The Black Box.

And so I find myself marooned - to stay with the plane crash metaphor. I've just watched Society of the Snow . And as in the film, as in the awful reality of those real events, action must be taken. There will be no rescue otherwise, no getting out.  So what action do I want to happen? In counselling, and between counsellors, what counts as resolution is usually an apology of about a thousand words. Those words need to convey to the injured other, a real understanding of the harm done, and a heartfelt regret. And how I manage to convey to Kit that this demonstration of awareness is appropriate and needed, I don't know.  Yet. Do I make a formal complaint? The first option is to get in contact with the therapist and explain that there is a problem, and ask for some kind of resolution to be worked out. If that isn't forthcoming, if the therapist doesn't acknowledge that there has been and still is a problem, then a complaint is justified. A therapist who hasn't receiv

26th January 2024. It is difficult to explain how powerless I still feel about this situation. I can't think for the life of me what empowered could mean. Again I'm struck by the uselessness of understanding . I understand the reasons for the crash. Worse, I also understand what I could have done right - that is a hard thing to deal with! I also understand the truth of the idea - that what I'm not changing I'm choosing - but empowered?  I can't get to an understanding of that at all! I simply don't have a clue. Right now I'm working on The Black-Box.   As close a thing to a real black box as I can imagine, putting the pages I wrote last year together. Does that make me feel empowered?  No. As Huberman said, "Anxiety makes children of us all" . And the number of times Kit explained to me how he would recognise and speak to the Child in his clients was a trope I always found hard to take. Not least because his responses to my emotional content, wer

[T his post refers to my ex-husband.] I cannot know why he wanted to take this photo.  But I can tell you why she allowed him to make this image - I am beneath his boot, face to the floor, unable to move. I thought that he took a photo of how he needed this relationship to be, to repeat his father's marriage.  I am crushed, his boot is heavy and cold. I can't move . That is how I felt with him, and a part of me had known right from the start that it would be this way. Is this an erotic image?  No, not for me . He had told me what he wanted, how he wanted me to be, and I agreed. I know myself to be strong, and I was thinking, if he wants this, if this is really how he and I must be, his intentions are made clear. And now - so are mine; I was here as a sacrifice. I was feeding a monster, to prevent it ripping us all apart.  But, it did that anyway.... It started with his shame. I came home - where were the children - I don't remember now..? I found him looking at porn. His sh

Yesterday I sat in the shadow of the Tor.  I had come here to complete the June visit - I connected my mp3 player to the sound bar and played a song by a young man whose death had led me here.  I thought of standing up, before letting the sounds ripple out to the four corners, to tell the whole story to everyone - and actually, in retrospect, perhaps that would have been the right thing to do.  But, I didn't.  I just played it.  It was time to let his ghost, go... As the music rang out I remembered sitting in the chamber of the coroner's court as the inquest was heard - and making my commitment to train as a therapeutic counsellor.  To become the sort of therapist he might have chosen to talk to. My question then was how do I prevent this death happening to others...or rather, how do I become the kind of counsellor who might be able to change someone's mind enough to alter their direction. At the inquest we heard that everyone had tried, everyone had done their best, so -