When each of my therapists asked me to write in a journal, I raised my eyebrow and told them I have been journaling regularly for more than half of my life. There is a certain ironic flavour to this admission, because journaling is meant to "clarify your thoughts and feelings" ... "know yourself better" ... "reduce stress" ... "solve problems more effectively" ... and "resolve disagreements with others" (Psychcentral). Here I was, an avid blogger, starting psychotherapy precisely because I habitually dissociated my feelings, had no coherent sense of Self, and was so stressed I nearly became psychotic.
There is over 15 years of my writing, stored in books and then on a computer. 15 years of writing that I refuse to read. Reading it reminds me of me, and I hate being reminded of me.
"Write down notes during the week and bring them your session."
To my therapist's amusement, I took out my iPhone and scrolled through multiple yellow pages of notes. If ever my phone were stolen, the new owner would have stumbled on a bizarrely inspiring archive of one-sided therapeutic conversations. I say things to my therapist(s) in my head, in notes and in journal entries, that I wouldn't dare say to them in person.
My first note, written a year ago after I 'quit' CBT aka moved up to step 4 (psychotherapy):
"It clicked.
I have to be me and I have to be you."
I spend a lot of energy mapping your maps of me. It's a cunning form of perfectionism. Cunning because one can be unrelentingly perfectionist about being perfectly imperfect in your eyes. More on this another night. Back to blogging about blogging.
My journals are the best evidence of my dissociative disorder. They are the paper trail that follows me, starting with the integral year of puberty when dissociation became even more necessary as a defense. Before I 'met' Candycan and before my first therapist raised the idea of dissociation, I thought I was crazy. My journal entries were letters to myself, and I would regularly go back over them and reply, scrawling notes in the corners, crossing out my previous thoughts in rejection, editing my feelings.
I was editing myself. This sounds like a common practice of puberty, but I'm not convinced everyone experiences self-hatred to such a degree that they disavow parts of themselves to cope. I 'knew' what I was feeling (like two people) wasn't right, and I was sick of fighting with myself over it. So I gave in. I literally said good-bye, in a final letter, to myself. My journal entries became just as incomplete as my personality. This inauthenticity continues today. Yes, even here, even today.
I wish I were better at dissociation. But my brain seems to have drawn the line carefully around my emotions, leaving my cognitive memory almost completely intact. It is unpleasant, maybe even traumatising, to remember significant life events in such detail and not have access to the emotions that motivated them. What is sex without desire? Death without sadness? Marriage without love?
Inhumane.
I grieve each incomplete memory, because I know it should be more. I grieve each moment I am unable to be present, because I know I should be there. I can't belong like I want to belong, connect like I want to connect, and trust like I want to trust, while every bit of me is still suffocating under the shroud of shame that I covered myself with as a child.
Recovery is like conducting a perpetual symphony on a GarageBand loop, as I change each iteration, note by note, listening with a broken ear.
I have a superpower. I am an adult who can dissociate. 'Normal' kids lose this ability growing up, say the Textbooks and Researchers, but it seems to me that 'Normal' kids (even those in adult bodies) use dissociation like most defenses: transiently and flexibly to protect themselves from overwhelming pain.
Perhaps I was one of those children with a 'natural talent' because if you were to compare triggering abuse (and you shouldn't) my original trauma isn't really so bad. I read recently that 40-60% of ALL CHILDREN are sexually abused. My dad simply tossed me across the room a few times, hit me, and yelled at me. I don't really know how much, because I only remember the first time. The blank spaces in my memory for the remaining years of young childhood should probably be something other than empty. But really, dissociative amnesia is the least important bit.
I responded to his physical and verbal threats by dissociating. And I know precisely where I learned to do it; it was reinforced by my vacant, unresponsive mother -- a character who seems to be the key ingredient in all stories of dissociative disorders.
That is where the similarities end. The DSM is not a guidebook to dissociative disorders. There is an incredible lack of detail about the many ways dissociation can be used to protect against pain (much like any defense can be used to protect against pain). Previously I lacked the confidence to stand up for MY WAY, but now I know enough about the mental health system to know it does not consist of people sitting in thrones deciding what you are and what they can do to change you.
So this? This is my formulation of sorts. This is my best interpretation of how dissociation simultaneously protected and broke me into pieces.
First, I had precocious self-sufficiency due to unresponsive and abusive caregivers.
Second, despite the above, I managed to get my needs met in a rich social environment filled with family and friends. I was okay. Until...
Third, my parents took me away from all of that, stripping me of my security, my defenses, and my identity. We moved 3000 miles and then 3000 miles again, and I got no support in coping with this massive loss. So...
Fourth, dissociation became the most effective defense for getting my needs met. And we aren't talking about the flexible defenses of a strong, resilient child. We're talking about entrenched, unwavering defenses of a disturbed child who desperately needs help.
Fifth, fat chance about getting help. Dissociation works because it makes everyone believe everything is fine. I was always very good at pretending. Now I was learning it was the way to survive. It became my primary way of interacting with difficult experiences.
For me, dissociation isn't about having alternative personalities that I could switch to under pressure. Dissociation is about cutting off parts of myself and burying them as far away as possible so I am free to be the parts that are needed. Indeed, the scariest part of this pseudo-formulation was realising how much choice I actually had (how much desire I actually had) in wanting to cut off, let go, and dissociate my past experiences to avoid the suffering, pain, grief.. eventually all emotions. A huge, massive, integral chunk of myself.
Moving seems to be the biggest trigger. When I first moved, that was the critical split, the one I've always focused on. But therapy rumbled me into pulling away from Drew and the moment I let him go, I pushed through a dissociative split I wasn't even aware was there.
I split when I moved to England.
And that is what I am coping with today: fully facing the part of me that didn't want to move to England, that was happy rebuilding a relationship with her family and discovering herself, that liked her friends and her job and her prospects. That part of me is part of me. I didn't want to move. I was happy and healthy then. I am not happy nor healthy now.
However much I want to project this blame on to Drew, I made the choice to move. I betrayed myself. Where I am today is a result of my choices. It is my responsibility. That's a heavy burden.
And so you can see, we're a bit at odds here. Drew facilitates the dissociation just by being who he is in my life. I split partly to protect him from emotions I felt would be unacceptable -- emotions incompatible with moving another 3000 miles and getting married.
"Why did you do it?"
"Why did you marry me?"
Drew pleads with me to answer, but I am no longer sure which part to ask. The newly-integrated (but still very separate) part of me turns her back. I wonder if there is anything I can do, we can do, to seduce her into my life as it is today.
I say her, but I mean myself. I mean seducing myself to falling in love with Drew, to wanting this life, to accepting where we are today, to letting go of my now-impossible desires. I made my choice. As wrong as it was, it was my choice. It's a choice that now defines me.
And I'm at odds. There is an emotional part that chose to move, that loves Drew, that is excited about studying psychoanalysis. The cognitive part of me is of course completely invested here. My career path is here. There is a lot tying me to Here, and some of it is desire.
It is my choice what to do.
This is the reality of integration: facing unfulfilled, impossible, or unwanted desires that tarnish or attack the facade of our current identity. They are emotions which remind us that we are multi-dimensional, that feelings are not pure but mixed, making even the most beautiful experience complicated and painfully unfulfilling. Integrating means facing the grief that is embedded in normal human development: a grief we weren't allowed to experience as a child.
So yes, when each boyfriend tried and failed to make me happy, when they wondered why it was I was so sad and empty all of the time, and when I moved from place to place, trying to find my way home... all the while, home was chasing me in a cloud of grief. And the only way to find it is to step into that cloud.
I will be sad. I will allow myself to be sad. It is sad.
It is sad; it is me. Me and me and me and me... and one day just me. No one else is going to give me room enough to grieve these extraordinary experiences. So I have to make the room for myself.
This is me, making room. Even if I lose everything, everyone in my life, who cannot possibly understand or accept it, I refuse to lose myself anymore. At the end of the day, no matter who shares my bed, I fall into my own heart and I wake up in my own mind and I experience life in my own body. I am accountable to me.
For the first time in my life, I am holding myself accountable to me.
I've not been writing, and that's usually because I've retreated inside, taking each day by day, and dealing with the emotions when I can. The longer I go without writing, the harder it is to return. Something in me likes cutting strings and letting go.
I'm scared sometimes. Scared today. You can't help that. No one in my life right now can. That's my role (the Inner Therapist). My role to be scared. My role to soothe myself.
Breaking up with Carrie et al. and separating from Drew is like my own personal Autumn. Leaves are scattered around me, and I am preparing for winter. The main distractions on which I'll hang my Self are work and school. Ordinarily I'd say that was two steps back, but does studying psychoanalysis really count as a step back?
I wish I were less alone.
There, I said it. I shared it. A piece of me, the me that feels, not the me that thinks. Or was that not a feeling?
I feel alone.
I am doing the best I can to make sense of my feelings but I have no mirror. I have no context, no perspective, and it is hard in these circumstances to sit with half-baked theories of Who I Am.
For the second time since I finished psychotherapy: I miss my therapist. I want her to show me it's real. What I feel is real. I'm real. And it's okay to be This Me, even if it makes Drew insecure and anxious. Even if it means I don't want to be married. Or rather, I can't be married. Because This Me doesn't want to be.
This Me misses home. That fucking mystical place that doesn't ever seem to exist all the time. Because That Me's home is here. And my home is there. I can't be in both places at once, like I can't be both of Me at once. It's impossible. I'm impossible.
And when I said to Carrie for the zillionth time: It's not that simple, I meant it. It's not that simple.
It's not that simple.
I know that to integrate these parts, part of me will lose. Part of me will grieve. Part of me will have to let go. All of me will have to face this Enormous, Ever-Increasing Grief.
But it's like trying to decide which child to sacrifice. How can you possibly choose? In theory perhaps, but in practice what enables you to lift the knife and make that first (and only) cut?
Really, unless you are a masochist of the highest order, say good-bye to any dreams of integration now. Dissociation exists to protect you from pain and taking responsibility for a myriad of strong conflicting emotions and/or identities is a trauma in its own right. There will be hard choices. There will be conflicts. There will be losses. There will be grief. There will be pain. And the only real container for it is Time.
I want a Real Mom.
I want to naturally conceive a child.
I want my husband to excite and interest me as much as Peter does.
I want to live in the United States (bigger house, more trees, better/cheaper food).
I want to work as a consultant child psychotherapist in the NHS.
So you see, no matter which way I move forward, there is loss. There is grief in going. There is grief in staying. I cannot see over the horizon.
I do not have a Real Mom.
My husband and I cannot naturally conceive.
Drew will never be Peter.
I do not live in the United States.
So, as long as I can contain all of that grief, I can focus on the only certainty in front of me: my masters begins at the end of the month.
If I leave Drew, I may have a chance at finding another Peter and may even then still conceive a child naturally. But I will not be able to afford my masters (financially or emotionally). I may even need to move back to the United States.
So, the cost of leaving Drew and moving back to the US is training as a child psychotherapist and working in the NHS. There's also a risk I won't find another Peter nor conceive a child naturally (biological clock is ticking hard).
The cost of not leaving Drew and staying to train as a child psychotherapist is spending loads of money on fertility treatments I really don't want, which we can only afford if we stay in our current house, which means avoiding Peter for yet more years, not because we don't get along but because we get along too well. I can't keep playing this game. It doesn't matter if he will never choose me. It doesn't matter what he wants or what he feels.
I can let Peter go. What I can't let go is how I feel. I think it's beautiful. I think it's amazing. When I call on that feeling, it comes with hope that I can feel connected to something (someone) in this world. That I do exist, that I can be seen. That I can hold someone in my mind, even when I'm thousands of hours away.
Something other than despair fills me. Something of my own; something made within me.
And I wish a world existed that could understand, that could make room for me today. I'm growing up; it's a step I chose myself. And in an ordinary world, were I an ordinary girl, my first love would have been at 13 not 30.
I tell myself: it's okay. What I'm experiencing now, they may not ever understand, but I do. I'm opening up. It can only be good, having feelings of my own instead of living off yours.
Her anger was obvious, but I thought that she did a reasonable job not turning it into personal attacks. I know how short her temper is (inhumanly short). She's simply incredulous, confused, afraid, betrayed, angry. I can see how she is searching for reasons for her insecurity in today, rather than acknowledging that her insecurity comes from her childhood. She's selected evidence for me trying to steal Eddie and Peter away in favour over overwhelming evidence that I've cared deeply for her and improved her relationships with them both, as well as clear evidence of my own moral character.
None of that is a surprise to me. I'm fully aware of her vulnerabilities and defenses. What interests me is this portion of Carrie's email:
Ok, so you have a crush on someone. So what. What on earth possessed you to tell him/me? I feel that unless you wanted something to come of it, there was absolutely no need to tell either of us, and cant get my head around how it benefits anyone in any shape or form.
I am too tired, and too upset to comprehend the email you just sent, but I presume the general gist is that you cant be around Eddie and Peter, for everything that it means. I wish you could have just said that, I could have coped with that.
Before I answer her question here (I've already sent her a response to which she has not replied), I wanted to share the email I wrote in lieu of being able to talk with her in person (my original plan that she blocked). This is the email Carrie was too emotional to comprehend:
Please forgive me. In any other circumstances I could be your friend completely, but today I am vulnerable, lonely and afraid. This cannot be healed by you.
Each of you fills a space in me that isn't yours to fill, and it hurts going home to the reality that I am, after all, temporary in your hearts.
I cannot see a way forward that didn't break my heart. I love each of you too much. Thank you for letting me be a part of your lives. It was an incredible gift, with a lot of responsibility. I simply am not ready for it. The only way forward was to be authentic. I regret not saying something to you first but I was more scared of losing you and I thought Peter might be able to help avoid that. Clearly I overestimated Peter!
I hope you understand; I have always acted in love. There was never a moment when I thought to take any of your happiness from you. I am sorry if I have inadvertently hurt you now.
If there is a world where Peter doesn't belong to you, where Eddie isn't your son, I have never seen it nor have I imagined it. I hope you find security in what you have because what you have is beautiful.
You are beautiful and will be missed.
Love,
Eliza
Has it been easier for me to cope, knowing that we both did the best we could have done? That the moment I realised how unsafe the situation was, I left?
Carrie puts me on a pedestal, and I know that being hurt by me now, in this way, must be shocking to her. She presumes I should have known better. Maybe she thinks, like Peter did, that I should have been content with an inauthentic, unfulfilling life: loving a baby that isn't mine, desiring a man that isn't mine, all while caring unconditionally for a friend who has both.
I am not ashamed for loving.
I am ashamed that, even for one week, I thought it was okay to have my feelings, my desires, ignored while their family flourished under my attention and devotion. I am sad that their first reaction to my feelings was that they guessed anyway and wished I hadn't said anything, because it would have been better had everything just gone on as it was.
Better for them.
I stood up for my feelings, despite the humiliation that comes with acknowledging a desire that cannot ever live in reality. Peter is not free to love me, and most of me would not have him. Eddie is their child, and no matter how much he was becoming attached to me, his primary attachments are to his parents. Carrie did her best to care for me, and in her need opened herself and her life dangerously to me. She trusted me deeply, offering me a key to the house, even wanting me to move in.
Whether she admits to it or not, she loved me. She was more attached to me than I was to her husband or child. There are no social mores which cover how three people and a baby manage to fill each other's needs, though there are books and movies (The Duchess comes to mind). And perhaps this would have worked, had Carrie been willing to share her husband and child, had I been willing to share them, but of course Carrie could never cope sharing something so precious with someone she idolised. Not with her insecurities. And I would never have them, especially knowing how vulnerable Carrie was.
So, my own desires would always be left unfulfilled and unvalued. And these are the terms on which our friendship hung, unsaid.
I didn't know where this complicated situation was going, but I realised, when Eddie ran to me instead of Carrie, that no matter what happened I would be the scapegoat. I would be the one at fault, because I was the Parent here. I was responsible.
So with great sadness, I pulled out. I gave only my own feelings as reason. They will never understand the rest. They may never appreciate how much knowing me has changed them. They may never understand how knowing them has changed me.
I did it because I needed to be me.
I broke my heart in four parts -- one for Drew, one for Carrie, one for Peter, and one for Eddie -- because it needed to be rebuilt, in my own fashion, according to my own desires. It hurts. But I've managed to cope with my PTSD and insecurity and grief without anger or blame. I've reached through the pain to reassure Drew, Carrie and Peter. I've taken responsibility for hurting them. I've acknowledged my own vulnerabilities and mistakes.
I could not have done any better here.
Is that why, despite the constant flashbacks and waves of anxiety, I feel more confident, more self-love, than ever? In my eyes, I gave all of them up for me. I left them all for me. I fell into me, my arms, myself.
Drew continues to be there, hopeful and ready to love me. I accept his familiarity, but I cannot share his bed. On Thursday we meet our relationship counsellor. If s/he asks me what I want, what do I say?
I'm not ready to love him. And I can't accept him loving me. Not until I love myself.
Unless perhaps you are Peter and Carrie, who heard "I cannot come around anymore. I am too attached to Eddie. I've always liked you, Peter. I don't know how to tell all of this to Carrie." and thought that this person they've trusted and loved was now trying to steal Peter and Eddie away from Carrie.
I get that they are projecting their own fears about their own vulnerable marriage on to me. This insecurity is theirs not mine, and I can only do so much to reassure it. But really, how many times did I need to reiterate to Carrie that I cannot possibly get involved in an affair, that I wanted what she had desperately but knew it wasn't mine... and finally when it became too much of a burden to bear after I left Drew, I knew I needed to leave them too, and when I did, they both ignored the "I cannot come around anymore" and "I am too attached to Eddie" for "I've always liked you, Peter."
This is a bugbear of mine. I've spent a lot of time witnessing how uncomfortable and insecure people are with love. Saying "I love you" has been transformed into some sort of request that the receiver feels an obligation to fulfill or reject. We all hate breaking hearts. And perhaps we resent being given a heart to break?
I'm adult enough now to know that feelings aren't promises. Feelings aren't choices. They aren't the same thing as thoughts or behaviours. A desire doesn't mean I will do one thing and one thing only.
I am not a single desire.
And I resent being treated like I am. I've worked hard these last few weeks to piece apart some complex emotions and determine a path of action that was true to myself and true to my values and kindest for everyone involved. I am not perfect. I am still a slave to my fears as much as the rest of you.
In the future, I will endure the humiliation and say those things to both of them together, to reassure any doubts of my intentions. Of course this may not be important because...
In the future, I won't go near this situation with a ten-foot-pole.
This is precisely why I wanted training as a therapist. Not because I want to be a therapist, but because I need to learn how to be a therapist, so that I can form healthier boundaries and assert myself and learn how to let go and not become enmeshed in the lives of others.
I see now how vulnerable I was. How human. How anyone in that situation would fall in love, become attached, and seek security and safety where they can.
In some respects it makes me happy.
I can attach. I can love. I can feel safe and secure and happy.
I wasn't sure that was possible. Does that sound horrible? I needed that experience to help me see precisely what I should be aiming for. It was blindingly humiliating and painful, but I needed to tell Peter and Carrie so that I could break free and start building my own life. Through further emails, Peter gets that now. Carrie might never. But her insecurity, her inability to see what is in front of her, her inability to set safe and healthy boundaries... that is her responsibility. Not mine. I needed to let that go.
I am growing in leaps and bounds. And now I can focus on the important issues: my relationship with myself and my relationship with Drew.
I never got to talk to Carrie, because Peter (perhaps feeling a bit panicked by my intention to talk to Carrie) did first. Her only response was: "Peter told me. Not sure what there is to talk about."
I knew when I had to break my heart and sweep out the pieces that it was going to hurt, but I didn't expect this. Their lack of response falls right into that tender ravine carved out by all of the other unresponsive people in my life (my mother being president of this territory of course). The message I get is that I'm not worth it. Whatever I did before doesn't matter. Because of this one feeling and possibly my decision to withdraw to protect them, I am no longer valued.
I, of all people, knew they didn't exactly have much emotional intelligence. I spent my evenings there before the separation practically providing therapy... or at the very least, insight into how the mind/body and world works. I gave them confidence in themselves as people and as parents. I provided a diversion from the stresses of their family life. I gave them new culinary experiences. I taught them new craft skills. I entertained their son, providing them with rest.
There was nothing I did for them that wasn't (1) requested and (2) kind. And they appreciated it, until they caught a glimpse behind this gorgeous curtain of mine.
Peter's first response (He avoided the topic in the car) was an email late last night:
Hi,
I know this might be a little awkward but would it be a bit to cheeky to ask for a copy of the logo that you did the other day ? i really need some jars ready to sell by the end of next week and i have no idea how to produce something as good.
Peter.
Argh. Projection. Avoidance. Inconsiderate bastard. Why am I always the one who knows better?
The irony is that I was planning on sending the logo tomorrow regardless, because THAT IS WHO I AM. Because I'm not the one feeling awkward about my feelings. What I do feel awkward about is the fact that I've done everything I can to be kind even under extreme pressure, and even that isn't enough cushion to fall on.
My response:
Hi Peter -
I don't feel awkward about what I said.
I do feel disappointed and confused about what I've done to hurt either of you, when I have nothing but respect and love for your entire family. The lack of response (especially from Carrie) hurts. I will cope, as always, but the loss of your friendships is hard to deal with right now.
I felt the right thing to do was to withdraw, because getting attached to Luke, being attracted to you, and loving Carrie as a friend, when I am feeling so vulnerable already? There is no way forward that doesn't end in resentment. I don't want to resent either of you. I don't want you to resent me. I am truly sorry if I've hurt you or Carrie by acknowledging my feelings.
I was planning on sending the PSD this week. I'll do it tomorrow.
Eliza
I can't really imagine what is going through their heads to paralyse them. Perhaps it seems shocking that this woman they let into their homes and heart might have a heart of her own?
I know I have played this script so many times in my life (expressing difficult emotion, getting an abusive or no response) and I can't seem to find the best way through it.
It simply hurts.
My Nurturing Parent is working overtime on me. Yesterday was the first moment I missed my last psychotherapist. I wanted her there, to hold my hand, and tell me that what I did was brave. That I am brave and worthy of more than incomplete, conditional love. I am more than a Wizard. I'm a woman, as frail and vulnerable as the rest of you. And it's wrong of people to put me on a pedestal.
I know that I can defend against that. I can refuse to play that role, refuse to get on that pedestal. I can reinforce or redraw my boundaries. Point them out. Ask to be treated differently. Walk away.
In between my two psychotherapists, I wrote a new descriptive phrase on my board:
WORTH LISTENING TO
It was in response to the damaging comment from the first psychotherapist about her being the only one capable of handling me. For weeks I had felt wrong and didn't know why. After leaving, I realised it was because I didn't feel heard -- a combination of my fear of expression and her lack of appropriate response. I did not have to reflect on much of my life to realise I was plagued by this damaging belief that I did not matter.
So with the next psychotherapist, I aimed to value myself. I am worth listening to. I echoed this inside me, as I formed new habits of listening to myself. Then, when that habit was in effect, I reached through my fear and showed my authentic self to others. The results were immediate.
I AM worth listening to.
Gosh but I wish that was enough. Having defended my authenticity in the kindest way possible, even at considerable personal cost (losing my husband, my family and friends), I now realise being listened to isn't enough.
WORTH RESPONDING TO
I should have known better. I spent the last five years chasing after my husband to respond to rather than avoid me and my emotions. I knew that my attachment disorder was because of my mother's lack of response when I was very young. Clearly responding is more than important.
It is what makes us human.
It is the backbone of connection. It is the essence of life. When I said to my husband "I need more" and when I said to Peter "I cannot be a part of your lives anymore" ... it was because they were not responding to me but their vision of me as the Ideal Wife or Ideal Friend.
There was a disconnect between my needs and their needs, and the only way forward was to express my needs and wait to see if they have room for my Actual Shape.
I know that it wasn't too long ago that I was just as paralysed with insecurity as them: when faced with a strong or startling emotion, I too panicked and withdrew. The trauma of it led me back into psychotherapy and of course here we are today.
I am not responsible for their lack of response. I cannot control them. All I can do is accept the reality of today. My emotions, my responsibility.
So what is the emotional status of Eliza?
I won't mince words. My heart is snapped in bits and my hands are sore from punching out these walls. These emotions are so complex that without active management they become overwhelming. I can't name and accept these emotions fast enough sometimes. The situation triggered my PTSD (the first time in over a month!!) and now I'm cleaning up obsessive thoughts and interjected memories and emotions.
Thankfully, Drew is being incredibly supportive. Going to his mum with the pain from our separation made him realise everything I'd been telling him (for years!!!) about needing people to sit with, listen to, make sense of, and respond to our emotions. Experiences change us. Though I hate causing him pain and though I wish he had a responsive mother, I'm grateful he not only sees how important it is but is able to be there for me in that way now.
I needed that, and maybe on these new foundations a mature adult love will blossom.
I sat resigned, in the seat next to him. We sat in the car in front of my house, and I couldn't look him in the eye.
"I have always liked you, Peter." I was quiet, gentle, as I glanced over at him. He was tense, but giddy: "I knew it!" I raised my eyebrow.
I told him I didn't know how I was going to tell Carrie. He paused and said not to, that she'd see me as a threat. He also said I'm still welcome at their house, because I'm a friend. He didn't really understand why that wasn't possible. I didn't explain.
The conversation started with me asking why he said he didn't love Carrie. For weeks I've been visiting their home, becoming friends with Carrie (a friendship I cherish), and interacting with their 18-month old. Carrie treats Peter horribly. They don't value each other. Have you heard about the Four Horsemen? Yeah, their relationship was doomed until I came along.
And with great energy, I have spent the last few weeks subtly helping them. They have all become attached to me in their own ways, as a Parent and a friend. But the more time I spent with Peter, the harder my feelings for him became to defend against.
I fell in love with Peter the moment we met years ago. It was just another weight on me causing the eventual collapse of my mental health. I've spent years trying to make that feeling go away. And here I was, walking into the fire.
For three years, I couldn't be authentic with my husband, because I was terrified what these feelings meant. I was perpetually heartbroken to be in love with the Wrong Man, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't make those feelings go away. The growing shame weighed me down like a lead balloon until I was stressed beyond belief, saw no way out, and felt impossibly alone.
Welcome to therapy. First counselling, then CBT, then psychotherapist 1 and then psychotherapist 2. I worked my butt off to fix myself, in the hopes that if I were less broken, I would be able to trust myself to make a decision on my feelings. I would know exactly what these feelings were, because as hard as it is to admit: I've never felt anything like this before.
Maybe Peter's red, wet eyes were because, deep down, he knew being loved by someone like me, someone who so readily meets his playful Child with the same depth of playfulness, who is a kind and loving Parent to his son, who smiles and accepts and shows interest in his Adult self.... would be a dream come true. Would it not? For all of us? To be cherished in all of those ways?
Yes, it would.
And that is precisely why I never harboured any Adult expectation that Peter was capable of loving me in the same way. He is, after all, content with a broken marriage. His answer to not loving Carrie was that at some point he needed to grow up, and this was what life gave him.
Wow.
I felt such deep sadness for him. Perhaps we mourned together, in our own ways, how life came to throw us, two such unlikely people, together to face the same beautiful connection and the same hollow fear?
What is important is that we responded in two different ways.
Drew and I cracked under pressure. Drew was just responding to feelings I felt but couldn't explain. And when he said it, I knew I should have been the one to say it. I didn't love Drew. I couldn't love Drew, while my child parts were attached to Peter.
The simple truth is that I feel like myself with Peter. I feel like me, in a way I've not been able to feel with Drew. And that may never go away. But I am more than a Child now. By admitting to Peter that I always liked him (such a shallow, benign description of my depth of feeling, but hey-ho), I smashed through another huge wall. I gave him up.
I'm not sure he understands that was the point of telling him like I did. He may soon find out.
Yesterday was important on several levels. One, Carrie sent me a lovely email extolling my positive traits, which included:
Note the loyal? The honest? The considerate? This email was an amazing thing to receive, but at the same time a noose, because I knew that the authenticity I was teaching to them was trapped by my feelings for Peter.
Two, I felt increasingly uncomfortable bearing witness to their marital struggles. I see everything they don't see and more. The part that loved Peter wanted more than anything to rescue him and be rescued from this horrible loneliness. The rest of me, thankfully, is smarter than that.
And one thing I've learned this week is that WHO WE ARE is not how we feel, but what we do about those feelings. With each passing day I spent with Carrie and Peter, my heart broke. At first I felt safe and secure just being near them. It was lovely to feel myself, until I stopped feeling like myself and started feeling as trapped in their friendship as I had been trapped in my relationship with Drew. Inauthentic. Loved, appreciated, but unseen. As though my feelings didn't matter.
Because I didn't make them matter. I didn't value them myself.
That has always been the lesson I needed to learn. Which is why I knew I needed to find a way to safely express them and to protect myself from further heartbreak. In other words, give up Peter.
Except it wasn't just Peter. The more time I spent with their 18-month-old, the more I realised how much I am made to be a mother. The doubts about and defenses against this desire starting flooding out the cracks in me, until yesterday there was nothing left. And perhaps little Eddie sensed that potential in me, because suddenly he started becoming attached to me. He sought comfort in my arms for the first time. He ran to me. It became more than passing interest. It became about our connection, as a Mother-figure and a child.
My heart broke completely through the last remaining walls.
Carrie noticed my sadness. I said I was fine. And when Carrie went to put Eddie to sleep and Peter went to make a phone call, I could no longer fight the tears.
I grieved.
Everywhere around me were broken, unkind, afraid people capable of forming connections to others according to their desires and needs.
It was at this moment my depth of desire and grief outweighed my fear. I knew I needed to let them go. I didn't know what would happen, but I needed to move forward. So I sat in a car and pushed that damn love as hard as I could through my fears. I left the car, walked into the house, stripped off my clothes, crawled into bed and let myself grieve -- properly grieve -- for the first time in my life.
I was finally that defenseless Child my therapists were so desperate to meet (to help).
Drew heard my sobs and came upstairs to sit with me. I continued to sob as I explained everything. He sat, listened, reassured me he would continue to sit and listen, that he loved me and he was here now as my friend because he cared.
I can't begin to describe what I expressed, what we talked about, other than to say it was me.
Finally me.
I was a swirl of all of my experiences and the grief of all of my losses suddenly felt connected. Even thinking about this now brings me to tears. I can reach in and hold that grief, that enormous grief, that finally was able to be Real.. both to myself and to the only person in the world who knows and loves me completely: Drew.
I am so unbelievably sad. I don't really know if I will be capable of being Drew's wife. But I do know I am capable of doing everything I can to overcome the weight of my broken childhood, my broken parents, my broken teachers and peers. And more and more, I become capable of seeing and appreciating what is in front of me, especially Drew.
It is the hardest thing in the world for me, but I cannot survive without learning how to value myself. Psychotherapy facilitated the process of connecting to others, while I worked tirelessly on building up my emotional intelligence and coping skills. I did all of this knowing full well this train would be facing some major crises. I'm sure there are still crises ahead.
This is my potential. This is the me I am growing to discover, appreciate and love.
I'm not going back to Drew. Not like it was. I can't possibly go back, because I'm no longer that person. I've made it to level IV (directed multilevel disintegration) and I know fully, to the depth of my heart, that I can deliberately and consciously direct my own life. Myself.
It will take time to process this human grief -- my brain is quite literally a mess of memories and my body is shattered with powerful emotions that are still coming out. But I can see through this haze already.
I am changed. No matter what anyone says. I am more than yesterday.
I made this board in early 2009 -- the start of my journey through counselling and psychotherapy. On the left are traits that describe me (white = positive, magenta = negative). The negative traits are described by whether they affect home (h), work (w), or play (p):
In the centre column I list what I want out of home, work and play:
Home
Decorate & design
Functional
Stress-relieving
Safe & secure
Space to play
Work
Find solutions
Improve processes
Help people, NOT things
Play
Explore
Capture
Share
Laugh
On the right I list all the traits I want to describe me:
Kind
Helpful
Needed
Healthy
Active
Supportive
Inspirational
Finisher
Social
Happy
Peaceful
Accepting
Included
Storyteller
Bold
Entertaining
I took a picture and then erased all of it but the left column. And then promptly forgot about everything I wrote. Eventually I erased the negative traits and added a few more on the right side (insecure, afraid) at the start of psychotherapy. At the end of psychotherapy, I erased the negative traits with confidence.
I discovered this photo yesterday and have been reflecting on it, off and on. I love that the beginning of 'what I want to be' is KIND.
I still believe in all of the positive traits. In fact, now I hold tightly to them. I believe in them. What I find more interesting, though, is how, even without this list, I've been aiming for the traits in red (my desired future traits). Not all of the traits are under my control ('included' and 'needed' comes to mind) but at least when I am included or needed, I can value that with a sense of achievement. And I do.
Most of the negative traits still describe me, at my own loss. For example, I am unappreciative of my own work, my own effort, my own achievements more than others. I struggle to praise others and compliment, even when I want to. There are still walls protecting my vulnerability in expressing positive emotions and I have to make active conscious choices to show appreciation.
Anyway, it's nice to know I'm moving in the direction of my choosing.
There is a momentum pushing me against walls of my own creation. My insecurity seems to correlate to the depth of feeling that I (constantly) stop myself from expressing. My loneliness seems to correlate to my fear of hurting others.
I can't expect what is in my heart to matter to others until I find a way to make it matter to me. :-(
I, I love the colourful clothes she wears
And the way the sunlight plays upon her hair
I hear the sound of a gentle word
On the wind that lifts her perfume through the air
I'm picking up good vibrations
She's giving me excitations
...
Close my eyes
She's somehow closer now
Softly smiling, I know she must be kind
When I look in her eyes
She goes with me to a blossom world.
Good vibrations sung by Brian Wilson (Beach Boys)
-----------------------------------
I've always been one for eyes. They reveal a lot about what we pay attention to, and besides touch, joint attention is the basic construct of social connection. I'd argue that joint attention can be even more powerful than touch, but perhaps that is why the combination (touch and joint attention) can be, well, orgasmic.
It's easy to see how we fall in love with eyes.
The consensus from those that have loved me is that I have nice eyes. My eyes capture and hold people. They aren't remarkable eyes: plain, brown eyes behind plain thick-lensed glasses. What is remarkable about my eyes is me.
I was not -- I am not -- always dissociated.
As my last psychotherapist said, when I express my authentic self, I express myself beautifully. I pay attention. I look at people. I respond. And they like what they see.
I know how to love. Rather, I am well practiced at making someone feel loved.
The problem has always been me feeling love. Matching what I do with what I feel. Moving from inside out rather than outside in.
From that side of love, I know very little.
"She is a good, smart girl, reading and discussing modern cancer research with you, but she hasn’t learned a single thing about love. And her trust in you is slipping, slipping away. " - March 2008
"I only know three things, and none of those three things matter, because I see more. I see what she's done for me; I see how hard it has been. I've seen her share my pain. I've seen her desire to take my pain away. I've seen her hope. I've seen her pride. I've made her laugh. We connected. And I will remember it all as love." - 4 August 2011
What a difference feelings make.
I express myself beautifully when I am being authentic because I feel beautiful. Because what we feel is beautiful.
