No one had their idea -as they presented it - accepted in the first round.
And what they ended up doing had little if any connection with their original plan!
It was fairly brutal...
Like witnessing many an iridescent floaty bubble of delight, suddenly rupture, touched by the dry and dusty edge of a larger, indeterminate and looming edifice...
If I know what I'm going to be doing I will let you know 'the area' and hopefully 'the question' because talking about these will be exactly what I will need to do! But, if I'm still wandering around under the rain of popping bubbles, then the task will be 'defining'' rather than 'exploring'.
Warm regards,
Journal - 14th July 2021
A book on attachment theory glows under the afternoon sun, by my left knee, as I sit here on the sofa. The sun hot on my neck. I'm so sleepy. Monday is finally face to face, covid restrictions lifted - and I've got used to this safe distance, this abeyance, this kicking it into the long grass, this avoidance! You have explained to me how you do therapy. A part of me thinks you are right...
Getting it from you was hard work. I have to dial myself right down and feel how you use the words. I am almost allergic to the theory as explained, as you explain, because I've got it. What I'm trying to get is far more interesting. And I'm overstepping the mark in my own, quiet way - Vulcan mind-meld, feeling how you move.
Glad we talked about your pursed lips though. I've always interpreted that movement as anger. Angry with me. You told me it occurs when you have too much information and think that you might not remember enough to express the thoughts that are welling up. Yet I sense an emotional component too. Because it happened when I had said 'problem focus' and when I was trying to explain my relationship with rules... And ethics. Obviously feeling like I've been diagnosed as whatever attachment style. The word despair just about covers it.
But I'm still here, having stated very clearly that I am not your client. I am asking you to collude with me by signing the forms, and I'm reading your words - saying that you are so glad I have asked for the sessions to be more in line with what I need...
Genuinely I am in a fog. If I was in your role I would ask 'my client' about her feelings unless I didn't want to know! I've demonstrated my feelings in words so often 'your health and wellbeing are as important to me as my own' 'we are sacred mirrors who need each other to see ourselves reflected...' I haven't yet said 'love is the highest refinement of starlight' but that line is waiting for its moment. Oh, and again my heart was crushed when you said something about it being nice if the frog had been a princess... And I thought 'but I'm better than a princess!' OK. I'm cracking up! And I've got to be rational, patient and strong. And right now start practicing what I need to say. OK, it goes like this. Kit, I didn't realise that you mattered to me until I felt that I would break apart into a mess of dislocated sorrow. But I needed the serotonin... As I write this I feel worse and worse... You trusted me, so do I now feel untrustworthy? I suppose I do, because since then I haven't said directly how I feel about you, and because I harbour hope. Hope is part of limerence, hope is my inability to feel the truth of our relationship. Talking only on zoom is like being inside a Faraday cage, no sense of electrics.
And now I'm scared.
Scared that there will be no electricity.
Scared that there will be electricity...
I want to say that I just want you to know, and to know that I will wait one year for you, that this is my best plan.
I need to know all the things that you haven't said....
23 August. 2021.
I sit at his feet gazing upwards. I know I look as good as I can, I hope the jewel in my nose keeps catching the light...
I leave feeling disembowelled.
I'm his client no matter what I say.
I'm not his trusted companion, the name I have given his role, and it bloody hurts.
He is therapist. I'm being baby sat....
The hall of mirrors experience continues.
He is the Devine chameleon, using metaphors that suit my personality.
And I sit, gazing upwards...
It's just come to me.
Best I can hope for is, I am put on the pedestal, his Virgin Mary.
Despite putting the socks onto his (literally) foot table (table that has two feet)
Beauty and the Beast....
Last week the sudden, burning thrill as our little fingers touched.
Today, found my eyes magnetically drawn to a point between his legs, literally sizing up the curves and bulges.. A sensation like hunger and going over the crest of a hill too fast.
-------------------------------------------------
26th August (unsent email)
Hello Kit - as always, my email is ‘freely’ given, as a way to fill in the gaps in information. So why was I telling you the story of Atrahasis (All Wise?) I don't know - I get the feeling that you have studied religion.
Note, no question mark there...
I don’t ask at the time either, because not asking is a rule that I feel, even though I have stated plainly that I’m not a client, yet bound by those rules I remain...
So, no question mark.
Email has always been the softest, least intrusive way I have handled this feeling, this sense of there being more than one of you; the brother - that is a close enough metaphor.
Consequently I’m left feeling that I have no idea who I’m really talking to?
Nevertheless I try to talk to the other one…
Feeling, whilst I do, that I’m breaking rules.
You will be angry
It is the end...
So, who are you to me?
Trusted companion - as therapist.
And interesting stranger, that other guy who knows things that I don’t.
When I’ve balanced everything, and travelled a gap 6 months wide...
Morn suffers from gap-sickness, a mental disorder that inflicts itself on a small portion of people who travel through the Gap. Symptoms of gap-sickness vary wildly; in Morn, it manifests itself as an uncontrollable urge to engage self-destruct, and is triggered by exposure to 'heavy G'
28th October 2021.
The Web.
Do not say how it is... Because?
Because more inhumane psychology would have sunk me. The dose I got anyway was bad enough. When he said "you seem (or you are?) very very angry today"... And the description from Ballint with his concept of the 'basic fault' patients with their regressive denial (me, no doubt!) who want something from the therapist. Yes of course I wanted that original closeness... but, he was doing therapy... Or rather the awfulness of the Kahuts, and talking to me as if I'm stupid but also the mixed messages...the honesty or... Or what? A spiders Web.
20th November.
The most beautiful, blissful dream. Of physical closeness, shoulder to shoulder. Moving together, to a gentle kiss. Lips brushing mine. He said, we should go and see the man. Like the umpire, a supervisor - in my dream I asked him if I could show him the moon. But the corridor led to a dark, round room. Like a conference room and a dead end.
Self telling self that there is no way through.
But this is pretty close to insanity. I feel like, and it has been like this since the beginning, I feel like there is a connection, that he 'carries a light' in his heart for me. That actually he started it, and I picked it up. So I feel insane,. Ambiguity, rules, really I need to make a plan.
25th November 2021
Let phantasy roll. What if, subliminally he always wanted someone like me to walk into his room? What if it is meant to be? Surely these things are just as possible as my negative views! Why prioritize tragedy? If it is so, what should I do differently?
If I know that at the end of this, we are 'together'?
A philosophical cat moment, all realities just waiting to be tipped into consistent.
How do I make it so, how do I ignore the negatives?
How do I speak from where I'm not?
But am I not?
—
It does not get any less. Trying to slow myself down. I flop back, almost looking up at you as if I am lying down in front of you. You are my Emperor, and that card keeps repeating when I ask the tarot about you. It began with my coat, my furry purry leopard coat. Reminds him of --------. 'what ever happened to the poster?' me 'things have a life of their own...
I'm melting
11 December 2021
A sense of being wrapped in coils, tentacles of fate. Of a determination to show courage and respect to it, to him... But for myself? Surely handling it is more respectful, simply living in dignity. But it isn't cancer...
13th December.
I handed over the envelope containing the golden voice recorder that doesn't work. The card with my words, and the mp3 file recorded on Halloween. As I turned for the door I said out loud, "I cannot believe I am doing this". 10 hours later, now, I'm in hypervigilance, can sit, can keep still. But I'm perching... Unable to eat.... Knowing not knowing. Certain of the worst outcome, that there will not be any swift reply. But hoping...
21.8.24
I sit in the library , perhaps I am feeling stupid ? But ultimately i had little choice other than to disengage , to let you spiral madly , a fulminating thing , full of ill will. I disengaged and retreated to sort through the broken shards , fractured and fragmented snap shots and memories .But of course what I witnessed was your reaction formation. And what i experienced was my counter transference to your transference. The paradox is, i was probably the best person you could ever have met with whom to sort your stuff out with .
Yet nothing has been eclipsed or dimmed , or ever conflicted with the underlying truth of my love for you
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